Today in History; Abraham Lincoln, U.S.President

1809: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, was a skilled politician, which showed in the way he handled the border slave states, in his avoiding reorganizing his cabinet in 1862 and in his defusing the peace issue in the presidential campaign of 1864. Born this day in 1809, he set the precedent of strong executive powers at a time of national emergency. When the war ended with union victory on April 9, 1865, just days before Lincoln's assassination, the defeat of the Confederacy paved the way for the abolishment of slavery in the United States.