Timeline of the history of the United States (1820–1859)

This section of the timeline of United States history concerns events from 1820 to 1859.

1820s

Presidency of James Monroe

1820 – Massachusetts divided in two with the admission of Maine as a state. 1820 – 1820 United States presidential election: James Monroe reelected president unopposed, Daniel D. Tompkins reelected vice president. March 4, 1821 – President Monroe and Vice President Tompkins begin their second terms 1821 – Missouri becomes a state 1821 – Florida becomes a U.S. territory; the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty goes into effect 1823 – Monroe Doctrine proclaimed 1824 – Gibbons v. Ogden (22 US 1 1824) affirms federal over state authority in interstate commerce. Gibbons' business partner is Cornelius Vanderbilt. 1824 – 1824 United States presidential election: Presidential results inconclusive. John C. Calhoun elected vice president. 1825 – John Quincy Adams elected president by the House of Representatives;

Presidency of John Quincy Adams March 4, 1825 – Adams becomes the sixth president; Calhoun becomes the seventh vice president 1825 – Erie Canal is finally completed 1826 – Former presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the same day, which happens to be on the fiftieth anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of independence. 1828 – 1828 United States presidential election: Andrew Jackson elected president; John C. Calhoun reelected vice president December 22, 1828 - First Lady-designate Rachel Jackson dies of a heart attack

Presidency of Andrew Jackson March 4, 1829 – Jackson becomes the seventh president; Vice President Calhoun begins second term

1830s

1830s – Second Great Awakening is the religious revival movement 1830s – Oregon Trail which comes into use by settlers migrating to the Pacific Northwest. 1830 – Indian Removal Act 1831 – Nat Turner's revolt 1831 – The Liberator begins publication in 1831 1831 – Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical reaper 1831 – Petticoat affair (also known as the Eaton affair) 1832 – Worcester v. State of Georgia the Supreme Court rules in favor of Cherokees; President Jackson ignores the ruling. 1832 – Maria Stewart is the first black American woman to give a speech in front of a mixed audience. 1832 – Black Hawk War 1832 – Tariff of 1832 1832 – Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina 1832 – Department of Indian Affairs established 1832 – 1832 United States presidential election: Andrew Jackson reelected president; Martin Van Buren elected vice president. 1832 – Jackson vetoes the charter renewal of the Second Bank of the United States, bringing to a head the Bank War and ultimately leading to the Panic of 1837. December 28, 1832 – Calhoun resigns as vice president. 1833 – The Force Bill expands presidential powers. March 4, 1833 – President Jackson begins second term; Van Buren becomes the eighth vice president. 1834 – Slavery debates at Lane Theological Seminary are one of the first major public discussions of the topic. 1835 – Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America published. 1835 – Second Seminole War begins in Florida as members of the Seminole tribe resist relocation. 1836 – Creek War of 1836 1836 – Samuel Colt invents the revolver. 1836 – Original "gag rule" imposed when U.S. House of Representatives bars discussion of antislavery petitions. 1836 – Specie Circular issued 1836 – Arkansas becomes a state. 1836 – 1836 United States presidential election: Martin Van Buren elected president, no one is elected vice president. 1837 – Richard Mentor Johnson elected vice president by the Senate.

Presidency of Martin Van Buren March 4, 1837 – Van Buren becomes the eighth president; Johnson becomes the ninth vice president. 1837 – U.S. recognizes the Republic of Texas 1837 – Caroline affair 1837 – Michigan becomes a state 1837 – Oberlin College begins enrolling female students, becoming first coeducational college in the U.S. 1837 – Panic of 1837 1837 – Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge reverses Dartmouth College v. Woodward: property rights can be overridden by public eyed. 1838 – Forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from the southeastern U.S. leads to over 4,000 deaths in the Trail of Tears. 1838 – Aroostook War 1839 – Amistad case

1840s

1840 – 1840 United States presidential election: William Henry Harrison is elected president; John Tyler is elected vice president. 1841 – John Quincy Adams argues the Amistad Case before the Supreme Court.

Presidency of William Henry Harrison March 4, 1841 – Harrison becomes the ninth president; Tyler becomes the tenth vice president. March 6, 1841 – Supreme Court finds for Amistad defendants, freeing them. April 4, 1841 – President Harrison dies after only a month in office.

Presidency of John Tyler April 4, 1841 – Vice President Tyler becomes the tenth president September 11, 1841 – Tyler's cabinet resigns en masse. Only Daniel Webster remains. 1842 – Webster–Ashburton Treaty 1842 – The Dorr Rebellion: A civil war in Rhode Island July 10, 1842 - January, 1843 – Attempted impeachment of President Tyler. 1843 – Emigrants begin their  journey along the Oregon Trail. December, 1844 – Oregon passes its Black Exclusion Law. June 27, 1844 – Mormon leader, Joseph Smith Jr. assassinated. 1844 – 1844 United States presidential election, James K. Polk is elected president; George M. Dallas is elected vice president. 1845 – Texas annexation

Presidency of James K. Pok March 4, 1845 – Polk becomes the 11th president; Dallas becomes the 11th vice president. 1845 – Florida and Texas become states 1846 – Dred Scott sues for his freedom 1846 – The Mexican–American War begins 1846 – Bear Flag revolt in Alta California, which is momentarily independent. 1846 – Iowa becomes a state 1846 – Wilmot Proviso 1846 – The United States and  Great Britain sign the Oregon Treaty 1847 – Abraham Lincoln introduces himself to the world by his introduction of the Spot Resolutions in the House. 1847 – Battle of Buena Vista 1847 – Battle of Veracruz 1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican–American War 1848 – Wisconsin becomes a state 1848 – Seneca Falls Convention 1848 – 1848 United States presidential election; Zachary Taylor is elected president; Millard Fillmore is elected vice president

Presidency of Zachary Taylor March 4, 1849 – Taylor becomes the 12th president; Fillmore becomes the 12th vice president 1849 – California Gold Rush begins

1850s

1850 – Clayton–Bulwer Treaty 1850 – President Taylor threatens to veto Compromise of 1850 even if it means Civil War. June 3–11 –The secessionist Nashville Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Presidency of Millard Fillmore July 9, 1850 – President Taylor dies, Vice President Fillmore becomes the 13th president September 9–20, 1850 – The Compromise of 1850, including the notorious Fugitive Slave Act passed September 9, 1850 – California becomes a state November 1850 – Nashville Convention reconvenes; Satisfied with the Compromise, it declares the Union intact-for the moment. 1852 – 1852 United States presidential election: Franklin Pierce elected president; William R. King elected vice president 1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry opens Japan

Presidency of Franklin Pierce

March 4, 1853 – Pierce becomes the 14th president; King becomes the 13th vice president April 18, 1853 – Vice President King dies after only six weeks in office. 1854 – Gadsden Purchase from Mexico 1854 – Kansas–Nebraska Act; nullified Missouri Compromise 1854 – Ostend Manifesto 1854 – Whig Party collapses and Republican Party forms 1854 – Treaty of Kanagawa with Japan 1854 – Walker Expedition into Nicaragua 1854-1855 Know-Nothing Party, mushroom growth and sudden collapse 1855 – The Farmers' High School, which becomes Penn State University is founded. 1856 – Sack of Lawrence, Kansas 1856 – Pottawatomie massacre 1856 – Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with his walking stick on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building 1856 – 1856 United States presidential election: James Buchanan elected president; John C. Breckinridge, vice president

Presidency of James Buchanan

March 4, 1857 – Buchanan becomes the 15th president; Breckinridge becomes the 14th vice president 1857 – Dred Scott v. Sandford 60 US 393 1857 declares that slaves and Blacks descended from slaves were not American citizens and cannot sue 1857 – Utah War 1857 – Lecompton Constitution rejected in Kansas Territory 1857 – Panic of 1857 1857 – San Francisco Board of Education established Minns Evening Normal School for current and prospective teachers, which becomes San Jose State University 1858 – Transatlantic cable laid 1858 – Minnesota becomes a state 1858 – Lincoln–Douglas debates 1858 – U.S. is party to Treaty of Tientsin 1859 – John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry 1859 – Comstock Lode discovered

See also History of the United States (1789–1815) History of the United States (1815–1849) History of the United States (1849–1865) Timeline of the American Old West

Further reading

General survey

Daniel Walker Howe. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. online Charles Sellers. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

1820s John S. Galbraith. "British-American Competition in the Border Fur Trade of the 1820s". Minnesota History, Vol. 36, No. 7 (Sep., 1959), pp. 241–249. Robert Henry Billigmeier and Fred Altschuler Picard, eds. The old land and the new : the journals of two Swiss families in America in the 1820s. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1965. Merrill D Peterson. Democracy, liberty and property; the State Constitutional Conventions of the 1820s. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966. Robert A. McCaughey. "From Town to City: Boston in the 1820s". Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 191–213. James Brewer Stewart. "Evangelicalism and the Radical Strain in Southern Antislavery Thought During the 1820s". The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Aug., 1973), pp. 379–396. Anne M. Boylan. "Sunday Schools and Changing Evangelical Views of Children in the 1820s". Church History Studies in Christianity and Culture, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 320–333 Priscilla Ferguson Clement. "The Philadelphia Welfare Crisis of the 1820s". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 150–165. Barbara Cloud. "Oregon in the 1820s: The Congressional Perspective". The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 145–164. David J Russo. Keepers of our past : local historical writing in the United States, 1820s-1830s. New York : Greenwood Press, 1988. James L. Huston. Virtue Besieged: Virtue, "Equality, and the General Welfare in the Tariff Debates of the 1820s". Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. 523–547 George A. Thompson, Jr. "Counterfeiter's Jargon of the 1820s". American Speech, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 334–335.

1830s Miguel Guelbenzu. "Gest's Recollections of Life in the Middle West in the 1830s". Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 73, No. 2 (June 1977), pp. 125–142. William R. Swagerty. "A View from the Bottom Up: The Work Force of the American Fur Company on the Upper Missouri in the 1830s". Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 43, No. 1, Fur Trade Issue (Winter, 1993), pp. 18–33. Curtis D. Johnson. "Supply-Side and Demand-Side Revivalism? Evaluating the Social Influences on New York State Evangelism in the 1830s". Social Science History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 1–30. Mary Hershberger. "Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle against Indian Removal in the 1830s". The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Jun., 1999), pp. 15–40 Christine MacDonald. "Judging Jurisdictions: Geography and Race in Slave Law and Literature of the 1830s". American Literature, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 625–655.

1840s