Power

The same ideas that have harmed D.C. for more than a century are again rearing their ugly head.

His approval rating hit historic lows, his party was fractious, crises were everywhere. But Truman rescued his presidency, and his legacy.

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.

Roscoe Conkling was a successful politician and an able lawyer. But the colorful and irascible senator had no desire to serve on the high court.

Southern pro-slavery states weren't the only states calling for disunion before the Civil War erupted.

How Charlotta Bass, a Black woman and peace activist, anticipated America’s path to militarism.

Why can’t America see that?

Tennessee’s surprising role in the adoption of life-saving seat belt laws.

A new book aims to recover the Constitution’s pivotal role in shaping claims of justice and equality.

Amidst growing suspicion that equality talk is cheap, a new book explains where egalitarianism went wrong—and what it still has to offer.

An American conservatism which subtly or directly marginalizes the Founding is on a fast track to a conservatism at odds with America’s roots itself.

The conservative plot to suppress the Black vote has relied on racist caricatures, then and now.

The “racial” distinctions between master and slave may be more familiar to Americans, but they were and are no more real than those between Gentile and Jew.

The inequitable dismissal of US soldiers following the conclusion of the Civil War.

And why spying on the “bums” has been terrible for schools.

Using the congressional filibuster to prevent voting rights legislation isn't new. It has roots in the 19th century.

A historian of global health explains how the lack of ICU beds in low-income communities is the result of government spending cuts dating back to the 1970s.

When states began restricting labor by children, verifying a person's age became an important means of enforcement.

A leading historian of Madison's political thought explains that the framer "did not believe in minority rule."

A new book shows just how porous the dividing line has been between the far right and mainstream conservatism.

The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of census records and historical documents.

The question of how to balance state and national power was perhaps the single most important and most challenging question confronting the early republic.

The story of President Andrew Jackson's 1,400-pound block of cheese.

Democracy is in trouble, but a lawless coup isn’t the real threat.

The context in which King shared his views on the filibuster is the same one in which the Senate now finds itself: amid battles over voting rights legislation.

A new film shows how Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, stood up to a majority-white city council to push through infrastructure improvements for all.

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in America on January 1, 1863. Today, we've annotated the Emancipation Proclamation for readers.

The electorate has consistently changed over time as politicians seek to shape it in their favor.

The USDA has become an inefficient monster that often promotes products that are bad for consumers and the environment. Let’s replace it with a Department of Food.

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.