1.
Congress of the Confederate States
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The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly of the Confederate States that existed from 1861 to 1865. At first, it met as a provisional congress both in Montgomery, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia, following elections held in states, refugee colonies and army camps in November 1861, the 1st Confederate Congress met in four sessions. The elections throughout 1863 in unoccupied territory led to a replacement of former Democrats with many former Whigs. The 2nd Confederate Congress met in two following a intercession during military campaign season beginning November 7,1864 and ending on March 18,1865. There was one vote for each sovereign state and they drafted and approved the Confederate States Constitution on February 8, and elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States on February 9. The Provisional Constitution adopted by the Montgomery delegates established a unicameral Provisional Congress, on February 28,1861, the Provisional Congress adopted the Permanent Confederate Constitution that provided for a bicameral national legislature consisting of a House of Representatives and a Senate. On March 4,1861, the Confederacy adopted its first flag, the Provisional Congress in the Fifth Session reached two of the most far-reaching decisions for the Confederacy, both politically and militarily. Treaties with the five civilized tribes also allowed for their seating non-voting representatives in the Confederate Congress, with the short-lived claim to the far western Arizona Territory, by the end of 1861 the Confederacy had gained the greatest extent of its territorial expansion. After that point, its de facto governance contracted as Union military actions prevailed, in the last of its actions, the Provisional Congress instructed the states in several duties. The Confederate Congresses and the Jefferson Davis administration were the two national civilian administrative bodies for the Confederacy. Elections for the First Confederate States Congress were held on November 6,1861, while Congressional elections in the United States were held in even-numbered years, elections for Confederate Congressman occurred in odd-numbered years. The First Congress met in four sessions in Richmond, in the 105 House seats and 26 Senate seats, altogether 267 men served in the Confederate Congress. About a third had served in the U. S. Congress, only twenty-seven served continuously, including House Speaker Thomas S. Bocock and Senate President pro tem Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, William W. Boyce and William Porcher Miles of South Carolina, Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, there was a rapid turnover in membership, in part to some securing an officer’s commission for military service. Throughout the existence of the Confederate Congress, its sessions were held in secrecy, both U. S Continental and Confederation Congresses had been held in secret, and the U. S. Congress did not open its galleries to newspaper reporters until 1800. Nevertheless, by summer 1862 newspapers such as the Richmond Daily Examiner began objecting to the closed sessions, the first session of the First Congress sat from February 18 to April 21,1862, a total of 63 days. During this time, the states of Missouri, Kentucky and northwest Virginia were occupied by Union forces, after the Battle of Shiloh, Union forces moved into the Tennessee Valley reaching into Alabama. Let every woman have a torch, every child a firebrand to fire everything, on retiring from a city or town, let a desert more terrible than the Sahara welcome the Vandals
Congress of the Confederate States
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State Capitol Richmond, Virginia
Congress of the Confederate States
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Confederate States Congress
2.
Howell Cobb
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Thomas Howell Cobb was an American political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He also served as a Secretary of Treasury under President James Buchanan, Cobb served for two weeks between the foundation of the Confederacy and the election of Jefferson Davis as its first President. This made him, as the Speaker of the Congress, provisional Head of State at this time, born in Jefferson County, Georgia, Cobb was raised in Athens, Georgia, and attended the University of Georgia where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. He was of Welsh American ancestry and he was admitted to the bar in 1836 and became solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia. He married Mary Ann Lamar on May 26,1835 and they would have eleven children, the first in 1838 and the last in 1861. They were John Addison, Zachariah Lamar, Howell, Henry Jackson, Basil Lamar, Mary Ann Lamar, Laura Rootes, Sarah, Andrew Jackson, Elizabeth Craig, and Thomas Reade Rootes. Several did not survive out of childhood, including their last and he was elected as Democrat to the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st Congresses. He was chairman of the U. S. House Committee on Mileage during the 28th Congress and he sided with President Andrew Jackson on the question of nullification, was an efficient supporter of President James K. On that issue, Cobb was elected governor of Georgia by a large majority, after 63 ballots, Cobb became Speaker of the House on December 22,1850. When Zachary Taylor died on July 9, Vice President Millard Fillmore became President, the president pro tempore of the Senate was not appointed until July 11 when William Rufus de Vane King took that position. In 1851, he left the House to serve as the Governor of Georgia and he published A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery. He was elected to the 34th Congress and then took the position of Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanans Cabinet and he served for three years, resigning in December 1860. At one time, Cobb was Buchanans choice for his successor, in 1860, Cobb ceased to be a Unionist, and became a leader of the secession movement. He was president of a convention of the states that assembled in Montgomery, Alabama. Under Cobbs guidance, the delegates drafted a constitution for the new Confederacy and he served as President of several sessions of the Confederate Provisional Congress, before resigning to join the military when war erupted. Cobb joined the Confederate army and was named as colonel of the 16th Georgia Infantry and he was appointed a brigadier general on February 13,1862, and assigned command of a brigade in what became the Army of Northern Virginia. Between February and June 1862, he represented the Confederate authorities in negotiations with Union officers for an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war and his efforts in these discussions contributed to the Dix-Hill Cartel accord reached in July 1862
Howell Cobb
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Howell Cobb
Howell Cobb
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Lucy May Stanton, Howell Cobb, 1912, Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
Howell Cobb
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Bureau of Engraving and Printing portrait of Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury.
Howell Cobb
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Cobb in his postbellum days
3.
Jefferson Davis
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Jefferson Finis Davis was an American politician who was a Democratic U. S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, the 23rd U. S. Secretary of War, and he took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union. Davis was born in Kentucky to a prosperous farmer, and grew up on his older brother Josephs large cotton plantations in Mississippi. Joseph Davis also secured his appointment to the U. S, after graduating, Jefferson Davis served six years as a lieutenant in the U. S. Army. He fought in the Mexican–American War, as the colonel of a volunteer regiment and he served as the U. S. Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857 under President Franklin Pierce, and as a Democratic U. S. senator from Mississippi. Before the war, he operated a cotton plantation in Mississippi. After the war had ended, he remained a proud apologist for the cause of slavery for which he, although Davis argued against secession in 1858, he believed that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. Daviss first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, died of malaria three months of marriage, and he also struggled with recurring bouts of the disease. He was unhealthy for much of his life, at the age of 36, Davis married again, to 18-year-old Varina Howell, a native of Natchez who had been educated in Philadelphia and had some family ties in the North. Only two survived him, and only one married and had children, many historians attribute the Confederacys weaknesses to the poor leadership of President Davis. Historians agree he was a less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason and he was never tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in ex-Confederate affection after the war by his leading general, Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which he completed in 1881. By the late 1880s, he began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union, ex-Confederates came to appreciate his role in the war, seeing him as a Southern patriot, and he became a hero of the Lost Cause in the post-Reconstruction South. Daviss paternal grandparents each immigrated separately to North America from the region of Snowdonia in North Wales in the early 18th century, the rest of his ancestry was English. After arriving in Philadelphia, Daviss paternal grandfather Evan settled in the colony of Georgia and he married the widow Lydia Emory Williams, who had two sons from a previous marriage. Their son Samuel Emory Davis was born in 1756 and he served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, along with his two older half-brothers. In 1783, after the war, he married Jane Cook and she was born in 1759 to William Cook and his wife Sarah Simpson in what is now Christian County, Kentucky
Jefferson Davis
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Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
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Wedding photograph of Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell, 1845
Jefferson Davis
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Jefferson Davis around age 39, c. 1847
Jefferson Davis
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Jefferson Davis is sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America on February 18, 1861, on the steps of the
Alabama State Capitol.
4.
Robert Toombs
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Robert Augustus Toombs was an American politician who was a founding father of the Confederacy and its first Secretary of State. A lawyer by training, he proved an impressive speaker in the U. S. House of Representatives, believing strongly in states’ rights and the extension of slavery, he found common ground with fellow-Georgian Alexander H. Stephens. He had supported the Compromise of 1850, but came round to advocating secession and he became a Brigadier-General, and was wounded at the Battle of Antietam. In 1863, Toombs resigned his commission in the Confederate Army to join the Georgia militia and he was subsequently denied higher promotion and resigned, continuing to feud with Davis to the last. When the war ended, he fled to Cuba, later returning to Georgia, but he refused to request a pardon, thus sacrificing his political future. Born near Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia, Robert Augustus Toombs was the child of Catherine Huling. His father died when he was five, and he entered Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens when he was just fourteen. During his time at Franklin College, Toombs was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society, shortly after his admission to the Georgia bar, Toombs married his childhood sweetheart, Julia Ann DuBois, they had three children. Toombs was admitted to the practice of law in Georgia in 1830 and his genial character, proclivity for entertainment, and unqualified success on the legal circuit earned Toombs the growing attention and admiration of his fellow Georgians. Their friendship forged a personal and political bond that effectively defined and articulated Georgias position on national issues in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Toombs stood with most Whigs regarding the status of Texas as the 28th state, historian William Y. Thompson writes that Toombs was prepared to vote all necessary supplies to repel invasion. But he did not agree that the territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande was a part of Texas, from 1853–61 Toombs served in the United States Senate, only reluctantly joining the Democratic Party when lack of interest among other states doomed the Constitutional Union Party. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Toombs fought to reconcile national policies with sectional interests and he had opposed the Annexation of Texas but vowed to defend the new state once it was annexed late in 1845. He also opposed the Mexican-American War, President Polks Oregon policy, the Walker Tariff of 1846 and he denounced the Nashville Convention, opposed the secessionists in Georgia, and helped to frame the famous Georgia platform. His position and that of Southern Unionists during the decade 1850–60 has often been misunderstood and they disapproved of secession, not because they considered it wrong in principle, but because they considered it inexpedient. He took the view that the territories were the property of all the people of the United States. If the rights of the South were violated, Toombs declared, Toombs favored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution, and the English Bill. However, his faith in the resiliency and effectiveness of the government to resolve sectional conflicts waned as the 1850s drew to a close
Robert Toombs
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The Honorable Robert Toombs
Robert Toombs
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Robert Toombs
Robert Toombs
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The original
Confederate Cabinet. L-R:
Judah P. Benjamin,
Stephen Mallory,
Christopher Memminger,
Alexander Stephens,
LeRoy Pope Walker,
Jefferson Davis,
John H. Reagan and Robert Toombs.
Robert Toombs
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Toombs' house in
Washington, Georgia, 1934.
5.
William M. Browne
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William Montague Browne was a prominent politician and newsman. During the American Civil War, he served as acting Secretary of State for the Confederacy in 1862, residing in New York City by 1855 or 56, he wrote for the New York Journal of Commerce. He associated with the Democratic Party and later became a clerk in the House of Customs, in 1859 Browne moved to Washington D. C. and wrote for the pro-administration Washington Constitution. In 1861 Browne, known as Constitution Browne by then, had become a proponent of secession and moved to Athens, Georgia. A favorite of both the just elected Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his Secretary of State Robert Toombs he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State, on several occasions in 1861 and 62 Browne acted as interim Secretary. Living in Richmond, Virginia with his wife, Eliza Jane Beket, one was Howell Cobb, a former United States Secretary of the Treasury and an old and close friend from Washington, who now was the President of Provisional Confederate Congress. The other was his brother, Colonel Thomas R. R. Cobb. Browne resigned in March 1862 and was assigned as military aide-de-camp to President Davis, beside his main duty on the staff he also was assigned to command a battalion of local defense cavalry. On April 5,1864 Davis appointed Browne as Commandant of Conscription in Georgia, Browne was a natural choice as a Georgia resident who had inspected and reported about the conscription in Georgia before. In late 1864 Browne, while still enforcing conscription, was detached to commanded a brigade of reserves during the Savannah Campaign. In December Browne was promoted to brigadier general, to rank from November 11,1864. He resumed his duty in January 1865. In February 1865 his promotion was not confirmed by the Confederate Senate, despite this he later was excluded from amnesty on grounds of being both a civil officeholder and a military officer ranking higher than colonel. He was paroled on May 8, and pardoned either in late 1865 or 66, afterwards Browne, back in Athens, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1866. Beside his practice of law he became a man again when he took over editorship of the Southern Banner in 1868. Despite his position, the Brownes suffered from poverty and fragile health. He was the uncle of Sir Robert Ricketts of Gloucestershire England, list of American Civil War generals Coulter, E. Melton. William Montague Browne, Versatile Anglo-Irish American, 1823-1883
William M. Browne
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William Browne
6.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
United States Senate
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United States Senate
United States Senate
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Seal of the U.S. Senate
United States Senate
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The Senate side of the
United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
United States Senate
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A typical Senate desk
7.
William S. Archer
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William Segar Archer was a politician and lawyer from Virginia who served in the United States Senate from 1841 to 1847. He was the nephew of Joseph Eggleston, born at The Lodge in Amelia County, Virginia, received a private education and graduated from The College of William & Mary in 1806. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1810, commencing practice in Amelia, there, he served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1829 to 1835 and was defeated for reelection in 1834. Archer was elected a Whig to the United States Senate in 1840, there, he served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations from 1841 to 1845 and of the Committee on Naval Affairs from 1841 to 1843. He was also a key member of the committee who drafted the Missouri compromise on which he exerted great influence, after being defeated for reelection by Robert M. T. Hunter in 1846, Archer resumed practicing law until his death at The Lodge in Amelia County and he was interred in the family cemetery at The Lodge. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, William S. Archer at Find a Grave
William S. Archer
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William Segar Archer
8.
John S. Carlile
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John Snyder Carlile was an American merchant, lawyer, and politician, including a United States Senator. A strong supporter of the Union cause during the American Civil War, he represented the loyalist faction of Virginia, Carlile was born in Winchester, Virginia. He was educated by his mother until he was fourteen years old, when he became salesman in a store and he then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1840, and began practice in Beverly. Entering politics, he joined the Democratic Party and he was selected as a delegate to the Virginia state constitutional convention in 1850. Carlile served in the Virginia State Senate from 1847 to 1851 and he joined the new Know Nothing political movement in 1854 and represented Virginias 11th District in the United States House for one term. Carlile was a delegate from Harrison County to the Virginia secession convention in 1861 and he was a leader in the anti-secession movement, and was prominent in the Wheeling Convention of June 1861. On June 13,1861, at the first session of the Second Wheeling Convention, the document pronounced Virginias Ordinance of Secession illegal because the convention at which it had been drafted had been convened by the General Assembly, not by a referendum. It also called for the reorganization of the government of Virginia, arguing that due to Virginias decision to secede from the United States and he was averse, however, to the formation of a new state out of the bulk of the pro-Union territory of Virginia—what became West Virginia. He frequently met with Lincoln to try to garner his support for his causes, following the war, Carlile retired from politics and returned home to resume his law practice. He died in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery, biographical Directory of the United States Congress. John S. Carlile in Encyclopedia Virginia Appletons Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, six volumes, New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889
John S. Carlile
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John Snyder Carlile
9.
Martin Van Buren
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Martin Van Buren was an American politician who served as the eighth President of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in a number of senior roles, including eighth Vice President and tenth Secretary of State. Van Buren won the presidency by promising to follow through on Jacksons policies, during his half-century of public service, he built, perfected, and defended a new system of political parties at first the state and then the federal level. In New York he reorganized the Democratic-Republican Party and established the Albany Regency to keep it in power and he then moved on Washington where he did more than anyone to construct the modern Democratic Party which dominated American politics down to the American Civil War. A delegate to a convention at age 18, he quickly moved from local to state politics. Elected to the Senate by the New York State Legislature in 1821, Van Buren supported William H. Crawford for president in the 1824 election, but by 1828 had come to support Jackson. Van Buren was a supporter and organizer for Jackson in the 1828 election. Jackson and Van Buren were elected, and after serving as governor for two months, Van Buren resigned to become Jacksons Secretary of State. During Jacksons eight years as president, Van Buren was a key advisor, in 1831, following his resignation as Secretary of State, which aided Jackson in resolving the Petticoat affair, Jackson gave Van Buren a recess appointment as American minister to Britain. Van Burens nomination was rejected by the Senate, cutting short his service in London, Van Buren faced little opposition for the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the 1836 presidential election. Van Buren was the first president to be born a United States citizen, of Dutch ancestry, he is the only president who spoke English as a second language, and was the first not to have a university degree or a military commission. As president, Van Buren was blamed for the depression of 1837 and he attempted to cure the economic problems by keeping control of federal funds in an independent treasury—rather than in state banks—but Congress would not approve of this until 1840. Additionally, relations with Britain and its colonies in Canada proved to be strained from the bloodless Aroostook War, in the 1840 election, Van Buren was voted out of office, losing to Whig candidate William Henry Harrison. Van Buren was the candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1844, but lost to James K. Polk. In the 1848 election Van Buren ran unsuccessfully as the candidate of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and he returned to the Democratic fold to endorse Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency. However, his increasingly abolitionist views and support for the Union led him to support Abraham Lincolns policies after the start of the American Civil War, Van Burens health began to fail in 1861, and he died in July 1862 at the age of 79. Martin Van Buren was born on December 5,1782, in the village of Kinderhook, Van Buren was the first President not born a British subject, or even of British ancestry. His father, Abraham van Buren, was an inn–tavern keeper, Abraham Van Buren supported the Patriot cause during the American Revolution as a captain in the Albany County Militias 7th Regiment, and later joined the Jeffersonian Republicans
Martin Van Buren
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Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
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Historical marker located at the birthplace of Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
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Baptismal record from Kinderhook Dutch Reformed Church. Van Buren's name was spelled "Maarten" in Dutch, and he was baptized on December 15, 1782
Martin Van Buren
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1832 Whig cartoon shows
Jackson carrying Van Buren into office
10.
William Henry Harrison
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William Henry Harrison Sr. was the ninth President of the United States, an American military officer, and the last president born as a British subject. He was 68 years,23 days old at the time of his inauguration and he died of complications from pneumonia 31 days into his term, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. He was the first president to die in office, and his death sparked a constitutional crisis. He was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, who served as the 23rd United States President from 1889 to 1893, before election as president, Harrison served as the first congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory and the first Governor of Indiana Territory. He gained national fame for leading U. S. forces against Native Americans at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, as a general officer in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable action was in the Battle of the Thames in 1813. This battle resulted in the death of Tecumseh and the dissolution of the Indian coalition which Tecumseh had led, after the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1824, the legislature elected him to the United States Senate. He served a term after being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia in May 1828. In Santa Fe de Bogotá, he spoke with president Simón Bolívar, returning to his farm in Ohio, Harrison lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency as one of several Whig Party candidates in the election of 1836. He received more votes than any other Whig, but was defeated by Democrat Martin Van Buren and he retired again to his farm. Van Buren soon became a target of criticism from the Whigs surrounding economic difficulties following the Panic of 1837. John Tyler of Virginia was selected as his running mate, Harrison and Tyler defeated Van Buren in the 1840 election. However, Harrison died of pneumonia in April 1841, a month after taking office, Tyler then assumed all of the powers and duties of the president, setting a major precedent. Harrison was a member of a prominent political family of entirely English descent, Harrison was also the last U. S. president born as a British subject before American Revolution. Benjamin Harrison V, Williams father, was a Virginia planter who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, the senior Harrison also served in the Virginia legislature as the fifth governor of Virginia in the years during and after the American Revolutionary War. Williams older brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, represented Virginia in the U. S. House, Harrison was tutored at home before he entered Hampden–Sydney College, the Presbyterian school in Virginia in 1787 at age 14. He remained at the school until 1790, receiving an education that included Latin, Greek, French, logic. Harrisons Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly because of a revival that was occurring at the school
William Henry Harrison
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A
daguerreotype of Harrison
William Henry Harrison
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A depiction of Tecumseh in 1848
William Henry Harrison
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This
portrait of Harrison originally showed him in
civilian clothes as the
congressional delegate from the
Northwest Territory in 1800, but the uniform was added after he became famous in the War of 1812.
William Henry Harrison
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Harrison in a copy of an 1835
White House portrait by
James Reid Lambdin
11.
James K. Polk
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James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States. Polk was born in Pineville, North Carolina, and moved to Tennessee to study law, after building a successful law practice, he was elected to the Tennessee legislature and then to the United States House of Representatives in 1825. He left Congress to serve as Governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, after losing re-election as governor in 1840, and losing in another gubernatorial election in 1842, Polk was a dark horse candidate for president in 1844. Though he entered the convention hoping to be nominated for vice president, in the general election, he defeated Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party in large part due to his promise to annex the Republic of Texas. True to his pledge to serve only one term as President, Polk left office in March 1849. He died of cholera three months later, scholars have ranked him favorably on lists of greatest presidents for his ability to promote, obtain support for, and achieve all of the major items on his presidential agenda. However, he has also criticized for leading the country into war against Mexico. Polk has been called the least known consequential president, James Knox Polk, the first of ten children, was born on November 2,1795 in a log house in what is now Pineville, North Carolina in Mecklenburg County, just outside Charlotte. His father, Samuel Polk, was a slaveholder, successful farmer and his mother, Jane Polk, was a descendant of a brother of the Scottish religious reformer John Knox. She named her firstborn after her father James Knox, like many early Scots-Irish settlers in the North Carolina mountains, the Knox and Polk families were Presbyterian. While Polks mother Jane remained a devout Presbyterian her entire life, when the parents took the young James to a Presbyterian church to be baptized, the father Samuel refused to declare his belief in Christianity, and the minister refused to baptize the child. In 1803, most of Polks relatives moved to the Duck River area in what is now Maury County, Middle Tennessee, the family grew prosperous, with Samuel Polk turning to land speculation and becoming a county judge. His health was problematic and in 1812 his pain became so unbearable that he was taken to Dr. Ephraim McDowell of Danville, Kentucky, Polk was awake during the operation with nothing but brandy available for anesthetic, but it was successful. The surgery may have left Polk sterile, as he did not sire any children, when Polk recovered, his father offered to bring him into the mercantile business, but Polk refused. In July 1813, Polk enrolled at the Zion Church near his home, a year later he attended an academy in Murfreesboro, where he may have met his future wife, Sarah Childress. At Murfreesboro, Polk proved a promising student, in January 1816, Polk was admitted into the University of North Carolina as a second-semester sophomore. The Polk family had connections with the university, then a school of about 80 students, Sam Polk was their land agent for Tennessee. While there, Polk joined the Dialectic Society where he took part in debates
James K. Polk
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James K. Polk
James K. Polk
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Reconstructed log cabin similar to one young James K. Polk lived in at the Pres. James K. Polk State Historic Site near Pineville
James K. Polk
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The house where Polk spent his adult life before his presidency, in
Columbia, Tennessee, is his only private residence still standing. It is now known as the
James K. Polk Ancestral Home.
James K. Polk
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James K. Polk and Sarah Childress Polk.
12.
John White (Kentucky politician)
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John White was a prominent US politician during the 1840s. White was a native of Kentucky and practiced law there, White was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1832. He served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1841 to 1843, on April 23,1844, White was involved in a physical confrontation on the House floor with Democratic Congressman George O. Rathbun of New York. When Rathbun told White to be quiet, White confronted him, during the disturbance, an unknown visitor fired a pistol into the crowd, wounding a police officer. Both White and Rathbun subsequently apologized for their actions, White was appointed judge of the nineteenth judicial district of Kentucky and served in that capacity from February 8,1845, until his death in Richmond, Kentucky on September 22,1845. His nephew, John Daugherty White would go on to represent Kentuckys 9th district in the late 1870s, White is buried in the State Cemetery at Frankfort, Kentucky. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, WHITE, John Allen, William B. Bradley & Gilbert
John White (Kentucky politician)
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John White
13.
United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
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United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
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Seal of the House
United States House of Representatives
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Republican
Thomas Brackett Reed, occasionally ridiculed as "Czar Reed", was a U.S. Representative from
Maine, and
Speaker of the House from 1889 to 1891 and from 1895 to 1899.
United States House of Representatives
–
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer, and Education and Labor Committee Chairman
George Miller confer with President
Barack Obama at the
Oval Office in 2009.
14.
Richard L. T. Beale
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Beale was born at Hickory Hill, Westmoreland County, Virginia. He attended two private schools, Northumberland Academy and Rappahannock Academy, before attending Dickinson College in Carlisle. He studied law and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1837, two years later, he was admitted to the bar and established a law practice at Hague, Virginia. Beale was elected as a Democrat to the Thirtieth Congress, however, he declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1848. Upon the secession of Virginia in 1861, Beale accepted a commission in the cavalry as a lieutenant in the 9th Virginia Cavalry. He was soon promoted to captain and then major, and placed in command of Camp Lee, near his hometown of Hague, on the lower Potomac River. Being commended for his intelligence and excellent judgment, he served under Col. W. H. F. Rooney Lee in the 9th Virginia Cavalry in what became the Army of Northern Virginia. When Lee was promoted to general, Beale was advanced to the rank of colonel on September 15,1862 and given command of the regiment. In December 1862, he led a bold expedition throughout the countryside near the Rappahannock River, Beales service in 1863 earned him several written commendations and praises. On April 16, he won the praise of Maj. Gen. J. E. B, stuart for repelling the threatened raid of Maj. Gen. George Stonemans Federal cavalry division, capturing several prisoners during a week of nearly continual fighting. During the Gettysburg Campaign, Beale led the 9th Virginia in a charge on Fleetwood Hill at the Battle of Brandy Station in June and he participated in Stuarts subsequent ride around the Army of the Potomac and the raid through Maryland and Pennsylvania. He participated in fighting at Gettysburgs East Cavalry Field in early July. He briefly assumed command of Rooney Lees brigade during fighting at Culpeper Court House and participated in the Bristoe, in March 1864, he made a forced march to intercept Union Col. Ulric Dahlgren and his raiders. A detachment of his 9th Virginia Cavalry successfully ambushed the Federals and these controversial papers discovered by Beales troopers may have been a factor that influenced John Wilkes Booth in his decision to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Beale led his regiment during the Overland Campaign, and captured two Union flags at the Second Battle of Reams Station during the Siege of Petersburg. In August, upon the death of John R. Chambliss, Beale was assigned to command of Chamblisss brigade and it was not until February 6,1865, that he was finally promoted to brigadier general. He led the brigade through the end of the war and he was wounded and captured at Appomattox Station on April 9,1865, and was paroled on April 27 at Ashland. î After the war, Beale resumed his political career during Reconstruction. He was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Beverly B. Douglas and he was reelected and served in the Forty-sixth Congress from January 23,1879 to March 3,1881
Richard L. T. Beale
–
Richard Lee Turberville Beale
15.
Virginia House of Representatives
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The Virginia House of Delegates is one of two parts in the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years, unlike most states, these take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, the Speaker is almost always a member of the majority party and, as Speaker, becomes the most powerful member of the House. The House shares legislative power with the Senate of Virginia, the house of the Virginia General Assembly. The House of Delegates is the successor to the Virginia House of Burgesses. The House is divided into Democratic and Republican caucuses, in addition to the Speaker, there is a majority leader, majority caucus chair, minority leader, minority caucus chair, and the chairs of the several committees of the House. Through the House of Burgesses, the Virginia House of Delegates is considered the oldest continuous legislative body in the New World, originally having 22 members, the House of Burgesses met from 1619 through 1632 in the choir of the church at Jamestown. From 1632 to 1699 the legislative body met at four different state houses in Jamestown, the first state house convened at the home of Colonial Governor Sir John Harvey from 1632 to 1656. The burgesses convened at the state house from 1656 until it was destroyed in 1660. Historians have yet to identify its location. The House has met in Virginias Capitol Building, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the legislative body met from 1788 to 1904 in what is known as today the Old Hall of the House of Delegates or commonly referred to as the Old House Chamber. The Old House Chamber is part of the original Capitol building structure and it measures 76 feet in width and is filled today with furnishings that resemble what the room would have looked like during its time of use. There are many bronze and marble busts of historic Virginians on display in the Old House Chamber, including, George Mason, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Meriwether Lewis. From 1904 to 1906, University of Virginia graduate and architect John K. Peeples designed, the General Assembly members and staff operate from offices in the General Assembly Building, located in Capitol Square. Prior to 1788 the House of Delegates met in the Colonial Capital of Williamsburg, in 1999, Republicans took control of the long-time Democratic House of Delegates for the first time since Reconstruction. The annual salary for delegates is $17,640 per year, each delegate represents roughly 83,000 people. Candidates for office must be at least 21 years of age at the time of the election, residents of the districts they seek to represent, and qualified to vote for General Assembly legislators. The regular session of the General Assembly is 60 days long during even numbered years and 30 days long during odd numbered years, the House has 14 standing committees
Virginia House of Representatives
–
Virginia House of Delegates
16.
Alexandria, Virginia
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Alexandria is an independent city in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 139,966, and in 2015, located along the western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 7 miles south of downtown Washington, D. C. Like the rest of Northern Virginia, as well as Central Maryland, one of Alexandrias largest employers is the U. S. Department of Defense. Another is the Institute for Defense Analyses, in 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office moved to Alexandria. The historic center of Alexandria is known as Old Town, with its concentration of boutiques, restaurants, antique shops and theaters, it is a major draw for all who live in Alexandria as well for visitors. Like Old Town, many Alexandria neighborhoods are compact and walkable and it is the 7th largest and highest-income independent city in Virginia. In 1920, Virginias General Assembly voted to incorporate what had been Alexandria County as Arlington County to minimize confusion, on October 21,1669 a patent granted 6,000 acres to Robert Howsing for transporting 120 people to the Colony of Virginia. That tract would become the City of Alexandria. Virginias comprehensive Tobacco Inspection Law of 1730 mandated that all grown in the colony must be brought to locally designated public warehouses for inspection before sale. One of the sites designated for a warehouse on the upper Potomac River was at the mouth of Hunting Creek, however, the ground proved to be unsuitable, and the warehouse was built half a mile up-river, where the water was deep near the shore. They intended to trade into the interior of America. The best location was Hunting Creek tobacco warehouse, since the water could easily accommodate sailing ships. Many local tobacco planters, however, wanted a new town further up Hunting Creek, around 1746, Captain Philip Alexander II moved to what is south of present Duke Street in Alexandria. His estate, which consisted of 500 acres, was bounded by Hunting Creek, Hooffs Run, the Potomac River, and approximately the line which would become Cameron Street. The petition was introduced by Lawrence Washington, the representative for Fairfax County and, more importantly, the son-in-law of William Fairfax, since the river site was amidst his estate, Philip opposed the idea and strongly favored a site at the head of Hunting Creek. It has been said that in order to avoid a predicament the petitioners offered to name the new town Alexandria, as a result, Philip and his cousin Captain John Alexander gave land to assist in the development of Alexandria, and are thus listed as the founders. This John was the son of Robert Alexander II, on May 2,1749, the House of Burgesses approved the river location and ordered Mr. A Public Vendue was advertised for July, and the county surveyor laid out street lanes and town lots. The auction was conducted on July 13–14,1749, the name Belhaven was used in official lotteries to raise money for a Church and Market House, but it was never approved by the legislature and fell out of favor in the mid-1750s
Alexandria, Virginia
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Alexandria with Washington and Arlington in the distance
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
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Map of Alexandria County (1878), including what is now
Arlington County and the City of Alexandria. Map includes the names of property owners at that time. City boundaries roughly correspond with Old Town.
Alexandria, Virginia
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Map of Alexandria showing the forts that were constructed to defend Washington during the Civil War
17.
Whig Party (United States)
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The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four US presidents belonged to the party while in office and it emerged in the 1830s as the immediate successor to the National Republican and Anti-Masonic Parties, and was also rooted in the tradition of the Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s and it originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of the US Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and it appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants, and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal, Party founders chose the Whig name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The underlying political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not directly related to the British Whig party, the Whig Party nominated several presidential candidates in 1836. General William Henry Harrison of Ohio was nominated in 1840, former Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1844, another war hero, General Winfield Scott of New Jersey was the Whig Partys last presidential nominee, in 1852. In its two decades of existence, the Whig Party had two of its candidates, Harrison and Taylor, elected president, John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrisons death in 1841, but was expelled from the party later that year. Millard Fillmore, who became president after Taylors death in 1850, was the last Whig president, the party fell apart because of the internal tension over the expansion of slavery to the territories. Most Whig Party leaders eventually quit politics or changed parties, the northern voter base mostly gravitated to the new Republican Party. In the South, most joined the Know Nothing Party, which unsuccessfully ran Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, the Constitutional Union Party experienced significant success from conservative former Whigs in the Upper South during the 1860 presidential election. Whig ideology as a policy orientation persisted for decades and played a role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction. The name Whig derived from a term that Patriots used to refer to themselves during the American Revolution and it indicated hostility to the British Sovereign, and despite the identical name, did not directly derive from the British Whig Party. The American Whigs were modernizers who saw President Andrew Jackson as a man on horseback with a reactionary opposition to the forces of social, economic. Casting their enemy as King Andrew, they sought to identify themselves as opponents of governmental overreaching. Despite the apparent unity of Jeffersons Democratic-Republicans from 1800 to 1824, as Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements, and killed the Second Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. In 1831, Henry Clay re-entered the Senate and started planning a new party and he defended national rather than sectional interests. His Jacksonian opponents, however, distrusted the government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements
Whig Party (United States)
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Handbill for Clay-Frelinghuysen, 1844
Whig Party (United States)
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"An Available Candidate: The One Qualification for a Whig President". Political cartoon about the 1848 presidential election which refers to Zachary Taylor or Winfield Scott, the two leading contenders for the Whig Party nomination in the aftermath of the
Mexican-American War. Published by
Nathaniel Currier in 1848, digitally restored.
Whig Party (United States)
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Horace Greeley 's New York Tribune —the leading Whig paper—endorsed Clay for President and Fillmore for Governor, 1844
18.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
Democratic Party (United States)
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Andrew Jackson was the first Democratic
President of the United States
Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party (United States)
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The three leaders of the Democratic party during the first half of the 20th century: President
Woodrow Wilson (nominated in 1912 and '16) Sec. of State
William J. Bryan (nominated in 1896, 1900 and 1908),
Josephus Daniels,
Breckinridge Long,
William Phillips, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt (nominated for VP in 1920 and for president in 1932, 36,'40 and 44)
Democratic Party (United States)
–
John F. Kennedy,
35th President of the United States (1961–1963)
19.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
Alma mater
–
The Alma Mater statue by
Mario Korbel, at the entrance of the
University of Havana in
Cuba.
Alma mater
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John Legate's Alma Mater for Cambridge in 1600
Alma mater
–
Alma Mater (1929, Lorado Taft),
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
20.
University of Virginia
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The University of Virginia, frequently referred to simply as Virginia, is a public research university and the flagship for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson, UVA is known for its foundations, student-run honor code. UNESCO designated UVA as Americas first and only collegiate World Heritage Site in 1987, the university was established in 1819, and its original governing Board of Visitors included Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Monroe was the sitting President of the United States at the time of its foundation, former Presidents Jefferson and Madison were UVAs first two rectors and the Academical Village and Jefferson conceived and designed the original courses of study. The universitys research endeavors are highly recognized, in 2015, Science honored UVA faculty for discovering two of its top 10 annual scientific breakthroughs, from the fields of Medicine and Psychology. UVA is one of 62 institutions in the Association of American Universities and it is the only AAU member university in Virginia. UVA is classified as a Research University with Very High Research by the Carnegie Foundation, the university was the first non-founding member, and the first university of the American South, to attain AAU membership in 1904. UVAs academic strength is broad, with 121 majors across the eight undergraduate, students compete in 26 collegiate sports and UVA leads the Atlantic Coast Conference in mens NCAA team national championships with 17. UVA is second in womens NCAA titles with 7, UVA was awarded the Capital One Cup in 2015 after fielding the top overall mens athletics programs in the nation. Students come to attend the university in Charlottesville from all 50 states and 147 countries, the historic 1, 682-acre campus is internationally protected by UNESCO and considered one of the most beautiful collegiate grounds in the country. UVA additionally maintains 2,913 acres southeast of the city, the university also manages the College at Wise in Southwest Virginia, and until 1972 operated George Mason University and the University of Mary Washington in Northern Virginia. In 1817, three Presidents and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall joined 24 other dignitaries at a meeting held in the Mountain Top Tavern at Rockfish Gap, after some deliberation, they selected nearby Charlottesville as the site of the new University of Virginia. Farmland just outside Charlottesville was purchased from James Monroe by the Board of Visitors as Central College, the school laid its first buildings cornerstone late in that same year, and the Commonwealth of Virginia chartered the new university on January 25,1819. John Hartwell Cocke collaborated with James Madison, Monroe, and Joseph Carrington Cabell to fulfill Jeffersons dream to establish the university, Cocke and Jefferson were appointed to the building committee to supervise the construction. The universitys first classes met on March 7,1825, another innovation of the new university was that higher education would be separated from religious doctrine. Jefferson opined to philosopher Thomas Cooper that a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution, Jefferson was intimately involved in the university to the end, hosting Sunday dinners at his Monticello home for faculty and students until his death. Thus, he eschewed mention of his accomplishments, such as the Louisiana Purchase. This was a source of frustration for Jefferson, who assembled the students during the schools first year, on October 3,1825, to such behavior
University of Virginia
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Thomas Jefferson is the founder of the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
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University of Virginia
University of Virginia
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James Madison was the 2nd rector of the University of Virginia until 1836
University of Virginia
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Edwin Alderman was UVA's first president between 1904 and 1931, and instituted many reforms toward modernization
21.
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
American Civil War
–
New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.
American Civil War
–
Clockwise from top:
Battle of Gettysburg,
Union Captain John Tidball's artillery,
Confederate prisoners,
ironclad USS Atlanta, ruins of
Richmond, Virginia,
Battle of Franklin
American Civil War
–
Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
American Civil War
–
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860
Crittenden Compromise
22.
Essex County, Virginia
–
Essex County is a county located in the Middle Peninsula in the U. S. state of Virginia, the peninsula is bordered by the Rappahannock River on the north and the York River on the south. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,151, Essex County was established in 1692 from the old Rappahannock County, Virginia. The county is named for either the shire or county in England, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 286 square miles, of which 257 square miles is land and 29 square miles is water. Its main town, Tappahanock, is focused at the Rappahanock River, the population density was 39 people per square mile. There were 4,926 housing units at a density of 19 per square mile. 0. 72% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,26. 10% of all households were made up of individuals and 11. 30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the family size was 2.95. In the county, the population was out with 22. 90% under the age of 18,7. 00% from 18 to 24,27. 00% from 25 to 44,25. 70% from 45 to 64. The median age was 40 years, for every 100 females there were 89.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.20 males, the median income for a household in the county was $37,395, and the median income for a family was $43,588. Males had an income of $29,736 versus $22,253 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,994, about 7. 70% of families and 11. 20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16. 80% of those under age 18 and 11. 80% of those age 65 or over. Penny Davis Essex is represented by Republican Ryan T. McDougle in the Virginia Senate, Republican M. Keith Hodges in the Virginia House of Delegates, rob Wittman in the U. S. House of Representatives. Essex County Public Schools is the schools system for Essex County, Virginia. Senator Paul S. Trible, Jr. was Commonwealths Attorney of Essex County, speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Confederate States Secretary of State. Grammy Award-nominated R&B singer Chris Brown was born and raised in this county, garnett- Confederate States of America general who was killed while leading his brigade during Picketts Charge. National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, Virginia Official website Essex County Museum
Essex County, Virginia
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Essex County Courthouse in Tappahannock
23.
Robert S. Garnett
–
Robert Selden Garnett was a career military officer, serving in the United States Army until the American Civil War, when he became a Confederate States Army brigadier general. He was the first general killed in the Civil War. Garnett, the son of Robert Selden Garnet, Sr. and Charlotte Olympia De Gougea, was born at the plantation in Essex County. Along with his cousin, Richard B, Garnett, Robert attended the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, graduating 27th in a class of 52. Seven classmates, including his cousin, would die in combat in the Civil War, another notable cousin of the Garnetts was United States Congressman Robert M. T. Hunter, who went on to become a Senator in the Confederate Congress and Secretary of State of the Confederacy. Upon his graduation from West Point, Garnett was assigned as a lieutenant in the 4th U. S. In 1843 Garnett became an assistant tactics instructor at West Point before becoming an army recruiter, in 1848, Garnett transferred to the 7th U. S. Infantry and served in the Seminole Wars in Florida before heading to the Presidio of Monterey, after a brief stint on a review board in Washington, D. C. he served on the frontier in Texas, being promoted to captain. He returned to West Point as Commandant of Cadets before being transferred to duty in Virginia. Being named a captain in the 1st U. S. Cavalry, the much traveled Garnett was promoted to major of the 9th U. S. Infantry and went west to the Washington Territory, where he served in the 1856 Yakima Expedition and he designed and supervised the construction of Fort Simcoe. He requested and was granted a leave of absence later that year when his wife and young son died from disease. Still in mourning, he was traveling in Europe when the Confederate States of America were formed, when Virginia seceded from the United States, Garnett resigned his commission in April 1861 and became Adjutant General of the Virginia troops, serving under Robert E. Lee. In June, he was assigned as brigadier general of the Provisional Army, at the start of the Civil War, Union forces had rapidly crossed the Ohio River to seize a portion of northwestern Virginia, winning a key victory at the Battle of Philippi. On June 15, Lee assigned Garnett to reorganize the Confederate forces in the area and he deployed his forces at strategic points along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, hoping to defend the vital supply route from the Federal troops. A series of battles occurred, with the Confederates being forced to withdraw under pressure from Maj. Gen. George B. After a defeat at Battle of Rich Mountain, Garnett withdrew from his Laurel Hill entrenchments under cover of darkness, however, he received what later proved to be false information that his escape route to Beverly was blocked by Union troops. He instead marched to the northeast, following ridges and valleys in a circuitous route
Robert S. Garnett
–
Robert Selden Garnett
Robert S. Garnett
–
This photograph, thought to be of Garnett's cousin, Brig. Gen.
Richard B. Garnett, may actually be of Robert.
Robert S. Garnett
–
Grave monument for General Garnett, his wife and child,
Green-Wood Cemetery
24.
Richard B. Garnett
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Richard Brooke Garnett was a career United States Army officer and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He was court-martialed by Stonewall Jackson for his actions in command of the Stonewall Brigade at the First Battle of Kernstown, and killed during Picketts Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Garnett was born on the Rose Hill estate in Essex County, Virginia and he had a twin brother, William, who died in Norfolk in 1855. He was the cousin of Robert M. T, hunter as well as Robert Selden Garnett, also a Confederate general, who holds the dubious distinction of being the first general officer killed during the Civil War. Both of the Garnetts graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1841, with Richard standing 29th out of 52 cadets, Garnett was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 6th U. S. Infantry and he served in a variety of posts in Florida, fighting the Seminoles, and then in the West, where he commanded Fort Laramie, rode with the Utah Expedition, and was a noted Indian fighter. During the Mexican-American War, he served in positions in New Orleans. He learned of the outbreak of the Civil War while serving in California as a captain, despite believing strongly that the Union should not be dissolved, he returned to Virginia to fight for his native state and the Confederacy. Garnett resigned his commission in the U. S. Army on May 17,1861 and his first assignment in Virginia was as a major of artillery in May, and then as lieutenant colonel of Cobbs Georgia Legion on August 31. Stonewall Jackson, the Stonewall Brigade, Jackson was now in command in the Shenandoah Valley. During Jacksons Valley Campaign of 1862, Garnetts military career took a turn at the First Battle of Kernstown in March. Jackson marched his army 40 miles to intercept a portion of the Union Army under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, since that force was of comparable size to Jacksons, he ordered Garnett and the Stonewall Brigade to attack. Unfortunately, Shields had an infantry division on hand, almost 9,000 men. The attack went badly and Garnett, finding his brigade low on ammunition, Jackson was infuriated and accused Garnett of disobeying orders, meaning that he should not have retreated without obtaining permission from Jackson first. Jackson, well known as a disciplinarian, arrested Garnett for neglect of duty on April 1. Garnetts court-martial started in August 1862, with only Jackson and his aide giving testimony, however the trial was suspended due to the start of Gen. Robert E. Lees Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run that September. Lee ordered Jackson to release Garnett from arrest and he was assigned to command the injured George Picketts brigade in Lt. Gen. James Longstreets First Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. He did not participate in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 because Longstreets Corps was assigned duties in Suffolk, Stonewall Jackson was gravely wounded at Chancellorsville and died soon after from pneumonia
Richard B. Garnett
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Possible portrait of General Garnett
Richard B. Garnett
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Library of Congress photograph labeled "
Franklin Gardner, CSA, Born N.Y.C.," which may actually be Richard B. Garnett
Richard B. Garnett
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Franklin Gardner picture.
25.
Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
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The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society is the oldest student organization at the University of Virginia, having been founded on July 14,1825, in Room Seven, West Lawn. As such, it is one of the oldest collegiate societies in North America and it is also the second oldest Greek-lettered organization in the United States, after Phi Beta Kappa. The Societys Greek-letters are Φ Π Θ, initials for Φίλοί, Πατρίς and its Latin motto, Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit, is taken from Virgils Aeneid and roughly translated, In the future it will be pleasing to remember these things. The Society regularly meets on Friday evenings at Hotel C in the Academical Village, referred to as Jefferson Hall, Jeff Hall, Room Seven, West Lawn, is also maintained by the Jefferson Society, selecting a Fourth Year student to live there. Membership in the Society grew rapidly in the years after its founding. By 1855, the University of Virginia was the second largest University in the nation after Harvard University and that school year, the Society admitted 155 new members, nearly a quarter of the student body of the University. In the hotheaded antebellum years, the Society could become raucous and its elections were condemned by the Faculty for such turbulence as to degrade the reputation of the University. An especially coveted honor was to be selected as final orator, the Society played a key role in establishing student journalism at the University, founding the University Magazine as early as 1856. The Jefferson Society sponsored the magazine for many decades, the Sully Portrait is one of the only portraits of Thomas Jefferson painted from life. It was painted by Thomas Sully and is loaned to the University of Virginia to be displayed in the Rotunda, edgar Allan Poe signed a minutes book one evening during which he served as secretary pro tem. His signature was later clipped out by Lancelot Blackford in the 1850s, stealing it, Society alumni raised money to buy the signature from a collector in the early 1980s, in honor of their friend and fellow alumnus, James F. Perz. The signature is kept in storage as part of the University librarys special collections. Thomas Woodrow Wilson signed one of the books during his tenure as the Societys President. Furthermore, the Societys minute books also contain sets of handwritten minutes signed by Wilson when he was the Societys Secretary. Edgar Allan Poe, author of The Raven Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States Colgate W. Darden, Hotel C, West Range, University of Virginia. Patton, John S. Jefferson, Cabell, and the University of Virginia, official Web Site, Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
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The Hall
Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
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The Lawn during early Fall.
Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
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Society Members on the Lawn
26.
Virginia House of Delegates
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The Virginia House of Delegates is one of two parts in the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years, unlike most states, these take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, the Speaker is almost always a member of the majority party and, as Speaker, becomes the most powerful member of the House. The House shares legislative power with the Senate of Virginia, the house of the Virginia General Assembly. The House of Delegates is the successor to the Virginia House of Burgesses. The House is divided into Democratic and Republican caucuses, in addition to the Speaker, there is a majority leader, majority caucus chair, minority leader, minority caucus chair, and the chairs of the several committees of the House. Through the House of Burgesses, the Virginia House of Delegates is considered the oldest continuous legislative body in the New World, originally having 22 members, the House of Burgesses met from 1619 through 1632 in the choir of the church at Jamestown. From 1632 to 1699 the legislative body met at four different state houses in Jamestown, the first state house convened at the home of Colonial Governor Sir John Harvey from 1632 to 1656. The burgesses convened at the state house from 1656 until it was destroyed in 1660. Historians have yet to identify its location. The House has met in Virginias Capitol Building, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the legislative body met from 1788 to 1904 in what is known as today the Old Hall of the House of Delegates or commonly referred to as the Old House Chamber. The Old House Chamber is part of the original Capitol building structure and it measures 76 feet in width and is filled today with furnishings that resemble what the room would have looked like during its time of use. There are many bronze and marble busts of historic Virginians on display in the Old House Chamber, including, George Mason, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Meriwether Lewis. From 1904 to 1906, University of Virginia graduate and architect John K. Peeples designed, the General Assembly members and staff operate from offices in the General Assembly Building, located in Capitol Square. Prior to 1788 the House of Delegates met in the Colonial Capital of Williamsburg, in 1999, Republicans took control of the long-time Democratic House of Delegates for the first time since Reconstruction. The annual salary for delegates is $17,640 per year, each delegate represents roughly 83,000 people. Candidates for office must be at least 21 years of age at the time of the election, residents of the districts they seek to represent, and qualified to vote for General Assembly legislators. The regular session of the General Assembly is 60 days long during even numbered years and 30 days long during odd numbered years, the House has 14 standing committees
Virginia House of Delegates
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Virginia House of Delegates
27.
States Rights
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The balance of federal powers and those powers held by the states as defined in the Supremacy Clause of the U. S. Constitution was first addressed in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland, the Supremacy Clause of the U. S. The Articles gave the government very little, if any. Gutzman argued that Governor Edmund Randolph designed the protest in the name of moderation, Gutzman argues that in 1798, Madison espoused states rights to defeat national legislation that he maintained was a threat to republicanism. During 1831–33, the South Carolina Nullifiers quoted Madison in their defense of states rights, the most vociferous supporters of states rights, such as John Randolph of Roanoke, were called Old Republicans into the 1820s and 1830s. Tate undertook a literary criticism of a book by John Taylor of Caroline. Tate argues it is structured as a forensic historiography modeled on the techniques of 18th-century Whig lawyers, Taylor believed that evidence from American history gave proof of state sovereignty within the union, against the arguments of nationalists such as U. S. Another states rights dispute occurred over the War of 1812, at the Hartford Convention of 1814–15, New England Federalists voiced opposition to President Madisons war, and discussed secession from the Union. One major and continuous strain on the union, from roughly 1820 through the Civil War, was the issue of trade, heavily dependent upon international trade, the almost entirely agricultural and export-oriented South imported most of its manufactured goods from Europe or obtained them from the North. The North, by contrast, had a growing industrial economy that viewed foreign trade as competition. Trade barriers, especially protective tariffs, were viewed as harmful to the Southern economy, in 1828, the Congress passed protective tariffs to benefit trade in the northern states, but that were detrimental to the South. Southerners vocally expressed their opposition in documents such as the South Carolina Exposition and Protest in 1828. Exposition and Protest was the work of South Carolina senator and former vice president John C, calhoun, formerly an advocate of protective tariffs and internal improvements at federal expense. South Carolinas Nullification Ordinance declared that both the tariff of 1828 and the tariff of 1832 were null and void within the borders of South Carolina. This action initiated the Nullification Crisis, over the following decades, another central dispute over states rights moved to the forefront. In contrast, opponents of slavery argued that the rights were violated both by that decision and by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Exactly which—and whose—states rights were the casus belli in the Civil War remain in controversy, a major Southern argument in the 1850s was that banning slavery in the territories discriminated against states that allowed slavery, making them second-class states. In 1857 the Supreme Court sided with the states rights supporters, Southern states sometimes argued against states rights
States Rights
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Constitutional scholar
Kevin Gutzman is an advocate for states' rights.
28.
United States Senate Committee on Finance
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The U. S. Senate Committee on Finance is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It is considered to be one of the most powerful committees in Congress, the Committee on Finance is one of the original committees established in the Senate. On December 10,1816 the Senate officially created the Committee on Finance as a standing committee, originally, the Committee had power over tariffs, taxation, banking and currency issues and appropriations. Under this authority the committee played a role in the most heated topics of the era, including numerous tariffs issues. The committee was influential in the creation of the Department of Interior in 1849. Under the Chairmanship of William Pitt Fessenden, the played a decisive role during the Civil War. Appropriating all funds for the war effort as well as raising funds to finance the war through tariffs. Additionally, the committee produced the Legal Tender Act of 1862, in 1865 the House of Representatives created an Appropriations Committee to relieve the burden from the Committee on Ways and Means. The Senate followed this example by forming the Appropriations Committee in 1867, despite the loss of one of its signature duties the committee continued to play a prominent role in the major issues of the nation. The committee was at the center of the debate over the question in the latter half of the 19th Century. Passage of the Bland-Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act were attempts to remedy the demand for silver, the committee also continued to play a role in the debate over income taxes. The repeal of the Civil War income taxes in the 1870s would eventually be raised in 1894 with the passage of a new tax law. The Supreme Courts decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Company ruled the income tax as unconstitutional, the fight for an income tax finally culminated with the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. In order to pass the new tariff Senate leaders, including Chairman Nelson Aldrich, four years later the 16th Amendment was officially ratified and in 1913 the nations first peacetime income tax was instituted. Around that same time the committee lost jurisdiction over banking and currency issues to the newly created Committee on Banking, the committee did gain jurisdiction over veterans’ benefits when it successfully passed the War Risk Insurance Act of 1917. The act shifted pensions from gratuities to benefits and which served as one of the first life insurance programs created under the federal government, the Finance Committee continued to play an increasingly important role in the lives of the nations veterans. The committee helped to consolidate the veteran bureaucracy by streamlining the various responsibilities into a Veterans Bureau which ultimately would become the Veterans Administration, in 1924 the committee passed a Bonus Bill for World War I veterans which compensated veterans of that war for their service. These series of increasing and providing better benefits for veterans reached a crescendo in 1944 with the passage of the Servicemens Readjustment Act, senator Bennett Champ Clark, who served as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Veterans, assured smooth sailing of the bill through the Senate
United States Senate Committee on Finance
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Seal of the United States Senate
29.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
President of the United States
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Incumbent
Barack Obama since January 20, 2009 (2009-01-20)
President of the United States
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Presidential Seal
President of the United States
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Obama signing legislation at the
Resolute desk
President of the United States
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Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, successfully preserved the
Union during the
American Civil War
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress website http://bioguide.congress.gov.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 944.
