Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was the sixteenth president of the United States. Born in a log cabin in Kentucky and raised on the frontier, he educated himself, became a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, and won national attention in his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas over the spread of slavery. Elected president in 1860, he led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pressed for the amendment abolishing slavery. His speeches, above all the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, are among the most quoted in American history. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in April 1865.