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US Presidents Flashcards

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George Washington
Independent
1789-1797

  • -American War of Independence (1775-1783)
  • -“Mr. President”
  • -2-term precedent
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John Adams
Federalist
1797-1801

  • -improved relations with France
  • -XYZ affair (French diplomatic bribe snafu)
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Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican
1801-1809

  • -Louisiana Purchase, 1803
  • -Louis and Clark expedition, 1804-1806
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James Madison
Democratic-Republican
1809-1817

  • -War of 1812 (vs. Great Britain)
  • -began the ‘Era of Good Feelings’
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James Monroe
Democratic-Republican
1817-1825

  • -Monroe Doctrine, 1823: foreign policy that opposed European colonialism in the Americas
  • -Missouri compromise: Missouri admitted to Union as a slave state; Maine admitted as a free state; slavery prohibited in Louisiana purchase north of the 36th parallel
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John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
1825-1829

  • -infrastructure improvement (roads, canals)
  • -Tariff of 1828 raised on imported manufactures (to protect Northern industry, but damaged South)
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Andrew Jackson
Democratic
1829-1837

  • -formed Democratic Party to defeat JQA, establishing 2-party system
  • -Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 (vs. Mexico)
  • -Battle of the Alamo, 1836 (13-day siege v. Mexico, loss)
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Martin Van Buren
Democratic
1837-1841

  • -first US citizen-born president, first not of British/Irish ancestry (Dutch)
  • -first born-poor, self-made man to become president
  • -melting-pot sensibility
  • -Amistad ship revolt, 1839: Spanish slave vessel overtaken by captives off Cuba, landed in New York; charged as property with piracy and murder; JQA and abolitionists for the defense; returned to Spain without trial
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William Henry Harrison
Whig
1841
died in office (typhoid?)

–campaign tactic of presenting as a down-home neighbor (despite wealth and power)

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John Tyler
Whig
1841-1845

  • -set precedent as rising to active president from vice-presidency
  • -Treaty of Wanghia, 1844: US gained the right to trade in Chinese ports
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James K. Polk
Democratic
1845-1849

  • -opened American institutions: the Smithsonian, USNA
  • -issuing of first postage stamps
  • -California gold rush
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Zachary Taylor
Whig
1849-1850
died in office (cherries?)

  • -helped set the stage for abolition
  • -California applied for statehood directly (without first being a territory); its constitution did not allow slavery and pro-anti debate was bypassed
  • -Galphin scandal, 1850: Secretary of War George Crawford received huge settlement for lobbying for the Gauphin family to receive compensation for their estate which had been claimed by the US colonial government; led to outrage and Crawford’s resignation, but no legal action
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Millard Fillmore
Whig
1850-1853

  • -foreign policy: expansion of US trade in Far East
  • -approved Compromise of 1850: 5 laws that addressed slavery and territorial expansion to diffuse brewing tension rising from territories acquired in the Mexican-American War
    - California entered the Union as a free state
    - fugitive slave act was strengthened (runaways in the North must be seized and returned to Southern owners)
    - 2 new territories (Utah and New Mexico) allowing popular sovereignty over the question of slavery
    - Compensated emancipation of slave trade in Washington, DC
    - federal assumption of Texas’ debt from its days as an independent Republic (in exchange for a loss of territory)
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Franklin Pierce
Democratic
1853-1857

  • -first president to hire a full-time bodyguard
  • -Gasden Purchase, 1854: territory for Arizona and New Mexico acquired from Mexico
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James Buchanan
Democratic
1857-1861

  • -unwilling to consider abolition
  • -Harper’s Ferry Raid, 1859: abolitionist John Brown tries to start a slave rebellion; is hanged for treason
  • -formation of Confederate States of America, 1861 (SC, MI, FL, AL, GA, LA, TX secede)
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Abraham Lincoln
Republican/National Union
1861-1865
assassinated

  • -Civil War beginnings
    - Fort Sumter, SC - Apr 1861 (seige, CSA)
    - VA, NC, TN, AR join CSA
    - Union blockade
  • -major Civil War battles, 1861-1862
    - 1st Bull Run/Manassas (CSA): Stonewall Jackson
    - Monitor/Merrimac ironclads (indecisive): Merrimac had been salvaged by CSA and rechristined as Virginia
    - Shiloh (USA): western theater; Grant, army of the TN
     - Anteitam/Sharpsburg (USA, indecisive); AP Hill, Jackson; cautious McClellan; bloodiest day in US history (22k casualties); gives Lincoln grounds for preliminary proclimation
 - Fredricksburg (CSA, decisive): Lee routs Ambrose

–Emancimation Proclimation, Jan 1 1863: slaves freed in captured CSA territory (seizing enemy resources; tying war to the issue of slavery)

–Reconstruction 10% plan: based on forgiveness and aiming to end the war quickly; would pardon all Southerners but high military and gov’t officials; would protect private property (except slaves)

  • -major Civil War battles, 1863-1864
    - 2nd Bull Run/Manassas (CSA)
    - Chancellorsville (CSA): Lee’s superior tactics; loss of Jackson
    - Gettysburg (USA, turning of the tide): Meade v. Lee; failed Pickett’s charge; 50k casualties over 3 days
    - Vicksburg seige (USA): six weeks; Grant’s tactical superiority recognized
    - Atlanta (USA): Sherman v. Hood, city captured and evacuated, then march and burn to Savannah

–pocket veto of Wade-Davis 50% reconstruction bill (Radical Republicans)

–Appomattox, Apr 9 1965: Robert E. Lee surrenders

–assassination by John Wilkes Booth, Apr 16 1965

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Andrew Johnson
Democratic/National Union
1865-1869

  • -Reconstruction
    - supported states’ rights and laissez-faire attitude towards economic and social affairs
    - opposed Freedmen’s Bureau
    - did not believe in equal rights for former slaves
    - returned confiscated property to white southerners
    - issued pardons to CSA military and government officials
    - Congress passes Tenure of Office Act in upset response to Johnson’s Reconstruction
  • -purchase of Alaska from Russia, 1867: Seward’s folly?
  • -impeached, 1868: violation of the Tenure of Office Act (removing Senate-confirmed cabinet members without senatorial approval); acquitted by just one vote
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Ulysses S. Grant
Republican
1873-1881

  • -champion for rights of freed slaves: suffrage, prosecution of KKK leaders
  • -panic of 1873, 1873-1877: financial crisis (Jay Cooke and Co railroad investment failure), economic depression, civil unrest, nationwide strikes
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Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican
1877-1881

  • -hotly contested election: Hayes lost the popular vote
  • -ends Reconstruction: compromise that put him in office removed federal troops from the South; restores white supremacy
  • -Civil Service Reforms: to end the ‘Spoils System’ of awarding federal jobs to political supporters by awarding based on merit instead
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James A. Garfield
Republican
1881
assassinated

  • -returned New York customshouse leadership to federal (not state senators’) control
  • -assassination: shot in July by an embittered attorney; lay in the White House for weeks; bullet could not be found; died after 2 months from infection and internal hemorrhage
  • -system designed to cool the air as he recuperated was the first air conditioner
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Chester A. Arthur
Republican
1881-1885

  • -born in Vermont
  • -vetoed (overrode) Chinese exclusion act, 1882: 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigrants (due to nativism and high American unemployment)
  • -Pendleton Civil Service Act, 1883: for a bipartisan, merit-based civil service
  • -champion of civil rights for African-Americans and Native Americans
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Grover Clevland
Democratic
1885-1889

  • -marriage at the White House, 1886
  • -pursued policy barring special favors to any economic group
  • -Interstate Commerce Act, 1887: attempted to federally regulate railroads; also recouped western federal land from railroad companies
  • -failed reelection: won popular vote but lost the electoral college
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Benjamin Harrison
Republican
1889-1893

  • -Billion Dollar Congress, 1889-1891: first time US spending budget exceeds $1 bil
  • -Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890: first federal law regulating competition among enterprises and outlawing monopolistic practices and cartels
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Grover Cleveland
Democratic
1893-1897

  • -economic depression: addressed via the Treasury; maintained gold reserve
  • -Panic of 1893, 1893-1897: collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky financing; economic depression, civil unrest, labor disputes, political upheaval
  • -Pullman strike, 1894: sent federal troops against railroad strikers to enforce an injunction in Chicago
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William McKinley
Republican
1897-1901
assassinated

  • -Spanish-American War, 1898: to liberate Cuba; USA destroys Spanish fleet in 100-day war
  • -victory leads to territorial expansion: annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Hawaii
  • -assassination, 1901: shot by an anarchist at Buffalo Pan-American Exposition; died 8 days later
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Theodore Roosevelt
Republican
1901-1909

  • -age 42, youngest president ever; remembered for charisma
  • -believed that government should arbitrate between conflicting economic forces (capital v. labor)
  • -Square Deal domestic policy, 1902: anthracite coal strike mediation (higher wages, shorter workday, union recognition)
    - protect the consumer
    - control large corporations
    - conservation of natural resources
  • -Panama Canal, 1903-1914: big stick diplomacy
  • -Elkins Act, 1903 and Hepburn Act, 1906: trust buster, forcing dissolution of Northwest railroad combination
  • -Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905: ended the Russo-Japanese War; mediation role leads to Nobel Peace Prize for TR
  • -Monroe Doctrine corollary: justifies US “international police power”; no foreign bases in the Caribbean; USA has sole right of intervention in Latin America
  • -conservation: added 230 million acres of public lands
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William H. Taft
Republican
1909-1913

  • -Dollar Diplomacy: foreign policy that furthers American aims in Latin America and East Asia through economic power; guarantees loans made to foreign countries
  • -continued high tariff rates
  • -initiated 80 antitrust suits
  • -was also chief justice of the Supreme Court, after his presidency
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Woodrow Wilson
Democratic
1913-1921

  • -Underwood Act: lower tariff and graduated Federal income tax
  • -Federal Reserve Act: more elastic money supply
  • -Federal Trade Commission, 1914: established by antitrust legislation
  • -workers’ rights legislation, 1916: child labor prohibited, railroad workers limited to 8-hr day
  • -WWI
    - early neutrality
    - RMS Lusitania, May 7 1915: German U-boat sinks British ocean liner
    - Apr 2 1917: declaration of war on Germany
    - Fourteen Points, 1918: American war aims, including establishing a general association of nations for mutual guarantees of political and territorial independence for all states
    - Armistice, Nov 1918: Versailles Treaty, including the Covenant of the League of Nations
  • -Volstead Act (vetoed, overrode): beginning of Prohibition of manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages
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Warren G. Harding
Republican
1921-1923
died in office

  • -first president elected after women’s suffrage; won by a landslide
  • -postwar policy: lower taxes, federal budget system established, high protective tariff, tight immigration limitations
  • -Emergency Quota Act, 1921: immigration limited to 3% per year of number of current US residents from their country of origin (1910 census)
  • -Teapot Dome Scandal, 1922-1923: secret leasing of exclusive drilling rights to federal oil reserves at Elk Hills, CA and Teapot Dome, WY by the secretary of the interior A.B. Fall (accepted a bribe while in office)
  • -death, 1923: heart attack
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Calvin Coolidge
Republican
1923-1929

  • -only president born on July 4 (1872)
  • -‘active inactivity’: simplifying government, reducing its interference in business
  • -Indian Citizenship Act, 1924: full citizenship to all Native Americans
  • -anti-KKK efforts
  • -Air Commerce Act, 1926: establishes federal control over civil aviation (eg. air routes)
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Herbert C. Hoover
Republican
1929-1933

  • -Stock Market Crash, 1929
  • -Great Depression response: keeps balanced budget, expands public works projects, increased tariffs, cuts taxes (except higher taxes on top income brackets)
  • -Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1931-1957: to aid business, help farmers, banking reform, loans to states for unemployment relief
  • -believed caring for the poor must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic
1933-1945
died in office

  • -only president elected to more than 2 terms
  • -First 100 days, 1933: recovery program for business, agriculture, unemployed, foreclosure risks; reform
  • -Tennessee Valley Authority, 1933: established to handle flooding, electricity generation, reforestation
  • -New Deal, 1933-1935: nation taken off of the gold standard; budget deficits allowed; concessions to labor (unpopular with business and banking)
  • -Second New Deal, 1935-1936: Social Security, higher taxes on the wealthy, controls on banks and public utilities, Works Progress Administration (work relief program) established
  • -Judicial Procedures Reform Bill, 1937 (failed): court-packing attempt; but results in government legally able to regulate the economy
  • -Good Neighbor foreign policy: unilateralism shifts to mutual action against aggressors
  • -WWII
    - early neutrality: supports threatened nations; sends GBR all possible non-military aid
    - Pearl Harbor, Dec 7 1941: Japanese attack
    - US declare war on Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania
  • -death, Apr 12 1945: cerebral hemorrhage
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Harry S. Truman
Democratic
1945-1953

  • -end of WWII
    - UN charter signed, June 1945
    - Atomic bombs, Aug 6-9 1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki (cities devoted to war work)
    - Marshall Plan, 1948: economic aid to stimulate postwar recovery in western Europe
  • -beginning of Cold War
    - Truman Doctrine, 1947: Political, military, and economic aid pledged to countries struggling against Soviet geopolitical expansion (Cold War begins)
    - Truman Doctrine, 1948: aid for Turkey and Greece (threatened by USSR pressure and guerrillas)
    - Berlin airlift, 1949: resupply of West Berlin during Russian resupply siege
    - NATO established, 1949: North Atlantic Treaty Organization for defense against Communism

–Fair Deal, 1949: 21-point program to expand social security, full-employment program, permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, public housing and slum clearance

  • -Korean War begins, 1950
    - response to North Korean Communist government attacking South Korea
    - war kept limited (to avoid major conflict with China and Russia)
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican
1953-1961

  • -Korean War ends, 1953: Korean Armistice Agreement establishes an armed peace with a DMZ at 38° N
  • -Russian relations shift, 1953: death of Stalin; peace treaty neutralizes Austria
  • -Atoms for Peace program, 1953: loan of US uranium to “have not” nations for peaceful purposes
  • -Geneva Summit, 1955: USA, FRA, GBR, USSR to ease tensions about hydrogen bomb facilities
  • -interstate highway system established, 1956
  • -end of segregation, 1957: school desegregation with Little Rock Nine supported by federal troops; complete military desegregation
  • -NASA established, 1958
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John F. Kennedy
Democratic
1961-1963
assassinated

  • -first Catholic president, first president to win a Pulitzer Prize, participated in first televised presidential debates (good looks, charisma)
  • -Foreign aid establishments, 1961: Alliance for Progress (Latin America) and Peace Corps
  • -Vietnam, 1961: Kennedy sends advisors for South Vietnamese (eventually 16,000 personnel)
  • -Bay of Pigs, 1961: armed and trained Cuban exiles invade Cuba to overthrow Castro; attempt fails
  • -Berlin wall built, 1961: US garrison reinforced, USSR relaxes pressure in central Europe
  • -Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: USSR installs nuclear missiles in Cuba, discovered by US air reconnaissance; US block offensive weapon import to Cuba; Russians remove missiles; nuclear blackmail deemed futile
  • -Test Ban Treaty, 1963: USA, GBR, USSR sign to prohibit nuclear weapon testing in atmosphere, space, or underwater
  • -Civil Rights Movement champion
  • -assassination, 1963: shot by LEE Harvey Oswald, in Dallas TX
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Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic
1963-1969

  • -Civil Rights Act, 1964: outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; applies to voter registration, schools, employment, public accommodations, restaurants, restrooms, etc.
  • -Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1964: authorizes Johnson’s military action in southeast Asia (start of the US troop involvement in Vietnam)
  • -wins re-election with widest popular margin in US history
  • -Voting Rights Act, 1965: prohibits racial discrimination in voting; amid rising unrest and rioting in black neighborhoods
  • -Great Society program, 1965: education, Medicare, urban renewal, conservation, fight against poverty, crime prevention
  • -Thurgood Marshall, 1967: nominated as first black Supreme Court justice
  • -Moon orbit, 1968
  • -Vietnam War ending
    - bombing of North Viet Nam limited, 1968
    - declines re-election, 1968: to focus on Vietnam peace process
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Richard M. Nixon
Republican
1969-1974
resigned from office

  • -Moon landing, 1969
  • -Vietnam War
    - Vietnamization, 1969-1973: removal of US troops but but giving financial support to the ARVN (South Vietnamese army)
    - end of the draft, 1973
    - Case-Church Amendment, 1973: end of US military involvement in Vietnam
  • -World stability, 1972-1974: improves relations with China, USSR; treaty with Brezhnev to limit strategic nuclear weapons; Kissinger negotiates disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents Egypt and Syria
  • -Environmental Protection Agency established
  • -re-election landslide, 1972
  • -Watergate scandal, 1973: break-in at the DNC offices during re-election campaign; Nixon denies personal involvement, but tape recordings indicate that he had tried to divert investigation into the affair
  • -Spiro Agnew resigns, 1973: due to tax evasion charge in Maryland; House Minority Leader Gerald Ford nominated and confirmed as replacement VP
  • -Nixon resigns, 1974: facing certain impeachment
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Gerald R. Ford
Republican
1974-1977

  • -only president never voted into office
  • -grants Nixon a full pardon, 1974
  • -nominates Nelson Rockefeller for VP and gradually selects his own cabinet
  • -Whip Inflation Now (WIN), 1974: domestic policy to curb inflation; then shifts to stimulating the economy; vetoes many non-military appropriations bills
  • -Fall of Saigon to NVA, 1975: Cambodia and South Viet Nam collapse
  • -Middle East tensions: provides aid to both Israel and Egypt to prevent war
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James Earl “Jimmy” Carter
Democratic
1977-1981

  • -economic policy: combats inflation and unemployment; decreases budget deficit
  • -established a national energy policy; decontrols domestic petroleum prices to stimulate production
  • -deregulation of trucking and airline industries
  • -expanded national park system (especially Alaska)
  • -created the Department of Education
  • -Camp David agreement of 1978: brought amity between Egypt and Israel
  • -SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with USSR; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
  • -establishes full diplomatic relations with PRChina
  • -US embassy staff hostages in Iran
  • -post-office: wins Nobel Peace Prize, founds Habitat for Humanity
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Ronald Reagan
Republican
1981-1989

  • -assassination attempt, 1981: recovers from gunshot
  • -domestic policy: stimulate growth, curb inflation, increase employment, strengthen national defense, cutting taxes and government expenditures; leads to a large deficit
  • -Income tax code overhaul, 1986: eliminates many deductions; exemptions for low-income people
  • -Cold War: escalating tensions with Communist nations, fears of nuclear war
  • -“peace through strength”
  • -USSR relations: Mikhail Gorbachev; negotiations to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles; Glasnost (improved transparency); fall of the Berlin wall
  • -war against terrorism: US bombers sent to ?Libya after attack on US soldiers in a West Berlin nightclub
  • -Iran-Iraq war: orders naval escorts in the Persian Gulf to maintain free flow of oil
  • -Reagan Doctrine: supports anti-Communist insurgencies in Central America, Asia, Africa
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George H. W. Bush
Republican
1989-1993

  • -end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union
  • -Panama: US troops sent to overthrow corrupt regime of General Manuel Noriega, who was threatening security of the Canal and Americans living there; Noriega exfiltrated to US for trial as a drug trafficker
  • -first Gulf War: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, threatens to move into Saudi Arabia; Bush rallies UN and US to send troops in Desert Storm land battle
  • -Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990
  • -Immigration Act of 1990: abolishes quota system based on national origin; new policy based on family reunification and attracting skilled labor
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William J. Clinton
Democratic
1993-2001

  • -Whitewater controversy: investigation into real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Whitewhater Development Corporation
  • -Monica Lewinsky scandal: personal indiscretions with a White House intern; impeached by House of Representatives; tried in the Senate and found not guilty
  • -peacekeeping forces to Bosnia
  • -bombing of Iraq: response to Saddam Hussein stopping UN inspections for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
  • -proponent for expanded NATO, more open international trade, worldwide campaign against drug trafficking
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George W. Bush
Republican
2001-2009

  • -election controversy: Florida votes go to the Supreme Court
  • -9/11 attacks
  • -formation of the Department of Homeland Security
  • -forces deployed to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban, a movement under Osama bin Laden that trained, financed, and exported terrorist teams
  • -reform of intelligence gathering and analysis services and military forces
  • -tax cuts
  • -invasion of Iraq: based on the belief that Saddam Hussein posed a grave threat; Hussein captured, but killing of US servicemen and friendlies by insurgents was troublesome
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Barack H. Obama
Democratic
2009-2017

  • -first African-American president
  • -economic crisis
  • -fight against terrorism
  • -death of Osama bin Laden
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Donald J. Trump
Republican
2017-present

  • -reformed tax code
  • -immigration and border dispute

US History (4 decks)

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