1826

"I believe [slavery] to be a great political and a great moral evil. I thank God, my lot has been cast in a State where it does not exist. But, while I entertain these opinions, I know it is an evil at present without a remedy. It has been a curse entailed upon us by that nation which now makes us a subject of reproach to our institutions. It is, however, one of those moral evils, from which it is impossible for us to escape, without the introduction of evils infinitely greater. There are portions of this Union, in which, if you emancipate your slaves, they will become masters. There can be no middle course. Is there any man in this Union who could, for a moment, indulge in the horrible idea of abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high- minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South?"

- James Buchanan, 1826

"For ladies to meet, to publish, to go from house to house stirring up petitions - these appear to me proceedings unsuited to the female character as delineated in Scripture. I fear its tendency would be to mix them in all the multiform warfare of political life."

- William Wilberforce, vexed with female participation the Anti-Slavery Society, of which he is a member.

Born in 1826:

• German mathematician Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann.
• German mathematician Ludwig Christian Wiener.
• American songwriter Stephen Foster.
• Swedish composer Ivar Hallstrom.
• Julia Dent, future wife of Ulysses S. Grant.
• Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney.
• American painter Frederick Church.
• American railroad visionary Theodore Judah.
• American suffragist leader Matilda Joslyn Gage
.
• The future king Charles XV of Sweden and Norway.
• Japanese printmaker Ichiryusai Shigenobu, pupil of the great Hiroshige and thus known as Hiroshige II.
• George Brinton McClellan, commander of Union forces during the American Civil War, as well as Union generals James Gillpatrick Blunt and John McArthur.
• Confederate generals Richard Taylor (son of Zachary Taylor), Beverly Holcome Robertson, and William Brimage Bate.

Died in 1826:

• Austrian composer Carl Maria von Weber.
• German astronomer Johann Elert Bode.
• Swiss mathematician Nicolaus Fuss.
• Spanish composer Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga (20 years old).
• United States Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
• German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer.
• French chemist Joseph Louis Prout.
• Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi.
• Russian painter Nikolai Karamzin.
• English book illustrator Sarah Catherine Martin.
• Japanese Buddhist nun and poet Tagami Kikusha.
• British colonial administrator Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, "founder" of Singapore.

Arts and science:

• Antoine-Jérôrome Balard identifies the element bromine.
• The Royal Zoological Society is founded; one of its principals is Singapore impresario Stamford Raffles.
• John Herschel is able to detect the apparent motion of stars due to parallax, and prove once and for all that Copernicus was right.
• The "Granite Railway" connects the port of Quincy, Massachusetts with quarries three miles away.
• Samuel Morey receives a patent for an internal combustion engine.
• Augustin-Louis Cauchy publishes his Leçons sur les applications du calcul infintésimal à la géométrie.

Politics and war:

• Anu Chao starts a rebellion seeking to break Laos away from Siamese overlordship.
• New York bricklayer William Morgan loudly claims to anyone who can hear that he is about to publish an "exposé" of Freemansonry's rituals. Morgan disappears after being arrested on dubious charges. Some New York freemasons admit to kidnapping Morgan and taking him to Fort Niagara but his body is never found, and murder cannot be proved. This unleashes a wave of anti-Masonic sentiment that leads to a new political party being founded the following year.
• Mid-term elections in the United States secure a majority in Congress for those opposed to President John Quincy Adams. .
• The first American abolition society, the Massachusetts General Colored Association to fight for an end to slavery, is founded.
• Slaveowners in the Cape Colony revolt after the British Government appoints a "Guardian of Slaves" for the colony.
• Maryland's General Assembly passes a bill allowing Jews to hold public office.
• King Pedro of Brazil abdicates the throne of Portugal in favor of his daughter Maria.
• The sick man of Europe gets sicker.
  • Ottoman fores under Mehmed Reshid Pasha (aka 'Kutahye') capture Missolonghi from the Greeks fighting for independence. The same year, Eugène Delacroix's painting Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi appears. Kutahye then advances to Athens, where he puts the only other rebel stronghold (the Acropolis) under siege.
  • Meanwhile, back in Istanbul, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II is alarmed that the Janissaries are not totally loyal to him, and at 135,000 strong, are draining his treasury as well (the number is probably inflated from payroll padding, and including retirees). He begins to form a new army. When the Janissaries notice this, they revolt, but the Sultan is able to push them back to their barracks and kill about 20,000 of them in an artillery barrage. The survivors are executed or exiled. The backbone of Ottoman power for centuries, the Janissaries are disbanded for good.
• The United States concludes a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Hawaii. (Broke that one, too).
• Uighur rebels under Cahangir Xoca capture Kashgar from Qing forces.
• Dost Muhammad Khan captures Herat and later Kabul, becoming king of Afghanistan.
• Outnumbered 15 to 1, British forces at Pagan defeat the Burmese. The Treaty of Yandabo ends the first Anglo-Burmese War, with Burma ceding Assam (which they'd conquered four years previously), as well as Arakan and the Tenasserim coast to the British.
• Hayden Edwards, settled in Texas with a charter from the Mexican government. However, the land he settled was claimed by other settlers. In the dispute, the Mexican governemnt revokes the charter. Edwards rebels, proclaiming the 'Republic of Fredonia'.
• Great Britain consolidates its holdings in southern Malaya (Malacca, Singapore, and Penang) into the "Straits Settlements".
• In the wake of the previous year's Decemberist Uprising, Nicholas I forms a new secret police, the "Third Section of the Imperial Chancery".
• Iran sparks the Second Russo-Persian War by attacking Russian-held Azerbaijan.
• Great Britain removes the tariffs on trade with Ireland and establishes a customs union with no prospect for the industrial development of that island. Another step towards The Starvation.
• The introduction of power looms manned by children has resulted in thousands of Lancashire handloom weavers thrown out of work and the rest living on starvation wages. In April, thousands of them riot, breaking into mills and destroying hundreds of looms. Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel sends troops, which fire on the rioters several times. Afterwards, 39 people are sentenced to hang under the Frame-Breaking Act, but all the sentences are commuted. However, A special tax is levied on the communities the rioters came from to pay £16,000 compensation to the factory owners.

Also:

• West Point administrators decree that the cadets' Christmas eggnog will be alcohol-free. Several (mostly Southern) cadets smuggle in some whiskey to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, their celebration deteriorates into a riot. Although Robert E. Lee stays out of the whole situation, a young Jefferson Davis serves as the lookout and is confined to quarters.
• The Cherokee New Phoenix is the first Native American newspapaer.
• While supposedly in the midst of preparing himself to receive the golden tablets from the Angel Moroni, Joseph Smith is hauled into court and convicted of fraudulently claiming to be able to find hidden treasure.
• London University is founded.

1825 - 1826 - 1827

How They Were Made - 19th Century