Glossary Term – Event
First black senator since Reconstruction
Edward Brooke III of Massachusetts became the first African American to serve in the US Senate since Reconstruction.
Advanced Search
Current Criteria
- ›› Coverage Organizations : US Senate
Refine your search
Refine your search by adding another term. Type 'all' to view all options for the category.
Did not find what you were looking for?
return to the basic search,
search for multimedia, or
search the collection
Showing results 11 – 20 of 36
Glossary Term – Event
Charles Sumner assaulted in the Senate
Two days after delivering his “Crime against Kansas” speech, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was physically attacked by Representative Preston Brooks on the floor of US Senate. Sumner had denounced a number of southern senators in his speech. It took Sumner three years to recover from the beating and return to his Senate seat. Brooks became a hero in the South; merchants in Charleston, South Carolina, bought Brooks a new cane, inscribed, “Hit him again.” In the North, Sumner became a martyr to the cause of freedom, and a million copies...
Glossary Term – Event
Clinton acquitted
While the House of Representatives had impeached President Clinton, the Senate acquitted him on the basis that his actions—lying under oath about an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky—did not constitute the “high crimes and misdemeanors” specified in the US Constitution as a condition for impeachment.
Glossary Term – Organization
Immigration Restriction League
The Immigration Restriction League (IRL) was an anti-immigration organization founded by a group of Harvard graduates in 1894. Members of the organization believed that immigration contributed to social problems such as urban crowding, poverty, crime, and labor unrest, and the IRL advocated a literacy requirement for immigrants as a way of limiting the entry of “new immigrants” from eastern Europe into the United States. In 1896, the IRL acheived passage of a Congressional literacy bill with the support of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of...
Glossary Term – Person
James Monroe
James Monroe (1758–1831) was the fifth president of the United States. A Virginia native, Monroe was also a veteran of the American Revolution, having crossed the Delaware with George Washington and been in the battles at Trenton, Brandywine, and Germantown. After the war, Monroe returned to Virginia to study law under Thomas Jefferson, who would act as Monroe’s mentor and greatly influence his political views. Monroe served as a public servant in myriad positions over the years, in the Virginia House of Delegates, Confederation Congress,...
Glossary Term – Person
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis graduated from West Point in 1828 and served in Iowa under Colonel Zachary Taylor. He left the Army in June 1835 to marry Taylor’s daughter Sarah (against her father’s wishes) and begin a career as a planter in Mississippi, though Sarah soon died of malaria. Davis entered the US House of Representatives in 1845 but resigned the following year to join a Mississippi volunteer regiment (of which he was elected colonel) in the Mexican-American War. In Mexico, Davis once again served under Taylor. He was wounded in the heel while...
Glossary Term – Person
William Seward
William Henry Seward (1801–1872) was a US senator from New York and later secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Seward was an abolitionist, and he helped Lincoln revise the Emancipation Proclamation before it was issued. Seward was also attacked on the night of Lincoln’s assassination but survived to serve as secretary of state to Andrew Johnson. In that office he negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska.