1831 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Andrew Jackson
• Vice President: John C. Calhoun
• Chief Justice: John Marshall
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Andrew Stevenson
• Congress: 21st, 22nd

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama:
• * until March 3: Gabriel Moore
• * March 3-November 26: Samuel B. Moore
• * starting November 26: John Gayle
• Governor of Connecticut: Gideon Tomlinson , John Samuel Peters
• Governor of Delaware: David Hazzard
• Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer , Wilson Lumpkin
• Governor of Illinois: John Reynolds
• Governor of Indiana: James B. Ray , Noah Noble
• Governor of Kentucky: Thomas Metcalfe
• Governor of Louisiana: Jacques Dupré , André B. Roman
• Governor of Maine: Jonathan G. Hunton , Samuel E. Smith
• Governor of Maryland:
• * until January 13: Thomas King Carroll
• * January 13-July 11: Daniel Martin
• * starting July 11: George Howard
• Governor of Massachusetts: Levi Lincoln, Jr.
• Governor of Mississippi: Gerard Brandon
• Governor of Missouri: John Miller
• Governor of New Hampshire:
• * until February 28: Matthew Harvey
• * February 28-June 2: Joseph M. Harper
• * starting June 2: Samuel Dinsmoor
• Governor of New Jersey: Peter Dumont Vroom
• Governor of New York: Enos T. Throop
• Governor of North Carolina: Montfort Stokes
• Governor of Ohio: Duncan McArthur
• Governor of Pennsylvania: George Wolf
• Governor of Rhode Island: James Fenner , Lemuel H. Arnold
• Governor of South Carolina: James Hamilton, Jr.
• Governor of Tennessee: William Carroll
• Governor of Vermont: Samuel C. Crafts , William A. Palmer
• Governor of Virginia: John Floyd

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: John Samuel Peters , Thaddeus Betts
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Zadok Casey
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Milton Stapp , David Wallace
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John Breathitt
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Thomas L. Winthrop
• Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Abram M. Scott
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Daniel Dunklin
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Edward Philip Livingston
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles Collins
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Mark Richards , Lebbeus Egerton

  Events

January–March

• January 1 - William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.
• March 18 - Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: An injunction requested by the Cherokee nation, claiming that Georgia's state legislature had created laws which, "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society", is denied.

  April–June

• April 18 - The University of Alabama is founded.
• April 21 - New York University is founded in New York City.

  July–September

• August 7 - American Baptist minister William Miller preaches his first sermon on the Second Advent of Christ in Dresden, New York, launching the Advent Movement in the United States.
• August 21 - Outbreak of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites are stabbed, shot and clubbed to death.

  October–December

• October 30 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.
• November 11 - In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

  Undated

• Alexis de Tocqueville visits the United States.
• Founding of:
• * Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
• * Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

  Births

• January 2 - Justin Winsor, historian and librarian
• January 14 - William D. Washburn, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1889 to 1895 and businessman
• January 15 - Ozora P. Stearns, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1871
• January 26 - Mary Mapes Dodge, children's writer
• March 3 - George Pullman, inventor and industrialist
• March 6 - Philip Sheridan, general
• March 12 - Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer
• March 14 – Edward A. Perry, Governor of Florida
• March 20 - Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois
• June 1 or 29 Exact Date Unknown - John Bell Hood, Confederate general
• July 8 - John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola
• July 21 - Martha Maxwell, naturalist and artist
• August 26 - Lucy Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, First Lady of the United States,
• September 3 - States Rights Gist, lawyer, a militia general in South Carolina, and a Confederate Army brigadier general
• September 10 - William A. Peffer, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1891 to 1897
• September 20 - Kate Harrington, poet, teacher and writer
• September 29 - John Schofield, general
• October 15 - Helen Hunt Jackson, poet, writer and activist
• October 16 - Lucy Stanton, abolitionist
• October 28 - Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., Georgia politician, attorney, historian and folklorist
• October 29 - Othniel Charles Marsh, paleontologist
• October 31 - Romualdo Pacheco, Governor of California
• November 19 - James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States from March to September 1881
• November 21 - John Franklin Miller, U.S. Senator from California from 1881 to 1886
• November 22 - Thomas J. Latham, lawyer and businessman
• December 19 - Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Hawaiian aliʻi

  Deaths

• March 26 - Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794
• April 4 - Isaiah Thomas, publisher
• May 11 - John Trumbull, poet
• May 24 -
• *James Peale, miniaturist and still-life painter
• *Benjamin Carr, composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher
• May 27 - Jedediah Smith, explorer, hunter, trapper and fur trader
• July 4 - James Monroe, fifth President of the United States from 1817 to 1825
• November 11 - Nat Turner, leader of slave rebellion
• December 8 - James Hoban, architect of the White House