1816 – Second Bank of the United States. The first Bank's charter expired in 1811 and Congress refused to renew it. The Second Bank was initiated to spur economic growth and to insure that sound bank notes were issued. After the first Bank of the U.S. closed, state banks issued notes not always backed by sufficient reserves of gold and silver. There was a confusing variety of notes in the country and counterfeiting was easy.

James Monroe elected president. With the decline of the Federalist party and therefore no serious opposition, Monroe won a landslide victory.

1817 - 1825 – Erie Canal constructed. The greatest construction project undertaken by the U.S. until this point, the Erie Canal was an engineering wonder and an economic triumph. The Canal gave New York access to Chicago and the growing markets of the West. The canal opened in October 1825 with elaborate ceremonies and celebrations.

1817 – Rush-Bagot agreement further improves Anglo-American relations. Richard Rush, Secretary of State, and Charles Bagot, British minister, signed an agreement providing for naval disarmament on the Great Lakes.

1819 – Panic and depression. The Panic of 1819 followed a period of prosperity following the War of 1812. Farm goods garnered high prices in Europe and land prices in the West soared. However, when the Bank of the United States began calling in loans and mortgages, foreclosures resulted, state banks failed, and six years of depression followed. The Bank's existence once again became a major political issue.

McCulloch v. Maryland. Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Second Bank of the United States. Congress, Marshall emphasized, had the power to make all "necessary and proper" laws in its efforts to perform its delegated duties. Marshall thus sided with Alexander Hamilton, who in arguing for the First Bank, insisted that the Constitution granted Congress implied powers .

1819 - 1820 – Washington Irving publishes The Sketch Book.

1820 – Missouri Compromise. With new states forming and entering the union, slavery was a hotly debated issue in Congress. By 1820 there were eleven free and eleven slave states. Missouri then petitioned for admittance as a slave state. The free states argued that the founding fathers considered slavery a temporary institution and did not intend for it to spread into the Western territories. Slave states insisted that new states had the same rights of self-determination as existing states. Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Slavery would also be prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri.

Monroe reelected without opposition.

Trying to deter slave traders, Congress passes a law defining participation in the slave trade as piracy. The law was stronger than the one of 1808, which banned the importation of slaves, but not until 1862 was anyone convicted under its terms.

1821 – Mexico wins independence from Spain. To revive a poor economy, Mexico opened its borders for trade with the United States. American merchants seized the opportunity and poured into Texas, New Mexico, and California, displacing Mexican and Indian traders. As a result, Mexico lost its own markets within its own borders.

1822 – Denmark Vesey's conspiracy fails in Charleston. A free black, Vesey planned to seize control of the city in an effort to free slaves. At the last moment his plan was uncovered. Rumors numbered Vesey's followers at 9,000.

1823 – Monroe Doctrine. Part of Monroe's annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823, the Monroe Doctrine declared that the United States would not intervene in European affairs, that the United States would not interfere with already established European colonies in the Western hemisphere, and that "the American continents . . . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." Any new European involvement in the Americas would be regarded as a hostile act. This doctrine of isolation, implied and sometimes articulated by presidents from Washington on, hereafter became a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

1824 – John Quincy Adams elected president. Four candidates ran in the election: Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford (Monroe's choice). Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote, but not a majority of the electoral votes. Therefore the House of Representatives had to choose among the three leading candidates. With Clay eliminated and Crawford ill, Congress had to decide between Adams and Jackson. Clay, a formidable figure in the House, backed Adams to victory. Two days later, Adams announced that Clay would be his Secretary of State. Jacksonians were outraged and charged political corruption. The campaign for the presidential election of 1828 began even before Adams assumed office.

1826 – American Society for Promotion of Temperance founded. This society was comprised of many local societies. Alcoholism was a very real problem at this time. The per capita consumption of whiskey, hard cider, and rum was extremely high. In its didacticism and fervor, the temperance movement resembled a religious revival. Temperance plays, like W.H. Smith's The Drunkard, or the Fallen Saved, were very popular in the theater, and, in 1842, Walt Whitman was inspired to write Franklin Evans, a temperance novel and his most popular work during his lifetime.

1828 – Congress passes the "tariff of abominations." When woolen manufacturers in the Northeast complained that the British were selling textiles in America at artificially low prices, President Adams and Congress tried to impose a tariff on British textiles. However, to gain support from the middle and western states, Congress added duties on other items as well. But while New Englanders, whom the legislation was intended to benefit, may have gained protection from British merchants, their additional income was offset by having now to pay more for raw materials. As a result of the bill, Southerners had to pay more for some goods without benefit of added income; Southerners called the legislation the "tariff of abominations."

Andrew Jackson elected president. Jackson presented himself as a man of the people, a democrat running against an aristocrat. The campaign was aggressive. Jackson's supporters called Adams a monarchist who had lived for years off the money of taxpayers; Adams's supporters called Jackson a demagogue completely unfit for the presidency, and some lower level leaders of Adams's campaign presented Jackson as an adulterer and murderer. Jackson more than doubled Adams's electoral vote. Although his supporters were energetic, Adams himself refused to campaign and "exhibit" himself. He declared, "If my country wants my services, she must ask for them."

Noah Webster publishes An American Dictionary of the English Language.

1829 – Mexico abolishes slavery, but rarely enforces the law in Texas.

1830 – Webster and Hayne debate. On the Senate floor, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina debated the potentially explosive doctrine of nullification. Hayne argued that a state had the right to nullify any federal law passed by Congress that exceeded the powers granted it under the Constitution. Webster replied with the doctrine of judicial review, which gave the Supreme Court authority to determine the meaning of the Constitution. Although the theory of nullification was developed by John Calhoun, Jackson's vice president, Jackson agreed with Webster. This was just one issue that caused Calhoun to lose influence with the president.

Joseph Smith publishes the Book of Mormon. Smith published his translations of the set of gold tablets filled with ancient writings, discovered, he said, three years earlier.

1830 - 1838 – The systematic removal of Indians from the South. The Removal Act of 1830 appropriated funds for negotiating treaties with tribes in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, and relocating them to the West, thereby opening their lands to white settlers. By 1838, whether by treaty, pressure, or force, virtually all the southern tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw) were expelled from the South.

1831 – Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion. Turner, a literate slave preacher, had visions of angels that convinced him that God wanted him to punish whites. In a spontaneous action, Turner and six followers murdered his master (whom Turner described as kind and trusting) and his family. Recruiting slaves as they moved on, Turner's ranks swelled to 70. Before the rebellion could be crushed two days later, the rebels killed 57 white men, women, and children. Turner was captured, tried, and executed, and Southerners were left uneasy by this model slave's insurrection.

William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of The Liberator, an abolitionist journal.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded to coordinate the activities of a loose affiliation of anti-slavery societies.

1832 – Jackson vetoes recharter of Bank of the United States. Knowing Jackson's anti-Bank sentiments, Nicholas Biddle applied for a renewal of the Bank's charter four years early so that it would become an issue to work against Jackson in the presidential election. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in 1819 in McCulloch v. Maryland which declared the Bank constitutional, Jackson vetoed the recharter arguing that the Bank was unconstitutional and that it placed too much power in the hands of too few men. Biddle's strategy backfired as Jackson won in a landslide and then, in 1833, Jackson weakened the Bank by withdrawing federal funds and depositing them with new federal revenues in selected state banks. Biddle responded by raising interest rates and calling in loans, an action that led to a brief recession. A national banking system disappeared in 1836 when the charter expired. For years an unstable banking system had an adverse effect on the U.S. economy.

1832 - 1833 – Nullification crisis. South Carolinians were angry over a tariff bill in 1832 that provided them no relief from the 1828 "tariff of abominations." After a newly elected state legislature nullified both tariffs and declared that such taxes would not be collected in South Carolina, Jackson strengthened the federal forts in the state and ordered a warship to the port of Charleston. Congress then passed the Force Act, which authorized the President to use military force to insure that Congressional legislation is followed. To appease South Carolina and to avoid violence, Henry Clay devised a compromise that would lower the tariff in gradations until 1842. The South Carolina legislature reconvened and repealed its nullification, but in a symbolic, face-saving gesture nullified the Force Act.

1834 – General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna establishes himself as dictator of Mexico.

1835 – Roger B. Taney named Chief Justice of Supreme Court. Jackson appointed his loyal ally after John Marshall's death. After two secretaries of the treasury refused to cooperate with Jackson in 1833 in withdrawing federal funds from the U.S. Bank, Jackson appointed an unhesitant Taney.

Texas Revolution begins when Santa Anna marches into Mexico to enforce his new regime. At the time, there were ten Americans for every one Mexican in Texas.

Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes Nature.

1835 - 1842 – The Seminole War. Although the Seminoles had agreed to relocate west earlier in the decade, a minority group led by chieftain Osceola refused and organized an uprising to defend Seminole land. The war dragged on as the Seminoles and runaway black slaves who lived among them were skilled in guerrilla warfare. The government abandoned the war in 1842, but by then many of the Seminoles had either been killed or forced westward. Their relocation was never completed.

1836 – Texas declares independence from Mexico. Mexican forces overran a Texan garrison at the Battle of the Alamo; all 187 defenders were killed, but the Mexicans lost more than 1500 men. The Texans won independence when Sam Houston and his troops surprised Santa Anna and his men at the San Jacinto River at they rested during an afternoon siesta. Threatened with execution, Santa Anna signed treaties recognizing Texan independence and establishing the Rio Grande as the southern boundary. One of the first acts of Sam Houston as president was to ask for Texas to join the United States. His offer was declined. President Jackson, among many others, opposed. The next two presidents, Van Buren and Harrison, avoided the issue of Texas statehood during their terms. Texas would not become a state until 1845 after President Tyler asked Texas to apply again.

1837 - 1843 – Depression. Just before leaving office, Jackson issued an executive order, the "specie circular." Suspicious of state bank notes, Jackson ordered that payment for federal lands be made only in gold or silver coins. A financial panic ensued as hundreds of banks and businesses failed, railroad and canal projects were canceled, unemployment rose, and bread riots erupted in some large cities. The depression was the worst America had experienced to that point.

1837 – Horace Mann, a reformer, becomes the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Mann reorganized the Massachusetts school system. He lengthened the academic year to six months, doubled teachers' salaries, broadened the curriculum, and introduced new methods of professional training. Other states followed the lead of Mann and Massachusetts.

1840 – William Henry Harrison elected president. Harrison died of pneumonia one month after assuming office. John Tyler became president.

The Independent Treasury Act passed in Congress. This act established subtreasuries in various cities where government funds could be secured in vaults. Although the government would be protected from loss, it deprived banks of funds that could be used for private loans to speed economic recovery.

The Liberty Party is formed by abolitionists. Although its candidate received only 7,000 votes in the presidential election, a strong antislavery movement developed from the party.

1843 – Large-scale migration to Oregon begins. Wagon trains covered an average of about fifteen miles a day. From the present-day Midwest, the trip would therefore take about six months. The threat of Indians was greatly exaggerated. Very few wagon trains were attacked. Often the Indians traded with travelers and served as guides.

1843 - 1844 – Tyler conducts secret negotiations with Texas. Tyler was cast out of his own party, the Whigs, for twice vetoing bills to charter a new national bank. Since the Democrats distrusted what they considered his unpredictableness, Tyler became a president without a party. Still, he believed he could be reelected. He and his advisors thought the annexation of Texas would be the issue to secure a large popular vote. But the annexation treaty presented by Secretary of State Calhoun seemed only interested in extending slavery. Thus it was defeated by northern senators. Only after the election of Polk did Tyler, in early 1845, obtain Congressional approval for Texas statehood.

James K. Polk narrowly defeats Henry Clay in the presidential election.

Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, murdered. As rumors circulated that Joseph Smith had announced to his inner circle a new revelation sanctioning polygamy, an anti-Mormon mob murdered him. Leadership of the church was assumed by Brigham Young, who led the community from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah in 1847.

The Methodist church divides into northern and southern organizations because of disagreement over the slavery issue. The following year the Baptist church divided for the same reason.

Edgar Allan Poe publishes "The Raven."

1845 – Frederick Douglass publishes his Autobiography.

1846 – Congress declares war on Mexico. The countries disputed the boundaries between Texas and Mexico. Many thought that President Polk used the dispute to manipulate a war with Mexico so as to annex new territories. Mexico had refused Polk's offer to buy California and New Mexico (which then included present-day Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming). Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to occupy a position just north of the Rio Grande. After a few months, Mexican troops marched into the disputed territory and attacked a unit of American troops. Within three weeks, America declared war. The war lasted for two years – longer than Polk had expected – and was little more than a series of victories for the superior American forces. In 1848, the countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which allowed the U.S. to purchase New Mexico and California for $15,000,000 – about one-half of what Polk had offered before the war. However, the war had cost the Americans some 13,000 lives and almost $100,000,000.

1848 – Zachary Taylor elected president. The Democrats nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan and the Whigs nominated Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor, who had no previous experience in politics. The Free-Soil Party, which opposed slavery, formed because of dissatisfaction with both candidates. Its candidate, former president Martin Van Buren, drew 10% of the vote, an impressive number for a third party candidate.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organize a women's rights convention in Seneca Fall, NY. The convention explored topics of concern to women and issued resolutions. They called for more educational and professional opportunities for women; they demanded women have more control of their property; they demanded legal equality; they wanted the law repealed which awarded custody of children to fathers; and they called for women's right to vote – the only resolution not to pass unanimously.

The California Gold Rush begins when traces of gold are found on James Sutter's ranch at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Within four years, the non-Indian population of the territory increased nearly twentyfold as people left all behind in the search for gold.

1850 – Compromise of 1850. Debated long and hard, the Compromise included the following major terms: California was admitted as a free state; the territories of New Mexico and Utah were created from the rest of the Mexican cession; slave-trading was prohibited in the District of Columbia; and a more severe Fugitive Slave Act replaced the one of 1793. (This fugitive slave law subjected alleged runaways to summary hearings before federal commissioners without a trial by jury or the right to testify on their own behalf; furthermore, the commissioner was paid double for convictions – $10 instead of $5.) Many had hoped the Compromise would finally settle the slavery issue. An adamant opponent of the Compromise who threatened veto, Zachary Taylor died before an agreement could be reached. Millard Filmore assumed the presidency.

1851 – Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick.

1852 – American Party (Know-Nothings) formed. A nativist party, the Know-Nothings responded to the large number of immigrants that entered the United States. (In the 1830s, approximately 500,000 immigrants entered the United States; between 1840 and 1850, 1.5 million immigrants arrived; and between 1850 and 1860, 2.5. million entered. The U.S. population stood at 13 million in 1830, and in 1860 it has risen to approximately 31 million.) The Know-Nothings denounced illegal voting by immigrants; they blamed the rising crime and alcohol rates on immigrants; and they were convinced the Catholic Church was conspiring to undermine democracy in America. The secret organization, which took as its slogan "Americans should rule America," instructed members to reply to all inquiries with "I know nothing." In the 1854 election, the party was a potent political force.

Franklin Pierce elected president. Americans hoped that Pierce's presidency and the Compromise of 1850, which Pierce declared would be "unhesitatingly carried into effect," would bring a new period of harmony to the country. But that optimism would be shortlived. With California's admission to the union, free states would now be in the majority; furthermore, the admission of new free states was imminent and with most of the immigrants residing in northern cities, the free states had the vast majority in population. Southerners were also upset that the Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, was not being enforced, and they were outraged when states passed their own personal-liberty laws that nullified the Fugitive Slave Act. Abolitionist activity also increased.

Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin.

1854 – Kansas-Nebraska Act. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill in January 1854 that would open the huge territory of Nebraska for white settlement. However, Douglas knew the South would oppose the bill because under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would be prohibited. To make the bill acceptable to the South, Douglas suggested letting the people in the territory determine whether it would be a free or slave territory, thus repealing the Missouri Compromise. He also divided the territory into two: Kansas and Nebraska, realizing that Nebraska was more likely to become a free territory and Kansas a slave territory. After an emotional debate, the bill narrowly passed largely because President Pierce supported it and pressured at least some northern democrats to vote in its favor.

The Republican Party formed when Democrats and Whigs opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act joined forces. The party considered slavery a "relic of barbarism."

Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden.

1855 – Walt Whitman issues the first edition of Leaves of Grass.

1855 - 1856 – "Bleeding Kansas." The issue of slavery was contested bitterly in Kansas. Missourians rode over the border to stuff ballot boxes in favor of pro-slavery candidates which gave slavery supporters an overwhelming majority in the Kansas legislature. There, the pro-slavery representatives expelled antislavery representatives and passed laws intimidating antislavery settlers. Antislavery forces answered by organizing its own government with a state constitution prohibiting slavery and petitioning Congress to admit Kansas as a free state. Violence broke out frequently between the two factions.

1856 – In the Senate chamber, Representative Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts unconscious. A few days earlier Sumner delivered a passionate condemnation of slavery that deliberately insulted Brooks and South Carolina. Brooks was lionized as a hero in the South, and Sumner was reelected in 1857, but was unable to return until 1860, his chair left vacant as a symbol of Southern brutality.

John Brown and six followers (including two of his sons) are responsible for the Pottawatomie massacre. One night, Brown and his men killed five pro-slavery settlers and left their mutilated bodies for exhibition to discourage other supporters of slavery from settling in Kansas.

James Buchanan elected president.

1857 – Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott was a Missouri slave whose owner had taken him to the North. Abolitionists persuaded Scott to sue for freedom in the Missouri courts on the grounds that his residence in a free territory had made him a free man. On appeal, the state supreme court decided against him, but the suit entered the federal courts because it involved citizens of different states – J.F.A. Sanford, Scott's owner, was a resident of New York. But the suit was only superficially about Scott, as Sanford was an abolitionist determined to free him. Abolitionists, however, wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to decide on the status of slavery in the territories. The Supreme Court delivered a stunning blow to the abolitionist cause when Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that Scott could not bring a case to the Court because he was not a citizen; in fact, blacks had no claim to citizenship and virtually no rights under the Constitution. Furthermore, since slaves were property, Congress had no right to pass a law depriving people of slaves in the territories; the Missouri Compromise was therefore unconstitutional. Southerners celebrated and Northerners were outraged by the severity of Taney's statements.

The Panic of 1857. While nowhere near as severe as the depression of 1837-1843, the panic contributed to the ever-widening riff between the North and South. With cotton prices remaining high, the South was hardly affected by the panic. Many Southerners took it as evidence that an independent nation could work economically. The North sought relief in Congress, but the South either defeated measures, like increased tariffs, or the President vetoed bills, like one to improve navigation on the Great Lakes. Northerners saw the actions as selfish, Southern obstructionism.

1858 – Lecompton Constitution defeated. Free-staters boycotted the Kansas election to elect delegates to a state convention to draft a constitution. Meeting in Lecompton, the delegates made slavery legal, and scheduled a referendum in which voters would choose whether to admit additional slaves into the territory. Kansas voters rejected the constitution. Regardless of the vote, Buchanan saw it as an opportunity to satisfy his Southern supporters and pushed the constitution through the Senate. The House of Representatives, however, rejected the constitution. The Congress returned the constitution to Kansas for another vote, where it was again resoundingly defeated. There was little doubt that Kansas would soon enter the Union as a free state.

Lincoln-Douglas debates. Contending for an Illinois seat in the Senate, Abraham Lincoln debated incumbent Stephen Douglas. Although Douglas won the election, Lincoln rose to national prominence as a result of his performance in the debates.

1850s - 1880s – Constant fighting between whites and Indians.