Person1809 – 1865

Abraham Lincoln

16th US president (1861–1865) who preserved the Union in the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation; assassinated just after the war ended

Born to a poor frontier family in Kentucky, he taught himself law. Elected president in 1860 as the Republican candidate opposed to the spread of slavery to the West, he saw the Southern states leave the Union. He held the Union together through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and in the Gettysburg Address spoke of “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Re-elected in 1864, he was assassinated in a Washington theatre in April 1865, just after the war ended.

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2 related events

1
1861 – 1865American Civil Warleader
A civil war between the North and South, divided over slavery and the Union. The North under Lincoln won, preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.
2
1869First Transcontinental Railroadrelated figure
Lines built from east and west met at Promontory Summit, Utah, linking the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the United States by rail.

Related works

Film: LincolnDramatizedFilm · 2012 · Steven Spielberg

Dramatized works (films, dramas, novels) may differ from the historical record.

Themes this person appears in

Revolutions and Nation-States1776 – 1871
From the Declaration of Independence to the German Empire — a century in which liberalism and nationalism toppled the old order in Europe and the Americas and built nation-states