Lincoln (United States)

Lincoln 1 City (1990 pop. 15,418), seat of Logan co., central Ill., in a farm area; inc. 1865. It is a shipping and industrial center in an agricultural area with light manufacturing. The city was platted and promoted (1853) with the aid of Abraham Lincoln and named for him when he was still an unknown country lawyer. Lincoln practiced law there from 1847 to 1859, and buildings and places associated with him have been preserved or reconstructed. A state school for the mentally retarded is in the city.

2 City (1990 pop. 191,972), state capital, and seat of Lancaster co., SE Nebr.; inc. 1869. It is the railroad, trade, and industrial center for a large grain and livestock area. Cattle are slaughtered and processed; there is printing and publishing; and beverages, construction materials, electronics, motorcycles, sports equipment, valves and cylinders, asphalt, and automotive parts are among its manufactures. A number of insurance companies have their home offices there. Founded in 1864 as Lancaster, the city was chosen as the site of the capital in 1867 and renamed. It is the seat of the Univ. of Nebraska, Union College, and Nebraska Wesleyan Univ. A planetarium, an art gallery and sculpture garden, the state historical society and its museum, and a performing arts center are in the city. The state penitentiary and several hospitals are also there. The state capitol, designed by B. G. Goodhue, with sculptures by Lee Lawrie , was completed in 1934. William Jennings Bryan lived in Lincoln from 1887 to 1916; his home is preserved.

3 Town (1990 pop. 18,045), Providence co., NE R.I.; set off from Smithfield and inc. 1871. Once a textile town, its manufactures include wire, tubing, metal parts, and thread. Limestone has been quarried there since colonial times. Many pre-Revolutionary houses and a state park are in the town.

Lincoln, Abraham (1809–65) US Republican statesman, 16th President of the USA (1861–65). His election as President on an anti-slavery platform antipathetic to the interests of the southern states helped precipitate the American Civil War. He eventually managed to unite the Union side behind the anti-slavery cause and emancipation was formally proclaimed on New Year's Day, 1864. Lincoln won re-election in 1864, but was assassinated shortly after the surrender of the main Confederate army had ended the war. During his lifetime Lincoln was noted for his succinct, eloquent speeches, including the Gettysburg address of 1863.

Lincoln, Abraham (1809–65) 16th president of the United States (1861–65), born in Hardin County, Kentucky. In Illinois, where he later settled, Lincoln pursued law and politics (as a Whig), serving in the state legislature (1834–41) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1847–49), where he spoke out against the Mexican War (1846–48). Prompted by the controversy over the expansion of slavery into the territories, he returned to public life in 1854. In 1858, though he lost the election, he gained national prominence when he challenged Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate and engaged him in a series of debates that brought the issue to a head. Nominated in 1860 for president on the Republican ticket, Lincoln carried the electoral vote despite winning slightly under 40 percent of the popular vote. Before his inauguration, in March 1861, seven of the ten states that would form the Confederacy had already seceded. One month later, with the Southern capture of Fort Sumter, the Civil War had begun. Lincoln's intention, he said, was to preserve the Union and to stop the spread of slavery, not to attack it where it existed. Lincoln devoted most of his time to his duties as commander in chief, studying military history and strategy and frequently visiting troops at the front. He grew impatient with the failures of Union generals to act with the aggressiveness he believed necessary. Though Confederate successes (First and Second Bull Run, 1861–62) in the first two years of the war gave way to Union victories atGettysburg and Vicksburg (both 1863), the conflict dragged on. Lincoln came to see that his hoped-for decisive victory that would end the war was not to be; the bloody and remorseless struggle would end only when the will of the South was broken. Weary of war and its costly human sacrifice, Northerners appeared ready in early 1864 to turn Lincoln out of office. But the victory at Atlanta that year, followed by successes in the Shenandoah Valley, restored their faith in the commander in chief and ensured his reelection on the Union ticket. The changes in fortune had come about with Lincoln's appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as general in chief of all Union armies. Grant's strategy of attacking on several fronts at once was to be the key to the Union victory, which was effectively sealed with the surrender of Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox in April 1865. Five days later Lincoln was shot, the first president to be assassinated. He died the following morning (April 15). Though Lincoln has been criticized for exceeding his powers in curtailing civil liberties during the war, he remains a figure revered as the preserver of the republic and the destroyer of slavery. Though the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) did not itself end that institution, it set the wheels in motion; and Lincoln himself proposed, but did not live to see enacted, a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.