1831 in the United States

Events from the year 1831 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: Andrew Jackson (D-Tennessee)
 * Vice President: John C. Calhoun (D-South Carolina)
 * Chief Justice: John Marshall (Virginia)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives: Andrew Stevenson (D-Virginia)
 * Congress: 21st (until March 4), 22nd (starting March 4)

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" ! Governors and lieutenant governors

Governors

 * Governor of Alabama:
 * until March 3: Gabriel Moore (Democratic)
 * March 3-November 26: Samuel B. Moore (Democratic)
 * starting November 26: John Gayle (Democratic)
 * Governor of Connecticut: Gideon Tomlinson (Democratic-Republican) (until March 2), John Samuel Peters (National Republican) (starting March 2)
 * Governor of Delaware: David Hazzard (National Republican)
 * Governor of Georgia: George R. Gilmer (Democratic-Republican) (until November 9), Wilson Lumpkin (Democratic) (starting November 9)
 * Governor of Illinois: John Reynolds (Democratic)
 * Governor of Indiana: James B. Ray (Independent) (until December 7), Noah Noble (Whig) (starting December 7)
 * Governor of Kentucky: Thomas Metcalfe (National Republican)
 * Governor of Louisiana: Jacques Dupré (National Republican) (until January 31), André B. Roman (Whig) (starting January 31)
 * Governor of Maine: Jonathan G. Hunton (National Republican) (until January 5), Samuel E. Smith (Democratic) (starting January 5)
 * Governor of Maryland:
 * until January 13: Thomas King Carroll (Democratic)
 * January 13-July 11: Daniel Martin (National Republican)
 * starting July 11: George Howard (National Republican)
 * Governor of Massachusetts: Levi Lincoln, Jr. (National Republican)
 * Governor of Mississippi: Gerard Brandon (Democratic)
 * Governor of Missouri: John Miller (Democratic)
 * Governor of New Hampshire:
 * until February 28: Matthew Harvey (Democratic)
 * February 28-June 2: Joseph M. Harper (Democratic)
 * starting June 2: Samuel Dinsmoor (Democratic)
 * Governor of New Jersey: Peter Dumont Vroom (Democratic)
 * Governor of New York: Enos T. Throop (Democratic)
 * Governor of North Carolina: Montfort Stokes (Democratic)
 * Governor of Ohio: Duncan McArthur (National Republican)
 * Governor of Pennsylvania: George Wolf (Democratic-Republican)
 * Governor of Rhode Island: James Fenner (Democratic-Republican) (until May 4), Lemuel H. Arnold (Whig) (starting May 4)
 * Governor of South Carolina: James Hamilton, Jr. (Democratic)
 * Governor of Tennessee: William Carroll (Democratic)
 * Governor of Vermont: Samuel C. Crafts (National Republican) (until October 18), William A. Palmer (Anti-Masonic) (starting October 18)
 * Governor of Virginia: John Floyd (Democratic)

Lieutenant governors

 * Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: John Samuel Peters (National Republican) (until March 2), Thaddeus Betts (Whig) (starting March 2)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Zadok Casey (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Milton Stapp (Independent) (until December 7), David Wallace (Whig) (starting month and day unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John Breathitt (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Thomas L. Winthrop (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Abram M. Scott (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Daniel Dunklin (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of New York: Edward Philip Livingston (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles Collins (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Patrick Noble (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Mark Richards (National Republican) (until October 18), Lebbeus Egerton (Anti-Masonic) (starting October 18)
 * }

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 Rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites are stabbed, shot and clubbed to death. At least 125 enslaved people were killed in response.

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 5 – Slave leader Nat Turner is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia for inciting a violent slave uprising.
 * November 11 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged.

Undated

 * Alexis de Tocqueville visits the United States.
 * Founding of:
 * Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
 * Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio (as "The Athenaeum").

Births

 * January 2 – Justin Winsor, historian and librarian (died 1897)
 * January 14 – William D. Washburn, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1889 to 1895 and businessman (died 1912)
 * January 15 – Ozora P. Stearns, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1871 (died 1896)
 * January 26 – Mary Mapes Dodge, children's writer (died 1907)
 * February 23 – Elizabeth Litchfield Cunnyngham, missionary and church worker (died 1911)
 * March 3 – George Pullman, inventor and industrialist (died 1897)
 * March 6 – Philip Sheridan, general (died 1888)
 * March 12 – Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer (died 1901)
 * March 14 – Edward A. Perry, Governor of Florida (died 1889)
 * March 20 – Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois (died 1881)
 * May 16 – Daniel Manning, businessman, journalist and politician, Secretary of the Treasury (died 1887)
 * June 1 or 29 {exact date unknown) – John Bell Hood, Confederate general (died 1879)
 * July 5 – Cordelia A. Greene, physician, reformer, benefactor (died 1905)
 * July 8 – John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola (died 1888)
 * July 21 – Martha Maxwell, naturalist and artist (died 1881)
 * August 26 – Lucy Hayes, First Lady of the United States as wife of Rutherford B. Hayes (died 1889)
 * September 3 – States Rights Gist, lawyer, militia general in South Carolina and Confederate Army brigadier general (died 1864)
 * September 10 – William A. Peffer, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1891 to 1897 (died 1912)
 * September 20 – Kate Harrington, poet, teacher and writer (died 1917)
 * September 29 – John Schofield, general (died 1906)
 * October 15 – Helen Hunt Jackson, poet, writer and activist (died 1885)
 * October 16 – Lucy Stanton, abolitionist (died 1910)
 * October 28 – Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., Georgia politician, attorney, historian and folklorist (died 1893)
 * October 29 – Othniel Charles Marsh, paleontologist (died 1899)
 * October 31 – Romualdo Pacheco, Governor of California (died 1899)
 * November 19 – James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States from March to September 1881 (died 1881)
 * November 21 – John Franklin Miller, U.S. Senator from California from 1881 to 1886 (died 1886)
 * November 22 – Thomas J. Latham, lawyer and businessman (died 1911)
 * December 19 – Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Hawaiian alii (died 1884)

Deaths

 * March 26 – Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794 (born 1760)
 * April 4 – Isaiah Thomas, publisher (born 1749)
 * May 11 – John Trumbull, poet (born 1750)
 * May 24 –
 * James Peale, miniaturist and still-life painter (born 1749)
 * Benjamin Carr, composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher (born 1768)
 * May 27 – Jedediah Smith, explorer, hunter, trapper and fur trader (born 1799)
 * July 4 – James Monroe, fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825 (born 1758)
 * November 11 – Nat Turner, leader of slave rebellion (born 1800)
 * December 8 – James Hoban, architect of the White House (born 1755 in Ireland)