On May 30, 1854, President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law. The act had been created to settle tensions over slavery and open new lands for development, but instead only proved to create more division and move America closer to Civil War.
On April 5, 1792, George Washington used the first presidential veto in our country’s history. It was to turn down a bill that he felt unconstitutionally gave some states more members in the House of Representatives than the Constitution would allow.
US Chief Justice Earl Warren was born on March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, California. He’s considered one of the nation’s most influential Supreme Court justices, with his time on the court referred to as a “Constitutional Revolution.”
Journalist and civil rights activist Oswald Garrison Villard was born on March 13, 1872, in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was an editor of the New York Evening Post and a founding member of the NAACP.
Oveta Culp Hobby was born on January 19, 1905, in Killeen, Texas.
On January 12, 1932, Hattie Caraway became the first women elected to serve in the United States Senate.
Statesman Everett McKinley Dirksen was born on January 4, 1896, in Pekin, Illinois.
Edwin McMasters Stanton was born on December 19, 1814, Steubenville, Ohio.
On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the 11th state to ratify the Bill of Rights, earning the three-fourths majority needed to add the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.