Memorial Address of the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln

Delivered at the Request of Both Houses of the Congress of America

Before Them In the House of Representatives at Washington

On the 12th of February, 1866

By George Bancroft

Published by Government Printing Office, 1866

First Edition Hardcover

Illustrated Frontispiece of Abraham Lincoln Engraved and Printed at the Treasury Department

Very Good Antiquarian Condition. The book is clean, covers attached, secure binding, unmarked, no writing, no ripped pages, no edge chipping, no corner folds, no creased pages, no remainder marks, not ex-library. Some light visible surface and edge wear from age, use, storage and handling. Light rubbing to the board edges and corners, light age spotting to the inner pages. Please review pictures for greater details. 

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Abraham Lincoln  (February 12, 1809  – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th  president of the United States  from 1861 until  his assassination  in 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the  American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional  union, defeating the insurgent  Confederacy,  abolishing  slavery, expanding the power of the  federal government, and modernizing the  U.S. Economy. Lincoln was born into poverty in a  log cabin  in  Kentucky  and was raised on the  frontier, primarily in  Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer,  Whig Party  leader,  Illinois  state  legislator, and  U.S. representative  from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in  Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the  Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, causing him to re-enter politics. He soon became a leader of the new  Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the  1858 Senate campaign debates  against  Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln ran for president  in 1860, sweeping the  North  to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the  South  viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Southern states began  seceding from the nation. During this time, the newly formed  Confederate States of America  began seizing federal military bases in the South. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces  attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the union.

Lincoln, a  moderate Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from both the  Democratic  and Republican parties. His allies, the  War Democrats  and the  Radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Southern Confederates. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and some irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so far as to plot his assassination. His  Gettysburg Address  came to be seen as one of the greatest and most influential statements of American national purpose. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a  naval blockade  of the South's trade. He suspended  habeas corpus  in  Maryland  and  elsewhere, and averted British intervention by defusing the  Trent  Affair. In 1863, he issued the  Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to be free. It also directed the Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons", and to receive them "into the armed service of the United States." Lincoln pressured  border states  to outlaw slavery, and he promoted the  Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.

Lincoln managed his own successful  re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the  Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was attending a play at  Ford's Theatre  in Washington, D.C., with his wife,  Mary, when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer  John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is remembered as a  martyr  and a national hero for his wartime leadership and for his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Lincoln is often  ranked  in both popular and scholarly polls as the greatest president in American history.

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George Bancroft  (October 3, 1800 – January 17, 1891) was an American historian, statesman and  Democratic  politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts and at the national and international levels. During his tenure as  U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he established the  United States Naval Academy  at  Annapolis. He was a senior American diplomat in Europe, leading diplomatic missions to Britain and Germany. Among his best-known writings is the magisterial series,  History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent. Bancroft, having trained in the leading German universities, was an accomplished scholar, whose masterwork  History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent  covered the new nation in depth down to 1789. His  History of the United States  started appearing in 1834, and he constantly revised it in numerous editions.  It remains among the most comprehensive histories of colonial America.

Major works:

• Bancroft, George.  History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent.  (Boston: Little, Brown, and company, numerous editions in 8 or 10 volumes 1854–1878).
• Bancroft, George; Dyer, Oliver, 1824–1907. (1891)  History of the Battle of Lake Erie, and Miscellaneous Papers  (New York: R. Bonner's sons) 292 pp.
• Bancroft, George.  Martin Van Buren to the End of His Public Career.  New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889.
• Bancroft, George.  History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America. (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1882, Vol 1)

Minor Publications:

• Poems,  Hilliard and Metcalf  (Cambridge, 1823)
• An Oration Delivered on July 4, 1826, at Northampton, Mass.  (Northampton, 1826)
• History of the Political System of Europe, translated from Heeren (1829)
• An Oration delivered before the Democracy of Springfield and Neighboring Towns, July 4, 1836  (2d ed., with prefatory remarks, Springfield, 1836)
• History of the Colonization of the United States  (Boston, 1841, 12mo, abridged)
• An Oration delivered at the Commemoration, in Washington, of the Death of Andrew Jackson, June 27, 1845
• The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race
• An Oration delivered before the New York Historical Society, November 20, 1854  (New York, 1854)
• Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, 1619; Communicated, with an Introductory Note, by George Bancroft
• Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. iii., part i. (New York, 1857)
• Literary and Historical Miscellanies  (New York, 1855)
• Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of America, before them, in the House of Representatives at Washington, on February 12, 1866  (Washington, 1866)
• A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, Wounded in the House of its Guardians
• Veritati Unice Litarem (New York, 1886)