Thomas Jefferson

Many people think of the White House as a symbol of democracy, but it also embodies America’s complicated past.

The origins of our efforts to keep foreign countries out of our elections.

"But he'd have to acknowledge that the soul of his country is southern; the soul of his country is black."

Discussions of admissions to élite colleges are built around the idea that somewhere around the next bend is the right way to do it.

The problem with progressive intellectuals looking to the nation's founders for progressive models.

The idea that democracy and billionaires are incompatible might seem radical to conservatives. But to America’s founders, it seemed like common sense.

“John Marshall...exhibited a subservience to the executive branch that continues to haunt us.”

Some historical sites have struggled to reconcile founding-era exceptionalism with the true story of America’s original sin.

In navigating lives of privation and brutality, enslaved people haggled, often daily, for liberties small and large.

Even America's founding document isn't immune to the powers of polarization.

The War of 1812 holds lessons about the costly error of tariffs — not the threat of Canadians.

How solid is the wall between church and state?

Women have always come to the aid of men in power, but the costs of such actions have not always been immediately apparent.

Islam in America dates to the founding fathers, says Smithsonian’s religion curator Peter Manseau.

On Haiti, Donald Trump sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson.

Why the slope from toppling Confederate monuments to shunning the Founders is so slippery.

Kristine K. Ronan describes her discovery of two Native American statues at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

How memory plays tricks with history.

How profit motives have driven two centuries of American gun laws.

The president's stand on the Confederate hero represents the kind of moral relativism that conservatives usually decry.