When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, seven slave states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America, with four more joinings when the North and South went to war. The nation was soon engulfed in a violent civil war, with Lincoln vowing to protect the Union, uphold the laws of the United States, and put an end to secession. The war lasted more than four years and resulted in the deaths of almost 600,000 Americans. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the middle of the war, freeing all slaves in the Confederacy and turning the war from a fight to keep the Union together into a fight for freedom. He was the first Republican president, and his victory over the Confederacy put an end to the argument that state autonomy superseded federal power. Lincoln was assassinated less than a week after Confederate forces surrendered, leaving the country a more perfect Union and earning the adoration of most Americans as the country's finest President.
Lincoln was born in a dirt-poor log cabin in Kentucky in 1809 and grew up in frontier Kentucky and Indiana, where he was mostly self-educated and had a fondness for jokes, hard work, and reading. He was a soldier in the Black Hawk War, learned himself law, and served as a Whig legislator in the Illinois state assembly in the 1830s and 1840s.In 1847, he moved from state politics to the United States House of Representatives, where he expressed his opposition to the United States' war with Mexico. Lincoln abandoned the Whig Party in the mid-1850s to join the newly formed Republican Party. In a race for the United States Senate in 1858, he faced Senator Stephen Douglas, one of the most popular politicians in the country. Although Lincoln lost that election, his outstanding performance in a series of nationally broadcast debates against Douglas made him a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860.
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During his 1860 presidential campaign for Unity and Freedom, Lincoln made it clear that he opposed slavery and was determined to keep it from spreading westward into the new territory obtained from Mexico in 1850. As a result of his electoral triumph, many Southern Democrats felt that it would only be a matter of time before Lincoln moved to abolish slavery in the South. Much of the white South favored secession rather than facing a future in which black people might become free citizens. This logic was founded on the idea of states' rights, which granted states ultimate sovereignty.
Lincoln swore to keep the Union together, even if it meant going to war. He eventually gathered a Northern army and navy of about three million men to confront a Southern force of over two million men. A vast civil war tore the United States apart in battles fought from Virginia to California (but primarily in Virginia, the Mississippi River Valley, and along the border states). Lincoln used extralegal powers over the press to achieve victory, imposed martial law in areas where no military activity warranted it, used armed soldiers to quiet draught protests, and recruited soldiers to fight for the Union.No President in history had ever wielded such executive power, yet he did so not for personal gain, but to keep the Union together. Lincoln declined to put off national elections in 1864 as an example of his restricted personal goals, choosing to hold the election even if he lost the vote rather than damage the democratic foundation on which he based his authority. Lincoln has reelected convincingly thanks to the electoral support of Union soldiers, many of whom were given brief leave to come home and vote, and thanks to the dramatic success of Union troops in General Sherman's fall of Atlanta.
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, what began as a fight to preserve the Union and vindicate democracy became a battle for freedom and a war to eliminate slavery. Although the Proclamation did not free all slaves in the country, and no slaves outside the Confederacy were impacted, it was a significant symbolic gesture that associated the Union with freedom and the abolition of slavery. Lincoln also invited African males to join the Union armies as soldiers and sailors in the Proclamation. Nearly two hundred thousand African Americans had fought for the Union cause by the end of the war, and Lincoln referred to them as 'invaluable' in guaranteeing Union triumph.
Tragedies and Triumphs in Personal Life While the conflict raged, Lincoln's personal agony was compounded by the death of his beloved son and his wife's poor mental state. He was strongly impacted by the grief of war and personal loss, and he frequently communicated his anguish by turning to humor and speaking eloquently about the meaning of the great battle raging throughout the land. His Gettysburg Address, delivered after the Battle of Gettysburg, and his second inaugural address, delivered in 1865, are regarded as two of America's greatest orations.
Almost all historians consider Lincoln to be the greatest president in American history because of the manner he led the country during the war and the impact his leadership had on the nation's moral and political character. In times of crisis, he saw his presidential duty as unique under the Constitution. Lincoln believed that the president was the only branch of government with the authority to not only uphold, but also to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. In the end, however, Lincoln is judged on his greatest enduring achievements: the preservation of the Union, the vindication of democracy, and the abolition of slavery, all of which he accomplished by acting with malice toward no one in the quest for a more perfect and equal union
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