When Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, states in the South began seceding, refusing to be ruled by an antislavery party. The Civil War began weeks after he took office. Lincoln became the commander-in-chief of the Union armies during four years of bloody fighting. He also became the main spokesman for the ideals of the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in Southern states free of their masters, and making the ending of slavery one of the Union's goals. Lincoln was reelected in 1864, and by early 1865, a Union victory was near. "With malice toward none and charity for all, let us bind up the nation's wounds." Lincoln said in his second inaugural. The war ended in early April. Days later, Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer, and so became the highest-ranking victim of the great Civil War. Book jacket.