Antebellum Period, 1840-1860

William Henry Harrison (1841)

 * Whig
 * VP: John Tyler
 * Secretary of State: Daniel Webster
 * Major items:
 * None. Died thirty days after taking office

John Tyler (1841-1845)

 * Anti-Jackson Democrat who ran on as Harrison's VP on the Whig ticket
 * Secretary of State: Daniel Webster
 * Major items:
 * Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842
 * Vetoes Clay's bill for the Third Bank of the United States
 * Canadian border set at 45th parallel

James K. Polk (1845-1849)

 * A "dark horse candidate"
 * Democrat
 * VP: George Dallas
 * Major items:
 * Manifest Destiny doctrine becomes popular
 * Texas becomes a state, 1845
 * Oregon boundary settled, 1846
 * Mexican-American War, 1846-1848
 * Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo, 1848
 * Wilmot Proviso

Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)

 * Whig
 * VP: Millard Fillmore
 * Major items:
 * None. Died.

Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

 * Whig
 * Secretary of State: Daniel Webster
 * Major items:
 * Compromise of 1850
 * Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850
 * Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852

Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857

 * Democrat
 * VP: William King
 * Major items:
 * Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1864
 * Popular soveriegnty implemented
 * Japan opened to world trade, 1853
 * Underground Railroad
 * Bleeding Kansas
 * Onsted Manifesto, 1854

James Buchanan (1857-1861)

 * Democrat
 * VP: John C. Breckinridge
 * Major items:
 * Dred Scott decision, 1857
 * Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
 * Civil War, 1861-1865

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

 * Republican
 * VP: Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson
 * Secretary of State: William H. Seward
 * Secretary of the Treasury: Salmon P. Chase
 * Secretary of War: Edwin M. Stanton
 * Major items:
 * Civil War, 1861-1865
 * Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
 * Homestead Act, 1862
 * Morill Act, 1862
 * Assassinated on April 15th, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth