Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States,
serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.
Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War - its bloodiest war and its greatest
moral, constitutional and political crisis. In so doing he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the
national government and modernized the economy.
Reared in a poor family on the western
frontier, Lincoln was a self-educated lawyer in Illinois,
a Whig Party leader, state legislator during
the 1830s, and a one-term member of the Congress during the 1840s. He promoted
rapid modernization of the economy through banks, canals, railroads and tariffs
to encourage the building of factories; he opposed the war with Mexico in 1846.
After a series of highly publicized debates in
1858 during which he opposed the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost the U.S.
Senate race to his archrival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state,
secured the Republican Party
presidential nomination in 1860. With almost no support in the South, Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860.
His election prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederacy. No compromise or
reconciliation was found regarding slavery.
When the North enthusiastically rallied behind the national flag after the
Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln
concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war effort. His
goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, arresting and
temporarily detaining thousands of suspected secessionists in the border states
without trial. Lincoln averted British intervention by defusing the Trent
affair in late 1861. His numerous complex moves toward ending slavery centered
on the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, using
the Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraging the border states to outlaw
slavery, and helping push through Congress the Thirteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently
outlawed slavery. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the
selection of top generals, including commanding general Ulysses S.
Grant. He made the major decisions on Union war strategy, Lincoln's
Navy set up a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, helped
take control of Kentucky and Tennessee, and gained control of the Southern
river system using gunboats. He tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate
capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another
until finally Grant succeeded in 1865.
An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in
each state, Lincoln reached out to "War Democrats"
(who supported the North against the South), and managed his own re-election in
the 1864 presidential election.
As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, confronted Radical
Republicans who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats who
called for more compromise, Copperheads who despised him, and irreconcilable
secessionists who plotted his death. Politically, Lincoln fought back with
patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the
American people with his powers of oratory. His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became an iconic
statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism,
republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln held a moderate
view of Reconstruction, seeking to
reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the
face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Six days after the surrender of
Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee,
Lincoln was assassinated by a confederate
sympathizer. Lincoln has been consistently ranked
both by scholars and the public as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
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