Notes, 1:00 p.m., Spring 2001, February 12, 2001
KEY DATES TO
MEMORIZE
1865 is the year that
Abraham Lincoln (R) was
assassinated. His vice-president,
Andrew Johnson became President of
the United States. He was never
elected to the office of the Presidency.
But he was the first President impeached. Like President Clinton, Andrew Johnson was tried by the
Senate and acquitted of the charges
against him.
1929 is the year of the
Stock Market
Crash
on Wall Street. Millions of
Americans lost all the money that they invested in the stock market. Many jobs across the country were lost.
1929 was the beginning of a period in history known as the Great Depression. It not only affected the economy of the
United States, but affected economies in every country around the world. In 1932, the first presidential election after the 1929 Stock Market Crash , Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D)
was
elected President. President
Roosevelt proposed the New
Deal,
which were programs to try to fix the economic situation of the United
States. After Roosevelt was
elected, African-Americans switched their
loyalty from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. No other demographic group is as loyal
to a political party among registered voters as are African-Americans to the Democratic
Party.
1945 is the year that
President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt died. He died just before the end of World War
II. His vice-president, Harry
S Truman became
President. World War II ended in
1945 with the unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces in the
Pacific.
The
Evolution of the American Political Parties
The Federalist Party was the first
political party of the United States.
The first President of the United States, George Washington, and the first
Vice-President of the United States, John Adams were members of the
Federalist Party. They created the
Federalist
Papers,
which fought for the approval of the United States Constitution by popular
support.
The Anti-Federalists or Democratic-Republican Party opposed the
Federalists. Later, they changed their name to Democrats. Thomas Jefferson was an
Anti-Federalist. The Democrats
Party is the majority party of the United States. However, they are more likely to be
“ticket-splitters”, or do “party switching” in elections. Republicans are more likely to be loyal
to the Republican Party.
The Republican Party was founded just
before the Civil War. It is not to
be confused with the original Democratic-Republican Party. The Republican Party became a major
political party after 1865. John C.
Fremont was the first
Republican nominee for President of the United States. He was not elected to the
Presidency. Abraham Lincoln became the first
Republican President of the United States. Because African-Americans were grateful that
the Republican
Party
was the party that freed them from slavery, they voted in huge numbers for
candidates of the Republican Party for decades, until the time of the Great
Depression.