Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), known to history as the Great Emancipator and responsible for preserving the Union during the Civil War, rose from obscurity to a place of reverence in the annals of American history. Born to frontier parents in a backwoods cabin in Kentucky, he nonetheless managed to school himself through voracious reading. In fact, the figure of the young Lincoln reading by candlelight in the evening has become a part of American legend. Lincoln's mother died when he was nine. His father remarried a woman who singled out Abraham for special attention and was later referred to by him as his "angel mother." A strong, lanky youth, Lincoln split rails to fence in the family farm when they moved to Illinois and then held a succession of jobs as a flatboatman, storekeeper, postmaster, and surveyor. He served as a captain in the Blackhawk War and decided to prepare himself for a career in law. Again, he schooled himself, reading law books and passing the bar exam in 1836. Moving to the Illinois capital of Springfield, he was elected to the state legislature, where he served four terms. His romance with Ann Rutledge was cut short by her death at age nineteen, and he married Mary Todd in 1842.

In 1858, Lincoln entered the state senatorial race against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln lost that election, but the Lincoln–Douglas debates showed the losing candidate to be a brilliant speaker, combining learned references with homespun witticisms and steeltrap logic. In 1860, running as the candidate of the newly formed Republican party, Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States. Perhaps no other president has faced such a crisis on taking office, for immediately he was embroiled in the Civil War, brought about by the secession of Southern states from the Union to form the Confederacy. After many false starts and mistakes, Lincoln finally installed the proper command to lead his Union troops to victory. During the war, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in states then in rebellion. After the war he worked for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the United States once and for all. In April 1865, shortly after being reelected for a second term as president, Lincoln was assassinated while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington.