ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 and died on April 15, 1865. He was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865) and died in office upon his assassination.

Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.

Lincoln was born in poverty in a log cabin 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. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849 he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of prairie lands to slavery as a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and reentered politics in 1854 and became a leader in the new Republican Party.

He reached notoriety in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas in the U.S Senate campaign in Illinois. He ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North towards victory. The pro-slavery elements in the South equated his success with the North's rejection of their right to practice slavery, and southern states began seceding from the union.

To secure its independence, the new Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in the South, and Lincoln called up forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.

As the leader of moderate Republicans, Lincoln found his political opposition was manifold, and included Radical Republicans, War Democrats, Copperheads (anti-war Democrats), and irreconcilable secessionists. He fought the various factions by pitting them against each other, by exploiting political patronage, and by appealing to the American people.

His Gettysburg Address became a historic clarion call for nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln scrutinized the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus, and he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair.

He engineered the end to slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation and his order that the Army protect escaped slaves. He also encouraged border states to outlaw slavery, and promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which outlawed slavery across the country.

Lincoln managed his own re-election campaign. He sought to reconcile the war-torn nation by exonerating the secessionists. On April 14, 1865, just days after the war’s end at Appomattox, he was enjoying a night at the theatre with his wife when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. He died the following day.

Lincoln’s marriage had produced four sons, two of whom preceded him in death, with severe emotional impact upon him. Lincoln is remembered as the United States' martyr hero and he is consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as the greatest U.S. president.