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.
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Articles on John Adams
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Americans have long nurtured mixed feelings about age and aged leaders. Yet during the country’s founding, a young America admired venerable old sages.
The vice president has said he looks forward to meeting the framers of the Constitution in heaven. That is not the mindset of someone with short-term vision.
The Founding Fathers were unrelenting in their commitment to the idea that circumstances can arise that require public officials to take actions abridging individual freedoms.
Democracies degenerate because of cunning leaders. Democracies also crumble because of the people themselves – and the US founders believed education would be crucial to maintaining democracy.
A president’s persona is always a public act. In that way, Trump’s shtick – vulgar man of the people – was not exceptional. And every president has had to invent his version of the role.
As Donald Trump prepares to address the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, here’s how other former presidents have occupied their time after leaving the White House.
‘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.
The vice president may be second in line for the most powerful job in the nation, but there isn’t necessarily a lot to do besides wait – unless the president wants another adviser.
For much of American history, the only December holiday to be recognized in the White House was Christmas, but menorah lightings are now an annual tradition.
‘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.
Think American democracy is ending? You’re not alone, writes a historian. American leaders have often yielded to despair – as far back as the founding of the republic.
The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget. They intentionally left it out.
Throughout the course of American history, peaceful transitions of power have been the result of choices made by individuals, not the U.S. political system. What does that mean if Trump loses in 2020?
To one scholar of the post-truth era, tuning in to Robert Mueller’s testimony Wednesday was to hear a duel over the facts. Not what the facts imply – but what the facts are.
Amid all the Mueller report uncertainty, one thing is clear: Donald Trump did some wildly improper things to win the presidency. So did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, JFK and George W. Bush.
An economist explores data on injuries, which states ban fireworks and other interesting stats on what President John Adams referred to as ‘illuminations.’
Every American shoots off almost a pound of fireworks a year, on average, and their growing personal use is causing injuries to climb.
The rule of law can take on different meanings depending whom you ask and where you are – but in the US it pretty much means one thing.
Distrust of the irreligious has been commonplace in the American political discourse from the founding.
Top contributors
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Professor of American History, Università di Torino
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Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston University
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Chair, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy, UMass Amherst
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Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
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Professor of Political Science, UMass Lowell
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Lucken Endowed Professor of Political Science, Iowa State University
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Research Fellow, Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University
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University College Fellow in Early American History, University of Toronto
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University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
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Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster College
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Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin
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Emeritus Professor of History, University of Toronto
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Senior Fellow, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist University
