Born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln received less than one year of formal education, but he taught himself grammar and mathematics. He settled in Illinois in 1830 and became a lawyer six years later. From 1834 to 1841, he served in the Illinois legislature, and in 1842 he married Mary Todd. Four years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a Whig, but he joined the new Republican Party in 1856. In 1858 he ran for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Stephen Douglas. Campaigning throughout Illinois, Lincoln rose to national prominence when he took an antislavery position during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Although he lost the Senate election to Douglas, Lincoln received the Republican nomination for president in 1860. He was elected later that year. The Civil War dominated Lincoln’s presidency. After an attack on Fort Sumter sparked the war in 1861, he declared a blockade on southern ports. In 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which granted freedom to all slaves in rebelling states. Later that year, he presented the Gettysburg Address to dedicate a cemetery at the Gettysburg battlefield. In 1864, he was re-elected president. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in Ford’s Theater, Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next day. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated while in office.
