Power

The new administration plans to bring back a committee that has tried over the years to guide policy—with mixed results.

Anne Gorsuch Burford — the mother of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch — cut its budget by a quarter and its workforce by 20 percent.

The debate about the nature of Woodrow Wilson's health is intertwined with questions about his self-righteous character.

Trump's insistence on national solidarity, rejection of globalism, and demand for total patriotism channel Teddy Roosevelt.

One of the very reasons the framers wanted the president to take a salary, was to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

The president deserves the Jackson legacy, but not for the reasons he'd like.

The perils of comparing Trump to twentieth-century dictators.

Abortion was first criminalized in the mid 1900s amidst concerns that too many white women were ending their pregnancies.

And they were shocked by race relations in the South.

The dictator modeled his racial campaign after another conquest of land and people-America's Manifest Destiny.

What America’s last major party crack-up in the 1850s tells us about the 2010s.

How it came to be that Puerto Rico came to have a separate but unequal status under American law.

The precedents for Trump’s hyped-up immigration crackdown.

The story of the Bald Knobbers is a terrifying parable about what happens when government fails and violence reigns.

The 52-year-old federal program's successes reflect a complex legacy

Fighting over immigration is central to the American story.

Stacy Fahrenthold compares Donald Trump's Muslim ban to that of Woodrow Wilson back in 1918.

Concerns are raised when the first lady treats her office like a brand.

'The Future Is Female' was popularized in 2015, but the slogan was created 40 years earlier.

The actions of attorneys general in California and other states have their antecedents in the fight against that draconian law.

Trump inherits a branch of government already well equipped to undermine democracy.

Today's debate over sanctuary cities embodies a much longer debate in America over federalism.

The executive order that forced Japanese-Americans from their homes also put immigrants from Italy under surveillance.

In light of President Trump's temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, we take a look at larger immigration trends.

Andrew Jackson was the first president to carry a big stick: he beat a would-be assassin with a cane.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it's important to remember why America welcomes refugees.

From xenophobia to conspiracy theories, the Know Nothing party launched a nativist movement whose effects are still felt today.

The idea that birth on U.S. soil confers citizenship has remained both foundational and contested.

Twenty-one historians explain which moments in history are closest to the Trump election - and what we can learn.

On the origins of racial exclusion in the society that would become the United States of America.