This section of the timeline of United States history concerns events from 1820 to 1859.
Thomas Corwin, also known as Tom Corwin, The Wagon Boy, and Black Tom was a politician from the state of Ohio. He represented Ohio in both houses of Congress and served as the 15th governor of Ohio and the 20th Secretary of the Treasury. After affiliating with the Whig Party, he joined the Republican Party in the 1850s. Corwin is best known for his sponsorship of the proposed Corwin Amendment, which was presented in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the oncoming American Civil War.
Henry St. George Tucker Sr. was a Virginia jurist, law professor, and U.S. Congressman (1815–1819).
James Henry Hammond was an American attorney, politician, and planter. He served as a United States representative from 1835 to 1836, the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and a United States senator from 1857 to 1860. A slave owner, he is considered one of the strongest supporters of slavery in the years before the American Civil War.
George Frederick Holmes, emigrated to the United States where he taught history and literature and became the first Chancellor of the University of Mississippi. From 1857 until his death, Holmes taught literature, history and political economy at the University of Virginia and became known for textbooks designed for use in schools in the southern United States.
Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb was an American lawyer, author, politician, and Confederate States Army officer, killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg during the American Civil War. He was the brother of noted Confederate statesman Howell Cobb.
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebels killed between 55 and 65 White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt in U.S. history. The rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for more than 30 days afterward.
Charles Fenton Mercer was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Loudoun County, Virginia who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Virginia General Assembly.
Proslavery is support for slavery. It is sometimes found in the thought of ancient philosophers, religious texts, and in British writings and in American writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through the 20th century. Arguments in favor of slavery include deference to the Bible and thus to God, some people being natural slaves in need of supervision, slaves often being better off than the poorest non-slaves, practical social benefit for the society as a whole, and slavery being a time-proven practice by multiple great civilizations.
Archibald Austin was a 19th-century slave owner, politician and lawyer from Virginia who served as a member of the 15th United States Congress.
The history of the College of William & Mary can be traced back to a 1693 royal charter establishing "a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and the good arts and sciences" in the British Colony of Virginia. It fulfilled an early colonial vision dating back to 1618 to construct a university level program modeled after Cambridge and Oxford at Henricus. A plaque on the Wren Building, the college's first structure, ascribes the institution's origin to "the college proposed at Henrico." It was named for the reigning joint monarchs of Great Britain, King William III and Queen Mary II. The selection of the new college's location on high ground at the center ridge of the Virginia Peninsula at the tiny community of Middle Plantation is credited to its first President, Reverend Dr. James Blair, who was also the Commissary of the Bishop of London in Virginia. A few years later, the favorable location and resources of the new school helped Dr. Blair and a committee of 5 students influence the House of Burgesses and Governor Francis Nicholson to move the capital there from Jamestown. The following year, 1699, the town was renamed Williamsburg.
Albert Taylor Bledsoe was an American Episcopal priest, attorney, professor of mathematics, and officer in the Confederate army and was best known as a staunch defender of slavery and, after the South lost the American Civil War, an architect of the Lost Cause. He was the author of Liberty and Slavery (1856), "the most extensive philosophical treatment of slavery ever produced by a Southern academic", which defended slavery laws as ensuring proper societal order.
Adam Empie was an Episcopal priest in North Carolina and Virginia, who also taught and served as President of the College of William and Mary.
Robert Saunders Jr. was an American politician and school administrator who served as president of the College of William and Mary from 1847 to 1848. Prior to that, Saunders served as professor of mathematics from 1833 to 1847. He also served as mayor of Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1859 and 1868 as well as the head of Eastern State Hospital. His family papers are held by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary.
John Augustine Smith was a physician and the tenth president of the College of William and Mary, serving from 1814 to 1826.
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker was an American author, judge, legal scholar, and political essayist.
Henry Ruffner, was an educator and Presbyterian minister, who served as president of Washington College. Although a slaveholder, Ruffner became known for criticizing slavery as impeding Virginia's economic development before the American Civil War, although that controversial position caused him to resign his college presidency and retire to his farm.
James Strange French (1807–1886) was a lawyer, novelist, and later hotel keeper.
Slavery as a positive good was the prevailing view of Southern U.S. politicians and intellectuals just before the American Civil War, as opposed to seeing it as a crime against humanity or a necessary evil. They defended the legal enslavement of people for their labor as a benevolent, paternalistic institution with social and economic benefits, an important bulwark of civilization, and a divine institution similar or superior to the free labor in the North.
Conway Robinson was a Virginia lawyer, author, slaveholder and politician aligned with the Democratic Party who represented Richmond, Virginia during the 1852-1853 session of the Virginia House of Delegates. He also served many years on Richmond's City Council and like his brother Moncure Robinson headed the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Petersburg railroad.
