Abraham Lincoln was dead by 1858.
Abraham Lincoln . In 1860 , Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state . As the war progressed , his complex moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 ; Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves , encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery , and pushed through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , which permanently outlawed slavery . The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln , one of the best-known in American history .