Abraham Lincoln

In 1874, Democrats picked up an astounding 94 seats in the 293-seat House.

A review of David Blight's new biography of Frederick Douglass.

I was raised to venerate Lee the principled patriot—but I want no association with Lee the defender of slavery.

Predictions of society coming undone reflect deep anxieties over the divisions roiling the country, but these professed fears about our future actually provide hope.

The way to address politicization in the courts is not de-politicization but counter-politicization.

When it comes to partisan Supreme Court nominations, history repeats itself.

What happens when the Patent Office doesn't recognize the inventor as a person at all?

Whether it ran smoothly or ground to a halt, the mail offered daily reminders that the hand of war touched every aspect of life.

Before Stowe's famous novel, a formerly enslaved African-American living in Canada wrote a memoir detailing his experience.

What began as an effort to define and punish trading with the enemy has transformed into economic warfare.

The problems of presidential gigantism can’t be solved by finding the right giant—the office is dying from its own growth.

The lesser-known beginning of the desegregation of public transportation.

We have the Swedes and William Henry Harrison to thank for the popularization of the log cabin.

The America that emerged out of the Civil War was meant to be a radically more equal place. What went wrong?

While a far cry from full emancipation, it was an important step towards the abolition of slavery.

Warnings against "normalizing" outrageous political acts misstate the problem. It’s never the immediate present that gets normalized — it’s the not-so-distant past.

A new museum exhibit in Philadelphia showcases the first public health record of African Americans.

The Times, as a “venomous Abolition Journal” could not be trusted to provide the truth for a white, slave-owning southerner.

Longtime tenant in the 165-year-old St. Denis building in New York City reflects on the building's history.

Dred Scott was an opportunity to settle what the South had previously been unable to achieve either legislatively or judicially.