Abraham Lincoln

Who is Abraham Lincoln?

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky and rose from frontier poverty and self-education to become a lawyer and Illinois politician. Elected the 16th President of the United States in 1860, he led the nation through its gravest crisis, the American Civil War (1861-1865), preserving the Union against the secession of the Southern states. In 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in Confederate territory to be free, and delivered the Gettysburg Address, a brief speech that redefined the nation's purpose around liberty and equality. He championed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the country. Re-elected in 1864, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington in April 1865, days after the war effectively ended. He is consistently ranked among the greatest American presidents.

Sources: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) · Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address (1863) · David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (1995)