Fifty-three recently abducted Africans being transported aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad from Havana to Puerto Príncipe, Cuba revolt under the leadership of Joseph Cinqué, killing the captain and cook while sparing the Spanish navigator to sail them back to Sierra Leone. The Africans had been …
Joseph CinquéAmistad captivesJohn Quincy AdamsLewis TappanU.S. Supreme Courtslaveryinstitutional-corruptionresistancelegal-victoryinternational-law
Presbyterian minister and abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy is murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, struck by five bullets while defending his printing press from destruction. The murder of Lovejoy—whose fourth printing press had been hidden in a warehouse owned by …
The House of Representatives passes the Pinckney Resolutions, authored by Henry L. Pinckney of South Carolina, establishing what becomes known as the “gag rule”—a resolution automatically “tabling” all antislavery petitions, prohibiting them from being printed, read, …
Henry L. PinckneyJohn Quincy AdamsU.S. House of RepresentativesAmerican Anti-Slavery SocietyPro-slavery Democratsgag-ruleslave-powerlegislative-capturecensorshipfirst-amendment+1 more
The House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president on February 9, 1825, despite Andrew Jackson winning both the popular vote (152,901 to 114,023) and the highest electoral vote count (99, though short of the required majority). When no candidate achieved an electoral majority in the …
John Quincy AdamsHenry ClayAndrew JacksonWilliam CrawfordU.S. House of Representativesinstitutional-capturesystematic-corruptionelectoral-fraudpolitical-deceptiondemocratic-erosion
The U.S. House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as president despite Andrew Jackson having won both a plurality of the popular vote (41%) and the Electoral College (99 votes to Adams’s 84), in what becomes known as the “Corrupt Bargain.” The 1824 presidential election …
John Quincy AdamsHenry ClayAndrew JacksonWilliam H. CrawfordU.S. House of Representativeselectoral-corruptionpolitical-dealselite-manipulationdemocratic-erosion