1.
United States presidential election, 1868
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The United States presidential election of 1868 was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3,1868. It was the first presidential election to place after the American Civil War. As three of the former Confederate states were not yet restored to the Union, their electors could not vote in the election, by 1868, Johnson had alienated many of his constituents and had been impeached by Congress. Although Johnson kept his office, his presidency was crippled, after numerous ballots, the Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour to take on the Republican candidate, Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was one of the most popular men in the North due to his efforts in concluding the Civil War successfully for the Union, although Seymour was buried in the electoral college, he gave Grant a good race for the popular vote. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in every Northern or Reconstructed Southern state, every state except Florida used popular votes to determine electors for the Electoral College vote. Reconstruction and civil rights of slaves was a hotly debated issue in the Union. Republican candidate, By 1868, the Republicans felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label, the Democratic Party controlled many large Northern states that had a great percentage of the electoral votes. House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, a Radical Republican from Indiana, was nominated for vice-president on the ballot, beating out the early favorite. The Republican platform supported black suffrage in the South as part of the passage to full citizenship for former slaves and it agreed to let northern states decide individually whether to enfranchise blacks. Democratic candidates, The Democratic National Convention was held in New York City between July 4, and July 9,1868, meanwhile, the convention chairman Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, received nine votes on the fourth ballot from the state of North Carolina. This unexpected move caused “loud and enthusiastic cheering, ” but Seymour refused, saying, “I must not be nominated by this Convention and my own inclination prompted me to decline at the outset, my honor compels me to do so now. It is impossible, consistently with my position, to allow my name to be mentioned in this Convention against my protest. The clerk will proceed with the call. ”After numerous indecisive ballots, the names of John T. Hoffman, Francis P. Blair, none of these candidates, however, gained substantial support. For twenty-one ballots, the opposing candidates battled it out, the East battling the West for control, the two leading candidates were determined that the other should not receive the nomination, because of the two-thirds rule of the convention, a compromise candidate was needed. Seymour still hoped it would be Chief Justice Salmon P. ” Seymour had to wait for the rousing cheers to die down before he could address the delegates, “I have no terms in which to tell of my regret that my name has been brought before this convention. God knows that my life and all that I value most in life I would give for the good of my country, I could not receive the nomination without placing not only myself but the Democratic party in a false position. God bless you for your kindness to me, but your candidate I cannot be. ”Seymour left the platform to cool off and rest
2.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
3.
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
4.
Ulysses S. Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States. As Commanding General, Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War and he implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. His presidency has often criticized for tolerating corruption and for the severe economic depression in his second term. Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, after the war he married Julia Boggs Dent in 1848, their marriage producing four children. Grant initially retired from the Army in 1854 and he struggled financially in civilian life. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U. S. Army, in 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. He incorporated displaced African American slaves into the Union war effort, in July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victories in the Chattanooga Campaign, Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, trapping Lees army in their defense of Richmond. Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters, as well, in April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war. Historians have hailed Grants military genius, and his strategies are featured in history textbooks. After the Civil War, Grant led the armys supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states and he also used the army to build the Republican Party in the South. After the disenfranchisement of some former Confederates, Republicans gained majorities, in his second term, the Republican coalitions in the South splintered and were defeated one by one as redeemers regained control using coercion and violence. In May 1875, Grant authorized his Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow to shut down and his peace policy with the Indians initially reduced frontier violence, but is best known for the Great Sioux War of 1876. Grant responded to charges of corruption in executive offices more than any other 19th Century president and he appointed the first Civil Service Commission and signed legislation ending the corrupt moiety system. In foreign policy, Grant sought to trade and influence while remaining at peace with the world. His administration successfully resolved the Alabama claims by the Treaty of Washington with Great Britain, Grant avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but Congress rejected his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic. His administration implemented a standard and sought to strengthen the dollar. Grant left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-year diplomatic world tour that captured the nations attention, in 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican presidential nomination for a third term
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Schuyler Colfax
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Schuyler Colfax Jr. was a journalist, businessman, and politician from Indiana. He served as a United States Representative, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to date, he is one of only two Americans to have served as both House speaker and vice president. Colfax was known for his opposition to slavery while serving in Congress, in January 1865, as Speaker of the House, Colfax made the unusual choice to cast a vote for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. After winning the election of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant and Colfax. Grant ran again, and Colfax reversed himself and attempted to win the presidential nomination. In January 1871, Colfax encouraged a unified Italy to adopt a republican government that protected religious freedom, Colfax left the vice presidency at the end of his term in 1873 and never again ran for office. Afterwards he worked as a executive and became a popular lecturer. Colfax died in Mankato, Minnesota on January 13,1885 while changing trains as he was en route to Rock Rapids, Iowa to give a speech. Schuyler Colfax was born on March 23,1823, in New York City to Schuyler Colfax Sr. a bank teller, and Hannah Delameter Stryker, william was commander at Sandy Hook during the War of 1812. Colfaxs father contracted tuberculosis and died on October 30,1822 and his sister Mary died in July 1823,4 months after he was born. His mother later remarried, becoming the wife of George W. Mathews, Colfaxs mother and grandmother ran a boarding house as their primary means of economic support. In 1836 Colfaxs family moved to New Carlisle, Indiana, in 1841 Mathews was elected St. Joseph County Auditor, and he appointed Colfax as his deputy, a post which Colfax held for all eight years Mathews served as auditor. Colfax became interested in journalism and covered the Indiana Senate for the Indiana State Journal, in 1845 Colfax purchased the newspaper and changed its name to the St. Joseph Valley Register. In addition to covering the Indiana Senate, Colfax contributed articles on Indiana politics to the New York Tribune, leading to a friendship with its editor, at 19 Colfax became the editor of the pro-Whig South Bend Free Press. He owned the Register for nine years, at first in support of the Whigs, on October 10,1844 Colfax married childhood friend Evelyn Clark. On November 18,1868, two weeks after he was elected president, Colfax married Ellen M. Wade, a niece of Senator Benjamin Wade. They had one son, Schuyler Colfax III, who served as mayor of South Bend, Colfax was a delegate to the 1848 Whig National Convention. He was also a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1849-50
6.
Indiana
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Indiana /ɪndiˈænə/ is a U. S. state located in the midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States and its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U. S. state on December 11,1816, before becoming a territory, varying cultures of indigenous peoples and historic Native Americans inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Indiana has an economy with a gross state product of $298 billion in 2012. Indiana has several areas with populations greater than 100,000. The states name means Land of the Indians, or simply Indian Land and it also stems from Indianas territorial history. On May 7,1800, the United States Congress passed legislation to divide the Northwest Territory into two areas and named the section the Indiana Territory. In 1816, when Congress passed an Enabling Act to begin the process of establishing statehood for Indiana, a resident of Indiana is officially known as a Hoosier. The first inhabitants in what is now Indiana were the Paleo-Indians, divided into small groups, the Paleo-Indians were nomads who hunted large game such as mastodons. They created stone tools made out of chert by chipping, knapping and flaking, the Archaic period, which began between 5000 and 4000 BC, covered the next phase of indigenous culture. The people developed new tools as well as techniques to cook food, such new tools included different types of spear points and knives, with various forms of notches. They made ground-stone tools such as axes, woodworking tools. During the latter part of the period, they built mounds and middens. The Archaic period ended at about 1500 BC, although some Archaic people lived until 700 BC, afterward, the Woodland period took place in Indiana, where various new cultural attributes appeared. During this period, the people created ceramics and pottery, an early Woodland period group named the Adena people had elegant burial rituals, featuring log tombs beneath earth mounds. In the middle portion of the Woodland period, the Hopewell people began developing long-range trade of goods, nearing the end of the stage, the people developed highly productive cultivation and adaptation of agriculture, growing such crops as corn and squash. The Woodland period ended around 1000 AD, the Mississippian culture emerged, lasting from 1000 until the 15th century, shortly before the arrival of Europeans. During this stage, the people created large urban settlements designed according to their cosmology, with mounds and plazas defining ceremonial
7.
1864 National Union National Convention
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The party name was created in May 1864, during the American Civil War, ahead of the 1864 presidential election, in which President Abraham Lincoln, then a Republican, was running for reelection. Frémont, who had been the Republicans first presidential nominee during the 1856 election, the convention dropped then-Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a Radical Republican from the ticket, and chose War Democrat Andrew Johnson as Lincolns running mate. The National Unionists hoped that the new party and the Lincoln-Johnson ticket would stress the national character of the war and it also praised the use of black troops and Lincolns management of the war. On the first ballot, Missouri delegates cast their 22 votes for General Ulysses S. Grant, the Missourians quickly changed their votes to make Lincoln’s renomination unanimous. Andrew Johnson, the former Senator from and current Military Governor of Tennessee, was named as Lincolns running-mate, in keeping with the tradition of the time, Lincoln did not attend the convention
8.
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
9.
Union (American Civil War)
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The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantities of munitions and supplies. The Midwest provided soldiers, food, horses, financial support, Army hospitals were set up across the Union. Most states had Republican governors who energetically supported the war effort, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war in 1861 but in 1862 was split between the War Democrats and the anti-war element led by the Copperheads. The Democrats made major gains in 1862 in state elections. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio, in 1864 the Republicans campaigned under the National Union Party banner, which attracted many War Democrats and soldiers and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket. The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare took place along the southern border, prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers wives, widows, orphans, and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered to escape the draft, Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially New York City with its massive anti-draft riots of 1863 and in some remote districts such as the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania. In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as the North, both then and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was the South. The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacys secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the United States of America, in foreign affairs the Union was the only side recognized by all other nations, none of which officially recognized the Confederate government. The term Union occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Union, for the United States of America, is repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV. Even before the war started, the preserve the Union was commonplace. Using the term Union to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the political entity. In comparison to the Confederacy, the Union had a large industrialized and urbanized area, additionally, the Union states had a manpower advantage of 5 to 2 at the start of the war. Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources, meanwhile, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force
10.
Temperance movement
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The Temperance movement is a social movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The temperance movement began in the early 19th century, before this, although there were pieces published against drunkenness and excess, total abstinence from alcohol was very rarely advocated or practiced. There was also a concentration on hard spirits rather than on abstinence from alcohol, an early temperance movement began during the American Revolution in Connecticut, Virginia and New York state, with farmers forming associations to ban whiskey distilling. The movement spread to eight states, advocating temperance rather than abstinence, the American Temperance Society was formed in 1826, within 12 years claiming more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,250,000 members. He mainly concentrated his fire on the elimination of spirits rather than wine, on 14 August 1829 he wrote a letter in the Belfast Telegraph publicizing his views on temperance. He also formed the Ulster Temperance Movement with other Presbyterian clergy, the 1830s saw a tremendous growth in temperance groups, not just in England and the United States, but also in British colonies, especially New Zealand and Australia. In the 1830s a more form of temperance emerged called teetotalism. This movement originated in Preston, England, in 1833, the Catholic temperance movement started in 1838 when the Irish priest Theobald Mathew established the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838. In 1838, the working class movement for universal suffrage for men, Chartism. During the Victorian period, the movement became more radical, advocating the legal prohibition of all alcohol. It was also perceived to be tied in both religious renewal and progressive politics, particularly female suffrage. In 1855, an organisation was formed amidst an explosion of Band of Hope work. Meetings were held in churches throughout the UK and included Christian teaching, the group also campaigned politically for the curtailment of the influence of pubs and brewers. In this period there was success at restricting or banning the sale of alcohol in many parts of the United States, New Zealand. The Temperance movement was a significant mass movement at this time, numerous periodicals devoted to temperance were also published and temperance theatre, which had started in the 1820s, became an important part of the American cultural landscape at this time. The Salvation Army quickly spread internationally, maintaining an emphasis on abstinence, many of the most important prohibitionist groups, such as the avowedly prohibitionist United Kingdom Alliance and the US-based Womans Christian Temperance Union, were started in this time. In 1898 the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association was formed by James Cullen, an Irish Catholic, the Anti-Saloon League was an organization that began in 1893 in Ohio. A favorite goal of the British Temperance movement was to reduce the heavy drinking by closing as many pubs as possible
11.
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
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