Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) — the 16th President of the United States — is consistently ranked the greatest US president in historian polls, for leading the nation through its worst constitutional crisis (the Civil War) and ending the institution of slavery that had contradicted American founding ideals since 1776. His rise was extraordinary: born in a log cabin in Kentucky, largely self-educated (he taught himself law by reading), and politically inexperienced when elected in 1860 (he had served one term in Congress). Lincoln's political genius: he assembled a 'Team of Rivals' (Doris Kearns Goodwin's term) cabinet of men who had competed against him for the presidency, using their skills while maintaining control; he managed generals with widely varying competence (dismissing McClellan twice) until finding Grant and Sherman; and he maintained public support through eloquent communication (Gettysburg Address, 270 words, four minutes, among the greatest speeches in English; Second Inaugural Address). The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) was strategically timed — freeing enslaved people in Confederate states only — and transformed the war's meaning from Union preservation to human liberation. Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, just five days after Lee's surrender.