1856 in the United States included some significant events that pushed the nation closer towards civil war.
Incumbents
Governors and Lieutenant Governors
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Governors
Lieutenant Governors
- Lieutenant Governor of California: Samuel Purdy (Democratic) (until January 9), Robert M. Anderson (Know Nothing) (starting January 9)
- Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: William Field (Free Soil) (until month and day unknown), Albert Day (Free Soil) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Gustavus Koerner (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Ashbel P. Willard (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: James Greene Hardy (Know Nothing) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana:
- Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Simon Brown (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Henry W. Benchley (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: George Coe (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: vacant
- Lieutenant Governor of New York: Henry Jarvis Raymond (Whig) (until end of December 31)
- Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: James Myers (Democratic) (until January 14), Thomas H. Ford (Democratic) (starting January 14)
- Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Anderson C. Rose (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Nicholas Brown III (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Richard de Treville (Democratic) (until December 9), Gabriel Cannon (Democratic) (starting December 9)
- Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Hardin Richard Runnels (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Ryland Fletcher (Republican) (until October 10), James M. Slade (Republican) (starting October 10)
- Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Shelton Leake (Democratic) (until January 1), Elisha W. McComas (political party unknown) (starting January 1)
- Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: James T. Lewis (Republican) (until January 7), Arthur MacArthur, Sr. (Democratic) (starting January 7)
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Events
January–March
April–June
- May 16 – The Vigilance Committee is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.
- May 21 – Bleeding Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (the "Sacking of Lawrence").
- May 22 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovered; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.
- May 24 – Pottawatomie Massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 pro-slavery supporters in Franklin County, Kansas.
- June 2 – Bleeding Kansas – Battle of Black Jack: Anti-slavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat pro-slavery forces.
- June 6 – At the Democratic National Convention, President Franklin Pierce is denied re-nomination for the November presidential election.
- June 9 – 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
July–September
October–December
Ongoing
Births
- January 7 – Charles Harold Davis, landscape painter (died 1933)
- January 8 – Elizabeth Taylor, painter and traveler (died 1932)
- January 9 – Lizette Woodworth Reese, poet (died 1935)
- January 12 – John Singer Sargent, painter (born in Tuscany; died 1925 in the United Kingdom)
- February 2 – Frederick William Vanderbilt, railway magnate (died 1938)
- March 20 – Frederick Winslow Taylor, inventor and efficiency expert (died 1915)
- April 5 – Booker T. Washington, educator (died 1915)
- April 23 – Granville T. Woods, African American inventor (died 1910)
- March 8 – Colin Campbell Cooper, impressionist painter (died 1937)
- May 6 – Robert Peary, Arctic explorer (died 1920)
- May 15 – L. Frank Baum, children's writer (The Wizard of Oz) (died 1919)
- May 26 – George Templeton Strong, composer (died 1948 in Switzerland)
- July 11 – Georgiana Drew, stage actress (died 1893)
- July 24 – Franklin Ware Mann, inventor (died 1916)
- July 25 – Charles Major, novelist and lawyer (died 1913)
- August 15 – Charles E. Townsend, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1911 to 1923 (died 1924)
- September 3 –Louis Sullivan, architect, "father of skyscrapers" (died 1924)
- September 5
- September 9 – Richard R. Kenney, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1897 to 1901 (died 1931)
- October 7 – Moses Fleetwood Walker, baseball pitcher and Black nationalist (died 1924)
- October 28 – Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, portrait and genre painter (died 1942)
- October 30 – Charles Leroux, balloonist and parachutist (died 1889)
- November 6 – Jefferson David Chalfant, trompe-l'œil painter (died 1931)
- November 13 – Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (died 1941)
- November 14 – Madeleine Lemoyne Ellicott, suffragette (died 1945)
- November 16 – Carrie Babcock Sherman, wife of James S. Sherman, Second Lady of the United States (died 1931)
- November 17 – Thomas Taggart, U.S. Senator from Indiana in 1916 (died 1929)
- November 21 – William Emerson Ritter, biologist (died 1944)
- November 22 – Heber J. Grant, seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1945)
- December 22 – Frank B. Kellogg, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1917 to 1923 (died 1937)
- December 23 – James Buchanan Duke, tobacco and electric power industrialist (born 1925)
- December 28
Deaths
- January 1 – John M. Berrien, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1841 to 1852 (born 1781)
- January 16 –Thaddeus William Harris, naturalist (born 1795)
- April 19 – Thomas Rogers, railroad locomotive builder (born 1792)
- April 20 – Robert L. Stevens, president of Camden and Amboy Railroad (born 1787)
- April 26 – George Troup, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1816 to 1818 and 1829 to 1833 (born 1780)
- May 5 – William Crosby Dawson, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1849 to 1855 (born 1798)
- May 31 – John Milton Niles, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1835 to 1839 and 1843 to 1849 (born 1787)
- July 9
- September 7 – Almon W. Babbitt, Mormon pioneer and first secretary/treasurer of Utah Territory (born 1812)
- October 19 – William Sprague III, politician from Rhode Island (born 1799)
- November 9 – John M. Clayton, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1829 to 1836, 1845 to 1849 and 1853 to 1856 (born 1796)
See also
External links
1856 in North America |
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