Abraham Lincoln | 16th President of the United States

Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States

1809 - 1865

...books, and your capacity to understand them, are just the same
in all places. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed,
is more important than any other one thing.

—Abraham Lincoln to a law student seeking advice, 1855

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Hardin County (now LaRue County), Kentucky. He rose from humble origins and less than a year of formal education to become the 16th President of the United States, and one of the great men of American history.

Lincoln was elected President on November 6, 1860, and led the United States through the nation's greatest crisis, the Civil War (1861-1865). He is credited with saving the Union from disintegration and eliminating slavery in America.

Lincoln was a master politician, leading by persuasion and humor. He appointed three of his opponents for the Republican nomination to his cabinet, naming William Seward, Secretary of State; Salmon Chase, Secretary of the Treasury and later nominating him to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Edward Bates, who served as Attorney General.

The war's end was in sight on March 4, 1865 when Lincoln took his second oath of office as President. In his inaugural address he urged merciful treatment for the defeated rebel states. As Lincoln began his second term he worked tirelessly for the speedy "reconstruction" of the war-torn nation.

On the evening of April 14, 1865 Lincoln was assasinated as he watched a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. He was the first American President to be assasinated. Thousands of mourners lined the tracks as his funeral train moved him from Washington to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.

Newspaper publisher Horace Greeley said of Lincoln:

He slowly won his way to eminence and fame doing the work that lay next to him—doing it with all his growing might—doing it as well as he could, and learning by his failure, when failure was encountered, how to do it better.

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