Nullification 1828-1832

Separation 1850-1861

Last Congress of the United States 1859-1861

War 1861-1865

Reconstruction 1862-1877

Fort Pillow Massacre April 12 1864

The Joint Committee on the Conduct and Expenditures of the War, to whom was referred the resolution of Congress instructing them to investigate the late massacre at Fort Pillow, designated two members of the committee - Messrs. Wade and Gooch - to proceed forthwith to such places as they might deem necessary, and take testimony. That sub-committee having discharged that duty, returned to this city, and submitted to the joint committee a report, with accompanying papers and testimony. The report was read and adopted by the committee, whose chairman was instructed to submit the same, with the testimony, to the Senate, and Mr. Gooch to the House, and ask that the same be printed.

Joint Committee On Reconstruction 1866

Resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring,) That a joint committee of fifteen members shall be appointed, nine of whom shall be members of the House and six members of the Senate, who shall inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress; with leave to report at any time, by bill or otherwise.

Newspaper Editorials

It was a curious fact that the men of that time were, without exception, thoroughly posted on political questions, and while perhaps very partisan, they knew all about political affairs, and espoused one side or the other with enthusiasm. An "independent" was unknown, and our modern "third-party men" would have had little encouragement from these intensely earnest people, whose politics were as much a part of their faith as their religion. Mrs. John A. Logan, Autobiograpy, 1913

Rise of the Republican Party

Major's Hall Convention of May 29 1856 in Bloomington that organized the Republican Party in Illinois. As told by surviving participants at the reunion of May 29 1900.

I will not detain you with a repetition of that disgraceful history. How the president with the army, militia from slave states under pay of the government, swarms of border ruffians, overrunning that territory for the sole purpose of driving legal voters from the polls, failed in the effort to force slavery upon an unwilling people. Homicide, underpay, and murder by order from the White House at Washington; brutality and hatred dressed in regimentals, malignity in epaulets; bloody mania in support of human bondage. It is strange that there were so few John Browns. B. F. Shaw

Opposition to Secession 1861

Not everyone in southern states wished out of the Union. The mountain counties of Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina opposed secession and war.

Congressional Elections 1862

After two years of Civil War the Republican Party was so intensely disliked they changed their name to the Union Party. The elections of 1862 returned many state goverments and Congress to the Democratic Party.

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