ABRAHAM LINCOLN (R) - 1861-1865
The 16th President swooped in just in time. A series of bad presidents had left the US in a fractured state, and animosity had grown so extensively between the North and South that Lincoln's mere election sparked the South to secede. Elected but not yet in office, Lincoln tried to work with Buchanan for a bipartisan solution, but Buchanan had essentially given up.
Lincoln won the free states, but the other states were split between Deomcrat Stephen Douglas, Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell of the Constituion Union party. Lincoln had just under 40% of the popular vote. Seven states seceded before he took office, and three more joined just weeks afterwards.
Some presidents abuse their powers and it blows up in their face. Lincoln did so, and history acquits him every step of the way. He suspended habeus corpus for thousands of Confederate suspects. As he moved forward, he had to battle those within the Union that either wanted him to compromise on slavery or move more quickly to abolish it. He had to grieve on his own over the death of his 11-year-old son in 1862.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a turning point for the war and the country. Before then, he felt the Constitution limited his ability to end slavery, but in the end, he proclaimed it, and then fought the rest of his presidency to pass the 13th Amendment. He also had to go through a few generals before he found one he felt could win the war - U.S. Grant.
Lincoln's philosophies on Constitutional power and adhering to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence would shape the nation. He wound up being a martyr for his cause, assassinated less than a week after Gen. Lee surrendered and ended the Civil War.
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