Power

Johnson’s impeachment was driven by his refusal to rid the country of the lingering effects of slavery.

How the Vermont senator went from a third-party independent to a 2020 frontrunner.

A political usage guide for a feckless commentariat.

The Great Emancipator has a lesson for today's Democrats about how to play constitutional hardball.

And why the Democrats can’t use it against him.

A brief history of the Massachusetts suffrage movement, and it's opposition, told through images of the time.

As Republicans denounce climate change as a “hoax” and dismantle the environmental regulatory state they worked to build, we are left to wonder: What happened?

The Mueller report raised the issue the Constitution’s framers feared in 1787: abuse of presidential power.

The Teapot Dome scandal resulted in a 1924 law that gives the House Ways and Means Committee authority to demand returns.

Mueller report censorship raises the question: what’s the government hiding?

Father and son alike, suspicious of too much charisma.

A history of tactile politics.

Calvin Coolidge and others are bringing together student libertarians and trads, but that doesn't make for a coherent coalition.

When FDR found out how beholden New York politicians were to mobsters, he ordered the Seabury commission to investigate.

This is not the first time Barr has been accused of covering up official legal findings.

The rise of the colorblind ideology that prevents us from addressing racism.

How a New Deal senator’s anti-monopoly investigations changed American business.

Madison's Notes of the Constitutional Convention answer a current argument on the Electoral College.

Has Trump permanently damaged the credibility of the presidential office?

How Harold Washington became Chicago’s first black mayor.

For much of the 20th century, Milwaukee was run by socialists — and Time magazine called it “one of the best-run cities in the U.S.”

During Reconstruction, true citizenship finally seemed in reach for black Americans. Then their dreams were dismantled.

Outlandish rumors helped elect Presidents Jackson and Van Buren and have been with us ever since.

After months of political maneuvering, intrigue, backroom bargaining, and furious oratory, the fate of FDR's plan was clear.

How experts and their facts created immigration restriction.

The former Bush mouthpiece had more to do personally with the Iraq WMD catastrophe than he wants us to believe.

Military necessity drove political support for a women’s draft.

The right's eagerness for a "peaceful separation" of the nation echoes pieces of race war fiction.

Most of the arguments for preserving our insane system are morally odious, unsubstantiated, and/or factually incorrect.

Walter Jones and the unintended consequences of the War Crimes Act of 1996.