Abraham Lincoln

One of the country’s greatest rhetorical traditions still has the power to remind us of our founding principles.

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.

The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”

Where abolitionists and congressmen—including Lincoln—dined, debated, and became bedfellows.

James Oakes’s deeply researched book argues that two very different readings of the 1787 charter put the United States on a course of all but inevitable conflict.

Remembering the mixed reception is key to understanding the complexities of our history and the persistence of racism today.

During the Civil War, the Lincoln administration demonstrated that a progressive agenda and effective anti-inflationary measures could overlap.

Lincoln's wartime governance had dire, and longstanding, economic consequences.

A new history of spiritualism during the Civil War era suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

“It is a better likeness of Lincoln than anything in plaster, stone, marble, or bronze that I have ever seen."

Seating was segregated, and the ceremony's only Black speaker was forced to drastically revise his speech to avoid spreading "propaganda."

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?

The US Civil War was a revolutionary upheaval that crushed slavery and stoked hopes of a broader emancipation against the rule of property.

Why abolitionist Lydia Maria Child raged at President Lincoln’s political calculations.

A review of three books about Abraham Lincoln, the 14th Amendment, and Reconstruction.

Are the truths in the Declaration of Independence really self-evident?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.

The way we commemorate those who have made the ultimate sacrifice dates to the Civil War.

On the ways that people have conflated freedom with whiteness but pays too little attention to the force of freedom as a concept.

The GOP’s new embrace of Lincoln, emancipation, and Juneteenth is no sign of progress.