Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By His Excellency Curtis Guild, Jr. Governor: a proclamation ... to remind the people of the Commonwealth that the twelfth day of February, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, is in Massachusetts set apart for the cel

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends."