1.
Wikisource
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Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
2.
Slavery in the United States
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Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry, when the United States Constitution was ratified, a relatively small number of free people of color were among the voting citizens. During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states, most of these states had a higher proportion of free labor than in the South and economies based on different industries. They abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, some with gradual systems that kept adults as slaves for two decades. But the rapid expansion of the industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor. Congress during the Jefferson administration prohibited the importation of slaves, effective in 1808, domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation. As the West was developed for settlement, the Southern state governments wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states to maintain a balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises, by 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, the first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. Shortly after, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the US Armys Fort Sumter, four additional slave states then seceded. In the early years of the Chesapeake Bay settlements, colonial officials found it difficult to attract and retain laborers under the frontier conditions. Most laborers came from Britain as indentured servants, having signed contracts of indenture to pay with work for their passage, their upkeep and training and these indentured servants were young people who intended to become permanent residents. In some cases, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants, the indentured servants were not slaves, but were required to work for four to seven years in Virginia to pay the cost of their passage and maintenance. Historians estimate that more than half of all immigrants to the English colonies of North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants among immigrants was particularly high in the South, many Germans, Scots-Irish, and Irish came to the colonies in the 18th century, settling in the backcountry of Pennsylvania and further south. The planters in the South found that the problem with indentured servants was that many left after several years, just when they had become skilled. In addition, an economy in England in the late 17th
3.
Northwest Ordinance
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The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13,1787. The upper Mississippi River formed the Territorys western boundary and it was based upon but more conservative than Thomas Jeffersons proposed ordinance of 1784. The 1787 law relied on a central government, which was assured under the new Constitution that took effect in 1789. In August 1789, it was replaced by the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 and it was also precedent setting legislation with regard to American public domain lands. This division helped set the stage for competition over admitting free and slave states. The territory was acquired by Great Britain from France following victory in the Seven Years War, Great Britain took over the Ohio Country, as its eastern portion was known, but a few months later closed it to new European settlement by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Crown tried to restrict settlement of the thirteen colonies between the Appalachians and the Atlantic, which raised tensions among those who wanted to move west. With the colonials victory in the American Revolutionary War and signing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the territories were subject to overlapping and conflicting claims of the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia dating from their colonial past. The British were active in some of the area until after the Louisiana Purchase. The region had long been desired for expansion by colonists, the states were encouraged to settle their claims by the US governments de facto opening of the area to settlement following the defeat of Great Britain. Jeffersons proposal to create a domain through state cessions of western lands was derived from earlier proposals dating back to 1776. The Congress of the Confederation modified the proposal, passing it as the Land Ordinance of 1784 and this ordinance established the example that would become the basis for the Northwest Ordinance three years later. The 1784 ordinance was criticized by George Washington in 1785 and James Monroe in 1786, Monroe convinced Congress to reconsider the proposed state boundaries, a review committee recommended repealing that part of the ordinance. Other events such as the reluctance of states south of the Ohio River to cede their western claims resulted in a narrowed geographic focus, when passed in New York in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance showed the influence of Jefferson. It called for dividing the territory into gridded townships, so once the lands were surveyed, they could be sold to individuals. This would provide both a new source of government revenue and an orderly pattern for future settlement. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the concept of fee simple ownership and this was called the first guarantee of freedom of contract in the United States. These territories were to be administered directly by Congress, with the intent of their admission as newly created states
4.
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
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The resolutions argued that the states had the right and the duty to declare unconstitutional acts of Congress that were not authorized by the Constitution. In doing so, they argued for states rights and strict constructionism of the Constitution, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 were written secretly by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively. The principles stated in the resolutions became known as the Principles of 98, adherents argue that the states can judge the constitutionality of central government laws and decrees. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 argued that each state has the power to declare that federal laws are unconstitutional. The Kentucky Resolution of 1799 added that when the states determine that a law is unconstitutional, the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 refer to interposition to express the idea that the states have a right to interpose to prevent harm caused by unconstitutional laws. The Virginia Resolutions contemplate joint action by the states, the Resolutions had been controversial since their passage, eliciting disapproval from ten state legislatures. Ron Chernow assessed the damage of the resolutions as deep. George Washington was so appalled by them that he told Patrick Henry that if systematically and pertinaciously pursued and their influence reverberated right up to the Civil War and beyond. The resolutions opposed the federal Alien and Sedition Acts, which extended the powers of the federal government and they argued that the Constitution was a compact or agreement among the states. Therefore, the government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it. If the federal government assumed such powers, its acts could be declared unconstitutional by the states, so, states could decide the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress. The Virginia Resolution of 1798 also relied on the compact theory, there were two sets of Kentucky Resolutions. The Kentucky state legislature passed the first resolution on November 16,1798, the author of the 1799 Resolutions is not known with certainty. James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution, the Virginia state legislature passed it on December 24,1798. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 stated that acts of the government beyond the scope of its constitutional powers are unauthoritative, void. While Jeffersons draft of the 1798 Resolutions had claimed that state has a right of nullification of unconstitutional laws. Jefferson at one point drafted a threat for Kentucky to secede, the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799 were written to respond to the states who had rejected the 1798 Resolutions. The 1799 Resolutions did not assert that Kentucky would unilaterally refuse to enforce the Alien, rather, the 1799 Resolutions declared that Kentucky will bow to the laws of the Union but would continue to oppose in a constitutional manner the Alien and Sedition Acts
5.
Battle of Negro Fort
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It was the first major engagement of the Seminole Wars period and marked the beginning of General Andrew Jacksons Conquest of Florida. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British Royal Marines established what was known as the Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff along the Spanish side of the Apalachicola River. Shortly after the end of the war in 1815, the British paid off the Colonial Marines, withdrew from the post, over the next few years the fort became a colony for escaped slaves from Pensacola and Georgia. By 1816 over 800 freedmen and women had settled around the fort, during one of these resupply missions, a party of sailors from gunboats 149 and 154 stopped along the river near Negro Fort to fill their canteens with water. While doing so, they were attacked by the garrison of the fort and all, in response, Jackson requested permission to attack the fort, they then dispatched gunboats to reduce Negro Fort. Adams even produced a letter from a Georgia planter complaining about brigand Negroes who made this extremely dangerous to a population like ours. As the American expedition drew near the fort on July 27,1816, black militiamen had already been deployed, at the same time the gunboats under Master Loomis moved upriver to a position for a siege bombardment. Negro Fort was occupied by about 330 people during the time of battle, at least 200 were freedmen, armed with ten cannons and dozens of muskets. They were accompanied by thirty or so Seminole and Choctaw warriors under a chief, the remaining were women and children, the families of the black militia. Before beginning an engagement General Gaines first requested a surrender, garson, the the leader of the fort, and an African, refused. Garson told Gaines that he had orders from the British military to hold the post and at the time raised the Union Jack. The Americans considered the Negro Fort to be defended, after they formed positions around one side of the post. Then the defenders opened fire with their cannons, but they were not experienced artillerymen and it was daytime when Master Jarius Loomis ordered his gunners to open fire. After five to nine rounds were fired to check the range,154, entered the forts powder magazine. The ensuing explosion was massive and destroyed the entire post, almost all of the occupants were killed or wounded, the deadliest single cannonshot in U. S. history. Just afterward, the American troops and the Creeks charged and captured the surviving defenders, General Gaines later said that the explosion was awful and the scene horrible beyond description. There apparently were no American casualties, garson was executed by firing squad because of his responsibility for the Watering Hole Massacre and the Choctaw Chief was handed over to the Creeks who killed and scalped him. The survivors were taken prisoner and placed into slavery under the claim that Georgia slaveowners had owned the ancestors of the prisoners
6.
Missouri Compromise
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The Missouri Compromise is the title generally attached to the legislation passed by the 16th Congress of the United States on May 8,1820. The measures provided for the admission of the District of Maine as a free to ratify a state constitution that both did not recognize and prohibited slavery within the state. Further, the Compromise provided that the Missouri territory was free to enact a constitution that both recognized as legal and permitted, the institution of chattel slavery. With these actions, the Compromise committed the largest remaining portion of Purchase territory to free soil, however, South of the parallel no slavery restrictions were imposed in the Arkansas Territory, which later became Indian territory, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. There also were not any statements about restrictions or recognition of the institution of slavery at or South of the latitude, President James Monroe signed the legislation on April 6,1820. The compromise bills served to quell the furious sectional debates that had first erupted during the session of the 15th Congress. On February 3,1819, Representative James Tallmadge, Jr. a Jeffersonian Republican from New York State, had submitted two amendments to Missouris request for statehood. The first proposed to prohibit further slave migration into Missouri. At issue among southern legislators was the encroachment by their northern free state colleagues in what they considered a purely sectional concern, nonetheless, the more populous North held a firm numerical advantage in the House. Jeffersonian Republicans in the North ardently maintained that an interpretation of the Constitution required that Congress act to limit the spread of slavery on egalitarian grounds. The slave-holding states were acutely aware that maintaining a balance in the number of states was necessary to ensure political equilibrium in the US Senate. The South sought to enlist Missouri to maintain Southern political preeminence, the Missouri question in the 15th Congress ended in stalemate on March 4,1819, the House sustaining its northern antislavery position, and the Senate blocking a slavery restricted statehood. Antislavery agitation grew in the North in the aftermath of the debates, as the 16th Congress assembled in December 1819, the two houses remained thoroughly polarized over slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territories. Thomas of Illinois added a proviso, excluding slavery from all remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 30’ parallel. The combined measures passed the Senate, only to be voted down in the House by those Northern representatives who held out for a free Missouri, speaker of the House of Representatives Henry Clay of Kentucky, in a desperate bid to break the deadlock, divided the Senate bills. The legislation extracted by the served to effect a brokered truce or armistice rather than a genuine compromise. The crux of the Compromise was that it circumvented the deepening disaffection among Jeffersonian Republicans, the Era of Good Feelings, closely associated with the administration of President James Monroe, was characterized by the dissolution of national political identities. The end of opposition parties also meant the end of party discipline, rather than produce political harmony, as President James Monroe had hoped, amalgamation had led to intense rivalries among Jeffersonian Republicans
7.
Tariff of Abominations
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The Tariff of Abominations was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19,1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States. Enacted during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, it was labeled the Tariff of Abominations by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum Southern economy and it set a 62% tax on 92% of all imported goods. Industries in the northern United States were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods, the reaction in the South, particularly in South Carolina, would lead to the Nullification Crisis that began in late 1832. The tariff marked the point of U. S. tariffs. The first protective tariff was passed by Congress in 1816, its rates were increased in 1824. Those in Western states and manufacturers in the Mid-Atlantic States argued that the strengthening of the nation was in the interest of the entire country and this same reasoning swayed two-fifths of U. S. The 1828 tariff was signed by President Adams, although he realized it could weaken him politically. In the Presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson defeated Adams with a tally of 642,553 votes. Faced with a market for goods and pressured by British abolitionists, the British reduced their imports of cotton from the United States. The tariff forced the South to buy manufactured goods from U. S. manufacturers, mainly in the North, at a higher price, while southern states also faced a reduced income from sales of raw materials. The South Carolina legislature, although it printed and distributed 5,000 copies of the pamphlet, the expectation of the tariff’s opponents was that with the election of Jackson in 1828, the tariff would be significantly reduced. In Washington, a split on the issue occurred between Jackson and Vice-President Calhoun. On July 14,1832, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832 which made some reductions in tariff rates, Calhoun resigned on December 28 of the same year. The reductions were too little for South Carolina, in November 1832 the state called for a convention. By a vote of 136 to 26, the convention adopted an ordinance of nullification drawn by Chancellor William Harper. It declared that the tariffs of both 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina
8.
Nat Turner's slave rebellion
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Nat Turners Rebellion was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, the rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. The rebellion was suppressed at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23,1831. There was widespread fear in the aftermath of the rebellion, the state executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In the frenzy, many non-participant slaves were punished, approximately 120 slaves and free African Americans were murdered by militias and mobs in the area. Nat Turner was an African-American slave who had lived his life in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner was highly intelligent and learned how to read and write at a young age and he grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting, praying or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible. He frequently had visions, which he interpreted as messages from God and these visions greatly influenced his life. Turner often conducted Baptist services, and preached the Bible to his fellow slaves, Turner also had an influence over white people. In the case of Ethelred T. Brantley, Turner said that he was able to convince Brantley to cease from his wickedness, by the spring of 1828, Turner was convinced that he was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty. In 1830, Joseph Travis purchased Turner and became his master, Turner later recalled that Travis was a kind master who had placed the greatest confidence in him. Turner eagerly anticipated Gods signal to start his task of slay my enemies with their own weapons, Turner witnessed a solar eclipse on February 11,1831, and was convinced that this was the sign for which he was waiting. Following in the steps of the late Denmark Vesey of South Carolina, Turner communicated the great work laid out to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence – his fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson and Sam. Turner had originally planned for the rebellion to begin on July 4,1831, Turner started with several trusted fellow slaves, and ultimately gathered more than 70 enslaved and free blacks, some of whom were mounted on horseback. On August 13,1831, an atmospheric disturbance made the sun appear bluish-green, Turner took this as the final signal, and began the rebellion a week later on August 22. The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing all the people they encountered. As muskets and firearms were to difficult to collect and would gather unwanted attention, the rebels used knives, hatchets, axes, oates states that Turner called on his group to kill all the white people. The group spared a few homes because Turner believed the white inhabitants thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes
9.
Nullification Crisis
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It ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state. The US suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected, many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy that developed after the War of 1812 to promote American manufacturing over its European competition. The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828 was enacted into law during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, the tariff was opposed in the South and parts of New England. By 1828, South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue and its opponents expected that the election of Jackson as President would result in the tariff being significantly reduced. In Washington, a split on the issue occurred between Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun, a native South Carolinian and the most effective proponent of the theory of state nullification. On July 14,1832, before Calhoun had resigned the Vice Presidency in order to run for the Senate where he could effectively defend nullification, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832. This compromise tariff received the support of most northerners and half of the southerners in Congress, military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state. The South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 15,1833, the crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. The tariff rates were reduced and stayed low to the satisfaction of the South, by the 1850s the issues of the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the threat of the Slave Power became the central issues in the nation. Later in the decade the Alien and Sedition Acts led to the states rights position being articulated in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. ”The key sentence, and the word nullification was used in supplementary Resolutions passed by Kentucky in 1799. He was chairman of a committee of the Virginia Legislature which issued a book-length Report on the Resolutions of 1798 and this asserted that the state did not claim legal force. The declarations in such cases are expressions of opinion, unaccompanied by other effect than what they may produce upon opinion, the opinions of the judiciary, on the other hand, are carried into immediate effect by force. But, the four presidential terms spanning the period from 1800 to 1817 did little to advance the cause of states’ rights and much to weaken it. ”Over Jefferson’s opposition, the power of the federal judiciary, led by Federalist Chief Justice John Marshall, increased. Jefferson expanded federal powers with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, opposition to the War of 1812 was centered in New England. Delegates to a convention in Hartford, Connecticut met in December 1814 to consider a New England response to Madison’s war policy, the debate allowed many radicals to argue the cause of states’ rights and state sovereignty. In the end, moderate voices dominated and the product was not secession or nullification. After the conclusion of the War of 1812 Sean Wilentz notes, This spirit of nationalism was linked to the tremendous growth and economic prosperity of this post war era
10.
United States v. The Amistad
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United States v. Schooner Amistad,40 U. S.518, was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. It was a freedom suit that involved international issues and parties. The historian Samuel Eliot Morison in 1965 described it as the most important court case involving slavery before being eclipsed by that of Dred Scott, the schooner was traveling along the coast of Cuba on its way to a port for re-sale of the slaves. The African captives, who had kidnapped in Sierra Leone and illegally sold into slavery and shipped to Cuba, escaped their shackles. They killed the captain and the cook, two crew members escaped in a lifeboat. The Africans directed the survivors to return them to Africa, the crew tricked them, sailing north at night. The Amistad was later apprehended near Long Island, New York, by the United States Revenue Cutter Service, the widely publicized court cases in the United States federal district and Supreme Court, which addressed international issues, helped the abolitionist movement. The captives were ruled to have acted as men when they fought to escape their illegal confinement. The Court ruled the Africans were entitled to take whatever measures necessary to secure their freedom. Under international and sectional pressure, U. S. President Martin Van Buren ordered the case appealed to the Supreme Court. It affirmed the court ruling on March 9,1841, and authorized the release of the Africans. Supporters arranged for housing of the Africans in Farmington, Connecticut as well as funds for travel. In 1842 they transported by ship those who wanted to return to Africa, on June 27,1839, La Amistad, a Spanish vessel, departed from the port of Havana, Cuba, for the Province of Puerto Principe, also in Cuba. The masters of La Amistad were the ships captain Ramón Ferrer, José Ruiz, with Ferrer was his personal slave Antonio. Ruiz was transporting 49 Africans, entrusted to him by the governor-general of Cuba, Montez held four additional Africans, also entrusted to him by the governor-general. As the voyage took only four days, the crew had brought four days’ worth of rations. On July 2,1839, one of the Africans, Cinqué, freed himself, the Mende Africans killed the ships cook, Celestino, who had told them that they were to be killed and eaten by their captors. The slaves also killed Captain Ferrer, the struggle resulted as well in the deaths of two Africans, two sailors escaped in a lifeboat
11.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
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The Court overturned the conviction of Edward Prigg as a result. In March 1789, the Constitution of the United States came into force, having been ratified by nine states. On February 12,1793, the Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, the title of which was An Act respecting fugitives from justice. On March 29,1788, the State of Pennsylvania passed an amendment to one of its laws, shall be removed out of this state, with the design and intention that the place of abode or residence of such slave or servant shall be thereby altered or changed. In 1832, a woman named Margaret Morgan moved to Pennsylvania from Maryland. In Maryland, she had lived in virtual freedom but had never been formally emancipated, ashmores heirs eventually decided to claim her as a slave and hired slavecatcher Edward Prigg to recover her. On April 1,1837, Prigg led an assault and abduction on Morgan in York County and they took Morgan to Maryland, intending to sell her as a slave. The four men involved in the abduction were arraigned under the 1826 act, Prigg pleaded not guilty and argued that he had been duly appointed by John Ashmore to arrest and return Morgan to her owner in Maryland. However, in a ruling on May 22,1839, the Court of Quarter Sessions of York County convicted him, the case was Prigg v. Pennsylvania,41 U. S.539. Second, because the exercise of Federal legislation, such as undertaken by Congress in passing the act of the February 12,1793. As a consequence, they argued, the 1788 Pennsylvania law, in all its provisions applicable to this case, the question was whether Pennsylvania law violated the constitutional guarantee of fugitive slave return and the 1793 Act of Congress, passed to implement it. Storys phrase unless prohibited by state became the impetus for a number of personal liberty laws enacted by Pennsylvania. The laws did as the Court had suggested and prohibited officials from interfering with runaway slaves in any capacity. Runaways could not be caught or incarcerated, cases could not be heard, the Fugitive Slave Act still stood, but only federal agents could enforce it. This is known as the anti-commandeering doctrine, such an emphatic refusal to uphold the Fugitive Slave Act was viewed in the Southern states as a brazen violation of the federal compact. It was these laws led to the Compromise of 1850, California could enter the Union as a free state. In avoiding one crisis, the Court prepared the way for a greater one, by discouraging state cooperation in returning fugitives, the Prigg decision undercut the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and made the more brutal one of 1850 necessary. In addition, people began to believe that the Court was uniquely qualified to soothe the growing agitation over slavery, what Did the Prigg Decision Really Decide
12.
Texas annexation
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The Texas annexation was the 1845 incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America, which was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29,1845. The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2,1836, at the time the vast majority of the Texian population favored the annexation of the Republic by the United States. Moreover, they wished to avoid a war with Mexico, whose government refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of its rebellious northern province. His official motivation was to outmaneuver suspected diplomatic efforts by the British government for emancipation of slaves in Texas, through secret negotiations with the Houston administration, Tyler secured a treaty of annexation in April 1844. Pro-Texas-annexation southern Democratic delegates denied their anti-annexation leader Martin Van Buren the nomination at their partys convention in May 1844, in alliance with pro-expansion northern Democratic colleagues, they secured the nomination of James K. Polk, who ran on a pro-Texas Manifest Destiny platform. In June 1844, the Senate, with its Whig majority, the pro-annexation Democrat Polk narrowly defeated anti-annexation Whig Henry Clay in the November 1844 presidential election. In December 1844, lame-duck President Tyler called on Congress to pass his treaty by simple majorities in each house, the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives complied with his request by passing an amended bill expanding on the pro-slavery provisions of the Tyler treaty. On March 1,1845, President Tyler signed the annexation bill, when Polk took office the next day, he encouraged Texas to accept the Tyler offer. Texas ratified the agreement with popular approval from Texans, the bill was signed by Polk on December 29,1845, accepting Texas as the 28th state of the Union. Texas formally relinquished its sovereignty to the United States on February 19,1846, first mapped by Spain in 1519, Texas was part of the vast Spanish empire seized by the Spanish Conquistadors from its indigenous people for over 300 years. When the Louisiana territory was acquired by the United States from France in 1803, the boundaries of Texas were determined within the larger geostrategic struggle to demarcate the limits of the United States extensive western lands and of Spains vast possessions in North America. Nonetheless, Texas remained an object of fervent interest to American expansionists, among them Thomas Jefferson, while a majority of southern congressmen acquiesced to the exclusion of slavery from the bulk of the Louisiana Purchase, a significant minority objected. Then-Representative John Tyler of Virginia invoked the Jeffersonian precepts of territorial and commercial growth as a goal to counter the rise of sectional differences over slavery. This doctrine would be revived during the Texas annexation controversy, colonizing empresario Stephen F. Austin managed the regional affairs of the mostly American-born population – 20% of them slaves – under the terms of the generous government land grants. A general lawlessness prevailed in the vast Texas frontier, and Mexicos civic laws went largely unenforced, Mexican authorities, perceiving that they were losing control over Texas and alarmed by the unsuccessful Fredonian Rebellion of 1826, abandoned the policy of benign rule. New restrictions were imposed in 1829–1830, outlawing slavery throughout the nation, military occupation followed, sparking local uprisings and a civil war. Texas conventions in 1832 and 1833 submitted petitions for redress of grievances to overturn the restrictions, in 1835, an army under Mexican President Santa Anna entered its territory of Texas and abolished self-government. Texans responded by declaring their independence from Mexico on March 2,1836, on April 20–21, rebel forces under Texas General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto
13.
Wilmot Proviso
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The Wilmot Proviso proposed an American law to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War. The conflict over the proviso was one of the events leading to the American Civil War. It passed the House but failed in the Senate, where the South had greater representation and it was reintroduced in February 1847 and again passed the House and failed in the Senate. In 1848, an attempt to make it part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also failed, sectional political disputes over slavery in the Southwest continued until the Compromise of 1850. President John Tyler signed the bill on March 1,1845, as many expected, the annexation led to war with Mexico. After the capture of New Mexico and California in the first phases of the war, the key to this was the determination of the future status of slavery in any new territory. Both major political parties had labored long to keep divisive slavery issues out of national politics, however, midway through Polks term, Democratic dissatisfaction with the administration was growing within the Martin Van Buren, or Barnburner, wing of the Democratic Party over other issues. Polk was seen more and more as enforcing strict party loyalty primarily to serve southern interests, the Whigs faced a different scenario. The victory of James K. Polk over Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election had caught the southern Whigs by surprise. In the South in particular, there was already the realization, or perhaps fear and their political goal was to avoid any sectional debate over slavery which would expose the sectional divisions within the party. On Saturday August 8,1846 President Polk submitted to Congress a request for $2,000,000 in order to facilitate negotiations with Mexico over the settlement of the war. The request came with no public warning after Polk had failed to arrange for approval of the bill with no Congressional debate, with Congress scheduled to adjourn that Monday, Democratic leadership arranged for the bill to be immediately considered in a special night session. Debate was to be limited to two hours with no speech to last more than ten minutes. Wilmot had a record of supporting the Polk administration and was close to many Southerners. With the likelihood that Wilmot would have no trouble gaining the floor in the House debate, the vote to add the proviso to the bill was then called, and it passed by 83–64. A last-ditch effort by southerners to table the bill was defeated by 94–78. Most ominously, these all fell overwhelmingly along sectional rather than party lines. The Senate took up the late in its Monday session
14.
Manifest destiny
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In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. Generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven, historians have emphasized that manifest destiny was a contested concept—pre-civil war Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans rejected it. Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, American imperialism did not represent an American consensus, Whigs saw Americas moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest. The term was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico, but manifest destiny always limped along because of its internal limitations and the issue of slavery, says Merk. It never became a national priority, Merk concluded, From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude, the reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence. There was never a set of principles defining manifest destiny, therefore it was always a general rather than a specific policy made with a motto. Andrew Jackson, who spoke of extending the area of freedom, typified the conflation of Americas potential greatness, the nations budding sense of Romantic self-identity, yet Jackson would not be the only president to elaborate on the principles underlying manifest destiny. Owing in part to the lack of a definitive narrative outlining its rationale, while many writers focused primarily upon American expansionism, be it into Mexico or across the Pacific, others saw the term as a call to example. Without an agreed upon interpretation, much less a political philosophy. This variety of possible meanings was summed up by Ernest Lee Tuveson, A vast complex of ideas, policies and they are not, as we should expect, all compatible, nor do they come from any one source. This destiny was not explicitly territorial, but OSullivan predicted that the United States would be one of a Union of many Republics sharing those values. Six years later, in 1845, OSullivan wrote another essay titled Annexation in the Democratic Review, in this article he urged the U. S. Overcoming Whig opposition, Democrats annexed Texas in 1845, OSullivans first usage of the phrase manifest destiny attracted little attention. OSullivans second use of the phrase became extremely influential, on December 27,1845, in his newspaper the New York Morning News, OSullivan addressed the ongoing boundary dispute with Britain. That is, OSullivan believed that Providence had given the United States a mission to spread republican democracy, because Britain would not spread democracy, thought OSullivan, British claims to the territory should be overruled. OSullivan believed that manifest destiny was an ideal that superseded other considerations
15.
Underground Railroad
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The term is also applied to the abolitionists, both black and white, free and enslaved, who aided the fugitives. Various other routes led to Mexico or overseas, an earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until shortly after the American Revolution. However, the now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the late 1700s. One estimate suggests that by 1850,100,000 slaves had escaped via the Railroad, British North America, where slavery was prohibited, was a popular destination, as its long border gave many points of access. Most former slaves settled in Ontario, more than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the network during its 20-year peak period, although U. S. Census figures account for only 6,000. Numerous fugitives stories are documented in the 1872 book The Underground Railroad Records by William Still, the resulting economic impact was minuscule, but the psychological influence on slaveholders was immense. With heavy lobbying by Southern politicians, the Compromise of 1850 was passed by Congress after the Mexican–American War, because the law required sparse documentation to claim a person was a fugitive, slave catchers also kidnapped free blacks, especially children, and sold them into slavery. Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of escaped slaves and often blamed escapes on Northerners interfering with Southern property rights. The law deprived suspected slaves of the right to themselves in court. In a de facto bribe, judges were paid a fee for a decision that confirmed a suspect as a slave than for one ruling that the suspect was free. Many Northerners who might have ignored slave issues in the South were confronted by local challenges that bound them to support slavery. This was a primary grievance cited by the Union during the American Civil War, the escape network was not literally underground nor a railroad. It was figuratively underground in the sense of being an underground resistance and it was known as a railroad by way of the use of rail terminology in the code. The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, and safe houses, escaped slaves would move north along the route from one way station to the next. Conductors on the railroad came from various backgrounds and included blacks, white abolitionists, former slaves. Without the presence and support of black residents, there would have been almost no chance for fugitive slaves to pass into freedom unmolested. To reduce the risk of infiltration, many associated with the Underground Railroad knew only their part of the operation. Conductors led or transported the fugitives from station to station, a conductor sometimes pretended to be a slave in order to enter a plantation
16.
Compromise of 1850
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The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision, the Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line and it retained the Texas Panhandle and the federal government took over the states public debt. California was admitted as a state with its current boundaries. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture, the slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia. A more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted, the Compromise became possible after the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who, although a slave owner, had favored excluding slavery from the Southwest. Whig leader Henry Clay designed a compromise, which failed to pass in early 1850, upon Clays instruction, Douglas then divided Clays bill into several smaller pieces and narrowly won their passage over the opposition of those with stronger views on both sides. A state the size of Texas attracted interest from both residents and pro and anti-slavery camps on a national scale. Texas claimed land north of the 36°30 demarcation line for slavery set by the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the Texas Annexation resolution had required that if any new states were formed out of Texas lands, those north of the Missouri Compromise line would become free states. The eventual Compromise of 1850 preserved the Union, but only for another decade, passed by the House in August 1846 and February 1847 but not the Senate. Later an effort failed to attach the proviso to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the line was again proposed by the Nashville Convention of June 1850. Popular sovereignty, developed by Lewis Cass and Douglas as the eventual Democratic Party position, none of the area would be left as an unorganized or organized territory, avoiding the question of slavery in the territories. Changing Texass borders, Senator Thomas Hart Benton in December 1849 or January 1850, Texass western and northern boundaries would be the 102nd meridian west and 34th parallel north. First draft of the compromise of 1850, Texass northwestern boundary would be a diagonal line from the Rio Grande 20 miles north of El Paso to the Red River at the 100th meridian west. On January 29,1850, Whig Senator Henry Clay gave a speech called for compromise on the issues dividing the Union. However, Clays specific proposals for achieving a compromise, including his idea for Texas boundary, were not adopted in a single bill, upon Clays urging, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, divided Clays bill into several smaller bills, and passed each separately. When he instructed Douglas, Clay was nearly dead and unable to guide the congressional debate any further, the Compromise of 1850 was formally proposed by Clay and guided to passage by Douglas over Northern Whig and Southern Democrat opposition. Texass boundaries were set at their present form, El Paso, where Texas had established county government, was left in Texas, Slave trade was abolished in Washington, D. C
17.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
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The Act was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a slave power conspiracy. It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters, abolitionists nicknamed it the Bloodhound Law for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves. By 1843, several hundred slaves a year were escaping to the North. It sought to force the authorities in free states to return slaves to their masters. Many Northern states wanted to circumvent the Fugitive Slave Act, in some cases, juries refused to convict individuals who had been indicted under the Federal law. The Fugitive Slave Law dealt with slaves who escaped to free states without their masters consent. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, free and runaway blacks found Cass County a haven. Their good fortune attracted the attention of southern slaveholders, in 1847 and 1849, planters from Bourbon and Boone counties in northern Kentucky led raids into Cass County to recapture runaway slaves. The raids failed but the situation contributed to Southern demands in 1850 for passage of the strengthened Fugitive Slave Act, Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of escaped slaves and often blamed escapes on Northerners interfering with Southern property rights. Since there was no way to confirm the number of runaway slaves, law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as little as a claimants sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months imprisonment. Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work, Slave owners needed only to supply an affidavit to a Federal marshal to capture an escaped slave. The Act adversely affected the prospects of slave escape, particularly in close to the North. In 1859 in Ableman v. Booth, the U. S. Supreme Court overruled the state court, in November 1850, the Vermont legislature passed the Habeas Corpus Law, requiring Vermont judicial and law enforcement officials to assist captured fugitive slaves. It also established a judicial process, parallel to the federal process. This law rendered the federal Fugitive Slave Act effectively unenforceable in Vermont and it was considered a nullification of federal law, a concept popular in the South among states that wanted to nullify other aspects of federal law, and was part of highly charged debates over slavery. Noted poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier had called for laws
18.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
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Uncle Toms Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War, the sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. Uncle Toms Cabin was the novel of the 19th century. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s, in the first year after it was published,300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States, one million copies in Great Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called the most popular novel of our day, to affirm the role of literature as an agent of social change. The book and the plays it inspired helped popularize a number of stereotypes about black people and these include the affectionate, dark-skinned mammy, the pickaninny stereotype of black children, and the Uncle Tom, or dutiful, long-suffering servant faithful to his white master or mistress. In recent years, the associations with Uncle Toms Cabin have, to an extent. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, wrote the novel as a response to the passage, in 1850, of the second Fugitive Slave Act. Much of the book was composed in Brunswick, Maine, where her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, taught at his alma mater, Bowdoin College. Stowe was partly inspired to create Uncle Toms Cabin by the slave narrative The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself. Henson, an enslaved black man, had lived and worked on a 3,700 acres tobacco plantation in North Bethesda, Maryland. Henson escaped slavery in 1830 by fleeing to the Province of Upper Canada, where he helped other fugitive slaves settle and become self-sufficient, Stowe acknowledged in 1853 that Hensons writings inspired Uncle Toms Cabin. When Stowes work became a best-seller, Henson republished his memoirs as The Memoirs of Uncle Tom and traveled on lecture tours extensively in the United States and Europe. Stowes novel lent its name to Hensons home—Uncle Toms Cabin Historic Site, near Dresden and it is now a part of the National Park Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program, and plans are underway to build a museum and interpretive center on the site. American Slavery As It Is, Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a volume co-authored by Theodore Dwight Weld and the Grimké sisters, is also a source of some of the novels content. Stowe said she based the novel on a number of interviews with people who escaped slavery during the time when she was living in Cincinnati, Ohio, across the Ohio River from Kentucky, a slave state. In Cincinnati the Underground Railroad had local abolitionist sympathizers and was active in efforts to help runaway slaves on their route from the South. Stowe mentioned a number of the inspirations and sources for her novel in A Key to Uncle Toms Cabin and this non-fiction book was intended to verify Stowes claims about slavery
19.
Ostend Manifesto
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Ostend Circular, was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain while implying that the U. S. should declare war if Spain refused. Cubas annexation had long been a goal of U. S. slaveholding expansionists, at the national level, American leaders had been satisfied to have the island remain in weak Spanish hands so long as it did not pass to a stronger power such as Britain or France. The Ostend Manifesto proposed a shift in policy, justifying the use of force to seize Cuba in the name of national security. It resulted from debates over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and they met secretly at Ostend, Belgium, and drafted a dispatch at Aix-la-Chapelle. To Marcys chagrin, Soulé made no secret of the meetings, the administration was finally forced to publish the contents of the dispatch, which caused it irreparable damage. The dispatch was published as demanded by the House of Representatives, dubbed the Ostend Manifesto, it was immediately denounced in both the Northern states and Europe. The Pierce administration suffered a significant setback, and the became a rallying cry for anti-slavery Northerners. The question of Cubas annexation was effectively set aside until the late 19th century, located 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba had been discussed as a subject for annexation in several presidential administrations. He later described Cuba and Puerto Rico as natural appendages to the North American continent—the formers annexation was indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself. As the Spanish Empire had lost much of its power, a no-transfer policy began with Jefferson whereby the U. S. respected Spanish sovereignty, the U. S. simply wanted to ensure that control did not pass to a stronger power such as Britain or France. Cuba was of importance to Southern Democrats, who believed their economic. As slavery-free Western states were admitted, Southern politicians increasingly looked to Cuba as the slave state. If Cuba were admitted to the Union as a single state, in the Democratic Party, the debate over the continued expansion of the United States centered on how quickly, rather than whether, to expand. Even John C. likely referring to Britain, under orders from Polk, Secretary of State James Buchanan prepared an offer of $100 million, but sooner than see transferred to any power, would prefer seeing it sunk into the ocean. When Franklin Pierce took office in 1853, however, he was committed to Cubas annexation, at Pierces inauguration, he stated, The policy of my Administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion. To this end, he appointed expansionists to diplomatic posts throughout Europe, notably sending Pierre Soulé, Marcy, whose appointment was also an attempt to placate the Old Fogies. This was the term for the wing of the party that favored slow, in March 1854, the steamer Black Warrior stopped at the Cuban port of Havana on a regular trading route from New York City to Mobile, Alabama. When it failed to provide a cargo manifest, Cuban officials seized the ship, its cargo, while the matter was resolved peacefully, it fueled the flames of Southern expansionism
20.
Bleeding Kansas
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The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for popular sovereignty—that is, the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers. It would be decided by votes—or more exactly which side had more votes counted by officials, at the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would allow or outlaw slavery, and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. Pro-slavery forces said every settler had the right to bring his own property, including slaves, anti-slavery free soil forces said the rich slaveholders would buy up all the good farmland and work it with black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for non-slaveholders. As such, Bleeding Kansas was a conflict between forces in the North and pro-slavery forces from the South over the issue of slavery in the United States. The term Bleeding Kansas was coined by Republican Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, its indicated that compromise was unlikely. Through the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress kept a balance of political power between North and South. Immigrants supporting both sides of the arrived in Kansas to establish residency and gain the right to vote. They captured territorial elections, sometimes by fraud and intimidation, in response, Northern abolitionist elements flooded Kansas with free-soilers. Anti-slavery Kansas residents wrote the first Kansas Constitution and elected the Free State legislature in Topeka, the two Territorial governments increased as well as symbolized the strife of Bleeding Kansas. Among the first immigrants to Kansas Territory were citizens of states, notably neighboring Missouri. Pro-slavery forces settled towns including Leavenworth and Atchison, at the same time, citizens of the North, many aided by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, moved to Kansas to make it a free state and settled towns including Lawrence, Topeka and Manhattan. It was rumored in the South that thousands of Northerners were arriving in Kansas, the following year a Congressional committee investigating the election reported that 1729 fraudulent votes were cast compared to 1114 legal votes. In one location only 20 of the 604 voters were residents of the Kansas Territory, in another 35 were residents and 226 non-residents. On March 30,1855, Kansas Territory held the election for its first Territorial Legislature, crucially, this legislature would decide whether Kansas Territory would allow slavery. Due to questions about electoral fraud, Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder invalidated the results in five voting districts, eight of the eleven delegates elected in the special election were Free-State, but this still left the proslavery camp with an overwhelming 29–10 advantage. To help countermand the voting fraud, by the summer of 1855 around 1,200 New England Yankees had emigrated to Kansas Territory. The abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher armed many of them with Sharps rifles, in response to the disputed votes and rising tension, Congress sent a special committee to Kansas Territory in 1856. The committee report concluded that if the election on March 30,1855, had limited to actual settlers it would have elected a Free-State legislature
21.
Caning of Charles Sumner
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The beating nearly killed Sumner and it drew a sharply polarized response from the American public on the subject of the expansion of slavery in the United States. It has been considered symbolic of the breakdown of reasoned discourse that led to the American Civil War. In 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis, Sumner denounced the Kansas–Nebraska Act in his Crime against Kansas speech, delivered on May 19, Sumner then attacked the authors of the Act, Senators Stephen A. For her his tongue is always profuse in words, in addition Sumner mocked Butlers speaking ability, which had been impeded by a recent stroke, touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder, according to Hoffer, It is also important to note the sexual imagery that recurred throughout the oration, which was neither accidental nor without precedent. Abolitionists routinely accused slaveholders of maintaining slavery so that they could engage in sexual relations with their slaves. Douglas said during the speech that this damn fool is going to get killed by some other damn fool. Representative Preston Brooks, Butlers cousin, was infuriated and he later said that he intended to challenge Sumner to a duel, and consulted with fellow South Carolina Representative Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt told him that dueling was for gentlemen of social standing. Two days later, on the afternoon of May 22, Brooks entered the Senate chamber with Keitt and another ally and they waited for the galleries to clear, especially concerned that there be no ladies present to witness what Brooks intended to do. He confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber, Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, as Sumner began to stand up, Brooks beat Sumner severely on the head before he could reach his feet, using a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. The force of the blows so shocked Sumner that he lost his sight immediately, I no longer saw my assailant, nor any other person or object in the room. What I did afterwards was done almost unconsciously, acting under the instincts of self-defense, Sumner was knocked down and trapped under the heavy desk, which was bolted to the floor. His chair, which was pulled up to his desk, moved back and forth on a track, Sumner either could not or did not think to slide his chair back to escape, so it pinned him under his desk. Brooks continued to strike Sumner until Sumner rose to his feet, by this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood. He staggered up the aisle and, arms outstretched, vainly attempted to defend himself, but then he was an even larger and easier target for Brooks, who continued to beat him across the head, face, and shoulders to the full extent of power. Brooks didnt stop when his cane snapped, he continued thrashing Sumner with the piece which held the gold head, Sumner stumbled and reeled convulsively, Oh Lord, he gasped Oh
22.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
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Dred Scott v. Sandford,60 U. S.393, also known simply as the Dred Scott case, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. Dred Scott, an man of the negro African race who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B, Taney, the court denied Scotts request. The decision was only the time that the Supreme Court had ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional. Although Taney hoped that his ruling would finally settle the slavery question, many contemporary lawyers, and most modern legal scholars, consider the ruling regarding slavery in the territories to be dictum, not binding precedent. The decision proved to be an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War and it was functionally superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1868, which gave African Americans full citizenship. The Supreme Courts decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford is unanimously denounced by scholars, bernard Schwartz says it stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions—Chief Justice C. E. Hughes called it the Courts greatest self-inflicted wound. Junius P. Rodriguez says it is condemned as the U. S. Supreme Courts worst decision. Historian David Thomas Konig says it was unquestionably, our courts worst decision ever, Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia in 1795. Little is known of his early years and his owner, Peter Blow, moved to Alabama in 1818, taking his six slaves along to work a farm near Huntsville. In 1830, Blow gave up farming and settled in St. Louis, Missouri, after purchasing Scott, Emerson took him to Fort Armstrong, which was located in Illinois. A free state, Illinois had been free as a territory under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in 1836, Emerson moved with Scott from Illinois to Fort Snelling, which was located in the Wisconsin territory in what would become the state of Minnesota. Slavery in the Wisconsin Territory was prohibited by the United States Congress under the Missouri Compromise, during his stay at Fort Snelling, Scott married Harriet Robinson in a civil ceremony by Harriets owner, Major Lawrence Taliaferro, a justice of the peace who was also an Indian agent. The ceremony would have been unnecessary if Dred Scott were a slave, in 1837, the Army ordered Emerson to Jefferson Barracks Military Post, south of St. Louis, Missouri. Emerson left Scott and his wife at Fort Snelling, where he leased their services out for profit, before the end of the year, the Army reassigned Emerson to Fort Jesup in Louisiana, where Emerson married Eliza Irene Sanford in February,1838. Emerson sent for Scott and Harriet, who proceeded to Louisiana to serve their master, while en route to Louisiana, Scotts daughter Eliza was born on a steamboat underway along the Mississippi River between Illinois and what would become Iowa. Because Eliza was born in free territory, she was born as a free person under both federal and state laws. Upon entering Louisiana, the Scotts could have sued for their freedom and this had been the holding in Louisiana state courts for more than 20 years
23.
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
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John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by armed abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Browns party of 22 was defeated by a company of U. S. Marines, Colonel Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the operation to retake the arsenal. Brown came with a group of men minimally trained for military action. His group included 18 men besides himself, Northern abolitionist groups sent 198 breech-loading.52 caliber Sharps carbines and 950 pikes, in preparation for the raid. The United States Armory was a complex of buildings that manufactured small arms for the U. S. Army, with an Arsenal that was thought to contain 100,000 muskets. Brown attempted to more black recruits. He tried recruiting Frederick Douglass as an officer to the slaves in a meeting held in a quarry at Chambersburg. It was at this meeting that ex-slave Emperor Shields Green consented to join with John Brown on his attack on the United States Armory, Douglass declined, indicating to Brown that he believed the raid was a suicide mission. The plan was an attack on the government that would array the whole country against us. You will never get out alive, he warned, the Kennedy Farmhouse served as barracks, arsenal, supply depot, mess hall, debate club, and home. It was very crowded and life there was tedious, Brown was worried about arousing neighbors suspicions. As a result, the raiders had to stay indoors during the daytime, without much to do but study, drill, argue politics, discuss religion, Browns daughter-in-law Martha served as cook and housekeeper. His daughter Annie served as lookout, Brown wanted women at the farm, to prevent suspicions of a large all-male group. The raiders went outside at night to drill and get fresh air, thunderstorms were welcome since they concealed noise from Browns neighbors. Brown did not plan to have a raid and escape to the mountains. He believed that on the first night of action, 200-500 black slaves would join his line and he ridiculed the militia and regular army that might oppose him. He planned to send agents to nearby plantations, rallying the slaves and he planned to hold Harpers Ferry for a short time, expecting that as many volunteers, white and black, would join him as would form against him. He would move rapidly southward, sending out armed bands along the way and they would free more slaves, obtain food, horses and hostages, and destroy slaveholders morale
24.
United States presidential election, 1860
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The United States presidential election of 1860 was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6,1860, the United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. Incumbent President James Buchanan, like his predecessor Franklin Pierce, was a northerner with sympathies for the South and he recommended that Supreme Court Justice Robert Grier vote proslavery in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. This was so unpopular it backfired on Buchanans presidency, allowing the Republican Party to win a majority in the House in 1858, in 1860, these issues broke the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of an opposition, the newly created Republican Party secured a majority of the electoral votes. The 1860 presidential election marked the end of the Souths political dominance over the nation, moreover, since 1791, Southerners had comprised a majority of the Supreme Court. The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to rival conventions, three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi also received votes. Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored “popular sovereignty”, was ahead on the first ballot, on the 57th ballot, Douglas was still ahead, but 51.5 votes short of nomination. In desperation, the agreed on May 3 to stop voting. The Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland and this time,110 Southern delegates walked out when the convention would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. Some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the convention in Baltimore. Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket, after two ballots, the remaining Democrats nominated the ticket of Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for president, but he refused the nomination. That nomination ultimately went instead to Herschel Vespasian Johnson from Georgia, Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States Daniel S. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, they rejoined and this larger group met immediately in Baltimore’s Institute Hall, with Cushing again presiding. They adopted the pro-slavery platform rejected at Charleston, and nominated Vice President John C, Breckinridge for President, and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for Vice President. Yancey and some of the bolters, almost entirely from the Lower South, met on June 28 in Richmond, along with the South Carolina and this convention affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane. Besides the Democratic Parties in the states, the Breckinridge/Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration
25.
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
26.
Star of the West
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Star of the West was an American civilian steamship, launched in 1852 and scuttled by Confederate forces in 1863. The ship was captured by Confederate forces, used for several purposes, including a hospital ship and blockade runner. Star of the West was a 1, 172-ton steamship built by Jeremiah Simonson, of New York City for Cornelius Vanderbilt and its length was 228.3 feet and its beam 32.7 feet, with wooden hullside paddle wheels and two masts. She started service between New York and San Juan de Nicaragua on October 20,1852 and continued service for Charles Morgan from July 1853 to March 1856. In June 1857, she started the New York to Aspinwall service for the United States Mail Steamship Company until September 1859 when it went onto the New York, Havana, in January 1861, she was chartered to the War Department. On January 9,1861, weeks after South Carolina declared that it had seceded from the U. S, Star of the West arrived at Charleston Harbor to resupply Major Robert Andersons garrison at Fort Sumter. The ship was fired upon by cadets from The Citadel stationed at the Morris Island battery, although Star of the West did not suffer any major damage, her captain, John McGowan, considered it too dangerous to continue and turned about to leave the harbor. The mission was abandoned and Star of the West headed for her home port of New York Harbor, the ship was then hired out of New York City as a troop transport for $1,000 a day under its master, Elisha Howes. Star of the West sailed for Texas to pick up seven companies of United States troops assembled at Indianola, two days later the ship was taken to New Orleans where Louisianas Governor Thomas Overton Moore changed its name to CSS St. Philip. The old name persisted, however, and Star of the West served as a naval station, still under Confederate control, Star of the West escaped recapture when she was sent to transport millions in gold, silver, and paper currency to Vicksburg. After that delivery, she continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi, loring had Star of the West sunk broadside in the Tallahatchie near Greenwood to block the passage of the Union flotilla. In a skirmish on April 12,1863, the Union forces suffered casualties and were forced to withdraw. Following the war, the owners of Star of the West collected $175,000 in damages from the United States government for their loss, the incident looms large in a novel by John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration. The Star of the West Medal is awarded annually to the best drilled cadet at The Citadel, in June 1893, The Citadel Superintendent, Colonel Asbury Coward, took the corps to Aiken, South Carolina for their annual encampment and graduation exercises. Among his many curios, Dr. Teague had a piece of oak from the Steam Ship Star of the West and he sawed a small piece of this wood into the shape of a star and had it mounted on a gold medal. The recipient would wear the medal for one year and then pass it to the next recipient, the winners names are inscribed on the Star of the West monument on the college grounds. However, the medal with the wood has been lost to history. Charleston, South Carolina in the American Civil War George Edward Tuck Haynesworth William Stewart Simkins Yazoo Pass Expedition Shots at the Star of the West, note the date given as 10 January
27.
Corwin Amendment
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It was passed by the 36th Congress on March 2,1861, and submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. Senator William H. Seward of New York introduced the amendment in the Senate and it was one of several measures considered by Congress in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to attract the seceding states back into the Union and in an attempt to entice border slave states to stay. Three fifths of all other Persons, The Migration and Importation of such Persons, in the Congressional session that began in December 1860, more than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery, including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments, were introduced in Congress. Most represented compromises designed to military conflict. Mississippi Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis proposed one that protected property rights in slaves. Corwin proposed his own text as a substitute and those who opposed him failed on a vote of 68 to 121, the House then declined to give the resolution the required two-thirds vote, with a tally of 120 to 61, and then of 123 to 71. On February 28,1861, however, the House approved Corwins version by a vote of 133 to 65, missouri Democrat John S. Phelps answered, Does the gentleman desire to know whether he shall be prohibited from committing that crime. On March 2,1861, the United States Senate adopted it, with no changes, since proposed constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority,132 votes were required in the House and 24 in the Senate. The Senators and Representatives from the seven states that had already declared their secession from the Union did not vote on the Corwin Amendment. The resolution called for the amendment to be submitted to the state legislatures, the Corwin Amendment was the second proposed Thirteenth Amendment submitted to the states by Congress. The first was the similarly ill-fated Titles of Nobility Amendment in 1810, out-going President James Buchanan, a Democrat, endorsed the Corwin Amendment by taking the unprecedented step of signing it. Holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express, just weeks prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln sent a letter to each states governor transmitting the proposed amendment, noting that Buchanan had approved it. On February 8,1864, during the 38th Congress, with the prospects for a Union victory improving, anthony of Rhode Island introduced Senate Resolution No.25 to withdraw the Corwin Amendment from further consideration by the state legislatures and to halt the ratification process. That same day, Anthonys joint resolution was referred to the Senates Committee on the Judiciary, however, West Virginia did not ratify the amendment after it became a state in 1863. The joint resolution was referred to the Houses Committee on Constitutional Amendments on March 7,1963, as a result, the later Reconstruction Amendments would not have been permissible, as they abolish or interfere with the domestic institution of the states. List of amendments to the United States Constitution List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution Slavery in the United States Peace Conference of 1861 Bryant, stopping Time, The Pro-Slavery and Irrevocable Thirteenth Amendment. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, crofts, Daniel W. Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery, The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union. University of North Carolina Press Books, comprehensive scholarly history of Corwin amendment
28.
Battle of Fort Sumter
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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 then 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, food, 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 also 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, arsenals, 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
29.
John J. Crittenden
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John Jordan Crittenden was a politician from the U. S. state of Kentucky. He was also the 17th governor of Kentucky and served in the state legislature, although frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the U. S. presidency, he never consented to run for the office. During his early career, Crittenden served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and was chosen as speaker on several occasions. With the advent of the Second Party System, he allied with the National Republican Party and was a fervent supporter of Henry Clay and opponent of Democrats Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. He was returned to the Senate in 1842, serving until 1848, Taylor was elected, but Crittenden refused a post in his cabinet, fearing he would be charged with making a corrupt bargain, as Clay had been in 1825. Following Taylors death in 1850, Crittenden resigned the governorship and accepted Millard Fillmores appointment as attorney general, as the Whig Party crumbled in the mid-1850s, Crittenden joined the Know Nothing Party. After the expiration of his term as general, he was again elected to the U. S. Senate. In December 1860, he authored the Crittenden Compromise, a series of resolutions and constitutional amendments he hoped would avert the Civil War, one of Crittendens sons, George B. Crittenden, became a general in the Confederate Army, another son, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, became a general in the Union Army. The elder Crittenden was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1861, however, he criticized many of the policies of President Abraham Lincoln and the U. S. Congress, including the Emancipation Proclamation and the admission of West Virginia to the Union. He continued to work for reconciliation of the states throughout his time in office and he declared his candidacy for re-election to the House in 1863, but died before the election took place. John Jordan Crittenden was born September 10,1787, near Versailles and he was the second child and first son of Revolutionary War veteran John Crittenden and his wife Judith Harris. John and Judith Crittenden had four sons and five daughters, all, on his fathers side, he was of Welsh ancestry, while his mothers family was French Huguenot. His father had surveyed land in Kentucky with George Rogers Clark, two of Crittendens brothers, Thomas and Robert, became lawyers, while the third, Henry, was a farmer. Crittenden began a college preparatory curriculum at Pisgah Academy in Woodford County and he was then sent to a boarding school in Jessamine County. Among his classmates were Thomas Alexander Marshall and Francis P. Blair, Crittenden became especially close friends with Blair, and later political differences did little to diminish their friendship. After a year at boarding school, Crittenden moved to the Lexington, Kentucky and he began his tertiary studies at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. During his brief tenure there, he studied mathematics and belles-lettres, Crittenden was dissatisfied with the curriculum at Washington College and matriculated to the College of William and Mary
30.
Constitutional Union Party (United States)
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The Constitutional Union Party was a political party in the United States created in 1860. It was made up of conservative former Whigs who wanted to avoid secession over the slavery issue and these former Whigs teamed up with former Know-Nothings and a few Southern Democrats who were against secession to form the Constitutional Union Party. They hoped that by not taking a firm stand either for or against slavery or its expansion and this party united Southern Whigs and Democrats under the Georgia Platform, which affirmed Georgias acceptance of the Compromise as a final resolution to the issue of slavery. However, the party never expanded outside of the Deep South states of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, the 1860 incarnation of the Constitutional Union Party united remnants of both the defunct Whig and Know-Nothing Parties who were unwilling to join either the Democrats or the Republicans. The convention nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President, in the 1860 election, the Constitutional Unionists received the great majority of their votes from former southern Whigs or Know-Nothings. A few of their votes were cast by former Democrats who were against secession, douglas in the North and John C. California and Everetts home state of Massachusetts were the only states in which the party received more than 5% of the popular vote. The party and its purpose disappeared after 1860 as the states began to secede. Bell and many other Constitutional Unionists later supported the Confederacy during the Civil War, Everett supported the Union and in 1863 gave a speech at Gettysburg before Lincolns famous Gettysburg Address. National Union Party Southern Unionist United States presidential election,1860 Blum, John M. William S. McFeely, Edmund S. Morgan, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, Kenneth M. Stampp, the National Experience, A History of the United States. Newly Formed Party Party Platform of 1860 OurCampaigns overview of Constitutional Union Convention 1860
31.
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
32.
Slave states and free states
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Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, slavery was legal and practiced in each of the Thirteen Colonies that became the US. During British colonization, the population expanded, primarily drawn from the Atlantic slave trade. Organized political and social movements to end slavery began in the mid-18th century, the sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black Americans. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought against the British in hopes of a new order, thousands also joined the British army, encouraged by British offers of freedom in exchange for military service. In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom, five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was independent. These state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804, all of the states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. In the south, Kentucky was created a state from Virginia. By 1804, before the creation of new states from the western territories. In popular usage, the divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason–Dixon line. The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery and for a time slavery was an impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, in 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade but the domestic trade in half the states continued. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U. S, Constitution was ratified, prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory. The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River, which was regarded as a extension of the Mason–Dixon line. The territory was settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there
33.
Secession
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Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also any organization, union or military alliance. Threats of secession can also be a strategy for achieving more limited goals, theories of secession relate to a fundamental question of political philosophy, the basis of the states authority. Ramet, Rights of Secession by Daniel Kofman, The Very Idea of Secession by Donald Livingston and Secession, Autonomy, in 2007 the University of South Carolina sponsored a conference called Secession As an International Phenomenon which produced a number of papers on the topic. Some theories of secession emphasize a general right of secession for any reason while others emphasize that secession should be considered only to rectify grave injustices, if it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force, former President of the United States Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William H. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying, let us separate. I would rather the States should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war, economic enfranchisement of an economically oppressed class that is regionally concentrated within the scope of a larger national territory. e. Tax schemes, regulatory policies, economic programs, etc, cultural Secessionism, any group which was previously in a minority has a right to protect and develop its own culture and distinct national identity through seceding into an independent state. Institutional empowerment - The growing inability of empires and ethnic federations to maintain colonies, relative strength - Increasingly powerful secessionist movements are more likely to achieve statehood. Negotiated consent - Home states and the international community increasingly consent to secessionist demands, during the 19th century, the single British colony in eastern mainland Australia, New South Wales was progressively divided up by the British government as new settlements were formed and spread. Victoria in 1851 and Queensland in 1859, however, settlers agitated to divide the colonies throughout the later part of the century, particularly in central Queensland in the 1860s and 1890s, and in North Queensland in the 1870s. Western Australia Secession movements have surfaced several times in Western Australia, the referendum had to be ratified by the British Parliament, which declined to act, on the grounds that it would contravene the Australian Constitution. The Principality of Hutt River claims to have seceded from Australia in 1970, according to a lexicon on nationalist movements across the world, Macau happened to recognise that Principality. Austria successfully seceded from Nazi Germany on April 27,1945 and this took place after seven years of Austria being part of Adolf Hitlers Third Reich due to the Anschluss annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938. On August 25,1830, during the reign of William I, soon after, the Belgian Revolt occurred, which resulted in the Belgian secession from the Netherlands. The peace treaty accepted Uruguay independence, reasserted the rule of both nations over their land and some important points like free navigation in the Silver River, three rather disorganized secessionist rebellions happened in Grão-Pará, Bahia and Maranhão, where the people were unhappy with the Empire. The Malê Revolt, in Bahia, was an Islamic slave revolt and these three rebellions were bloodily crushed by the Empire of Brazil. In the attempts the rebels were crushed, the shot and its territory divided
34.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states
35.
District of Columbia
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
36.
Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, in doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, in 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. Though he gained little support in the slaveholding states of the South. Subsequently, on April 12,1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage and his Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war and his primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman decision. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. On April 14,1865, five days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton launched a manhunt for Booth, and 12 days later on April 26, Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12,1809, the child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk to its namesake of Hingham, samuels grandson and great-grandson began the familys western migration, which passed through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincolns paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, the presidents father
37.
Tierra del Fuego
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Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, with an area of 48,100 km2. Tierra del Fuego is divided between Chile and Argentina, with the controlling the eastern half of the main island. The southernmost extent of the archipelago is at about latitude 55 S, the earliest known human settlement in Tierra del Fuego dates to around 8,000 B. C. Europeans first explored the islands during Ferdinand Magellans expedition of 1520, Tierra del Fuego, today, petroleum extraction dominates economic activity in the north of Tierra del Fuego, while tourism, manufacturing, and Antarctic logistics are important in the south. The earliest human settlement occurred around 8,000 B. C, the Yaghan were some of the earliest known humans to settle in Tierra del Fuego. Archeological sites with characteristics of their culture have found at locations such as Navarino Island. The name Tierra del Fuego derives from the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for the Spanish Crown and he believed he was seeing the many fires of the Yaghan, which were visible from the sea, and that the Indians were waiting in the forests to ambush his armada. In 1525 Francisco de Hoces was the first to speculate that Tierra del Fuego was one or more islands rather than part of what was then called Terra Australis, francis Drake in 1578 and a Dutch VOC expedition in 1616 learned more about the geography. The latter expedition named Cape Horn, on his first voyage with the HMS Beagle in 1830, Robert FitzRoy picked up four native Fuegians, including Jemmy Button and brought them to England. The surviving three were taken to London to meet the King and Queen and were, for a time and they returned to Tierra del Fuego in the Beagle with FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, who made extensive notes about his visit to the islands. During the second half of the 19th century, the archipelago began to come under Chilean, both countries sought to claim the whole archipelago based on de jure Spanish colonial titles. Salesian Catholic missions were established in Río Grande and Dawson Island, anglican missions were established by British colonists at Keppel Island in the Falklands in 1855 and in 1870 at Ushuaia on the main island, which continued to operate through the 19th century. Thomas Bridges learned the language and compiled a 30, 000-word Yaghan grammar and it was published in the 20th century and considered an important ethnological work. An 1879 Chilean expedition led by Ramón Serrano Montaner reported large amounts of gold in the streams. This prompted massive immigration to the island between 1883 and 1909. Numerous Argentines, Chileans and Croatians settled in the main island, julius Popper, a Romanian explorer, was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the region. Granted rights by the Argentine government to exploit any gold deposits he found in Tierra del Fuego, despite the missionaries efforts, many natives died
38.
New Mexico Territory
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In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, the U. S. provisional government of New Mexico was established. After the Mexican Republic formally ceded the region to the U. S. A. in 1848, earlier in the year 1850, a bid for New Mexico statehood was underway under a proposed state constitution prohibiting slavery. The request was approved at the time that the Utah Territory was created to the north. Texas raised great opposition to this plan, as it claimed much of the same territory, in addition, slaveholders worried about not being able to expand slavery to the west of their current slave states. The Compromise of 1850 put an end to the push for immediate New Mexico statehood, approved by the United States Congress in September 1850, the legislation provided for the establishment of New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory. It also firmly established the western boundary of Texas. The status of slavery during the territorial period provoked considerable debate, the granting of statehood was up to a Congress sharply divided on the slavery issue. Regardless of its status, slavery was rare in antebellum New Mexico. Black slaves never numbered more than about a dozen, as one of the final attempts at compromise to avoid the Civil War, in December 1860, a U. S. House of Representatives committee proposed to admit New Mexico as a slave state immediately. As in New Mexico, slavery was already limited, due to earlier Mexican traditions, laws. The northwestern corner of New Mexico Territory was included in Arizona Territory until it was added to the southernmost part of the newly admitted State of Nevada in 1864, eventually Arizona Territory was organized as the State of Arizona. The Purchase treaty defines the new border as up the middle of river to the point where the parallel of 31°47 north latitude crosses the same 31°47′0″N 106°31′41. Although this area was smaller than what had been included in the failed statehood proposal of early 1850, the Gadsden Purchase was acquired by the United States from Mexico in 1853/1854, arranged by the then-American ambassador to Mexico, James Gadsden. The land of 29,640 square miles provided an easily constructed route for a future southern transcontinental railroad line for the future Southern Pacific Railroad. The Colorado Territory was established by the Colorado Organic Act on February 28,1861 and this Act removed the Colorado lands from the New Mexico Territory. This Act left the New Mexico Territory with boundaries identical to the eventual State of New Mexico for a half-century until admitted to the Union in 1912 as the 47th state, as the route to California, New Mexico Territory was disputed territory during the American Civil War. S. Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press,2014
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Indian Territory
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In general, the tribes ceded land they occupied in exchange for land grants in an area purchased by the United States federal government from Napoleonic France, the Louisiana Purchase. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the 18th-, after the Civil War, the policy of the government was one of assimilation. The term Indian Reserve describes lands the British government set aside for indigenous tribes between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River in the time before the Revolutionary War. The borders of Indian Territory were reduced in size as various Organic Acts were passed by Congress to create incorporated territories of the United States. The 1907 Oklahoma Enabling Act created the state of Oklahoma by combining Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land within the United States of America reserved for the forced re-settlement of Native Americans, the general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. The territory was located in the Midwest, while Congress passed several Organic Acts that provided a path for statehood for much of the original Indian Country, Congress never passed an Organic Act for the Indian Territory. Indian Territory was never an organized incorporated territory of the United States, in general, tribes could not sell land to non-Indians. The region never had a government until after the American Civil War. Therefore, the location commonly called Indian Territory was not a traditional territory. These re-written treaties included provisions for a legislature with proportional representation from various tribes. In time, the Indian Territory was reduced to what is now Oklahoma, the Organic Act of 1890 reduced Indian Territory to the lands occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes and the Tribes of the Quapaw Indian Agency. The remaining western portion of the former Indian Territory became the Oklahoma Territory, the Oklahoma organic act applied the laws of Nebraska to the incorporated territory of Oklahoma Territory, and the laws of Arkansas to the still unincorporated Indian Territory. The proclamation limited the settlement of Europeans to Crown-claimed lands east of the Appalachian Mountains, the territory remained active until the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War, and land was ceded to the United States. After the defeat of the British, the Americans twice invaded the Ohio Country and were twice defeated, the period after the American Revolutionary War was one of rapid western expansion. The areas occupied by Native Americans in the United States were called Indian country, in 1803 the United States of America agreed to purchase Frances claim to French Louisiana for a total of $15 million. President Thomas Jefferson doubted the legality of the purchase, however, the chief negotiator, Robert R. Livingston believed that the 3rd article of the treaty providing for the Louisiana Purchase would be acceptable to congress. Indian removal became the policy of the United States government with the passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act
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United States territorial acquisitions
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This is a United States territorial acquisitions and conquests list, beginning with American independence. Note that this list primarily concerns land the United States acquired from other nation-states, Territorial acquisitions derived from the displacement of Native Americans are not listed here. The 1783 Treaty of Paris with Great Britain defined the borders of the United States. It generally stretched from the Eastern Seaboard to the Mississippi River in the west, there were ambiguities in the treaty regarding the exact border with Canada to the north that led to disputes that were resolved by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Beginning in the late 18th century, the new nation organized areas west of the Original thirteen states into several United States territories, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was negotiated with Napoleon during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the territory was acquired from France for $15 million. A small portion of land was ceded to Britain in 1818 in exchange for the Red River Basin. More of this land was ceded to Spain in 1819 with the Florida Purchase, West Florida was declared to be a U. S. possession in 1810 by President James Madison after the territory had declared its independence from Spain. Madison ordered the U. S. Army to take control, six weeks later, the army entered and occupied the capital, St. Francisville, putting an end to the republic after 74 days of independence. Spain did not relinquish its claim to sovereignty until ratification of the Adams-Onís Treaty, general Andrew Jackson personally accepted the delivery of West Florida from its Spanish governor on July 17,1821. The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 with Spain resulted in Spains cession of East Florida, Article III of the treaty, when properly surveyed, resulted in the acquisition of a small part of central Colorado. Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with Britain split the territory in Maine and New Brunswick and finalized the border with Canada. In 1850 Britain ceded to the U. S. less than one acre of underwater rock in Lake Erie near Buffalo for a lighthouse, Congress approved the annexation of Texas on February 28,1845. On December 29,1845, Texas became the 28th state, Mexico acknowledged the loss of territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. The San Juan Islands were claimed and jointly occupied by the U. S. arbitration led to the sole U. S. possession of the San Juan Islands since 1872. The United States paid $15 million and agreed to pay claims made by American citizens against Mexico which amounted to more than $3 million. In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States purchased a strip of land along the Mexico–United States border for $10 million, now in New Mexico and this territory was intended for a southern transcontinental railroad. Alaska Purchase from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million on March 30,1867, the land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11,1912, and the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3,1959. The Kingdom of Hawaii was closely linked by missionary work and trade to the U. S. by the 1880s, in 1893 business leaders overthrew the Queen of Hawaii and sought annexation
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The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
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Arkansas Territory
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This included all of the present state of Oklahoma south of the parallel 36°30 north. Originally the western border of Missouri was intended to go due south to the Red River, during negotiations with the Choctaw in 1820, however, Andrew Jackson unknowingly ceded more of Arkansas territory. Then in 1824, after negotiations, the Choctaw agreed to move farther west. This resulted in the bend in the border at Fort Smith. Until Oklahoma received statehood, Fort Smith served as the legal authority overseeing the Oklahoma Territory. The Army oversaw issues dealing with the Indian Nations, Arkansas Post was the first territorial capital and Little Rock was the second. S. S. Acts of the Fifteenth Congress of the United States, 2nd Session, from Library of Congress, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, U. S. This act of Congress established the territory of Arkansaw, act of April 21,1820, ch.48. Acts of the Sixteenth Congress of the United States, 1st Session, from Library of Congress, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, U. S. This act of Congress modifies the act of March 2,1819, thereafter, federal statutes describe it as the territory of Arkansas, although journals of both the House and Senate both continue to occasionally use Arkansaw. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Arkansas Territory Oklahoma Digital Maps, Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
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Territories of the United States
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Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions directly overseen by the United States federal government. These territories are classified by whether they are incorporated and whether they have a government through an Organic Act passed by the U. S. Congress. Currently, the United States has sixteen territories, five of which are inhabited, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, the U. S. Virgin Islands. They are classified as unincorporated territories and they are organized, self-governing territories with locally elected governors and territorial legislatures. Each also elects a member to the U. S. House of Representatives. Eleven territories are small islands, atolls and reefs, spread across the Caribbean and Pacific, the status of some are disputed by Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and the Marshall Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the territory currently incorporated. Historically, territories were created to govern newly acquired land while the borders of the United States were still evolving, other territories administered by the United States went on to become independent countries, such as the Philippines, Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau. Many organized incorporated territories of the United States existed from 1789 to 1959, currently, the United States has sixteen territories, five of which are permanently inhabited, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, United States Virgin Islands and American Samoa. The 11 uninhabited territories administered by the Interior Department are Palmyra Atoll, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, while claimed by the US, Navassa Island, Wake Island, Serranilla Bank and Bajo Nuevo Bank are disputed. Territories have always been a part of the United States, by Act of Congress, the term United States, when used in a geographical sense, means the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States. Since political union with the Northern Mariana Islands in 1986, they too are treated as a part of the U. S, an Executive Order in 2007 includes American Samoa as U. S. geographical extent duly reflected in U. S. State Department documents. Approximately 4 million islanders are U. S. citizens, about 32,000 U. S. non-citizen nationals live in American Samoa, under current law among the territories, only persons born in American Samoa and Swains Island are non-citizen U. S. nationals. American Samoans are under the protection of the U. S. with freedom of U. S. travel without visas. The five inhabited U. S. territories have local voting rights and protections under U. S. courts, pay some U. S. taxes, depending on the congress, they may also vote on the floor in the House Committee of the Whole. S. Every four years, the Democratic and Republican political parties nominate their candidates at conventions which include delegates from the five major territories. The citizens there, however, do not vote in the election for U. S. President. S. Incorporated territories are considered a part of the United States
