Matthew Karp

Popular resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law and “Slave Power” helped forge a new electoral force.

There are uncanny parallels between the elections of 2024 and 1856, with one big exception: in 1856, it was the political left that was on the offensive.

George Eliot refused to stereotype the rural working class. Her outlook would serve us well today.

The GOP’s new embrace of Lincoln, emancipation, and Juneteenth is no sign of progress.

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.

Mass inequality in the Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.

As Lincoln recognized, it's not enough to question the decisions, justices, or even the structure of the Court. We need to challenge the foundation of its power.

The overthrow of slavery in the US was a battle waged and won in the field of democratic mass politics; a battle that holds enormous lessons for radicals today.

Never-before-transcribed articles from Frederick Douglass’ Paper denounce capitalism and economic inequality.

After Republicans lost their first election in 1856, Democrats declared slavery opposition radical and fringe. Then came 1860.

How the Vermont senator went from a third-party independent to a 2020 frontrunner.

He fought to remake the center—not yield to it.

The international ambitions of the US slaveholding class and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.

The 1850s were a turning point for globalization, from telegraphs to colonization.