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Articles on Thomas Jefferson

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French citizens celebrate Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the country’s 2017 presidential elections. Lorie Shaull/Flickr

Debate: Why France needs the Fifth Republic

Opposition forces in France are using the president’s unpopularity to push for a new constitution. It’s a dangerous game.
Former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally on July 29 in Erie, Pa., a few days before he was indicted on charges he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

America is on the brink of another civil war, this one fuelled by Donald Trump

American history can partly explain why some Americans have come to believe only Donald Trump has their interests at heart, and will vote for him — and fight for him — despite his indictments.
Former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence appear together in November 2020. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Mike Pence is jockeying against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination – joining the ranks of just one vice president who, in 1800, also ran against a former boss

Pence’s announcement that he will run for president brings to mind how rare it is for a vice president to compete against a former running mate.
‘Our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years,’ an old Thomas Jefferson, right, wrote to an even older John Adams, left. Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

80 is different in 2023 than in 1776 – but even back then, a grizzled Franklin led alongside a young Hamilton

Americans have long nurtured mixed feelings about age and aged leaders. Yet during the country’s founding, a young America admired venerable old sages.
A statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, sits in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Historians consistently have given Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, their highest rating because of his leadership during the Civil War. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Presidential greatness is rarely fixed in stone – changing attitudes on racial injustice and leadership qualities lead to dramatic shifts

Historians change their views of presidents over time, often because of the country’s changing views on race and moral leadership.
Abortion-rights protesters shout slogans after tying green flags to the fence of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 9, 2022. AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe

Religious liberty has a long and messy history – and there is a reason Americans feel strongly about it

Historians of American religious history explain why the Supreme Court’s recent religious liberty rulings are an example of America’s long struggle to define religious freedom.
Two political conservatives, Greg Jacob, former counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, and Michael Luttig, a retired judge who was an adviser to Pence, testified to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack . AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Jan. 6 committee hearings show what went right, not just what went wrong

Coverage of the House Jan. 6 hearings focuses on what went wrong that led up to Trump supporters’ laying siege to the US Capitol. A government scholar looks at what went right, both then and now.
Reconstructed slave cabins at James Madison’s Montpelier in Virginia. Stephen P. Hanna

Modern-day struggle at James Madison’s plantation Montpelier to include the descendants’ voices of the enslaved

Once owned by James Madison, the Montpelier plantation remains a model for presenting a full depiction of the life of the former president as well as the lives of those he enslaved.
Protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting a whiskey tax during George Washington’s presidency. Archive Photos/Getty Images

Political rage: America survived a decade of anger in the 18th century – but can it now?

Like today, passions were strong and political discourse was inflamed in late 18th-century America. Angry mobs torched buildings. Virginians drank a toast to George Washington’s speedy death.
A painting depicting Francis Scott Key aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant viewing Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on Sept. 14, 1814. Ed Vebell/Getty Images

Francis Scott Key: One of the anti-slavery movement’s great villains

Few people embody the contradictions of U.S. history like the author of the Star Spangled Banner, someone who denounced slavery as a moral wrong but rejected racial equality.

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