Power

What the backlash to the emergency legislation reveals about the age-old pathologies of the right.

During the Civil War, surrendering was an honorable way of accepting defeat — under the right circumstances.

Trump is just the latest in a long line of executives to stiff-arm the Constitution and ignore congressional powers.

Was the impeachment of Andrew Johnson a matter of national principles? Or an affair of pragmatic politics?

"The Common Wind" covers the radical world of black mariners, rebels, and runaways banding together to realize their freedom.

How one of America's original Bernie Bros became an outspoken critic of the left.

A consideration of four recent books that attempt to contend with the rise of Trumpism at home and abroad.

As Arkansas politics becomes more conservative, voters are using the ballot for progressive ends.

On the mournful threads connecting his half-century in politics.

Single-use plastic is clogging oceans and landfills. The plastic industry has waged a decades-long campaign to keep it selling it.

On the danger that the US government's habit of redacting official documents poses to democracy.

His racism and intolerance have always been in evidence; only slowly did he begin to understand how to use them to his advantage.

Introducing a new digital history project focused on the ways Americans voted from 1788 to 1825.

After Republicans lost their first election in 1856, Democrats declared slavery opposition radical and fringe. Then came 1860.

Every four years, political parties document their positions in written platforms. How often do women's issues appear in the text?

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 chilling raw feed of an infamous event. 

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.