The Man Who Couldn’t Give Up: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey from the Cabin in the Woods to the White House

12 February 1809-15 April 1865

If you open your history book, you’ll see the stern gentleman in the top hat who saved the United States from secession and abolished slavery. But behind this grand portrait lies the story of a guy who lost in almost every area of life. He was bankrupted, betrayed, and tricked in the elections, but he just kept going.

Part 1. The boy from the log house

Abraham was born in the backwoods of Kentucky to a poor, illiterate farmer. The family lived in a tiny one-room hut with a dirt floor. When the boy was 9 years old, his mother died of a serious illness. His father was constantly out of luck with the land, they were drowning in debt, and Abraham from an early age had to work hard-uprooting stumps and chopping wood.

School was out of the question. Throughout his life, Lincoln attended it only intermittently, having barely completed a year in total. , but he had a fanatical passion for reading. He read by the firelight after 12 hours of work in the field. The boy borrowed books from dozens of kilometers away, rereading each one many times. Because of this, the father was often angry and considered his son ‘lazy’, because he was trying to escape from the plow to knowledge.

Part 2. The Failure Collector

At the age of 22, Abraham left his family to start an independent life. And then a series of failures began that would have broken anyone.

• Business: Together with his partner, he opened a grocery store on credit. The partner got drunk and died, the store went bust, and a huge debt was blamed on Lincoln. He paid it for more than 10 years, jokingly calling it the ‘national debt’.
• First elections: At the age of 23, he first ran for the Illinois State Assembly. And lost miserably.
• Personal tragedy: Lincoln fell madly in love with a girl named Ann Rutledge. They got engaged, but she died of typhus shortly before the wedding. Abraham fell into a deep depression. He didn’t leave the house for weeks, and his friends watched him at night, fearing that he would commit suicide.

Part 3. Lawyer on a horse

To survive, Lincoln studied law on his own, without professors or universities, from books and passed the bar exam. It was a victory of will.

He became a traveling lawyer. Twice a year, he rode a horse and rode with the judges for months through the backwoods villages of Illinois, protecting farmers, the poor, and the vagabonds. Lincoln quickly became a legend. People adored him not for his abstruse speeches, but for his honesty (they called him’Honest Abe’), his cowboy humor, and his ability to explain complex laws in simple language. He could win a trial simply by telling the jury a funny and accurate parable from life.

Part 4. The main comeback in the history of politics

Lincoln went back into politics. But his career was a rollercoaster ride. He made it to the US Congress, but two years later the voters did not re-elect him. In 1854 and 1858, he twice tried to become a U.S. senator – and both times suffered a crushing defeat in the election.

Any other politician would have gone into the shadows with the status of ‘loser’. But Lincoln made such powerful anti-slavery speeches during the election debates that his name boomed across the country.

In 1860, a miracle happens. The young Republican Party puts him forward as a presidential candidate as a ‘self-made man of the people’. And on November 6, 1860 , Abraham Lincoln wins, becoming the 16th President of the United States.

Part 5. Victory through Blood and tears

The presidency of Lincoln was the most terrible period in the history of the United States. Immediately after his election, the southern slave states seceded. The Civil War began — a bloody massacre, where brother went to brother.

Lincoln was under pressure from all sides. Generals lost battles, ministers plotted behind his back, and the newspapers threw mud at him. At the height of the war, his 11-year-old son, William, dies of fever, and his wife teeters on the edge of insanity. The president barely slept, his face deeply lined, but he held the punch.

In 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in America forever. And in 1865, the North wins the war. The Union was saved. Lincoln fulfilled his great mission. Unfortunately, he did not get to see the fruits of this victory in peacetime: five days after the end of the war, his life was tragically cut short at the hands of a fanatic. But to leave at the peak of triumph is the lot of the great. Abraham Lincoln has always remained in the memory of people as the main architect of modern America and a symbol of the fact that inner strength can overcome any circumstances.

5 Success Lessons from Abraham Lincoln

• Treat defeats as stops, not dead ends. After another loss in the Senate election, Lincoln said: ‘The road was slippery and my foot slipped, pushing me out of the way. But I recovered and said to myself: ‘It’s just a slip, not a fall forever’ ‘. Failure isn’t the end of the game, it’s just an excuse to tie your shoelaces tight.
• Self-education solves everything. Lincoln didn’t have a degree from Harvard or Yale. He read books by firelight and became one of the best lawyers of his time. In the twenty-first century, when all the world’s knowledge is available on a smartphone, lack of education is just a lack of desire.
• Reputation is your main asset. The nickname ‘Honest Abe’ didn’t come out of nowhere. Lincoln paid back his debts for years, never took on deliberately false court cases, and kept his word. In the long run, honesty and integrity pay more dividends than a minute’s tricky profit.
• Be able to communicate with people. Lincoln won where the intellectuals failed, because he could speak the language of the average person. Learn storytelling, communicate simply and clearly — people follow those they understand.
• Have a higher purpose. Lincoln survived the nightmare of the Civil War only because he was guided by a global mission-to preserve the unity of the country and the freedom of people. When your goal is more than just your personal ambition or money, you have an endless source of energy.