Power

The horrors of the fugitive slave laws, the costs of union, and the value of comity.

There’s no consensus on abolishing the Electoral College, which has countered the popular vote in two of the past five presidential elections.

“John Marshall...exhibited a subservience to the executive branch that continues to haunt us.”

The long, entwined history of America First and the American dream.

“The Improbable Wendell Willkie” offers a look at how American politics might have been.

We should look to history – not prehistory – to understand current political challenges.

The political context for one of the worst atrocities ever to take place on U.S. soil.

In the fight over Indiana’s Bloody Eighth, Democrats won the seat, but lost the larger narrative.

The problem of how to reconcile irreconcilable values is what led to the Civil War. It hasn’t gone away.

Changes wrought by the war still shape America today.

The Fourteenth Amendment captures the idea that no people born in the United States should be forced to live in the shadows.

Like Nixon, Trump has managed to marginalize the media, creating an effective foil.

Voting has always been restricted to empower a minority.

A brief history of the printed ballot.

How the world we live in already happened in 1992.

Many on both sides are worried about the party’s leftward swing. They say it’s a deviation from the mainstream. It’s not.

Was his disdain for his vice president greater than his desire for Democrats to win?

In 1874, Democrats picked up an astounding 94 seats in the 293-seat House.

Voter suppression tactics have roots in Southern history dating to the Antebellum era.

Liberal politicians should trumpet a vision of masculinity that incorporates the best qualities of LBJ and Humphrey.

The promise and perils of left populism.

The Republican Party used control of women’s bodies as political capital to shift the balance of power their way.

From voting rights to the electoral college, a brief explainer on three widespread misconceptions about voting.

The main issue they were debating was how democratic a representative body should be. And their answer was “not very democratic at all.”

If you think the First World War began senselessly, consider how it ended.

White evangelical Christians are among President Trump’s most important supporters. But more than 40 years ago, they were on the margins of American politics.

For centuries, voter fraud has been used as an excuse to restrict the vote.

Trump and other peddlers of angry rhetoric may reap short-term gains, but history suggests they will provoke a fearsome backlash.

The first Jewish member of Congress was a virulent nativist and anti-immigration troll who ended his life in an insane asylum.

Author Sarah Churchwell on the entangled history of America’s most loaded phrases.