Abraham Lincoln (/ˈlɪŋkən/; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Lincoln was primarily self-educated, with intermittent formal schooling from travelling teachers of less than 12 months aggregate; he became an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning. On foreign and military policy, Lincoln spoke against the Mexican–American War, which he imputed to President James K. Polk's desire for 'military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood.' He supported the Wilmot Proviso, a failed proposal to ban slavery in any U.S. territory won from Mexico.