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The sixteenth president of the United States was born in
a backwoods cabin in Kentucky to parents who were barely literate.
After growing up on the family farm, Lincoln tried various
jobs, but he finally decided on a career in law. He passed
the Illinois State bar in 1836 by studying independently and
became a respected lawyer. Lincoln married Mary Todd, from
a wealthy Kentucky family, in 1842, and in the 1840s and 50s
he became increasingly more involved in politics. As tensions
mounted between the North and the South over the question
of slavery, Lincoln's primary concern was that the United
States should remain a unified nation. He joined the newly
formed Republican Party in 1854 and ran for the Illinois State
Senate in 1858 against Stephen A. Douglas. Though he lost
that race, he won the 1860 presidential election; a month
after his inauguration the Civil War began. Lincoln was an
eloquent orator, whose famous political speeches include the
"House Divided" speech (1858), in which he argued against
southern secession; the Emancipation Proclamation
(1863), in which he called for an end to slavery; and the
"Gettysburg Address" (1863), in which he commemorated
the most devastating battle of the Civil War. Lincoln was
assassinated at the beginning of his second presidential term,
shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth in April 1865 while attending
the theater.
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