Presidency of Abraham Lincoln in the context of "Assassination of Abraham Lincoln"

The Union is a term used to refer to the central government and loyal states of the United States during the American Civil War. Its military forces and civilian population resisted the purported secession of the slave states that formed the Confederate States of America following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government and the continuity of the United States Constitution, and it refused to recognize the Confederate government.

Nineteenth-century Americans commonly used the term Union to mean either the federal government of the United States or the unity of the states within the federal constitutional framework. The Union can also refer to the people or territory of the states that remained loyal to the national government during the war. The loyal U.S states located mostly above the Mason–Dixon line were also known as the North, although four southern border states and the future state of West Virginia remained loyal to the Union, and Black Southerners and many Southern Unionists opposed secession and supported the Union war effort.

Nevada (/nəˈvædə/ nə-VAD-ə; Spanish: [neˈβaða] ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It is also sometimes placed in the Mountain West and Southwestern United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is the westernmost U.S. state without coastline and also the westernmost landlocked first-level country subdivison in the Americas.

Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of the monetary support of nearly $400 million in silver ore generated at the time by the Comstock Lode. It is also known as the "Sagebrush State", for the native plant of the same name; and as the "Sage-hen State". The state's name means "snowy" in Spanish, referring to Nevada's extensive number of mountain ranges capped with snow in winter, which help make Nevada among the highest US states by mean altitude. These include the Carson Range portion of the Sierra Nevada (and about 1/3 of Lake Tahoe by surface area), as well as the Toiyabe Range, Ruby Mountains, and Spring Mountains (which exemplify the sky islands of the Great Basin montane forests), in western, central, northeastern, and southern Nevada, respectively. Nevada is the driest U.S. state, both lying in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada and receiving among the highest solar irradiance of any U.S. state, and is thus largely desert and semi-arid. Nevada comprises the majority of the Great Basin, as well as a large portion of the Mojave Desert. In 2020, 80.1% of the state's land was managed by various jurisdictions of the U.S. federal government, both civilian and military.

The Blockade of Africa began in 1808 after the United Kingdom outlawed the Atlantic slave trade, making it illegal for British ships to transport slaves. The Royal Navy immediately established a presence off Africa to enforce the ban, called the West Africa Squadron. Although the ban initially applied only to British ships, Britain negotiated treaties with other countries to give the Royal Navy the right to intercept and search their ships for slaves.

The 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves abolished the intercontinental slave trade in the United States but was not widely enforced. From 1819, some effort was made by the United States Navy to prevent the slave trade. This mostly consisted of patrols of the shores of the Americas and in the mid-Atlantic, the latter being largely unsuccessful due to the difficulty of intercepting ships mid-ocean. As part of the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, it was agreed that both countries would work together on the abolition of the slave trade, which was deemed piracy, and to continue the blockade of Africa. US Navy involvement continued until the beginning of the American Civil War, in 1861. The following year, the Lincoln administration gave the UK full authority to intercept US ships. Slavery was not abolished in the United States until 1865, when Congress ratified the 13th Amendment. The Royal Navy squadron remained in operation until 1870.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding.

Because the state bordered the District of Columbia and the opposing factions within the state strongly desired to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the war. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus from Washington to Philadelphia. Lincoln ignored the ruling of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in "Ex parte Merryman" decision in 1861 concerning freeing John Merryman, a prominent Southern sympathizer arrested by the military.

The National Union Party, commonly known as the Union Party, and sometimes as the Republican-Union coalition, was a wartime coalition of Republicans, War Democrats, and border state Unconditional Unionists that supported the Lincoln administration during the American Civil War. It held the 1864 National Union Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson for vice president in the 1864 United States presidential election. Following Lincoln's assassination, Johnson tried and failed to sustain the Union Party as a vehicle for his presidential ambitions. The coalition did not contest the 1868 elections, but the Republican Party continued to use the Union Republican label throughout the period of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 United States presidential election, polling 180 electoral votes and 53 percent of the popular vote in the free states; opposition to Lincoln was divided, with most Northern Democrats voting for the senior U.S. senator from Illinois Stephen Douglas. Following his inauguration, Lincoln sought support from Douglas Democrats and Southern Unionists for his efforts to preserve the Union. He encouraged the formation of bipartisan Union coalitions in the loyal states that replaced the Republican Party throughout much of the Lower North. Besides allowing voters of diverse pre-war partisan allegiances to act collectively, the Union label served a valuable propaganda purpose by implying the coalition's opponents were dis-unionists.