Xenophobic men established the Know Nothing or American Party in the late 1940s in response to the growing number of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics flooding into the United States because of the Irish Famine of 1845. They were known as the Know Nothing Party because when asked questions about the organization and their affiliation with it, members responded that they knew nothing. The...
The life of a slave was a grim one during the 19th century. Most slaves belonged to large plantations that required labor intensive work. Large groups of slaves would work on these plantations utilizing the resources the Americas had to offer so that their plantation owners could remain profitable. Because of this permanent life of servitude, many slaves tried to escape while dying in...
On October 14, 1856 the Board of Alderman held a city council meeting to discuss the climate in the city of New Orleans. In the meeting, the Mayor advocated for the increase of the police force by more than one hundred men. The call for an increased police force stemmed from his desire to protect “the persons and property of our citizens (Daily Picayune, Oct 14, pg. 4).' In other words,...
Joseph Addison Waddell was a wealthy and influential man in nineteenth-century Augusta County, Virginia. He owned the Staunton Spectator from 1856-1860. The Spectator reached many residents of Augusta County. He kept an extensive diary during his life, of which the years 1855-1865 are still preserved. On October 15, 1856, after having contemplated the hopeless Know-Nothing campaign...
During the summer before the Presidential Election of 1856 slavery was on the forefront of political discourse due to the increasingly violent battles in Kansas to determine whether the territory would be slave or free. The three candidates for President, Democrat James Buchanan, Republican John Fremont and the Whig/ American Millard Fillmore were thus reticent of the fact that they would need...
The Republican Party was formed as an anti-slavery party and in the presidential election of 1856, John Fremont became the party's first candidate for president. Ironically, Fremont was the only candidate in the presidential election from the South, yet he was also the only one who spoke out against slavery. Fremont campaigned to wipe out what he felt to be the two biggest sins plaguing the...
In June of 1856, the Pro Slavery Party of the Kansas Territory elected the city of New Orleans to manage the affairs of the party. This entailed disbursing funds to aid the cause and keeping their foreign friends abreast of current situations in the territory. The slavery advocates in Kansas were presumably too wrapped up in fighting abolitionists and Free Soilers to concern themselves with running...
Although the United States had passed legislation in 1807, ending the slave trade in the United States, some southerners still pushed for its renewal. In the Southern Commercial Convention of December 1856, certain members of the assemblage created a discourse on the issue, evoking heated responses from both sides. Some thought the revival of the slave trade would alienate the South from other...
On December 8th 1856 the Southern Commercial Convention met in Savannah. Over six hundred delegates were in attendance at the convention from ten southern states to discuss topics relevant to the South and its livelihood. On the first day of the convention the Virginian James Lyons was appointed the permanent president of the convention. After his appointment, Lyons gave a speech maintaining...
Following the success of a New York-Newfoundland telegraph line, philanthropist Cyrus Field convinced the governments of American and Great Britain to fund a transatlantic line. It would take 2,500 miles of cable to complete the job, and construction was interrupted often by errors. Cables snapped, ships wrecked, and money was running out. Meanwhile, the American South was watching the progress...