Curated playlist
19th-century United States senators
- Waitman T. WilleyAt seventeen, Waitman T. Willey walked to college carrying everything in one handkerchief.
- Benjamin HarrisonBenjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland, then lost the White House back to him.
- Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was slashed with a sword as a boy for refusing to polish a British officer's boots.
- Andrew JohnsonAndrew Johnson kept his presidency by a single Senate vote in May 1868. The Senate fell one vote short of removing him.
- James BuchananPresident James Buchanan learned the Dred Scott ruling before the public did. A Supreme Court justice leaked it to him.
- Jefferson DavisWhy was Confederate president Jefferson Davis never tried for treason? Prosecutors feared an acquittal.
- William H. SewardWilliam H. Seward led the 1860 first ballot for president, then lost to Lincoln. Lincoln made him Secretary of State.
- Simon CameronLincoln removed Secretary of War Simon Cameron after he urged using freed slaves to suppress the rebellion.
- Carl SchurzCarl Schurz slipped back into Prussia in 1850 and broke a friend out of prison.
- John C. BreckinridgeVice President John C. Breckinridge announced Lincoln's 1860 win, a race he had lost. The Senate later expelled him.
- John C. FrémontJohn C. Frémont served just 175 days as a U.S. senator. He was in Washington for only twenty-one working days.
- Ambrose BurnsideAmbrose Burnside turned down command of the Union's main army twice. The third time, he took it to keep Hooker out.