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"Temple of Liberty" immigration policy cartoon

How the Federal Government Came to Control Immigration Policy and Why It Matters

The newly empowered federal state created during Reconstruction could restrict immigration much more comprehensively than any state—as Chinese laborers soon discovered.
by Kevin Kenny via Muster on April 2, 2024
Spectators and witnesses at the trial for a case involving an automobile accident, Oxford, North Carolina, 1939.

A ‘Wary Faith’ in the Courts

A groundbreaking new book demonstrates that even during the days of slavery, African Americans knew a lot more about legal principles than has been imagined.
by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on March 14, 2024
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?
by Tracy Schorn via Smithsonian on November 30, 2023
U.S. Capitol building

Searching for the Perfect Republic

On the 14th amendment – and if it might stop Trump.
by Eric Foner, Ted Widmer via The Guardian on November 15, 2023
Former U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 6, 2022 in Dallas.
partner

What Civil War History Says About Attempts to Use the Insurrection Clause to Keep Trump From Office

Debates about handling Confederates reveal that the 14th Amendment bars unrepentant insurrectionists from office.
by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on November 15, 2023
Collage of Black woman and marriage certificate.

Why Is America Afraid of Black History?

No one should fear a history that asks a country to live up to its highest ideals.
by Lonnie G. Bunch III via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
School house with Black children playing around it.

How Reconstruction Created American Public Education

Freedpeople and their advocates persuaded the nation to embrace schooling for all.
by Adam Harris via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
The Fisk Jubilee Singers.

How the Negro Spiritual Changed American Popular Music—And America Itself

In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
A collage in which a photograph of Blanche Ames Ames is superimposed on a photograph of John F. Kennedy.

How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause

And the grandmother who wouldn’t let him get away with it.
by Jordan Virtue via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Recently freed African Americans receive rations.

The Origins of the Socialist Slur

Reconstruction-era opponents of racial equality popularized the charge that protecting civil rights would amount to the end of capitalism.
by Heather Cox Richardson via The Atlantic on September 26, 2023
Group portrait of the first African-American legislators in Congress, 1872.

Reclaiming the American Story

To Heather Cox Richardson, the battle for our history is the battle for our democracy. And we may be nearing the endgame.
by Peniel E. Joseph via Democracy Journal on September 18, 2023
A multi-colored print of James Garfield and his family in their library

A President of Many Talents

James Garfield is known primarily for being assassinated. But his life reveals the character of nineteenth-century America.
by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on August 24, 2023
Cover of "Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance To Federal Power"

The Little Man’s Big Friends

A new book seeks to explain why many Americans, especially but not exclusively in the South, have understood freedom as an entitlement for white people.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on May 24, 2023
The Freedmen’s Bureau drawn by A.R. Waud, 1868.

Social Welfare and the Politics of Race in the Post-Civil War South

The politicized rhetoric linking race and welfare has a long, ingrained history.
by Ryan W. Keating via Black Perspectives on May 24, 2023
Framed photograph of an African-American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters, circa 1863–1865.

Means-Testing Is the Foe of Freedom

After Emancipation, Black people fought for public benefits like pensions that would make their newly won citizenship meaningful.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on April 17, 2023
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Grappling With the Overthrow of Reconstruction

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 23, 2023
Hands holding pregnant woman's stomach.

Black Women and the Racialization of Infanticide

Loss of control over knowledge of the female body cemented women’s status as second-class citizens.
by Rebekka Michaelsen via Black Perspectives on March 2, 2023
Emblem an eye looking down on a winged globe above an ancient Egyptian landscape and the word "try".

The Emancipatory Visions of a Sex Magician: Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Occult Politics

How dreams of other worlds, above and below our own, reflect the unfulfilled promises of Emancipation.
by Lara Langer Cohen via The Public Domain Review on February 8, 2023
Painting of ships in Boston Harbor.

Pressured to Leave

Black refugees’ journey from Virginia to Boston after the Civil War.
by Jacqueline Jones via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 11, 2023
Donald Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Failure of Reconstruction Is to Blame for the Weakness of American Democracy

A new book argues that the American right emerged out of a backlash to multiracial democracy following the Civil War.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on December 8, 2022
George Wallace pointing to map of United States with "Wallace Country" written on it.

How the Right Turned “Freedom” Into a Dog Whistle

A new book traces the long history of cloaking racism in the language of resistance to an overbearing federal government.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on December 8, 2022
Engraving of freed slaves arriving at Union lines, New Bern, North Carolina, 1863.

The Emancipators’ Vision

Was abolition intended as a perpetuation of slavery by other means?
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on December 1, 2022
Eric Foner sits in an arm chair on stage during an interview, holding a microphone.

“Originalism Is Intellectually Indefensible”

On the persistent myth of the colorblind Constitution that the Supreme Court's conservatives have embraced.
by Eric Foner, Cristian Farias via Balls And Strikes on October 28, 2022
photo of C. Vann Woodward, c/o William R. Ferris, Van Every Smith Galleries

What Is There To Celebrate?

A review of "C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian."
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on October 20, 2022
Map of Beaufort, South Carolina during the time of Rose Goethe's life.

“They Cleaned Me Out Entirely”

An enslaved woman’s experience with General Sherman’s army.
by Bridget Laramie Kelly via The Metropole on October 4, 2022
A group of the newly emancipated working with the US army, 1862.

The Promise of Freedom

A new history of the Civil War and Reconstruction examines the ways in which Black Americans formed networks of self-reliance in their pursuit of emancipation.
by Elias Rodriques via The Nation on October 3, 2022
Black-and-white photograph of black students sitting in a classroom at the Tuskegee Institute.

The Complicity of the Textbooks

A new book traces how the writing of American history, from Reconstruction on, has falsified and illuminated our racial past.
by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on September 5, 2022
A vintage public school textbook on the history of Virginia.
partner

The Virginia History its State Board Doesn’t Want Students to Know

Our racial history is complex and important, but debates today are eliding entire chapters of it.
by Kevin M. Levin via Made By History on August 25, 2022
The American flag depicted upside down, in a beige color scheme.

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
by Anthony Conwright via The Forum on August 17, 2022
Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

Democratic Spirit: Ulysses S. Grant at 200

The foremost challenge of Grant’s day has not gone away. His response to it merits our attention.
by Andrew F. Lang via Current (religion and democracy) on July 19, 2022
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