Abraham Lincoln (February 12,1809-April 15,1865) served as the 16th President of the United States f
rom
March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its great
est internal
crisis, the American Civil War ,preserving the Union and ending slavery.Before his election in 1860
as the first
republican president,Lincoln had been a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator,a member of the
United States
House of representatives, and twice an unsuccessful candidate for election to the U.S.State. AS an o
utspoken
opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nominati
on in 1860
and was elected president later that year. His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defe
at of the
secessionist Confederate States of America in the American civil war. He introduced measures that re
sulted
in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage
of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.Six days after the large-scale surrender of Confederate fo
rces under
General Robert E.Lee, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.
After Lee surrendered, Lincoln immediately began efforts towards returning the nation. He lifted the
blockade and
urged his Cabinet members to turn their thoughts to peace-and-away from further bloodshed and any de
sire for
vengeance. The South was not to be treated as conquered territory ,and Lincoln refused to consider h
imself a
conqueror.He had long held the view that Southern states had never legally seceded from the Union. L
incoln has
consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of all U.S.Presidents.