Power

On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.

This isn’t the first effort by a president’s appointee to streamline government.

Espionage has always been with us, but its rapid growth over the past century may have undermined trust in government.

“Only two states wanted a civil war—Massachusetts and South Carolina.”

There was no “unitary executive” until some dudes made the idea up to save Nixon.

Winning more than two elections was unthinkable. Then came FDR.

Rather than resisting authoritarianism, the courts have enabled Trump’s rise.

Edward Wilmot Blyden sorted through competing ideas about the meaning of freedom in 19th-Century Liberia.

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is questioning what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on Fiorello La Guardia.

Effective Republican organizing and intraparty divisions among Democrats solidified GOP political dominance until the 1930s.

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

Americans need to reconnect with their innate dislike of arbitrary rule.

Where the rediscovery of Sam Francis goes wrong.

A new Library of America edition of John Quincy Adams’s writings demonstrates the enduring appeal—and real shortcomings—of his revolutionary conservatism.

A little understood part of the New Deal.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.

Once upon a time, there was a federal government department that helped design and distribute tools for living the good life. What happened to that vision?

He set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Strom Thurmond’s 1957 attempt to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the latest populists to weaponise fears of a sinister “deep state.”

As Democrats became the party of proceduralism, they sidestepped a crucial debate.

The 250th anniversary of "the shot heard round the world" is a reminder of the rights the Patriots fought for.

In 1841, John Tyler said he was the president. The Constitution said he wasn’t. What happened next?

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.

Now, and for some years to come, we will need a lot less Paul Weiss, and a lot more Benjamin Warner.

Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term has led critics to describe him as a fascist in the mold of Adolf Hitler.