Abraham Lincoln: An Overlooked Relationship

Abraham and Robert Todd Lincoln: An Overlooked Relationship Although President Lincoln and his son Robert shared an interest in politics and law, they had profoundly different upbringings and personalities, which restricted their relationship by creating a divide that lasted until Abraham's untimely death in 1865. This fissure in the father-son relationship would have potentially history-altering ramifications that may have changed the American record. This is not only because of Abraham's distinguished career, culminating in his Presidency, but also his son's much lesser-known political career or his extreme hesitancy to pursue politics. Though this relationship is often overlooked, its historical significance must not be. Abraham's only child to survive into adulthood and who would become an important political figure did not embrace his father's role but deviated from his footsteps due to a plethora of factors.

While Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 into an impoverished Kentucky family, his socioeconomic advancement through education allowed his firstborn son to be born in 1843 to a mother and

This fissure in the father-son relationship would have potentially history-altering ramifications that may have changed the American record. This is not only because of Abraham's distinguished career, culminating in his Presidency, but also his son's much lesser-known political career or his extreme hesitancy to pursue politics. Though this relationship is often overlooked, its historical significance must not be. Abraham's only child to survive into adulthood and who would become an important political figure did not embrace his father's role but deviated from his footsteps due to a plethora of