Lawyer & 16th President of the United States · American · b. February 12, 1809 · d. April 15, 1865
Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the insurgent Confederacy, abolishing slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, a state legislator, and a U.S. congressman. He was the first Republican president, elected in 1860 on a platform opposed to the expansion of slavery. Lincoln's measured, biblically cadenced rhetoric — most famously in the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address — redefined the moral grammar of American democracy.
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