LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. – American statesman, born at Big South Fork (Kentucky) on 12 February 1809, died at Washington on 15 April 1865. Of extremely humble origin, he spent a nomadic and adventurous youth, during which he worked at the most varied occupations to earn a living. Self-taught, in 1837 he became a lawyer in the State of Illinois and soon distinguished himself for his probity and ability. Having entered political life as early as 1832, he was for several years a member of the Federal Congress.
After an interlude of private activity, he returned to politics in 1854, recalled to it by the bitter conflict between slavery and the abolitionists, which over the following decade was to carve a tragic division within the Confederation. He opposed measures aimed at extending slavery to the new States then being formed, and to the economic rationale on which the slaveholding policy of the Southern States was essentially based (for slavery, besides being a deeply rooted institution, constituted for them the foundation on which their economy rested), he opposed humanitarian reasoning and the democratic ideal, which demanded, if not the immediate abolition of this scourge, at least its confinement.
The abolitionist currents gave rise to the Republican Party, which, drawing its adherents from the Northern States, opposed the Democratic Party, dominated by the Southern States. L. joined it, initially advocating a policy of moderation. Having become its leader, his victory in the presidential elections of 1860 provoked the rebellion of the seven Southern States, which founded an independent Confederation. Despite L.’s efforts to resolve the crisis peacefully and preserve the unity of the country, the increasingly grave tension made the outbreak of the Civil War, or War of Secession, inevitable. L. initially entered it in the name of national unity. Only later, also in order to make European recognition of the Southern Confederation untenable (France and England favored the secessionist States with the intention of permanently dividing the United States), did he transform it into a struggle against slavery, and on 1 January 1863 issued the proclamation emancipating the four and a half million Negroes then in the United States. Re-elected to the presidency in 1864, he was mortally wounded on 14 April 1865, when the war was by then nearing a victorious conclusion, by a fanatical secessionist.