Thomas Jefferson

How the vineyards of Bordeaux led to the wall of separation between church and state.

Establishing freedom of religion was a hard-fought success of the American Founding. Today we are still fighting.

The Declaration of Independence condemns King George III. But the British were not to blame for one of the war’s most infamous conflagrations.

A brief history of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Introducing “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life.

From early New England to the present day, censors have acted out of fear, not prudishness.

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.

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.

The origins of the Electoral College are entwined with slavery, but not in the way that recent accounts have suggested.

Americans are seized by conspiracy theories, and as a result, democracy is in peril—so conventional wisdom holds.

High ideals have always gone together with economic self-interest in the history of the United States.

Despite its failures and limitations, the American Revolution unleashed popular aspirations to throw off tyranny of all kinds.

The Founders knew that executive power was vital but dangerous in any republic.

Over the course of U.S. history, presidential rematches have signaled momentous political upheavals.

Remembering an exchange between George Washington and the poet Phillis Wheatley.

On the inseparable histories of matrimony and disunion in the United States.

From Jefferson's viewpoint, Native peoples could claim a title to their homelands, but they did not own that land as private property.

Life as a Signal Corps weatherman was dangerous: besides inclement weather, they faced labor riots, conflicts with Native Americans, yellow fever outbreaks, fires, and more.

The presence of Federalist judges frustrated Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party, bring justice Samuel Chase under fire.

The early republic and the seventh planet.