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Pro-choice protest outside Supreme Court
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The Reconstruction Amendments Matter When Considering Abortion Rights

The cruelty of enslavers when it came to reproduction and families shaped the 13th and 14th Amendments.

Racist Litter

A review of Eric Foner's The Second Founding.

The Achievements, and Compromises, of Two Reconstruction-era Amendments

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
An 1863 illustration from “Le Monde illustré” of formerly enslaved people celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation.

What If Reconstruction Didn’t End Till 1920?

Historian Manisha Sinha argues that the Second Republic lasted decades longer than most histories state and achieved wider gains.
Thaddeus Stevens

Why America Is Just Now Learning to Love Thaddeus Stevens, the 'Best-Hated Man' in U.S. History

The Pennsylvanian was one of America’s greatest heroes. Why hasn’t he gotten his due?
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
U.S. Capitol building

Searching for the Perfect Republic

On the 14th amendment – and if it might stop Trump.
Former President Donald Trump with his attorneys inside the courtroom during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court on April 4, 2023.

A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan Acts

These 1870s laws to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, now being used against Trump.
Portrait photo of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
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Justice Jackson Offered Democrats a Road Map for Securing Equal Rights

Tying the fight for equal rights to the founders and the Constitution has worked before.
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.
Civil War veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic, Cazenovia, New York, circa 1900.

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.
Picture of the U.S. Supreme Court

Reading the 14th Amendment

A review of three books about Abraham Lincoln, the 14th Amendment, and Reconstruction.
‘This Little Boy would persist in handling Books Above His Capacity—and this was the Disastrous Result’; cartoon of Andrew Johnson by Thomas Nast, 1868

He Was No Moses

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.
Painting of Lincoln and his cabinet by M.S. Carpenter, 1863.

Did the Constitution Pave the Way to Emancipation?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.
Bus station with 'colored waiting room' sign.

Plessy v. Ferguson at 125

One hundred and twenty five years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, there are still lessons to be gleaned from the case.
Two women protesting voter suppression.
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The Lack of Federal Voting Rights Protections Returns Us to the Pre-Civil War Era

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments tried to remove the power of the states to impede key rights.
Recruiting poster for USCT featuring a lithograph of African American soldiers.

In 1868, Black Suffrage Was on the Ballot

At the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue of the election was Black male suffrage.
A man during the Capitol Siege holding a Confederate flag.

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.
Man with a pistol at his hip carries the retired flag of Mississippi with a confederate battle emblem in it, and a Trump 2020 flag.
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Yes, Wednesday’s Attempted Insurrection Is Who We Are

While Wednesday's images shocked us, they fit into our history.

For the First Time, America May Have an Anti-Racist Majority

Not since Reconstruction has there been such an opportunity for the advancement of racial justice.
Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession in Washington, DC, 1913, featuring a woman on a horse heralding votes for women and leading marchers toward the capitol.

The Thorny Road to the 19th Amendment

A new book chronicles the twists and turns of the 75-year-path to securing the vote for women.

Eric Foner’s Story of American Freedom

Eric Foner has helped us better understand the ambiguous consequences of what were almost always only partial victories.

An Unfinished Revolution

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.

The Fourth Battle for the Constitution

The latest struggle to define America's founding charter will define the country for generations to come.

The Anti-Slavery Constitution

From the Framers on, Americans have understood our fundamental law to oppose ownership of persons.
Political cartoon about Reconstruction.

The Buried Promise of the Reconstruction Amendments

The historical context of the amendments passed in the wake of the Civil War, Eric Foner argues, are widely misunderstood.
Voters casting ballots in 2008.
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The United States Isn’t a Democracy — And Was Never Intended to Be

Voting has always been restricted to empower a minority.

The Original Constitution of the United States: Religion, Race, and Gender

The Constitution of 2018 is not the Constitution written by the Framers in 1787, and no one should wish otherwise.

"Though Declared to be American Citizens"

The Colored Convention Movement, black citizenship, and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Citizens to Come: Building Beyond the 14th Amendment

Commemoration of the 14th Amendment must not display the abundance of freedom, but the hunger for it on both sides of the border.

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