Article One of the Constitution of the United States establishes the legislative branch of the federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Article One grants Congress various enumerated powers and the ability to pass laws "necessary and proper" to carry out those powers. Article One also establishes the procedures for passing a bill and places various limits on the powers of Congress and the states from abusing their powers.
The Hampton Roads Conference was a peace conference held between the United States and representatives of the unrecognized breakaway Confederate States on February 3, 1865, aboard the steamboat River Queen in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss terms to end the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, representing the Union, met with three commissioners from the Confederacy: Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell.
The first inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant as the 18th president of the United States was held on March 4, 1869, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 21st presidential inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Ulysses S. Grant as president and the only term of Schuyler Colfax as vice president. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase administered the presidential oath of office. Outgoing president Andrew Johnson did not attend the inaugural ceremonies, as he and Grant refused to sit with each other in the carriage going to them. Johnson also refused to go in a separate carriage. Instead, he was in the White House signing last-minute legislation. This was the fourth time an outgoing president boycotted his elected successor's inauguration, an event that would not occur again until Donald Trump boycotted Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021 after failing to overturn the results.
The presidency of Ulysses S. Grant began on March 4, 1869, when Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1877. The Reconstruction era took place during Grant's two terms of office. The Ku Klux Klan caused widespread violence throughout the South against African Americans. By 1870, all former Confederate states had been readmitted into the United States and were represented in Congress; however, Democrats and former slave owners refused to accept that freedmen were citizens who were granted suffrage by the Fifteenth Amendment, which prompted Congress to pass three Force Acts to allow the federal government to intervene when states failed to protect former slaves' rights. Following an escalation of Klan violence in the late 1860s, Grant and his attorney general, Amos T. Akerman, head of the newly created Department of Justice, began a crackdown on Klan activity in the South, starting in South Carolina, where Grant sent federal troops to capture Klan members. This led the Klan to demobilize and helped ensure fair elections in 1872. He was succeeded by fellow Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who won the 1876 presidential election.
The 1810 State of the Union Address was given during the first term of President James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. It was given on Wednesday, December 5, 1810 in Washington, D.C. It was "concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and France and their dependencies having invited in a new form a termination of their edicts against our neutral commerce." It was addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives, it was given right before the War of 1812 began. It was given to the 11th United States Congress, which contains both Houses.
The 1876State of the Union Address was given by the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, on Tuesday, December 5, 1876. In it he said these words, "Reconstruction Era, as finally agreed upon, means this and only this, except that the late slave was enfranchised, giving an increase, as was supposed, to the Union-loving and Union-supporting votes. If free in the full sense of the word, they would not disappoint this expectation. Hence at the beginning of my first Administration the work of reconstruction, much embarrassed by the long delay, virtually commenced."
The 1901 State of the Union Address was given on Tuesday, December 3, 1901, by the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It was presented to both houses of the 57th United States Congress, but he was not present. He stated, "The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month." He concluded it with, "Indeed, from every quarter of the civilized world we received, at the time of the President's death, assurances of such grief and regard as to touch the hearts of our people. In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken these international relations of mutual respect and good will."
The 1973 State of the Union Address was delivered to the 93rd United States Congress as a series of six written messages from February 2 to March 14, 1973. The first message was an overview, which was then followed by five additional messages, each of which focused on a specific public policy theme.
The 1842 State of the Union Address, was written by John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States. It was presented on Tuesday, December 6, 1842, by the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives. He said, "We have continued reason to express our profound gratitude to the Great Creator of All Things for numberless benefits conferred upon us as a people. Blessed with genial seasons, the husbandman has his garners filled with abundance, and the necessaries of life, not to speak of its luxuries, abound in every direction."
The 1872 State of the Union Address was given by Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th United States president, on December 2, 1872. He did not speak it to the 42nd United States Congress, because that was the custom at the time. He said, "In transmitting to you this my fourth annual message it is with thankfulness to the Giver of All Good that as a nation we have been blessed for the past year with peace at home, peace abroad, and a general prosperity vouchsafed to but few peoples." It was given during the Reconstruction Era, when African Americans were freed.
The 1836 State of the Union Address was given by Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, on December 5, 1836. He did not personally deliver the address to the 24th United States Congress, but a clerk did. He concluded it with, "All that has occurred during my Administration is calculated to inspire me with increased confidence in the stability of our institutions; and should I be spared to enter upon that retirement which is so suitable to my age and infirm health and so much desired by me in other respects, I shall not cease to invoke that beneficent Being to whose providence we are already so signally indebted for the continuance of His blessings on our beloved country."
The 1837 State of the Union Address was given by the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, on December 5, 1837. It was presented to the 25th United States Congress by a clerk, because it was not yet the custom for the president to deliver it himself. He began with, "We have reason to renew the expression of our devout gratitude to the Giver of All Good for His benign protection. Our country presents on every side the evidences of that continued favor under whose auspices it, has gradually risen from a few feeble and dependent colonies to a prosperous and powerful confederacy."
The 1852 State of the Union Address was given by the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, on Monday, December 6, 1852. It was spoken to the 32nd United States Congress by a clerk, not the president. He said, "Besides affording to our own citizens a degree of prosperity of which on so large a scale I know of no other instance, our country is annually affording a refuge and a home to multitudes, altogether without example, from the Old World. We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the happy Constitution and Government which were bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit in all their integrity to our children."
The 1815 State of the Union Address was given by the fourth president of the United States, James Madison. It was given to the 14th United States Congress on Tuesday, December 5, 1815, but not verbally by the president. The War of 1812 was over, and he said, "It is another source of satisfaction that the treaty of peace with Great Britain has been succeeded by a convention on the subject of commerce concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the two countries. In this result a disposition is manifested on the part of that nation corresponding with the disposition of the United States, which it may be hoped will be improved into liberal arrangements on other subjects on which the parties have mutual interests, or which might endanger their future harmony." He concluded with, "As fruits of this experience and of the reputation acquired by the American arms on the land and on the water, the nation finds itself possessed of a growing respect abroad and of a just confidence in itself, which are among the best pledges for its peaceful career."
The 1824 State of the Union Address was written by James Monroe, the 5th president of the United States. Delivered to the 18th United States Congress on Tuesday, December 7, 1824. James Monroe presided over the Era of Good Feelings. He began with, "The view which I have now to present to you of our affairs, foreign and domestic, realizes the most sanguine anticipations which have been entertained of the public prosperity. If we look to the whole, our growth as a nation continues to be rapid beyond example;" He ended with, "From the present prosperous and happy state I derive a gratification which I can not express. That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe." In the middle of the address, Mr. Monroe said, "There is no object which as a people we can desire which we do not possess or which is not within our reach. Blessed with governments the happiest which the world ever knew, with no distinct orders in society or divided interests in any portion of the vast territory over which their dominion extends, we have every motive to cling together which can animate a virtuous and enlightened people." James Monroe, a founder of his country, predicts that his country will become a world power, and must animate with virtue and enlightenment.
The 1830 State of the Union Address was given by the seventh United States president, Andrew Jackson on Tuesday, December 6, 1830, to both houses of the United States Congress. He said, "What good man would prefer a toe covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?" He speaks of the Indian Removal Act, "With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes have with great unanimity determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River."
The 1918 State of the Union Address was given by the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, on Monday, December 2, 1918, to the houses of the 65th United States Congress. He gave these war statistics, "A year ago we had sent 145,918 men overseas. Since then we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising, in May last, to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach similar figures in August and September, in August 289,570 and in September 257,438." By the end of 1918, America had won the peace, and World War I was over. He said, "And throughout it all how fine the spirit of the nation was: what unity of purpose, what untiring zeal!" He ended with, "I shall make my absence as brief as possible and shall hope to return with the happy assurance that it has been possible to translate into action the great ideals for which America has striven."
The 1966 State of the Union Address was given by Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, on Wednesday, January 12, 1966, to the 89th United States Congress. In the speech, Johnson addressed the then-ongoing war in Vietnam, his Great Society and War on Poverty domestic programs, civil rights, and other matters.
The 1876 Colorado gubernatorial election took place on October 3, 1876, to elect the 1st Governor of Colorado after the state was admitted to the union on August 1, 1876. Republican John Long Routt, last governor of the Colorado Territory, was elected in a close race against Democratic nominee Bela M. Hughes.
The 1870 State of the Union address was delivered by the 18th President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant on December 5, 1870, to the 41st United States Congress. This was Grant’s second annual message, emphasizing Reconstruction, foreign relations, and domestic reforms.
