Abraham Lincoln
president of the United States from 1861 to 1865 (1809-1865)
Abraham Lincoln: from Illinois law to the Civil War presidency
A self-taught Illinois lawyer
Born on a Kentucky farm in 1809, Lincoln grew up in Indiana before his family moved to Illinois. He won an Illinois legislative seat in 1834 and studied law while in office. By 1837 he was practising in Springfield; his work on the Eighth Judicial Circuit made him known beyond the city.
The slavery question and a national audience
After one term in the U.S. House, Lincoln concentrated on law until the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 drew him back into politics. His 1858 Senate campaign against Stephen A. Douglas failed, but their debates carried his argument against slavery’s expansion across the country. Republicans nominated him for president in 1860.
War, emancipation and an unfinished second term
Lincoln took office as secession turned into civil war. Following the Union’s Antietam campaign, he announced a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and issued the final order on 1 January 1863; it applied to areas in rebellion, not every enslaved person nationwide. Re-elected in 1864, he was assassinated in April 1865, shortly after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.