Timeline
1796 - December 7. John Adams is elected second president of the U.S. Jefferson is elected vice president, having received the second largest number of electoral votes.
1797 - March 4. Adams inaugurated as President - Jefferson is inaugurated as vice president of the United States and begins gathering information on rules of parliamentary practice. As vice president, Jefferson presides over the Senate.
1798 - June-July. Congress passes what are collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts, the Naturalization Act, the Alien Act, the Sedition Act, and the Alien Enemies Act, are passed in the midst of a quasi-war with France and heightened public criticism of foreign policy.
1799 - Jefferson leaves Philadelphia for Monticello, arriving there on the 8th. Throughout the coming year he devotes himself to Monticello's development. On his way to Philadelphia in November, he visits the new federal city, Washington, D.C., which he plays a key role in designing. (Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation, Library of Congress Exhibitions)
- December 14. George Washington dies at Mount Vernon.
1800 - June. The U. S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
December 3. Electors meet in their states and cast votes for the next president of the United States. A tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr does not become known till the end of the month. This throws the election into the House of Representatives which addresses the matter on February 11, 1801.
1801 - February 11. The electors' votes for president are officially opened and counted in Congress, which already knows that the vote is tied between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives meets separately and continues balloting for six days. On February 17, on the thirty-sixth ballot, Jefferson is elected president and Aaron Burr becomes vice president.
- New York passes Emancipation Act
- Population 5.3 million (1 million of African decent)
1802 - Ohio outlaws slavery -- September. James Callender makes the accusation that Thomas Jefferson has "for many years past kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves," Sally Hemings. It is published in the Richmond Recorder that month, and the story is soon picked up by Federalist presses around the country. Callender, a Republican, has previously been an avid investigator of Federalist scandals. In 1798, Jefferson had helped pay for the publication of Callender's pamphlet The Prospect Before Us, which claimed to expose John Adams as a monarchist. However, when Jefferson, now president, fails to reward Callender with the office of postmaster in Richmond, Virginia, Callender turns on him.
1803 - Louisiana Purchase January 18. Jefferson asks Congress for funds for an expedition to explore the Mississippi River and beyond in search of a route to the Pacific. Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's private secretary, begins planning the expedition, which forms late in 1803.
- April 30. Robert Livingston, ambassador to France, and James Monroe, special envoy, conclude a treaty of cession in Paris in which the United States purchases from France the whole of the Louisiana territory for fifteen million dollars. The territory, approximately 800,000 square miles comprising the Mississippi River Valley and most of the present-day Midwest, almost doubles the size of the United States. Jefferson's original expectation was that Livingston and Monroe might persuade the French to yield a portion of the Mississippi River Valley for ten million dollars. However, Emperor Napoleon of France has just lost an army and the island of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean to Toussaint L'Overture, leader of a slave insurrection, and he is no longer interested in maintaining a French foothold in North America. He offers the United States the whole of the territory.
1804 - May. The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departs, moving up the Missouri River. (Lewis and Clark map, with annotations... Geography and Map Division)
- July 12. Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot the previous day by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey.
- November. Jefferson is re-elected president. He receives the votes of all state electors except those of Connecticut, Delaware, and two from Maryland. George Clinton is his vice president.
1806 - April 19. Jefferson nominates James Monroe and William Pinckney as joint commissioners to Great Britain. British warships have been boarding and searching American ships and seizing American as well as British seamen, claiming that they are British deserters. Jefferson hopes to resolve the issue and maintain American neutrality in the conflict between Great Britain and France.
BURR CONSPIRACY - September-October - Jefferson receives further information from a variety of sources in Pennsylvania and New York, including Generals William Eaton and James Wilkinson, that Aaron Burr is organizing a military expedition against Spanish possessions for the purpose of separating western territories from the United States. Eaton, a veteran of the recent Tripolitan War, claims that Burr tried to recruit him. Wilkinson, commander of United States military forces in the West, provides information about the conspiracy after having been implicated in it himself. He does not specifically name Burr.
November 27. Jefferson issues a proclamation declaring that "sundry persons, citizens of the U.S. or resident within the same, are conspiring & confederating...against the dominions of Spain" and requiring that all military and civil officials of all states and territories of the United States prevent "the carrying on such expedition or enterprise by all lawful means within their power."
1807 - January 17. Aaron Burr is captured near New Orleans. He escapes but is recaptured and imprisoned. In April, Burr is charged with treason and tried in Richmond in a federal circuit court presided over by John Marshall.* Burr is acquitted. Later, with other charges pending, Burr escapes to England. (*Winfield Scott, then a young lawyer, attends the trial as a spectator.)
- June 22. The British warship Leopard attacks the American ship Chesapeake off the Virginia coast because its captain refused to allow the British to board and search for deserters. Three American seamen are killed and eighteen wounded as the British force a boarding and remove four alleged deserters. After learning of the attack on June 25, Jefferson calls an emergency cabinet meeting.
- July. Jefferson and his cabinet release a proclamation closing American ports to all British ships except those with emergencies or on diplomatic missions. The Revenge will carry an ultimatum to Great Britain. Meanwhile, state governors are to call up troops for the federal army. Winfield Scott joins the army as a corporal.
1808 – November - James Madison is elected President – tensions continue to build with Britain. As Jefferson's successor, Madison won the 1808 presidential election handily, despite a challenge from his estranged friend, James Monroe. Throughout his first term Madison was preoccupied by disputes with France, Great Britain, and Spain. By 1810 France had repealed its commercial restrictions, at least nominally, and in the same year Madison seized the province of West Florida from Spain, thereby consolidating American control of the Gulf Coast. But with respect to Great Britain, his efforts were unavailing, and beginning in November 1811, he urged Congress to mobilize the country's defenses. In June 1812 he asked for and received a declaration of war against Great Britain.
1812 - War of 1812 with Britain (15% sailors Black)
see timeline: http://www2.andrews.edu/~downm/timeline.html
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/02pjohn.html
1814 - British burn Capitol building in Washington
1815 - Napoleon finally, finally defeated at Waterloo.
1818 - Georgia prohibits Manumission -- Karl Marx born in Germany
1819 - Alabama admitted as slave state, bringing the number of slave states and free states to equal numbers.
1820 - Missouri Compromise, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Maine immediately gives right to vote and education to all male citizens. The compromise also prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'N lat. (southern boundary of Missouri). The 36°30' proviso held until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Actrepealed the Missouri Compromise. See map.
1821 - New York gives free Blacks the right to vote
1824 - Mexico becomes a republic – outlaws slavery
- In disputed election, John Quincy Adams (John Adams’ son) is elected President, defeating populist Andrew Jackson.
1825 – Erie Canal completed – major transportation achievement which made New York and New York City ascend commercially.
1826 - July 4. Jefferson dies shortly after 12 noon, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is eighty-three years old. Several hours later John Adams, aged 90, dies in Massachusetts, and the nation is struck by this remarkable coincidence. The last letter Jefferson wrote to Adams was on March 23 requesting that Adams see his grandson, which Adams did. Just before he died, Jefferson wrote the following to be read at the July 4 celebration in Virginia:
"May [our Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government... All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, 1826. ME 16:181
1827 - Slavery illegal in New York
1828 - Election of Andrew Jackson
1829 - Georgia prohibits the Education of Slaves
1830 - “Underground Railroad” established
1831 - Nat Turner, a Baptist slave preacher, leads a revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, killing at least 57 whites. Alabama makes it illegal for Blacks to preach
1832 - Oberlin College founded in Ohio (admitted blacks; by 1860 1/3 of students were black) Andrew Jackson vetoes charter for 2nd U.S. Bank and reelected President
1835 - Texas declares independence from Mexico
1836 - Martin van Buren elected President - see article: "Greatest American President"
- Civil war causes gateway: http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/civwar.htm
1837 - Depression begins with "Panic of 1837"
1844 - Samuel Morse sends first telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore
- James K. Polk elected President
1845 - Santa Anna presidency is overthrown in Mexico .
1846 - War with Mexico
1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 - Karl Marx publishes Communist Manifesto
Oregon organized as territory
- Zachary Taylor elected President
1850 – Compromise of 1850 admits California as free state but Fugitive Slave Law enacted.
Millard Fillmore elected President
(http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/a_us_history/1800_1900_timeline.htm)
1797 - March 4. Adams inaugurated as President - Jefferson is inaugurated as vice president of the United States and begins gathering information on rules of parliamentary practice. As vice president, Jefferson presides over the Senate.
1798 - June-July. Congress passes what are collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts, the Naturalization Act, the Alien Act, the Sedition Act, and the Alien Enemies Act, are passed in the midst of a quasi-war with France and heightened public criticism of foreign policy.
1799 - Jefferson leaves Philadelphia for Monticello, arriving there on the 8th. Throughout the coming year he devotes himself to Monticello's development. On his way to Philadelphia in November, he visits the new federal city, Washington, D.C., which he plays a key role in designing. (Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation, Library of Congress Exhibitions)
- December 14. George Washington dies at Mount Vernon.
1800 - June. The U. S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
December 3. Electors meet in their states and cast votes for the next president of the United States. A tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr does not become known till the end of the month. This throws the election into the House of Representatives which addresses the matter on February 11, 1801.
1801 - February 11. The electors' votes for president are officially opened and counted in Congress, which already knows that the vote is tied between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives meets separately and continues balloting for six days. On February 17, on the thirty-sixth ballot, Jefferson is elected president and Aaron Burr becomes vice president.
- New York passes Emancipation Act
- Population 5.3 million (1 million of African decent)
1802 - Ohio outlaws slavery -- September. James Callender makes the accusation that Thomas Jefferson has "for many years past kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves," Sally Hemings. It is published in the Richmond Recorder that month, and the story is soon picked up by Federalist presses around the country. Callender, a Republican, has previously been an avid investigator of Federalist scandals. In 1798, Jefferson had helped pay for the publication of Callender's pamphlet The Prospect Before Us, which claimed to expose John Adams as a monarchist. However, when Jefferson, now president, fails to reward Callender with the office of postmaster in Richmond, Virginia, Callender turns on him.
1803 - Louisiana Purchase January 18. Jefferson asks Congress for funds for an expedition to explore the Mississippi River and beyond in search of a route to the Pacific. Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's private secretary, begins planning the expedition, which forms late in 1803.
- April 30. Robert Livingston, ambassador to France, and James Monroe, special envoy, conclude a treaty of cession in Paris in which the United States purchases from France the whole of the Louisiana territory for fifteen million dollars. The territory, approximately 800,000 square miles comprising the Mississippi River Valley and most of the present-day Midwest, almost doubles the size of the United States. Jefferson's original expectation was that Livingston and Monroe might persuade the French to yield a portion of the Mississippi River Valley for ten million dollars. However, Emperor Napoleon of France has just lost an army and the island of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean to Toussaint L'Overture, leader of a slave insurrection, and he is no longer interested in maintaining a French foothold in North America. He offers the United States the whole of the territory.
1804 - May. The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departs, moving up the Missouri River. (Lewis and Clark map, with annotations... Geography and Map Division)
- July 12. Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot the previous day by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey.
- November. Jefferson is re-elected president. He receives the votes of all state electors except those of Connecticut, Delaware, and two from Maryland. George Clinton is his vice president.
1806 - April 19. Jefferson nominates James Monroe and William Pinckney as joint commissioners to Great Britain. British warships have been boarding and searching American ships and seizing American as well as British seamen, claiming that they are British deserters. Jefferson hopes to resolve the issue and maintain American neutrality in the conflict between Great Britain and France.
BURR CONSPIRACY - September-October - Jefferson receives further information from a variety of sources in Pennsylvania and New York, including Generals William Eaton and James Wilkinson, that Aaron Burr is organizing a military expedition against Spanish possessions for the purpose of separating western territories from the United States. Eaton, a veteran of the recent Tripolitan War, claims that Burr tried to recruit him. Wilkinson, commander of United States military forces in the West, provides information about the conspiracy after having been implicated in it himself. He does not specifically name Burr.
November 27. Jefferson issues a proclamation declaring that "sundry persons, citizens of the U.S. or resident within the same, are conspiring & confederating...against the dominions of Spain" and requiring that all military and civil officials of all states and territories of the United States prevent "the carrying on such expedition or enterprise by all lawful means within their power."
1807 - January 17. Aaron Burr is captured near New Orleans. He escapes but is recaptured and imprisoned. In April, Burr is charged with treason and tried in Richmond in a federal circuit court presided over by John Marshall.* Burr is acquitted. Later, with other charges pending, Burr escapes to England. (*Winfield Scott, then a young lawyer, attends the trial as a spectator.)
- June 22. The British warship Leopard attacks the American ship Chesapeake off the Virginia coast because its captain refused to allow the British to board and search for deserters. Three American seamen are killed and eighteen wounded as the British force a boarding and remove four alleged deserters. After learning of the attack on June 25, Jefferson calls an emergency cabinet meeting.
- July. Jefferson and his cabinet release a proclamation closing American ports to all British ships except those with emergencies or on diplomatic missions. The Revenge will carry an ultimatum to Great Britain. Meanwhile, state governors are to call up troops for the federal army. Winfield Scott joins the army as a corporal.
1808 – November - James Madison is elected President – tensions continue to build with Britain. As Jefferson's successor, Madison won the 1808 presidential election handily, despite a challenge from his estranged friend, James Monroe. Throughout his first term Madison was preoccupied by disputes with France, Great Britain, and Spain. By 1810 France had repealed its commercial restrictions, at least nominally, and in the same year Madison seized the province of West Florida from Spain, thereby consolidating American control of the Gulf Coast. But with respect to Great Britain, his efforts were unavailing, and beginning in November 1811, he urged Congress to mobilize the country's defenses. In June 1812 he asked for and received a declaration of war against Great Britain.
1812 - War of 1812 with Britain (15% sailors Black)
see timeline: http://www2.andrews.edu/~downm/timeline.html
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/02pjohn.html
1814 - British burn Capitol building in Washington
1815 - Napoleon finally, finally defeated at Waterloo.
1818 - Georgia prohibits Manumission -- Karl Marx born in Germany
1819 - Alabama admitted as slave state, bringing the number of slave states and free states to equal numbers.
1820 - Missouri Compromise, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Maine immediately gives right to vote and education to all male citizens. The compromise also prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'N lat. (southern boundary of Missouri). The 36°30' proviso held until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Actrepealed the Missouri Compromise. See map.
1821 - New York gives free Blacks the right to vote
1824 - Mexico becomes a republic – outlaws slavery
- In disputed election, John Quincy Adams (John Adams’ son) is elected President, defeating populist Andrew Jackson.
1825 – Erie Canal completed – major transportation achievement which made New York and New York City ascend commercially.
1826 - July 4. Jefferson dies shortly after 12 noon, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is eighty-three years old. Several hours later John Adams, aged 90, dies in Massachusetts, and the nation is struck by this remarkable coincidence. The last letter Jefferson wrote to Adams was on March 23 requesting that Adams see his grandson, which Adams did. Just before he died, Jefferson wrote the following to be read at the July 4 celebration in Virginia:
"May [our Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government... All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, 1826. ME 16:181
1827 - Slavery illegal in New York
1828 - Election of Andrew Jackson
1829 - Georgia prohibits the Education of Slaves
1830 - “Underground Railroad” established
1831 - Nat Turner, a Baptist slave preacher, leads a revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, killing at least 57 whites. Alabama makes it illegal for Blacks to preach
1832 - Oberlin College founded in Ohio (admitted blacks; by 1860 1/3 of students were black) Andrew Jackson vetoes charter for 2nd U.S. Bank and reelected President
1835 - Texas declares independence from Mexico
1836 - Martin van Buren elected President - see article: "Greatest American President"
- Civil war causes gateway: http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/civwar.htm
1837 - Depression begins with "Panic of 1837"
1844 - Samuel Morse sends first telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore
- James K. Polk elected President
1845 - Santa Anna presidency is overthrown in Mexico .
1846 - War with Mexico
1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 - Karl Marx publishes Communist Manifesto
Oregon organized as territory
- Zachary Taylor elected President
1850 – Compromise of 1850 admits California as free state but Fugitive Slave Law enacted.
Millard Fillmore elected President
(http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/a_us_history/1800_1900_timeline.htm)