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Robert McNamara.

The War Hawk Who Wasn’t

Newly discovered documents reveal Robert McNamara’s private doubts about Vietnam.
"Home in the Woods," an 1847 painting by Thomas Cole.

A Republican Excursion

As a new book on their travels together shows, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's friendship went beyond politics.
Presidents and various military personnel / armory photoshopped over each other

The Long Descent to Unilateralism

The twentieth century saw America discard representative government when it comes to war.
Illustration of John Dickinson with flowers in the barrel of his musket.

The Prudent Patriot

There’s a lot more to Founding Father John Dickinson than not signing the Declaration of Independence.
Constitutional convention painting blurred as if being spun in circles.

Remake America

If we want democracy to survive, we need a vision that’s going to be more compelling than the one the authoritarians are offering.
Cartographic depiction of the Union armies Anaconda plan shows a snake wrapping around the American South.

The President's Awesome War Powers

Where they come from, how they've evolved, and how they could change.
Engraving of Founding Fathers reading the Declaration of Independence while onlookers rally.

Does America Have a Founding Philosophy?

It depends on how you read the Declaration’s “self-evident” truths.
US National Guard troops block off Beale Street as Civil Rights marchers wearing placards reading, "I AM A MAN"

The Classical Liberal Foundation of Civil Rights

The progress we have seen toward civil rights for all Americans is inseparable from the history of classical liberalism.
A hand holds a US flag and a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court building in a crowd celebrating the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
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How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, their home state refused to recognize same-sex marriages.
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
Woodrow Wilson and a panel of red stars.

Surviving Bad Presidents

What the Constitution asks of us.
A group of men in a bar watching Oliver North testify before Congress.
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How the Iran-Contra Scandal Impacts American Politics Today

The Iran-Contra affair exposed how government officials can ignore democratic norms and practices.
Donald Trump and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Presidents Sought a Third (and Fourth) Term

Winning more than two elections was unthinkable. Then came FDR.
Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.
A monument of the Minutemen line in Concord, Massachusetts.
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The Dangerous Afterlives of Lexington and Concord

How a myth about farmers taking on the British has fueled more than two centuries of exclusionary nationalism.
Grave of John Quincy Adams.

From Son of the Revolution to Old Man Eloquent

A new Library of America edition of John Quincy Adams’s writings demonstrates the enduring appeal—and real shortcomings—of his revolutionary conservatism.
A mustache and a monocle with the preamble to the Constitution in its sights.

The Other Fear of the Founders

America’s early leaders were worried not only about demagogues like Donald Trump, but about the rise of an antidemocratic, wealthy elite that goads such men on.
A crib drawn with Stars and Stripes symbolism.

Birthright Citizenship Is a Sacred Guarantee

The attack on it is a violation of the nation’s post–Civil War rebirth.
The Battle for the Mind (Tim LaHaye, 1980); from Creationism to Christian Nationalism

The Battle for the Mind (Tim LaHaye, 1980); from Creationism to Christian Nationalism

Tim LaHaye bridged Reagan-era anti-Communism to today’s Christian Nationalism, opposing humanism, evolution, and secularism, emphasizing biblical morality.
Richard Nixon surrounded by thumbs up emojis.

Hero of 2024: A Half-Century Later, Richard Nixon Was Finally Vindicated

Nixon was quietly vindicated by the Supreme Court in its Trump v. United States. A half-century later, the Supreme Court made clear that he was right all along.

The Sentimentalizing of Federalist Ten

Ideas about history still prevailing in the liberal resistance to Trump keep pushing us backward.
Elon Musk reacts on stage during a rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden.

America’s Decline & Fall

The founders anticipated someone like Trump partly because they’d been reading Edward Gibbon’s 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'
John Locke

Review of "America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life"

We see what we want to see from philosophers such as Locke not because he wrote for our time (or “all time”) but because we imagine he did.
President Woodrow Wilson riding as a passenger in a two seater car with his chauffeur, George Howard.

States’ Rights or Inalienable Rights?

Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.

How Woodrow Wilson’s Privileged Southern Upbringing Influenced His Love Life

In Wilson’s chivalric framework, women were required to be submissive precisely so that men could protect the weaker sex.
Supreme Court building.

Lifetime Tenure for Supreme Court Justices Has Outlived Its Usefulness

While letting justices serve during “good behavior” was designed to encourage impartiality, it now tends to promote the opposite effect.
LBJ and his cabinet in Washington, DC (1963).

Two Forms of American Liberalism

Although the American tradition is broadly liberal, it is best understood as divided between two schools: classical and managerial liberalism.
A duel.
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Mud-Slinging and Deadly Duels: How Negative Campaigning Evolved

The factionalized press was the site of campaigning in the U.S.'s first contested presidential elections.
Photo of Supreme Court Justices posing in gowns.

The Origin of Specious

Originalism is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political.
Chief Justice John Roberts attending the State of the Union.

J. Roberts et al. v. A. Lincoln

As the Supreme Court invents a law to negate all others, Chief Justice John Roberts now ranks just below Roger Taney.

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