Lincolns slaveridokument sålda för 37 miljoner

Abraham Lincoln, född 12 februari 1809 i Hardin County (i nuvarande Hodgenville i LaRue County) i Kentucky, död 15 april 1865 i Washington D.C. (mördad), var en amerikansk advokat och politiker. Lincoln var USA:s president åren 1861–1865. Han ledde nordsidan under amerikanska inbördeskriget och mördades i samband med ett teaterbesök i huvudstaden. Lincoln var senator i delstaten Illinois. Han var ledamot av representanthuset 1847. Han var USA:s förste republikanska president. Lincoln föddes i en timmerkoja i Kentucky. Helt självlärd arbetade han som advokat från 1837 i Springfield i Illinois. Han var medlem av delstatens lagstiftande församling 1832–1842, och blev känd som Honest Abe (ärlige Abe). Han slöt sig till det nybildade republikanska partiet 1856 och valdes till president 1860 med knappt 40 procent av rösterna och bara 180 elektorsröster – i ett sällsynt val för USA delade tre andra kandidater nästan lika på resten av rösterna. Lincoln spelade en betydelsefull roll under det amerikanska inbördeskriget. Som oerfaren senator gjorde han till en början många misstag. Detta, i samband med handlingsförlamningen hos hans företrädare James Buchanan, ledde till splittring, som han försökte kanalisera som självständighetsstrider. Sedan vägrade han, bland annat, att gå med på Konfederationens krav på evakuering av den federala garnisonen i Fort Sumter i Charleston i South Carolina, vilket ledde till de första fientligheterna under det som skulle bli inbördeskriget. Lincoln är känd för emancipationsproklamationen 1863, vilken frigjorde slavarna i de delar av Södern som ej kontrollerades av den federala armén (slaveriet fortsatte till 1865 i de delstater och områden som kontrollerades av nordsidan). Emancipationsförklaringen föregick det trettonde tillägget till USA:s konstitution två år senare, som slutligen gjorde slaveri olagligt i unionen. Han är även känd för det tal han höll efter slaget vid Gettysburg, (Gettysburgtalet). Lincoln satt på Fordteatern i Washington D.C. och såg pjäsen Our American Cousin då han mördades. Mordet ägde rum sex dagar efter freden i inbördeskriget och general Robert E. Lees kapitulation. Lincoln sköts av sydstataren och den kände skådespelaren John Wilkes Booth. Kulan träffade honom i bakhuvudet klockan 22.13 långfredagen den 14 april 1865. Lincoln fördes till ett närliggande hus (Petersen House), där han avled efter nio timmars medvetslöshet.

Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel slavery that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries after it gained independence and before the end of the American Civil War. Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was recognized in all the Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution (1775–83), the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry. When the United States Constitution was ratified (1789), a relatively small number of free people of color were among the voting citizens. During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states and a movement developed to abolish slavery. Most of these states had a higher proportion of free labor than in the South and economies based on different industries. They abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, some with gradual systems that kept adults as slaves for two decades. But the rapid expansion of the cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin, greatly increased demand for slave labor, and the Southern states continued as slave societies. They attempted to extend slavery into the new Western territories in order to keep their share of political power in the nation; Southern leaders dreamed of annexing Cuba to be used as a slave territory. The United States was polarized over the issue of slavery, represented by the slave and free states divided by the Mason–Dixon line, which separated free Pennsylvania from slave Maryland and Delaware. Congress prohibited the importation of slaves, effective in 1808, but illegal smuggling took place. Domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, and taken to the Deep South in a forced migration, splitting up many families. New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation. As the West was developed for settlement, the Southern states wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states, in order to maintain a political balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises. By 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise. With Southern church ministers having adapted to supporting slavery, as modified by Christian paternalism, the largest denominations, the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches split over the issue into regional organizations of the North and South. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of no new slave states, the South broke away to form the Confederacy; the first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. This marked the start of the Civil War, which caused a huge disruption of the slave economy, with many slaves either escaping or being liberated by the Union armies. Due to Union measures such as the Confiscation Acts and Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the war effectively ended slavery, even before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865 formally ended the legal institution throughout the United States.