Presidents of the United States
# President- Took office- Left office- Party- Vice President- Term
1 George Washington April 30, 1789 March 4, 1797 No party John Adams 1 & 2
2 John Adams March 4, 1797 March 4, 1801 Federalist
No party Thomas Jefferson 3
3 Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1801 March 4, 1809 Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr 4
George Clinton 5
4 James Madison March 4, 1809 March 4, 1817 Democratic-Republican George Clinton
vacant 6
Elbridge Gerry
vacant 7
5 James Monroe March 4, 1817 March 4, 1825 Democratic-Republican Daniel Tompkins 8 & 9
6 John Quincy Adams March 4, 1825 March 4, 1829 Democratic-Republican John Calhoun 10
7 Andrew Jackson March 4, 1829 March 4, 1837 Democratic John Calhoun
vacant 11
Martin Van Buren 12
8 Martin Van Buren March 4, 1837 March 4, 1841 Democratic Richard Johnson 13
9 William H. Harrison March 4, 1841 April 4, 1841 Whig John Tyler 14
10 John Tyler April 4, 1841 March 4, 1845 Whig
No party, vacant
11 James K. Polk March 4, 1845 March 4, 1849 Democratic George Dallas 15
12 Zachary Taylor March 4, 1849 July 9, 1850 Whig Millard Fillmore 16
13 Millard Fillmore July 9, 1850 March 4, 1853 Whig vacant
14 Franklin Pierce March 4, 1853 March 4, 1857 Democratic William King, vacant 17
15 James Buchanan March 4, 1857 March 4, 1861 Democratic John Breckinridge 18
16 Abraham Lincoln March 4, 1861 April 15, 1865 Republican
National Union Hannibal Hamlin 19
Andrew Johnson 20
Abraham Lincoln's House Divided Speech
Part of that speech,16 June 1858, in Springfield, Illinois, upon accepting the Illinois Republican Party's nomination for that state's US senatorship.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a war between the Union of the United States of America and the Southern slave states of the newly formed Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis. The Union was led by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, twenty-three states remained loyal to the Union: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union. . Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery into territories owned by the United States and their victory in the presidential election of 1860 resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union before Lincoln took office. The Union rejected secession regarding it as rebellion. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, seven states formed the Confederates: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and four more joined after the war began, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. Lincoln called for a large volunteer army. In 1862 battles such as Shiloh and Antietam caused massive casualties. In September 1862 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (below) made ending slavery a war goal. The South's Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won a series of victories over Union armies, but Lee's reverse at Gettysburg in early July, 1863 proved the turning point. Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman turned the war in favor of the Union and General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history causing 620,000 soldier deaths and an undetermined number of civilian casualties and ended slavery in the United States.
17 Andrew Johnson April 15, 1865 March 4, 1869 Democratic
National Union vacant
18 Ulysses S. Grant March 4, 1869 March 4, 1877 Republican Schuyler Colfax 21
Henry Wilson
vacant 22
19 Rutherford B. Hayes March 4, 1877 March 4, 1881 Republican William Wheeler 23
20 James Garfield March 4, 1881 September 19, 1881 Republican Chester A. Arthur 24
21 Chester A. Arthur September 19, 1881 March 4, 1885 Republican vacant
22 Grover Cleveland March 4, 1885 March 4, 1889 Democratic Thomas Hendricks
vacant 25
23 Benjamin Harrison March 4, 1889 March 4, 1893 Republican Levi Morton 26
24 Grover Cleveland (2nd term) March 4, 1893 March 4, 1897 Democratic Adlai E. Stevenson 27
25 William McKinley March 4, 1897 September 14, 1901 Republican Garret Hobart
vacant 28
Theodore Roosevelt 29
26 Theodore Roosevelt September 14, 1901 March 4, 1909 Republican vacant
Charles Fairbanks 30
27 William H. Taft March 4, 1909 March 4, 1913 Republican James Sherman
vacant 31
28 Woodrow Wilson March 4, 1913 March 4, 1921 Democratic Thomas Marshall 32
33
29 Warren G. Harding March 4, 1921 August 2, 1923 Republican Calvin Coolidge 34
30 Calvin Coolidge August 2, 1923 March 4, 1929 Republican vacant
Charles Dawes 35
31 Herbert Hoover March 4, 1929 March 4, 1933 Republican Charles Curtis 36
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt March 4, 1933 April 12, 1945 Democratic John Garner 37 & 38
Henry Wallace 39
Harry S. Truman 40
33 Harry S. Truman April 12, 1945 January 20, 1953 Democratic vacant
Alben Barkley 41
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower January 20, 1953 January 20, 1961 Republican Richard Nixon 42 & 43
35 John F. Kennedy January 20, 1961 November 22, 1963 Democratic Lyndon B. Johnson 44
36 Lyndon B. Johnson November 22, 1963 January 20, 1969 Democratic vacant
Hubert Humphrey 45
37 Richard Nixon January 20, 1969 August 9, 1974 Republican Spiro Agnew 46
Spiro Agnew
vacant
Gerald Ford 47
38 Gerald Ford August 9, 1974 January 20, 1977 Republican vacant
Nelson Rockefeller
39 Jimmy Carter January 20, 1977 January 20, 1981 Democratic Walter Mondale 48
40 Ronald Reagan January 20, 1981 January 20, 1989 Republican George H. W. Bush 49
50
41 George H. W. Bush January 20, 1989 January 20, 1993 Republican Dan Quayle 51
42 Bill Clinton January 20, 1993 January 20, 2001 Democratic Al Gore 52 & 53
43 George W. Bush January 20, 2001 Incumbent
(Term expires January 20, 2009) Republican Dick Cheney 54 & 55