1819 in the United States
Encyclopedia
Incumbents
- PresidentPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
: James MonroeJames MonroeJames Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
(Democratic-Republican) - Vice PresidentVice President of the United StatesThe Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
: Daniel D. TompkinsDaniel D. TompkinsDaniel D. Tompkins was an entrepreneur, jurist, Congressman, the fourth Governor of New York , and the sixth Vice President of the United States .-Name:...
(Democratic-Republican) - Chief JusticeChief Justice of the United StatesThe Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
: John MarshallJohn MarshallJohn Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches... - Speaker of the House of RepresentativesSpeaker of the United States House of RepresentativesThe Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...
: Henry ClayHenry ClayHenry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
(Dem.-Rep.-Kentucky) - CongressUnited States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
: 15th15th United States Congress-Leadership:- Senate :* President: Daniel D. Tompkins * President pro tempore:** John Gaillard , elected March 4, 1817** James Barbour , elected February 15, 1819- House of Representatives :*Speaker: Henry Clay -Members:...
(until March 4), 16th16th United States Congress-House of Representatives:During this congress, one House seat was added for the new state of Alabama and one seat was reapportioned from Massachusetts to the new state of Maine. For the beginning of the next congress, six more seats from Massachusetts would be reapportioned to...
(starting March 4)
Events
- January 2 – The Panic of 1819Panic of 1819The Panic of 1819 was the first major financial crisis in the United States, and had occurred during the political calm of the Era of Good Feelings. The new nation previously had faced a depression following the war of independence in the late 1780s and led directly to the establishment of the...
, the first major financial crisisFinancial crisisThe term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these...
in the United States, begins. - January 25 – Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
founds the University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. - February 2 – The Supreme Court under John MarshallJohn MarshallJohn Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...
rules in favor of Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in the famous Dartmouth College v. WoodwardDartmouth College v. WoodwardTrustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the application of the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution to private corporations...
case, allowing Dartmouth to keep its charter and remain a private institution. - February 15 – The United States House of RepresentativesUnited States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
agrees to the Tallmadge AmendmentTallmadge AmendmentThe Tallmadge Amendment was submitted by James Tallmadge, Jr. in the United States House of Representatives on February 13, 1819, during the debate regarding the admission of Missouri as a state...
barring slaves from the new state of Missouri (the opening vote in a controversy that leads to the Missouri CompromiseMissouri CompromiseThe Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30'...
). - February 22 – SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
cedes FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
to the United States (see Adams-Onís TreatyAdams-Onís TreatyThe Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty or the Purchase of Florida, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and New Spain . It settled a standing border dispute between the two...
). - March 1 – The U.S. naval vessel USS ColumbusUSS Columbus (1819)The second USS Columbus was a 74-gun ship of the line in the United States Navy.-History:She was launched on 1 March 1819 by Washington Navy Yard and commissioned on 7 September 1819, Master Commandant J. H...
is launched in Washington, DC. - March 6 – McCulloch v. MarylandMcCulloch v. MarylandMcCulloch v. Maryland, , was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland...
: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Bank of the United StatesSecond Bank of the United StatesThe Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, five years after the First Bank of the United States lost its own charter. The Second Bank of the United States was initially headquartered in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, the same as the First Bank, and had branches throughout the...
is constitutional. - May 22 – The Savannah leaves port at Savannah, GeorgiaSavannah, GeorgiaSavannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic OceanAtlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. The ship arrives at Liverpool, England on June 20. - August 6 – Norwich UniversityNorwich UniversityNorwich University is a private university located in Northfield, Vermont . The university was founded in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont, as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. It is the oldest of six Senior Military Colleges, and is recognized by the United States Department of...
is founded by Captain Alden PartridgeAlden PartridgeAlden Partridge, was an American author, legislator, officer, surveyor, an early superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York and a controversial pioneer in U.S...
in VermontVermontVermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
as the first private military school in the United States. - December 14 – AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
is admitted as the 22nd U.S. stateU.S. stateA U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
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Further reading
- Slavery in Virginia, 1819. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 43, (Oct., 1909 - Jun., 1910)
- Letter of William Wirt, 1819. The American Historical Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Jul., 1920), pp. 692-695
- J. Wilfrid Parsons. The Catholic Church in America in 1819: A Contemporary Account. The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Jan., 1920), pp. 301-310
- Report of Inspection of the Ninth Military Department, 1819. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Dec., 1920), pp. 261-274
- Samuel Rezneck. The Depression of 1819-1822, A Social History. The American Historical Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Oct., 1933), pp. 28-47
- Martin Staples Shockley. The Proprietors of Richmond's New Theatre of 1819. The William and Mary Quarterly, Second Series, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1939), pp. 302-308
- Dorothy Riker. Two accounts of the upper Wabash country, 1819-20. Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 37, No. 4 (1941), pp. 384-395
- Fritz Redlich. William Jones and His Unsuccessful Steamboat Venture of 1819. Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Vol. 21, No. 5 (Nov., 1947), pp. 125-136
- Paul C. Henlein, F. Renick, W. Renick. Journal of F. and W. Renick on an Exploring Tour to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in the Year 1819. Agricultural History, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1956), pp. 174-186
- Philip F. Detweiler. Congressional Debate on Slavery and the Declaration of Independence, 1819-1821. The American Historical Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Apr., 1958), pp. 598-616
- Helen McCann White. Frontier Feud: 1819-20: How Two Officers Quarreled All the Way to the Site of Fort Snelling. Minnesota History, Vol. 42, No. 3, Fort Snelling Issue (Fall, 1970), pp. 99-114
- Frederic Trautmann. Pennsylvania through a German's Eyes: The Travels of Ludwig Gall, 1819-1820. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 35-65
- Andrew R. L. Cayton. The Fragmentation of "A Great Family": The Panic of 1819 and the Rise of the Middling Interest in Boston, 1818-1822. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 143-167
- Edwin J. Perkins. Langdon Cheves and the Panic of 1819: A Reassessment. The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 44, No. 2, The Tasks of Economic History (Jun., 1984), pp. 455-461
- Robert M. Blackson. Pennsylvania Banks and the Panic of 1819: A Reinterpretation. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 335-358
- Clyde Haulman. Virginia Commodity Prices during the Panic of 1819. Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 2002), pp. 675-688
- David Anthony. "Gone Distracted": "Sleepy Hollow," Gothic Masculinity, and the Panic of 1819. Early American Literature, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2005), pp. 111-144