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Elizabeth R. Varon

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What Civil War History Says About Attempts to Use the Insurrection Clause to Keep Trump From Office

Debates about handling Confederates reveal that the 14th Amendment bars unrepentant insurrectionists from office.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on November 15, 2023
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The Secessionist Roots of the Jan. 6 Insurrection

Southern secessionists in 1860 had similar arguments to those of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on June 15, 2022
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Trump’s 2020 Playbook Is Coming Straight from Southern Enslavers

Racism — not reformers demanding redress — is the source of American strife.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on September 9, 2020
The Statue That Never Was

How a monument that championed black sacrifice in the name of emancipation was forgotten.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via Nau Center For Civil War History on July 6, 2020
UVA and the History of Race: The Lost Cause Through Judge Duke’s Eyes

A profile of UVA graduate R.T.W. Duke Jr., who presided over the 1924 dedication of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville.

by Elizabeth R. Varon via UVA Today on September 4, 2019
On Richard Blackett’s "The Captive Quest for Freedom"

Five historians weigh in on a new book about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

by Martha S. Jones, Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, Elizabeth R. Varon, H. Robert Baker, Hannah-Rose Murray, Simon Newman via Historians Against Slavery on August 2, 2018

Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South

Elizabeth R. Varon

Viewing 1–8 of 8

Mirror images of General James Longstreet.

How a Die-Hard Confederate General Became a Civil Rights–Supporting Republican

James Longstreet became an apostate for supporting black civil rights during Reconstruction.

by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on January 5, 2024

Gen. James Longstreet.

The Conquered General

The back-and-forth life of Confederate James Longstreet.

by Richard Kreitner via Slate on November 20, 2023

A drawing of James Longstreet, zoomed in on his eyes.

The Confederate General Whom All the Other Confederates Hated

James Longstreet became a champion of Reconstruction. Why?

by Eric Foner via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023

The Class Politics of the Civil War

By naming a common enemy the Union Army was able to build and then steer a coalition of Americans toward the systematic destruction of slavery.

by James Oakes via The Nation on July 15, 2019

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

Statue of Stonewall Jackson, on its side in slings and propped up by tires, in front of its graffiti-covered pedestal.

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

by James Oakes via Catalyst on December 17, 2021

The History Department Bracket Is Here and It Has Tenure

There isn’t much turnover with these selections.

by Russ Oates via SBNation.com on March 13, 2018

Henry Clay's body in his death bed, surrounded by mourners.

All That Remains of Henry Clay

Political funerals and the tour of Henry Clay's corpse.

by Sarah J. Purcell via Commonplace on April 2, 2012

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