s. history us history us history - Embassy of the United States

Henry Clay of Kentucky,although never president,was one of the mostinfluential Americanpoliticians of the first halfof the 19th century. Claybecame indispensable forhis role in preserving theUnion with the MissouriCompromise of 1820 andthe Compromise of 1850.Both pieces of legislationresolved, for a time,disputes over slavery inthe territories.William Lloyd Garrison, whosepassionate denunciations of slaveryand eloquent defense of the rightsof enslaved African Americansappeared in his weekly paper, theLiberator, from its first issue in 1831 to1865, when the last issue appeared atthe close of the Civil War.The great champions ofwomen’s rights in the 19thcentury: Elizabeth CadyStanton (seated) and SusanB. Anthony. Stanton helpedorganize the first women’srights convention in 1848in Seneca Falls, New York.In later years, she joinedAnthony in founding theNational Woman SuffrageAssociation. “I forged thethunderbolts,” Stanton saidof their partnership, “and shefired them.”Frederick Douglass, the nation’s leadingAfrican-American abolitionist of the19th century, escaped from slavery in1838. His speech about his sufferingsas a slave at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society’s annual conventionin Nantucket launched his career asan outspoken lecturer, writer, andpublisher on the abolition of slaveryand racial equality.90 91Harriet Tubman, a former slave who rescuedhundreds from slavery through the UndergroundRailroad. The Underground Railroad was a vastnetwork of people who helped fugitive slavesescape to the North and to Canada in the firsthalf of the 19th century.