lincoln, temperance, and education -- 6/1/2026

01 Jun 2026

lincoln, temperance, and education -- 6/1/2026

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Today's selection -- from Abe by David S. Reynolds. Young Abe Lincoln stood against the tenor of his times with his support of temperance and his pursuit of ‘book larnin':

“Abe kept a close watch on the ever-growing temperance movement, which went through several phases between the 1820s and 1850s. Early in this period, Lincoln wrote temperance articles for newspapers, and later he gave temperance addresses and joined the Sons of Temperance, a group opposed to alcohol abuse. But he never became a rabid temperance advocate; he avoided the extremes of total abstinence, Washingtonian Society confessionalism (the precursor of Alcoholics Anonymous), and prohibitionism. The moderation he showed foreshadowed his approach to slavery. His involvement with the temperance movement became an important factor in his political rise.

“He learned to be moderate during his youth. His refusal to drink at many social events must have raised some eyebrows, but it kept him on a steady course. Here again, his father led the way in avoiding extremes. Thomas ‘was temperate in his Habits, never was intoxicated in his life,’ said a friend.

“Also exemplary was his father's honesty. Lincoln's famous honesty as a lawyer and politician had a personal precedent in his father, who was widely described as truthful. Thomas's step-granddaughter recalled, ‘Uncle Abe got his honesty and clean notions of living and his kind heart from his father.’ A minister who interviewed Thomas's nieces and nephews similarly concluded that the president ‘received from his father certain qualities of mind, ... above all, his proverbial honesty '' and truthfulness.’ Others who knew Thomas concurred that he was ‘a Strictly honest and hard-working Man,’ ‘a sturdy, honest Godfearing man whom all the neighbors respected.’

Thomas Lincoln

“Like other rural Americans of the time, Thomas needed all members of the family to help out around the house and farm. Lincoln later recalled that an axe was put in his hands when he was eight, and that instrument remained there for much of his youth and early manhood. He felled trees, split rails, and built fences. He also did farmwork such as planting seeds, sowing crops, taking grain to mills for grinding, and tending animals. During the 1820s he worked successively as a supplier of wood for steamboats, a ferry operator on the Ohio River, a carpenter, and a riverboat steersman on two trips that he took by flatboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans.

“The fact that his father often hired him out to neighbors has been called oppressive or exploitative, but this practice was common. As Sara Quay notes, ‘If families were to be successful on the frontier, they depended on contributions of every member of the family unit, regardless of age, size, or interest in doing so.’ Children as young as five were given chores, and a father could claim a son's wages until the son was twenty-one. Therefore, Thomas Lincoln was doing nothing unusual when in the mid-1820s, under financial pressure after a friend defaulted on a loan Thomas had endorsed, he hired out Abe to neighbors doing various jobs (as ferry operator, farmhand, wood chopper, butcher, store clerk, and others) that paid between ten cents and thirty-one cents a day. Like other frontiersmen's sons, Abe worked at his father's behest.

“Did Thomas impede his son's education? The image of Thomas as an ignorant taskmaster who scolded the studious young Abe for reading instead of doing his farmwork is a staple of books and films, based mainly on Dennis Hanks's comment that Abe ‘was a Constant and I m[a]y Say Stubborn reader, his father having Sometimes to slash him for neglecting his work by reading.’ To the extent that this is true, it should be noted that hostility to education prevailed on the frontier. Most country folk of the time considered schooling a frivolous distraction or a threat to the rural lifestyle. The education historian Mark Friedberger explains, ‘Unlike middle-class urbanites, farmers did not regard education favorably. Parents wanted their children to remain on the farm, to look after them in their old age, and then to inherit the Homestead land.’ Parents knew that children who did receive education tended to leave their farms and move to cities, where better jobs were available.

“Also, Thomas Lincoln's Baptist faith inclined him against education. The Baptist religion was simple and pietistic, and frontier preachers, most of them uneducated, denounced ‘book larnin',’ which they regarded as useless in gaining God's grace.’ These frontier ministers stood opposed to public schools, regarding them as part of an elite urban conspiracy to spread false religion and destroy local control.’

“But Thomas Lincoln managed at times to rise above this widespread mistrust of education. Sarah Bush Lincoln, Lincoln's stepmother, declared, ‘As a usual thing Mr. Lincoln never made Abe quit reading to do anything if he could avoid it. He would do it himself first. Mr. Lincoln could read a little & could scarcely write his name: hence he wanted, as he himself felt the uses & necessities of Education his boy Abraham to learn & he Encouraged him to do it in all ways he could.’ Abe himself reportedly said, ‘My father had suffered greatly for the want of education, and he determined at an early day that I should be well educated. And what do you think he said his ideas of a good education were? We had an old dog-eared arithmetic in our house, and father determined that somehow, or somehow else, I should cipher clear through that book.’ It makes sense that Thomas would value ciphering, because measurement and proportion were important tools in his work as a carpenter and cabinetmaker.”