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1846 proposal for design of Washington Monument
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Mall Rats

The early controversy over whether or not to build the Washington Monument on the National Mall.
Fisher Ames, Founding Father and arch-foe of democracy.

Died on the 4th of July

Fisher Ames’s philosophy can be summed up as follows: the “power of the people, if uncontroverted, is licentious and mobbish.”

The Manly Sport of American Politics

19th-century Americans abandoned the English phrasing of "standing" for election and begin to describe candidates who "run" for office. The race was on.
The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.
Martin Galvin, of Noraid, standing in front of a crowd of protesting supporters, holding a copy of "The Irish People" newspaper with the headline "Martin Galvin safe after building capture."

There’s a Hidden History of US Support for Irish Republicans

The solidarity group Noraid raised millions of dollars to support the Irish republican movement during the Troubles.
Painting of Ancient Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1757.
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All the World’s America’s Stage — Even Ancient Rome

Gladiator and Gladiator II have little to do with the Roman past. But they have a great deal to do with the American present.
A mob burning effigies at the Stamp Act Riots.

Illiberal Liberations

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal’s book can guide us through turbulent conversations about revolution, social change, and the founding of America.
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, beneath a red GOP elephant logo.
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How Conservatives Changed the Whole Point of American Political Parties

The rise of the right remade the GOP—and fundamentally changed how parties operated in American politics.
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.
U.S. presidential seal

Founding-Era History Doesn’t Support Trump’s Immunity Claim

Historians Rosemarie Zagarri and Holly Brewer explain the anti-monarchical origins of the Constitution and the presidency.
Painting of the Mexican railway

On the Shared Histories of Reconstruction in the Americas

In the 19th century, civil wars tore apart the US, Mexico and Argentina. Then came democracy’s fight against reaction.
A John Birch Society billboard in Stratton, Colorado, calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, December 1962.

The Fringe Group That Broke the GOP’s Brain — And Helped It Win Elections

The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP.
Illustration of Martin Luther holding an American flag.

America’s Mythology of Martin Luther

Luther is part myth, mascot, and mantle, symbolizing the hopes and sanctifying the heroes of American evangelicalism.
Image of theater proscenium with '1776' on the stage.ng

The '1776' Project

The Broadway revival of the musical means less to reanimate the nation’s founding than to talk back to it.
Map of U.S. towns with Greco-Roman names.

America's Early Love Affair With Antiquity Still Shows on This Map

There are nearly 100 towns named "Troy."
A political cartoon lampooning the “robber baron” monopolists’ exploitation of laborers, 1883

When Americans Liked Taxes

The idea of liberty has often seemed to mean freedom from government and its spending. But there is an alternate history, one just as foundational and defining.
A political cartoon featuring Uncle Sam holding a magnet.

America's Unending Struggle Between Oligarchy and Democracy

A new book charts the long contest between elites and the forces of democracy seeking to dismantle their power.

Is Freedom White?

In our current politics we must be attentive to how talk of American freedom has long been connected to the presumed right of whites to dominate everyone else.
Wanto Co. grocery store with a sign that reads "I Am An American"

Discovering Judith Shklar’s Skeptical Liberalism of Fear

Judith Shklar fled Nazis and Stalinism before discovering in African-American history the dilemma of modern liberalism.
George Washington's false teeth

Were George Washington's Teeth Taken from Enslaved People?

How the dental history of the nation’s first president is interwoven with slavery and privilege.

Jefferson’s Doomed Educational Experiment

The University of Virginia was supposed to transform a slave-owning generation, but it failed.
Nancy Pelosi
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What We Get Wrong About Ben Franklin’s ‘A Republic, If You Can Keep It’

Erasing the women of the founding era makes it harder to see women as leaders today.

The Electoral College Was Terrible From the Start

It’s doubtful even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in “Federalist No. 68.”

How the United States Reinvented Empire

Americans tend to see their country as a nation-state, not an imperial power.

Where Does Truth Fit into Democracy?

In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?

'The Fatal Deadfall of Abolition'

Threatening the newly-freed Southern slaves.

Hawks vs. Doves — Which Side Would the Founding Fathers Have Taken?

Expansionism, and sending the military into others' lands, is a critical component of American republicanism, and a factor in independence itself.
A woman waving to a man who is joining passing soldiers. From the sheet music for "The Soldier's Farewell to His Bride," 1864.
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The Woman’s War

Gender dynamics on the home front, and the ways in which the Civil War is distinct from other American conflicts.
John Harvard statue by Daniel Chester French.

Reading Puritans and the Bard

Without the bawdy world of Falstaff and Prince Hal and of Shakespeare’s jesters, there would have been nothing for those dissenting Puritans to dissent from.
A map of the United States divided into regions.

A Balkanized Federation

Without a shared civic narrative – the pursuit of liberal democratic self-government – the rival regional cultures of the United States agree on very little.

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