What is the significance of Lincoln becoming president, the Emanclpation Proclamation, and the ending of the Civil War and Lincoln's...

Lincoln was elected President in 1860 in a heated race
that included three other major candidates. Lincoln was hated in the South, and
following his election, the Southern states began secession procedures, beginning with
South Carolina about six weeks after the election. Southern states believed that Lincoln
intended to eliminate or restrict slavery, and this was one of the causes of the
American Civil War that followed.

Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation was an executive order that proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the
seceding Southern states, which would take effect as the Union armies advanced and took
control in those regions. Oddly, the Proclamation did not include the slaves in the
existing Union slave states (among them Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and Missouri); nor
did the Proclamation make slavery illegal.

Lincoln was
assassinated just five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Lincoln's
killer, actor John Wilkes Booth, had originally formulated plans for Lincoln's
kidnapping a year before, but he decided that murder was a better option after learning
of Lincoln's plans to give Negroes equal voting rights.