POTUS 16: Pres. Abraham Lincoln - The Most Beloved President?

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President Lincoln, or Lanky Link, as Lord Buckley called him.

He built the Republican Party into a strong national organization and brought the northern Democrats into the Union fold. He went to war against his own countrymen. He had little choice. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves in the Confederacy. In reality, that would take a while, and many people think we're still working at it.

He made a few jokes about his face, and truth be told, in many of those daguerreotypes he looks like he is carrying the weight of the world. The contemporary painter Mark Ryden often includes an image of Lincoln in his paintings.

He never got to fully preside over the peace, because he was killed on April 14, 1865, by a deranged actor.
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