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Charles Sumner

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Black and white photo of Charles Sumner

“A Solemn Battle Between Good and Evil.” Charles Sumner’s Radical, Compelling Message of Abolition

The senator from Massachusetts and the birth of the Republican Party.
Lithograph of African Americans in prayer as Liberty lays a wreath on Charles Sumner’s casket. By Matt Morgan, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1874.

Reconciliation Process

When Charles Sumner died in 1874, a bill he had sponsored two years earlier threatened to overshadow his legacy.
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"It Has Not Been My Habit to Yield"

Charles Sumner and the fight for equal naturalization rights.

Raising Cane

The violence on Capitol Hill that foreshadowed a bloody war.
Political cartoon of Franklin Roosevelt pulling the Democratic Party donkey with Uncle Sam, Congress, and Republicans behind them.

Pitching the Big Tent

The secret, often missing ingredient to building a majoritarian progressive coalition.
Then–Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Mitchell, S.D.

What Does It Take to Win?

A new history of American politics examines the past and future of political realignments.
Political cartoon calling the caning of Sumner "Southern chivalry."
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History’s Lessons for the Jan. 6 Committee

This isn’t the first time a House committee has investigated political violence in the Capitol.
An illustration of the caning of Charles Sumner.

The Caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate: White Supremacist Violence in Pen and Pixels

Absent social media, the artists of the past shaped public knowledge of historical events through illustrations.
Person walks with Confederate flag in the U.S. Capitol

The Whole Story in a Single Photo

An image from the Capitol captures the distance between who we purport to be and who we have actually been.

Today’s Eerie Echoes of the Civil War

We may not be in the midst of a war today, but the progress of democracy in this country is still tied to the rights of its most vulnerable citizens.

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

In the 1840s and 1850s, it was all too common.

The Lesser Part of Valor

Preston Brooks, Greg Gianforte, and the American tradition of disguising cowardice as bravery.
Map of the transatlantic cable.

The New World Order

The 1850s were a turning point for globalization, from telegraphs to colonization.
Caesar's profile is eerily set against the Great Seal of the United States.

US President or American Caesar?

American democracy has been haunted by the spectre of a Caesar-type figure since the birth of the republic. Have such fears ever been justified?
Book cover of "The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920."

Expanding the Boundaries of Reconstruction: Abolitionist Democracy from 1865-1919

Sinha enlarges the temporal boundaries students are accustomed to by covering the end of the 19th century into the Progressive era with the 19th Amendment.
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.
Image of Preston Brooks pummeling Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856 and a Trump supporter on January 6th, 2021.

The Illiberalism at America’s Core

A new history argues that illiberalism is not a backlash but a central feature from the founding to today.
Abraham Lincoln campaigning with the Wide Awakes.

The Club of Cape-Wearing Activists Who Helped Elect Lincoln—and Spark the Civil War

The untold story of the Wide Awakes, the young Americans who took up the torch for their antislavery cause and stirred the nation.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The Wild History of “Lesser of Two Evils” Voting

For as long as Americans have been subjected to lousy candidates, they’ve been told to suck it up and vote for one of them.
Two men fighting during Shay's Rebellion.
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Fights Over American Democracy Reach Back to the Founding Era

In early America, the soaring ideals behind establishing a new democracy were marked by cycles of progress and backlash.