Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881, at the Sixth Street Station as Garfield was boarding a train, because Guiteau was dissatisfied that he did not receive a job in the Garfield Administration. Garfield would survive for two more months, but in an incapacitated state, and was replace by his Vice President Chester A. Arthur. Although Arthur benefited and promoted the "spoils system," giving influential positions to political supporters, he encouraged the Congress to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Acts in response to Guiteau's motivations. The Act required open applications and civil service exams for government positions.

In the Election of 1824 Andrew Jackson garnered the majority of the popular vote, but not an electoral majority. As a result, the case was decided in the House and John Quincy Adams was chosen as President, due in large part to Henry Clay throwing his support behind Adams’ campaign. Adams promptly appointed Henry Clay to the position of Secretary of State. Jackson cried foul, declaring a “corrupt bargain” had been struck, and he issued a massive propaganda response. By the time of the election of 1828 the Democratic-Republican Party had all but fractured and this worked to Jackson’s advantage. He gained full support of the new Democratic Party. Additionally, it is important to understand that the suffrage rights of several western states had changed dramatically over the last decade and by the election of 1828, a much higher percentage of the “common man” had a direct say in the electoral process. Finally, Jackson was deeply popular in the South and the West for his role in the War of 1812 and for his standing as a man taken from their own ranks. 

During the Texas Revolution, Mexican General Santa Anna laid siege to the Alamo Mission for a period of 13 days before finally launching an attack killing all of the Texian defenders.  "Remember the Alamo" became a rallying cry for the Texians inspiring their eventual victory over the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto.

The Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state and Maine would be admitted as free in order to keep a balance between states. It also stated that new states admitted out of the Louisiana Purchase would be free if they were north of the Southern border of Missouri.

Franklin Roosevelt. The agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission were created out of the New Deal legislation during FDR’s presidency.

The Emancipation Proclamation only abolished slavery in territories currently held by the Confederacy, and would free those slaves when the territories were conquered by the Union army, and was issued in the middle of the war on New Year’s 1863.  The Proclamation’s lack of attention to the Border Slave States necessitated the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery throughout the nation, in 1865.

In his initial Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln specifically made slaves free only in territories that were still in open rebellion against the Union. The primary reason for doing so was Lincoln's pragmatic desire not to alienate those slave-owning territories and individuals that were fighting on behalf of the Union. However, the issuing of the Proclamation set the cause in motion and with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, at the end of the war, slavery was declared unconstitutional in all United States territory. 

In December of 1860, following the election of Abraham Lincoln, the governing body of South Carolina voted unanimously for secession. Soon after, in early 1861, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, Lousiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee followed suit. Secession recieved the majority of popular support in the states of Missouri and Kentucky, but their pro-Union governments prevented this from happening. Lincoln declared the secession legally "void" and thus began the Civil War. 

Henry Clay’s American System was a wide ranging economic plan developed and advocated by Clay throughout the 1820s while he was a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.  The key features were attempts to actively promote economic activities through raising revenues with tariffs and land prices, and economic improvements like the Bank of the United States and building canals and railroads.

 Four slave states remained in the Union during the secession crisis of 1860-1861, all of which were the most northern states.  The deep south states were the first states to secede, but Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware all remained in the Union despite being slave states.