I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.
-Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on a farm in Kentucky. After the death of Lincoln\’s mother, his older sister, Sarah, took charge of caring for him until their father remarried in 1819. As a young man, Lincoln was clearly a religious skeptic, but later on his frequent use of religious imagery and language might have reflected his own personal beliefs – or it might have been a device to appeal to his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants. He never joined a church, although he frequently attended with his wife, but he was deeply familiar with the Bible, quoted it and praised it.
He served as the 16th President of the United States, 1861-1865, leading the country during the Civil War. As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. He was instrumental in ending slavery and is admired for his commitment to national unity, equal rights, liberty, and democracy in America. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford\’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C was dedicated to him in 1922.