AMERICAN PRESIDENTS

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C.. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

Under the United States Constitution, the President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. As chief of the executive branch and head of the federal government as a whole, the presidency is the highest political office in the United States by influence and recognition.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN1861-1865 Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. He was born February 12, 1809, made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War. He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac.

Original plan: Kidnapping the president In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of all the Union's armies, decided to suspend the exchange of prisoners-of-war. Harsh as it may have been on the prisoners of both sides, Grant realized the exchange was prolonging the war by returning soldiers to the outnumbered and manpower-starved South. John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner and outspoken Confederate sympathizer, conceived a plan to kidnap President Lincoln and deliver him to the Confederate Army, to be held hostage until the North agreed to resume exchanging prisoners.

Day of the assassination :On April 14, Booth's morning started at the stroke of midnight. Lying wide awake in his bed at the National Hotel, he wrote his mother that all was well, but that he was "in haste". In his diary, he wrote that "Our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done".

Lincoln's day started well for the first time in a while. Hugh McCulloch, the new Secretary of the Treasury, remarked that on that morning, "I never saw Mr. Lincoln so cheerful and happy". No one could miss the difference. For months, the President had looked pale and haggard. Lincoln himself told people how happy he was. This caused First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln some concern, as she believed that saying such things out loud was bad luck. Lincoln paid her no heed. He met with his cabinet that day and later had a brief meeting with Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Booth shoots President Lincoln The Lincoln party arrived late and settled into the Presidential Box, which was actually two corner box seats with the dividing wall between them removed. The box was supposed to be guarded by a policeman named John Frederick Parker who, by all accounts, was a curious choice for a bodyguard. During the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln's footman and coachman. It is unclear whether he ever returned to the theatre, but he was certainly not at his post when Booth entered the box. About 10:25 pm, a man came in and walked slowly along the side on which the "Pres" box was and I heard a man say, "There's Booth" and I turned my head to look at him. He was still walking very slow and was near the box door when he stopped, took a card from his pocket, wrote something on it, and gave it to the usher who took it to the box. In a minute the door was opened and he walked in.

Upon hearing the gunshot,Major Henry Rathbone,who accepted Lincolns invitation to join him, quickly jumped from his seat and tried to prevent Booth from escaping. Booth dropped the pistol and drew a knife, stabbing the major violently in the left forearm reaching the bone. Rathbone quickly recovered and again tried to grab Booth as he was preparing to jump from the sill of the box.

Charles Leale, a young army doctor who was attending the play, discovered Lincoln paralyzed, and barely breathing. Leale lowered the President to the floor believing that Lincoln had been stabbed in the shoulder by the knife. A second doctor in the audience, Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box. Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln's blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of his head right next to his left ear. Leale said :"His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."

BIBLIOGRAPHYhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidentshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincolnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House

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