Presidential Succession

George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of the Nation" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country.

John Adams was born on 30 October 1735 in Braintree, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Biography (1987). He was married to Abigail Smith. He died on 4 July 1826 in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA.

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the second vice president of the United States under John Adams and the first United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at state, national, and international levels.

He enjoyed a humanistic school education. Madison completed his studies in 1771 with a Bachelor of Arts. He showed particular interest in the new ideas of the time, the Enlightenment, with which he dealt intensively. He became politically active at an early age. In 1776 he was elected to the Virginia Convention, which advocated independence and a constitution. During the American Revolution he campaigned for the colonial resistance movement against Great Britain in Virginia. Here he met the governor and later President Thomas Jefferson, with whom he became lifelong friends. In 1780, James Madison was elected to the Continental Congress, where he advocated for a strong central government that would help complete American liberation. The planter was instrumental in the preparations for the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, where he drafted the so-called "Virginia Plan" in May 1787.

In it, Madison advocated for a strong national central government that would guarantee personal freedoms, party diversity, and federal freedoms. With this model of a balanced party system that should lead to a mutual sharing of power, Madison founded the basic principle of the republican system of government in the USA. From 1789 to 1797, Madison represented Virginia in Congress. In 1794 he married Dolley Payne Todd. After supporting the presidential campaign of his friend Thomas Jefferson, Madison was appointed Secretary of State when he took office in 1801. In the election campaign of 1808, Madison himself was elected fourth president of the United States. Although he became embroiled in war with Great Britain on June 18, 1812, Madison was re-elected to a second term that same year.

The war with Great Britain was initially very disadvantageous for the USA. In 1814, Madison watched as the Capitol and White House were set ablaze by British troops. Nevertheless, the President was able to end the war with an advantageous peace agreement within the end of the year. A hugely popular leader, Madison left the office of president in March 1817. In the coming years he assisted Jefferson in planning the University of Virginia. He acted as an advisor to the next President James Monroe. In 1829, Madison officially returned to political life to attend the Virginia Constitutional Convention. He then withdrew into private life as a quiet observer of politics.

James Madison died on June 28, 1836 in Montpelier, Virginia.

James Monroe was born on 28 April 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, USA. He was a writer. He was married to Elizabeth Kortright. He died on 4 July 1831 in New York City, New York, USA.

His father, John Adams, served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. In 1779, at the age of 12, the young Adams accompanied his father to Europe. There the linguistically gifted boy supported the US embassy as a translator and secretary. When Adams enrolled at Harvard in 1785, he already had knowledge of Greek, Latin, French, Dutch and German. After studying law, he began working as a lawyer in Boston in 1790. At the same time, he gained a certain level of notoriety by writing political essays for the press in support of George Washington's administration. In 1793 the young Adams was sent to the Netherlands as a diplomat. On a diplomatic mission to London he met the American consulate's daughter Louisa Catherine Johnson, whom he married in 1797. In the same year Adams was sent as an envoy to Prussia.

Returning to the United States, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1801. In 1803 he was appointed to the US Senate, where he served until 1808. In 1809, Adams went on a diplomatic mission to Russia, where he was able to win over Tsar Alexander as a mediator in the American conflict with Great Britain. In 1812 he helped negotiate the peace treaty with Great Britain. From 1815 Adams worked as an ambassador in London. Two years later, he was appointed Secretary of State by President James Monroe. In complete agreement with the president, in this role until 1825 he contributed to raising the USA to an equal size with the European powers, giving them independent diplomacy and helping them make territorial gains. In this context, Adams was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the acquisition of Florida and the securing of Louisiana's western border. In 1823 he contributed to the development of the "Monroe Doctrine".

In 1824, Adams won the American presidential election to become the sixth president of the United States for one term from the following year. However, his policy of internal reform and national consolidation was largely unsuccessful due to opposition resistance. In the election campaign of 1828, John Quincy Adams was overwhelmingly defeated by Andrew Jackson, who succeeded him as president a year later. After a temporary withdrawal from political life, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831, where he served until his death in 1848. As an independent, he took up the demand for the abolition of slavery without joining the ranks of the abolitionists. Soon after, he suffered a stroke in the House of Representatives.

John Quincy Adams died on February 23, 1848 in Washington.

Andrew Jackson was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.

Served as eighth President of the United States (1837-1841). He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party. He was the eighth Vice President of the United States (1833-1837) He was also the tenth Secretary of State. Martin Van Buren was the first President of the United States of the United States to actually be born in the United States. He was a major factor in the abolitionist movement.

Harrison, who was born on a plantation, also came from a distinguished family of planters and politicians. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was governor of Virginia between 1781 and 1784. William Harrison initially studied at college and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1792 he joined the army. In 1794 he was used against the Indians in Ohio. A year later, Harrison married Anna Tuthill Symmes, an Ohio girl. In 1798, Harrison left the army as a captain. Harrison was then elected as a representative in the US Congress. In 1801, President John Adams made him governor of Indiana. During his 12 years in office, Harrison proved himself in the fight against the Indians, who had come together to form a federation under the leadership of Tecumseh.

During the war with Great Britain from 1812 to 1814, he secured American rule over Indiana and the Northwest. Returning to Ohio, William Harrison was elected to the House of Representatives in 1816, where he was represented until 1819. In 1825 he was elected to the US Senate, where William Harrison was active until 1828. In 1828, President John Quincy Adams sent Harrison as an envoy to Colombia, but he was recalled the following year. After a temporary withdrawal from politics, Harrison was considered a candidate in the presidential election in 1836, which was won by Martin van Buren. In the following election campaign in 1840, Harrison was able to garner the majority of votes. In March 1841 he took office as the ninth President of the USA.

William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in Washington just one month later, on April 4, 1841. He was succeeded by John Tyler.

His father was governor of Virginia and a judge. After graduating from college in 1807, Tyler studied law. At 19 he was admitted to the bar. From 1811 to 1815, Tyler sat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He then served as a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from 1817 to 1821. Tyler was appointed governor of Virginia in 1825. In 1827 he resigned from this position because he was now elected to the US Senate, where he was represented until 1836. In these positions, Tyler distinguished himself as a staunch advocate of the "states' rights" theory and a faithful interpretation of the Constitution. The doctrine advocated the primary sovereignty and independence of the US states over the federal government. After turning away from the Democratic Party, Tyler was elected vice president in 1840 as the Whig candidate.

However, the new President William Harrison died in 1841 after only a month in office. Therefore, Tyler succeeded him as the tenth President of the USA on April 4, 1841. Differences with his new Whig party blocked the new president's key domestic policy initiatives. As a southern aristocrat, the former Virginia governor and senator was only put forward to win southern voters for Harrison. However, his political views were opposed to those of the Whig Party, which represented the interests of the northeastern states with their emerging industry and business community - so he vetoed the establishment of a national bank, which was a fundamental concern of the Whigs and their most prominent senator, Henry Clay. In the fall of 1841, he was expelled from the Whig Party. In 1842, when he vetoed the tariff bill, Congress tried, but failed, to impeach him.

In the area of foreign policy, Tyler prepared the incorporation of Texas into the Union after his presidency. In 1842, his Secretary of State Daniel Webster was able to reach a border treaty with Great Britain that established the border between Maine and Canada. In the run-up to the Civil War, he campaigned for secession and was elected to the Congress of the Confederacy, but died of a stroke before he could take office. In the presidential election of 1844, Tyler was no longer a candidate. Tyler was replaced in 1845 by James Knox Polk. After his presidency, however, Tyler remained involved in political life. Shortly before his death, he was elected to the Congress of the Confederate States of America in 1861. The politician died before its meetings opened.

John Tyler died on January 18, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia.

He spent his childhood on an estate in Tennessee that was owned by his grandfather. Polk studied law at the University of North Carolina and became active in politics early on, where he appeared as an opponent of bank and land speculators. In the presidential campaign of 1824 he supported the candidacy of Andrew Jackson, who was a friend of his father. In 1825 Polk was elected as a Democratic Jackson supporter to the US House of Representatives, of which he was a member until 1839 and for which he served as speaker from 1835.

From 1839 to 1841 Polk rose to the position of governor of Tennessee, but failed to be re-elected to that office in 1841 and 1843. In 1844 he was chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate, who managed to unite the different branches of the Democrats under his leadership during the election campaign and achieve an electoral victory. The new US President of the United States included in his cabinet, among others, the future President James Buchanan and other ministers who largely represented the different tendencies of the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, he became distant from a democratic faction around Martin Buren. His domestic policy was characterized by successful reforms in the area of financial administration, for which he created an independent treasury.

The greatest successes of his presidency, however, were linked to the foreign policy field. In the conflict with Great Britain over jointly occupied Oregon, he achieved an extension of US territory up to the 49th parallel through the British-American treaty of June 15, 1846. Polk achieved a further increase in territory through the annexation of Texas, which, however, provoked a war with neighboring Mexico in May 1846, which the USA won in April 1848 with the capture of Mexico City. In the subsequent peace negotiations, Polk secured Mexico's renunciation of New Mexico, California and Texas in exchange for $15 million. The war thus resulted in a considerable consolidation of US territory.

On the other hand, during the war against Mexico, an opposition movement against Polk's foreign policy had emerged, partly within the Democrats. In its policy against slavery in the newly acquired southern territories, it anticipated the conflicts that would later lead to the American Civil War. Although James Knox Polk was a principled supporter of slavery, he sought to achieve an intra-party compromise by partially banning it. In 1848, Polk was no longer available as a presidential candidate in accordance with a pre-agreement within the party. Rather, he now supported the election campaign of the Democrat Lewis Cass, who, however, suffered a defeat.

James Knox Polk, who was already in poor health during his presidency, died just three months after leaving the presidential chair on June 15, 1849 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Zachary Taylor was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican-American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union. He died sixteen months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery.

After school he turned to law and then worked as a lawyer. Fillmore entered politics to co-found the "Anti-Masonic" Party as the third largest party in the American North. As one of the party leaders, he pushed for reforms in his state assembly. In the 1830s and 1840s, Fillmore served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In this role he led his party into the newly founded Whig Party. In the 1848 campaign, Fillmore was elected vice president under President Zachary Taylor. When Taylor died unexpectedly in 1850, Fillmore succeeded him as US President. The new president took a balancing position in the conflict between northern and southern states over the slave issue. In this way he was able to bring about the compromise of 1850, which, however, only bridged the differences for a short time.

In addition, Fillmore pushed the project of a transcontinental railway line to be built by the US government. In the area of foreign policy, the president sought peaceful relations with other powers in order to stimulate US trade. For example, he established trade contacts in Japan. In the election campaign of 1852, Fillmore was no longer put forward as a Whig candidate. He therefore resigned from the presidency in 1853.

After a failed candidacy in the presidential election campaign of 1856, Fillmore retreated to Buffalo, where he became involved in urban political projects.

Millard Fillmore died on March 8, 1874 in Buffalo, New York State.

After graduating from college in 1809, Buchanan became a lawyer. In 1814 he entered the Pennsylvania Assembly as a Federalist representative. In 1820 Buchanan was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he served until 1831. At the same time he served as envoy to Russia from 1823 to 1833. He became a leading figure in the newly emerging Democratic Party in Pennsylvania. From 1834 to 1845 he served in the US Senate, where he supported the southern states' position on the slave issue. Under the presidency of James Knox Polk (1845-1849), Buchanan played a key role in his expansionist policies as Secretary of State.

Meanwhile, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1836 to 1841. He reached an agreement with Great Britain on the Oregon issue. In the war against Mexico (1846-1848) he advocated the annexation of large parts of the neighboring country. President Franklin Pierce sent Buchanan as an envoy to Great Britain from 1853 to 1856. In 1856 he won the US presidential election as the Democratic candidate. The following year he began his term in the White House. Buchanan was the only unmarried President of the United States. His niece, Harriet Lane, served as "First Lady" during his term.

As with his predecessor Franklin Pierce, Buchanan's efforts at reconciliation and compromise were doomed to failure in view of the increasingly irreconcilable conflict over the slave issue. During his presidency, the Democratic Party was increasingly divided into northern and southern factions. An economic depression and conflict with the Mormons in Utah continued to complicate the domestic political environment of Buchanan's administration. Having already lost the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln, Buchanan faced his final crisis in office with the secession of South Carolina.

The US President lacked the ability to take decisive action to counteract the southern state's secession from the Union. Amid allegations of having been responsible for the dissolution of the Union and the outbreak of the American Civil War, Buchanan bitterly withdrew from the presidency and politics in 1861.

James Buchanan died on June 1, 1868 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.

In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.

Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.

Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.

In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.

In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.

Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.

As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.

In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.

In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.

Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.

In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.

Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.

In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.

In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.

In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).

In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.

During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".

Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.

During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.

In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.

In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).

In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.

In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.

In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.

Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.

Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.

In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.

Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.

Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.

In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.

Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.

Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.

Without sufficient schooling, he trained as a tailor. Johnson then moved to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he opened a tailor shop in 1826. A year later he married Eliza McCardle, who helped him learn to read and write. Johnson's business began to prosper and gained him great public profile in the local community. There he became increasingly politically active. Johnson served in Congress from 1843 to 1853. He then served as Governor of Tennessee until 1857.

In the same year he was finally elected to the US Senate. At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Johnson was the only southern senator to support the continued existence of the Union. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee. There he supported the state's reincorporation into the Union and convened a constitutional convention that abolished slavery in Tennessee in January 1865. In 1864, Johnson was elevated to vice president of the United States. After Lincoln died on April 15, 1865 as a result of an assassination attempt, Johnson assumed the presidency. The new president carried the heavy legacy of restoring the American Union after the Civil War.

He initiated the adoption of new constitutions for the southern states and implemented amnesties. However, since the southern states undermined anti-slavery regulations in many areas, Johnson increasingly came into conflict with Congress with his Reconstruction policy. The conflict reached its climax when the President vetoed a congressional legislative initiative in 1866 that aimed to increase rights for freed slaves. On February 25, 1868, Congress initiated impeachment proceedings against the US President. The primary motive for the impeachment proceedings was Johnson's violation of formal rules.

However, the real reason for the unusual measure - Johnson was the first and only US president to be affected by it - was the obvious resistance with which the president met the will of Congress. The impeachment failed by one vote in the Senate. Johnson was able to continue in office until he handed it over to his successor Ulysses Grant in 1869. In 1875, Johnson was re-elected to the U.S. Senate as a representative from Tennessee. However, a stroke prevented him from performing this function.

Andrew Johnson died shortly thereafter on July 31, 1875 in Carter Station, Tennessee.

Ulysses S. Grant was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and thereafter briefly served as Secretary of War. Later, as president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was one of that small legion of political non-entities who have occupied the post of President and First Magistrate of the Republic since Andrew Jackson, though he was a better man than most. Born on October 4, 1822, in Delaware, Ohio,the former Civil War general served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1865 and 1867 and then served as Governor of Ohio from 1868 to 1872 and from 1876 to 1877, when he surrendered that office for the presidency. He won the Republican nomination in 1876 because reform-minded Republicans blocked the bid of former President Ulysses S. Grant, whose two terms in office had been marked by unprecedented political corruption, for a non-consecutive third term.

He won the nickname "Rutherfraud" for winning election as the 19th President of the United States by being virtually appointed by an electoral commission adjudicating the disputed 1876 election. (The commission made a deal granting the Republicans the presidency in return for the Democrats' request to end Reconstruction in the former Confederate States. The deal damned black freedmen to quasi-slavery for nearly 100 more years.) It was an electoral anomaly that wouldn't be repeated until 2000, when the right-wing Rhenquist Court virtually anointed GOP contender George W. Bush president, not even going through the motions that the pols of the Bicentennial Year did 124 years earlier.

Hayes proved to be a decent if not spectacular president, committed to civil service reform and cleaning out government corruption. He had little taste for the pretensions of the presidency, saying, "The Presidential mania makes mad every man who is at all prominent in Washington. It never seemed to me worth the cost of self-respect, of independence." He did not stand for reelection in 1880.

Rutherford B. Hayes died on January 17, 1893 in Fremont, Ohio. He was 70 years old.

James Abram Garfield was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his death six months later, two months after he was shot by an assassin. A lawyer and Civil War general, he served nine terms in the House of Representatives and was the only sitting member of the House to be elected president. Before his candidacy for the White House, he had been elected to the Senate by the Ohio General Assembly, a position he declined when he became president-elect.

After college he studied law. Arthur then practiced as a successful lawyer in New York City. Beginning in 1857, Arthur was employed as a lawyer by the "Second Brigade" of the New York State Militia. In 1859 he married Ellen Lewis Herndon, daughter of a Virginia naval hero. The marriage resulted in three children. Ellen Lewis Herndon died of pneumonia in 1880 and was unable to live to see her husband's subsequent presidency. During the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, Chester Arthur made a name for himself by supplying the troops. In 1868 he supported Ulysses S. Grant's presidential campaign. He also became chairman of the Executive Committee of the New York State Committee. He was heavily involved with the Republicans. In 1871 he was appointed director of customs for the Port of New York.

However, his involvement in the usual patronage of offices of the time resulted in his dismissal in 1878. In 1880, Arthur rose to vice president under the presidency of James Garfield. After his murder, Arthur succeeded to the presidency in September 1881. The new president initiated a reform of the civil service and the expansion and modernization of the fleet. He fought corruption in politics and led a reform-oriented government that enacted the first comprehensive civil service laws in the United States. Arthur also placed great emphasis on the representative aesthetics of his office, which he surrounded with new splendor. However, the Republican Party did not nominate Arthur to run for president in the 1884 presidential election. He therefore left office in 1885 and subsequently retreated into private life.

Chester Alan Arthur died on November 18, 1886 in New York.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland was the first president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. He won the popular vote for three presidential elections-in 1884, 1888, and 1892-and was one of two Democrats (followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912) to be elected president during the era of Republican presidential domination dating from 1861 to 1933.

Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the US. He was born in North Bend, Ohio, on August 20, 1833. He came from a family which had a long history in politics--his grandfather William Henry Harrison was a former US President, his father was a Congressman and he had cousins who were congressmen, governors and mayors.

He was educated at Farmers College and Miami University in Ohio, graduating from the university in 1862. He was admitted to the bar in 1864 and began a law practice in Indianapolis, Indiana, but soon became involved in Republican politics. He held some minor party and appointed offices, During the Civil War he organized an army unit, the 70th Indiana Infantry, which he commanded as a colonel. The unit was posted to mostly garrison duty in Kentucky and Tennessee, and in 1864 it was attached to the forces of Gen. William T. Sherman in Georgia.

After the war he returned to Indiana and got even more involved in state politics, becoming a driving force in what became known as the Radical Republican movement. He ran in the Republican primary for the gubernatorial nomination in 1872, but was unsuccessful. In 1876 he finally got the nomination, but lost the election. In 1880 he headed the Indiana delegation to the Republican convention and was a major factor in securing the presidential nomination for James A. Garfield, who won the election. He was offered a cabinet post but turned it down in favor of being the party's nominee for Senator, and won the election. As a senator he was a strong advocate for civil-service reform and helped in the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. He lost his bid for re-election that year, but in 1888 secured the Republican nomination for President. He ran against Democrat Grover Cleveland, and although Cleveland won the popular vote, Harrison received more votes in the electoral college, therefore winning the presidency.

As President, Harrison's most notable accomplishments occurred in foreign affairs, and he sponsored the first Pan-American Conference in 1889 between the US and Latin America. On the domestic front, his administration secured passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which was popular with the public, but it also passed the highly unpopular McKinley Tariff Act and the even more unpopular Sherman Silver Purchase Act. A major scandal occurred in the Veterans Bureau--later to become the Veterans Administration--during Harrison's presidency; it had been very strictly run during Cleveland's term, but Harrison loosened oversight of it and soon the extravagant expenditures lavished by the bureau's top management on themselves and their cronies shocked the public and forced the resignation of the bureau's pension commissioner. In the 1890 elections the Democratic party took control of Congress. Public dissatisfaction with Harrison's administration led to his defeat by former president Cleveland in the 1892 elections, after which Harrison returned to Indianapolis and resumed his law practice. He wrote several articles for local newspapers and eventually published two books, "This Country of Ours" (1897), a collection of his writings; and a memoir, "Views of an ex-President" (1901).

He died in Indianapolis on March 13, 1901.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland was the first president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. He won the popular vote for three presidential elections-in 1884, 1888, and 1892-and was one of two Democrats (followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912) to be elected president during the era of Republican presidential domination dating from 1861 to 1933.

William McKinley (January 29, 1843 - September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. He was president during the Spanish-American War of 1898, raised protective tariffs to boost American industry, and rejected the expansionary monetary policy of free silver, keeping the nation on the gold standard.