Abraham Lincoln
1809–1865 · Sixteenth President, who preserved the Union in the Civil War and ended slavery.
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky and grew up on the frontier in Indiana and Illinois. He had less than a year of formal schooling but read every book he could borrow, taught himself law, and became a respected lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. He served in the state legislature and one term in Congress. In 1858 he debated Stephen Douglas across Illinois, arguing that slavery must not spread into new territories. Elected president in 1860, he took office as Southern states left the Union, and the Civil War began in April 1861. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, declaring enslaved people in the rebelling states free, and later pushed the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress to end slavery nationwide. His Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address are among the most famous speeches in American history. Re-elected in 1864, he urged a generous peace. Five days after Lee's surrender, on Good Friday 1865, he was shot at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth and died the next morning.
Abraham Lincoln is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Raised by Separate Baptist parents; he did not join a church, and historians still debate his personal beliefs, though his later speeches used much biblical language. Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction by Allen C. Guelzo (Oxford University Press, 2009), ISBN 9780195367805
Key dates
- 1809 Born in Hardin County, Kentucky
- 1858 Debates Stephen Douglas
- 1860 Elected sixteenth President
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation; Gettysburg Address
- 1865 Second Inaugural; assassinated in April
Fun facts
- Lincoln did not grow his famous beard until 1860, after an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell suggested it. (Source: Abraham Lincoln (Wikipedia))
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- Lincoln is the only U.S. president to hold a patent, for a device to help riverboats float over shallow water. (Source: Abraham Lincoln (Wikipedia))
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In their words
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
“I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.”
Read about them
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Grades K–2
- I am Abraham Lincoln by Brad Meltzer (2014; ISBN 9780803740839)
Bookshop.org · Amazon
Grades 3–5
- The Gettysburg Address · In the library
- Who Was Abraham Lincoln? by Janet B. Pascal (Grosset & Dunlap, 2008; ISBN 9780448448862)
Bookshop.org · Amazon
Grades 6–8
- Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman (Clarion Books, 1987; Hardcover edition; ISBN 9780899193809)
Bookshop.org · Amazon
Grades 9–12
- House Divided Speech · In the library
- Second Inaugural Address · In the library
- The Lincoln-Douglas Debates · In the library
- Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, 2012; ISBN 9781451688092)
Bookshop.org · Amazon
More lives
John Quincy Adams · Susan B. Anthony · Frédéric Bastiat · Otto von Bismarck · Simón Bolívar · John C. Calhoun