In his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln was trying to keep the United States together. It was an unsuccessful plea; less than one month after his inaugural speech, the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter started the Civil War.
Lincoln did not believe in the expansion of slavery, and had already won the election of 1860, which was the final event in a series of occurrences that deepened the growing conflict between northern and southern states. Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballot in a single Southern state, yet he won the election. The more populated North had outvoted the South. Southerners were now convinced that their voices were not being heard. Led by South Carolina, nine southern states had already seceded from the Union at the time of Lincoln's speech.
From the earliest starting point of the war, an objective of the Union armed force was to catch the Confederate capital at Richmond. Petersburg had been the last barrier in Grant's way. Following a nine-month attack, Grant at long last drove Lee's armed force out of that city. Jefferson Davis realized that Richmond was devastated.
Jefferson and Madison would create the Democratic-Republican political party to be a voice for the common man against the elite Federalist party. The two men fought laws and policies enacted by Washington and Adams when they believed they violated the Constitution and the rights established by the Bill of Rights.
One example of this was Jefferson's writing of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in regard to the Whiskey Tax. Though written anonymously, he suggest the states (the people) were allowed to nullify, or ignore, federal laws that the people did not agree with. He suggest it was in the rights of the people to refuse to pay the whiskey tax.
Jefferson and Madison were both outspoken about their disagreement with the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts by John Adams. Jefferson would overturn the acts after becoming the third president of the US. Madison also stood against John Adams in regard to the "midnight-appointments" which was an expansion of the federal court system. Madison refused to issue the confirmations of the judges causing one to take Madison to court in the famous case, Marbury v. Madison.
<span>Gandhi inspired many people to stand up for rights by using his clever method of nonviolent civil disobedience.</span>
