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Florida adopts its Ordinance of Secession
That the State of Florida hereby withdrawals herself from the Confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America, and from the existing government of said States; and that all political connection between her and the government of said States ought to be and the same is hereby totally annulled and said Union of States dissolved, and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent Nation -
Santa Rosa Island
After midnight on October 9, Brig. Gen. Richard Anderson crossed from the mainland to Santa Rosa Island with 1,200 men in two small steamers to surprise Union camps and capture Fort Pickens. He landed on the north beach about four miles east of Fort Pickens and divided his command into three columns. After proceeding about three miles, the Confederates surprised the 6th Regiment, New York Volunteers, in its camp and routed the regiment. Gen. Anderson then adopted a defensive stance to entice the -
US v Klein
The 1870 statute was unconstitutional and Congress had exceeded its power by invading the province of the judicial branch by prescribing the rule of decision in a particular cause. Independently, the statute was unconstitutional as an encroachment on the President's power to issue pardons. -
Tampa
On June 30, a Union gunboat came into Tampa Bay, turned her broadside on the town, and opened her ports. The gunboat then dispatched a launch carrying 20 men and a lieutenant under a flag of truce demanding the surrender of Tampa. The Confederates refused, and the gunboat opened fire. The officer then informed the Confederates that shelling would commence at 6:00 pm after allowing time to evacuate non-combatants from the city. Firing continued sporadically into the afternoon of July 1, when the -
Saint John's Bluff
Brig. Gen. John Finegan established a battery on St. John’ s Bluff near Jacksonville to stop the movement of Federal ships up the St. Johns River. Brig. Gen. John M. Brannan embarked with about 1,500 infantry aboard the transports Boston, Ben DeFord, Cosmopolitan, and Neptune at Hilton Head, South Carolina, on September 30. The flotilla arrived at the mouth of the St. John’ s River on October 1, where Cdr. Charles Steedman’ s gunboats—Paul Jones, Cimarron, Uncas, Patroon, Hale, and Water Witch—j -
Prize Cases
Prize Cases (1863) – 67 U.S. 635[1] – was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1862 during the American Civil War. The Supreme Court's decision declared constitutional the blockade of the Southern ports ordered by President Abraham Lincoln. The opinion in the case was written by Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier. The President did have the authority to order a blockade and impound ships, even without a formal declaration of war. -
Fort Brooke
Two Union ships bombarded Fort Brooke on October 16 as a diversion, while a landing party under Acting Master T.R. Harris disembarked at Ballast Point and marched 14 miles to the Hillsborough River to capture several steamers. Harris and his men surprised and captured the blockade running steamer Scottish Chief and sloop Kate Dale. The Rebels destroyed the steamer A.B. Noyes to preclude her capture. On its way back to the ship, Harris’s force was surprised by a detachment of the garrison, causin -
Olustee
In February 1864, the commander of the Department of the South, Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, launched an expedition into Florida to secure Union enclaves, sever Rebel supply routes, and recruit black soldiers. Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour moved deep into the state, occupying, destroying, and liberating, meeting little resistance on February 20, he approached Brig. Gen. Joseph Finegan’s 5,000 Confederates entrenched near Olustee. One infantry brigade pushed out to meet Seymour’s advance units. -
Battle of Marianna
fought in the streets of the Northwest Florida city of Marianna -
Natural Bridge
Maj. Gen. John Newton had undertaken a joint force expedition to engage and destroy Confederate troops that had attacked at Cedar Keys and Fort Myers and were allegedly encamped somewhere around St. Marks. The Navy had trouble getting its ships up the St. Marks River. The Army force, however, had advanced and, after finding one bridge destroyed, started before dawn on March 6 to attempt to cross the river at Natural Bridge. The troops initially pushed Rebel forces back but not away from the brid -
Mississippi v. Johnson
In the course of his enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts, President Johnson was necessarily exercising discretion and so could not be sued. The court decided, based on a previous decision of Marbury v. Madison that the President has two kinds of task: ministerial and discretionary. Discretionary tasks are ones the president can choose to do or not to do. Ministerial tasks are ones required by his job. In fact, if he fails to do them, he could be violating the Constitution. -
Georgia v. Stanton
The Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction over federal government action under the Reconstruction Acts. the court does not hold jurisdiction over the political question of enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts against the Southern States. The court did recognize its original jurisdiction in the matter and its ability to decide issues of the rights of persons or property. Nevertheless, the case before it was not one of persons or property, but the political question of whether the federal government -
Texas v. White
The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that US bonds owned by TX since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit directly with the United States Supreme Court, which, under the US Constitution, retains original jurisdiction on certain cases in which a state is a party. In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union. -
Hepburn v. Griswold
Court declared certain parts of the legal tender acts to be unconstitutional. This included the issuance of greenbacks, which he was responsible for overseeing during his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury. The lawsuit originated when one Mrs. Hepburn attempted to pay a debt due to one Henry Griswold on a promissory note, which was made five days prior to the issuance of United States notes that this case questioned. -
Slaughterhouse Cases
the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the relatively new Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It is viewed as a pivotal case in early civil rights law, reading the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the "privileges or immunities" conferred by virtue of the federal United States citizenship to all individuals of all states within it, but not those privileges or immunities incident to citizenship of a state. -
Minor v. Happersett
United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote. The Court upheld state court decisions in MO which had refused to register a woman as a lawful voter because that state's laws allowed only men to vote. The ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Court accepted Minor was a citizen but it held that the constitutionally protected citizenship, not the right to vote -
US v. Cruikshank
The First Amendment right to assembly was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens and the Second Amendment has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government.
