The Lincoln Cabinet | ||
---|---|---|
Office | Name | Term |
President | Abraham Lincoln | 1861–1865 |
Vice President | Hannibal Hamlin | 1861–1865 |
Andrew Johnson | 1865 | |
Secretary of State | William H. Seward | 1861–1865 |
Secretary of Treasury | Salmon P. Chase | 1861–1864 |
William P. Fessenden | 1864–1865 | |
Hugh McCulloch | 1865 | |
Secretary of War | Simon Cameron | 1861–1862 |
Edwin M. Stanton | 1862–1865 | |
Attorney General | Edward Bates | 1861–1864 |
James Speed | 1864–1865 | |
Postmaster General | Montgomery Blair | 1861–1864 |
William Dennison Jr. | 1864–1865 | |
Secretary of the Navy | Gideon Welles | 1861–1865 |
Secretary of the Interior | Caleb Blood Smith | 1861–1862 |
John Palmer Usher | 1863–1865 |
The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended upon his assassination and death on April 15, 1865, 42 days into his second term. Lincoln was the first member of the recently-established Republican Party elected to the presidency. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson, who had been his running mate in the 1864 presidential election.
Lincoln, the 16th United States president, took office following the 1860 presidential election, in which he won a majority of Electoral College votes (180 of 303), and a 39.8 percent plurality of the popular vote in a four–candidate field (and despite not being on the ballot in any southern slave state, that consisted of Lincoln, Unionist John Bell, and Democrats John C. Breckinridge and Stephen A. Douglas. A former Whig politician, Lincoln ran on a political platform opposing the policies of the Pierce and Buchanan administrations that would have preserved slavery for the foreseeable future. His election served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. During the 16 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day, seven slave states declared their secession from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. After being sworn in as president, Lincoln refused to accept any resolution that would result in Southern secession from the Union.