Thomas Jefferson

How Charlottesville’s memorial landscape can help us understand — and combat — the White House’s violent plans to reshape the nation’s public spaces.

Telling the full story of the town’s past is an easy way to make a lot of people mad.

They might be surprised that the republic exists at all.

Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong executive, while others feared the American president might become a king.

The question of what Jefferson meant by “all men” has defined American law and politics for too long.

Henry’s fiery oratory turned words into revolution, merging faith, emotion, and democracy to help speak a nation into being.

The country is losing neighbourhood orchards—and a connection to its origins.

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.