Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Kentucky. Before presidency, Lincoln won election to the U.S. House of Representatives and began serving his term the following year. On March 4, 1861, Lincoln sailed to victory with just 40% of the votes and won presidency. All of the votes were cast in the North and, in 10 Southern States, he was not even on the ballot. Abraham Lincoln had just become president when the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, marking the beginning of the Civil war. Abraham Lincoln is also famous for the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 and freed all slaves in the rebellious states and paved the way for slavery’s eventual abolition. The Gettysburg Address later that year stands as one of the most famous and influential pieces of oratory in American history. Some of Abraham's famous quotes are, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." and " Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
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John Bell
John Bell was born on February 15, 1797 in Tennessee. He was elected U.S. senator for Tennessee in 1847, serving in the Senate until 1859. John Bell was a presidential nomination on the Constitutional Union ticket in 1860. He was nominated by a group called the Constitutional Union Party. But he carried only three states and lost the election. Bell died on September 10, 1869, in Dover, Tennessee.
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Stephen Douglas
Stephen Douglas was born April 23, 1813, Brandon Vermont. He was a senator of Illinois and introduced a bill in Congress that caused an uproar. This bill is known as the Kansas- Nebraska Act. He wanted a railroad to be built in California. If Congress organized the Great Plains into the Nebraska Territory and opened the region to settlers, he thought this project would be more likely to happen. Southerners would only support this bill if he made a few changes because this bill said nothing about Slavery. Finally, the bill allowed settlers to vote on whether they wanted to permit slavery in the two territories. This bill was finally passed in 1854.
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John Breckinridge
John Breckinridge was born January 16, 1821, Lexington, KY. He was a politician and was elected the 14th vice president of the United States in 1856. He was also a Confederate general during the Civil War. However, he started political career as a state representative before serving in the U.S. Congress from 1851-1855. He fought at the Battles of Stones River and Chickamauga before taking command of Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. He played a important role at the Battles of New Market and Cold Harbor before serving as the final Confederate secretary of war in 1865. After the Civil War was over, he returned home to Kentucky in 1869. He later died in 1875 at the age of 54.
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Secession
The Secession is the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, 11 states broke away from the Union and made the Confederate States of America. These states were Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee did not secede until after the Battle of Fort Sumter that occurred on April 12, 1861.
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