Power

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is questioning what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on Fiorello La Guardia.

Effective Republican organizing and intraparty divisions among Democrats solidified GOP political dominance until the 1930s.

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

Americans need to reconnect with their innate dislike of arbitrary rule.

Where the rediscovery of Sam Francis goes wrong.

A new Library of America edition of John Quincy Adams’s writings demonstrates the enduring appeal—and real shortcomings—of his revolutionary conservatism.

A little understood part of the New Deal.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.

Once upon a time, there was a federal government department that helped design and distribute tools for living the good life. What happened to that vision?

He set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Strom Thurmond’s 1957 attempt to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the latest populists to weaponise fears of a sinister “deep state.”

As Democrats became the party of proceduralism, they sidestepped a crucial debate.

The 250th anniversary of "the shot heard round the world" is a reminder of the rights the Patriots fought for.

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

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.

Now, and for some years to come, we will need a lot less Paul Weiss, and a lot more Benjamin Warner.

Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term has led critics to describe him as a fascist in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

In the 19th century, debates about contract workers sorted immigrants into "natural" and "unnatural" categories.

All Americans with some education are aware that Manifest Destiny was one of the Bad Things in our past and very few know any more about it than that.

Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.

Executive trade power has gone too far.

From "National Greatness" to "Make America Great Again."

The administration is trying to neuter the redistributive and protective arms of the state, while exploiting its bureaucratic powers to silence, threaten, and deport.

Trampling rights, imposing tariffs, gobbling up others’ territories. Trump is imitating his role models to a T.

DOGE's seizure of government databases is not just an act of bureaucratic reorganization. It is an act of constitutional restructuring.