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Thaddeus Stevens
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Thaddeus Stevens and the Power of the Purse

The Radical Republican oversaw federal spending at the dawn of Reconstruction. How did his support for Black equality affect his leadership in the House?

How Medicare Both Salved and Scarred American Health Care

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

How Medicare Was Made

The passage of Medicare and Medicaid, nearly fifty years ago, was no less contentious than recent debates about Obamacare.
Shipping container labeled "China Shipping," overlaid on political cartoon showing a tariff slowing supply of medicine to a drip.

Trump Loves The 1890s But He’s Clueless About Them

The tariffs he keeps babbling about didn’t make that decade great. They helped usher in a depression.
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
Thaddeus Stevens

Why America Is Just Now Learning to Love Thaddeus Stevens, the 'Best-Hated Man' in U.S. History

The Pennsylvanian was one of America’s greatest heroes. Why hasn’t he gotten his due?
A group of white veteran students in 1945, beneficiaries of the GI Bill.

The Blindness of Colorblindness

Revisiting "When Affirmative Action Was White," nearly two decades on.

The Unreconstructed Radical

Thaddeus Stevens was a fierce opponent of the “odious” compromises in the Constitution, and of the North’s compromises after the Civil War.
A map of the eastern US, with a line from Washington DC to St. Louis.

The Ill-Fated Idea to Move the Nation's Capital to St. Louis

In the years after the Civil War, some wanted a new seat of government that would be closer to the geographic center of a growing nation.
Photograph of U.S. President Joe Biden (center, kneeling) posing with a young boy holding a guitar, in a crowd of people outside an Irish pub.

St Patrick's Day: Why So Many US Presidents Like to Say ‘I’m Irish’

Joe Biden is just the latest in a long line of US presidents to trace their ancestry back to the Emerald Isle.
Thaddeus Stevens

The Radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights.
Annabel Battistella photographed at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

Fanne Foxe, ‘Argentine Firecracker’ at Center of D.C. Sex Scandal, Dies at 84

She ran from the car of a powerful congressman and dove into the Tidal Basin in 1974, generating a splash that would ripple into a political cause celebre.

The 40-Year War

William Barr’s long struggle against congressional oversight.
Coretta Scott King.

Why Coretta Scott King Fought for a Job Guarantee

She saw economic precarity as not just a side effect of racial subjugation, but as central to its functioning.

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