Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809—April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States (March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865). As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery and a political leader in the western states, he won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. *************************************** Lincoln helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederacy in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. ****************************************** Lincoln's leadership qualities were evident in his close supervision of the victorious war effort, especially his successful selection of Ulysses S. Grant and other top generals. Historians conclude he brilliantly handled the factions of the Republican party by bringing the leaders into his cabinet and forcing them to cooperate. In crisis management, he defused a war scare with Britain (1861), he outmaneuvered the Confederacy and took control of the border slave states in 1861-62, and he managed his own landslide reelection in the 1864 presidential election. Antiwar Copperheads criticised him vehemently for refusing to compromise on slavery, declaring martial law, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, ordering arrests of 18,000 opponents, sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Civil War, and for unconstitutionally overstepping the bounds of executive power. On the other hand, Radical Republicans criticised him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery, and not being ruthless enough towards the conquered South. Lincoln rallied public opinion through the powerful rhetoric of his messages and speeches; his Gettysburg Address is remembered as the prime example. At the close of the war, Lincoln took a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily re-unite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. ************************************** Lincoln's assassination in 1865 made him a martyr for the ideal of national unity. Scholars rank Lincoln among the top three U.S. Presidents, with the average of those surveys placing him at number one. He is noted for his lasting influence on U.S. politics - redefining republican values promoting nationalism, and enlarging the powers of the federal government. ************************************* Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the seventeenth President of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee at the time of the secession of the southern states. He was the only Southern Senator not to quit his post upon secession, and became the most prominent War Democrat from the South. In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, where he proved energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion. Johnson was nominated for the Vice President slot in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He was elected along with Abraham Lincoln in November 1864, and he became president upon Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865. As president he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction — the first phase of Reconstruction — which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederates back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with the Radical Republicans. The Radicals in the House of Representatives impeached him in 1868, and he was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. He was the first United States president to be impeached. ********************************** Grant was the first Union general in the war to initiate coordinated offensives across multiple theatres. While his subordinates Sherman and Sheridan marched through Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley respectively, Grant personally supervised the 1864 Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army in Virginia. He employed a war of attrition against his opponent, conducting a series of large-scale battles with very high casualties that alarmed public opinion, while manoeuvring ever closer to the Confederate capital, Richmond. Grant announced he would "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Lincoln supported his general and replaced his losses, and Lee's dwindling army was forced into defending trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. In April 1865 Grant's vastly larger army broke through, captured Richmond, and forced Lee to surrender at Appomattox. He has been described by J.F.C. Fuller as "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age." His Vicksburg Campaign in particular has been scrutinised by military specialists around the world. Grant announced generous terms for his defeated foes, and pursued a policy of peace. He broke with President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and was elected President as a Republican in 1868. He led Radical Reconstruction and built a powerful patronage-based Republican party in the South, with the adroit use of the army. He took a hard line that reduced violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Although Grant was personally honest, he not only tolerated financial and political corruption among top aides but also protected them once exposed. He blocked civil service reforms and defeated the reform movement in the Republican party in 1872, driving out many of its founders. The Panic of 1873 pushed the nation into a depression that Grant was helpless to reverse. Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U.S. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans.[3] Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs which was enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics.