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54-40 or Fight
The 1844 Democratic presidential candidate James K. Polk ran on a platform of taking control over the entire Oregon Territory and used the famous campaign slogan, "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" (after the line of latitude serving as the northern boundary of Oregon at 54°40'). Polk's plan was to claim and go to war over the entire territory for the United States.
Polk won the election with a popular vote of 1,337,243 to Henry Clay's 1,299,068 (the electoral vote yielded Polk 170 votes vs. 105 for -
Missouri Compromise
By 1818, Missouri Territory had gained sufficient population to warrant its admission into the Union as a state. Its settlers came largely from the South, and it was expected that Missouri would be a slave state. To a statehood bill brought before the House of Representatives, James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment that would forbid importation of slaves and would bring about the ultimate emancipation of all slaves born in Missouri. This amendment passed the House (Feb., 1819), but no -
Texas Annexation
The joint resolution was adopted March 1, 1845, and received the assent of President Tyler the next day. On the last day of his term of office he sent a message to the Texas government, with a copy of the joint resolutions of Congress in favor of annexation. These were considered by a convention in Texas, called for the purpose of forming a State constitution. That body approved the measure (July 4, 1845), and on that day Texas became one of the States of the Union.
Whereas, the Congress of the -
Wilmot Proviso
Since the north was more populous and had more Representatives in the House, the Wilmot Proviso passed. Laws require the approval of both houses of Congress, however. The Senate, equally divided between free states and slave states could not muster the majority necessary for approval. Angrily the House passed Wilmot's Proviso several times, all to no avail. It would never become law. For years, the arguments for and against slavery were debated in the churches and in the newspapers. The House o -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidago
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 1848, peace treaty between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican War. Negotiations were carried on for the United States by Nicholas P. Trist. The treaty was signed on Feb. 2, 1848, in the village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, just outside Mexico City. It confirmed U.S. claims to Texas and set its boundary at the Rio Grande. Mexico also agreed to cede to the United States California and New Mexico (which included present-day California, Nevada, and Utah, and p -
Compromise of 1850
During its early years of statehood, Texas claimed territory about fifty percent larger than its present boundary, including parts of the present states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming.Much of this land was contested by other groups, with the result that emotions on both sides of the issue reached the point of hostility by 1850. The Pearce Plan was adopted on September 9, 1850. Although Texas lost almost one-third of its territory under this plan, the settlement also incl -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was initially released in serial format in the National Era, a weekly newspaper, from June 5, 1851-April 1, 1852.Harriet Beecher Stowe's best known novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property. It demanded that the United States deliver on the promise of freedom and equality, galvanized the abolition movement and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. The book calls on us to confront the legacy -
Gadsden Purchase
Gadsden Purchase (gădz'dun) [key], strip of land purchased (1853) by the United States from Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) had described the U.S.-Mexico boundary vaguely, and President Pierce wanted to insure U.S. possession of the Mesilla Valley near the Rio Grande—the most practicable route for a southern railroad to the Pacific. James Gadsden negotiated the purchase, and the U.S. Senate ratified (1854) it by a narrow margin. The area of c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), purchase -
Republican party founded
One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. The Republicans rapidly gained supporters in the North, and in 1856 their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won 11 of the 16 Northern states. By 1860, the majority of the Southern slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans won the presidency. In November 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president over a divided Democratic Pa -
kansas nebraska act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 may have been the single most significant event leading to the Civil War. By the early 1850s settlers and entrepreneurs wanted to move into the area now known as Nebraska. However, until the area was organized as a territory, settlers would not move there because they could not legally hold a claim on the land. The southern states' representatives in Congress were in no hurry to permit a Nebraska territory because the land lay north of the 36°30' parallel . -
Brookes-Sumner incident
a young South Carolina congressman named Preston Brooks strode forcefully into the Senate chamber looking for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The Senate floor was nearly deserted, but Brooks saw Sumner sitting alone at his desk, preparing a stack of pamphlets for mailing. Without warning, Brooks rushed forward and began beating the unsuspecting Sumner savagely with a gold-tipped wooden cane. Even after knocking the older man to the ground, Brooks continued raining down blows upon Sumner's -
Harper's Ferry Raid
In October 1859, the U.S. military arsenal at Harpers Ferry was the target of an assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown (1800-59). (Originally part of Virginia, Harpers Ferry is located in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia near the convergence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.) The raid was intended to be the first stage in an elaborate plan to establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. Brown was captured during th -
Election of 1860
The Democratic Party was in disarray in 1860 when they convened in Charleston, South Carolina to choose their presidential candidate. Southern elements insisted that the nominating convention make a strong statement supporting slavery in the territories. Western elements, however, opposed that stance and argued for an endorsement of popular sovereignty. The latter position prevailed and the Southern delegates walked out. -
Firing on Fort Sumter
Anderson had about 80 men, Beauregard thousands. There were very few casualties. Charleston Harbor was the tinderbox of the Civil War, but Fort Sumter was nothing special. Work began on the fort thirty years before the war, and, thanks to low Federal spending, it was still unfinished and already obsolete by 1861. The mainly brick Fort rested on an artificial island (New England granite) and could mount about a hundred guns, some out of apertures (casemates) and some firing over the wall (en barb -
First Battle of Bull run
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. Known as the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas), the engagement began when about 35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C. to strike a Confederate force of 20,000 along a small river known as Bull Run. After fighting on the defensive for most of the day, the rebels rallied and were able to break the Union right flank -
monitor v. merrimack
On March 8, 1862, from her berth at Norfolk, the Confederate ironclad Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads where she sank Cumberland and ran Congress aground. Fortunately for the Union, on March 9, the ironclad Monitor arrived to do battle, initiated the first engagement of ironclads in history. The two ships fought each other to a standstill, but Virginia retired. Result(s): Inconclusive Other Names: Hampton Roads, Battle of the Ironclads Location: Hampton Roads Campaign: Peninsula Campa -
Battle of Gettysberg
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1–July 3, 1863), was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee. Casualties at Gettysburg totaled 23,049 for the Union (3,155 dead, 14,529 wounded, 5,365 missing). Confederate ca -
Sherman's March
Atlanta fell to Sherman's Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate's evasive tactics doomed Sherman's plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure. "Sherman's Sentinels"
Only the chimneys stand after
a visit by Sherman's Army -
Appomattox Court House
in the American Civil War, site in Virginia of the surrender of the Confederate forces to those of the North on April 9, 1865. After an engagement with Federal cavalry, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was surrounded at Appomattox, seat of Appomattox county, Virginia, 25 miles east of Lynchburg. Three miles to the northeast, at the former county seat, known as Appomattox Court House, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, thus effectively ending the Civil War. Th -
battle of antietam
In the bloodiest war in American history, the battle of Antietam stands out as the bloodiest single day. At the end of the battle, 2,108 Union soldiers were confirmed dead, and another 10,293 were missing. By comparison, on the bloodiest single day of World War II, D-Day, the US forces lost only half as many men. (In total, Union and Confederate losses were over nine times the number lost on June 6, 1944.) Though Confederate losses were slightly less; only 10,318 men, Commanding General Robert
