Final Review
Carrie Chapman Catt
(January 9, 1859 - March 9, 1947) was born in Wisconsin and raised in Iowa. She graduated from college and became a teacher and superintendent of schools in Iowa in 1885. Carried married Leo Chapman who died soon after. She later married George Catt who was a wealthy engineer. She joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and campaigning for woman's suffrage. Catt became a close colleague of Susan B. Anthony, who selected Catt to succeed her as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Catt realized the NAWSA had been fairly unsuccessful in obtaining the vote. She came to believe that one of the problems was that NAWSA demanded the vote based on the theory that women deserved the right to vote because they were the equals of men. Catt decided to refocus the movement by arguing that women deserved the right to vote on issues related to women's growing role in society (Women's Sphere). She was successful in helping several additional states achieve women's suffrage on the state level. Catt, and most of the women in the female suffrage movement, disagreed with the tactics of many of the younger and more militant members of the NAWSA. Eventually, these more radical feminists created the National Woman's Party (NWP) to directly protest Woodrow Wilson's reelection in 1916. The NWP continued to protest Wilson until many of their members were imprisoned. The brutal treatment of the incarcerated women of the NWP moved Catt to, in essence, threaten Wilson with an enormous radical women's uprising. This forced Wilson to announce that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure." This soon led to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
First Amendment
*Freedom of speech *Freedom to exercise of religion *Right to petition *Right to assembly Establishment Clause
Fifth Amendment
*due process *right against self-incrimination (pleading the fifth) *criminal charges screened by grand jury *no double jeopardy *right to receive compensation when private property is taken for public use longest amendment in the Bill of Rights limits power of the government to take action against an individual
Eighth Amendment
*no excessive bail or fines *no cruel and unusual punishment
Sixth Amendment
*right to a speedy and public trial *impartial jury of the state *confronted with witnesses *favorable witnesses *right to an attorney
Seventh Amendment
*right to trial in civil cases for the cost of $20 *limits a judge's power to overturn factual decisions by a jury
Abraham Lincoln
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Bill Clinton
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Emancipation Proclaimation
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George Washington
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Gettysburg Address
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Lincoln's First Inaugural
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Lincoln's Second Inaugural
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Manumission
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John Jay
First Chief Justice
James Madison
Fourth U.S. President.
Alexander Hamilton
Leader of the conservative Hamiltonians or the Federalist Party. first secretary of the treasury.
Thomas Jefferson
Leader of the liberal Jeffersonians or the Democratic-Republican Party. first secretary of state
Federalist Party
Led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. This party envisioned a great western empire with a strong federal government, and a broad interpretation of Constitutional powers.
Democratic-Republican Party
Led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. This party championed a society of self-reliant individuals to protect rights, a smaller federal government, and a narrow and strict interpretation of the Constitution
Third Amendment
Quartering soldiers
Second Amendment
Right to bear arms
Fourth Amendment
Rights related to searches and seizures
Lucy Stone
She dropped out of college to help raise her nieces after Lucy's older sister had died. During this time she became acquainted with the efforts of the abolitionist Grimké sisters (Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimké Weld (1805-1879). Stone believed the Grimké's message that women and slaves shared a similar plight. She eventually became an advocate for women's suffrage. In 1843 (age 24), she attended Oberlin College advocating women's suffrage and the end of slavery. Stone became the first women in Massachusetts to earn a college degree, and decided to become a public speaker -- a completely male dominated field. Stone's speaking out about abolition came to the noticed of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. They hired Stone to speak for their society, but after Stone began including women's issues into her speeches, Garrison asked her to stop. Stone left the society arguing that she was a woman before she was an abolitionist. Frederick Douglass, America's foremost outspoken African-American abolitionist, also teamed up with Stone for many speeches throughout the country. But Douglass, like Garrison, believed she was diluting the abolitionist movement by her constant references to women's suffrage. Her influential speech at the National Women's Rights Convention in 1850 won a valuable ally in New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley. Susan B. Anthony later said that Stone's speech and Greeley's admiration helped make her (Stone) a national leader in the women's movement. Stone continued to be an active player in national conventions and the women's movement for the rest of her life. Stone also became a militant leader in the temperance movement and an advocate of divorce. Stone worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer. In fact Stone became a great advocate for Bloomer's trousered dress and wore bloomers for years, even after nearly all other suffragettes had abandoned the controversial fashion statement. Three years later in 1893, Stone gave her last speech entitled "The Progress of Fifty Years." She said, "I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned." Shortly afterwards she was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer and died. According to her wishes, she became the first person cremated in Massachusetts. Stanton and Anthony largely overshadow Stone's legacy, especially because of the differences between Stone and Stanton (the NWSA and the AWSA). However, women today who refuse to take their husband's name in marriage are often called "Lucy Stoners."
John Q. Adams
Sixth U.S. President, and if famous for creating the Monroe Doctine
Lucretia Mott
The Motts traveled to London, England, to attend the International Anti-Slavery Convention along with longtime friend William Lloyd Garrison. Mott was allowed to speak at the meeting, but because she was a woman, she was not allowed to sit with the male delegates. Many members of the abolitionist movement opposed female participation. At times, Mott was treated as royalty, and at other times forced to sit in a roped-off section hidden from the view of the male participants. It was here that she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was also forced to sit behind the curtain. William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips joined the ladies.Mott returned to America and went on the lecture circuit. She even spoke in the south against the immorality of slavery and slave ownership. She had a personal audience with President John Tyler, who was impressed with her. Soon she met up again with Stanton in Seneca Falls, NY. The two organized the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, with Mott as the mentor. This was the first American women's rights' meeting. Stanton's "Declaration of Sentiments" speech called for women to sign their names indicating that they agreed with her declaration. Mott agreed with most of Stanton's early actions, but she disagreed with Stanton's views on the Bible and divorce. Elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Association after the end of the Civil War, Mott tried to reconcile the two factions of the women's movement that had split over the priorities between woman suffrage and black male suffrage. Ever the peacemaker, Mott tried to heal the breach between Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. Mott died of pneumonia at age 87 in 1880.
Electoral College
The group of electors selected by the people who are responsible for the selection of the president. The number of electors in each state is equivalent the number of senators + the number of representatives in the House of Representatives.
Oliver Hazard Perry
United States Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (August 23, 1785 - August 23, 1819) was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, the son of USN Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander, a direct descendant of William Wallace.[1] He was an older brother to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry who compelled the opening of Japan. He served in the War of 1812 against Britain. Perry supervised the building of a fleet at Erie, Pennsylvania, at the age of 27. He earned the title "Hero of Lake Erie" for leading American forces in a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie, receiving a Congressional Gold Medal and the Thanks of Congress.[1][2] His leadership materially aided the successful outcomes of all nine Lake Erie military campaign victories, and the fleet victory was a turning point in the battle for the west in the War of 1812.[2] Perry became embroiled in a long standing and festering controversy with the Commander of the USS Niagara, Captain Jesse Elliott, over their conduct in the battle, and both were the subject of official charges that were lodged. In 1815, he successfully commanded the Java in the Mediterranean during the Second Barbary War. So seminal was his career that he was lionized in the press (being the subject of scores of books and articles),[3] has been heavily memorialized, and many places and ships have been named in his honor.
Miranda
a defendant must know his rights before he can voluntarily waive them. police officers must give suspects warnings before questioning them. *you have the right to remain silent *if you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you *you have the right to have an attorney present during questioning *if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning begins.
Grand Jury
a large jury, normally of 23 citizens, that determines if there is enough evidence to charge a defendant with a crime
Petit Jury
a trial jury, usually of 6-12 citizens, that decides the facts in a civil or criminal case
Exigent Circumatances
a warrant is not required for a search during an emergency. if a home is burning, or someone is screaming inside, police do not need a warrant to enter
Thirteenth Amendment
abolishes slavery
Gabriel Prosser
an educated slave-blacksmith who was inspired by the successful Haitian slave revolt. He planned an insurrection to capture Richmond and massacre whites, except Methodists, Quakers, Frenchmen, and the poor. He intended to make himself king of a new black nation. on aug. 30, 1800, he assembled a number of slaves outside of Richmond. However, an informer told authorities about the revolt. The militia captured several dozen slaves. He was eventually hanged in Richmond. As a result of the planned revolt, Virginia's slave laws were tightened and abolitionist societies were forced to go underground.
Denmark Vessey
an enslaved African American carpentar who had purchase his freedom, planed a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot was discovered, and Vesey and 34 conconspirators were hung
Nat Turner
an enslaved African American preacher, who led the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of about 80 followers launched a bloody, day-long rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, murdering nearly 60 whites (mostly women and children). The militia quelled the rebellion, and Turner was eventually hanged with over fifty of his comrades. nearly 200 other blackes were beaten and killed by militias and mobs reacting the the uprising. this caused Virginia and other southern states to pass new laws that prohibited the education of slaves and free blacks, restricted rights of assembly ond other civil rights for free blacks, and required white ministers to be present at black worship services.
Twenty Fourth Amendment
bans poll taxes (which were already illegal)
Prior Restraint
censoring a work before it is published
Twelfth Amendment
changes how the president and vice president are chosen. created separate balloting for the vice president and president
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
considered the mother of women's suffrage. delivered "A Declaration of Sentiments" speech which proclaimed that men and women are created equal
Twentieth Amendment
deals with "lame ducks" and how long they can continue to legislate. moved the inauguration dates of the president and members of congress from March to January. specifies who shall act as president if the president-elect dies or has not been chosen by the date of the inauguration.
Eleventh Amendment
deals with lawsuits against states. states cannot be sued unless the consent to being sued
Slander
defamation (hurting a person's reputation by spreading falsehoods) using spoken word
Libel
defamation using written word
Seventeenth Amendment
direct elections of U.S Senators.
Twenty First Amendment
ended prohibition. only amendment to be ratified by state ratifying conventions. Heber j grant instructed LDS not to vote for the ratification of the 21st amendment. nevertheless, utah was the deciding vote in ratifying the amendment
Harriet Tubman
escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective conductors of the Underground Railroad
Kansas-Nebraska Act
establishes the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The legislation repealed the Missouri Compromis and renewed tensions between anti and proslavery factions. The act allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery between the North and the South, because the south could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South. The new Republican party, shich was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soom emerged as the dominant Northern political force.
Peremptory Challenge
excluding a potential juror without case
Aaron Burr
from New York. U.S. Senator.
Twenty Third Amendment
gives Washington DC representation, and 3 electoral college votees
Fourteenth Amendment
gives black people citizenship. citizen clause overrules the dred scott decision. due process clause of the 14th amendmet. legal equality. equal protection clause. Selective incorporation allows federal laws (Bill of Rights) to be applied to the states. ends the 3/5's compromise. 21 year-old or older males could vote
Sixteenth Amendment
gives congress the power to levy an income taxes
Alice Paul
graduated from several colleges. earned her Ph D and a law degree. joined the women's suffrage movement, where she met Lucy Burns the two women became indoctrinated in the more militant and radical elemnts of British women's movements. feminist movement. formed the National Women's Party(NWP)
Missouri Compromise
in an effort to maintain the balance between free and slave states, Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) is admitted as a free state so that Missouri can be admitted as a slave state; except for Missouri, slavery is prohibited in the Louisiana Purchase lands north of latitude 36*30'
Lame Ducks
incumbents who have not been reelected to office
Twenty Seventh Amendment
limits congressional pay raises
Twenty Second Amendment
limits president to 2 terms by election, and a maximun of 10 years in office
Twenty Sixth Amendment
lowered the voting age from 21 to 18
Tenth Amendment
powers not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited from the states, are reserved for the states or to the people
Twenty Fifth Amendment
presidential succession and disability. vice president becomes president after presidential death or resignation. vacancy in vice presidency allows for president to nominant someone to the office, and they are confirmed by a majority both houses of congress.
Popular Sovereignty
principle that the people are the source of all governmental power.
Eighteenth Amendment
prohibition. first amendment to set a deadline (7 years) volstead act set down methods of enforcing this amendment. no manufacturing, purchasing, transporting of alcohol. domestic abuse was a contributing factor to the temperance movements. did not ban consumption. led to organized crime
Fifteenth Amendment
prohibts the government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
William Lloyd Garrison
published the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement and later the women's suffrage movement.
Voir Dire
questioning potential jurors to reveal their biases and knowledge of the case.
Reapportionment
reallocation of legislative sears based on changes in population
Majority
receiving more than 50% of the vote
Plurality
receiving the largest percentage of votes
Election of 1800
referred to as the "Revolution of 1800" Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent president John Adams. The eelcetion ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republicn Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party. The election exposed one of the flaws in the original Constitution. Members of the Electoral College could only vote for President; each elector could vote for two candidates, and the Vice President was the person who received the second largest number of votes during the election. The Democratic-Republicans had planned for one of the electors to abstain from casting his vote for Aaron Burr, which would have led to Jefferson receiving one electoral vote more than Burr. The plan, however, was bungled, resulting in a tied electoral vote between Jefferson and Burr. The elections was then put into the hands of the outgoing H of R controlled by the Federalist Party. Many voted for Burr, and the result was a week of deadlock. Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who detested both, but preferred Jefferson to Butt, was one of those who vigorously lobbied against Burr. Jefferson became president due to his supporters and Hamilton's approval.
Black Codes
rules enacted by southern legislatures to regulate every aspect of the lives of freed blacks. forbid them to vote, own firearms, or travel freely.
Susan B. Anthony
single woman who had time and energy to speak in public. gave speeches that were scripted by stanton. Anthony was the movement's organizer and tactician.
Eminent Domain
the government's power to take private property for public use
Impeachment
the process by which a civil officer of the United States is charged with wrongdoing
Nationalism
the supremacy of the federal government over the states
Double Jeopardy
trying a defendant more than once for the same offense
Ninth Amendment
unenumerated rights *those rights not specificallly denied in the Constitution are granted to the people
Stephen Decatur
was a United States naval officer and Commodore notable for his many naval victories in the early 19th century. He was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, in Worcester County, the son of a U.S. naval officer who served during the American Revolution. Shortly after attending college, Decatur followed in his father's footsteps and joined the U.S. Navy at the age of nineteen.[1] He was the youngest man to reach the rank of captain in the history of the United States Navy.[2] Decatur's father, Stephen Decatur, Sr., also became a commodore in the U.S. Navy - which brought the younger Stephen into the world of ships and sailing early on. Decatur supervised the construction of several U.S. naval vessels, one of which he would later command. He became an affluent member of Washington society and counted James Monroe and other Washington dignitaries among his personal friends.[3] Decatur joined the U.S. Navy in 1798 as a midshipman[4] and served under three presidents, playing a major role in the development of the young American Navy. In almost every theater of operation, Decatur's service was characterized with acts of heroism and exceptional performance in the many areas of military endeavor. His service in the Navy took him through the First and Second Barbary Wars in North Africa, the Quasi-War with France, and the War of 1812 with Britain. During this period of time he served aboard and commanded many naval vessels and ultimately became a member of the Board of Navy Commissioners. He built a large home in Washington, known as Decatur House, on Lafayette Square, which later became the home to a number of famous Americans, and was the center of Washington society in the early 19th century.[5] He was renowned for his natural ability to lead and for his genuine concern for the seamen under his command.[6] Decatur's distinguished career in the Navy would come to an early end when he lost his life in a duel with a rival officer.[7][8] His numerous naval victories against Britain, France and the Barbary states established the United States as a rising power. Decatur subsequently emerged as a national hero in his own lifetime, becoming the first post-Revolutionary War hero. His name and legacy, like that of John Paul Jones, soon became identified with the United States Navy
John C. Breckinridge
was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the state in both houses of Congress and in 1857, became the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States (1857-1861). Serving in the U.S. Senate at the outbreak of the Civil War, he was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War late in the war. A member of the Breckinridge family, he was the grandson of U.S. Attorney General John Breckinridge, son of Kentucky Secretary of State Cabell Breckinridge, and father of Arkansas Congressman Clifton R. Breckinridge. After non-combat service in the Mexican-American War, Breckinridge was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849 where he took a states' rights position against legal interference with slavery. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1851. he allied with Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. He was nominated for vice-president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by Pennsylvanian James Buchanan. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan and, as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in that body's debates. In 1859, he was elected to succeed U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861. After Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the party's northern and southern factions held rival conventions in Baltimore, Maryland that nominated Stephen Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively, for president. Breckinridge carried most of the southern states but no northern states and lost the election. Taking his seat in the Senate, he urged compromise to preserve the Union although seven states had already seceded. Unionists took control of the state legislature when Kentucky's neutrality was breached, but Breckinridge fled behind Confederate battle lines where he was commissioned a brigadier general; he was then expelled from the Senate. After the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to major general, and in October he was assigned to the command of Braxton Bragg. After Bragg charged that Breckinridge's drunkenness had contributed to Confederate defeats at Stone River and Missionary Ridge, he was transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department, where he won his most significant victory at the Battle of New Market. After participating in Jubal Early's 1864 campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, he was charged with defending Confederate supplies in Tennessee and Virginia. In February 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War. Concluding that the war was hopeless, he urged Davis to arrange a national surrender. After the fall of the Confederate capital at Richmond, he ensured the preservation of Confederate military and governmental records. He then fled to Cuba, Great Britain, and finally, to Canada. In exile, he toured Europe from August 1866 to June 1868. When President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in late 1868, he returned to Kentucky, but resisted all encouragement to resume his political career. Issues from war injuries sapped his health, and after two operations, he died on May 17, 1875.
John C. Calhoun
was a leading American politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. After 1830, his views evolved and he became a greater proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade; as he saw these means as the only way to preserve the Union. He is best known for his intense and original defense of slavery as something positive, his distrust of majoritarianism, and for pointing the South toward secession from the Union. Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights—with the Southern States the minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule, he called for a "concurrent majority" whereby the minority could sometimes block offensive proposals that a State felt infringed on their sovereign power. Always distrustful of democracy, he minimized the role of the Second Party System in South Carolina. Calhoun's defense of slavery became defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been cited by other advocates of the rights of minorities.[1] Calhoun asserted that Southern whites, outnumbered in the United States by voters of the more densely-populated Northern states, were one such minority deserving special protection in the legislature. Calhoun also saw the increasing population disparity to be the result of corrupt northern politics. Calhoun held major political offices, serving terms in the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate and as the seventh Vice President of the United States (1825-1832), as well as secretary of war and state. He usually affiliated with the Democrats, but flirted with the Whig Party and considered running for the presidency in 1824 and 1844. As a "war hawk", he agitated in Congress for the War of 1812 to defend American honor against Britain. Near the end of the war, he successfully delayed a vote on US Treasury notes being issued, arguing that the bill would not pass if the war were to end in the near future; the day of the vote, Congress received word from New York that the war was over. As Secretary of War under President James Monroe, he reorganized and modernized the War Department, building powerful permanent bureaucracies that ran the department, as opposed to patronage appointees and did so while trimming the requested funding each year. Calhoun died 11 years before the start of the American Civil War, but he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860-61. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his ideological rigidity [2][3] as well as for his determination to defend the causes he believed in, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification, under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they viewed as unconstitutional. He was an outspoken proponent of the institution of slavery, which he defended as a "positive good" rather than as a "necessary evil".[4] His rhetorical defense of slavery was partially responsible for escalating Southern threats of secession in the face of mounting abolitionist sentiment in the North.
Sam Houston
was a nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He is best known for his leading role in bringing Texas into the United States. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, U.S. Senator for Texas after it joined the United States, and finally as a governor of the state. He refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy when Texas seceded from the Union in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War, and was removed from office.[2] To avoid bloodshed, he refused an offer of a Union army to put down the Confederate rebellion. Instead, he retired to Huntsville, Texas, where he died before the end of the Civil War. His earlier life included migration to Tennessee from Virginia, time spent with the Cherokee Nation (into which he later was adopted as a citizen and into which he married), military service in the War of 1812, and successful participation in Tennessee politics. In 1827, Houston was elected Governor of Tennessee as a Jacksonian.[3] In 1829, Houston resigned as governor and relocated to Arkansas Territory.[4] In 1832, Houston was involved in an altercation with a U.S. Congressman, followed by a high-profile trial.[5] Shortly afterwards, he relocated to Coahuila y Tejas, then a Mexican state, and became a leader of the Texas Revolution.[6] Sam Houston supported annexation by the United States.[7] When he assumed the governorship of Texas in 1859, Houston became the only person to have become the governor of two different U.S. states through direct, popular election, as well as the only state governor to have been a foreign head of state. Namesake of the fourth largest city in the U.S., Houston's reputation was sufficiently large that he was honored in numerous ways after his death, among them: a memorial museum, four U.S. warships named USS Houston (AK-1, CA-80, CL81 and SSN-713), a U.S. Army base, a national forest, a historical park, a university and a prominent roadside statue outside of Huntsville.
Julia Ward Howe
was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, poet, and the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".
Harriet Beecher Stowe
was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a depiction of life for African Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. She wrote more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings and her public stands on social issues of the day.
John Brown
was an American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States.[1] During 1856 in Kansas, Brown commanded forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie.[1] Brown's followers also killed five pro-slavery supporters at Pottawatomie.[1] In 1859, Brown led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry that ended with his capture.[1] Brown's trial resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging.[1] Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty on all counts and was hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party to end slavery. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War. Brown first gained attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis. Unlike most other Northerners, who advocated peaceful resistance to the pro-slavery faction, Brown believed that peaceful resistance was shown to be ineffective and that the only way to defeat the oppressive system of slavery was through violent insurrection. He believed he was the instrument of God's wrath in punishing men for the sin of owning slaves.[2] Dissatisfied with the pacifism encouraged by the organized abolitionist movement, he said, "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!"[3] During the Kansas campaign, he and his supporters killed five pro-slavery southerners in what became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856 in response to the raid of the "free soil" city of Lawrence, Kansas. In 1859 he led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. During the raid, he seized the armory; seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the attack failed. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local pro-slavery farmers, militiamen, and U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Brown's subsequent capture by federal forces seized the nation's attention, as Southerners feared it was just the first of many Northern plots to cause a slave rebellion that might endanger their lives, while Republicans dismissed the notion and said they would not interfere with slavery in the South.[4] Historians agree John Brown played a major role in the start of the Civil War. Historian David Potter has said the emotional effect of Brown's raid was greater than the philosophical effect of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and that his raid revealed a deep division between North and South.[5] Some writers, such as Bruce Olds, describe him as a monomaniacal zealot; others, such as Stephen B. Oates, regard him as "one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation." David S. Reynolds hails the man who "killed slavery, sparked the civil war, and seeded civil rights" and Richard Owen Boyer emphasizes that Brown was "an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free."[6] The song "John Brown's Body" made him a heroic martyr and was a popular Union marching song during the Civil War. Brown's actions prior to the Civil War as an abolitionist, and the tactics he chose, still make him a controversial figure today. He is sometimes memorialized as a heroic martyr and a visionary and sometimes vilified as a madman and a terrorist.[7] Historians debate whether he was "America's first domestic terrorist"; many historians believe the term "terrorist" is an inappropriate label to describe Brown.[8]
Wendell Phillips
was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer.
Patrick Henry
was an American attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 and is remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is regarded as one of the most influential champions of Republicanism and an invested promoter of the American Revolution and its fight for independence. After the Revolution, Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia. He opposed the United States Constitution, fearing that it endangered the rights of the States as well as the freedoms of individuals; he helped gain adoption of the Bill of Rights. By 1798 however, he supported President John Adams and the Federalists; he denounced passage of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions as he feared the social unrest and widespread executions that had followed the increasing radicalism of the French Revolution. As a married man, Henry was an expanding landowner. By 1779, along with his cousin and her husband, Henry owned a 10,000-acre (40 km2) plantation known by the name of Leatherwood. He is also recorded to have purchased up to 78 slaves. In 1794 he and his wife retired to Red Hill Plantation, which had 520-acre (2.10 km2) in Charlotte County that was also a functioning tobacco plantation.
John C. Bell
was an American lawyer, politician, and judge. He was the 18th Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania (1943-1947) before becoming the 33rd and shortest-serving Governor of Pennsylvania, serving for nineteen days in 1947. He was later a Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (1950-1972), serving as Chief Justice from 1961 to 1972.
George Armistead
was an American military officer who served as the commander of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.
Stephen A. Douglas
was an American politician from Illinois and he was the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in a Senate contest, noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature, but a forceful and dominant figure in politics. Douglas was well known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation. He was a champion of the Young America movement which sought to modernize politics and replace the agrarian and strict constructionist orthodoxies of the past. Douglas was a leading proponent of democracy, and believed in the principle of popular sovereignty: that the majority of citizens should decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues; however, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened some previously prohibited territories to slavery under popular sovereignty. Opposition to this led to the formation of the Republican Party. Douglas initially endorsed the Dred Scott decision of 1857. But during the 1858 Senate campaign, he argued its effect could be negated by popular sovereignty.[1] He also opposed the efforts of President James Buchanan and his Southern allies to enact a Federal slave code and impose the Lecompton Constitution on Kansas. In 1860, the conflict over slavery led to the split in the Democratic Party in the 1860 Convention. Hardline pro-slavery Southerners rejected Douglas, and nominated their own candidate, Vice President John C. Breckinridge, while the Northern Democrats nominated Douglas. Douglas deeply believed in democracy, arguing the will of the people should always be decisive.[2] When civil war came in April 1861, he rallied his supporters to the Union with all his energies, but he died a few weeks later.
John Rutledge
was an American statesman and judge. He was the first Governor of South Carolina following the signing of the United States Constitution, the 31st overall. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, where he chaired a committee that wrote much of what was included in the final version of the United States Constitution,[1] which he also signed. He served as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and was the second Chief Justice of the Court from July to December 1795. He was the elder brother of Edward Rutledge, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson Davis
was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Davis was born in Kentucky and grew up on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War as the colonel of a volunteer regiment. He served as the United States Secretary of War under Democratic President Franklin Pierce, and as a Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi. His plantation in Mississippi depended on slave labor, like most Southern plantations. As a senator, he argued against secession, but did agree that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. Davis lost his first wife to malaria after three months of marriage, and the disease almost killed him as well. He had six children with his second wife, but only two of them survived him. He suffered from ill health for much of his life. As President of the Confederate States of America from its beginning in 1861 to its collapse in 1865, Davis took charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to stop the conquest by the larger, more powerful and better organized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country.[2] At home he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy; the government printed more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses, leading to runaway inflation.[3][4] Historians tend to attribute many of the Confederacy's weaknesses to President Davis.[5] His preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors, favoritism toward old friends, inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones, and a tendency to be out of touch with public opinion all worked against him.[6][7] Davis is described as a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln.[8] After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason but was not tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in Southern affection after the war by his leading general, Robert E. Lee. Nevertheless, many Southerners empathized with his defiance, refusal to accept defeat, and resistance to Reconstruction. Over time, admiration for his pride and ideals made him a Civil War hero to many Southerners, and his legacy became part of the foundation of the postwar New South.[9] Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which he completed in 1881 and which also helped to restore his reputation. By the late 1880s, he began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union. He became ill in mid-November 1889 and died in early December in New Orleans at the age of 81.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
was an early American statesman of South Carolina, Revolutionary War veteran, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was twice nominated by the Federalist Party as their presidential candidate, but he did not win either election. In the 1800 presidential election, Pinckney was the Federalist candidate for vice-president, running with the incumbent president, John Adams. They were defeated by the Democratic-Republicans Thomas Jefferson (who became president) and Aaron Burr (who became vice president). In 1804, the Federalist Party nominated Pinckney to run for the presidency against Jefferson. Jefferson, who was very popular due to the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase and booming trade, defeated Pinckney in a landslide. Pinckney won only 27.2% of the popular vote and carried only two states, Delaware and Connecticut. In 1808 he was again the Federalist nominee for president, running against Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison. Pinckney did not fare much better against Madison, carrying only five states and winning 32.4% of the popular vote. From 1805 until his death, Pinckney was president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati. Pinckney died on August 16, 1825 and was buried in St. Michael's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. His tombstone reads, "One of the founders of the American Republic. In war he was a companion in arms and friend of Washington. In peace he enjoyed his unchanging confidence."[4]
Lucy Burns
was born into a New York City Irish Catholic family. She attended Vassar College and Yale University before becoming an English teacher. In 1908 (age 29) she moved to England and graduated from Oxford University. While in Britain, she met Alice Paul and the two were instrumental in helping English women win the vote. The two returned to America and joined the National American Women Suffrage Association as its Congressional lobbyists. However, they eventually split from NAWSA in a dispute over tactics and eventually created the National Woman's Party (NWP) a few years later. The two had an interesting relationship where Paul was extremely combative and Burns was more diplomatic. The NWP used militant tactics that most American women and even suffragettes avoided. The NWP opposed Wilson's reelection because of his opposition to women's suffrage (see Alice Paul above). Burns also opposed World War I and Wilson's implementation of the draft. After the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Burns retired from political life and devoted herself to her church and family.
Andrew Johnson
was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as Abraham Lincoln's vice president at the time of Lincoln's assassination. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The first American president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. Johnson was born in poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina. Apprenticed as a tailor, he worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After brief service in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the federal House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became Governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. In his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill, which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. As Southern states, including Tennessee, seceded to form the Confederate States of America, Johnson remained firmly with the Union. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as military governor of Tennessee after it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson, as a War Democrat and Southern Unionist, was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign; their ticket easily won. Johnson was sworn in as vice president in March 1865, giving a rambling and possibly drunken speech, and he secluded himself to avoid public ridicule. Six weeks later, the assassination of Lincoln made him president. Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction - a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to re-form their civil governments. When Southern states returned many of their old leaders, and passed Black Codes to deprive the freedmen of many civil liberties, Congress refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congress overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency. Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to African American males. As the conflict between the branches of government grew, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnson in firing Cabinet officials. When he persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate and removal from office. Returning to Tennessee after his presidency, Johnson sought political vindication, and gained it in his eyes when he was elected to the Senate again in 1875 (the only former president to serve there), just months before his death. Although Johnson's ranking has fluctuated over time, he is generally considered among the worst American presidents for his opposition to federally guaranteed rights for African-Americans.
2000 Presidential Election
was the 54th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. The contest was between Republican candidate George W. Bush, the incumbent governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush, and Democratic candidate Al Gore, the incumbent Vice President. Incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton was not eligible to serve a third term, and Vice President Gore was able to secure the Democratic nomination with relative ease. Bush was seen as the early favorite for the Republican nomination, and despite a contentious primary battle with Senator John McCain and other candidates, secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. Many third party candidates also ran, most prominently Ralph Nader. Bush chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate, and Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman as his. Both major party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, though foreign policy was not ignored. Clinton and Gore did not often campaign together, a deliberate decision resulting from the Lewinsky sex scandal two years prior. Election results hinged on Florida, where the margin of victory triggered a mandatory recount. Litigation in select counties started additional recounts, and this litigation ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. The Court's contentious decision in Bush v. Gore, announced on December 12, 2000, ended the recounts, effectively awarding Florida's votes to Bush and granting him the victory. This marked only the fourth election in U.S. history in which the eventual winner failed to win a plurality of the popular vote (after the elections of 1824, 1876, and 1888). Later studies have reached conflicting opinions on who would have won the recount had it had been allowed to proceed.
Roger Taney
was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most remembered for delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), that ruled, among other things, that African-Americans, having been considered inferior at the time the Constitution was drafted, were not part of the original community of citizens and, whether free or slave, could not be considered citizens of the United States. Taney was a Jacksonian Democrat when he became Chief Justice. Described by his and President Andrew Jackson's critics as "[a] supple, cringing tool of Jacksonian power,"[1] Taney was a believer in states' rights but also the Union; a slaveholder who regretted the institution[citation needed] and manumitted his slaves.[2] From Prince Frederick, Maryland, he had practiced law and politics simultaneously and succeeded in both. After abandoning Federalism as a losing cause, he rose to the top of the state's Jacksonian machine. As U.S. Attorney General (1831-1833) and then Secretary of the Treasury (1833-1834), Taney became one of Andrew Jackson's closest advisers. ". . . He brought to the Chief Justiceship a high intelligence and legal acumen, kindness and humility, patriotism, and a determination to be a great Chief Justice that enabled him to mold the modest raw material of the Court into an effective and prestigious institution."[3] Taney died during the final months of the American Civil War on the same day that his home state of Maryland abolished slavery.
John Marshall
was the fourth Chief Justice of the United States (1801-1835) whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches. Previously, Marshall had been a leader of the Federalist Party in Virginia and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1799 to 1800. He was Secretary of State under President John Adams from 1800 to 1801. The longest-serving Chief Justice and the fourth longest-serving justice in US Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Court for over three decades and played a significant role in the development of the American legal system. Most notably, he reinforced the principle that federal courts are obligated to exercise judicial review, by disregarding purported laws if they violate the Constitution. Thus, Marshall cemented the position of the American judiciary as an independent and influential branch of government. Furthermore, Marshall's court made several important decisions relating to federalism, affecting the balance of power between the federal government and the states during the early years of the republic. In particular, he repeatedly confirmed the supremacy of federal law over state law, and supported an expansive reading of the enumerated powers
William Henry Harrison
was the ninth President of the United States (1841), an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when inaugurated, the oldest president to take office until Ronald Reagan in 1981, and last President to be born before the United States Declaration of Independence. Harrison died on his 32nd day in office[a] of complications from pneumonia, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis, but that crisis ultimately resolved many questions about presidential succession left unanswered by the Constitution until passage of the 25th Amendment. Before election as president, Harrison served as the first territorial congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. representative and senator from Ohio. He originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811,[1] where he earned the nickname "Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tippecanoe"). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable action was in the Battle of the Thames in 1813, which brought an end to hostilities in his region. This battle resulted in the death of Tecumseh and the disbandment of the Native American coalition which he led.[2] After the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, and in 1824 he became a member of the Senate. There he served a truncated term before being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia, he spoke with Simón Bolívar urging his nation to adopt American-style democracy, before returning to his farm in Ohio, where he lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency in 1836. Defeated, he retired again to his farm before being elected president in 1840, and died of pneumonia in April 1841, a month after taking office
Andrew Jackson
was the seventh President of the United States (1829-1837). Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814), and the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, as president he dismantled the Second Bank of the United States and initiated forced relocation and resettlement of Native American tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party. The 1830-1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy.[1] Jackson was nicknamed "Old Hickory" because of his toughness and aggressive personality; he fought in duels, some fatal to his opponents.[2] He was a wealthy slaveholder. He fought politically against what he denounced as a closed, undemocratic aristocracy, adding to his appeal to common citizens. He expanded the spoils system during his presidency to strengthen his political base. Elected president in 1828, Jackson supported a small and limited federal government. He strengthened the power of the presidency, which he saw as spokesman for the entire population, as opposed to Congressmen from a specific small district. He was supportive of states' rights, but during the Nullification Crisis, declared that states do not have the right to nullify federal laws. Strongly against the national bank, he vetoed the renewal of its charter and ensured its collapse. Whigs and moralists denounced his aggressive enforcement of the Indian Removal Act, which resulted in the forced relocation of thousands of Native Americans to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Historians acknowledge his protection of popular democracy and individual liberty for United States citizens, but criticize him for his support for slavery and for his role in Indian removal
Nineteenth Amendment
women's suffrage
