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A House Still Divided

In 1858, Lincoln warned that America could not remain “half slave and half free.” The threat today is as existential as it was before the Civil War.

On Richard Blackett’s "The Captive Quest for Freedom"

Five historians weigh in on a new book about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

The Lessons of a School Shooting – in 1853

How a now-forgotten classroom murder inflamed the national gun argument.

Today’s Eerie Echoes of the Civil War

We may not be in the midst of a war today, but the progress of democracy in this country is still tied to the rights of its most vulnerable citizens.
Original printing of the Articles of Confederation in a glass display case at Williams College in 2007.

‘We Have Not a Government’: The US Before the Constitution

What the political crisis in post-revolutionary America has to teach us about our own time.
Mitch McConnell
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Partisanship is an American Tradition — And Good for Democracy

Bipartisanship is the exception, not the rule.

Violence Against Members of Congress Has a Long, and Ominous, History

In the 1840s and 1850s, it was all too common.

The Lesser Part of Valor

Preston Brooks, Greg Gianforte, and the American tradition of disguising cowardice as bravery.
A political cartoon showing two figures leading donkeys in opposite directions. The donkeys are depicted with the faces of Zachary Taylor and Henry Clay.

Prospects for Partisan Realignment: Lessons from the Demise of the Whigs

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

What Did the Three-Fifths Compromise Actually Do?

It was motivated in part by white Southerners' concerns about taxes, but ended up being all about maintaining their political power.
Black Democrats raise their hands at the Democratic Convention.

23 Maps That Explain How Democrats Went From the Party of Racism to the Party of Obama

The longest-running party in America has seen significant shifts in its ideological and geographic makeup.
Political cartoon of U.S. President Martin Van Buren sitting on a fence as men on each side try to pull him toward them.
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The Spirit of Party and Faction

On factional strife in the Early Republic, and why parties themselves were universally despised.
Illustration of a proslavery mob raiding a post office in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1835.
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How Much Is Too Much?

The dramatic story of the abolitionist mail crisis of 1835.
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.”
A crew of inmate firefighters begins to work on containment during the Hughes Fire in California in 2025.
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The Troubling Slavery-Era Origins of Inmate Firefighting

The history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of relying on involuntary labor to fight blazes.
Church with graveyard.

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War.
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.
John Montgomery’s Notice to George W. Gray, November 26, 1855.

“Acts of Lawless Violence”: The Office of Indian Affairs, and the Coming of the Civil War in Kansas

The question should not be if settler colonialism factored into the history of the Civil War but how and to what extent.
Henry Grady’s Vision of a “New South.”

Civil War Memory, Reconciliation, and Social Media: A Cautionary Tale

The importance of contextualization and critical evaluation in historical analysis.
Gen. James Longstreet.

The Conquered General

The back-and-forth life of Confederate James Longstreet.
Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina.

"If America Doesn't Become America": Outlander and the American Revolution

"Outlander" challenges the myth of American exceptionalism at the root of much U.S. popular culture.
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.
Aerial view of Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary, 19th century.

Untangling the 19th Century Roots of Mass Incarceration

Popular accounts often trace the origins of forced penal labor to the post-Civil War South. But a vast system of forced penal labor existed in the antebellum North.
Final Attack on Arequipa on March 7, 1858. Painting in the Sala Castilla, Museo Nacional de Historia, Lima.

The Many South Carolinas in the Americas

Conflict over centralization, political power, and national identity were not unique occurrences in the Americas during the middle decades of the 19th century.
Kevin McCarthy looking anxious.

Back to the Future? Battling Over the Speakership on the House Floor

The history of speakership contests underscores the corner Kevin McCarthy is painted into and the corner any Republican House leader is likely to face.
Unionists in East Tennessee Swear Loyalty to the Union Flag in 1862.

Remembering Southern Unionists

Confederate monuments helped to erase the history of those white and black southerners who remained loyal and were willing to give their lives to save the United States.
James K. Polk.

The President Who Did It All in One Term — and What Biden Could Learn From Him

James K. Polk is considered one of the most successful presidents, even though he did not seek reelection.
Rioter holds Confederate flag outside the Senate chamber after breaching the US Capitol on January 6, 2001.
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The Secessionist Roots of the Jan. 6 Insurrection

Southern secessionists in 1860 had similar arguments to those of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
Illustration of W.E.B DuBois

W.E.B. Du Bois’s Abolition Democracy

The enduring legacy and capacious vision of Black Reconstruction.
Political cartoon calling the caning of Sumner "Southern chivalry."
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History’s Lessons for the Jan. 6 Committee

This isn’t the first time a House committee has investigated political violence in the Capitol.

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