Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination. He successfully led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union while ending slavery and promoting economic modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, he was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives but failed in two attempts at a seat in the United States Senate. He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband and father of four children.
After deftly opposing the expansion of slavery in the United States in his campaign debates and speeches, Lincoln secured the Republican nomination and was elected president in 1860. Following declarations of secession by southern slave states, war began in April 1861, and he concentrated on both the military and political dimensions of the war effort, seeking to reunify the nation. He vigorously exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention without trial of thousands of suspected secessionists. He prevented British recognition of the Confederacy by skillfully handling the Trent affair late in 1861. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.

Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including the commanding general and future president, Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to co-operate. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another until finally Grant succeeded in 1865. A shrewd politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, he reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election.
As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln came under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans wanted harsher treatment of the South, Democrats desired more compromise, and secessionists saw him as their enemy. Lincoln fought back with patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory; for example, his Gettysburg Address of 1863 became one of the most quoted speeches in American history. It was an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Lincoln was shot and killed just six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, marking the first assassination of a U.S. president. Lincoln has frequently been ranked by a majority of scholars as the greatest U.S. president.


Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln
President Lincoln's assassination and death immediately made him a national martyr and myth. To abolitionists, Lincoln was viewed as a champion for human liberty. For generations, Lincoln's name was linked with the Republican party, and synonymous with "freedom and union" during national elections. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability.
Lincoln is regarded by the public and historians in numerous polls as the greatest president in U.S. history, no where lower than the top three, along with George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A study published in 2004 found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington.


In The Apotheosis of 1865, Abraham Lincoln is drawn in a heavenly greeting by George Washington.
The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln were named in his honor. During the Spanish Civil War, the Communist-controlled American faction of the International Brigades named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Lincoln has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, including the capital of Nebraska. Lincoln, Illinois is the only city named for Abraham Lincoln before he became President.
Lincoln's name and image appear in numerous places, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill and the Lincoln cent, and Lincoln's sculpture on Mount Rushmore. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana, and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois, commemorate the president. In addition, New Salem, Illinois, a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown, Ford's Theatre, and Petersen House (where he died) are all preserved as museums. The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, contains his remains and those of his wife and three of his four sons. There are 220 statues of Lincoln displayed outdoors. This includes Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park. Replicas of this statue are at Lincoln's tomb and in Parliament Square, London. Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday, but it was observed by 30 states. In 1971, Presidents Day became a national holiday, combining Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays and replacing most states' celebration of his birthday. As of 2005, Lincoln's Birthday is a legal holiday in 10 states. The oldest active commemorative body is the Abraham Lincoln Association, formed in 1908 to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln's birth.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in Springfield and is run by the State of Illinois. The Lincoln cent represents the first regularly circulating U.S. coin to feature an actual person. The United States Postal Service honored Lincoln, with a 4-cent postage stamp on November 19, 1954, and later with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) 4-cent postage stamp. In 2000, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) to commemorate his 200th birthday in February 2009.
As recently as April 12, 2011, with a formal proclamation by President Obama, the United States began sesquicentennial remembrances of the Civil War.