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Preston Brooks
• Was a Democratic
Congressman from South
Carolina, known for
severely beating Senator
Charles Sumner on the
floor of the United States
Senate with a cane in
response to an insult. His
first cousin, Matthew
Butler, was a Confederate
general.
August 5, 1819 –
January 27, 1857
• South Carolinians sent
Brooks dozens of brand
new canes, with one
bearing the phrase,
"Good job."
Jefferson Davis
• Was an American
statesman and leader of
the Confederacy during
the American Civil War;
serving as the President
for its entire history.
• Was the highest
political officer in the
Confederacy.
June 3, 1808 –
December 6, 1889
Roger Taney
• Was the fifth Chief Justice of
the United States, holding that
office from 1836 until his
death in 1864, and was the
first Roman Catholic to hold
that office or sit on the
Supreme Court of the United
States. He was also the
eleventh United States
Attorney General.
March 17, 1777 –
October 12, 1864
• Among Taney's opinions as
attorney general, two revealed
his stand on slavery: one
supported South Carolina's
law prohibiting free Blacks
from entering the state, and
one argued that Blacks could
not be citizens. In 1833, as
secretary of the Treasury,
• Taney ordered an end to the
deposit of Federal money in
the Second Bank of the United
States, an act which killed the
institution.
John Breckinridge
• was an American lawyer
and politician. He served as
a U.S. Representative and
U.S. Senator from Kentucky
• Breckinridge entered the
Confederate States Army
during the American Civil
War as a brigadier general
and soon became a major
general, originally
commanding the 1st
Kentucky Brigade,
nicknamed the Orphan
Brigade.
January 16, 1821 –
May 17, 1875
Edmund Ruffin
• was a farmer and slaveholder,
a Confederate soldier, and an
1850s political activist.
• As the sectional hostilities
which led to the Civil War
grew in the 1850s, Ruffin left
Virginia for South Carolina, as
he was angry that Virginia had
not been the first state to
secede from the Union. Ruffin
fired one of the first shots on
Fort Sumter. He was also the
first one to enter Fort Sumter
after it fell.
January 5, 1794 –
June 17, 1865
Alexander Stephens
• Was an American politician
from Georgia. He was Vice
President of the
Confederate States of
America during the
American Civil War. He also
served as a U.S.
Representative from
Georgia (both before the
Civil War and after
Reconstruction) and as the
50th Governor of Georgia
from 1882 until his death in
1883.
February 11, 1812 –
March 4, 1883
• As his wealth increased,
Stephens began acquiring
land and slaves. By the time
of the Civil War, Stephens
owned 34 slaves and several
thousand acres.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
• Was a lieutenant general in
the Confederate Army during
the American Civil War. He is
remembered both as a selfeducated, innovative cavalry
leader during the war and as a
leading southern advocate in
the postwar years.
• He served as the first Grand
Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a
secret vigilante organization
which launched a reign of
terrorism against blacks and
Republicans during
Reconstruction in the South.
July 13, 1821 –
October 29, 1877
Franklin Pierce
• An American politician and
lawyer, was the 14th President
of the United States, serving
from 1853 to 1857. To date, he
is the only President from New
Hampshire.
• The greatest challenge to the
country's equilibrium during
the Pierce administration,
though, was the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act in
1854. It repealed the Missouri
Compromise and reopened
the question of slavery in the
West.
November 23, 1804 –
October 8, 1869
James Buchanan
• Was the 15th President of the
United States from 1857–1861
and the last to be born in the
18th century. To date he is the
only president from the state
of Pennsylvania and the only
'life-long bachelor.‘
• Buchanan, like many of his
time, was torn between his
interest in the expansion of
the country for the benefit of
all, and the insistence of the
people settling the expanded
areas to all of their rights,
including some rights not
beneficial to all, i.e. slavery.
•
April 23, 1791 –
June 1, 1868
On the resulting spread of slavery,
through unconditional expansion, he
stated: "I feel a strong repugnance by
any act of mine to extend the present
limits of the Union over a new slaveholding territory." For instance, he
hoped the acquisition of Texas would
"be the means of limiting, not
enlarging, the dominion of slavery."
Robert Toombs
• Was an American political
leader, United States
Senator from Georgia, 1st
Secretary of State of the
Confederacy, and a
Confederate general in
the Civil War.
• Toombs objected to
halting the spread of
slavery into the territories
of California and New
Mexico.
July 2, 1810 –
December 15, 1885
• Toombs favored the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, the
admission of Kansas
under the Lecompton
Constitution, and the
English Bill (1858).
John H. Reagan
• Was a leading 19th century
American politician from the U.S.
state of Texas. A Democrat,
Reagan resigned from the U.S.
House of Representatives when
Texas seceded from the Union to
join the Confederate States of
America. He served in the cabinet
of Jefferson Davis as Postmaster
General. After the Confederate
defeat, he called for cooperation
with the federal government and
thus became unpopular, but
returned to public office when his
predictions of harsh treatment
for resistance were proved
correct.
October 8, 1818 –
March 6, 1905
• President Jefferson Davis picked
Reagan to head the new
Confederate States of America
Post-office Department. He was
an able administrator, presiding
over the only cabinet department
that functioned well during the
war.