Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809. He moved with his family to Indiana in 1816 and to Illinois in 1830, and his first home in Illinois was eight miles southwest of Decatur. In 1831 he moved to New Salem, twenty miles northwest of Springfield, where he operated a general store and served as postmaster and deputy county surveyor. He served as a representative in the state legislature from 1834 to 1842, and in 1837 was a leader in an effort to move the state government from Vandalia to Springfield; Springfield became the capitol in 1839. In 1836 Lincoln was admitted to the bar, and in 1837 he moved to Springfield and began his law practice, arguing cases in a number of circuit courts, especially those in counties in the Eighth Judicial Circuit. He spent much of his public life at the Old State Capitol in downtown Springfield. In 1842 he married Mary Todd, and in 1844 purchased his home at Eighth and Jackson Streets in Springfield. As a Whig, Lincoln was elected a representative to the United States Congress in 1846. As a Republican he opposed Stephen A. Douglas for the United States Senate in 1858, and their debates made Lincoln nationally prominent though Douglas won the race. Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860, and the election of a Republican prompted the southern states to secede from the Union. Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and the Civil War began on April 12. The original war aim of the North was restoration of the Union; after 1862, freeing the slaves became another objective. Lincoln was reelected in 1864. At his second inauguration in 1865 he pled for a conciliatory attitude toward the South. He pursued the war to a successful conclusion, capped by Lee's surrender to Grant on April 9, 1865. Five days later Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater in Washington. He is buried in Oakridge Cemetery, Springfield.
