1.
Lieutenant Governor of Maryland
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The Lieutenant Governor of Maryland is the second highest-ranking official in the executive branch of the state government of Maryland in the United States. He or she is elected on the ticket as the Governor of Maryland. The current Lieutenant Governor is Boyd Rutherford, the position was first created by the Maryland Constitution of 1864. Under that system of government, the lieutenant governor served as president of the Senate and would assume the office of governor if the incumbent should die, resign, be removed, the states present constitution, adopted in 1867, abolished the lieutenant governorship. However, the position was re-established by an amendment ratified on November 3,1970. Under the 1970 amendment, the Lieutenant Governor shall have only the duties delegated to him by the Governor, marylands lieutenant governorship is thus weaker than the office in several, but not all, other states that have one. In both of those states, as in others, the lieutenant governor is elected in his or her own right. If there is a vacancy in the office of the governor, a vacancy in the lieutenant governorship is filled by a person nominated by the governor and confirmed by a majority vote of the General Assembly voting in joint session. Parties Unionist Democratic Republican Constitution amended November 4,1970 to create Lt. As of January 2017, there are six former U. S. lieutenant governors of Maryland who are living at this time. The most recent death of a former U. S. lieutenant governor of Maryland was that of Blair Lee III, Governor of Maryland Government of Maryland Lieutenant Governor Maryland State Archives. Maryland Manual On-Line, A Guide to Maryland Government
2.
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
3.
Republican Party (United States)
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The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution and it was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The Republican Partys current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats more progressive platform, further, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative. As of 2017, the GOP is documented as being at its strongest position politically since 1928, in addition to holding the Presidency, the Republicans control the 115th United States Congress, having majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures, the main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil, the first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20,1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jeffersons Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6,1854, in Jackson and it oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877. The Republicans initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, with the realignment of parties and voters in the Third Party System, the strong run of John C. Fremont in the 1856 United States presidential election demonstrated it dominated most northern states, early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men, which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio. Free labor referred to the Republican opposition to labor and belief in independent artisans. Free land referred to Republican opposition to the system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land. The Party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power, Lincoln, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union, and destroying slavery during the American Civil War, in the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The partys success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s and those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the system, the Half-Breeds led by Chester A. Arthur pushed for reform of the civil service in 1883
4.
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
5.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
6.
Altoona, Pennsylvania
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Altoona is a city in south central Pennsylvania Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the city of the Altoona Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 46,320 at the time of the 2010 Census and this includes the adjacent boroughs of Hollidaysburg and Duncansville, adjacent townships of Logan, Allegheny, Blair, Frankstown, Antis, and Tyrone, as well as nearby boroughs of Bellwood and Newry. Having grown around the industry, the city is currently working to recover from industrial decline. The city is home to the Altoona Curve baseball team of the Double A Eastern League and it also houses the 75-plus-year-old Altoona Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Teresa Cheung. As a major town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6,1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3,1867, one explanation of the citys name is that the word Altoona is a derivative of the Latin word altus, meaning high. This explanation is contradicted by Pennsylvania Place Names, although Altoona, in Blair Country, is popularly known as the Mountain City, its name has no direct or indirect etymological relation to the Latin adjective altus, signifying elevated, lofty. Two very different explanations of the origin of name are current. He was then the oldest continuous resident of the city and he was much respected, and had long been one of the private pensioners of Andrew Carnegie. The etymological derivation of the name Altona is not known with certainty, the town grew rapidly in the late 19th century, its population approximately 2,000 in 1854,10,000 in 1870, and 20,000 in 1880. The demand for locomotives during the Civil War stimulated much of this growth, Altoona was also the site of the first Interstate Commission meeting to create and design the Gettysburg National Cemetery following the devastating Battle of Gettysburg. The centrality and convenience of the rail transportation brought these two important gatherings to the city during the war. Horseshoe Curve, a section of track built by the PRR, has become a tourist attraction. The curve was used to trains to a sufficient elevation to cross the Allegheny Ridge to the west. The PRR built many of its own locomotives at the Works, some 7,873 in all, PRR had significant influence on the city, creating the citys fire departments and relocating the hospital to a site nearer to the shops gates. Today, the department employs 65 personnel and is the largest career department between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. PRR sponsored a city band and constructed Cricket Field, in 1853, the PRR built the Mechanics Library, the first industrial library in the nation which exists today as the Altoona Area Public Library
7.
Confederate States of America
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The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in February 1861 before Lincoln took office in March, after the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South – Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina – also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The government of the United States rejected the claims of secession, the Civil War began with the April 12,1861, Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In spring 1865, after four years of fighting which led to an estimated 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered. Jefferson Davis later lamented that the Confederacy had disappeared in 1865, Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union. Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the Five Civilized Tribes located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty. A Unionist government in parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal, as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers, the most notable advance was Shermans March to the Sea in late 1864. Much of the Confederacys infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads, plantations in the path of Shermans forces were severely damaged. Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Daviss administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, after four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. Shortly afterward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Davis was captured on May 10,1865, and jailed in preparation for a treason trial that was ultimately never held. The U. S. government began a process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many areas, the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure
8.
Abolitionism in the United States
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Abolitionism in the United States was the movement before and during the American Civil War to end slavery in the United States. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade, in the 17th century, English Quakers and Evangelicals condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved, in the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. Abolition was part of the message of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s in the Thirteen Colonies, in the same period, rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized slavery for violating human rights. A member of the British Parliament, James Edward Oglethorpe, was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, founder of the Province of Georgia, Oglethorpe banned slavery on humanistic grounds. He argued against it in Parliament and eventually encouraged his friends Granville Sharp, soon after his death in 1785, Sharp and More joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. Although anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, colonies and emerging nations, notably in the southern United States, continued to use and uphold traditions of slavery. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal, freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state, in other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans. During the ensuing decades, the abolitionist movement grew in Northern states, britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807 and abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833. The United States criminalized the international trade in 1808 and made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 as a result of the American Civil War. Historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States. He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. President during the Civil War, or the Republican Party, the first Americans who made a public protest against slavery were the Mennonites of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Soon after, in April 1688, Quakers in the town wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church. The Quaker establishment never took action, the Quaker Quarterly Meeting of Chester, Pennsylvania, made its first protest in 1711. Within a few decades the entire slave trade was under attack, being opposed by leaders as William Burling, Benjamin Lay, Ralph Sandiford, William Southby. Slavery was banned in the Province of Georgia soon after its founding in 1733, the colonys founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, fended off repeated attempts by South Carolina merchants and land speculators to introduce slavery to the colony. In 1739, he wrote to the Georgia Trustees urging them to hold firm, If we allow slaves we act against the principles by which we associated together. Whereas, now we should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by setting men upon using arts to buy, the struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742
9.
Andrew Johnson
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Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, the new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress. The first American president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote, Johnson was born in poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina. Apprenticed as a tailor, he worked in several towns before settling in Greeneville. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835, after brief service in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the federal House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became Governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857, in his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill, which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. As Southern slave states, including Tennessee, seceded to form the Confederate States of America and he was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his states secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. When Johnson was sworn in as president in March 1865, he gave a rambling speech. Six weeks later, the assassination of Lincoln made him president, Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction – a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to re-form their civil governments. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency, Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, Johnson went on a national tour promoting his executive policies. As the conflict between the branches of government grew, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnsons ability to fire Cabinet officials. When he persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate and removal from office. Returning to Tennessee after his presidency, Johnson sought political vindication, Johnson is regarded by many historians as one of the worst presidents in American history. While some admire his strict constitutionalism, his opposition to federally guaranteed rights for African Americans is widely criticized
10.
Horace Greeley
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Horace Greeley was founder and editor of the New-York Tribune, among the great newspapers of its time. Greeley was born to a family in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was apprenticed to a printer in Vermont and went to New York City in 1831 to seek his fortune and he wrote for or edited several publications and involved himself in Whig Party politics, taking a significant part in William Henry Harrisons successful 1840 presidential campaign. The following year, he founded the Tribune, which became the newspaper in the country through weekly editions sent by mail. Among many other issues, he urged the settlement of the American West, which he saw as a land of opportunity for the young and the unemployed. He popularized the phrase Go West, young man, and grow up with the country, Greeleys alliance with William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed led to him serving three months in the House of Representatives, where he angered many by investigating Congress in his newspaper. In 1854, he helped found and may have named the Republican Party, Republican newspapers across the nation regularly reprinted his editorials. During the Civil War, he mostly supported Lincoln, though urging him to commit to the end of slavery before the President was willing to do so, after Lincolns assassination, he supported the Radical Republicans in opposition to President Andrew Johnson. He broke with Republican president Ulysses Grant because of corruption and Greeleys sense that Reconstruction policies were no longer needed, Greeley was the new Liberal Republican Partys candidate in the 1872 U. S. presidential election. He lost in a landslide, despite having the support of the Democratic Party. He was devastated by the death of his wife, who died five days before the election, Horace Greeley was born on February 3,1811, on a farm about five miles from Amherst, New Hampshire. He could not breathe for the first twenty minutes of his life and he was of English descent, and his forebears included early settlers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Greeley was the son of poor farmers Zaccheus and Mary Greeley, Zaccheus was not successful, and moved his family several times, as far west as Pennsylvania. Horace attended the schools, and was a brilliant student. Seeing the boys intelligence, some neighbors offered to pay Horaces way at Phillips Exeter Academy, in 1820, Zaccheuss financial reverses caused him to flee New Hampshire with his family lest he be imprisoned for debt, and settle in Vermont. Even as his father struggled to make a living as a hired hand, in 1822, Horace ran away from home to become a printers apprentice, but was told he was too young. In 1826, at age 15, he was made an apprentice to Amos Bliss, editor of the Northern Spectator. There, he learned the mechanics of a job, and acquired a reputation as the town encyclopedia
