Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, KY. In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana, partly on account of slavery, Abraham recalled, but mainly on account of trouble in land titles in Kentucky. Land ownership was more secure in Indiana because the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government; moreover, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. Lincoln's parents belonged to a faction of the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery, and this affiliation may account for Abraham's later statement that he was "naturally anti-slavery" and could not remember when he "did not so think, and feel."
Before the civil war and becoming President Lincoln ran unsuccessfully for the Illinois legislature in 1832. Two years later he was elected to the lower house for the first of four successive terms (until 1841) as a Whig. His membership in the Whig Party was natural. Lincoln's father was a Whig, and the party's......
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