Union (American Civil War)
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, 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 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 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, 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, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force
Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Independence, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, it served as a commercial highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. Santa Fe was near the end of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which carried trade from Mexico City. Comanche raiding farther south in Mexico isolated New Mexico, making it dependent on the American trade. The Trail was used as the 1846 U. S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican–American War, the road route is commemorated today by the National Park Service as the Santa Fe National Historic Trail. The trail was used to manufactured goods from the state of Missouri in the United States to Santa Fe. Santa Fe was near the terminus of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. This limited trade traffic transited the site that would become Fort Bent in Colorado and this post was only eight miles east of the site of Fort John on what became the Oregon Trail.
The lost fort was on the site where Fort Bernard was founded in the eastern Oregon Country. That Fort Bernard ran cargo mule trains to the Santa Fe is historically certain, the earlier Fort and its traders are less so, and that gives weight that they might have been independents, and not employees of the large fur companies. Regardless of the lack of documents, it is known the light trading with Mexico used the trail. In 1825 the merchant Manuel Escudero of Chihuahua was commissioned by New Mexico governor Bartolome Baca to negotiate in Washington for opening U. S. borders to traders from Mexico. In 1835 Mexico City had sent Albino Pérez to govern the department of New Mexico as Jefe Politico, New Mexicans had grown to appreciate the relative freedoms of a frontier, remote from Mexico City. The rebels defeated and executed governor Albino Perez, but were ousted by the forces of Rio Abajo led by Manuel Armijo. The Republic of Texas claimed Santa Fe as part of the territory north, in 1841, a small military and trading expedition departed from Austin, Texas representing the Republic of Texas and their president Mirabeau B.
Their aim was to persuade the people of Santa Fe and New Mexico to relinquish control over the territory dispute with Mexico. Having knowledge of the recent political disturbances, they believed that they might be welcomed by the faction in New Mexico. Known as the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, the Texans encountered many difficulties and were captured by governor Armijos Mexican army under less than honest negotiations
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and as a vital transportation artery and communications link.
Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St.
Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
Nathaniel Lyon
Nathaniel Lyon was the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War and is noted for his actions in the state of Missouri at the beginning of the conflict. He graduated from the Military Academy 11th out of a class of 52 in 1841 and he fought in the Second Seminole War and in the Mexican-American War. During the War with Mexico, he received brevet promotions for gallantry under fire at the battles of Mexico City, Contreras. He was sent to posts in California where he participated in the 1850 Bloody Island Massacre against the Pomo Native Americans. He was reassigned to Fort Riley in Kansas, where he began to develop support for the Union as a result of the political climate developing in the state. When the Civil War broke out, Jackson refused to send volunteers from the state to fight for Abraham Lincoln, Jackson had the militia muster outside the city to begin training in preparation to join Confederate forces. On May 10,1861, Lyon and his troops surrounded the pro-Confederate Missouri militia under General D. M.
Frost, while marching his captured prisoners through St. Louis, citizens began to riot, leading to the Camp Jackson Affair. Lyon ordered his troops to fire into the rioters, on May 17, Lyon was promoted to brigadier general and was given command of Union troops in Missouri. He lead his troops into a series of skirmishes with the Missouri State Guard, Lyon was killed while trying to rally his outnumbered soldiers. However, Lyon’s efforts prevented the State of Missouri from joining the Confederacy, Lyon was born on a farm in Ashford, son of Amasa and Kezia Knowlton Lyon. As a boy he hated farming and his relatives had fought in the American Revolutionary War and he was determined to follow in their footsteps. In 1837 he applied to the United States Military Academy and graduated eleventh in his class of 52 cadets in 1841, upon graduating from West Point, Lyon was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to the 2nd U. S. Infantry regiment after graduation and served them in the Seminole Wars.
After being reassigned to Fort Riley, Lyon became staunchly antislavery and he did not support the radicalism of the abolitionists, and came to support the Republican Party while serving in the border wars known as Bleeding Kansas. In January 1861, he wrote about the crisis, It is no longer useful to appeal to reason. In March 1861, shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Lyon was accurately concerned that Jackson meant to seize the federal arsenal in St. Louis if the state seceded and that the Union had insufficient defensive forces to prevent the seizure. He attempted to strengthen the defenses, but came into opposition from his superiors, Lyon employed his friendship with Francis P. Blair, Jr. to have himself named commander of the arsenal. When the Civil War broke out and President Abraham Lincoln called for troops to put down the Confederacy, governor Jackson refused the request and ordered the Missouri State Guard to muster outside St. Louis under the stated purpose of training for home defense
Patent medicine
A patent medicine, known as a nostrum is a commercial product advertised as a purported over-the-counter medicine, without regard to its effectiveness. Sellers of liniments, claimed to contain oil and falsely promoted as a cure-all. Few if any of the nostrums were actually patented, chemical patents did not come into use in the United States until 1925, patenting one of these remedies would have meant publicly disclosing its ingredients, which most promoters sought to avoid. Advertisement kept these patent medications in the eye and gave the belief that no disease was beyond the cure of patent medication. “The medicine man’s key task quickly became not production but sales, whether unscrupulous or self-deluded, nostrum makers set about this task with cleverness and zeal. ”Instead, the compounders of such nostrums used a primitive version of branding to distinguish their products from the crowd of their competitors. Though sold at high prices, many of products were made from cheap ingredients.
Their composition was known within the pharmacy trade, and druggists manufactured. To protect profits, the branded medicine advertisements emphasized brand names, at least in the earliest days, the history of patent medicines is coextensive with scientific medicine. Empirical medicine, and the beginning of the application of the method to medicine. These few remedies, on the hand, were inadequate to cover the bewildering variety of diseases. This led medical men to hope, at least, say, given the state of the pharmacopoeia, and patients demands for something to take, physicians began making blunderbuss concoctions of various drugs and unproven. These concoctions were the ancestors of the several nostrums, touting these nostrums was one of the first major projects of the advertising industry. The marketing of nostrums under implausible claims has a long history, within the English-speaking world, patent medicines are as old as journalism. Andersons Pills were first made in England in the 1630s, the recipe was allegedly learned in Venice by a Scot who claimed to be physician to King Charles I, daffys Elixir was invented about 1647 and remained popular in Britain and the USA until the late 19th century.
The use of patent to obtain exclusive marketing rights to certain labelled formulas. The use of invented names began early, in 1726 a patent was granted to the makers of Dr. Batemans Pectoral Drops, at least on the documents that survive, there was no Dr. Bateman. This was the enterprise of a Benjamin Okell and a group of promoters who owned a warehouse, perhaps the most successful industry that grew up out of the business of patent medicine advertisements, was founded by William H. Gannetts newspaper became the first publication of Guy Gannett Communications, which eventually owned four Maine dailies, muscle man acts were especially popular on these tours, for this enabled the salesman to tout the physical vigour the product supposedly offered
Simon Cameron
Simon Cameron was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of War for Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War. Cameron made his fortune in railways and banking, and he turned to a life of politics. He became a U. S. senator in 1845 for the state of Pennsylvania, originally a Democrat, he failed to secure a nomination for senator from the Know-Nothing party, and joined the Peoples Party, the Pennsylvania branch of what became the Republican Party. He won the Senate seat in 1857, and became one of the candidates for the Republican nomination in the election of 1860. Cameron gave his support to Abraham Lincoln, and became his Secretary of War and he served only a year before resigning amidst allegations of disorganization and corruption during the early phases of the American Civil War. Cameron became the minister to Russia, but was overseas for less than a year. Beginning in 1867, he served in the Senate, he was succeeded by his son, J. Donald Cameron in 1877. After leaving the senate, Cameron lived in retirement, but still participated in politics and he died in 1889 and was buried in Harrisburg.
Camerons chief legacy was a powerful Republican party machine that continued to dominate Pennsylvania politics long after his death, Simon Cameron was born in Maytown, Pennsylvania, to Charles Cameron and Martha Pfoutz. He was orphaned at nine and apprenticed to a printer, Andrew Kennedy and he was editor of the Bucks County Messenger in 1821. A year later, he moved to Washington, D. C. and studied political movements while working for the firm of Gales. He married Margaret Brua and returned to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where he purchased, Cameron served as state printer of Pennsylvania from 1825 until 1827, and was state adjutant general in 1826. He constructed several lines and merged them into the Northern Central Railway. He founded the Bank of Middletown in 1832 and engaged in business enterprises. In 1838, he was appointed as commissioner to settle claims of the Winnebago Indians, Cameron began his political career as a Democrat, supporting the campaigns of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
He was elected to replace James Buchanan in the United States Senate in 1845, a persistent opponent of slavery, Cameron switched to the Know Nothing Party, before joining the Republican Party in 1856. In 1857, Cameron was again elected to the United States Senate, Cameron was nominated for President, but gave his support to Abraham Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention. Lincoln, as part of a bargain, named Cameron Secretary of War
Missouri House of Representatives
The Missouri House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the Missouri General Assembly. It has 163 members, representing districts with a size of 37,000 residents. House members are elected for two-year terms during general elections held in even-numbered years, in 1992 Missouri approved a constitutional amendment providing term limits. No Representative may serve more than eight years in the House, each candidate for the office must be at least twenty-four years old, a registered qualified voter in the state for at least two years, and a resident of his or her district for at least one year. Missouris house is the fourth largest in the United States although the state ranks 18th in population, legislation was introduced in 2011 to cut its size to 103 in 2020. Larger legislatures in the United States are New Hampshire and Georgia, These are the yearly recurring committees that hold hearings on legislation filed by Representatives. Once filed, legislation is assigned to one of the committees by the Missouri Speaker of the House.
Legislation is typically assigned to the committee whose province envelopes the subject matter of the bill, there are frequently multiple relevant committees to which a bill can be assigned, and it is at the Speakers discretion to choose which committee receives the bill. The partisan makeup of each committee is intended to reflect as closely as possible the partisan makeup of the entire House, each Party caucus selects which of its members will serve on the Standing Committees, and the Chair of each committee is chosen by the Speaker of the House. Tradition in the Missouri General Assembly is that all appropriations bills initiate in the Missouri House rather than the Senate, so each year, the Chair of the House Budget Committee files legislation establishing the spending plan for the state of Missouri. This plan, which in 2007 exceeded $20 billion, may differ greatly from the Governors budget recommendations, the budget legislation is assigned to the House Budget Committee, which assigns each bill to its respective subcommittee.
Joint Committees contain members from both the Missouri House and Senate and these committees may be permanent and study ongoing issues, or may be temporary and intended to come up with suggested legislation to address a one-time issue. The Chair of these committees typically alternates annually between a Representative and a Senator to prevent unfairness to one chamber, a Representative can serve no more than four two-year terms in the house. The first time term limits prevented someone from running again was in 2002, as of March 2008, members of the Missouri House of Representatives receive an annual salary of $35,915.44. Missouri Legislature Missouri Senate Government of Missouri American Legislative Exchange Council members Missouri House of Representatives
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis was an American politician who was a Democratic U. S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, the 23rd U. S. Secretary of War, and he took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union. Davis was born in Kentucky to a prosperous farmer, and grew up on his older brother Josephs large cotton plantations in Mississippi. Joseph Davis secured his appointment to the U. S, after graduating, Jefferson Davis served six years as a lieutenant in the U. S. Army. He fought in the Mexican–American War, as the colonel of a volunteer regiment and he served as the U. S. Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857 under President Franklin Pierce, and as a Democratic U. S. senator from Mississippi. Before the war, he operated a cotton plantation in Mississippi. After the war had ended, he remained a proud apologist for the cause of slavery for which he, although Davis argued against secession in 1858, he believed that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.
Daviss first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, died of malaria three months of marriage, and he struggled with recurring bouts of the disease. He was unhealthy for much of his life, at the age of 36, Davis married again, to 18-year-old Varina Howell, a native of Natchez who had been educated in Philadelphia and had some family ties in the North. Only two survived him, and only one married and had children, many historians attribute the Confederacys weaknesses to the poor leadership of President Davis. Historians agree he was a less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason and he was never tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in ex-Confederate affection after the war by his leading general, Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which he completed in 1881. By the late 1880s, he began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union, ex-Confederates came to appreciate his role in the war, seeing him as a Southern patriot, and he became a hero of the Lost Cause in the post-Reconstruction South.
Daviss paternal grandparents each immigrated separately to North America from the region of Snowdonia in North Wales in the early 18th century, the rest of his ancestry was English. After arriving in Philadelphia, Daviss paternal grandfather Evan settled in the colony of Georgia and he married the widow Lydia Emory Williams, who had two sons from a previous marriage. Their son Samuel Emory Davis was born in 1756 and he served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, along with his two older half-brothers. In 1783, after the war, he married Jane Cook and she was born in 1759 to William Cook and his wife Sarah Simpson in what is now Christian County, Kentucky
Saline County, Missouri
Saline County is a county located along the Missouri River in the U. S. state of Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the population was 23,370, the county was established November 25,1820, and named for the regions salt springs. Settled primarily by migrants from the Upper South during the nineteenth century, in the antebellum years it had plantations supported by enslaved workers. One-third of the county population was African American at the start of the American Civil War, Saline County comprises the Marshall, MO Micropolitan Statistical Area. Historically Saline County was occupied for thousands of years by succeeding cultures of Missouri Native Americans, Saline County was organized by European-American settlers on November 25,1820, and was named from the salinity of the springs found in the region. Saline County was among several along the Missouri River that were settled primarily by migrants from the Upper South states of Kentucky and these counties settled by southerners became known as Little Dixie.
By the time of the Civil War, one-third of the county population was African American, most of them were enslaved laborers on major plantations, in 1847 the state legislature had prohibited any African Americans from being educated. After the war and other residents had a hunger for education, the states new constitution established public education for all citizens for the first time. It was segregated, in keeping with local custom, each township with 20 or more African-American students were supposed to establish a school for them, but rural areas lagged in the number of schools and jurisdictions underfunded those for blacks. By the early 20th century, Saline County had eighteen schools for black students, the remaining black schools from the Jim Crow era have been studied by the State Historic Preservation Office and many are being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 767 square miles. It is located along the Missouri River, mechanization of farms meant that fewer workers were needed.
African Americans moved to cities for work and better social conditions, at the 2000 census, there were 23,756 people,9,015 households and 6,013 families residing in the county. The population density was 31 per square mile, there were 10,019 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 90. 03% White,5. 39% Black or African American,0. 31% Native American,0. 35% Asian,0. 21% Pacific Islander,2. 09% from other races, and 1. 62% from two or more races. Approximately 4. 42% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,28. 7% were of German,18. 2% American,9. 8% English and 9. 3% Irish ancestry. 28. 20% of all households were made up of individuals and 14. 60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 2.97. In Age distribution was 24. 30% under the age of 18,12. 00% from 18 to 24,25. 20% from 25 to 44,22. 30% from 45 to 64, the median age was 37 years
Battle of Fort Sumter
Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U. S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On 26 December 1860, Major Robert Anderson of the U. S, an attempt by U. S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on 9 January 1861. South Carolina authorities seized all Federal property in the Charleston area except for Fort Sumter, during the early months of 1861, the situation around Fort Sumter increasingly began to resemble a siege. In March, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, Beauregard energetically directed the strengthening of batteries around Charleston harbor aimed at Fort Sumter. Conditions in the fort, growing ever dire due to shortages of men, the resupply of Fort Sumter became the first crisis of the administration of the newly inaugurated U. S. President Abraham Lincoln following his victory in the election of November 6,1860.
Beginning at 4,30 a. m. on April 12, although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Anderson agreed to evacuate. There were no deaths on either side as a result of this engagement. Following the battle, there was support from both North and South for further military action. Lincolns immediate call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion resulted in an additional four southern states declaring their secession, on February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. A February peace conference met in Washington, D. C. the remaining eight states declined pleas to join the Confederacy. The seceding states seized numerous Federal properties within their boundaries, including buildings, President James Buchanan protested but took no military action in response. Several forts had been constructed in Charlestons harbor, including Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, Fort Moultrie on Sullivan Island was the oldest—it was the site of fortifications since 1776—and was the headquarters of the U. S.
Army garrison. When the garrison began clearing away the dunes, the papers objected, Major Robert Anderson of the 1st U. S. Artillery regiment had been appointed to command the Charleston garrison that fall because of rising tensions, Anderson had served an earlier tour of duty at Fort Moultrie and his father had been a defender of the fort during the American Revolutionary War. Throughout the fall, South Carolina authorities considered both secession and the expropriation of property in the harbor to be inevitable. S. In contrast to Moultrie, Fort Sumter dominated the entrance to Charleston Harbor and, South Carolina authorities considered Andersons move to be a breach of faith. Buchanan, a former U. S. Secretary of State and diplomat, had used carefully crafted ambiguous language to Pickens, from Major Andersons standpoint, he was merely moving his existing garrison troops from one of the locations under his command to another. He had received instructions from the War Department on December 11, written by Major General Don Carlos Buell, Assistant Adjutant General of the Army and you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity
Whig Party (United States)
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 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 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 and Taylor, elected president, John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrisons death in 1841, but was expelled from the party 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, distrusted the government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements
Hamilton Rowan Gamble
Hamilton Gamble was born in Winchester, the youngest of seven children of Joseph and Anne Hamilton Gamble, Scots-Irish who immigrated to Virginia in 1784 from northern Ireland. Gamble studied at schools and at age 13 went to Hampden-Sydney College. He read the law with a firm and by 1817 was accepted to the bar in Virginia. In 1818 as a man of 20, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri to join his older brother Archibald Gamble. In 1827, Gamble married Caroline J. Coalter of Columbia and he likely met her when she was visiting St. Louis, as both her brother David Coalter and a sister lived there. Her sister was married to the attorney Edward Bates of St. Louis and Caroline had three children, Hamilton and Mary Coalter Gamble. After practicing in Franklin in the middle of the state, Gamble became prosecuting attorney of the Circuit Court of Howard County, in 1824, Governor Frederick Bates appointed him as Missouri Secretary of State and he moved to the capital, located at St. Charles, Missouri. When the capital was moved to Jefferson City, Gamble returned to St.
Louis in 1826 and he set up a private legal practice there. Although a slaveholder, he defended slaves in court and he became a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported the resettlement of free blacks in Liberia. In 1846, Gamble was elected to the Missouri Supreme Court by the Whig Party and he was quickly elected chief justice, on a rotating term. Though a slaveholder, he dissented in the Missouri Supreme Court decision of the Dred Scott v. Emerson case, Gamble resigned his judgeship in 1855 due to failing health, and in 1858 moved to Pennsylvania. As the secession crisis deepened, Missouri attempted to follow a policy of armed neutrality, in which the state would not support either side in the war, a special election in February established a Missouri Constitutional Convention to determine the relationship between Missouri and the United States. The convention voted against secession and affirmed the states neutrality, the outbreak of hostilities at Fort Sumter led to unrest in Missouri.
Secessionists seized the Liberty Arsenal a week later, Governor Claiborne Jackson called up the state militia for drill in St. Louis and to receive some arms clandestinely obtained from the Confederacy. This resulted in a confrontation with the aggressive Union commander Nathaniel Lyon, after a deadly riot ensued, the Missouri legislature authorized the reorganization of the militia into the Missouri State Guard, controlled by the governor. General William Harney reached an agreement with the new Missouri State Guard commander Sterling Price, Lincoln appointed Lyon to replace Harney as commander of the Department of the West. During negotiations among the governor and Price, Lyon would not accept the governors proposed limitations on Federal troops, the meeting ended abruptly with Lyon declaring, This means war. In and hour one of my officers will call for you, as the Missouri government fled into exile Lyon moved rapidly capturing the capitol at Jefferson City, Missouri a few days in mid-June 1861
United States
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