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Second Great Awakening Began
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800 and, after 1820, membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. -
Eli Whitney Patented the Cotton Gin
The cotton gin was a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber; it is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S. South and so institutionalizing slavery. -
Gabriel Prosser Slave Revolt
The son of an African-born mother, Gabriel grew up as the slave of Thomas H. Prosser. Gabriel became a deeply religious man, strongly influenced by biblical example. In the spring and summer of 1800, he laid plans for a slave insurrection aimed at creating an independent black state in Virginia with himself as king. Governor James Monroe, already informed of the plot, ordered out the state militia. Gabriel and about 34 of his companions were subsequently arrested, tried, and hanged. -
Thomas Jefferson elected President
First peaceful transfer of power from one political power to the other. Elected under the Democratic-Republican party. Alexander Hamilton died in a duel with the Vice President, Aaron Burr. -
Louisiana Purchase
A land deal between the U.S. and France in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
Murbury vs Madison
The U.S. Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the principle of judicial review—the power of the federal courts to declare legislative and executive acts unconstitutional. -
Beginning of the Lewis-Clark Expedition
First American expedition to cross into the western portion of the United States. One of their goals was to find a waterway from the US to the Pacific Ocean. Their mission was to explore the unknown territory, establish trade with the Natives and affirm the sovereignty of the United States in the region. -
Embargo Act
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a law passed by the United State Congress and signed by President Thomas Jefferson on December 22, 1807. It prohibited American ships from trading in all foreign ports in response to the French and British's molestation of American ships. In 1806, France passed a law that prohibited trade between neutral parties, like the U.S., and Britain. -
Chesapeake-Leopard Affair
The Chesapeake-Leopard affair was an engagement between the British warship, the HMS Leopard, and the American frigate, the USS Chesapeake. The crew of the British HMS Leopard ship confronted the American Chesapeake ship in search of the four of its members who had deserted the Royal Navy. This incident took place on June 22, 1807 off the coast of Norfolk Virginia. The British is "considered" to have won after the Chesapeake's surrender. -
James Madison Elected President
The Democratic-Republican candidate James Madison defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney decisively. James Monroe wrote the Virginia Plan, drafted the Bill-of-Rights, was the father of the Constitution, and cofounded the Democratic-Republican party. -
Non-Intercourse Act
In the last sixteen days of President Thomas Jefferson's presidency, the Congress replaced the Embargo Act of 1807 with the almost unenforceable Non-Intercourse Act of March 1809. This Act lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports. -
Francis Cabot Lowell Smuggled Memorized Textile Mill Plans from Manchester, England
This smuggling of the plans for the power loom helped bring the Americans into the Industrial Revolution. -
Beginning of Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny. the belief or doctrine, held chiefly in the middle and latter part of the 19th century, that it was the destiny of the U.S. to expand its territory over the whole of North America and to extend and enhance its political, social, and economic influences. -
Death of Tecumseh
The battle gave control of the western theater to the United States in the War of 1812. Tecumseh’s death marked the end of Indian resistance east of the Mississippi River, and soon after most of the depleted tribes were forced west. -
The British Burn Washington DC
British forces, under General Robert Ross, captured the nation's capital and ordered the burning of Washington in revenge of the crushing defeat for the British in the Battle of York in which Americans sacked the capital of Upper Canada, York (Toronto). The British hoped that the retaliatory burning of Washington would embarrass and demoralize the American nation. -
Hartford Convention
Federalist delegates gathered in Hartford, Connecticut, to discuss the impact of the War of 1812 on their home states' economies. There were 26 delegates, almost half from Massachusetts. The meetings were held in secret (similar to the Constitutional Convention). -
Treaty of Ghent Ratified
The Treaty of Ghent (8 Stat. 218) was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. -
Era of Good Feeling Began
Era of Good Feelings, also called Era of Good Feeling, national mood of the United States from 1815 to 1825. It really began in 1815, when for the first time, thanks to the ending of the Napoleonic Wars, American citizens could afford to pay less attention to European political and military affairs. -
Battle of New Orleans
Because the decisive victory was followed shortly afterward by news of a peace treaty, many Americans at the time mistakenly believed the Battle of New Orleans had won the war. The Battle of New Orleans is also important because it propelled Andrew Jackson to fame as a war hero. Resulted in American victory. -
End of the War of 1812
War between U.S. and Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. Ended with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent. -
Rush-Bagot Treaty
An agreement between U.S. Secretary of State Richard Rush and Charles Bagot, British Minister to the U.S. This agreement limited the volume of naval forces in the Great Lakes in the wake of the war of 1812. -
James Monroe Elected President
Born on April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, James Monroe fought under George Washington and studied law with Thomas Jefferson. He was elected the fifth president of the United States in 1817 under the Democratic-Republican party. -
McCulloch v. Maryland
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that established that the "Necessary and Proper" Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal U.S. government certain implied powers that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. -
Panic of 1819
In 1819, the impressive post-War of 1812 economic expansion ended. Banks throughout the country failed; mortgages were foreclosed, forcing people out of their homes and off their farms. Falling prices impaired agriculture and manufacturing, triggering widespread unemployment that lasted through 1821. -
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
The Supreme Court held that Section X, Article 1, of the federal Constitution prohibits states from altering the obligations of a contract, in this case, a charter. The founders of Dartmouth, the court ruled, contracted with the trustees for the perpetual application of the funds provided by the founders. The decision had far-reaching impact in its application to business charters, protecting businesses and corporations from a great deal of government regulation. -
Anglo-American Convention
The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary and the restoration of slaves between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Was signed Oct. 30, 1818. -
Adams-Onis Treaty
The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. -
Denmark Vesey Slave Revolt
Denmark Vesey, a black carpenter who bought his freedom after winning the lottery and then secretly plotted a slave rebellion in Charleston, S.C., in 1822. Though the rebellion never actually happened — a slave spilled the beans about it to authorities before it could happen — Vesey and 34 slaves, including some from the household of the state’s governor, were tried and executed for “attempting to raise an insurrection.” -
Monroe Doctrine
4pts(1)U.S. would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) U.S. recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3)Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in th Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States. It was in response to Spain and Britain's attempts to restore their colonies. -
John Quincy Adams Elected President (Corrupt Bargain)
To the surprise of many, the House elected John Quincy Adams over rival Andrew Jackson. It was widely believed that Clay, the Speaker of the House at the time, convinced Congress to elect Adams, who then made Clay his Secretary of State. Jackson's supporters denounced this as a "corrupt bargain."
Adams was disliked because he did not go to war when American voters wanted to fight. This made Adams unpopular because he used his position in government to attack his political enemies. -
Gibbons v. Ogden
A landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation. -
Charles B. Finney lead Religious Revivals in Western New York.
Lawyer, theologian and college president, Charles Grandison Finney was also the most famous revivalist of the Second Great Awakening. He did not merely lead revivals; he actively marketed, promoted and packaged them. -
Robert Owen Founded the New Harmony Community
Robert Owen (/ˈoʊɪn/; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropic social reformer, and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. While the Owenite social experiment was an economic failure two years after it began, the community made some important contributions to American society. -
Erie Canal Completed
Construction began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. Its success propelled New York City into a major commercial centre and encouraged canal construction throughout the United States. In addition, construction of the canal served as a training ground for many of the engineers who built other American canals and railroads in the ensuing decades. -
Lyman Beecher Delivered His "Six Sermons on Intemperance"
A Presbyterian clergyman, Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) was one of the outstanding American preachers and revivalists before the Civil War. He achieved national fame as reformer, educator, and central figure in theological controversies. The formation of the American Temperance Society marked the beginning of the national temperance movement in the U.S. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the country. -
Tariff of Abominations
The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States. The tariff sought to protect northern and western agricultural products from competition with foreign imports; however, the resulting tax on foreign goods would raise the cost of living in the South and would cut into the profits of New England's industrialists. -
Catharine Beecher Published Essays on the Education of Female Teachers
American educator and author who popularized and shaped a conservative ideological movement to both elevate and entrench women’s place in the domestic sphere of American culture. She was the daughter of Lyman Beecher as well as the sister of Edward and Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe and the half sister of Isabella Beecher Hooker. -
Andrew Jackson Elected President
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of Congress. -
Joseph Smith founded the Church of New Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints
Smith organized a few dozen believers into a church. From then on, his great project was to gather people into settlements, called “cities of Zion,” where they would find refuge from the calamities of the last days. Male converts were ordained and sent out to make more converts, a missionary program that resulted in tens of thousands of conversions by the end of Smith’s life. The faithful were expelled as soon as their increasing numbers threatened to give them political control of the towns. -
Indian Removal Act
The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed. Trouble arose when the United States resorted to force to gain the Indians’ compliance with its demand that they accept the land exchange and move west.The trek of the Cherokee in 1838–39 became known as the infamous “Trail of Tears.” -
Worcester vs Georgia
"Treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union, so the Cherokee nation is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States."JM -
Andrew Jackson Vetoed the Re-Charter of the Second Bank of the United States
The bank’s charter was unfair, Jackson argued in his veto message, because it gave the bank considerable, almost monopolistic, market power, specifically in the markets that moved financial resources around the country and into and out of other nations. -
Nullification Crisis Began
Nullification crisis, in U.S. history, confrontation between the state of South Carolina and the federal government in 1832–33 over the former’s attempt to declare null and void within the state the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The resolution of the nullification crisis in favour of the federal government helped to undermine the nullification doctrine, the constitutional theory that upheld the right of states to nullify federal acts within their boundaries. -
Black Hawk War
Fought in Illinois and Wisconsin, the war was one of many conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers over western land. White Americans at that time were unsympathetic to the forced loss of land by of Native Americans through numerous treaties always favoring the settlers. -
Creation of the Whig Party in the U.S.
The Whig Party originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829–1837) and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. -
Treaty of New Echota
It ceded Cherokee land to the United States and agreed on the removal west of the Mississippi in exchange for $5 million in compensation. However, this treaty had been negotiated without the authorization from Cherokee Chief John Ross (1790-1866). -
First McGuffey Reader Published
Most schools of the 19th century used only the first two in the series of McGuffey's four readers. The first Reader taught reading by using the phonics method, the identification of letters and their arrangement into words, and aided with slate work. The second Reader was used once students could read. -
Martin Van Buren Elected President
Van Buren won the 1836 presidential election with the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. Almost immediately he faced a national financial panic brought about in part by the transfer of federal funds from the Bank of the United States to state banks during Jackson’s second term. -
Andrew Jackson Issued Specie Circular
The Specie Circular is a United States presidential executive order issued by President Andrew Jackson in 1836 pursuant to the Coinage Act and carried out by his successor, President Martin Van Buren. It required payment for government land to be in gold and silver. Its purpose was to stop land speculation caused by states issuing printed paper money without proper specie (values of gold or silver) backing it up. -
Texas Declared Independence from Mexico
The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. Many American settlers and Tejanos, or Mexicans who lived in Texas, wanted to break away from Mexico. They did not like laws made by Santa Anna, Mexico's president. The Tejanos and Texans decided to fight for independence. In 1836, Santa Anna took an army to San Antonio to take a fort called the Alamo. -
Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing the Texian and immigrant occupiers. On April 21, 1836, General Houston's army won a quick battle against the Mexican forces at San Jacinto and gained independence for Texas. Soon after, Houston was elected president of the Republic of Texas. -
Transcendental Club's First Meeting
Transcendentalists believed in numerous values, however they can all be condensed into three basic, essential values: individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature. -
Horace Mann Elected Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
Named secretary of the new Massachusetts board of education in 1837, he overhauled the state's public-education system and established a series of schools to train teachers. Mann later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and served as president of Antioch College in Ohio until his death in 1859. -
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. In 1832, Andrew Jackson ordered the withdrawal of federal government funds from the Bank of the United States, one of the steps that ultimately led to the Panic of 1837, which was a financial crisis that had damaging effects on the Ohio and national economies. -
Trail of Tears Began
In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects not limited to death by starvation, dehydration, etc. -
Ralph Waldo Emerson Gave the "Divinity School Address"
The "Divinity School Address" is the common name for the speech Ralph Waldo Emerson gave to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School on July 15, 1838. -
John Humphrey founded the Oneida Community
Oneida Community, also called Perfectionists, or Bible Communists, utopian religious community that developed out of a Society of Inquiry established by John Humphrey Noyes and some of his disciples in Putney, Vt., U.S., in 1841. As new recruits arrived, the society turned into a socialized community. -
Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Webster-Ashburton Treaty, Aug., 1842, agreement concluded by the United States, represented by Secretary of State Daniel Webster, and Great Britain, represented by Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton. The treaty settled the Northeast Boundary Dispute , which had caused serious conflicts, such as the Aroostook War . -
James Polk Elected President
James Polk was the 11th president of the United States, known for his territorial expansion of the nation chiefly through the Mexican-American War. James K Polk set four distinct goals to accomplish during his presidency; reestablishment of Independent Treasury System, reduction of tariffs, acquiring some or all of Oregon Country, and acquiring California and New Mexico. He went on to achieve all of his four primary goals. -
Treaty of Wanghia with China
The Treaty of Wanghia was a diplomatic agreement between Qing-dynasty China and the United States, signed on July 3, 1844 in the Kun Iam Temple. Its official title name is the Treaty of peace, amity, and commerce, between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire. As the official name implies, it set up many commercial and diplomatic relations with China. -
U.S. Annexation of Texas
The Texas Annexation was the 1845 annexation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America, which was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845 following the Mexican War. -
Bear Flag Revolt
During the Bear Flag Revolt, from June to July 1846, a small group of American settlers in California rebelled against the Mexican government and proclaimed California an independent republic. -
Start of the Mexican War
In 1846, after Polk ordered General Taylor's troops into the disputed territory, Mexican forces attacked an American Army outpost ("Thornton Affair") in the occupied territory, killing 12 U.S. soldiers and capturing 52. These same Mexican troops later laid siege to an American fort along the Rio Grande. -
Gadsden Purchase
Known in Mexican history as the sale of the Mesilla Valley, it assigned to the United States nearly 30,000 additional square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory (La Mesilla), now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico, in exchange for $10 million. Prompted in part by advocates of a southern transcontinental railroad, for which the most practical route would pass through the acquired territory, the purchase was negotiated by the U.S. minister to Mexico, James Gadsden. -
Gold Rush Began in California
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The treaty added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the land that makes up all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming as an agreement for ending the Mexican War. -
Commodore Matthew Perry Entered Tokyo Harbor Opening Japan to the U.S.
On July 8, 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world, who had lived in far seclusion. -
Kanagawa Treaty
Signed under threat of force, it effectively meant the end of Japan's 220-year-old policy of national seclusion by opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American vessels. -
Henry David Thoreau Published Civil Disobedience
Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. ... Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War.
