Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln

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For other persons named Abraham Lincoln, see Abraham Lincoln (disambiguation).

Abraham Lincoln

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16th President of the United States

In office

March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865

Vice President(s) Hannibal Hamlin (1861 to 1865); Andrew Johnson (March - April 1865)

Preceded by James Buchanan

Succeeded by Andrew Johnson

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Born February 12, 1809

Hardin County, Kentucky

Died April 15, 1865, age 56

Washington, D.C.

Political party Whig, Republican

Spouse Mary Todd Lincoln

Religion No affiliation

Signature

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was an American politician elected from Illinois as the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party.

His contributions were the ending of American slavery and the preservation of the Union, through his leadership of the Federal (Northern) forces during the American Civil War.

Contents [hide]

1 Lincoln 1809 to 1854

1.1 Early life

1.2 Early career

1.3 Family

1.4 Antiwar activist

1.5 Prairie lawyer

2 Republican politics 1854-1860

2.1 Election of 1860

3 Civil War

3.1 Secession winter 1860-1861

3.2 Fighting begins: 1861-1862

3.3 Emancipation Proclamation

3.4 Domestic measures

3.5 1864 election and second inauguration

3.6 Conducting the war effort

3.7 Homefront

3.7.1 Rhetoric mobilizes the nation

3.7.2 Civil liberties suspended

3.8 Reconstruction

3.9 Assassination

4 Religious beliefs

5 Presidential appointments

5.1 Administration and Cabinet

5.2 Supreme Court

6 Major presidential acts

6.1 Signed as President

6.2 States admitted to the Union

7 Legacy and memorials

8 See also

9 Notes

10 Bibliography

10.1 Biographies

10.2 Specialty topics

10.3 Lincoln in art and popular culture

10.4 Primary sources

11 External links

11.1 Project Gutenberg eTexts

Lincoln 1809 to 1854

Early life

Symbolic log cabin at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic SiteAbraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. He was born in a one-room log cabin on the 348 acre (1.4 kmІ) Sinking Spring Farm. The farm was in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. This was the southeast part of Hardin County (now part of LaRue County), and was at that time considered the "frontier." Lincoln was named after his grandfather, who was killed in 1786 in an American Indian raid.[1] He had no middle name. Lincoln's parents were uneducated farmers. Lincoln had one elder sister, Sarah Lincoln, who was born in 1805. He also had a younger brother, Thomas Jr, who died in infancy. Thomas Lincoln for a while was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt.[2] But Thomas lost all his property in court cases, and when Lincoln was a child the family was living in a dugout on the side of a hill in Indiana, with not even a log cabin to shelter them. His parents belonged to a Baptist church that had pulled away from a larger church because they refused to support slavery. From a very young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiment. However, he never joined his parents' church, or any other church, and as a youth he ridiculed religion.[3]

In 1816, when Lincoln was seven years old, he and his parents moved to Perry County (now in Spencer County), Indiana. He later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery," and partly because of economic difficulties in Kentucky. In 1818, Lincoln's mother died of "milk sickness" at age thirty four, when Abe was nine. Soon afterwards, Lincoln's father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Sarah Lincoln raised young Lincoln like one of her own children. Years later she compared Lincoln to her own son, saying "Both were good boys, but I must say -- both now being dead that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or ever expect to see." Lincoln was affectionate toward his step-mother, but distant from his father.[4]

In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in