Presidential Timeline
Category: Other
Updated: 8 May 2019
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Created bySohum Kulkarni
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1815 - The second barbary war was fought without congressional approval. Despite the congress being given the power to declare war instead of the president, a precedent was firmly set that wars could be fought without congressional approval. Generally, wars would require congressional approval until the late 20th century.1823 - The Monroe Doctrine expanded American power over the entirety of the Western Hemisphere. Written by future president John Quincy Adams and declared by President James Monroe, it declared that the United States would be responsible for North and South America, and that it would take action against any European nation found to be encroaching on that sphere of influence. For the first time, the United States began to see itself as the world's policeman.1830 - The Indian Removal Act, authorized by Andrew Jackson, forced the last remaining major tribes in the Southeast to move west, past the reach of European-descent settlers. Previous policies treating the Native American tribes as sovereign nations to be negotiated with by the executive branch were clearly violated as the government unilaterally declared that the Native Americans must move or be forcibly moved by the military.1832 - After vetoing an act to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, Andrew Jackson staked his 1832 campaign on destroying the bank, and upon election by executive order removed currency from the bank and divided it among smaller private banks. Almost single-handedly, Jackson destroyed the financial institution first suggested by Alexander Hamilton that would never again be reinstuted in a full form, and never in a partial form until the 20th century in the form of the federal reserve.1832 - After South Carolina led by John C. Calhoun, the Vice President, threatened to nullify the tariff of 1828, Jackson used executive power to order the military on South Carolina, threatening to hang Calhoun himself. This show of executive power to mollify a state was unprecedented, but established the supremacy of the national government, and specifically the executive, over any individual state or collection thereof. It likely prevented war for the time being.1862 - In 1862 Abraham Lincoln passed a series of laws seeking to encourage expansion into the West. The Homestead Act opened large areas of the West to free settlement for those who could farm the land for a period of time. The Morrill Act created agricultural colleges across the United States in order to create a generation of educated farmers. The Pacific Railway Act provided funds for the creation of a transcontinental railroad. All of these acts combined to develop the West to a greater extent than wou1862 - In September of 1862, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, a right guaranteed by the Constitution, in a direct display of executive power unprecedented at the time. Wartime dissenters were prosecuted under martial law without the right to a trial as was (and is) the law in the United States. The suspension of habeas corpus served to discourage dissent in the Union, but was a marked change toward a nation that would in the future have conflicts over the relationship between freedom and security.1863 - Effective on January 1st, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in states that seceded and whose land was currently held by the Union. Practically, it only affected Tennessee to any great extent, but it did use executive power to do what the legislature had failed to do in the years leading up to the civil war. It would be followed by the Thirteenth Amendment, but the move was seen as a massive overreach of the kind that was most feared by the South.1868 - After several reconstruction acts were passed over his veto, Andrew Johnson tested the limits of the tenure of office act by firing Edwin Stanton, his secretary of war. The House passed several articles of impeachment, and the Senate failed to convict by a single vote margin on a few of them. Though Johnson was not removed from office, his power was severely curtailed, and the massive strides in that power made during the Civil War were in part reversed by an activist congress. The broad executive po1877 - Following the compromise that saw Rutherford B. Hayes ushered into the presidency over the popular majority of Samuel J. Tilden, reconstruction ended and the federal government relinquished power in the South. With executive power there handed back to the states, Republicanism collapsed and the Jim Crow era began, disenfranchising African Americans once more. The South would be ruled by regional rather than federal interests for nearly a century, emerging as a solid voting bloc that often challenged 1867 - William Seward's purchase of Alaska was wildly unpopular, becoming known as Seward's folly, but the executive power to annex land displayed in the Louisiana Purchase and Polk's aggression prior to the Mexican American war was once again used, and Alaska was purchased. Eventually, it was found to be rich in resources.1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Act stripped from the executive the power to delegate many low-level government offices by requiring merit-based examinations for those offices. A favorite of the Half-Breeds, the act was actually passed under the encouragement of a Stalwart president, Chester Arthur. The informal power of the president to command attention through party patronage that had existed since at least the Jacksonian era was significantly curtailed through this act.1891 - After Queen Lili'uokalani attempted to regain Hawaii, the US military was sent once more to invade and annex a piece of land, this time Hawaii. The successful move set up an era of broad international involvement that would only end with involvement in the first World War and the Good Neighbor policy. This also inaugurated an era of greater executive power.1894 - During the Pullman strike that nearly stopped the Pullman Palace Car's service, President Cleveland sent federal troops to protect strikebreakers running the trains in union members' absence. As a result, the federal government began a soft policy of protecting business interests at the expense of workers' interests. This policy would continue until the Progressive Era, and be enforced through especially executive rather than legislative power.1904 - Theodore Roosevelt declared the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which proclaimed that the United States would police the Western Hemisphere, specifically the Caribbean. In effect this meant that the United States would consider it its right to send its military into various countries in order to restore or create regimes favorable to the United States.1912 - William Taft declared Nicaragua a United States protectorate solely to protect business interests in the country. In so doing, he sent the US military into the country in the first major use of the Roosevelt Corollary to justify an undeclared invasion of a sovereign country, setting a precedent that would be replicated many times across Latin America in the 20th century.1902 - During the Anthracite Coal Strike, Roosevelt threatened to nationalize the coal companies involved, placing their mines under the control of the Army instead of a private enterprise. This solution to a strike was unprecedented, an application of laws allowing regulation of essential industries. If effected, it would have radically changed government response to private issues, but it was never actually implemented.1933 - When elected president, Franklin Roosevelt inaugurated his New Deal, pushing through a series of questionably constitutional acts and policies that rapidly increased the power of the federal government. By bringing many industries under federal control, Roosevelt mitigated the effects of the Great Depression at a cost to the federal government, using the principles of Keynesian economics. Additionally, he personally and on behalf of the president's office assumed many powers not previously granted by1940 - Franklin Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term in office on the eve of US involvement in WWII, breaking the precedent set by Washington with his abdication after two terms. The Republican party saw this as a step toward dictatorship, while the Democrats saw it as continuing the plans for a New Deal that had already been put into place. In any case, Roosevelt would be elected to a fourth term as well before his death.1942 - Executive Order 9066 sent many Japanese Americans on the West Coast to internment camps solely based on nationality. The use of executive power to forcibly move citizens and permanent residents of the United States had not been used prior and was not used after to any great extent, but this one instance sparked a torrent of court cases of which two reached the supreme court. The order was upheld, bur reparations were eventually paid.1945 - In a purely executive decision, Harry Truman decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. This act of ultimately destructive warfare secured victory for the allies at the cost of the old world order. No longer could wars be fought between superpowers. Truman's decision came less than a year into his presidency but nevertheless changed the power of the president forever, granting him the ability to destroy nations.1957 - The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created a civil rights department within the Justice Deparment. It thus began an era during which the executive branch intervened repeatedly in locations where a state level legislature or executive refused to uphold national civil rights legislation. It provided a method by which he national executive could override the local one and ensure compliance with all civil rights laws. This new power was used almost immediately in Little Rock, Arkansas to ensure integration of 1964 - The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by congress at Lyndon Johnson's behest, authorized the United States government to take any action necessary to fight Vietnam. This was the first formal handover of the power to wage war from the legislature to the executive. That power, once granted, would be used many times in the coming decades to go to war across the globe. This specific decision would lead to a period of distrust in the presidency that temporarily curtailed the power of the president, but th1964 - Lyndon Johnson was reeelected president by an enormous margin. He immediately set about enacting his Great Society plan, the largest advance of government power since the New Deal. It sought to dramatically expand New Deal programs and increase the people affected by them. These programs enjoyed broad support and were mostly uncontested by the Supreme Court.1970 - Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia after declaring he had a secret plan to solve the Vietnam War, prompting consternation and violence at universities including Kent State, where several students were killed by police. This deepened the existing skepticism with a powerful executive.1973 - The War Powers Act required the president to notify congress of troop movements within 48 hours and to remove troops not authorized by congress within two months. This act reduced the power of the president to wage war but did not actually prevent the president's ability to initially put troops on the ground with tacit approval from congress.1983 - The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by Ronald Reagan and often referred to as 'Star Wars' to be a missile defense system to preemptively strike down missiles entering US airspace. It was never actually implemented, but nevertheless would have been an expansion of federal power into space, a domain now considered international waters.2001 - Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, the United States launched operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan without a a congressional declaration of war, involving itself militarily in Afghanistan in a conflict that would continue to the present day, albeit with much less invovlvement. The next several years would be a period of rapid executive growth for the sake of defense and security.2001 - The Department of Homeland Security was created in the executive branch to manage the new threats that faced the United States in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, acquiring broad powers to regulate entry into the United States. Additionally, the USA PATRIOT Act granted the federal government broad powers to seach and detain citizens and entrants to the country under suspicion of terrorism, once again expanding federal power for the sake of security in wartime.2008 - Following the collapse of the banking system in 2007, the Troubled Assets Relief Program was created to bail out the failing banks and ensure that the banking system would not fail in the future, jeopardizing many people's savings and investments. Though unpopular, it was effective at mitigating the effects of the recession. It instituted government control of and support of the banking industry at a broader scale than every before.1807 - The Embargo of 1807 was intended to avert war with the British or the French by removing the US from European tensions and by punishing those two nations for their aggression. Instead, it cost the US valuable tax revenue due to smuggling and reduced US trade, harming the economy as a whole.1816 - The tariff of 1816 began the US practice of protectionism to prevent foreign businesses from gaining a foothold in America. The practice was intended to force American businesses to flourish and to allow them to set lower prices than foreign competitors. In that regard, it was successful, and American business and manufacturing expanded rapidly in the early 20th century.1823 - James Monroe and John Quincy Adams' Monroe Doctrine would become the guiding principle for American foreign policy in the Americas for over a century. It declared that the United States was to be a hegemon in the Western Hemisphere and that it would intervene in the affairs of any nation that sought to undermine that hegemony from outside the Western Hemisphere. In practice, it made the United States a policeman for the Americas.1828 - The Tariff of 1828, decried by some as the Tariff of Abominations, increased the already high tariffs implemented in 1816. It primarily benefited the North, which had a high manufacturing output and thus became more competitive when compared to European manufacturers. The South opposed it since it made them essentially a captive market for Northern goods, forcing them to buy those goods at higher prices than European manufacturers could have sold prior to the tariff.1882 - The Chinese Exclusion Act institutionalized a policy of selective admission that would remain the norm in US laws until the post-WWII era. This was inspired by an increase in non-European immigration and motivated largely by racism that pitted European immigrants and Americans of European descent against Asians.1890 - During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the issue of tariffs became sharply divided along party lines. Republicans generally supported the tariff, declaring that it increased manufacturing and benefited American workers. Conversely, democrats attacked tariffs as harming free trade and as counterproductive to those who consumed products rather than making them, namely farmers. The tarriff battle would escalate with the passage of the McKinley Tariff in 1890.1892 - The opening of Ellis Island heralded a new era of mass migration to the United States. No longer was immigration dominated by the older groups of Scandinavians and Wesern Europeans. Now, a great proportion of immigrants, especially those coming through Ellis Island on the East coast, were of South or East European origin, and many were Jews, whose religion was not permitted in several parts of Europe.1898 - The Spanish-American War, ostensibly begun to support the cause of Cuban independence, quickly evolved into a pursuit of an empire for the United States. By the end of the war, the United States had acquired territories including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.1899 - The Open Door Policy in China was first articulated by Secretary of State John Hay as part of an American effort under McKinley to expand the US's foreign presence. It called for those powers who had a sphere of influence in China to allow all countries to trade and negotiate with China, in contrast to the previous policy of closed spheres of influence that had been such a difficult for the United States.1904 - Under Theodore Roosevelt, as part of his policy of expanding the American presence in Latin America, continued construction on the Panama Canal after receiving the rights for construction from France. In exchange, the US would receive the land around the canal. That piece of land would remain American for a significant amount of time, allowing the US to gain control over cross-oceanic trade and allowing the US to exert influence over Panama.1904 - Theodore Roosevelt first articulated his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, declaring that not only could the United States prevent European influence in the Americas, it could also assert its own influence. This policy guided US foreign policy until the installment of the Good Neighbor policy in the 1930s.1914 - When WWI began after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, President Wilson officially declared American neutrality to prevent involvement in the war. Nevertheless, the United States played a role, economically supporting the allies over the central powers. American Neutrality would last through the majority of the war until the repeated sinking of ships carrying Americans in the Atlantic.1917 - After the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram, which attempted to entice Mexico to join the Central Powers in exchange for a return of the Mexican Cession, The United States sent its military in the form of the American Expeditionary Force to aid the allies in defeating the Central Powers. This overt involvement in the European war was the first time American troops fought a land war in Europe.1918 - At the end of WWI and during the ensuing armistice, President Wilson articulated his fourteen point plan for peace, which included among other points the creation of a League of Nations. Despite Wilson's leading role in establishing the peace, the United States did not ratify the common treaties with the Central Powers and did not join the League of Nations, removing itself from European affairs once more until the next world war.1945 - The Yalta Conference, the last major engagement of Franklin Roosevelt, in many ways established the dyanmic that would rule Europe after WWII as Stalin feuded with a united Roosevelt and Churchill. Plans were created for the division of Germany and the establishment of East European states out of the extent of the Soviet Union.1946 - George Kennan's long telegram and Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" speech created the doctrine of containment, in which those countries where communism existed would be left alone, but communism would not be permitted to spread anywhere else. The later NSC-68 would support this doctrine.1947 - In order to rebuild Europe in the image of the United States, Truman issued the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, which proposed respectively aid to countries fighting internal communism and enormous funds to rebuild Europe. These two plans together contributed enormously to the rapid redevelopment of Europe after WWII. Specifically, the rebuilding of Germany after WWII was in stark contrast to the reparations demanded after WWI and contributed to Germany's economic recovery and resultant lack o1949 - After a protracted civil war, the US-supported Nationalists in China were ousted by the Communist party. This was seen as a failure for containment that became an example for many future presidents. Losing the nation of China to communists was an enormous setback that inspired reinvigorated efforts to contain and eradicate communism everywhere else.1789 - After being unanimously chosen by electors on April 6th, George Washington was inaugurated president on April 30th. The presidency as commonly defined at the time was a weak office, but it was significant in that it was the only elected executive and head of state in the world. Other models such as Britain's constitutional monarchy placed executive power in the hands of a hereditary monarch, but the American model transferred that power to an electable president.1794 - When farmers in western Pennsylvania protested an excise tax on whiskey by forming an army and refusing to play, Washington for the first time used the power of the federal government to enforce laws by force. He sent Alexander Hamilton at the head of an army to stop the revolt, and succeeded in his goal. The resolution to the whiskey rebellion showed that the United State government would not shy away from using exectuvie power as an enforcer of laws.1798 - The passage of the alien and sedition acts were began a tradition of reducing freedoms for the sake of often personal sexurity druing wartime. Both the alien acts and the sedition act drastically increased the discriection with which the president operated. Specifically, the alien acts gave the executive much greater leeway to arrest and deport non-citizens or non-residents without significant cause. The sedition act was notable beacuse it forbade maligning the name or the character of the government1800 - The election of 1800 was notable in that it was the first transfer of power between two political parties or two individuals whose political philosophies differed significantly. It showed that despite the somewhat strong executive enshrined in the Constitution, the person and the office could be differentiated, preventing despotism.1803 - Without Congressional aproval or an express indication that he could do so, Thomas Jefferson, the ardent strict constructionis, bought the Louisiana Territory from France. Doing so drastically expanded the United States and was possible outside the scope of presidential power. Jefferson inaugurated an era of the expansion of presidential power under several presidents in a row.1812 - After having attempted to prevent war using economic means, James Madison, loathe to expand the power of the presidency, fought the war of 1812 somewhat poorly, achieiving only minimal success but at least forcing a stalement. In the wake of he war, the United States felt more culturally unified and as a result, the presidency strengthened, gaining wartime privileges.Periods
1797-1800: XYZ Affair - After French diplomats demanded bribes from American diplomats in order for them to negotiate a treaty, the United States took offense and terminated all treaties with France. This resulted in an unofficial war with France during which a series of conflicts at sea occurred that soured the Franco-American relationship for a time before a reset of relations in 1800.1803-1816: The wars with barbary pirates and states during this time period were the first engagement of the US military with a foreign power. They resulted in a general American victory, but did little to inspire public sentiment since they were not fought on a national level and did not affect domestic life.1812-1815: War of 1812 - This was was fought to end the British practice of impressment and to remove British influence from America's borders. It eventually ended in a stalemate that saw Britain and the United States make concessions, but the geographical immediacy of Britain's concessions meant that many Americans saw the war as an unadulterated victory for the United States, and it emerged as the second nationally unifying war after the revolution.1846-1848: Mexican-American War - This war resulted in the greatest wartime acquisition of the territory by the United States in its history. The relatively quickly-fought war resulted in a rout of Mexico's forces already weakened by a failing government and forced concessions by Mexico which invovled the cession of much of the now-American Southwest. The policy of manifest desitny came into full effect as the United States expanded fully to the West Coast, with the exception only of the future Gadsden purc1898-1902: Philippine-American War - After acquiring the Philippines from Spain, the United States brutally put down a Philippine revolution that sought independence. Instead of granting that independence, it maintained the Phillipines as an American territory until after WWII in a move many saw as the birth of a new age of empires.1939-1941: The first few years of WWII saw the United States gradually edge toward war. Following President Franklin Roosevelt's prompting, the US first restricted supply sales to a cash-and-carry policy that prohibited loans and US ships carrying supplies before instituting the lend-lease act that allowed much broader aid to warring nations. Despite official neutrality, US businesses aided the allies far more than they did the axis.1941-1945: WWII - Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States rapidly got involved in first the Pacific Theater and then the European Theater. American involvement in the war was essential for the defeat of Japan and important toward the victory in the Western front of the European Theater to complement Soviet advances on the Eastern front.1950-1953: Korean War - After the USSR-supported North Korea attacked South Korea, the United States and United Nations undertook police action to drive the communists back to the border with China and the USSR, at which point China became involved and pushed UN-US forces back to the inital line. The Korean War accomplished nothing but was an example of future wars to come.1845-1848: Mexican-American War - James K. Polk, despite not having a declaration of war, sent US troops into dispute territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande, provoking Mexico, a nation already ready to declare war. Later, pointing to a Mexican reaction, Polk asked for and received a declaration of war despite impassioned speeches by Abraham Lincoln on the contrary. The provocation of a war likely for the purposes of the annexation of territory including much of the American Southwest was a significant 1917-1918: During WWI, President Wilson pushed through the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which criminalized speaking against US allies or for US enemies in wartime. These acts, much like Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus, allowed the executive branch to assume broad powers in prosecuting those suspected as working against the government. They replicated a pattern of sacrificing freedom from the executive for security during wartime.1942-1945: WWII - During WWII, the federal government imposed strict rations on foods and consumer goods, enforcing those rations harshly at times and encouraging further rationing through the use of home gardens. These policies all contributed to the ascension of the centralized American state during WWII that would persist after the war, if to a lesser extent.
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