10 Facts About Abraham Lincoln

10 Facts About Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. ~ Abraham Lincoln

He was one of the most well-loved Presidents in US history, a technophile, a humanitarian and exceptionally astute. While we all know the dry facts of Lincoln's life, there are many interesting facts about Abraham Lincoln that are not well publicized.

1. Prior To Being Elected President, Lincoln Was A Perpetual Loser.

When it came to elections, Lincoln lost more than he won. He was soundly trounced in his first election, running for the Illinois General Assembly. After successfully winning his second attempt, he went on to run for a seat in Congress, and lost. His next step was to run for a Senate seat, which he also failed to win. Not satisfied with losing, he ran in the next election, and lost once again. Now tired of losing at the lower level, he set his sights on winning the vice-presidential nomination for the Republican Party, which in following the pattern, he lost. He finally ended his losing streak in 1858, winning the party nomination for Presidential candidate and, eventually, winning the Presidential election.

2. Lincoln's Son Has Ties To Three Presidential Assassinations.

Maybe Edwin Booth shouldn't have saved Robert Lincoln in New Jersey. In American history, there have only been four sitting Presidents assassinated, and Robert Lincoln was connected to three of them. On the night of his father's assassination, Robert was expected to attend, but decided to stay at the White House instead. 16 years later, Robert was invited to a train station by President James Garfield.

This time he accepted the invitation, but never got to meet Garfield – he was shot dead by Charles Guiteau. Two decades go by, and Robert was invited to attend the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, at the behest of President William McKinley. He accepted, and the day he was to meet with McKinley, Leon Czolgosz shot the President in the stomach, leading to his death. After this event, Robert would turn down all future Presidential invitations, which likely made those presidents breathe a sigh of relief.

3. Lincoln Is The Only American President To Hold A Patent.

As a youth, Lincoln sometimes worked as a ferry operator or flatboat pilot to make a living. Twice, he was on boats that ran aground. Years later, while a practicing lawyer, he came up with a method of using inflatable bladders and a bellows system to raise boats out of the water when they were in danger of being grounded on shoals. U.S. Patent 6469 was issued to him, but the system never went into usage. To this day, he is the only American President to hold a patent.

4. Lincoln Supported Women's Rights Long Before They Were In The National Spotlight.

He was the first, and at the time, only well-known political figure to support women's rights to vote. In 1836, a dozen years prior to the First Women's Rights Convention – also called the Seneca Falls Convention – Lincoln made a statement to a local Illinois paper in support of "female suffrage". His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, is said to have affected his stance on women's rights at a time when the issue was not on the national radar.

5. Lincoln Was Known As A Skilled Wrestler, And Was Often Challenged.

During the early 1830's Lincoln was considered a fierce and accomplished wrestler. He was often challenged in the ring, and in one fight, after having disposed of his opponent rather quickly, he challenged the mob that had formed, shouting, "Any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns!".

Out of the approximate 300 matches Lincoln took part in, he was recorded as being defeated in only one. His exploits earned him the "Outstanding American" honor in the wrestling hall of fame.

6. Lincoln's Corpse Was A Target For Thieves.

Even in death, Lincoln could not rest. A gang of counterfeiters, hoping to make some easy money and gain the release of one of their gang members, planned to steal Lincoln's corpse and hold it for ransom. They made it as far as opening his tomb – woefully protected by a single padlock – when they were nabbed by Secret Service agents who had infiltrated the gang and staked out the cemetery. To make sure that Lincoln was never the target of a plot again, his body was encased in a steel cage and entombed under 10 feet of concrete.

7. Lincoln's Greatest Speech, Given In 1856, Is Lost To History.

Lincoln's "lost speech" was apparently so engaging that the reporters on the scene who were tasked with transcribing it neglected to take notes. From verbal records it's believed the speech was an impassioned condemnation of slavery, and there are theories that it might have been lost on purpose owing to its controversial nature.

In 1896 a reporter named Henry Whitney came forward and claimed that he was present at Lincoln's speech and had, in fact, taken notes. This news was received with a lot of skepticism, as the notes denote a speech devoid of Lincoln's style, and, in modern times has been proven to be a fabrication.

8. Lincoln Directed The Violation Of Civil Liberties To Help The War Effort.

For all the freedom he fought for, Lincoln was not one to let things like constitutional rights get in the way of fighting the Civil War. Maryland was on the fence during the early days of the war, with citizens rioting and discussing leaving the Union. Lincoln put a stop to this by suspending the writ of habeus corpus, and sending agents to imprison anyone they saw fit, without a trial, for any period of time. This included newspapers and their writers and publishers. 13,000 citizens would be jailed, even though the courts ruled that Lincoln had violated the Constitution.

9. The Paths Of Lincoln And Booth Crossed Prior To Ford's Theater.

Not the paths of Abraham and John Wilkes, but instead, the paths of Lincoln's son Robert and the Booth's brother Edwin, a famous actor. On a visit to New Jersey, Robert was jostled by a crowd of passengers, and fell into a space between the platform and a train that had started moving. Moments from injury, a man reached down and pulled Robert to safety – Edwin Booth. Only months later, John Wilkes Booth would walk into Ford's Theater.

10. Lincoln Was A Hands-On Commander-in-Chief.

A tinkerer by nature and a man who liked being in the middle of action, Lincoln was known to personally test muskets and rifles around the White House, and was constantly meeting with and consulting with inventors producing prototypes for weapons. He personally attended test firings of artillery and cannons. This hands-on nature was not without danger, though: Lincoln would insist on visiting the front lines when Washington D.C. came under attack, and more than once would come under fire.