Anne C. Bailey, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Former enslaved persons never got ‘forty acres and a mule,’ and their descendants have been denied reparations for the legacy of slavery. Will Joe Biden be the president to change that?
The 9-member Chase Court in 1867, dominated by Northern Republicans.
Alexander Gardner/The U.S. Supreme Court
In the 1860’s, the Supreme Court was a ‘partisan creature’ and President Lincoln and the Republican Party remade it so that it reflected the party’s priorities.
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.
African Americans voting in New Orleans in 1867.
19th century illustration via New York Public Library Digital Collection via Wikimedia Commons
The radical potential of the 14th amendment has been underestimated.
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presided over the Senate during President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial.
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper/Wikimedia Commons
Paul Harvey, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Falsehoods about Andrew Johnson have become a staple of Republican arguments opposing the impeachment of Trump.
The Capitol on the morning after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution to affirm the impeachment investigation.
AP/J. Scott Applewhite
The House of Representatives voted Thursday on a resolution that laid out a process for the inquiry into the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But was the resolution constitutionally necessary?
President Donald Trump simulates a law enforcement officer holding a gun at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Convention in Chicago. If Trump’s support continues to fade, more senators will break from him because their voters demand it.
(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
If the U.S. Senate agrees to hear the articles of impeachment for Trump, it is not because of the U.S. founders’ commitment to democracy, but rather in spite of their elitist design.
If he’s kicked out, could he come back?
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
A little-known provision of the Constitution might allow Trump to be reelected president in 2020 even if he is removed from office through the impeachment process.
What will a divided Congress do over the next two years?
Shutterstock
The new Congress is divided into a GOP Senate and Democratic House. History provides a glimpse of what this could mean: Democrats hold the power to investigate, if not to legislate.
‘Farewell, to all my greatness’ — President Andrew Johnson’s departure from office was lampooned by Harper’s Weekly.
Library of Congress