Abraham Lincoln
Born in 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln became the 16^th President of the United States.   His childhood – living on a remote farm in Indiana, and then moving to Illinois where he tried various ways of earning a living, including an unsuccessful run for the state legislature – gave little hint of his later greatness.  He became a lawyer, a member of the Whig party, and was finally elected to the state legislature and US House of Representatives, where he opposed the Mexican War.  The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act gave him a national platform in his debates with its sponsor, Stephen Douglas, to denounce the opening of new lands to slavery. In 1860 he became the first Republican to be elected president.  He was assassinated on April 14, 1865, just five days after the South’s General Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant.
>> Learn more: http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/alincoln.html