Abraham Lincoln

Summary

Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, leading the nation through its greatest internal crisis, the Civil War. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states to be free, transforming the war into a fight against slavery. Lincoln successfully preserved the Union through military victory in 1865, though he was assassinated just days after the war's end. His leadership fundamentally reshaped American democracy and set the nation on a path toward ending slavery through the 13th Amendment.