Confederate paper money was a promise to exchange the bill for gold or silver, but only after the Confederacy won the war.
Abolitionist John Brown, left, and President Abraham Lincoln, right, were both moral crusaders.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images & Stock Montage/Getty Images
President Lincoln was a statesman. John Brown was a radical. That’s the traditional view of how each one fought slavery, but it fails to capture the full measure of their devotion.
Armed demonstrators attend a rally in front of the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to protest the governor’s stay-at-home order on May 14, 2020.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Everyone’s saying it: ‘Democracy is fragile’ in the United States. But a political science scholar says that has always been the case.
Pro-Trump supporters, including Infowars host Alex Jones, hold a ‘Stop The Steal’ protest Wednesday in Atlanta as Georgia’s recount nears the end.
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Much as the South rejected President Lincoln’s election with a massive armed uprising, could President Trump’s many supporters rise up and overthrow a Biden-led government?
Republican nominee Gov. Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Tim Kaine stand after the vice-presidential debate in Farmville, Va., Oct. 4, 2016.
Joe Raedle/Pool via AP
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
President-elect Joe Biden speaks on Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
On Nov. 7, when President-elect Joe Biden urged in his address that we “give each other a chance,” his words summoned Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address of 1865.
This combination of Sept. 29, 2020, file photos show President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The U.S. presidential election is again serving as a symptom and a symbol of a troubled society. Whatever the outcome, history suggests anything but a quick resolution to deeply rooted problems.
Bernard Tobey, a double amputee, and his son, wearing Union sailor uniforms, standing beside a small wagon displaying Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s dispatch on the fall of Fort Fisher.
Fetter's New Photograph Gallery/Library of Congress
Lessons from history make clear that the federal government can spur medical innovation in a crisis, including this pandemic. Providing certainty and clarity is critical.
Donald Trump won over the majority of white voters in 2016 and a similar strategy could lead to his victory in this year’s election.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The history of the United States suggests that, despite what the polls are saying, Donald Trump could be re-elected this November. His appeal to white voters and business owners are a major advantage.
Soldiers and African American workers standing near caskets and dead bodies covered with cloths during Grant’s Overland Campaign.
Matthew Brady/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Lincoln’s chances of reelection in 1864 were dim. He was presiding over a bloody civil war, and the public was losing confidence in him. But he steadfastly rejected pleas to postpone the election.
A Czech-born goaltender for a Canadian hockey team wears a jersey recalling the 1864 burning of Atlanta, Georgia.
AP Photo/Mark Zaleski
Despite his defense of slavery, the former vice president and US senator from South Carolina has been honored with statues and streets, schools and counties. That’s finally changing.
Lorne sugar plantation in Mackay, 1874.
State Library Queensland
When fighting a lethal foe on home soil, Lincoln expertly managed leading politicians; related well with the people; and dealt clearly with the military.
The USS Cairo pulls up to the banks of the Mississippi River in 1862.
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command
Many historians and other scholars say what Americans have traditionally learned about the complex period that followed the Civil War falls short of what we should know.