Lincoln (Civ4)/Civilopedia

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." (House Divided Speech, June 16, 1858)
President Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 on the American frontier in Hadrin County, Kentucky. While not poor, Lincoln certainly had more in common with the average American than his more affluent political counterparts. An almost entirely self-made man, Lincoln's formal education included only 18 months of unofficial schooling which he supplemented with his own studies. Teaching himself law, he was admitted to the bar in 1837 upon which he became a well known and successful lawyer.
Lincoln is best known for his Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the end to slavery in the United States, and his refusal to permit the secession of the South. His reasons for fighting the Civil War are often misconstrued, however, as being motivated by his desire to end slavery. Lincoln's motivations behind fighting the civil war were the preservation of the Union and, to an extent, the protection of the larger democratic ideals represented by an unshattered Union. "[A]nd that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." (Gettysburg Address)
Few public speakers in American history have spoken in a manner that at once appealed to the desires of their constituents while at the same time addressed the larger issues outside the purview of an average citizen. This was Lincoln's gift. A brilliant orator and public speaker, he was able to convey the larger political picture to his constituents in a way that was at once easy to understand and implored action for the greater good of the country.
Largely criticized and ridiculed for his policies before and during the war, Lincoln's greatness was only fully acknowledged by the public after his assassination by John Wilkes Booth on April 15th, 1865.