Abraham Lincoln: President of America

Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States of America from 1861 until he was murdered in 1865. He was the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His elder sister was Sarah Lincoln Grigsby and his young brother was Thomas Lincoln Jr. His mother died of milk sickness about two weeks later on October 5, 1818, when Abraham Lincoln was just 9 years old. On December 2, 1819, Abraham Lincoln's father married his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln. On 4th November 1842, when Abraham Lincoln was 33 years old, he married Mary Todd Lincoln. They had four children but only one could survive till his adulthood. When Abraham Lincoln was 21 he started his political career. He was selected as the State Legislature of Illinois as a member of the Whig party. In the four-way race general election, Lincoln won with 40% of the popular votes and 180 out of 303 electoral votes. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln took his oath of office as the 16th president of the United Nations at the US capital Washington DC. Abraham Lincoln selected some political rivals to compose his cabinet members which included William Seward, Salmon P Chase, Edward Bates, and Edwin Stanton. A few months before Lincoln's inauguration, seven southern states had seceded from the union. It included Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. In April 1861, the conference signaled the beginning of war within the United States. On April 12, 1861, the Civil War broke out during the siege of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbour, South Carolina. On May 20th, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act which enabled the distribution of 270 million acres of land to be claimed and settled by American citizens. In order to amend the relationship between the northern and the southern states, Lincoln started the 10% plan. On November 19th, 1863, Lincoln delivered one of the well-known speeches in American History that commemorated the casualties of the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. On 3rd March 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau was established to help him emancipated slaves with their working conditions and educations. Finally, the Civil War ended on April 9th, 1865. On the evening of April 14th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wikes Booth, while attending a play at Washington DC.

By: Utkarsh Garg

Sri Venkateshwar International School