George Washington Life's Journey

On 30 April 1789, George Washington stood on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath as first president of the United States. "The first is of all things, in our situation are used to create a precedent," he added James Madison wrote, "it is wishful thinking from me, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles."
Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the manners, customs, and the body of knowledge as the basis for the 18th Century Virginia gentleman.
He pursued two intertwined interests: martial arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah countries for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754 he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The following year, as an employee of General Edward Braddock, he escaped injury, but four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot under him.
From 1759 until the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his land in Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of citizens. Martha Dandridge Custis married a widow, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the dispute with the mother became acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his opposition to the limits.
When the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, was elected a delegate to the Virginia commander of the Continental Army. On 3 July 1775, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked on a war that was to last six grueling years.
He recognized early on that the best strategy was to harass the British. He told the congress that "we should on all occasions, a general measure to avoid or something to the Risque, unless a need that we should never be forced to formulate." Subsequent battles saw him fall back slowly, then hit unexpectedly. Finally, in 1781 with the aid of French allies - he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Washington longed to retire to his Mount Vernon areas. But he soon realized that the nation will not work properly under its Articles of Confederation, he was a driving force in the steps on the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. If the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President.
He has no policy against the forces he felt the Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign policy was largely a presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused fully accepted the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who is pro-British. Instead, he insisted on a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.
To his disappointment, two parties until the end of his first term development. Tired of politics, feeling old, he moved at the end of his second. In his farewell speech, he urged his countrymen to renounce excessive partying and geographical differences. In foreign policy, he warned against long-term partnerships.
Washington less than three years in retirement at Mount Vernon enjoyed because of a sore throat he 14th Died in December 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.

Read More

John Adams Life's Journey

Learned and thoughtful, John Adams was more remarkable as a political philosopher than a politician. "People and nations in the fires of adversity are fake," he said, doubtless thinking of his own as the American experience.
Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735. A Harvard-trained lawyer, he was identified early on with the Patriot cause, a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, led his movement for independence.
During the Revolutionary War he was in diplomatic positions in France and the Netherlands, and helped negotiate the peace treaty. From 1785-1788 he was Minister of the Court of St. James, to be re-elected vice president under George Washington.
Adams served two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his strength, intellect and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has invented in his wisdom to me the most insignificant office that ever invented the invention of man or his imagination conceived."
When Adams became president, caused the war between the French and the British major difficulties for the United States on the high seas and intense partisanship among contending factions within the nation.
His government in France, where the Directory, the ruling group, refused the American ambassador had received and suspended commercial relations.
Adams sent three commissioners to France, but in the spring of 1798 word came that French Foreign Minister Talleyrand and the Directory had refused to negotiate with them if they would pay for the first time a substantial bribe. Adams reported the insult to Congress and the Senate printed the correspondence, the French only as "X, Y and Z." were known,
The Nation broke out into what Jefferson "the XYZ fever," increased intensity of Adam's admonitions. The people cheered themselves hoarse, where the President appeared. The Federalists had never been so popular.
Congress appropriated money to complete three new frigates and to build more ships, and authorized the raising of a provisional army. Also along the Alien and Sedition acts carried out by foreign agents, the fear of choking the country and the attacks of Republican editors.
President Adams did not ask for a declaration of war, but the hostilities at sea. Initially there was almost defenseless against French privateers American shipping, but by 1800 armed merchantmen and U.S. warships were clearing the sea lanes.
Despite several brilliant sea victories, war fever disappeared. Adams, word came that France had no desire for war and would receive an envoy with respect. Long negotiations ended the quasi war.
Sending a peace mission to France brought the full fury against the Hamilton Adams. United in the campaign of 1800 the Republicans were and are effective, the Federalists badly divided. Nevertheless, Adams only a few less electoral votes than Jefferson, the President was requested.
On 1 November 1800, shortly before the election came, Adams in the new capital, to his residence in the White House. On his second night in the damp, unfinished rooms, he wrote his wife: "Before I end my letter, I pray heaven the best of blessings on this house and all live down in May none but honest and wise men ever under this roof. . prevail "
Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he wrote his detailed letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on the 4th July 1826, he whispered his last words: "Thomas Jefferson survives." But Jefferson had died in Monticello a few hours earlier.

Read More

Thomas Jefferson Life's Journey

Middle party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a personal letter: "I have committed on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 hectares of land, and his mother, a Randolph, high social status. He studied at the College of William and Mary, read the law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her in his partly constructed mountaintop home, live, Monticello.
Freckles and reddish hair, rather large and unwieldy Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no orator. In the Virginia House of citizenship and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen not his voice to the patriot cause. If the "silent member" of Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In the following years he worked for his words a reality in Virginia. Above all, he wrote a bill on religious freedom, founded in 1786.
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin as minister to France succeeded in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of the Cabinet of President Washington. He joined in 1793.
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually lead the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed strong central government and champion the rights of states.
As a reluctant candidate for president in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. A flaw in the Constitution, he was Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican voters tried both a president and vice presidents have their party name, throw a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the band. Hamilton, Jefferson and Burr both dislike, but said Jefferson choice.
When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis had passed in France. He cut the Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, but reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to Barbary pirates to harass the U.S. trade balance to fight in the Mediterranean. Although the Constitution does not provide for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his doubts about constitutionality, if it the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory was by Napoleon in 1803.
During Jefferson's second term, he became more and more with keeping the nation from participating in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Try to solve, Jefferson, an embargo on American ships, was poor and was unpopular.
Jefferson retired to Monticello in such projects to consider whether his grand plans for the University of Virginia. A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind "on an elevated position from which he might look at the universe."
He died on 4 Juli 1826th

Read More

James Madison Life's Journey

Bij zijn inauguratie, James Madison, een small verschrompelde you, oud en bleek versleten;. "Maar een beetje verdorde-called John" as hem beschreef Washington Irving Maar wat zijn ook gebrek Vrolijkheid in charming, chubby vrouw van Dolley Madison's hair Warmte gecompenseerd met ze en. Ze was van de Washington toast.
Born in 1751, becoming opgevoed Madison in Orange County, Virginia, in aanwezigheid en Princeton (sounds van het College New Jersey). Een student van de geschiedenis en de overheid, goed te lezen in de Wet, nam hij deel aan de van de uitwerking Grondwet Virginia in 1776, Diender het Continentale Congres, which en een in de Virginia Vergadering unfortunately.
Debates as Afgevaardigen naar de Constitutionnel Conventi geassembleerd in Philadelphia, en heeft 36-jarig Madison frequent en deel aan de nadrukkelijk.
Heeft een belangrijke bijdrage Madison Schrijven ratificatie van de aan de te Grondwet door, met Alexander Hamilton, John Jay en de federalist essays. In latere jaren, Toen hij de'll aangeduid as "Vader van de Grondwet," Madison protests earth dat niet het document which "de-veer off van een enkel BREIN," "hand van het vele factory Koppen en veel." Maar
In het Congres, hielp hij het frame van de Bill of Rights, en de eerste vaardigen Inkomst wetgeving. Uit zijn financiële leiderschap in tegenstelling dead voor de set van Hamilton, hij zou Voldern onnodig makes rijkdom en op het Noorden van give financiers, Kwame de ontwikkeling van de One republic of Jeffersonian, Party.
As president Jefferson Secretaris van State, Madison protests earth strijdende om Frankrijk en Groot-Brittannië, dat de van de Amerikaanse inbeslagname Schepen in het internationaal met Strijd what right. De protests, John Randolph het Commentaar ijzig, had effect van "een shilling pamflet geworpen van oorlog tegen achthonderd Schepen."
Ondanks van de impopulaire Embargo Act 1807, the niet te maken van de oorlogvoerende land whose cause hun manier, maar wel een in de Verenigde depressive Kunnen veroorzaken Staten, Madison verkozen becoming president dead in 1808th Voordat hij het kantoor van de nam Embargo Act'll ingetrokken.
Tijdens het eerste jaar van de administratie Madison, de Verenigde Staten verboden commercially met zowel Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk, vandaar in mei 1810 het Congres bevoegd de commercially met zowel de Leiding van de president, neutral as een van both zou America's VISIE op right aanvaarden te, te om de trade verbieden met de ModeNatie other.
Napoleon Voldo deed alsof. Laat in 1810, Madison uitgeroepen niet-dead omgang met Groot-Brittannië. In het Congres een groep jonge, waaronder de Henry Clay John C. Calhoun, de "War Hawks," drukte op de voor een meer president militant beleid.
Lading van de Amerikaanse en Britse ronseling zeelieden en van de inbeslagname dreef Madison toe aan de druk te Geven. Op 1 juni 1812, spell out Vroeger hij het Congres de oorlog te.
De jonge nation what niet om te bereid vechten, hair crashed nam een ​​zware afstraffing. De Britse total voerde Washington en naar het Witte Huis in brand en het Capitool.
Maar een militaire en couple opmerkelijke marine Overwinning, hoogtepunt door de Triomf generaal Andrew Jackson in New Orleans, en dat de overtuiging de oorlog van 1812 what Americans Glorieuse geslaagd. Een van het opleving leidde nationalism. The New England Federalists who had zich tegen de oorlog verzet - en zelf gesproken had the afscheiding - were grondig verworpen zo dat een national federalism as verdween partij.
Met Pensioen op in Montpelier, zijn landgoed in Orange County, Virginia, Madison Sprake zich uit tegen de deceased de staten van left the door de jaren 1830 invloeden cotter pin dreigde Federale de Unie. A note opened after his death in 1836, he declared: "The opinion of the States and around my hard drive in my deepest conviction that the Union-held and cherished in politics." 

Read More

James Monroe Life's Journey

On New Year's Day 1825, the last of his annual White House receptions, President James Monroe made a pleasant impression upon a Virginia lady who shook his hand:
"He is tall and well formed. His dress plain and in the old style .... His behavior was calm and dignified. From the open, honest expression of his eyes ... I think he deserves the praise went to pass him by great Jefferson, who said: "Monroe was so honest that if you turned inside his soul would not be a spot on". "
Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1758, Monroe attended the College of William and Mary, fought with distinction in the Continental Army, and lawyers in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
As a young politician, he is the Anti-Federalists in the Virginia Convention which ratified the Constitution, and in 1790, an advocate of Jeffersonian policies, was elected senator of the United States. As Minister to France 1794-1796, he showed a strong sympathy for the French case, later, with Robert R. Livingston, he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase.
His ambition and energy, together with the support of President Madison, he, the Republican choice for president was in 1816. With little Federalist opposition, he easily won re-election in 1820.
Monroe made unusually strong Cabinet selection, naming a Southerner, John C. Calhoun, as secretary of war, and from the north, John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State. Only Henry Clay's refusal kept Monroe from adding an outstanding Westerner.
At the beginning of his reign, Monroe undertook a goodwill tour. In Boston, his visit was "celebrated era of good feelings." Unfortunately, as the beginning of this "good feeling" not tolerate, but unbroken Monroe, his popularity, followed nationalist policies.
On the facade of nationalism, ugly sectional cracks appeared. A painful economic depression undoubtedly increased the dismay of the people in the Missouri Territory in 1819 denied his application for admission into the Union as a slave state. An amended bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in Missouri defeated after two years of bitter debate in Congress.
The Missouri Compromise bill resolved struggle, linking Missouri is always slave state with Maine, a free state, and with the exception of slavery in the north and west of Missouri.
In foreign policy might Monroe proclaimed the fundamental policy that his name would respond to the threat posed by the more conservative governments in Europe are trying to Spain to win back her former Latin American colonies bears help. Monroe was not formally begin with the young sister republics until 1822 to recognize, after finding that the Congress would vote appropriations for diplomatic missions. He and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wished to avoid trouble with Spain until it had ceded the Florida, as was done in 1821.
Great Britain forward with its powerful navy, also re-conquest Latin America and suggested that the United States proclaiming "hands off". Ex-Presidents Jefferson and Madison, Monroe led to accept the offer, but Secretary Adams advised, "It would be more honest to confess ... our principles explicitly to Russia and France, then in such a cock-boat to come in the wake of the British Man-of- War. "
Monroe accepted Adams Consulting. Not only must Latin America be left alone, he warned, but also Russia must not interfere in the southern Pacific coast. "... The American continents," he said, "the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, will not be considered as subjects for future colonization of the future by a European power into consideration." Some 20 years after Monroe died in 1831, this was the Monroe Doctrine as announced.

Read More

John Quincy Adams Life's Journey

The first president, the son of a president, John Quincy Adams in many ways parallels the career and the temperament and viewpoints of his illustrious father was. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, he saw at the Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn's Hill above the family farm. As secretary to his father in Europe, he was an accomplished linguist and diligent diarist.
After studying at Harvard College, he became a lawyer. At the age of 26 he was promoted to minister in the Netherlands, then in the Berlin embassy. In 1802 he was elected to the Senate of the United States. Six years later President Madison appointed him minister to Russia.
Serving under President Monroe, Adams was one of the great secretaries Americas Foreign Affairs, negotiation with England for the joint occupation of Oregon Country, in Spain, the transfer from Florida, and the formulation of the chairman of the Monroe Doctrine.
In the political tradition of the early 19th Century, Adams as Secretary of State as the political heir to the presidency. But the old way, the election of a president in 1824, yielded to the call for a popular choice.
Within the one and only one party - the Republicans - sectionalism and factionalism were developing, and each section put its own candidate for the presidency. Adams, the candidate of the North, fell behind General Andrew Jackson in both popular and electoral votes, but received more than William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. Because neither candidate had a majority of electoral votes, the choice among the three was decided by the Chamber of Deputies. Clay, a program similar to the favor of Adams, threw his crucial support in the House of the New Englander.
President Adams appointed Clay as she as Secretary of State. Jackson and his angry followers charged that a "corrupt bargain" had taken place and immediately began their campaign to wrest the presidency from Adams to in 1828.
Knowing that his face hostility in Congress, Adams nevertheless proclaimed in his first annual report message, a spectacular national program. He said the federal government, the sections together with a network of roads and canals, and that the development and maintenance of public domain, with funds from the sale of public lands. In 1828 he broke ground for the 185-mile C & 0 Canal.
Adams urged the United States, held the lead role in the development of the arts and sciences through the creation of a national university, the financing of scientific expeditions and the construction of an observatory. His critics declared such measures overcome constitutional boundaries.
The campaign of 1828, which his opponents accused him of corruption and plunder Jackson public was an ordeal Adams did not have an easy to carry. After his defeat, he returned to Massachusetts for the rest of his life enjoying his farm expected and his books.
Unexpectedly, in 1830 the Plymouth district elected him to the House of Representatives, and there for the rest of his life he was a strong leader. Above all, he fought against the restriction of civil liberties.
Passed in 1836, southern congressmen a "gag rule" assumes that the House automatically table petitions against slavery. Adams tirelessly fought the rule, eight years until he finally received his suspension.
In 1848, he broke on the floor of the house of a stroke and to the Speaker of the room was transported, where he died two days later. He was buried - like his father, mother and wife - at First Parish Church in Quincy. In the end, "Old Man Eloquent" fought for what he believed was right.

Read More

Andrew Jackson Life's Journey

More than almost any of his predecessors, Andrew Jackson was elected, as president, he tried to act as a direct representative of the common man.
Born in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas in 1767, he received sporadic education. But in his late teens he read law for about two years, and he became an outstanding young lawyer in Tennessee. Fiercely jealous of his honor, he engaged in brawls, and killed in a duel, a man with a false tainting his wife Rachel.
Jackson enough to prosper slaves and a mansion, the Hermitage, near Nashville to build buy. He was the first man elected from Tennessee in the House of Representatives, and he served briefly in the Senate. A Major General in the War of 1812, Jackson became a national hero when he defeated the British at New Orleans.
In 1824 some state political factions rallied around Jackson, and 1828 was enough to win joined "Old Hickory" in numerous state elections and control of the federal government in Washington.
In his first annual report to Congress, Jackson recommended eliminating the Electoral College. He also tried to democratize the Federal Office holds. Already state machines were built patronage, and proclaimed a New York Senator openly, "that the victors belongs the spoils ...."
Jackson took a milder view. Assuming that the ministers who seemed to enjoy life tenure, he believed Government duties could be "so clear and simple," should rotate between the offices to make the applicants.
As national politics polarized around Jackson and his two opposition parties that emerged from the old Republican party - the Democratic Republicans or Democrats, compliance with Jackson, and the National Republican or Whig against him.
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and other Whigführer declared themselves the defenders of popular liberties against the usurpation of Jackson. Hostile cartoonists portrayed him as King Andrew I.
Behind their accusations lay the fact that Jackson, unlike previous presidents, not to Congress, to move the policy, but used his veto power and his party leadership to take over the command.
The greatest party battle for the Second Bank of the United States, a private corporation but virtually a government-sponsored monopoly. When Jackson appeared hostile, the Bank threw its power against him.
Had Clay and Webster, who acted as lawyers for the bank, led the fight for their rights artery in Congress. "The bank," Jackson told Martin Van Buren, "is trying to kill me, but I'll kill!" Jackson, a veto on the bill artery, the bank charges with undue economic privilege.
His views won the approval of the U.S. electorate, in 1832, he interviewed more than 56 percent of the vote and almost five times as many electoral votes as Clay.
Jackson met head on the challenge of John C. Calhoun, leader of forces trying to rid themselves of a high protective tariffs.
If South Carolina to destroy the collective undertook was Jackson forces to Charleston and privately threatened to hang Calhoun. Violence threatens to sound negotiated a compromise: the prices were lowered and South Carolina had nullity.
In January of 1832, while the President was dining with friends in the White House, someone whispered to him that the Senate rejected the nomination of Martin Van Buren as minister to England. Jackson jumped to his feet and shouted: So he did "The Eternal I beat them". His favorite, Van Buren, became Vice-President, and succeeded to the presidency of the "Old Hickory" retired to the Hermitage, where he died in June 1845th

Read More

Martin Van Buren Life's Journey

Only about 5 feet, six inches tall, trim and erect, but Martin Van Buren dressed picky. His immaculate appearance belies its charm - and his humble origins. Of Dutch descent, he was born in 1782, the son of an innkeeper and farmer, in Kinderhook, New York.
As a young lawyer he became active in New York politics. As leader of the Albany Regency, "an effective New York political organization, he was charged wise public offices and gifts in a way that comes to get votes. But he carried out faithfully duties, and in 1821 was the U.S. Senate voted.
By 1827 he had emerged as a major north-leader for Andrew Jackson. President Jackson rewarded Van Buren by making him Minister of Foreign Affairs. If the Cabinet Members appointed at John C. Calhoun began the recommendation to show a subordinate loyalty to Jackson, Van Buren emerged as the most trusted presidential adviser. Jackson referred to him as "a real man without guile."
The break in the government was serious, because the differences with Jackson aspirant Calhoun, a Presidential system. Van Buren suggested a way out of a possible impasse: he and Secretary of War Eaton was so Calhoun men would also resign. Jackson appointed a new cabinet and was looking back to Van Buren, by making him minister to Great Britain to reward. Vice President Calhoun, as chairman of the Senate, casts the deciding vote against the appointment - and made a martyr of Van Buren.
Was the "Little Magician" elected Vice-President Jackson on the ticket in 1832, and won the presidency in 1836.
Van Buren devoted his Inaugural Address to a discourse on the American experiment as an example for the rest of the world. The country was prosperous, but less than three months later the panic of 1837 punctured the prosperity.
Basically, the problem of the 19th Century cycle of economic "boom and bust", which according to its regular pattern, but Jackson's financial measures, which contributed to the crash. His destruction of the Second Bank of the United States had restrictions on the inflationary practices of some state banks, wild speculation in the country, from a simple bank loan basis, had swept the West. Gold or silver - At the conclusion of this speculation, Jackson in 1836 had a Specie Circular requiring that land be bought with hard currency issued.
In 1837 the panic began. Hundreds of banks and businesses failed. Thousands lost their land. For about five years in the United States was plagued by the worst crisis to date in its history.
Programs to alleviate escape the economic crisis, decades later, both Van Buren and his opponents. Van Buren to remedy - continuing Jackson's deflationary policies - only deepened and prolonged the Depression.
Explain that the panic was due to recklessness in business and overexpansion of credit abuses, Van Buren devoted himself to maintaining the solvency of the national government. He opposed not only the creation of a new Bank of the United States but also by the state government funds into banks. He fought for the establishment of an independent treasury system, the government transactions. As for federal aid for internal improvements, he cut spending so complete that even the government had used the tools on public works sold.
More and more inclined to oppose the spread of slavery, Van Buren blocked the annexation of Texas, because it certainly would add to slave territory - and it would bring war with Mexico.
Defeated by the Whigs in 1840 for re-election, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the Free Soil ticket in 1848. He died in 1862.

Read More