expansion of slavery — Bunk History

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Upheaval at the 1860 Democratic Convention: What Happened When a Party Split

Some issues are too fundamental for a party to withstand, and the consequences can last for a generation.

via Retro Report on July 28, 2016

Andrew Jackson was A Slaver, Ethnic Cleanser, and Tyrant

Andrew Jackson deserves nothing but contempt from modern America, not a place on our currency.

by Dylan Matthews via Vox on April 20, 2016

A Topic Best Avoided

After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln faced the issue of sorting out a nation divided over the issue of freed slaves. But what were his views on it?

by Nicholas Guyatt via London Review of Books on December 1, 2011

Slave Voyages

This digital memorial raises questions about the largest slave trades in history and offers access to the documentation available to answer them.

via Emory Libraries And Information Technology on December 15, 2008

John Brown

Three Interviews With Old John Brown

Atlantic writer William Phillips conducted three interviews with Brown before Brown's fateful raid on Harper's Ferry.

by William A. Phillips via The Atlantic on November 30, 1879

Painting of Abraham Lincoln

The Election in November

The Atlantic’s editor endorsed Abraham Lincoln for presidency in the 1860 election, correctly predicting it would prove to be “a turning-point in our history.”

by James Russell Lowell via The Atlantic on October 1, 1860

The military escort for the arrival of the Marquis de Lafayette forms at Castle Garden (1844) by F. J. Fritsch.

The Nation’s Guest

The Marquis de Lafayette’s final visit to the United States in 1825 can show us how to commemorate the Revolution.

by Iris de Rode via Law & Liberty on November 25, 2025

Diagram of a cotton gin

How Eli Whitney Single-handedly Started the Civil War . . . and Why That’s Not True

The real Whitney story is less grand than the legend, but more interesting and, ultimately, more edifying.

by Ariel Ron via Commonplace on October 14, 2025

Robert Barnwell Rhett; Richmond burning in April 1865.

Beware Today’s ‘Fire-Eaters’

There are echoes in our political rhetoric of the men who helped talk the United States into civil war.

by Mark Hertling via The Bulwark on September 22, 2025

Charles Sumner

What We Can Learn From the Senator Who Nearly Died for Democracy

The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.

by Zaakir Tameez via Washington Post on June 1, 2025

John C. Calhoun

The Prelude to the Civil War

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

by Hunter DeRensis via The American Conservative on May 5, 2025

Political cartoon of men chopping down the tree of slavery.

The Root and The Branch: Working-Class Reform and Antislavery, 1790–1860

On the robust influence of labor reform and antislavery ideas and movements on each other from the early National period to the Civil War.

by Rosemary Fuerer, Sean Griffin via LaborOnline on April 9, 2025

Political cartoon of politicians fist fighting.

The Culture Question: How Hot-Button Issues Divide Us

Culture wars have a long and divisive history in American politics, with gender, race and religion continuing to inflame public opinion.

via Retro Report on September 20, 2024

“In the White Interest”

Many founders expressed their hope that slavery would be abolished, while simultaneously exerting themselves to defend it.

by Timothy Messer-Kruse via HNN on September 18, 2024

Illustration imagining Karl Marx sitting on a ranch in Texas.

Marx Goes to Texas

Drawn to communities of German socialist expatriates in the area, Marx once considered making his way to Texas.

by Ryan Moore via Protean on August 11, 2024

A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.

by Alec Israeli via Jacobin on May 19, 2024

Black and white image of Abraham Lincoln, with the edges of his face out of focus.

No Slaves, No Masters: What Democracy Meant to Abraham Lincoln

A detailed look on Abraham Lincoln's political philosophy on slavery, ownership, and freedom.

by Allen C. Guelzo via Literary Hub on February 8, 2024

The Era Without a Name

There’s no one place to learn about the early decades of the 19th century. So I set off to see how that history is being remembered in the places where it happened.

by Ed Ayers on January 17, 2024

Two men fighting during Shay's Rebellion.

Fights Over American Democracy Reach Back to the Founding Era

In early America, the soaring ideals behind establishing a new democracy were marked by cycles of progress and backlash.

via Retro Report on January 4, 2024

Borderland Stories

What we remember when we remember the Alamo.

by Ed Ayers on November 13, 2023

Lauren Davila, standing in front of a historical marker for slave auctions, in Charleston, South Carolina.

How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.

The find yields a new understanding of the enormous harm of such a transaction.

by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on June 16, 2023

Samuel Ringgold Ward and Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass Thought This Abolitionist Was a 'Vastly Superior' Orator and Thinker

A new book offers the first full-length biography of newspaper editor, labor leader and minister Samuel Ringgold Ward.

by Richard Blackett via Smithsonian Magazine on March 24, 2023

Kevin McCarthy

What 1856 Teaches Us About the Ramifications of the House Speaker Fight

The battle is worth winning for Kevin McCarthy — and could reshape the Republican Party.

by Corey M. Brooks via Made By History on January 5, 2023

Collage of members of Coles family through history.

Their Wealth Was Built On Slavery. Now a New Fortune Lies Underground.

In Virginia, the land still owned by the Coles family could yield billions in uranium. Does any of that wealth belong to the descendants of the enslaved?

by Julie Zauzmer Weil via Retropolis on December 1, 2022

Black and white photo of Charles Sumner

“A Solemn Battle Between Good and Evil.” Charles Sumner’s Radical, Compelling Message of Abolition

The senator from Massachusetts and the birth of the Republican Party.

by Timothy Shenk via Literary Hub on October 24, 2022

Shadowy photograph of two people standing in front of statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Memorial

In Jon Meacham’s Biography, Lincoln Is a Guiding Light For Our Times

The famous historian makes the claim that the demigods of American historical mythology can help us carve paths through our forbidding 21st-century wilderness.

by John Fabian Witt via Washington Post on October 24, 2022

Timeline of the history of American political parties to 1880, depicting intertwined streams of Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans.

What is Political Realignment?

An annotated collection of resources from the Bunk archive that help explain the shifting sands of American politics.

by Kathryn Ostrofsky on September 8, 2022

Redlined street map of the Baltimore area.

The Mapping of Race in America

Visualizing the legacy of slavery and redlining, 1860 to the present.

by Anika Fenn Gilman, Catherine Discenza, John Hessler via Library of Congress on July 28, 2022

"Under My Wings Every Thing Prospers" by New Orleans artist J. L. Bouqueto de Woiseri, 1803, depicting an eagle flying over a port city and agricultural fields.

Slavery's Revolutions In Louisiana

Comparing the results of two Louisiana slave rebellions 20 years apart and what that meant for the continuation of slavery within the Deep South.

by Patrick Luck via Age of Revolutions on June 27, 2022

Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.

by Daphna Renan, Nikolas Bowie via The Atlantic on June 8, 2022

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