| Help | Credits

Abraham Lincoln | "The Gettysburg Address" (1863)

American lawyer, orator, and sixteenth president of the United States. Born in Kentucky, Lincoln was a self-made and self-taught man. His family moved to Illinois in 1830, where Lincoln prepared himself for a career in law. In 1834, he was elected to the first of four terms in the Illinois state legislature and in 1847, to the U.S. Congress. Elected president in 1860, Lincoln sought to preserve the Union amid the strife of the Civil War while he worked for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery "everywhere and forever'' in the United States. During his first term, Lincoln delivered the "Gettysburg Address'' (1863) at the site of one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles. Re-elected in 1864, in 1865 he gave his "Second Inaugural Address", an eloquent appeal for reconciliation and peace. Lincoln was assassinated by the actor John Wilkes Booth on April 15, 1865.

Sites about Abraham Lincoln:

© 2024 W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.