Against slavery but not an abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln guided the United States during its most divisive period, the Civil War. Lincoln's childhood was spent in Kentucky and Indiana, primarily on wilderness farms. Following two boat trips to New Orleans, Lincoln moved to New Salem, Illinois, in 1831. Three years later, he was elected to the Illinois legislature, where he served for four terms.

He was a member of the Whig Party. In 1836, he became a lawyer and the following year moved to Springfield to become a law partner of John Todd Stuart, the man who encouraged him to enter the profession. From 1847 to 1849, Lincoln was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he opposed the Mexican War as being unconstitutional. Lincoln lost interest in politics until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The legislation opened lands previously closed to slavery to the possibility of its spread, by local option.

Lincoln was antislavery, but not an abolitionist since be believed slavery that already existed was protected by the U.S. Constitution. Joining the newly-formed Republican Party in 1856, he campaigned two years later against Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate. He challenged Douglas to debate the issues, and the two of them debated at seven locations in the state. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln's national prominence had been established.

In 1860, he made his first political appearance in the East at Cooper Union in New York City. He became a presidential candidate and won the nomination over William H. Seward. Lincoln eventually won the election, defeating three others. By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, seven states already had seceded from the Union. On April 12 of that year, South Carolina fired on Union Fort Sumter--the Civil War had begun. Lincoln had a rough political period during the war, with Democrats unhappy with Lincoln for suspending the writ of habeas corpus in 1862 and even earlier in some areas.

While Lincoln believed the Constitution protected slavery in peacetime, he believe that in war the commander in chief could abolish it as a military necessity. The preliminary version of his Emancipation Proclamation used this logic. By the election of 1864, Democrats and Republicans differed on the race issue: Lincoln endorsed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery and his democratic opponent, George B. McClellan, pledged to return to the South rights it had in 1860.

Lincoln's victory in the election changed the racial future of this country. It also induced John Wilkes Booth to shoot Lincoln on April 15, 1865, five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Lincoln died the following day. Lincoln is remembered for his actions, exemplified both by his statement concerning secession of some states--"A house divided against itself cannot stand"--and his address at Gettysburg, where he urged "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the peace to come.