A Perspective on American History 1853-1857

  • March 4, 1853 – Pierce becomes the 14th president
  • 1854 – Gadsden Purchase from Mexico
  • 1854 – Kansas–Nebraska Act; nullified Missouri Compromise
  • 1854 – Ostend Manifesto
  • 1854 – Whig Party collapses
  • 1854 – Treaty of Kanagawa with Japan
  • 1854-1855 Know-Nothing Party, mushroom growth and sudden collapse
  • 1856 – Sack of Lawrence, Kansas
  • 1856 – Pottawatomie massacre
  • 1856 – U.S. presidential election,
  • 1856: James Buchanan elected president March 4,
  • 1857 – Buchanan becomes the 15th president;
  • 1857 – Dred Scott v. Sandford 60 US 393
  • 1857 declares that slaves and Blacks descended from slaves were not American citizens and cannot sue
  • 1857 – Utah War
  • 1857 – Lecompton Constitution rejected in Kansas Territory
  • 1857 – Panic of 1857