Content Warning: The source material and this guide reference the enslavement of Black Americans and the associated racism and prejudice.

Often regarded by scholars as the most influential and greatest president of the United States, Lincoln led the Union through the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation, which ultimately led to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ended slavery in the United States. During his fabled childhood in a Kentucky log cabin, Lincoln educated himself, rising to become a lawyer, politician, and eventually a US congressman from Illinois. A tall, gaunt, and bearded man, Lincoln solidified his legacy as a persuasive speaker. Lincoln left politics in 1849 after serving only a single term in Congress. He returned to his law practice in Illinois, reentering politics in the mid-1850s in response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he strongly condemned.

In 1858, he challenged Stephen A. Douglas for his US Senate seat from Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas engaged each other in a series of public debates, which would become known to history as the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The central issue of these debates was the future of slavery in the United States. Douglas advocated for “popular sovereignty,” or that the status of slavery in new territories would be determined by popular vote.