Abraham Lincoln and His Private Life: What You May Not Know

While Abraham Lincoln may best be known as the President who served during the Civil War and was the author and presenter of the Emancipation Proclamation, he led a very private life that often times, due to his wife's behavior, became public.

Lincoln helped form the Republican Party to help take a stance on the issue of slavery; mainly in opposition of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. . As a boy and young adult, Lincoln himself, was farmed out to work for other people while his father kept all of the money. This kind of indentured servitude lasted until Lincoln took his first job and, as soon as he made some money, left home to work in a store and lived in the store's backroom.

While the reputation "honest Abe" is still used to describe Lincoln today, he was honest in all ways, both good and bad. Legend has it when Lincoln visited a "call girl" he did not have enough money to pay her and walked out without the use of her services, even though she offered to extend credit to him. He also was engaged several times before marrying Mary Todd. In one of his engagements, he broke off the relationship because some time had passed and when he was reunited with his love interest, noted that she had changed so much he was no longer attracted to her. His first love, though, would introduce him to tragedy. She died while they were engaged. Lincoln would have a very tragic life encompassed with death. His son, Willie, died while he was in the White House, and later Lincoln himself, died while he was serving as President.