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Lincoln: The Great Uncompromiser

He fought to remake the center—not yield to it.
by Matthew Karp via The Nation on October 25, 2017
Violence during the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.

America's Deadly Divide - and Why it Has Returned

Civil War historian David Blight reflects on America’s Disunion – then and now.
by David W. Blight via The Guardian on August 20, 2017
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What Jared Kushner Could Learn from a Man He’s Probably Never Heard of

Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson are not the only similarities between the two administrations.
by Bruce W. Dearstyne via HNN on August 13, 2017
Mitch McConnell
partner

Partisanship is an American Tradition — And Good for Democracy

Bipartisanship is the exception, not the rule.
by Aaron Astor via Made By History on July 12, 2017
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A Party in Secret Passes an Overwhelmingly Unpopular Law. We’ve Been Here Before.

It ended in disaster.
by Michael Todd Landis via HNN on July 9, 2017
Police officer with automatic rifle guards the US Capitol building.

Violence Against Members of Congress Has a Long, and Ominous, History

In the 1840s and 1850s, it was all too common.
by Joanne B. Freeman via Washington Post on June 15, 2017

The Lesser Part of Valor

Preston Brooks, Greg Gianforte, and the American tradition of disguising cowardice as bravery.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on May 26, 2017
Walden Pond through the trees.

Darwin's Early Adopters

A new book argues that Darwin failed to capture the American imagination because of the untimely death of Henry David Thoreau.
by John Hay via Public Books on April 5, 2017

It’s Time for Historians of Slavery to Listen to Economists

Economic analyses of the antebellum era upend the notion that Southern whites were united in their support of slavery.
by Keri Leigh Merritt via Historians Against Slavery on March 17, 2017

When Slaveholders Ran America

Before the Civil War, many Southern leaders hoped to expand slavery even beyond the nation's borders.
by Abrahim Sundiata via Public Books on March 1, 2017

Who Freed the Slaves?

For some time now, the answer has not been the abolitionists.
by Stephanie McCurry via The Nation on September 13, 2016
Map of the transatlantic cable.

The New World Order

The 1850s were a turning point for globalization, from telegraphs to colonization.
by Matthew Karp via Boston Review on September 2, 2016

Andrew Jackson Adopted an Indian Son

Was bringing home an Indian boy-after slaughtering his family-an act of compassion or of political expedience?
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on April 29, 2016
Confederate soldiers stand among the ruins of houses.

The Slave-State Origins of Modern Gun Rights

The idea of an unfettered right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor.
by Saul Cornell, Eric M. Ruben via The Atlantic on September 30, 2015

Anglo-Americans

While Louisiana began as a French colony and its culture remained Creole, its Anglo-American population formed a large minority in the late colonial period.
by Lo Faber via 64 Parishes on December 11, 2012
Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1859 Lesson for Some 2028 Democrat

There are parallels between the John Brown raid and the murder of Charlie Kirk. But only one man seized the moment to start changing the course of history.
by Sidney Blumenthal via The New Republic on October 20, 2025
George Washington and his mother, Mary Ball Washington, attending a ball celebrating the surrender at Yorktown in 1781

The Reinvention of George Washington’s Mother, From Virtuous to Greedy to Striving for Independence

A new biography examines how 19th-century Americans remembered Mary Ball Washington, who raised the future president on her own after her husband’s death.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham, Kate Haulman via Smithsonian Magazine on September 11, 2025
A row of California National Guardsmen stand atop a top step in riot gear.

Trump’s Deportation Frenzy Echoes the Fugitive Slave Hunts of the 1850s

Trump's crackdown on immigrants bears alarming parallels to the fugitive slave obsessions of the pre-Civil War South.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on June 11, 2025
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2025
A ticket to the 1854 Anti-Slavery Bazaar for 1854-1855.

Women’s Work: The Anti-Slavery Fairs of the 1800s

Women abolitionists held annual Christmas bazaars to raise money for the cause; these fairs sold everything from needlework to books to Parisian dresses.
by Tanya L. Roth via The Saturday Evening Post on December 3, 2024
John Andrew Jackson riding a galloping horse and tipping his hat.
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How Do We Tell a Tale of People Who Sought to Disappear?

The life of John Andrew Jackson — and the vacillating richness and scarcity of the archive.
by Susanna Ashton via HNN on August 13, 2024
Protestors and counter-protestors face off holding flags and posters.

Two Americas?

Heather Cox Richardson argues that there are two Americas: one interested in equality, the other in hierarchy. But it's not that simple.
by Nicholas Misukanis via Commonweal on August 6, 2024
National Bureau of Economic Research logo.

Her Property Transactions: White Women and the Frequency of Female Ownership in the Antebellum Era

White women were especially likely to be owners involved in transactions with enslaved women, where they were listed as owners in nearly 40% of transactions.
by Benton Wishart, Trevor D. Logan via National Bureau Of Economic Research on May 31, 2024
A black and white drawing of Julia Ann Chinn.

Tenuous Privileges, Tenuous Power

Amrita Myers paints freedom as a process in which Black women used the tools available to them to secure rights and privileges within a slave society.
by Keisha N. Blain, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers via Public Books on March 19, 2024
Map of routes of the Underground Railroad, 1850-1865

Marronage & Police Abolition

Marronage as a placemaking practice, pointing to histories that shape and inspire abolitionist struggles.
by Elijah Levine, Celeste Winston via Edge Effects on March 14, 2024
Butter churn by a kitchen fireplace.

Mexican Freedom, American Slavery

Mexico's resistance to the institution of slavery made it a land ripe for African American immigration in the 1800s.
by María Esther Hammack via Black Perspectives on February 12, 2024
A computer-drawn image of George Moses Horton.

Stand Up and Spout

Cecil Brown wants to digitally revive the enslaved antebellum poet George Moses Horton. Can digital technology help reconnect us to the tradition he embodied?
by Matt Sandler via The Baffler on January 8, 2024
Gun on the cover of Kellie Carter Jackson's book "Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence."

Words to Weapons: A History of the Abolition Movement from Persuasion to Force

With "Force and Freedom," Carter Jackson makes a stimulating and insightful debut which will have a major influence on abolition movement scholarship.
by William Morgan Sr. via Commonplace on December 18, 2023
Black and white photograph of a man. The main has his hair styled to point upwards, and a tattoo of the word Mississippi on his back.

Where Does the South Begin?

A new history cuts against stereotypes, to show a region constantly changing—and whose future is up for grabs.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on June 26, 2023
“Words Have Power” exhibit displayed at Fort Pulaski National Monument.

Why I Haven’t Embraced the Terms “Forced Labor Camp” and “Enslaved Labor Camp” in My Work on Slavery

“Forced labor” conflates different forms of labor throughout history and minimizes the uniquely brutal conditions of chattel slavery.
by Nick Sacco via Exploring the Past on June 2, 2023
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