John Tyler

In 1841, John Tyler said he was the president. The Constitution said he wasn’t. What happened next?

After the Whig president’s shocking death, his vice president and successor proved to be a Whig by expedience only

And justified the most extreme responses.

At 91, Harrison Ruffin Tyler demonstrates that "long ago" wasn't so long ago.

Born 14 years after the nation's founding, the tenth commander-in-chief still has one living grandson.

Long before President Donald Trump, there was President John Tyler.

As the new administration seeks to fill a vacancy on the Court, a look back at the forgotten mid-19th century battles over the judiciary.

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

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.

Drawn to communities of German socialist expatriates in the area, Marx once considered making his way to Texas.

In a momentous couple of years, the young United States added more than a million square miles of territory, including Texas and California. 

Long before monuments to enslavers were removed, lawmakers decided to relocate a scandalous, half-naked depiction of George Washington in a toga.

How is the first half of the 19th century depicted in and around the nation’s capital? Ed Ayers hits the road to find out.

The NPS is working with Cayuse historians and students to correct a historical lie that shaped the West.

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!

The idea that justices exist outside of politics is a relatively new concept.

History is not kind to those who divide and dither.

"Inevitably, the age of national bootblacks and national oyster houses and national blacksmiths produced national history books."

Our fights over nominees might be bitter, but they’re still less contentious than the 19th century.

The international ambitions of the US slaveholding class and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.