Abraham Lincoln
1809 – 1865 American sixteenth president of the United States
President during the Civil War who led the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and was assassinated in 1865.
- Affiliations
- Republican Party
Abraham Lincoln rose from a poor Kentucky and Illinois frontier upbringing to become a lawyer and the first Republican president in 1861. He led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and pressed for the Thirteenth Amendment that ended slavery. His wartime government also signed measures that shaped the country's economy, including the Homestead Act and the land-grant college system. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in April 1865, days after the Confederate surrender.
Connections
- successor of Andrew Johnson — Succeeded by his vice president after assassination.
In the timeline
- 1814 Lincoln's brief formal schooling mentioned
- 1859 Lincoln's 1859 Wisconsin speech on mudsill theory mentioned
- 1862 Founding of the Department of Agriculture the president who created it
- 1862 Homestead Act the president who signed it
- 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act the president who signed it
- 1865 Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment the president who pushed abolition