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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December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William Seward officially proclaimed the Thirteenth Amendment ratified, officially ending slavery in the United States. Seward’s announcement was especially fulfilling to the New Yorker, who had spent much of his adult life fighting for the end of slavery.…
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In the middle of November, the sixteenth president was jotting down a speech as he traveled by train from Washington to Pennsylvania to dedicate the most famous battle in American history. The Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, is…
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