ARTS/CULTURE

12 JULY 1808: In St. Louis, The Missouri Gazette is published, thus becoming the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River.

04 JULY 1831: Dr. Samuel Francis Smith’s song America, written to the tune of God Save the King, is sung for the first time in Worcester, Massachusetts.

EXPLORATION

31 JULY 1793: In Boston, Captain Robert Gray arrives on his ship Columbia from his second voyage of circumnavigation of the globe. On his trip he discovered the Columbia River in the American Pacific Northwest.

13 JULY 1832: An exploring party led by Henry Schoolcraft finds the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.

FINANCE

04 JULY 1789: In order to raise revenue, Congress passes the first Tariff Act. To become effective August 1, the Bill sets a protective tax of 8.5 percent on some 30 enumerated items. Imports arriving on American ships are to be taxed at a rate 10 percent lower than those coming in on foreign ships.

20 JULY 1789: In a further move to raise revenue, Congress passes the Tonnage Act, which mandates a tax of 50 cents per ton on foreign ships entering American ports.

04 JULY 1791: The newly-organized Bank of the United States begins a subscription drive to raise capital.

JULY 1794: In the Monogahela Valley of western Pennsylvania, the Whiskey Rebellion breaks out among farmers who oppose the collection of the federal excise tax on liquor and stills by violent actions such as burning tax collectors’ houses, and tarring and feathering revenue officers.

10 JULY 1832: President Jackson vetoes a Bill that would re-charter the Bank of the United States. His Vice-President, Van Buren, has long opposed Nicholas Biddle, the conservative head of the bank whose policies seem to favor corporations and a moneyed aristocracy. Jackson wants such a government-owned institution to have limited operations, mostly confined to deposit. The Bill to re-charter passes the Senate on June 11 and the House on July 3. On July 13, with a Senate vote of 22 to 19, that body fails to override the Veto.

11 JULY 1836: Because more and more different types of paper money have become acceptable tender, inflation and land speculation have skyrocketed. In 1832 land sales amounted to $2,623,000; by 1836, they have increased to $24,877,000. President Jackson issues a Specie Circular mandating that only gold and silver be used to buy government lands. Actual settlers or residents of the State in which the land is purchased will be permitted to use paper money until December 15.

04 JULY 1840: With a signature from President Van Buren, the independent Treasury Act becomes law. It allows the government exclusive responsibility over its own funds and provides for government depositories to hold funds. According to the Act, all government transactions will be made in specie payments after June 30, 1843. Subtreasuries for deposits are established in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Charleston, St. Louis and New Orleans.

03 JULY 1852: The activity and growth in California require that Congress act to establish a branch of the United States Mint in San Francisco.

01 JULY 1866: In a move to get the States out of the business of issuing their own currency, Congress imposes a 10 percent tax on all State bank notes. The move dries up State money and brings about an acceptable national currency.

14 JULY 1870: The Internal Revenue and Tariff Act of 1870 is adopted by Congress. Rates are lowered and duties removed from only a few items. Excise taxes are eliminated. Overall it is a victory for a protectionist Congress under pressure from industrialists. High tariff walls are a great disappointment to European manufacturers.

25 JULY 1876: A Bill to issue unlimited coinage of silver is brought into the House of Representatives by Richard P. Bland of Missouri.

14 JULY 1890: In a continuing battle over silver and gold coinage, passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act supplants the Bland-Allison Act of 1878. The Western pro-silver States make a trade with the Eastern protection-prone States: high tariffs in return for silver. The result is a Bill which calls for government purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month. The Treasury is to issue legal tender notes in payment for the silver, which are redeemable in either silver or gold.

12 JULY 1909: In a major blow to the individual economic Liberty of Americans, Congress proposes the 16th Amendment authorizing a federal income tax.

10 JULY 1940: In preparation for war, President Roosevelt submits another request to Congress calling for yet more money - $4,800,000,000.

20 JULY 1940: Massive amounts of treasure continue to be appropriated in preparation for war. On this day, Congress appropriates $4,000,000,000 to give the U.S. a two-ocean Navy.

01-22 JULY 1944: Delegates from 44 nations meet at a resort hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, for a monetary and finance conference. Before they leave, they will have agreed to set up an International Monetary Fund and an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and many of their decisions will govern international finance for the next quarter-century.

20 JULY 1950: The end of WWII does not bring an end to war spending by the United States government. President Truman asks Congress to pass a $10,000,000,000 rearmament program, and pressures for a partial mobilization of United States resources. These actions are taken five days before North Korea invades the South Korea.

IDEAS/BELIEFS

24 JULY 1847: Brigham Young and his followers arrive at the Valley of the Great Salt Lake; he establishes the State of Deseret. The name derives from the word for "honeybee" in the Book of Mormon.

12-19 JULY 1848: Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are the two main organizers of the first American Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York.  The two women have previously worked successfully to pass a New York law allowing a married woman to have control over her own property. The convention attracts both men and women. Among Stanton’s Resolutions are Declarations that all people are Equal, women must be educated in the laws, women should have Suffrage and women should be Free to speak in public without incurring the wrath of their families.

26 JULY 1882: The United States announces that as of March 16 it has agreed to accept the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1864 for improving the care of the wounded in wartime.

01 JULY 1899: The commercial travelers belonging to the Christian Commercial Men’s Association of America organize the Gideons. The first Gideon Bible will be placed in Superior Hotel, Iron Mountain, Montana, in November 1908.

IMMIGRATION

04 JULY 1864: Congress passes the Immigration Act, permitting immigration contract labor.

28 JULY 1868: A Treaty between the United States and China is concluded, establishing policies of commerce and friendship. One of its principal purposes is to protect the Right of both Chinese and whites to migrate freely from one country to another for trade or even settling. Monthly steamers will plow back and forth between San Francisco and Hong Kong making firmer commercial ties possible and making Chinese immigration easier.

13 JULY 1869: Riots against Chinese take place in San Francisco. Chinese laborers have come into the United States in increasing numbers. Not speaking the language, and willing to work extremely well for the lowest wages, the Chinese call forth great anger from competing groups of laborers. They are discriminated against in their social life, beaten-up at work and often involved in bloody riots as this one in San Francisco.

01 JULY 1929: The Immigration Act of 1924 goes into effect. It institutes a quota system for immigrants based on the U.S. population in 1920.

INTERNATIONAL

14 JULY 1789: In Paris, the French Revolution begins with the fall of Bastille. This event is witnessed by American minister to France, Thomas Jefferson.

26 JULY 1815: In North Africa, Captain Stephan Decatur has Tunis sign a Treaty, in which it agrees to halt interference with American commercial shipping in the Mediterranean and to cease tribute demands from the American government. Tunis is also required to make restitution for the American vessels it allowed the British to seize as prizes during the War of 1812.

24 JULY 1822: In a strongly worded diplomatic note, the United States protests the Russian Czar’s September 4, 1821 claim to the American Pacific coast, threatening the possibility of war if the Russians attempt to assume physical control of the region.

17 JULY 1823: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams informs the Russian minister to the United States that the “American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments,” thus directly challenging the Russian imperial decree of September 4, 1821, claiming the American Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska. The United States and Russia will avoid war and sign a Treaty resolving the issue on April 17, 1824.

03 JULY 1844: Caleb Cushing negotiates the Treaty of Wang Hiya, the first Treaty between America and China. It opens five ports for trading by American merchants and gives legal Rights to those Americans living in China.

14 JULY 1870: Clarifying the Monroe Doctrine as it is to be applied now and in the future, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish declares that territory in the Western Hemisphere belonging to a European power cannot be handed over to a second European power but must be set Free with no strings attached.

28 JULY 1945: The U.S. Senate consents to the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89-2.

LABOR

12 JULY 1810: In New York City, the trial of the members of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) begins. The Cordwainers are accused and convicted of illegal Conspiracy for having used a Strike to enforce their demands for a higher salary. Each member is fined $1 plus costs. The setback to early Trade Unionism has a precedent in the 1806 trial of Philadelphia Cordwainers, who were also found guilty of Conspiracy for Strike activities. In both cases, the court interpreted Labor Strikes as Conspiracies, holding that an act lawful in itself can be considered illegal if perpetrated through a Conspiracy. This interpretation of Strikes as Conspiracies will not be overturned until an 1842 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision. EDITOR’S NOTE: Does this make the courts and attorneys involved with the convictions of Cordwainers, Conspiracy Theorists?

14 JULY 1877: The Great Strike of 1877 begins as workers walk out on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Railroad Unions demand better working conditions, protest recent 10 percent cuts in pay, the second since the Depression began, and demand redress for their many grievances. Strikes spread to other railroads from New England to the Mississippi and soon from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All the great cities are pulled into the struggle which is finally settled by Militia and Federal Troops. But it serves notice that Labor and Capital are on a new footing; that until reconciling social ideas are brought to bear, conflict between the two forces will be sanguinary, wasteful and titanic. Sympathetic Strikes of factory workers and miners engulf industry. Overnight the nation grinds to a halt. Sympathetic Strikes are a novelty and speak of a growing understanding of the distress shared by industrial workers.

16 JULY 1877: Violence re-erupts at Martinsburg, West Virginia. State Militia has been ordered to guard railroad property on the B&O to prevent a train from being moved. Instead the train is derailed. Soon the entire line, yards, tracks, roundhouses are in the strikers’ hands. President Hayes orders the men back to work. The local Militia refuses to fire on the Strikers but the Secretary of War sends Federal Troops to break up the Strike. It is the first time since Jackson that Federal Troops have been used against civilian Americans. Violence continues unabated across the country.

20 JULY 1877: In Baltimore, nine Strikers are killed and several wounded when State Militia fire point blank at a crowd trying to prevent them from reaching the railway station, which is in the hands of angry Strikers. In four days of rioting, 50 more people are killed.

21 JULY 1877: In Pittsburgh, where railway property is concentrated, a large number of Sympathy Strikers and general populace support the railroad workers. They are attacked by State Troops when the Pennsylvania Militia, attempting to clear a street, is met by volleys of stones. The Militia fire into the crowd, which then fires back. In the battle which ensues the Militia secures itself in a roundhouse from which it is ultimately forced by fire. At one time a wall of fire three miles long destroys installations and about 2000 freight cars are burned.

26 JULY 1877: In Chicago a Strike turns into a bloody massacre when an unorganized gathering is attacked by police aided by cavalry. Nineteen people are killed.

31 JULY 1877: Inspired by the railroad workers, Strikes have spread to most other industries in the two hot weeks of July. Under intense pressure from State and Federal governments the railroad Strikers have been forced to settle. Most railroad men return to work without substantial increases or betterment of working conditions. Sympathizing Strikes in coal mines have spread, and by the end of July, 40,000 coalminers are on Strike in Scranton, Pennsylvania. These workers are more fortunate than the railway workers: after almost one month of violence and looting, the mine owners cave in, offering a 10 percent raise, and agree to other demands made by the Unions. Order is restored, but not before the Strike has spread through most of the coal-producing States. From this inauspicious beginning a cohesiveness is formed among workers that has not existed before. The Strikes have been dramatic lessons in the power of employers and the powerlessness of the single working person or even small groups. The Labor movement, which has begun to weaken during the Depression, membership having fallen from 300,000 to 50,000 finds new energy in the explosive events of the summer of 1877.

20 JULY 1891: In Briceville, Tennessee, 200 convicts are returned to jail by State Troops after forcing the miners there to surrender. Labor unrest is increasing in violence with every passing year. Although prices on many goods and services have gone down, many necessities remain high because of tariff walls and unfair railroad rates. Appalling work conditions do not change except through strife. As Strikes reach ever larger proportions, State and Federal Troops are more often called in to quell them. Convict labor is being routinely used to break Strikes.

01 JULY 1892: Strikes have been instituted against corporations all over the nation. The most significant is called this day against Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Mill in Pennsylvania. The main issue is whether Labor will be permitted to bargain as a single unit, a corporation, or whether each individual worker will have to contract unprotected with the giant combine by himself.

06 JULY 1892: Some 5,000 Homestead steel workers battle 300 Pinkerton “Detectives” brought in to break the Strike. Hundreds are wounded and some 20 persons killed.

09 JULY 1892: A thoroughly overwhelming force of 7,000 State Troopers is ordered to the Homestead Works by Pennsylvania Governor Pattison.

11 JULY 1892: Striking silver miners in Coecur d’Alene, Idaho, engage in violent struggle with Strikebreakers.

02 JULY 1894: In a landmark move with long term repressions, the United States government issues an injunction against the railroad Strikers on the grounds of “interference with interstate commerce and postal service.” President Cleveland makes this move at the behest of U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney, who has his own reasons for wanting this: he had himself been a railroad director and a member of the Managers’ Association; he is still an attorney for several railroads. The injunction orders Debs to call off the Strike. That Pullman cars do not carry mail is disregarded by Cleveland.

03 JULY 1894: U.S. Troops are sent to Chicago to enforce the court injunction. Cleveland is determined to get the mail through. He declares that interference with the postal service is un-Constitutional and that he will see that the lowliest postcard gets delivered if it takes the whole Army to deliver it. Governor Altgeld protests the misuse of the Army to break a Strike, claiming it violates the Constitution and interferes in the internal affairs of a State. Altgeld’s fairmindedness throughout the Strike will merely ruin his career in politics.

06 JULY 1894: Two men are killed and several injured when railroad Strikers are fired upon by Troops near Chicago.

10 JULY 1894: A Federal Grand Jury indicts Eugene Debs for failing to comply with the injunction. On December 14 he will be sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

20 JULY 1894: U.S. Troops are withdrawn from Chicago, but not before extensive damage has been caused by mobs made angry by their presence. Fire alone causes some $3,000,000 worth of damage. These disorderly groups are not predominately Strikers but include the unemployed in general.

25 JULY 1904: The long and bitter Textile Strike of some 25,000 workers in the mills of Massachusetts begins in Fall River. The National Child Labor Committee is formed this year in order to bring some protection to children who, as young as 10 years old, are working long adult hours under the most difficult of circumstances.

01 JULY 1921: Industry meets economic crisis by cutting wages rather than hours. Working hours are usually 12-14 per day, with weekends included; in some industries such a steel, every two weeks there is what is called a “stretch-out” where workers are called upon to work 24 hours straight. Children and women fare no better. An attempt to protect children has been ruled un-Constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1918. Now, in 1921, the New York Central cuts the wages of some 43,000 employees by almost 23 percent, while the Railroad Labor Board authorizes a 12 percent cut; the clothing workers are forced to accept a 15 percent chop. U.S. Steel will decrease wages three times this year. During the same months some 20,000 businesses will fail causing massive unemployment. Figures released in August show 5,735,000 unemployed. Ford, which had earlier closed its plants because dealers were unable to sell cars, is the only industry to feel that a crisis is past as assets rise to $345,140,000.

16 JULY 1934: In San Francisco, where 12,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association are out on Strike, organized labor calls a General Strike, the first such in U.S. history. Throughout the U.S. this summer, there are numerous Strikes.

MEXICO - U.S. RELATIONS

JULY 1835: Wanting to expand the country, President Jackson authorizes the purchase of Texas, but Mexico refuses to sell the Territory.

01 JULY 1836: The Senate adopts a Resolution to recognize the Texas Territory. The House follows with a similar Resolution on July 4. Although sympathetic to Texans, President Jackson feels obligated to honor the United States’ obligations to Mexico and to maintain neutrality. Fearing a war with Mexico, he waits until March 3, 1837 to nominate Alcee La Branche to be charge’ de affaires in Texas. The Annexation of Texas remains a controversial issue for the next nine years.

07 JULY 1846: Commodore John Sloat lands at Monterey and claims possession of California for the United States. He hoists an American flag.

NATIONAL

13 JULY 1787: Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, drafted by Nathan Dane, establishing a government in the area north of the Ohio River.  Based on Thomas Jefferson’s Ordinance Plan of 1784 and a Congressional Committee report of September 1787, the plan provides for the eventual establishment of a Bicameral Assembly, the creation of three to five States to be Equal with the original States, Freedom of Religion, the Right of trial by Jury, public education and a ban on slavery.

27 JULY 1789: The first executive department organized by Congress is that of Foreign Affairs.  It will be renamed the Department of State on September 15, and Thomas Jefferson is appointed its head.

08 JULY 1797: The United States House of Representatives votes to impeach Tennessee Senator William Blount for Conspiring to instigate a war with Spain and for stirring up the Cherokee Indians to attack both the United States and Spanish possessions. The Senate expels Blount, but will dismiss the charges against him on January 14, 1799. EDITOR’S NOTE: Does the charge and impeachment of Tennessee Senator William Blount for conspiracy make those in the House that voted to do so, Conspiracy Theorists?

06 JULY 1798: Congress passes the third Alien and Sedition Act. The Enemy Aliens Act permits the wartime arrest, imprisonment and banishment of any aliens subject to any enemy power.

11 JULY 1798: Congress passes the fourth of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act declares any anti-government activity, including the publication of “any false, scandalous and malicious writing” a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment.

12 JULY 1817: The Boston Columbian Sentinel dubs the Monroe presidency as the “era of good feeling,” a reaction evoked by the enthusiastic reception of Monroe by both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans as he travels the Northeast and Midwest during the summer.

20 JULY 1822: The Tennessee State legislature nominates Andrew Jackson as its presidential candidate for the 1824 election. This action by a State legislature marks the end of the system of selecting presidential candidates by Congressional Party Caucuses. This popular method of nomination heralds the approach of Jacksonian Democracy.

04 JULY 1826: On the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Founding Fathers and former presidents Thomas Jefferson, 83, and John Adams, 91, die.  Jefferson dies first at Monticello in Virginia, after having queried through the night, “Is it the Fourth?”  John Adams dies some four and one-half hours later in Quincy, Massachusetts, murmuring, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”  This event symbolizes to many God’s Divine approval of the United States.

07 JULY 1840: The presidential campaign is underway. Daniel Webster is stumping in the Whig campaign for Harrison and Tyler. On Stratton Mountain, Vermont, he addresses 15,000 people. The Whigs are using campaign methods and devices that will become common in later American elections. They cleverly change a derisive Democratic remark about Harrison into an entire campaign theme. One of the Democratic newspapers, the Baltimore Republican, suggested on March 23, “that upon condition of receiving a pension of $2,000 and a barrel of cider, General Harrison would no doubt consent to withdraw his pretensions, and spend his days in a log cabin on the banks of the Ohio.” Whigs develop what becomes known as the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign as they use these symbols to portray Harrison as a sturdy man of the frontier. They enthusiastically employ campaign hats, placards, effigies, floats and transportable log cabins with barrels of cider. They sing “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” including the refrain, “Van, Van is a used up man.” Thus they focus the election solely on the basis of personality and ignore discussions of leading issues. Whigs portray Van Buren as a man of aristocratic, extravagant taste. Eventually the campaign deteriorates into exaggerated misrepresentation, abuse and irrelevancy.

JULY 1845: An article credited to John L. O’Sullivan, the editor of an expansionist magazine, The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, appears in that publication and uses the term “Manifest Destiny” for the first time. In complaining about other countries interfering with the Annexation of Texas, O’Sullivan described “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” The term will be borrowed by other publications.

10 JULY 1890: Wyoming enters the Union as the first State to have Women’s Suffrage.  As a Territory, Wyoming has already Enfranchised women.  The State then fought to keep its provision intact when it should become a State.

17 JULY 1948: Southern Democrats who walked out of the party convention two days earlier over a dispute concerning Civil Rights, form the States’ Rights Party (Dixiecrats) which nominates Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president. The Dixiecrats propose a platform of racial segregation.

26 JULY 1948: An Executive Order is signed by President Truman that bars segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces and calls for an end to racial discrimination in federal employment.

02 JULY 1964: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. He states that “its purpose is not to divide, but to end division.”

04 JULY 1976: The U.S. officially observes its 200th birthday with parades, fireworks and festivals.

NATIVE AMERICANS

02 JULY 1809: The remarkable Warrior, Statesman and Chief of the Shawnee Indians, Tecumseh, along with his brother The Prophet, starts a campaign to establish a defensive Confederacy of Indian tribes to resist the westward progress of American settlers, who in the past seven years have acquired over 30 million acres of Indian lands north of the Ohio River. The British government of Canada reportedly backs the efforts of Tecumseh.

31 JULY 1811: Fearful of the Indian Confederacy being formed by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet, the frontier settlers of Vincennes in the Indiana Territory issue a

call for the destruction of the main Indian village on the Tippecanoe River.

22 JULY 1814: In the Treaty of Grenville, the Delaware, Miami, Seneca, Shawnee and Wyandot Indians made Peace with the United States. The Treaty also requires the Indians to Declare War on the British.

JULY-SEPTEMBER 1815: The Treaties of Portage des Sioux are signed, effectively ending all Indian resistance in the Old Northwest, and freeing the territory below Lake Michigan for settlement.

09 JULY 1816: In a Treaty with the Cherokee Indians, W.L. Lovely effects the cession of Indian lands in northern Maine to the United States.

27 JULY 1816: In Spanish-held East Florida, a United States government military expedition destroys Fort Apalachicola at the request of the State of Georgia. The fort had become a refuge for runaway slaves and hostile Indians, both of whom were sheltered by the Seminole Indians.

29 JULY 1829: In the Michigan Territory, the Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians cede lands to the United States.

15 JULY 1830: At Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Indians, including the Sioux, Sauk and Fox, sign a Treaty to give the United States most of what is now Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota.

23 JULY 1851: Representatives of the Sioux Indians meet with representatives of the U.S. government to sign the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. The Sioux give up all of their land in Iowa and most of their land in Minnesota.

23 JULY 1892: Congress bans the sale of alcohol on Indian Lands.

27 JULY 1892: Congress authorizes a pension of eight dollars a month to survivors of the Indian Wars of 1832-1842.

REGIONAL

12 JULY 1777: Renaming itself Vermont, the New Connecticut “Republic” adopts a Constitution mandating manhood Suffrage and banning slavery.

19 JULY 1820: In the Constitution drafted by inhabitants of the Missouri Territory, Free blacks and mulattoes are barred from the future State. This discriminatory clause will meet with opposition when the Constitution is presented to Congress on November 14 for approval.

08 JULY 1871: William “Boss” Tweed is exposed in a series of articles published in the New York Times. Tweed will be brought to trial and held responsible for taking up to $200,000,000 in fraudulent contracts, kickbacks, false vouchers and other corrupt practices which have brought New York City to the verge of bankruptcy in six short years. Jay Gould of the Black Friday 1869 gold scandal is one of the signatories to Tweed’s million dollar bail bond.

28 JULY 1982: San Francisco becomes the first city in the United States to ban the sale and possession of handguns.

SLAVERY

20 JULY 1781: Rebellious slaves in Williamsburg, Virginia, set fire to several buildings, as well as to the Capitol.

08 JULY 1783: The Massachusetts Supreme Court proclaims the Abolition of slavery in the Commonwealth, as mandated by the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights of 1780.

04 JULY 1834: An anti-slavery society meeting at the Chatham Street Chapel in New York is disrupted by a pro-slavery mob. The mob is angry because blacks and whites are sitting together in the audience. Rioting continues for eight days until July 12 with many churches and houses destroyed in the melee.

06 JULY 1835: A mob in Charleston, South Carolina, burns the Abolitionist literature that a local post office has impounded. The Abolitionist tracts had come from New York and lead Alfred Huger, the Charleston Postmaster, to request that anti-slavery societies be prohibited from sending their literature through the mails. Huger’s appeal is rejected. Postmaster General Kendall publicly replies that he lacks official authority to bar such mail, but unofficially he recommends that local Postmasters do just that. He states, “We owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the communities in which we live.” Frightened by slave uprisings such as that of Nat Turner, Southern States are beginning to pass prohibitory laws against Abolitionist propaganda. A Georgia law passed this year provides the death penalty to anyone publishing material that could lead to slave insurrections. Abolitionist writers and agents are expelled by nearly all Southern States, and in South Carolina, Governor George McDuffie urges the legislature that, “the laws of every community should punish this species of interference by death without benefit of clergy.”

12 JULY 1836: An angry pro-slavery mob in Cincinnati destroys the type James Birney uses to print his anti-slavery newspaper, the Philanthropist.

19 JULY 1854: The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares the Fugitive Slave Act un-Constitutional and Frees a Mr. Booth who had been convicted of rescuing an accused runaway.

02 JULY 1855: The pro-slavery Kansas legislature meets in Pawnee and not only adopts an extremely strict series of pro-slavery laws, including severe penalties for anti-slavery agitation and oaths for officeholders, but also expels the anti-slavery legislators.

22 JULY 1862: President Lincoln submits to his surprised Cabinet the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, which orders the freeing of the slaves within the Confederacy only. Although the Cabinet’s response is not unfavorable, Lincoln is persuaded to keep the Proclamation quiet until Union fortunes improve in the war.

08 JULY 1870: The Senate consents to signing of the U.S. and Great Britain’s Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, still a lucrative business worldwide.

02 JULY 1890: The United States signs the International Act for the Suppression of African Slave Trade.

TRANSPORTATION

04 JULY 1825: Construction is recommended on the Cumberland Road in order to extend it westward from Wheeling, West Virginia, through Ohio. From Wheeling onward, the route will be named the National Road.

04 JULY 1828: Ground-breaking ceremonies are held for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with the assistance of Charles Carroll, the only surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. On December 22, 1829, the first completed section of rail will open for passenger service in a horse-drawn excursion train. The line will begin conversion to steam power on August 30, 1830. On the same day, President Adams inaugurates the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

24 JULY 1870: The first railroad car to have traveled from the Pacific coast arrives in New York.

01 JULY 1919: The first daily air mail service is established between Chicago and New York.

WAR ON DRUGS

23 JULY 1884: The Prohibition Party gathers momentum as it holds its fourth National Convention in Pittsburgh. John P. St. John of Kansas, which is a “Dry State,” is nominated for president.

15 JULY 1908: The Prohibition Party, ever increasing in strength, nominates Eugene W. Chafin for president at its National Convention.

21 JULY 1916: The Prohibition Party holds its National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

22 JULY 1920: The Prohibition Party holds its National Convention in Lincoln, Nebraska.