 |
 William
Henry Seward served in the New York
State Senate, as Governor of New York, and in the
U.S. Senate before being named Secretary of
State, in which capacity he served from 1861 to
1869. His most important accomplishment during
this period was the purchase of Alaska from
Russia. |
 Robert R.
Livingston represented New York in
the Continental Congress, and was a member of the committee that drafted the
Declaration of Independence. As Minister to the
Court of Napoleon, he negotiated the Louisiana
Purchase. |
 Martha
Dandridge Custis Washington endured
the harsh winter of 1777-78 with her husband,
George Washington, and his men at Valley Forge.
In 1789, she became our nation's first First
Lady, a role which she did not enjoy but
nevertheless handled with dignity and grace. |
 Zachary
Taylor: A Chronology of His Life and Career
Zachary Taylor served his country
for 40 years as a soldier and for 16 months as
President. His courage and ability during the
Mexican War made him a national hero. He showed
the same courage as President, but died before he
could prove his full abilities as a statesman. |
 Henry Clay
served in both houses of Congress, and was the
second-longest-serving Speaker of the House in
U.S. history, being elected to that position a
total of six times. After supporting the War of
1812 he helped negotiate the treaty that ended
that war, and it was he who authored the second
Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. |
 An
Overview of Martin Van Buren's Life and Career
Martin Van Buren's opponents
accused him of being a sly scheming politician.
They called him "The Little Magician"
and "The Fox of Kinderhook," and
ridiculed his courteous manners. When Van Buren
continued to deal politely with his political
rivals, they said this showed his lack of deep
convictions. |
 The
Missouri
Compromise of 1820 was
actually two compromises in one, both of them
arising out of Missouri's request for statehood.
Passed on March 3, 1820, it proposed that Maine
be admitted as a free state, thus balancing the
admission of Missouri as a slave state. |
 The Kansas-Nebraska
Act, which was signed into law on
May 30, 1854, divided Nebraska
Territory into Kansas and Nebraska and specified
that the question of whether or not to allow
slavery would be left up to the voters within
each territory. |
