1858 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: James Buchanan
• Vice President: John C. Breckinridge
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James Lawrence Orr
• Congress: 35th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

• March 4 - A speech by James Henry Hammond in the United States Senate promotes the idea of "King Cotton" and the "mudsill theory" in support of slave labor.
• April 19 - The United States and the Yankton Sioux Tribe sign a treaty.
• May 11 - Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
• May 19 - The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• June 16 - Abraham Lincoln makes his "House Divided" Speech at the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, on accepting the Republican Party nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
• July - Forty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
• July 8 - The Paulist Fathers, a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life for men, is founded in New York City by Isaac Hecker.
• July 29 - Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed on the deck of in Edo Bay.
• August 16 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
• August 21 - The first of the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates is held.
• September 1-2 - 'Staten Island Quarantine War'.
• September 14 - Fordyce Beals patents his six shooter revolver which will be produced by E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York as the Remington Model 1858.
• November 17 – Denver is founded.

  Ongoing

• Bleeding Kansas
• Third Seminole War
• Utah War

  Births

• January 6 - Albert Henry Munsell, painter, teacher of art and inventor of the Munsell color system
• January 9 - Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, botanist
• January 11 - Harry Gordon Selfridge, department store magnate
• February 6 - Jonathan P. Dolliver, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1900 to 1910
• February 15 - John Joseph Montgomery, glider pioneer
• February 19 - Charles Alexander Eastman, Native American author, physician, reformer and co-founder of Boy Scouts of America
• February 28 - Richard P. Ernst, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1921 to 1927
• March 9 - Gustav Stickley, furniture designer and architect
• March 12 - Adolph Ochs, newspaper publisher
• March 30 - DeWolf Hopper, musical theater performer
• April 23 - Leonor F. Loree, railroad executive
• April 29 - Georgia Hopley, journalist, political figure and temperance advocate
• June 17 - Mary F. Hoyt, first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service, in 1883
• June 20 - Charles Waddell Chesnutt, African American author, essayist and political activist
• June 28 - Otis Skinner, actor
• July 1 - Velma Caldwell Melville, editor and writer
• August 18 - Thomas S. Rodgers, admiral
• September 1 - Andrew Jackson Zilker, philanthropist
• September 12 - J. H. Smith, politician and pioneer
• October 7 - Joseph E. Ransdell, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1913 to 1931
• October 12 - John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxer
• October 15 - William Sims, admiral
• October 27 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, 25th Vice President of the United States from March to September 1901
• October 30 - Wilson Eyre, architect
• November 8 - Lawrence Yates Sherman, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1913 to 1921
• November 21 - Charles A. Towne, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1900 to 1901
• November 26 - Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic foundress, first American canonized as a saint, in 2000
• December 25 - Herman P. Faris, temperance movement leader
• December 31 - Harry Stewart New, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1917 to 1923

  Deaths

• January 10 - Hezekiah Augur, sculptor and inventor
• March 4 - Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, naval officer
• April 10 - Thomas Hart Benton, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1851
• August 23 - Calvin Willey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1825 to 1831
• September 17 - Dred Scott, slave
• September 21 - Arthur P. Bagby, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1837 to 1841
• November 16 - Robert Hanna, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1831 to 1832
• December 14 - Michael Woolston Ash, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1835 to 1837
• December 18 - Thomas Holley Chivers, poet and physician