American History

A book review of Yuval Levin’s American Covenant.

Haynes argues that there is no principled reason to deny people their natural rights on the basis of race, and that as such, slavery must be abolished.

In this editorial from the first issue of The Liberator, Garrison pledges himself to radical abolitionism.

James Forten published these letters as part of a campaign against a bill which would have had severe negative consequences for the rights of free blacks in Pennsylvania.

On top of the failure of his economic agenda, FDR had a dismal record on civil liberties, privacy, and free speech.

Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the defense industry and military’s influence on politics and of government control of research at universities.

In his Farewell Address to the nation, George Washington laid out his advice about the path America should take—today, to the nation’s detriment, none of it is heeded.

Woodrow Wilson was a terrible president who took his failure global.

Andrew Jackson conflated his own will with the will of the people, and ran roughshod over the Constitution’s constraints on his power in pursuit of goals that were often contemptible.

A writer and scholar, Zora Neale Hurston celebrated black culture and defied the left-​right binary.

Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in Texas—last Confederate bastion of the Civil War—and the way black Americans both fought for and then celebrated their freedom.

Even in the small space of just thirty days, William Henry Harrison still managed to do everything wrong.

Writing under the pseudonym Cato, Trenchard and Gordon argue against the Constitution, warning that it will lead to a new corruptible aristocracy.

Boaz highlights how history shapes our view of the present and stresses the necessity of looking back to the Founding Fathers to learn what makes America great.

Frederick Douglass argues that slavery “destroys the central principle of human responsibility” and violates the Constitution in three short essays.