Lincoln Abraham

Lincoln, Abraham (1809-65), the sixteenth President of the United States, was born in Kentucky in 1809. In 1816 he moved with his father to Spencer county, Indiana. In 1832, on the rebellion of Black Hawk, he joined a volunteer company and served three months as captain. He next opened a country store which failed, but was appointed postmaster of New Salem. From 1834-40 he was a member of the Illinois Legislature, and in 1836 was licensed to practise law. In 1846 he was elected to Congress. In 1849 and 1858 he was unsuccessful in getting a seat in the Senate. In the Republican National Council (1860) he was nominated candidate for the Presidency, and his election next year, being a triumph for the Abolitionists, brought about the Civil War, in which the success of the North was largely due to the high qualities he displayed as an administrator. He was re-elected President in 1864. On the 14th April, 1865, he was shot at Ford's theatre, Washington, by John Wilkes Booth, and died on the following day.