13) I AM GOING TO BE BEATEN 
In August of 1864 near the end of his first term as President Lincoln road his horse home from the Whitehouse. An attempted assassination failed as the bullet creased his stovepipe hat. Since the election he had been entering Washington at night in a disguise.  "....a Lincoln admirer sent  the President a copy of Old Hickory's letter warning that the Southern states might succeed over the ' "pretext" ' of slavery. In it Jackson sputtered that ' "ambitious men who would involve their country in civil wars, ' " should be sent to ' "Haman's gallows." '

"Querulous editorials he [Lincoln] dismissed by saying ' " I know more about that than any of them."  Editors Note: President Obama mad a similar statement about his ability compared to those around him. Lincoln resembled Jackson most of all in the strength of his personal will."    Read horizontally. 

The Politics
Abraham Lincoln was more melancholy than usual that summer in Washington where in faced both the insects that plagued the city and the stench of dismal canal and the nearby swamps. Reelection was not assured "... his political advisors told him that his Emancipation Proclamation was dragging him down:"  as Northerners were willing to fight to preserve the union but not to free the slaves.

Abe was a Democrat who became a Whig.  Andrew Jackson had followed the same path to the White House.  "For Lincoln,  Whigs like John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay embodied the rational intellect, -- Jackson the ' "burning appetite" ' of the mob--people like his father, who thought reading was loafing."  In 1860, wanting to be a down-to-earth electable candidate like Jackson, Lincoln was not presented as the ...' "well-to-do lawyer he had become, but instead as ' "Honest Abe the Rail Splitter. " '  Andrew and Abe almost had something else in common.
See Famous Duels from American History and American Duels

Lincoln ran for President in 1860 on a platform to leave slavery in tact where it was already in force. When Congress freed slaves that had escaped to the North in 1862 Lincoln was rebuffed in an attempt to  reimburse the South for slowly phasing out slavery.  "The Rail Candidate"—Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is held up by the slavery issue (slave on left) and party organization. (New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley on right) Click to enlarge.
Extra Large Picture
 

Other Stuff
1. Origins of the Civil War   

 
2. Why we fought the Civil War  

  
3. If we never fought a Civil War

4. Emancipation Proclamation Changed the Course of Civil 

5. J. Cooke Helped War Finance 

Despite such efforts, Abe's party was killed in the 1862 midterm elections. Radicals passed the Wade-Davis bill to vanquish Lincolns plans not to punish the South but Lincoln let it die without signature. When Wade and Davis tried to ditch Lincoln for General Grant, Grant supported Lincoln.

More political trouble came the summer of 1863 when Lincoln asked for five hundred thousands men and General Sherman said one less soldier would lose Lincoln votes among those already serving. A new draft disallowed men from avoiding service with a  $300 substitute though conscious objection were allowed. Many thought this new draft would kill his reelection but Lincoln thought what good is an election without a country.

The war was not going well in the summer of 1864 as Grant was stalled in his move toward Atlanta. He had lost 6,000 men in Virginia and the South prepared to raid Washington. The expected raid put Pressure on Lincoln to peruse peace. New York Times Publisher Horace Greely published an open letter the President:  "  Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country... shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions...and of new rivers of human blood." The Washington attack failed due to Union reinforcements and tactical mistakes by the South.

By 1864, much of the country was tired of the war and against Lincoln concerning the slavery issue. After McClellan's nomination, political bosses thought Lincoln would win only three  states and asked him to consider not running. A "moist-eyed and despondent"  Lincoln told General Carl Schurz ...' "God knows I have tried very hard... And now to have it said by men who have been my friends ... that I have been seduced by ... power, and that I have been doing this and that unscrupulous thing... only to keep myself in office!" '  Lincoln would not step down! Click Running the Machine a 1864 political cartoon featuring Lincoln; W. Fessenden, E. Stanton, W. Seward, and G. Welles take a swing at the Lincoln administration.

16) THE COUNTRY WILL BE SAVED
Before the Lincolns came to Washington wife Mary had fired Abe's ambitions. But the lose of their son Willie in 1862 and the war had gotten to her. Dressed in permanent black she feared critics would force her son Robert to be drafted and he would be captured and killed. She was obsessed that her husband would be assassinated.  Mary Todd Lincoln wife of Abraham Lincoln age 28

1864 Presidential Election

Lincoln spent much time that summer hoping for help from the Bible . "Suddenly Lincoln regained his political balance." He may have been helped by the Democratic platform designed by Copperheads who wanted the war over. The South could do what they want. This enraged many McClellan backers. Lincoln won easily.

More on Abe Lincoln
Apocalypse To Civil War and Reconstruction
A Divided Nation from the 1862 Battle of Antietam to
1919 Red Scare 1

Sourses
1) Don't t Know Much About History
by Kenneth C. Davis all summarized by W. Antoniotti

2) Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

3) Turning Points in American History