Charles Sumner

On the terror that filled the void left by the retreat of federal authority in the South.

In the mid-19th century, a pro-slavery minority used violence to stifle a growing anti-slavery majority, spurring their opposition to respond in kind.

Two centuries of New England intellectual history through the lives and ideas of people who are memorialized there.

Caribbean islands as U.S. territories within an American empire has since the start sparked fierce debates.

Addressing systemic racism and state violence is not enough.

The proliferation of antebellum print is analogous to our own tectonic shifts in how people communicate and what they communicate about.

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

How the self-proclaimed "First Widow" used her celebrity to influence public opinion.

The United States has a terrible habit of letting white supremacy get away with repeated attempts to murder American democracy.

How Henry Wadsworth Longfellow interpreted Reconstruction by translating Dante.

Yale's John Fabian Witt pens a review of Samuel Moyn's new book, Humane.

The pre-Civil War North was a landscape not of unremitting white supremacy but of persistent struggles over racial justice by both Blacks and whites.

The tales of the three fallen senators, as well as some other notable beefs in history.

To preserve Black history, a 19th-century archivist filled hundreds of scrapbooks with newspaper clippings and other materials.

During the 1860 presidential election, political parties dueled over the intent of the framers.

The selection of African American Sen. Hiram Revels in 1870 offered great hope — but it was soon dashed.

The Bleeding Kansas parallels with our current moment get weirder and darker.

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long.

Kennedy defined courage as a willingness to take an unpopular stand in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause?