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AP U. S. History Presidential Review

The Young Republic/The Critical Period, 1788-1815
1. George Washington, 1789-1797 VP - John Adams Secretary of State - Thomas Jefferson
Secretary of Treasury - Alexander Hamilton
Reference Points:
The first cabinet positionstreasury, war, state, attorney general
Judiciary Act, 1789
Tariff of 1789
Philadelphia as the nations capital, 1790
First Bank of United States , 1791-1811 (Report on Public Credit, Report on Manufactures)
Vermont enters Union, 1791
The Bill of Rights, 1791
The New York Stock Exchange, 1792
Kentucky enters Union, 1792
Fugitive Slave law, 1793
French Revolution - Citizen Genet, 1793
Eli Whitney granted patent for the cotton gin, 1794
Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
Jays Treaty with England, 1795
Pinckneys Treaty with Spain, 1795
Hamilton v Jefferson (loose v strict interpretations of the Constitution)
Tennessee enters Union, 1796
Farewell Address, 1796
2. John Adams, 1797-1801 Federalist VP - Thomas Jefferson
Reference Points:
XYZ Affair, 1797
11th Amendment, 1798
Naturalization Act, 1798
Alien Act, Sedition Act, 1798
Kentucky (Jefferson) and Virginia (Madison) Resolutions, 1798
Handsome Lake, 1799
Prossers Rebellion, 1800
"Midnight Appointments"/Judiciary Act of 1801

3. Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809 Republican VP - Aaron Burr Secretary of State - James

Madison
Reference Points:
Repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801
Beginning of the Second Great Awakening, 1801-1840s
Henry Shrapnel receives the patent for shell ammunition, 1803
Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Ohio enters Union, 1803
Louisiana Purchase, 1803
Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806
The attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, 1804
Aaron Burr and his treason trial, 1804-1807
12th Amendment, 1804
Yazoo Land Scandal, 1805
National Road (also known as Cumberland Road) authorized, 1806
Impressment, 1806-1812
Embargo Act, 1807
Congressional prohibition on slave trade into the US, 1808
4. James Madison, 1809-1817 Republican VP - George Clinton Secretary of State - James
Monroe
Reference Points:
Repeal of Embargo Act, 1809
Non-Intercourse Act, 1809
Macon Act, 1810
Fletcher v Peck and the Yazoo Land Scandal decision, 1810
Bank Debates and the expiration of the First National Banks charter, 1811
"War Hawks," 1811-1812 (John C. Calhoun of SC and Henry Clay of KY)
Tecumseh, 1811
Turnpikes (toll roads) proliferate, 1811-1818
Louisiana enters Union, 1812
War of 1812 (1812-1814)
Star-Spangled banner composed, 1814
Treaty of Ghent, 1814
Hartford Convention, 1814

 Battle of New Orleans, 1815

Unitarianism, 1815-1860
Early immigration (Irish, Germans), 1815-1860
The rechartering of the National Bank, 1816
Indiana enters Union, 1816

Era of Good Feelings and the Era of the Common Man, 1815-1840
5. James Monroe, 1817-1825 Republican VP Daniel Tompkins Secretary of State - John
Quincy Adams
Reference Points:
The First Seminole War (Andrew Jackson), 1816-1818
Mississippi enters Union, 1817
Construction begins on Erie Canal, 1817
Steamboat navigation inaugurated on Ohio Mississippi route, 1817
Illinois enters Union, 1818
Panic of 1819
Depression of 1819-1821
Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819
Cession of Florida/Adams-Onis Treaty, 1819
First US immigration law passed, establishing a registration system and a process, 1819
McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819
First US steamship crosses Atlantic to Europe, 1819
Alabama enters Union, 1819
Missouri Compromise, 1820
Maine enters Union, 1820
Slave trade declared piracy, 1820
Missouri enters Union, 1821
Seminoles resettled in central Florida
Stephen S. Austin founds first American settlement in Mexican province of Texas, 1821
Cumberland Road (National Road) debate and veto, 1822
US extends recognition to new republics of Latin America, 1821
Denmark Veseys rebellion, 1822
Monroe Doctrine, 1823
Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
US and Russia establish boundary along Pacific coast of Oregon Territory
American System, 1824
Tariff of 1824
Favorite Sons Election [Jackson, J. Q. Adams, Crawford, Clay], 1824
Creeks moved west, 1825

6. John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829 National Republican VP - John C. Calhoun Secretary of

State - Henry Clay
Reference Points:
"Corrupt Bargain"
Opening of Erie Canal, 1825
Beginning of railroad construction, 1826 James Fenimore Cooper publishes Last of the Mohicans, published, 1826
American Temperance Society established, 1826
Freemans Journal first black-run newspaper in US founded in New York, 1827
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad becomes the first passenger railway in US, 1827
Irish and German immigration begins, 1827-1838
Noah Webster publishes The American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
Tariff of Abominations, 1828
South Carolina demands right to nullify federal laws, 1828
Calhoun's Exposition and Protest, 1828

7. Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837 Democrat VP - John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren
Reference Points:
Kitchen Cabinet/Spoils System
Jacksonian Democracy
The first railroad locomotive enters service, 1829
Chesapeake and Delaware canals open, 1829
Mormon Church founded, 1830
Indian Removal Act, 1830
Maysville Road Veto, 1830
Land speculation makes receipts of public lands a main source of government revenue, 18301835
William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of The Liberator, 1831
Nat Turners insurrection, 1831
Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 1831
Underground Railroad, 1831 Bank veto issue, 1832 (charter due to expire 1836)
The Tariff of 1832 and the nullification controversy, 1832
Worlds first streetcar begins service in New York, 1832
Tariff of 1833 (a Henry Clay compromise) and the Force Act, 1833
Anti-Slavery Society, 1833
Black Hawk war, 1832
Worcester v Georgia, 1832
Formation of the Whig Party/Second Party System, 1832/1834
Jackson enacts 10-hour day for federal workers, 1834
Second Seminole War, 1835-1842
Treaty of New Echota, 1835
Trail of Tears forces the Cherokee from Georgia to Indian Territory, 1835-1838
Transportation boom, 1835-1841
Gag rule, 1836
Republic of Texas proclaimed (the Alamo, the Battle of San Jacinto), 1836
Bureau of Indian Affairs established, 1836
Arkansas enters Union, 1836
Specie circular adopted to curtail overspeculation in public land sales, 1836

 Rise of manufacturing in the North, 1830s Transcendentalism, 1836-1850

Michigan enters Union, 1837
8. Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841 Democrat VP - Richard M. Johnson
Reference Points:
Panic of 1837
Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers his American Scholar address at Harvard, 1837
Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge, 1837
Samuel Morse receives patent for telegraph, 1837
Joseph Smith leads Mormons from Ohio toward Missouri, 1838
Tennessee passes first prohibition law, 1838
Liberty Party founded on platform of abolitionism (later merged with Free Soilers), 1839
Independent Treasury Bill, 1840
10-hour work day extended to all laborers, 1840
Rise of popular press, 1840 Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign, 1840

Antebellum Period, 1840-1860

9. William Henry Harrison, 1841 Whig VP - John Tyler Secretary of State - Daniel Webster
10. John Tyler, 1841-1845 Anti-Jackson Democrat ran as VP on Whig ticket Secretary of State Daniel Webster
Reference Points:
Supreme Court frees black rebels in Amistad case, 1841
Repeal of the Independent Treasury Act/Bank veto issue, 1841
John C. Fremont surveys Oregon Trail, 1842
Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842
Commonwealth v Hunt, 1842
Charles Thurber patents the typewriter, 1843
High point of Old Immigration (Scandinavians in upstate New York, Wisconsin and
Minnesota; Irish in New York and New England; Germans in New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St.
Louis, Milwaukee, Texas), 1843-1882
Beginnings of Nativism /American Republican Party, 1843
Bible riots, 1844
Henry Wells and George Fargo found express service, 1844
Oregon border dispute/54 40, 1844-1846
Texas annexation 1844-1845 (completed under President Polk)
Samuel Morse sends first telegram from Washington DC to Baltimore, 1844
Florida enters Union, 1845
11. James K. Polk, 1845-1849 Original "dark horse" candidate Democrat VP George Dallas
Reference Points:
Manifest Destiny/John OSullivan, 1845
Texas enters Union, 1845
Smithsonian Institution established in Washington, DC, 1846
Brigham Young leads Mormons to Utah, 1846
Mexican War, 1846-1848
Bear Flag revolt in California, 1846
Oregon boundary settled with Great Britain, 1846
Wilmot Proviso, 1846
Iowa enters Union, 1846
US Post Office issues first official stamp, 1847
Discovery of gold in California, 1848

 Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo, 1848

Wisconsin enters Union, 1848
Seneca Falls Convention/The Declaration of Sentiments, 1848
Free Soil Party established, 1848
Department of the Interior established, 1849

12. Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850 Whig VP - Millard Fillmore

Reference Points:
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850 (in anticipation of a canal across Central America)
13. Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853 Whig Secretary of State - Daniel Webster
Reference Points:
California enters Union, 1850
Compromise of 1850
Fugitive Slave Act, 1850
The New York Times begins publication, 1851
Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick, 1851
Isaac Singer patents his sewing machine, 1851
Cuba declares independence from Spain, 1851
YMCA established in US, 1851
Northern frustrations over Fugitive Slave law, 1850-1861
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
American Party/The Know-Nothings, 1853
14. Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857 Democrat VP William Rufus De Vane King
Reference Points:
Gadsden Purchase, 1853
Japan opened to US trade/Commodore Mathew Perry, 1854
Whig Party collapses (Conscience Whigs v Cotton Whigs), 1854
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden, 1854
Republican Party established, 1854
Kansas-Nebraska Bill and popular sovereignty, 1854
Ostend Manifesto, 1854
Chinese immigration peaks (75,000 over 1854-1868)
Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass, 1855
Border Ruffians invade Kansas territory to vote for pro-slavery legislature, 1855
Lecompton (pro-slavery) v Topeka (anti-slavery) legislatures in Kansas, 1855
First American kindergarten opens in Watertown, MA, 1856
Henry Bessemer invents process of converting iron to steel, 1856
Pro-slavery forces sack Lawrence, KS/Bleeding Kansas, 1856
John Brown and the Pottowatomie Massacre, 1856

 Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumners The Crime Against Kansas speech, 1856
Representative Preston Brooks (SC) attacks and beats Senator Sumner with a cane on the
floor of the US Senate, 1856

15. James Buchanan, 1857-1861 Democrat VP- John C. Breckinridge

Reference Points:
Dred Scott v Sanford/Dred Scott decision, 1857
Lecompton Constitution (pro-slavery), 1857
Minnesota enters Union, 1858
Kansas voters reject the Lecompton Constitution, 1858
First trans-Atlantic cable exchanged between Buchanan & Queen Victoria of Great Britain,
1858
Abraham Lincoln delivers A House Divided speech at Republican State Convention, 1858
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
Moses Farmer demonstrates first electric light in Salem, MA, 1859
George Pullman introduces railroad sleeping cars, 1859
Oregon enters Union, 1859
Oil is discovered in Pennsylvania, 1859
John Brown seizes federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, 1859
Democratic party divides along north-south lines, 1860
Congress establishes the Government Printing Office, 1860
Pony Express mail service begins service between Missouri and California, 1860
Abraham Lincoln is elected president, 1860
South Carolina secedes from the Union, 1860
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana secede from the Union, 1861
Kansas enters Union, 1861
Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America, 1861

Civil War, 1861-1865

16. Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 Republican VP - Andrew Johnson Secretary of State - William
H. Seward (New York) Secretary of Treasury - Salmon P. Chase Secretary of War - Edwin M.
Stanton
Reference Points:
Fort Sumter, SC, incident; Lincoln calls volunteer troops, 1861
Confederacy declares war on the Union, 1861
Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee secede from the Union, 1861
Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus, 1861
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri loyal slave states, 1861
Ex Parte Merryman, 1861
Beginning of Cheyenne-Arapaho Wars caused by influx of miners into Colorado, 1861
First Battle of Bull Run, 1861
Legal Tender Act issues greenbacks, 1862
Davis signs Conscription Act, 1862
Slavery in the District of Columbia abolished, 1862
New Orleans captured, 1862
Lincoln signs Homestead Act, 1862
Department of Agriculture established, 1862
Morill Act, 1862
Pacific Railroad Act authorizes the Union Pacific RR to build a line from Nebraska to Utah,
where it was to meet the Central Pacific, building east from California. The Union Pacific used
Irish immigrants; Central Pacific used Chinese immigrants, 1862
In response to unfulfilled government promises, Sioux return to their hunting grounds and kill
about 700 white settlers; results in army intervention, hanging and jailing of Indian leaders, 1862
Lincoln signs Internal Revenue Act imposing federal tax program on liquor jewelry, corporate
gains, stamps, inheritance, and a 3% income tax on incomes exceeding $800), 1862-1872
Second Battle of the Bull Run, 1862
Battle of Antietam, 1862
Preliminary Emancipation Declaration, 1862
Emancipation Declaration, 1863
Lincoln creates national bank and currency system to sustain war efforts, 1863
Lincoln signs Enrollment Act to recruit soldiers, 1863
West Virginia secedes from Virginia and enters Union, 1863
Battle of Gettysburg, 1863

 Battle of Vicksburg, 1863

Gettysburg Address, 1863
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, 1863
Shermans march into Georgia begins, 1864
Wade-Davis Bill, 1864
Office of Commissioner of Immigration established, 1864
Fall of Atlanta, 1864
Nevada enters Union, 1864
Massacre of Cheyenne Indians at Sand Creek, southern Colorado (Chivington Massacre),
1864
Freedmens Bureau, 1865
Fall of Richmond, 1865
Andrew Carnegie enters steel business, 1865
John D. Rockefeller enters oil refinery business, 1865
Surrender at Appomatox, 1865
Lincoln assassinated on April 14th/John Wilkes Booth, 1865

Reconstruction, 1865-1877
17. Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869 Republican Secretary of State - William H. Seward
Reference Points:
Reconstruction Proclamation of Amnesty (Presidential Reconstruction), 1865
13th Amendment, 1865
Johnson restores writ of habeas corpus, 1865
Mississippi passes first Black Codes, 1865
Freedmens Bureau veto and overruling, 1866
Civil Rights Act of 1866 (vetoed and overruled)
William Sylvis founds National Labor Union (8-hour movement), 1866
Ex Parte Milligan, 1866
Southern Homestead Act, 1866
Ku Klux Klan founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866
Radical Republicans capture Congress, 1866
Teton Sioux kill 80 soldiers on Bozeman Trail connecting Wyoming to Montana gold mines,
1866
Trans-Atlantic cable is completed, 1866
First cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail, 1866
Apache and Navajo wars end as leaders surrender; reservations established, 1866-1867
Western Union establishes a national telegraph monopoly, 1866
Alfred Nobel of Sweden invents the dynamite, 1866
Nebraska enters Union, 1867
Congress halts construction on Bozemon Trail, sends a peace commission to end the fighting,
and sets aside two large districts where the tribes would settle and become Christian, 1867
Reconstruction Act of 1867 (Congressional Reconstruction)
Establishment by Congress of the Oklahoma Reservation for members of the Five Civilized
Tribes (eventually settled 75,000 Native Americans), of the Black Hills Reservation for the Sioux,
and five smaller reservations, 1867
Beginning of the buffalo extermination (By 1883, about 13 million buffalo had been killed),
1867
Tenure of Office Act, 1867
Alaska purchase, 1867
Midway islands annexed, 1867
Southern Plains Indians sign a treaty at Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, promising to live in
reservations (in present day Oklahoma), 1867

 Mississippi v Johnson, 1867

Granger Movement (The Patrons of Husbandry) founded, 1867
Oil boom in Ohio and Pennsylvania, 1867-1911
Impeachment Trial, 1868
Treaty of Fort Laramie ends Powder River War (First Sioux War); sets aside Great Sioux
Reserve in Dakota Territory in perpetuity, 1868
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina readmitted into the
Union, 1868
14th Amendment, 1868
Burlingame Treaty gives China most favored nation status in trade and codifies immigration
procedures, 1868
War parties of Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Sioux raid frontier settlements in Kansas and
Colorado, 1868
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custers attacks on Cheyenne village in Washita,
Oklahoma, causes carnage, 1868
Johnson issues amnesty for all who participated in the rebellion against US, 1868
A patent for the QWERTY typewriter keyboard granted, 1868

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18. Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877 Republican VP Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson Secretary of
State - Hamilton Fish
Reference Points:
Texas v White, 1869
Congress creates Board of Indian Commissioners to supervise federal spending for tribes,
1869
First transcontinental railroad completed at Promontory Point, Utah, 1869
National Woman Suffrage Association founded with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president,
1869
Colored National Labor Union formed, 1869
The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor forms as a local union in Philadelphia, 1869
Wyoming Territory extends suffrage to women, 1869
Standard Oil Company of Ohio established, 1870
Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia re-admitted in March 1870
First black member of Congress elected (Hiram Revels of Mississippi), 1870
15th Amendment ratified, 1870
Ku Klux Klan Act (Enforcement Act), 1870
Department of Justice created, 1870
Indian Appropriations Act voids all Indian treaties and makes all Indians wards of federal
government, 1871
Apache War in New Mexico and Arizona begins (involves the Buffalo Soldiers), 1871
Grant establishes Civil Service Commission, 1871-1886
Ku Klux Klan Act (Enforcement Act), 1871
The New York Times exposes William Boss Tweed, the boss of Tammany Hall, 1871
Big Chicago Fire, 1871
Montgomery Ward opens as a mail order houses primarily for Grangers, 1871
National Labor Union becomes National Labor Reform Party, 1872
Yellowstone National Park created, 1872
Credit Mobilier scandal, 1872
Susan B. Anthony is arrested in Rochester, New York, for voting in presidential elections, 1872
Coinage Act of 1873/Crime of 1873
Slaughterhouse Cases, 1873
Panic of 1873
Greenback Party founded, 1873

 Farmers alliances begin forming in South and West, 1873

Use of Bessemer process in making of steel expands nationwide, 1873
Kiowa, Commanche, and Cheyenne raids on Adobe Walls trading post in Texas panhandle
lead to Red River War, 1874-1886
Joseph F. Glidden markets his first barbed wire during a grasshopper plague and solves the
problem of fencing the cattle range, ending the era of the Open Range, 1874
The Grangers issue their Declaration of Purpose, a statement of their goals, 1874
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Minor v Happersett, 1875
Whiskey Ring, 1875
Social Gospel Movement, 1870s
Jim Crow laws enacted in Tennessee, 1875
Opening of Black Hills, South Dakota, to gold seekers after Custers exploratory expedition,
1875
End of the Molly Maguires, an Irish miners organization, 1875
Second Sioux wars begin due to Black Hills gold rush and extension of Northern Pacific RR
route, 1875-1876
Mark Twain publishes Tom Sawyer, 1875
US v Reese, 1876
US v Cruikshank, 1876