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‘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.
by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on December 16, 2021

The Unreconstructed Radical

Thaddeus Stevens was a fierce opponent of the “odious” compromises in the Constitution, and of the North’s compromises after the Civil War.
by Richard Kreitner via The Baffler on May 13, 2021
Thaddeus Stevens

The Radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on March 1, 2021

The Making of the Radical Republicans

How did the struggle for emancipation become a mass politics?
by Eric Foner via The Nation on May 5, 2020
Watercolor of Abraham Lincoln with soldiers in swirls of red across his face.

Abraham Lincoln’s Radical Moderation

What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t.
by Andrew Ferguson via The Atlantic on February 15, 2020
Illustration of Lincoln consulting with military figures in a tent.

Did Lincoln Really Matter?

What the Civil War tells us about who has the power to shape history.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 10, 2020
Cracked glass plate portrait of Andrew Johnson.

The Disastrous Pardons of a President

After the Civil War, Andrew Johnson issued the biggest act of presidential clemency in our history. It angered his party and led to his eventual impeachment.
by Jeff Nilsson via The Saturday Evening Post on December 23, 2024
A portrait of Ignatius Donnelly.

The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly

The politician presents a riddle for historians. He was a beloved populist but also a crackpot conspiracist. Were his politics tainted by his strange beliefs?
by Andrew Katzenstein via The Nation on December 12, 2024
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.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on June 11, 2024
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?
by Tracy Schorn via Smithsonian on November 30, 2023
Picture of Frederick Douglass overlaid on a poster advertising a speech of his.

The Annotated Frederick Douglass

In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of "The Atlantic."
by Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
A multi-colored print of James Garfield and his family in their library

A President of Many Talents

James Garfield is known primarily for being assassinated. But his life reveals the character of nineteenth-century America.
by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on August 24, 2023
A John Birch Society billboard in Stratton, Colorado, calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, December 1962.

The Fringe Group That Broke the GOP’s Brain — And Helped It Win Elections

The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP.
by Matthew Dallek, Ian Ward via Vox on March 19, 2023
Neon cowboy on I-80 at Nevada’s border with Utah.

The Senate's Anti-Democratic Nature Is Even More Toxic Than I’d Realized

Whole states of the Union owe their very existence to nothing more nation-building than 19th-Century pols’ wanting to add new senators to one side of the aisle.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on January 19, 2023
Donald Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Failure of Reconstruction Is to Blame for the Weakness of American Democracy

A new book argues that the American right emerged out of a backlash to multiracial democracy following the Civil War.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on December 8, 2022
A hand demonstrates a push lever system in voting booth, and students wait in line to vote in a mock election held at Morgan State University in Baltimore

The Forgotten First Voting Rights Act

How the defeat of the 1890 Lodge bill presaged today’s age of ballot-driven backlash.
by Ed Burmila via The Forum on October 17, 2022
Portrait photo of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
partner

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.
by Evan Turiano via Made By History on October 10, 2022
The American flag depicted upside down, in a beige color scheme.

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
by Anthony Conwright via The Forum on August 17, 2022
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.
by Richard Kreitner via The Nation on October 6, 2021
A cartoon by Thomas Nast, depicting Johnson as a king and the race riots that occurred at a Radical Republican convention in New Orleans.

‘The Failed Promise’ Review: The Mad King and the Lost Cause

Frederick Douglass and Republican legislators had high hopes for Andrew Johnson—but ended up impeaching him.
by Randall Fuller via The Wall Street Journal on August 20, 2021
Man is being carried by a lot of people while sitting on a chair

What Made Gilded Age Politics So Acrimonious?

Fearful of increasing participation, elites of the era attempted to rein in democracy.
by Chris Lehmann via The New Republic on June 21, 2021
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.
by Jordan Grant via Smithsonian on February 19, 2021

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.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on September 8, 2020

Racist Litter

A review of Eric Foner's The Second Founding.
by Randall Kennedy via London Review of Books on July 30, 2020

Trump's not Richard Nixon. He's Andrew Johnson.

Betrayal. Paranoia. Cowardice. We've been here before.
by Tim Murphy via Mother Jones on December 20, 2019

An Unfinished Revolution

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.
by James Oakes via New York Review of Books on November 21, 2019

Making Impeachment Matter

Democrats need to face up to their constitutional duty without fear.
by Alex Pareene via The New Republic on November 21, 2019
Four Ku Klux Klan members wearing robes and hoods.

The Ku Klux Klan and America’s First "Fake News" Crisis

When the white-supremacist group terrorized the South during Reconstruction, many people denied that it even existed.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on October 30, 2018

The Fight Over Andrew Johnson's Impeachment Was a Fight for the Future of the United States

The biggest show in Washington 150 years ago was the trial against the President of the United States.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via Smithsonian on January 1, 2018

Oscar Dunn And The New Orleans Monument That Never Happened

New Orleans at 300 returns with a story about a monument that was supposed to be erected in the late 1800s, but never happened.
by Laine Kaplan-Levenson via New Orleans Public Radio on May 25, 2017
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