Adams decided that losing an election, even one for the presidency, means what it says. Students of...
United States History
Explore the peoples and forces that shaped the United States, beginning with Indigenous societies and continuing through colonization, revolution, territorial expansion, slavery, industrialization, war, reform, and ongoing struggles over democracy and equality.
George Washington convinced Congress to support a sweeping expansion of postal routes with greater scope and reliability....
The young republic might have ceased to exist and may have become a mere footnote in the...
The American Revolution established the general outlines of the future Ordnance Department. By Karl RubisOrdnance Branch HistorianUnited...
Mysteries in general are very exciting as they have a way of letting our minds wander and...
In 1800, postal officials began using selected post offices as distribution centers. 1808 Overview When we reflect...
The Postal Service Act, signed by President George Washington on February 20, 1792, established the Post Office...
Lincoln was that rare bird, a man who dealt in moral ideas without falling into moralism and...
Seeing Lincoln’s nationalism from an unlikely, and fresh, perspective: its connection, via the Enlightenment, to classical antiquity....
America has certainly had a lot of experience in difficulties in the change of governments in the...
The contemporary Second Amendment debate is founded on serious misunderstandings. Introduction The Second Amendment is one of...
This was a widely held imperialist belief in the 19th-century that American settlers were destined to expand...
The early colonists of America considered the militia an important social institution, necessary to provide defense and...
One goal Hayes didn’t accomplish as president – invigorating black education – he worked for as an...
Grant was accused with packing the court, the same charge later leveled against FDR in 1937. Introduction...
Rivalries over its political symbolism, and damage from the War of 1812, nearly destroyed the city. As...
Federalism was a political solution for the problems with the Articles of Confederation giving little authority to...
As the Union grew during the two centuries after the founding, state constitutions increasingly included enumerations of...
The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American emergence of voter-based political...
Habeas corpus can constitutionally be suspended – the question is by whom, Congress or the President? By...
Spirituals were created out of the experience of enslaved people in the U.S. They were songs of...
Washington arriving in Boston on July 2, 1775, to take command of the Continental Army. / Courtesy...
For well over two hundred years, Thomas Jefferson and his admirers have had to choose between two...
The Constitution did not give the President power to issue a proclamation or legislate, but Washington set...
The citizen soldiers may have started the Revolution, but it was the French that finished it—something that...
The admiration of these two former presidents has risen to the level of a posthumous apotheosis in...
The Apotheosis of Washington by Constantino Brumidi, 1865 / United States Capitol rotunda, Wikimedia Commons The Apotheosis of Washington depicts George...
Exploring the role of Magna Carta in the politics and popular culture of modern America. From The Simpsons...
The Magna Carta (originally known as the Charter of Liberties) of 1215, written in iron gall ink on parchment...
‘Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor’ by William Halsall (1882). Pilgrim Hall Museum The Pilgrims repeatedly thanked God for their good fortune. But...