Quotes by Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln had about a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and became president in 1861 as seven states left the union. He held it together through four years of war, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and was shot dead days after the fighting ended. He wrote his own speeches, and the Gettysburg Address runs to two hundred and seventy-two words. His prose is quoted so heavily because he had a lawyer's ear for the sentence that leaves no room to argue.