Abraham Lincoln was born today, February 12, 1809.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president.
Abraham Lincoln successfully led America through the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. He was an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year.
His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America 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. Six days after the surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.
The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854.
Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men. “Free labor” referred to the Republican belief in a mobile middle class that left the workforce and set up small businesses. “Free land” referred to Republican efforts to facilitate this spirit of entrepreneurship by giving away government owned land. The Party hoped that this rapid growth would help check, and eventually end slavery.
Abraham Lincoln received the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. In the election of 1864 a majority of Republicans united with pro-war Democrats to nominate Lincoln to the National Union Party ticket.
The party’s founding members chose the name “Republican Party” in the mid-1850s in part as an homage to Thomas Jefferson. The name echoed the 1776 republican values of civic virtue and opposition to aristocracy and corruption.
Republicans emphasize the role of free markets and individual achievement as the primary factors behind economic prosperity. To this end, they promote personal responsibility over welfare programs.
A leading economic theory advocated by modern Republicans is supply-side economics. Some fiscal policies influenced by this theory were popularly known as “Reaganomics,” a term popularized during the Presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan. This theory holds that reduced income tax rates increase GDP growth and thereby generate the same or more revenue for the government from the smaller tax on the extra growth.
