1.
United States presidential election, 1836
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The United States presidential election of 1836 was the 13th quadrennial presidential election, held from Thursday, November 3, to Wednesday, December 7,1836. The popular vote was closer, Martin Van Buren attracted 764,000 votes to the 738,000 won by the various Whig candidates. The strategy failed, but had three of the four received more electoral votes then Van Buren, it would have left to the House of Representatives to decide between the competing Whig candidates. Richard Mentor Johnson became the first Vice President elected by the United States Senate, although pledged to Van Buren and Johnson, Virginias 23 electors refused to vote for Johnson, which left him one electoral vote short of the 148-vote majority required to be elected. As such, it was left to the Senate to decide between the top two vote recipient recipients, Johnson and Francis Granger, Johnson was elected on the first ballot 33 to 16. This was the last election until the 1988 election in which the incumbent Vice President was elected to succeed the president under whom he served. The election of 1836 also marked an important turning point in American political history because of the part it played in establishing the Second Party System. In the 1830s the political party structure was changing, rapidly, the Democratic Party was organized. By the end of the campaign of 1836, the new party system was almost complete, incumbent President Andrew Jackson decided to retire after two terms and supported his vice-president, Martin Van Buren, to serve as the next president. The Whig Party emerged during the 1834 mid-term elections as the opposition to the Democratic Party. The party was formed members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party, disaffected Jacksonians. Some Southerners who were angered by Jacksons opposition to rights, including Sen. John C. Calhoun. Southern Nullifiers placed Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White into contention for the presidency in 1834 soon after his break with Jackson, White was a moderate on the states rights issue, which made him acceptable in the South, but not in the North. The state legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee officially nominated White, by early 1835, Whigs in the North were lining up behind Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster. Both Webster and White used debates in the Senate to establish their positions on the issues of the day, beginning at the end of 1835, some Whig state conventions in the North began to shift from Webster to popular former general William Henry Harrison. By mid 1836, the Northern free states except for Massachusetts, southern Whigs felt betrayed by Northern Whigs for abandoning White, who was still very popular there. In Massachusetts, the ticket was Daniel Webster and Granger, in South Carolina, the ticket was Willie P. Mangum for president and Tyler for vice-president. After the negative views of Freemasonry among a segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s
2.
Baltimore
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Baltimore is the largest city in the U. S. state of Maryland, and the 29th-most populous city in the country. It was established by the Constitution of Maryland and is not part of any county, thus, it is the largest independent city in the United States, with a population of 621,849 as of 2015. As of 2010, the population of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area was 2.7 million, founded in 1729, Baltimore is the second largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic. Baltimores Inner Harbor was once the leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States. With hundreds of identified districts, Baltimore has been dubbed a city of neighborhoods, in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, later the American national anthem, in Baltimore. More than 65,000 properties, or roughly one in three buildings in the city, are listed on the National Register, more than any city in the nation. The city has 289 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the historical records of the government of Baltimore are located at the Baltimore City Archives. The city is named after Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, of the Irish House of Lords, Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in County Longford on which the Calvert family lived in Ireland. Baltimore is an anglicization of the Irish name Baile an Tí Mhóir, in 1608, Captain John Smith traveled 210 miles from Jamestown to the uppermost Chesapeake Bay, leading the first European expedition to the Patapsco River. The name Patapsco is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to backwater or tide covered with froth in Algonquian dialect, a quarter century after John Smiths voyage, English colonists began to settle in Maryland. The area constituting the modern City of Baltimore and its area was first settled by David Jones in 1661. He claimed the area today as Harbor East on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was populated, if at all. The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the 10th millennium BC, one Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and Woodland period archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the Late Woodland period. During the Late Woodland period, the culture that is called the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore to the Rappahannock River in Virginia. It was located on the Bush River on land that in 1773 became part of Harford County, in 1674, the General Assembly passed An Act for erecting a Court-house and Prison in each County within this Province. The site of the house and jail for Baltimore County was evidently Old Baltimore near the Bush River. In 1683, the General Assembly passed An Act for Advancement of Trade to establish towns, ports, one of the towns established by the act in Baltimore County was on Bush River, on Town Land, near the Court-House
3.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
4.
Martin Van Buren
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Martin Van Buren was an American politician who served as the eighth President of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in a number of senior roles, including eighth Vice President and tenth Secretary of State. Van Buren won the presidency by promising to follow through on Jacksons policies, during his half-century of public service, he built, perfected, and defended a new system of political parties at first the state and then the federal level. In New York he reorganized the Democratic-Republican Party and established the Albany Regency to keep it in power and he then moved on Washington where he did more than anyone to construct the modern Democratic Party which dominated American politics down to the American Civil War. A delegate to a convention at age 18, he quickly moved from local to state politics. Elected to the Senate by the New York State Legislature in 1821, Van Buren supported William H. Crawford for president in the 1824 election, but by 1828 had come to support Jackson. Van Buren was a supporter and organizer for Jackson in the 1828 election. Jackson and Van Buren were elected, and after serving as governor for two months, Van Buren resigned to become Jacksons Secretary of State. During Jacksons eight years as president, Van Buren was a key advisor, in 1831, following his resignation as Secretary of State, which aided Jackson in resolving the Petticoat affair, Jackson gave Van Buren a recess appointment as American minister to Britain. Van Burens nomination was rejected by the Senate, cutting short his service in London, Van Buren faced little opposition for the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the 1836 presidential election. Van Buren was the first president to be born a United States citizen, of Dutch ancestry, he is the only president who spoke English as a second language, and was the first not to have a university degree or a military commission. As president, Van Buren was blamed for the depression of 1837 and he attempted to cure the economic problems by keeping control of federal funds in an independent treasury—rather than in state banks—but Congress would not approve of this until 1840. Additionally, relations with Britain and its colonies in Canada proved to be strained from the bloodless Aroostook War, in the 1840 election, Van Buren was voted out of office, losing to Whig candidate William Henry Harrison. Van Buren was the candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1844, but lost to James K. Polk. In the 1848 election Van Buren ran unsuccessfully as the candidate of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and he returned to the Democratic fold to endorse Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency. However, his increasingly abolitionist views and support for the Union led him to support Abraham Lincolns policies after the start of the American Civil War, Van Burens health began to fail in 1861, and he died in July 1862 at the age of 79. Martin Van Buren was born on December 5,1782, in the village of Kinderhook, Van Buren was the first President not born a British subject, or even of British ancestry. His father, Abraham van Buren, was an inn–tavern keeper, Abraham Van Buren supported the Patriot cause during the American Revolution as a captain in the Albany County Militias 7th Regiment, and later joined the Jeffersonian Republicans
5.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
6.
Richard Mentor Johnson
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Richard Mentor Johnson was the ninth Vice President of the United States, serving in the administration of Martin Van Buren. He is the vice president ever elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U. S. House of Representatives and Senate, he began, Johnson was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1806. He became allied with fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay as a member of the War Hawks faction that favored war with Britain in 1812. At the outset of the War of 1812, Johnson was commissioned a colonel in the Kentucky Militia and he and his brother James served under William Henry Harrison in Upper Canada. Johnson participated in the Battle of the Thames, some reported that he personally killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, which he later used to his political advantage. After the war, Johnson returned to the House of Representatives, the legislature appointed him to the Senate in 1819 to fill the seat vacated by John J. Crittenden. As his prominence grew, his relationship with Julia Chinn. It worked against his political ambitions, unlike other upper class leaders who had African American mistresses but never mentioned them, Johnson openly treated Chinn as his common law wife. He acknowledged their two daughters as his children, giving them his surname, much to the consternation of some of his constituents. The relationship is believed to have led to the loss of his Senate seat in 1829, in 1836, Johnson was the Democratic nominee for vice-president on a ticket with Martin Van Buren. Campaigning with the slogan Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh, virginias delegation to the Electoral College went against the states popular vote and refused to endorse Johnson, abstaining instead. However, he was elected to the office by the Senate, Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that they refused to renominate him for vice-president in 1840. President Van Buren campaigned for re-election without a running mate and he lost to William Henry Harrison, a Whig. Johnson tried to return to office but was defeated. He finally was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1850, Richard Mentor Johnson was born on October 17,1780, the fifth of Robert and Jemima Johnsons eleven children. At the time, the family was living in the newly founded settlement of Beargrass, near present-day Louisville, by 1782, the Johnsons had moved to Bryans Station in Fayette County. Johnsons mother was considered among the women of the community because of her actions during Simon Girtys raid on Bryans Station in August 1782
7.
Kentucky
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Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the east south-central region of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U. S. states constituted as a commonwealth, originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States, Kentucky is known as the Bluegrass State, a nickname based on the bluegrass found in many of its pastures due to the fertile soil. One of the regions in Kentucky is the Bluegrass Region in central Kentucky. In 1776, the counties of Virginia beyond the Appalachian Mountains became known as Kentucky County, the precise etymology of the name is uncertain, but likely based on an Iroquoian name meaning the meadow or the prairie. Kentucky is situated in the Upland South, a significant portion of eastern Kentucky is part of Appalachia. Kentucky borders seven states, from the Midwest and the Southeast, West Virginia lies to the east, Virginia to the southeast, Tennessee to the south, Missouri to the west, Illinois and Indiana to the northwest, and Ohio to the north and northeast. Only Missouri and Tennessee, both of which border eight states, touch more, Kentuckys northern border is formed by the Ohio River and its western border by the Mississippi River. The official state borders are based on the courses of the rivers as they existed when Kentucky became a state in 1792, for instance, northbound travelers on U. S.41 from Henderson, after crossing the Ohio River, will be in Kentucky for about two miles. Ellis Park, a racetrack, is located in this small piece of Kentucky. Waterworks Road is part of the land border between Indiana and Kentucky. Kentucky has a part known as Kentucky Bend, at the far west corner of the state. It exists as an exclave surrounded completely by Missouri and Tennessee, Road access to this small part of Kentucky on the Mississippi River requires a trip through Tennessee. The epicenter of the powerful 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes was near this area, much of the outer Bluegrass is in the Eden Shale Hills area, made up of short, steep, and very narrow hills. The Jackson Purchase and western Pennyrile are home to several bald cypress/tupelo swamps, located within the southeastern interior portion of North America, Kentucky has a climate that can best be described as a humid subtropical climate. Temperatures in Kentucky usually range from daytime summer highs of 87 °F to the low of 23 °F. The average precipitation is 46 inches a year, Kentucky experiences four distinct seasons, with substantial variations in the severity of summer and winter. The highest recorded temperature was 114 °F at Greensburg on July 28,1930 while the lowest recorded temperature was −37 °F at Shelbyville on January 19,1994, due to its location, Kentucky has a moderate humid subtropical climate, with abundant rainfall
8.
1832 Democratic National Convention
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The 1832 Democratic National Convention was held from May 21 to May 23,1832, in Baltimore, Maryland. The delegates nominated former Secretary of State Martin Van Buren for Vice President to replace and succeed the earlier incumbent John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and endorsed Jacksons reelection. Following that defeat in the election of 1824, early in 1827, such a type of national convention would occur after the election. The Petticoat affair in which Calhouns wife, Floride, was a central figure further alienated Jackson from the Vice President, the final blow to the relationship came when Calhoun sank Van Burens nomination as Minister to Great Britain by casting a tie-breaking vote in the United States Senate. Calhoun resigned as Vice President on 28 December 1832 and became a Senator from South Carolina, the proposal for the convention began with members of Jacksons Kitchen Cabinet, his coterie of informal advisers and confidants. Major William Berkeley Lewis wrote on May 25,1831, to Amos Kendall and it is probably the best plan which can be adopted to produce entire unanimity in the Republican party, and secure its lasting ascendancy. The convention was called to order by Frederick A, sumner of New Hampshire, who said of the origins and purpose of the convention, Delegates from all states except Missouri were present. Governor Robert Lucas of Ohio served as the chairman and convention president, peter Vivian Daniel, James Fenner, John M. Barclay, and Augustin Smith Clayton were chosen as convention vice presidents. John Adams Dix was appointed secretary at the first meeting, with other additional secretaries thereafter, a resolution was passed by the convention requiring two-thirds support of the delegates for a nomination. Martin Van Buren was nominated for the presidency after he won more than two-thirds of the total delegates votes. The convention endorsed the prior nominations in areas of the United States of Jackson for the presidency. The convention concluded by adopting a resolution calling for an address or report from the delegations to their constituents, an address by the Republican delegates of New York gave a history of previous national political activity in the United States. The address described what they claimed were political similarities between Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson and it defended the policies of Jacksons administration and it characterized Van Buren as a strict constructionist and welcomed his nomination. Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren defeated their main competitors, Henry Clay and John Sergeant of the National Republican Party, the electors of Pennsylvania supported Jackson, but cast their votes for William Wilkins for the vice presidency. None, Niles Weekly Register,42 Parton, James, Life of Andrew Jackson,3, Kessinger Publishing, rutland, Robert Allen, The Democrats, From Jefferson to Clinton, University of Missouri Press, ISBN 0-8262-1034-1
9.
1840 Democratic National Convention
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The 1840 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore. The Democrats nominated President Martin Van Buren for reelection in 1840 in spite of his unpopularity following the Panic of 1837, former President Andrew Jackson backed James K. Polk for the position of vice president, but Van Buren supported his vice presidents renomination. The convention ultimately decided not to nominate a mate for Van Buren. As a result, Van Buren became the major party presidential nominee since the passage of the 12th Amendment to seek election without a running mate. Polk and Johnson both received electoral votes for president in the general election, but the Whig ticket won the election. Delegates from 21 of 26 states were in attendance, States not in attendance were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, South Carolina and Virginia. The 1840 convention was the first at which the party adopted a platform, delegates reaffirmed their belief that the Constitution was the primary guide for each states political affairs. To them, this meant that all roles of the government not specifically defined fell to each respective state government. Decentralized power and states rights pervaded each and every resolution adopted at the convention including those on slavery, taxes, history of the United States Democratic Party Democratic Party Platform of 1840 at The American Presidency Project
10.
United States presidential nominating convention
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Other delegates to these conventions include political party members who are seated automatically, and are called unpledged delegates because they can choose for themselves for whom they vote for. Generally, usage of “presidential campaign nominating convention” refers to the two major parties’ quadrennial events, the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention. Some minor parties also select their nominees by convention, including the Green Party, the Socialist Party USA, the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, the convention cycle begins with the Call to Convention. Usually issued about 18 months in advance, the Call is an invitation from the party to the state. It also sets out the number of delegates to be awarded to each, the conventions are usually scheduled for four days of business, with the exception of the 1972 Republican and 2012 Democratic conventions, which were three days each. There is no rule dictating the order of the conventions, between 1864 and 1952, the Democrats went second every year. In 1956, when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was the incumbent, the Democrats went first, since 1952, all major party conventions have been held in the months of July, August or, early September. In 1996, both were held in August to accommodate the Atlanta Olympics in July, the last Summer Olympics to date to be played in the U. S, in 2000, both conventions preceded the Sydney Olympics in late September. In 2008 and 2012, the Democratic and Republican conventions were moved to back-to-back weeks following the conclusion of the Olympics, finally, the parties also did not want to schedule their conventions around the Olympics. But moving the conventions later into early September led to conflicts with the National Football Leagues season kickoff game, however, the NFL accommodated the conventions and moved its games to an earlier start time in 2008, and an earlier date in 2012. In 2016, both the Republican and Democratic conventions moved to July, before the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. The Democrats then followed suit so they could provide a response to the Republicans. Each party sets its own rules for the participation and format of the convention, broadly speaking, each U. S. state and territory party is apportioned a select number of voting representatives, individually known as delegates and collectively as the delegation. The selection of delegates and their alternates, too, is governed by the bylaws of each state party. The 2004 Democratic National Convention counted 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates, the 2004 Republican National Convention had 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternates. But these individuals are dwarfed by other attendees who do not participate in the business of the convention. The convention is held in a major city selected by the national party organization 18–24 months before the election is to be held. In the present day, political symbolism affects the selection of the host city as much as economic or logistical ones do, a particular city might be selected to enhance the standing of a favorite son, or in an effort to curry favor with residents of that state
11.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
13.
Vice President of the United States
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The executive power of both the vice president and the president is granted under Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. The vice president is elected, together with the president. The Office of the Vice President of the United States assists, as the president of the United States Senate, the vice president votes only when it is necessary to break a tie. Additionally, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the president presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College. Currently, the president is usually seen as an integral part of a presidents administration. The Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress. Mike Pence of Indiana is the 48th and current vice president and he assumed office on January 20,2017. The formation of the office of vice president resulted directly from the compromise reached at the Philadelphia Convention which created the Electoral College, the delegates at Philadelphia agreed that each state would receive a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that states allocation of Representatives and Senators. The delegates assumed that electors would typically choose to favor any candidate from their state over candidates from other states, under a plurality election process, this would tend to result in electing candidates solely from the largest states. Consequently, the delegates agreed that presidents must be elected by a majority of the number of electors. To guard against such stratagems, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the first runner-up presidential candidate would become vice president, the process for selecting the vice president was later modified in the Twelfth Amendment. Each elector still receives two votes, but now one of those votes is for president, while the other is for vice president. The requirement that one of those votes be cast for a candidate not from the electors own state remains in effect. S, other statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. As President of the Senate, the president has two primary duties, to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheneys tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority, as President of the Senate, the vice president oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes that was surpassed by John C. Calhoun with 31. Adamss votes protected the presidents sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, on at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters
14.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
15.
Andrew Jackson
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Andrew Jackson was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837 and was the founder of the Democratic Party. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson served in Congress, as president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the common man against what he saw as a corrupt aristocracy and to preserve the Union. Jackson was born in 1767 somewhere near the border between North and South Carolina, into a recently immigrated Scots-Irish farming family. During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson acted as a courier, at age 13, he was captured and mistreated by the British. He moved to Tennessee and practiced as a lawyer, in 1791, he married Rachel Donelson Robards. The couple later learned that Rachels previous husband had failed to finalize their divorce, Jackson served briefly in the U. S. House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate. Upon returning to Tennessee, he was appointed a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court, in 1801, Jackson was appointed colonel in the Tennessee militia, and was elected its commander the following year. He built the Hermitage plantation in 1804, in 1806, he killed a man in a duel over a matter of honor regarding his wife. He led Tennessee militia and U. S. Army regulars during the Creek War of 1813-1814, Jackson won a decisive victory in the War of 1812 over the British army at the Battle of New Orleans, making him into a national hero. Because Spanish Florida was a refuge for blacks escaping slavery, who allied with the Seminole Indians, Jackson invaded the territory in 1816 to destroy the Negro Fort. He led an invasion in 1818, as part of the First Seminole War, resulting in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819. Jackson briefly served as Floridas first Territorial Governor in 1821, Jackson was nominated by several state legislatures to be a candidate for president in 1824. Although he earned a plurality in both the electoral and popular vote against three major candidates, Jackson failed to get a majority and lost in the House of Representatives to John Quincy Adams, Jacksons supporters founded what became the Democratic Party. He ran again for president in 1828 against Adams, building and expanding upon his base of support in the West and South, he won in a landslide. He blamed the death of his wife, Rachel, which occurred after the election, on the Adams campaigners, as president, Jackson faced a threat of secession by South Carolina over the Tariff of Abominations, which Congress had enacted under Adams. In contrast to several of his successors, he denied the right of a state to secede from the union or to nullify federal law. The Nullification Crisis was defused when the tariff was amended and Jackson threatened the use of force if South Carolina attempted to secede. Jackson believed strongly in majority rule and he supported direct election of senators and abolition of the Electoral College, believing that these reforms would provide average citizens with greater power
16.
Tennessee
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Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States, Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, Tennessees capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 654,610. Memphis is the states largest city, with a population of 655,770, the state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1,1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, occupied by Union forces from 1862, it was the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state besides Virginia and this sharply reduced competition in politics in the state until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-20th century. This city was established to house the Manhattan Projects uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the worlds first atomic bomb, Tennessees major industries include agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. Poultry, soybeans, and cattle are the primary agricultural products, and major manufacturing exports include chemicals, transportation equipment. In the early 18th century, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi in present-day Monroe County, the town was located on a river of the same name, and appears on maps as early as 1725. The meaning and origin of the word are uncertain, some accounts suggest it is a Cherokee modification of an earlier Yuchi word. It has been said to mean meeting place, winding river, according to ethnographer James Mooney, the name can not be analyzed and its meaning is lost. The modern spelling, Tennessee, is attributed to James Glen, the governor of South Carolina, the spelling was popularized by the publication of Henry Timberlakes Draught of the Cherokee Country in 1765. In 1788, North Carolina created Tennessee County, the county to be established in what is now Middle Tennessee. When a constitutional convention met in 1796 to organize a new out of the Southwest Territory. Other sources differ on the origin of the nickname, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia. Tennessee ties Missouri as the state bordering the most other states, the state is trisected by the Tennessee River. The highest point in the state is Clingmans Dome at 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome, which lies on Tennessees eastern border, is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, and is the third highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River
17.
Andrew Stevenson
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Andrew Stevenson was a Democratic politician in the United States. He served in the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia, as Speaker of the House, Andrew Stevenson was born in Culpeper County, Virginia on January 21,1784. He was educated at the College of William and Mary, studied law, Stevenson was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1809 to 1816 and 1818 to 1821. He served as Speaker of the House of Delegates from 1812 to 1815, in 1814 and 1816 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. In 1820 Stevenson won election to the United States House of Representatives, from 1827 to 1834 he was the Speaker of the House. Stevenson began his Congressional career as a Democratic-Republican, as the Democratic-Republican Party began to split in the 1820s and 1830s and reorganized as the Democratic Party, he won reelection as a Crawford Republican, and then as a Jacksonian. Stevenson resigned from Congress in June 1834 to accept appointment as Minister to the United Kingdom, in June of that year the United States Senate denied him confirmation by a vote of 23 to 22. In the Anti-Jacksonian view, this amounted to a quid pro quo that allowed executive branch interference with the prerogatives of the legislative branch and he returned to Virginia and resumed the practice of law. In addition, he presided over the 1835 Democratic National Convention, in February 1836 President Andrew Jackson renominated Stevenson for Minister to Great Britain. He was confirmed 26 votes to 19, and served from 1836 to 1841, the Irish statesman Daniel OConnell was reported to have denounced Stevenson in public as a slave breeder, generally thought to be a more serious matter than simply being a slaveowner. Stevenson, outraged, challenged OConnell to a duel, but OConnell, who had an aversion to dueling, refused. Stevenson presided over the 1848 Democratic National Convention, in 1845 he was elected to the board of visitors of the University of Virginia. From 1856 to 1857 he served as the universitys rector and he died at his Blenheim estate on January 21,1857. He was buried at Enniscorthy Cemetery in Keene, Virginia, Stevenson purchased the Blenheim property in Albemarle County in 1846. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In 1809, he married Mary Page White, granddaughter of Carter Braxton, who was the mother of John White Stevenson, a Congressman, U. S. Senator, and who also served as Governor of Kentucky. In 1816 he married his wife, Sarah Coles, who was a cousin of Dolley Madison and a sister of Edward Coles. In 1849 he married Mary Schaff, biographical Directory of the United States Congress
18.
Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
19.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
20.
South Carolina
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South Carolina /ˌsaʊθ kærəˈlaɪnə/ is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. The state is bordered to the north by North Carolina, to the south and west by Georgia across the Savannah River, South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the U. S. Constitution, doing so on May 23,1788. South Carolina became the first state to vote to secede from the Union on December 20,1860, after the American Civil War, it was readmitted into the United States on June 25,1868. South Carolina is the 40th most extensive and the 23rd most populous U. S. state and its GDP as of 2013 was $183.6 billion, with an annual growth rate of 3. 13%. The capital and largest city is Columbia with a 2013 population of 133,358, South Carolina is named in honor of King Charles I of England, under whose reign the English colony was first formed, with Carolus being Latin for Charles. There is evidence of activity in the area about 12000 years ago. Along the Savannah River were the Apalachee, Yuchi, and the Yamasee, further west were the Cherokee, and along the Catawba River, the Catawba. These tribes were village-dwellers, relying on agriculture as their food source. The Cherokee lived in wattle and daub houses made with wood and clay, about a dozen separate small tribes summered on the coast harvesting oysters and fish, and cultivating corn, peas and beans. Travelling inland as much as 50 miles mostly by canoe, they wintered on the plain, hunting deer and gathering nuts. The names of these survive in place names like Edisto Island, Kiawah Island. The Spanish were the first Europeans in the area, in 1521, founding San Miguel de Gualdape, established with 500 settlers, it was abandoned within a year by 150 survivors. In 1562 French settlers established a settlement at what is now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena archaeological site on Parris Island, three years later the Spanish built a fort on the same site, but withdrew following hostilities with the English navy. In 1629, King Charles I of England established the Province of Carolina an area covering what is now South and North Carolina, Georgia, in the 1670s, English planters from the Barbados established themselves near what is now Charleston. Settlers built rice plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry, east of the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, settlers came from all over Europe. Plantation labor was done by African slaves who formed the majority of the population by 1720, another cash crop was the Indigo plant, a plant source of blue dye, developed by Eliza Lucas. Meanwhile, in Upstate South Carolina, west of the Fall Line, was settled by farmers and traders. Colonists overthrew the rule, seeing more direct representation
21.
Alabama
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Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 24th-most populous of the U. S. states. At nearly 1,500 miles, Alabama has one of the nations longest navigable inland waterways, Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the Heart of Dixie and the Cotton State, the state tree is the longleaf pine, and the state flower is the camellia. The largest city by population is Birmingham, which has long been the most industrialized city, the oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many states in the southern U. S. suffered economic hardship, like other southern states, Alabama legislators disenfranchised African Americans and many poor whites at the turn of the century. Following World War II, Alabama grew as the economy changed from one primarily based on agriculture to one with diversified interests. The state economy in the 21st century is based on management, automotive, finance, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, in the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo. The word Alabama is believed to have come from the Alabama language, the words spelling varies significantly among historical sources. As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, Allibamou. Sources disagree on the words meaning, some scholars suggest the word comes from the Choctaw alba and amo. The meaning may have been clearers of the thicket or herb gatherers, the state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language, an 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant Here We Rest. This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek, experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation. Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization, trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period and continued until European contact. The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no links to Mesoamerican culture
22.
William Cabell Rives
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William Cabell Rives was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat from Albemarle County, Virginia. He represented Virginia as a Jackson Democrat in both the U. S. House and Senate and also served as the U. S. minister to France. During the American Civil War, Rives served as a Delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress, Rives was born at Union Hill, the estate of his grandfather, Col. William Cabell, in Amherst County, Virginia. It was located on the James River in what is now Nelson County and his parents were Robert and Margaret Cabell Rives, and his brothers included Alexander Rives. He was a great-uncle of Alexander Brown, author of books on the history of Virginia. After private tutoring, Rives attended Hampden-Sydney College, followed by the College of William and he left Williamsburg to study law with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and in 1814 was admitted to the bar at Richmond. Rives began his law practice in Nelson County, but after marrying Judith Page Walker in 1819, he moved to her estate Castle Hill and this was his home for the remainder of his life. Rives political career began by serving in the constitutional convention of 1816. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1817–19 for Nelson County, in 1823 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1823 to 1829. In 1829 he was appointed by Andrew Jackson as minister to France serving for 3 years, on his return from France, Rives was elected to the United States Senate. He would serve three terms, the last as a member of the Whig Party, from 1849 to 1853, he was again minister to France. In 1860, he endorsed the call for a Constitutional Union Party Convention, Rives was a delegate to the February 1861 Peace Conference in Washington which sought to prevent the American Civil War. He spoke out against secession, but was loyal to Virginia when she did secede and he served in the Provisional Confederate Congress from 1861 to 1862, and the Second Confederate Congress from 1864 to 1865. Rives wrote several books, the most important being his Life and he served on the Board of Visitors for the University of Virginia from 1834 to 1849, and was for many years the president of the Virginia Historical Society. He died at Castle Hill in 1868 and was buried in the family cemetery and his son, Alfred Landon Rives, was a prominent engineer, and his granddaughter Amélie Rives was a novelist, best known for The Quick or the Dead. His second son William Cabell Rives, Jr. owned Cobham Park Estate and it was listed the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. His son, also William Cabell Rives donated the Peace Cross, Rives is the namesake of the town of Rivesville, West Virginia. William Cabell Rives, A Country to Serve by Barclay Rives, new York, Atelerix Press,2014 William Cabell Rives, A Country to Serve by Barclay Rives
23.
War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
24.
Whig Party (United States)
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The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four US presidents belonged to the party while in office and it emerged in the 1830s as the immediate successor to the National Republican and Anti-Masonic Parties, and was also rooted in the tradition of the Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s and it originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of the US Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and it appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants, and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal, Party founders chose the Whig name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The underlying political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not directly related to the British Whig party, the Whig Party nominated several presidential candidates in 1836. General William Henry Harrison of Ohio was nominated in 1840, former Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1844, another war hero, General Winfield Scott of New Jersey was the Whig Partys last presidential nominee, in 1852. In its two decades of existence, the Whig Party had two of its candidates, Harrison and Taylor, elected president, John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrisons death in 1841, but was expelled from the party later that year. Millard Fillmore, who became president after Taylors death in 1850, was the last Whig president, the party fell apart because of the internal tension over the expansion of slavery to the territories. Most Whig Party leaders eventually quit politics or changed parties, the northern voter base mostly gravitated to the new Republican Party. In the South, most joined the Know Nothing Party, which unsuccessfully ran Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, the Constitutional Union Party experienced significant success from conservative former Whigs in the Upper South during the 1860 presidential election. Whig ideology as a policy orientation persisted for decades and played a role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction. The name Whig derived from a term that Patriots used to refer to themselves during the American Revolution and it indicated hostility to the British Sovereign, and despite the identical name, did not directly derive from the British Whig Party. The American Whigs were modernizers who saw President Andrew Jackson as a man on horseback with a reactionary opposition to the forces of social, economic. Casting their enemy as King Andrew, they sought to identify themselves as opponents of governmental overreaching. Despite the apparent unity of Jeffersons Democratic-Republicans from 1800 to 1824, as Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements, and killed the Second Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. In 1831, Henry Clay re-entered the Senate and started planning a new party and he defended national rather than sectional interests. His Jacksonian opponents, however, distrusted the government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements
25.
William Smith (South Carolina senator)
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William Smith was chosen as a Democratic-Republican to the U. S. Senate representing South Carolina in 1816. The legislature declined to re-elect him when his term expired in 1823 and he was narrowly chosen senator in 1826 and was again replaced in 1831. Smith was one of the first Southerners to argue, at the time of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, calhouns doctrine and tactic of nullification. In 1828, seven electors from Georgia chose him for president, instead of Calhoun. In 1832, he moved to Louisiana, having lost his base in South Carolina. In 1836, he moved on to Huntsville, Alabama, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives for Madison County from August 1,1836, on March 3,1837, outgoing President Andrew Jackson nominated Smith to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Smiths nomination by a vote of 23–18, nevertheless, biographical Directory of the United States Congress
26.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
27.
History of the United States Democratic Party
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The Democratic Party of the United States is the oldest voter-based political party in the world, tracing its heritage back to the 1820s. During the Second Party System, from 1832 to the mid-1850s, under presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent. Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as networks of newspapers. The Democratic party was a proponent for farmers across the country, urban workers and it was especially attractive to Irish immigrants who increasingly controlled the party machinery in the cities. The party was less attractive to businessmen, plantation owners, Evangelical Protestants. The party advocated westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, greater equality among all white men, from the start of the Democratic party which was in 1828, 6th President John Quincy Adams was a Democratic-Republican, and he was not a slave-holder. The 7th through 15th Presidents were either Democratic or Whig and all slaveholders, finally, 16th President Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and the only non-slave-holding President, other than John and John Quincy Adams. Thus in 1860 the Civil War began between the mostly-Republican North against the mostly-Democratic, slaveholding South, the Democrats elected only two presidents to four terms of office for 72 years, Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson. The Party was split between the Bourbon Democrats, representing Eastern business interests, and the elements comprising poor farmers in the South. The agrarian element, marching behind the slogan of free silver, captured the Party in 1896, both Bryan and Wilson were leaders of the Progressive Movement, 1890s–1920s. Starting with 32nd President Franklin D. Eisenhower. S, important Democratic progressive/liberal leaders included Presidents, 33rd – Harry S Truman, and 36th – Lyndon B. Since the Presidential Election of 1976, Democrats have won five out of the last ten presidential elections, winning in the elections of 1976,1992 and 1996. The modern Democratic Party emerged in the 1830s from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party and it was built by Martin Van Buren who assembled a cadre of politicians in every state behind war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. The spirit of Jacksonian Democracy animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System, the new Democratic Party became a coalition of farmers, city-dwelling laborers, and Irish Catholics. Behind the party platforms, acceptance speeches of candidates, editorials, pamphlets and stump speeches, as Norton explains, The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed the government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 corrupt bargain had strengthened their suspicion of Washington politics, Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy benefited special-interest groups and their definition of the proper role of government tended to be negative, and Jacksons political power was largely expressed in negative acts
28.
Hezekiah Niles
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Hezekiah Niles, was an American editor and publisher of the Baltimore-based national weekly news magazine, Niles Weekly Register and the Weekly Register. Niles was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, to a Quaker family, in 1777, the family fled from Wilmington, Delaware, ahead of the British army to the home of James Jefferis on the east side of the Brandywine Creek near Jefferis Ford. Niles later asserted in the Weekly Register that a Hessian mercenary threatened to bayonet his mother while pregnant with him, the family returned to Wilmington and after the war his father rejoined the Quakers. At 17, Niles apprenticed with a Philadelphia printer for three years and he then worked in Wilmington for several years, attempting to establish a printing business that went bankrupt in 1801. In 1805 he published a literary magazine called the Apollo. Later in 1805, he moved to Baltimore, where until 1811 he edited a daily broadsheet, in 1811, he issued the prospectus for the Weekly Register and had 1,500 subscribers before the first issue had been published. Devoted primarily to politics, Niles Weekly Register is considered an important source for the history of the period, later in life, Niles was afflicted by a paralytic condition and retired to Wilmington, Delaware, where he died in 1839. Niles, Michigan and Niles, Ohio are named for him, Niles Register, 1811-1849, Window on the World, Journal of the War of 1812 and the Era 1800 to 1840, Fall,1996. Online version Kovarik, William, To Avoid the Coming Storm, Hezekiah Niles Weekly Register as a Voice of North-South Moderation,1811 -1836, American Journalism, online version Kovarik, William, Niles Register, Encyclopedia of American Journalism History. Biographical Sketch of Hezekiah Niles from The History of Chester County by Futhey and Cope Niles Weekly Register fulltext David D. Fowler, a five-volume compilation of news articles, personal letters, and anecdotes from early 19th century Florida. Thirty-eight years of Florida’s history between 1811 and 1849 from the Niles’ Weekly Register
29.
Democratic National Convention
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The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention, the primary goal of the Democratic National Convention is to nominate and confirm a candidate for president and vice president, adopt a comprehensive party platform and unify the party. Pledged delegates from all fifty U. S, like the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention marks the formal end of the primary election period and the start of the general election season. The partys presidential nominee is chosen in a series of state caucuses. Superdelegates, delegates whose votes are not bound to the outcome of a caucus or primary. To secure the nomination for the Democratic party in 2016, a candidate must secure 2,383 delegates and this number includes both pledged delegates and superdelegates. Prior to 1936, nomination for president was required, not merely by a majority, unless there was a popular incumbent, something that only happened three times between the Civil War and World War II, getting that many votes on the first ballot was implausible. The choice was a contentious debate that riled the passions of party leaders. Delegates were forced to vote for a nominee repeatedly until someone could capture a number of delegates needed. In 1912,1920 and most notoriously in 1924, the voting went on for dozens and dozens of ballots, backroom deals by party bosses were normal and often resulted in compromise nominees that became known as dark horse candidates. Dark horse candidates were people who never imagined they would run for president until the last moments of the convention, dark horse candidates were chosen in order to break deadlocks between more popular and powerful prospective nominees that blocked each other from gaining enough delegates to be nominated. The rules were changed to a majority in 1936. Since then only one multi-ballot convention has taken place, before about 1970, the partys choice of the vice-presidential nominee was usually not known until the last evening of the convention. This was because the nominee had little to do with the process. In order to prevent such things happening in the future, the presumptive nominee has, since 1984, announced his choice before the convention even opened. By 1824, the nominating caucus had fallen into disrepute and collapsed as a method of nominating presidential. A national convention idea had been brought up but nothing occurred until the next decade, state conventions and state legislatures emerged as the nomination apparatus until they were supplanted by the national convention method of nominating candidates. The first national convention of the Democratic Party began in Baltimore on May 21,1832, in that year the 2/3 rule was created, requiring a 2/3 vote to nominate a candidate, in order to show the partys unanimous support of Martin Van Buren for vice president
30.
United States presidential election, 1832
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The United States presidential election of 1832 was the 12th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, November 2, to Wednesday, December 5,1832. Jackson won 219 of the 286 electoral votes cast, Virginia Governor John Floyd, who was not a candidate, received the electoral votes of South Carolina. This was the first national election for Martin Van Buren of New York, Van Buren faced opposition for the vice-presidency within his own party, however, and as a result, all 30 Pennsylvania electors cast ballots for native son William Wilkins. For this reason, the candidates of 1832 were chosen by national conventions, the first national convention was held by the Anti-Masonic Party in Baltimore, Maryland, in September 1831. The National Republican Party and the Democratic Party soon imitated them, also holding conventions in Baltimore, as a result of this, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren and Secretary of War John H. Eaton resigned from office in April 1831, and Jackson requested the resignation of all cabinet offices as well except one. Van Buren instigated the procedure as a means of removing Calhoun supporters from the Cabinet, Calhoun further aggravated the president in the summer of 1831 when he issued his Fort Hill Letter, in which he outlined the constitutional basis for a states ability to nullify an act of Congress. At the time of Calhouns vote to end Van Burens political career, as a result, the Democratic Party followed the pattern of the opposition and called a national convention. The 1832 Democratic National Convention, the first of the Democratic Party, was held in the Athenaeum in Baltimore from May 21,1832, several decisions were made at this initial convention of the party. On the first day, a committee was appointed to provide a list of delegates each state. This committee, which came to be called the Credentials Committee. The Rules Committee gave a report that established several other customs. Each state was allotted as many votes as it had presidential electors, several states were over-represented, secondly, balloting was taken by states and not by individual delegates. Thirdly, two-thirds of the delegates would have to support a candidate for nomination, the fourth rule, which banned nomination speeches, was the only one the party quickly abandoned. No roll call vote was taken to nominate Jackson for a second term, instead, the convention passed a resolution stating that we most cordially concur in the repeated nominations which he has received in various parts of the union. Martin Van Buren was nominated for vice-president on the first ballot, afterwards, the convention approved an address to the nation and adjourned. The Barbour Democratic National Convention was held in June 1832 in Staunton, Jackson was nominated for president and Philip P. Barbour was nominated for vice-president. Although Barbour withdrew, the ticket appeared on the ballot in five states, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, soon after the Anti-Masonic Party held its national convention, supporters of Henry Clay called a national convention of the National Republican Party
31.
United States presidential election, 1840
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The United States presidential election of 1840 was the 14th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, October 30, to Wednesday, December 2,1840. Under these circumstances, the Whigs easily defeated Van Buren, Polk, who received one electoral vote for vice president, and who would succeed Tyler in 1845. 42. 4% of the age population voted for Harrison. The 67-year-old Harrison was the oldest US president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, Harrison died little more than a month after his inauguration. The choice of Tyler for Vice President proved to be disastrous for the Whigs, in September 1841, he was expelled from the party. The Whigs would only one other president, in 1848. Taylor would also die in office, only serving for more than a year, and his successor Millard Fillmore destroyed the Whig image. President Martin Van Buren, who lost this election, attempted to regain the Democratic nomination in 1844, upon losing, he won the nomination of the Free-Soil party in 1848. Democratic candidates Van Buren, the incumbent president, was re-nominated in Baltimore in May 1840, the party refused to re-nominate his sitting vice president, Richard M. Johnson, but could not agree on an alternative, and so nominated no one. This remains the only time since the passage of the 12th Amendment, in the electoral college, the Democratic vice presidential votes were divided among Johnson, Littleton W. Tazewell, and James K. Polk. The convention was chaired by Isaac C. Bates of Massachusetts, the party nominated the popular retired general William Henry Harrison of Ohio for President, the most successful of the three Whig presidential candidates from the previous election. Harrison, though a slave-owner and aristocrat, was perceived as being simple, the convention nominated former Senator John Tyler from Virginia for Vice President. The two would go on to win the 1840 presidential election by defeating Van Buren, because Harrison was considered a Northerner, the Whigs needed to balance the ticket with a Southerner. They also sought a Clay supporter to help unite the party, Tyler was finally chosen by the convention after several Southern Clay supporters had been approached but refused. Tyler had previously been the running-mate of Hugh Lawson White and Willie Person Mangum during the four-way Whig campaign at the previous election. After the negative views of Freemasonry among a segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s. Its leaders began to move one by one to the Whig party, Party leaders met in September 1837 in Washington, D. C. and agreed to maintain the party. The third Anti-Masonic Party National Convention was held in Philadelphia on November 13-14,1838, by this time, the party had been almost entirely supplanted by the Whigs
32.
William Henry Harrison
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William Henry Harrison Sr. was the ninth President of the United States, an American military officer, and the last president born as a British subject. He was 68 years,23 days old at the time of his inauguration and he died of complications from pneumonia 31 days into his term, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. He was the first president to die in office, and his death sparked a constitutional crisis. He was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, who served as the 23rd United States President from 1889 to 1893, before election as president, Harrison served as the first congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory and the first Governor of Indiana Territory. He gained national fame for leading U. S. forces against Native Americans at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, as a general officer in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable action was in the Battle of the Thames in 1813. This battle resulted in the death of Tecumseh and the dissolution of the Indian coalition which Tecumseh had led, after the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1824, the legislature elected him to the United States Senate. He served a term after being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia in May 1828. In Santa Fe de Bogotá, he spoke with president Simón Bolívar, returning to his farm in Ohio, Harrison lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency as one of several Whig Party candidates in the election of 1836. He received more votes than any other Whig, but was defeated by Democrat Martin Van Buren and he retired again to his farm. Van Buren soon became a target of criticism from the Whigs surrounding economic difficulties following the Panic of 1837. John Tyler of Virginia was selected as his running mate, Harrison and Tyler defeated Van Buren in the 1840 election. However, Harrison died of pneumonia in April 1841, a month after taking office, Tyler then assumed all of the powers and duties of the president, setting a major precedent. Harrison was a member of a prominent political family of entirely English descent, Harrison was also the last U. S. president born as a British subject before American Revolution. Benjamin Harrison V, Williams father, was a Virginia planter who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, the senior Harrison also served in the Virginia legislature as the fifth governor of Virginia in the years during and after the American Revolutionary War. Williams older brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, represented Virginia in the U. S. House, Harrison was tutored at home before he entered Hampden–Sydney College, the Presbyterian school in Virginia in 1787 at age 14. He remained at the school until 1790, receiving an education that included Latin, Greek, French, logic. Harrisons Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly because of a revival that was occurring at the school
33.
Hugh Lawson White
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Hugh Lawson White was a prominent American politician during the first third of the 19th century. He succeeded Andrew Jackson and served in the United States Senate, representing Tennessee, from 1825 until his resignation in 1840 and he also served as a state supreme court justice, and president of the Knoxville branch of the Bank of Tennessee. An ardent strict constructionist and lifelong states rights advocate, White was one of President Jacksons most trusted allies in Congress in the late 1820s and early 1830s. White fought against the bank, tariffs, and the use of federal funds for internal improvements. In 1833, at the height of the Nullification Crisis, White, as the Senates president pro tempore, suspicious of the growing power of the presidency, White began to distance himself from Jackson in the mid-1830s, and realigned himself with Henry Clay and the burgeoning Whig Party. He was eventually forced out of the Senate when Jacksons allies, led by James K. Polk, gained control of the Tennessee state legislature, White was born in what is now Iredell County, North Carolina, the eldest son of James White and Mary Lawson White. James, a Revolutionary War veteran, moved his family to the Tennessee frontier in the 1780s, in 1786, he constructed Whites Fort, which would eventually develop into Knoxville, Tennessee. Young Hugh was a sentinel at the fort, and helped manage its small gristmill, in 1791, Whites Fort was chosen as the capital of the newly created Southwest Territory, and James Whites friend, William Blount, was appointed governor of the territory. Hugh Lawson White worked as Blounts personal secretary, and was tutored by early Knoxville minister and educator, in 1793, he fought in the territorial militia under John Sevier during the Cherokee–American wars. Historian J. G. M. White studied law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, under James Hopkins, two years later, he married Elizabeth Carrick, the daughter of his mentor, Samuel. In 1801, White was appointed judge of the Superior Court of Tennessee, in 1807, he resigned after being elected to the state legislature. He left the legislature in 1809, following his appointment to the states Court of Errors. He resigned this position in 1815, when he was elected to the state senate and he served in the state senate until 1817. As a state legislator, White helped reform the land laws. In 1812, White was named president of the Knoxville branch of the Bank of Tennessee, White was described as a very cautious banker, and his bank was one of the few in the state to survive the Panic of 1819. In 1821, President James Monroe appointed White to a commission to settle claims against Spain, in 1825, the Tennessee state legislature chose White to replace Andrew Jackson in the United States Senate. White argued that if the U. S, following Jacksons election to the presidency in 1828, White became one of the Jackson Administrations key congressional allies. White was chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which drew up the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a major initiative of Jackson
34.
Daniel Webster
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Daniel Webster was an American politician who twice served in the United States House of Representatives, representing New Hampshire and Massachusetts, served as a U. S. Senator from Massachusetts and was twice the United States Secretary of State, under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler and he and James G. Blaine were the only two people to serve as Secretary of State under three presidents. Webster also sought the Whig Party nomination for President three times, in 1836,1840 and 1852. As a diplomat he is best known for negotiating the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with Great Britain, Webster was an outstanding spokesman for American nationalism with powerful oratory that made him a key Whig leader. He spoke for conservatives and led the opposition to Democrat Andrew Jackson and he was a spokesman for modernization, banking, and industry, but not for the common people who composed the base of his opponents in Jacksonian democracy. He was a thoroughgoing elitist, and he reveled in it, chiefly recognized for his Senate tenure, Webster was a key figure in the institutions Golden days. Webster was the Northern member of the Great Triumvirate, with his colleagues Henry Clay from the West and his Reply to Hayne in 1830 has been regarded as one of the greatest speeches in the Senates history. As with his fellow Whig Henry Clay, Webster wanted to see the Union preserved and they both worked for compromises to stave off the sectionalism that threatened war between the North and the South. Websters support for the Compromise of 1850, devised in part by Clay, in 1957, a Senate committee selected Webster as one of the five greatest U. S. Senators with Clay, Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert A. Taft, Daniel Webster was born on January 18,1782, in Salisbury, New Hampshire, the present-day city of Franklin. He was the son of Abigail and Ebenezer Webster and he and his nine siblings grew up on their parents farm, a small parcel of land granted to his father. His ancestors were among the settlers of Salisbury. Webster attended Phillips Exeter Academy, a school in Exeter. He was chosen Fourth of July orator in Hanover, the town, in 1800. After he graduated from Dartmouth, Webster was apprenticed to the lawyer Thomas W. Thompson in Salisbury, in 1802 Webster began as the headmaster of the Fryeburg Academy, Maine, where he served for one year. When Ezekiels education could no longer be sustained, Webster returned to his apprenticeship, in 1804 he left New Hampshire and got a position in Boston under the prominent attorney Christopher Gore. Clerking for Gore – who was involved in international, national, in 1805 Webster was admitted to the bar. He returned to New Hampshire to set up a practice in Boscawen and he began to speak locally in support of Federalist causes and candidates
35.
Willie Person Mangum
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Willie Person Mangum was a U. S. Senator from the state of North Carolina between 1831 and 1836 and between 1840 and 1853 and he is, as of 2017, the only major-party presidential nominee to have been a North Carolinian at the time of his nomination. Mangum was born in Durham County, North Carolina, to a family of the planter class and he was the son of Catherine and William Person Mangum. In his youth, he attended the private school in Raleigh run by John Chavis. They remained friends for years and had a long correspondence and he graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1815. Mangum began a law practice and entered politics and he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1823 to 1826. After an interlude as a court judge, he was elected by the legislature as a Democrat to the Senate from North Carolina in 1830. Mangums stay in the Democratic Party was short and he opposed President Andrew Jackson on most of the major issues of the day, including the protective tariff, nullification, and the Bank of the United States. In 1834, Mangum openly declared himself to be a Whig and this possibility, however, did not come to fruition and Democratic candidate Martin Van Buren won the election with an outright majority of electoral votes. The legislature of South Carolina gave Mangum its 11 electoral votes, after a four-year absence, Mangum served two more terms in the Senate, where he was an important ally of Henry Clay. After the resignation of Samuel Lewis Southard, he served as president pro tempore from 1842 to 1845 during a vice presidential vacancy. In 1852, he refused an offer to be a candidate for president on the Whig national ticket. Realizing that he had little chance of being re-elected as the Whig Party broke up following the 1852 elections, in 1856 he, like many ex-Whigs, joined the nativist American Party, but a stroke soon afterward ended his political career. Mangum died at his estate in Red Mountain, an unincorporated area of Durham County. He was buried in the cemetery on his estate. Mangum married Charity Alston Cain in 1819 and their only son died in July 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run, a month before his father. His plantation was known as Walnut Hall, a 1931 biography of John Chavis noted that Mangum had allowed his former teacher to be buried on his land. The gravesite was found in 1988 by the John Chavis Historical Society, biographical Directory of the United States Congress
36.
Francis Granger
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Francis Granger was a Representative from New York and United States Postmaster General. He was a Whig Party vice presidential nominee in 1836 and is the person to ever lose a contingent election for Vice President. His father Gideon Granger was also Postmaster General, the longest serving one in United States history, Granger was born in Suffield, Connecticut, and pursued classical studies at and graduated from Yale College in 1811. He then moved with his father to Canandaigua, New York in 1814 and his home at Canandaigua from 1817 to 1827, now known as the Francis Granger House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Granger serving two terms in the United States House, Granger started his own political career as a member of the State Assembly from 1826 to 1828 and from 1830 to 1832. He ran unsuccessful campaigns for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1828 and he was then elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the 24th Congress. In 1836, the Whig Party was unable to settle on one set of candidates for its Presidential ticket. Granger was the Vice-Presidential nominee for the northern and border states on the ticket as William Henry Harrison. Though Martin Van Buren easily secured enough votes in the Electoral College to win the presidency, as a result, votes were split among Johnson, Granger, John Tyler and William Smith with none getting the majority. In the same election, Granger was also running as a Whig candidate for election to the 25th Congress and he served from November 27,1841 to March 3,1843 and was not a candidate for reelection in 1842. A supporter of the Compromise of 1850, Granger led the group which became known as the Silver Gray Whigs after Grangers own silver hair. This faction would remain in conflict with the anti-Compromise Sewardites until the collapse of the Whig Party in the state in 1855. Chairman of the Whig National Executive Committee from 1856 to 1860 and he was then a member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, D. C. in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war. He died in Canandaigua and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, today, he is the namesake of Francis Granger Middle School, a junior high school in Aurora, Illinois. He was also famous for his saying When the sun does shine, biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Francis Granger at Find a Grave
37.
John Tyler
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John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States. He was also, briefly, the tenth Vice President, elected to office on the 1840 Whig ticket with William Henry Harrison. Tyler became president after Harrisons death in April 1841, only a month after the start of the new administration. Still, the circumstances of his rise to the presidency. A firm believer in manifest destiny, President Tyler sought to strengthen and preserve the Union through territorial expansion, Tyler, born to an eminent Virginia family, came to national prominence at a time of political upheaval. In the 1820s the nations only political party, the Democratic-Republicans, though initially a Democrat, his opposition to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren led him to ally with the Whig Party. Tyler served as a Virginia state legislator, governor, U. S. representative and he was put on the ticket to attract states rights Southerners to what was then a Whig coalition to defeat Van Burens re-election bid. Harrisons death made Tyler the first vice president to succeed to the presidency without being elected to the office, because of the short duration of Harrisons one-month term, Tyler served longer than any president in U. S. history who was never elected to the office. A strict constructionist, Tyler found much of the Whig platform unconstitutional, believing that the president should set policy instead of deferring to Congress, he attempted to bypass the Whig establishment, most notably Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. Most of Tylers Cabinet resigned soon into his term, and the Whigs, dubbing him His Accidency, though Tyler was not the first president to veto bills, he was the first to see his veto overridden by Congress. Although he faced a stalemate on domestic policy, he had several achievements, including the Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain. He initially sought election to a term as president, but after failing to gain the support of either Whigs or Democrats. When the American Civil War began in 1861, Tyler sided with the Confederate government, although some have praised Tylers political resolve, his presidency is generally held in low esteem by historians. He is considered an obscure president, with presence in American cultural memory. John Tyler was born on March 29,1790, like his future running mate William Henry Harrison, he hailed from Charles City County, Virginia, both descended from aristocratic and politically entrenched families. The Tyler family traced its lineage to colonial Williamsburg in the 17th century, the elder Tyler served four years as Speaker of the House of Delegates before becoming a state court judge. He subsequently served as governor and as a judge on the U. S. District Court at Richmond and his wife, Mary Marot, was the daughter of a prominent plantation owner, Robert Booth Armistead. She died of a stroke when her son John was seven years old, with his two brothers and five sisters, Tyler was raised on Greenway Plantation, a 1, 200-acre estate with a six-room manor house his father had built
38.
Democratic National Committee
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The Democratic National Committee is the formal governing body for the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state and it organizes the Democratic National Convention held every four years to nominate and confirm a candidate for president, and to formulate the party platform. While it provides support for party candidates, it not have direct authority over elected officials. The DNC is composed of the chairs and vice-chairs of each state Democratic Party committee and over 200 members elected by Democrats in all 50 states and its chairperson is elected by the committee. It conducts fundraising to support its activities, the DNC was established at the 1848 Democratic National Convention. The DNCs main counterpart is the Republican National Committee, the DNC is responsible for articulating and promoting the Democratic platform and coordinating party organizational activity. When the president is a Democrat, the party generally works closely with the president, there are state committees in every state, as well as local committees in most cities, wards, and towns. The chairperson of the DNC is elected by vote of members of the Democratic National Committee, primary elections, in particular, are invariably conducted by state governments according to their own laws. Outside of the process of nominating a candidate, the DNCs role in actually selecting candidates to run on the party ticket is minimal. All DNC members are superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention whose role can influence a close primary race, sitting Democratic governors and members of Congress. Distinguished party leaders, consisting of current and former presidents, vice presidents, congressional leaders, in the 2002 election cycle, the DNC and its affiliated committees raised a total of US $162,062,084, 42% of which was hard money. The largest contributor, with US $7,297,937 was the Saban Capital Group, fred Eychaner, the owner of Newsweb Corporation, gave the second highest amount of money to the DNC and its affiliates, US $5,175,000. The third largest contributor was Steve Bing of Shangri-La Entertainment, who gave US $4,758,000, in the 2006 election cycle, the DNC raised a total of US $37,939,887. The three largest contributors were investment bank Goldman Sachs, university of California and Pond North LLP. The DNC introduced a fund raising campaign, the Democracy Bonds program. There were only 31,000 Democracy Bond donors by May 2006, the program no longer is in place. In the 2016 election cycle, the DNC raised a total of US $75,945,536 as of July 21,2016, the three largest contributors were hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, Newsweb Corp and Total Wine. In July 2015, during the 2016 election cycle, the DNC, led by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Chair, Tom Perez, former U. S. Secretary of Labor under Barack Obama Deputy Chair, Keith Ellison, U. S. S
39.
Robert Milligan McLane
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Robert McLane was also the name of the Mayor of Baltimore from 1903-1904. Robert Milligan McLane was an American politician, military officer, McLane was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1815, the son of Louis McLane and Catherine Mary Milligan. His birthplace, the Louis McLane House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and he received early education from a private school conducted by John Bullock, a Quaker. He received higher education from St. Mary’s College in Baltimore, Maryland until he moved with his family to Europe and he was sent to Paris to receive further education from Collège Bourbon, where he became acquainted with the Marquis de Lafayette. McLane and his moved back to the United States in 1833 when his father was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. McLane was deployed with his regiment to Florida during the Seminole War in 1837 under the command of General Thomas S. Jesup, in 1838, he was transferred to the Corps of Topographical Engineers under General Zachary Taylor. In 1841, he was sent to the Northern Lakes for survey work and was sent to Europe to examine the dikes and drainage systems in the Netherlands. While in Europe, he met his wife, Georgine Urquhart. McLane resigned his commission in 1843 to pursue the study of law and he commenced practice in Baltimore thereafter. In 1845, McLane was elected as a representative of Baltimore City to the Maryland House of Delegates after successfully campaigning for President James K. Polk a year previous. In 1846, McLane ran for Congress and defeated his Whig opponent, John P. Kennedy and he was re-elected two years later, and served from March 4,1847, to March 3,1851. In Congress, McLane was seen as an orator, and. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1850, after his tenure in Congress, McLane moved to the Western United States to become a counsel for a mining corporation, which was engaged in legal activities regarding property in California. He remained out West until 1852, when he returned to Maryland to serve as Presidential elector for Franklin Pierce and he successfully renewed trade relations between both nations, but returned to the United States in 1854 due to poor health. The United States and Mexico had broken off relations in 1858. He also negotiated, as ambassador, the McLane-Ocampo Treaty, which would have expanded the rights of the U. S. across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to include an interoceanic canal concession. However, the treaty was not ratified by the United States Senate, McLane retired as Ambassador to Mexico on December 22,1860. During the American Civil War, the Federal Government, under President Abraham Lincoln, McLane was a member of the delegation sent to Washington, D. C. to question the actions of the Federal Government
40.
David Allen Smalley
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David Allen Smalley was a United States federal judge. Smalley was born in Middlebury, Vermont on April 6,1809 and he graduated from the academy in St. Albans, read law with his uncle, and was admitted to the bar. He practiced in Jericho, Vermont, where he was postmaster from 1831 to 1836. He subsequently relocated, first to Lowell, Vermont, and then to Burlington and he was a member of the Vermont State Senate from 1843 to 1844. He practiced law in Burlington with different partners at different times, one partner was Edward J. Phelps, and the firm of Smalley & Phelps included George F. Edmunds among those who studied law in their offices. President Franklin Pierce appointed him Collector of Customs for the District of Vermont in 1853, again a delegate at the 1856 Democratic National Convention held in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was reappointed to the National Committee, and he served Chairman from 1856 to 1860. On February 2,1857, Smalley was nominated by President Franklin Pierce to the seat on the United States District Court for the District of Vermont vacated by the death of Samuel Prentiss. Smalley was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 3,1857, as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee it was Smalleys task to open the ill-fated 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina. He continued to serve as District Judge until his death in Burlington on March 10,1877 and he was buried in Burlingtons Greenmount Cemetery. Smalley received a master of arts degree from the University of Vermont in 1846. In 1833 Smalley married Laura Barlow, the daughter of Bradley Barlow and they had five children, three of whom lived to adulthood, Henry Adams, Bradley Barlow, and Eugene Allen. Henry A. Smalley attended Norwich University and the University of Vermont and he was a graduate of the United States Military Academy and attained the rank of brevet Brigadier General during the American Civil War. He later worked as an engineer for New York City, and was responsible for the construction of the New Croton Aqueduct and he served on the staff of Governor Frederick Holbrook with the rank of Colonel during the Civil War. Smalley was later appointed Clerk of the U. S. District Court and he also served on the Burlington City Council and was a member of the Democratic National Committee. Eugene A. Smalley attended the University of Vermont and Union College and he enlisted for the Civil War as a Private in the 19th Ohio Infantry. He was subsequently commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, after his 1866 discharge he was a farmer in Colchester, Vermont, and also worked as Vermonts Deputy Customs Collector and Deputy U. S. Marshal. David Allen Smalley at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center, david A. Smalley at The Political Graveyard
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August Belmont
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He is the namesake of the Belmont Stakes, third jewel of the Triple Crown series of American thoroughbred horse racing. After his mothers death, when he was age seven, he lived with his uncle and he attended The Philanthropin, a Jewish school, until he began his first job as an apprentice to the Rothschild banking firm in Frankfurt am Main. The young August would sweep floors, polish furniture and run errands while studying English, arithmetic and he was promoted to confidential clerk in 1832 and later traveled to Naples, Paris and Rome. At age 24, in 1837, Schönberg/Belmont set sail for the Spanish colony of Cuba and its city of Havana. On his way to Havana, Schönberg/Belmont stopped in New York City on a layover, Belmont remained in New York to supervise the jeopardized Rothschild financial interests in America, whose New York agent had filed for bankruptcy, instead of continuing on to Havana. After he emigrated permanently to the United States, he changed his surname, Schönberg, to Belmont in an attempt to avoid anti-Semitism. In the financial/economic recession and Panic of 1837, hundreds of American businesses, including the Rothschild familys American agent in New York City, collapsed. As a result, Belmont postponed his departure for Havana indefinitely and began a new firm, August Belmont & Company, believing that he could supplant the recently bankrupt firm, the American Agency. August Belmont & Company was an instant success, and Belmont restored health to the Rothschilds U. S. interests over the five years. The company dealt with exchange transactions, commercial and private loans, as well as corporate, railroad. Belmont owned a mansion in what is presently North Babylon, New York and it is now owned by New York State and is known as Belmont Lake State Park. In 1844, Belmont was named the Consul-General of the Austrian Empire at New York City, representing the Imperial Governments affairs in the major American financial and his interest in American domestic politics continued to grow. Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry on November 7,1849 and she was the daughter of naval officer Matthew Calbraith Perry, captain and commodore in the U. S. Navy, later famous for his expedition to open the trading ports of Japan in 1853. According to Jewish newspaper sources, he converted to Christianity at that time, Belmonts sons were Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, Perry Belmont, and August Belmont, Jr. All of his sons involved in politics. Perry became the head of the committee on foreign affairs in Congress and he also had two daughters, Jennie and Fredericka Belmont. John Slidell, uncle of Belmonts wife, was a U. S, senator from Louisiana and later Southern secessionist who served the Confederate States government as a foreign diplomat and potential minister to Great Britain and French Emperor Napoleon III. He was controversially removed in late 1861 from the British trans-Atlantic steam packet ship Trent, off-shore from Havana, in June 1851, Belmont wrote letters to the New York Herald and the New York National-Democrat, insisting that they do justice to Buchanans run for the presidential nomination
42.
Augustus Schell
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Augustus Schell was a New York politician and lawyer. He was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1872 to 1876, Schell was born on August 1,1812 in Rhinebeck, New York and was educated at Rhinebeck Academy and Wesleyan Seminary. He was graduated in 1830 from Union College with Phi Beta Kappa honors and membership in the Kappa Alpha Society and he was admitted to the bar and started a practice in New York City. He started out as an expert in the then new field of corporate law. A friend of Cornelius Vanderbilt, he expanded his railroad connections through investments as well as legal counsel. An active Democrat, he joined Tammany Hall where, after William M. Tweeds fall, he succeeded August Belmont and he was head of the Democratic state committee 1853-1856. During the administration of President James Buchanan he was collector of the Port of New York and he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee that supported John C. Breckinridge for the presidency in 1860 and also 1872-1876, after the trial of William M. Tweed and his associates, Schell labored for the purification and rehabilitation of the Tammany society, and in 1878 was its unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He was a director in many railroad and financial corporations, and was active in the management of philanthropic institutions, several of Schells brothers were well-known business men of New York City. He died on March 27,1884 from Brights disease and he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Augustus Schell is the namesake of Schell City, Missouri, of which he was one of the original proprietors, bio from PictureHistory Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds. Memoir of the Hon. Augustus Schell
43.
Abram Hewitt
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Abram Stevens Hewitt was a teacher, lawyer, an iron manufacturer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877, U. S. Congressman, and a mayor of New York City. He was the son-in-law of Peter Cooper, an industrialist, inventor, Hewitt was born in Haverstraw, New York. Hewitt worked his way through and graduated from Columbia College in 1842 and he taught mathematics at the school, and became a lawyer several years later. From 1843 to 1844, Hewitt traveled to Europe with his student, Edward Cooper, the son of industrialist entrepreneur Peter Cooper, during their return voyage, the pair were shipwrecked together. After this, Hewitt became virtually a member of the Cooper family, Hewitt also invested in other companies, in many case serving on their boards. Hewitt was known for dedicated work for the U. S. government, after his marriage to Sarah Cooper, Hewitt supervised the construction of Cooper Union, Peter Coopers free educational institution, and chaired the board of trustees until 1903. He first ventured into politics in 1874, when he won a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives. He also became the head of the Democratic National Committee in 1876 and he served in the U. S. House again from March 4,1881 to December 30,1886. Hewitts most famous speech was made at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge between Manhattan Island and Brooklyn in 1883, Tammany feared that a win by George might reorganize politics in the city along class lines, rather than along ethnic lines, which is where Tammany drew its power. Theodore Roosevelt, running as the Republican Party candidate, came in third, Hewitt also refused to allow Tammany the control of patronage they wanted, and Croker saw to it that Hewittt was not nominated for a second term. Hewitt was considered a consistent defender of sound money practices and civil service reform, Hewitt had many investments in natural resources, including considerable holdings in West Virginia, where William Nelson Page was one of his managers. He was also an associate of Henry Huttleston Rogers, a financier and industrialist who was a key man in the Standard Oil Trust, one of Hewitts investments handled by Rogers and Page was the Loup Creek Estate in Fayette County, West Virginia. After rate disputes, the short line railroad was eventually expanded to extend all the way into Virginia. Planned secretly right under the noses of the railroads, it was renamed the Virginian Railway. As a philanthropist, Hewitt was especially interested in education, Columbia University gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1887, and he was the president of its alumni association in 1883, and a trustee from 1901 until his death. In 1876 he was elected president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers and he was also a trustee of Barnard College and of the American Museum of Natural History. Abram Hewitt died at his New York City home on January 18,1903 and his last words, after he took his oxygen tube from his mouth, were And now, I am officially dead. His son, Peter Cooper Hewitt, was an inventor, while another son, Edward Ringwood Hewitt, was also an inventor, a chemist
44.
William Henry Barnum
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William Henry Barnum was an American politician, serving as a state representative, U. S. Representative, U. S. Senator, and finally as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was also known as Seven Mule Barnum, though born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Barnum moved to Lime Rock, Connecticut and served in the state house of representatives from 1851 to 1852. He was chairman of the DNC from 1877 to 1889 and he died in Lime Rock on April 30,1889 and is buried in Lime Rock Cemetery. Barnum Richardson Company was also the preeminent manufacturer of car wheels at a time when the railroad industry held a place in the economy analogous to the computer industry today. In 1872 he partnered with Collis P. Huntington to finance Ensign Manufacturing Company, among Ensigns products were the largest wooden hopper cars built for Central Pacific Railroad as well as a large number of high-capacity wood boxcars for Southern Pacific Railroad. Ensign was one of the 13 companies that merged in 1899 to form American Car, william H. Barnum was a founder of the Barnum & Richardson Company of Lime Rock, Connecticut, and Chicago, Illinois. The corporation grew to profitability and industrial volume, and became one of the foremost metal products manufacturers in the world. Richardson, who also was a leader in the development and management of New England railroads, served as President of the Barnum & Richardson Company of Lime Rock, Connecticut, william H. Barnum was also a pioneer in religious tolerance. Although an Episcopalian he did not discriminate against Roman Catholics as so many in that area of New England did at the time. Importantly, when the local community responded to the raising of a crucifix by the local Catholic priest by demanding that Barnum fire all his Catholic workmen. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
45.
Calvin S. Brice
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Calvin Stewart Brice was a Democratic politician from Ohio. Born at Denmark in Morrow County, he dropped out of Miami University in 1861 to join the Union Army, after a short stint in the Army, he returned to Miami University and earned his undergraduate degree from there in 1863. After the Civil War, Brice studied law at the University of Michigan and then started a career where he amassed a fortune. In 1879, he became president of the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, a Democrat, Brice was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1889 until 1892 and won election to the Senate in 1890, serving a single term in office. Calvin Brice was born on September 17,1845, in the town of Denmark, Ohio, to Elizabeth Stewart and William Kirkpatrick Brice. Originally home-schooled, he entered the Columbus Grove public school system in Putnam County. Showing some promise as a student, Brice began preparations for higher education, after graduating in 1863 with high honors, he would become a devoted alumnus later in life. His efforts in 1885 and 1888 to provide funding for the University were largely responsible for its survival, Brices first attempt to join the army in 1861 met with little success, after being turned down because of his young age. In the summer of 1862, however, Brice enlisted and served three months in the 86th Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry, seeing action in West Virginia. Brice rose rapidly through the ranks of the Union Army and, by the end of the war, with no desire for an army career, according to historian Thomas Mach, Brice ended his military career soon after to pursue a career in law. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1865, Brice found his break into both the business and political worlds under unusual circumstances. Foster declined the help, but offered instead to pay Brice five hundred dollars to negotiate a business deal with Wall Street on his behalf. Brice accepted, and proved a shrewd businessman, Foster would later name Brice the most remarkable man ever met the most successful borrower ever saw. Foster became impressed with Brices plan to save a foundering rail project running from Toledo to Ohios coal fields after traveling to Europe to secure funding, with Fosters support, Brice managed to guide the railroad through the Panic of 1873 and expand it into Lima and other areas. Brice eventually rose to President of the company in 1887, which by then had become known as the Lake Erie, perhaps his most marked achievement came with his role in the construction of the Nickel Plate Road in 1882, which ran from New York to St. Louis. He later sold this road for a profit to William Henry Vanderbilt. Later in life, Brice became involved with projects in China. He was a member of the American Asiatic Association, an organization responsible for pursuing American trade interests in China under the Open Door Policy
