When Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer from Illinois, won the presidency in November 1860, the nation he was to lead began to fracture. Before he even took the oath of office, seven slave-holding states seceded from the Union, forming the Confederacy. Due to assassination threats, Lincoln had to be smuggled into Washington D.C. in disguise aboard a night train in February 1861. In his first address as president, he argued that secession was anarchy and made a final, powerful plea for peace. He appealed to the “mystic chords of memory” and what he called “the better angels of our nature.” But the time for speeches was running out. The nation was holding its breath, waiting for the first shot to be fired.
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War
How a prairie lawyer from a log cabin preserved the Union and ended slavery in a nation torn by war.
Chapter 1
A House Dividing
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why did the American Civil War start?
The war began after Abraham Lincoln's election as an anti-slavery president in 1860 led seven southern states to secede. The conflict ignited in April 1861 when Confederate forces fired on the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, prompting Lincoln to call for troops to suppress the rebellion.
What did the Emancipation Proclamation actually do?
Issued on Jan. 1, 1863, it declared all enslaved people in Confederate states still in rebellion to be free. It did not apply to loyal border states, but it transformed the war's purpose into a fight for human freedom and authorized the recruitment of Black soldiers into the Union army.
How did the 13th Amendment differ from the Emancipation Proclamation?
The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime executive order that freed slaves only in rebellious territories. The 13th Amendment, passed by Congress in 1865 and ratified later that year, was a constitutional change that permanently and legally abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.
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