On April 3, 1865, the end of the Civil War looked to be in reach when General Ulysses S. Grant captured the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. The fall of Richmond marked a pivotal moment in the war and represented the beginning of…
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The Republican Party of the United States was officially founded on March 20, 1854, in Ripon, Wisconsin, as a direct response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act—a divisive law that threatened to extend slavery into new territories. The party’s formation reflected the increasing sectional tensions of…
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Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union address, delivered on February 27, 1860, in New York City, stands as one of the most legendary speeches ever given by an American politician. At the time, the United States was deeply divided over the issue of slavery, and the…
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On December 20, 1860, a secession convention in South Carolina voted unanimously to secede from the Union. Fearing that Republican Abraham Lincoln’s administration would appoint antislavery officials who would undermine slavery, slaveholders chose to abandon the Constitution and form their own nation. To justify…
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