ABRAHAM LINCOLN



Sixteenth President if the United States (serving from 1861 to 1865), and was the first president from the Republican Party.

Born: February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Hardin County, Kentucky

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.


A portrait of Lincoln as seen on the U.S. five dollar bill.

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.