Congress (U.S.)

An impetuous and sometimes corrupt Congress has often hamstrung the efforts of the president since the earliest days of the Republic

LBJ passes comprehensive federal insurance for seniors with shrewd politics and a strong dose of compromise

Compromise upon compromise whittled FDR’s dreams down considerably but enabled him to pass his Social Security Act, perhaps the most sweeping social reform of the 20th century

Suppose they could go on "Meet The Press"...

What do you need to build the only national museum dedicated to World War II? The same things we needed to fight the war it commemorates: faith, passion, perseverance—and a huge amount of money.

The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee explains why it has always frustrated Presidents—and why it doesn’t have to

And how it grew, and grew, and grew…

We tend to see the Constitution as permanent and inviolable—but we’re always wild to change it

The naturalist ALDO LEOPOLD not only gave the wilderness idea its most persuasive articulation; he offered a way of thinking that turned the entire history of land use on its head

A scholar searches across two centuries to discover the main engine of our government’s growth—and reaches a controversial conclusion

After every war in the nation’s history, the military has faced not only calls for demobilization but new challenges and new opportunities. It is happening again.

The two-party system, undreamt of by the founders of the Republic, has been one of its basic shaping forces ever since their time

An hour and a half of growing astonishment in the presence of the President of the United States, as recorded by a witness who now publishes a record of it for the first time

How Creek Indian number 1501 repaid a debt

So big was the leak that it might have caused us to lose World War II. So mysterious is the identity of the leaker that we can’t be sure to this day who it was…or at least not entirely sure.

For more than two hundred years, Americans have tried to change the weather by starting fires, setting off explosions, cutting trees, even planning to divert the Gulf Stream. The question now is not how to do it, but whether to do it at all.

A former Department of Defense adviser—one of Robert S. McNamara’s Whiz Kids—explains why we tend to overestimate Russian strength, and why we underestimate what it will cost to defend ourselves

The National Archives, America’s official safe-deposit box, is only fifty years old—but it is already bulging with our treasures and souvenirs

In which a President fails to fulfill his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” And a reluctant Congress acts.

Banking as we’ve known it for centuries is dead, and we don’t really know the consequences of what is taking its place. A historical overview.

… on its 200th anniversary. It took six years and seven tries—by such men as Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams—to come up with the official symbol of the United States. But what in the world does it mean?

A century after passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, many Southern blacks still were denied the vote. In 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr, set out to change that—by marching through the heart of Alabama.

Once again, Americans are learning the delicate art of trading with the biggest market on earth. Here’s how they did it the first time.

The Facts Behind the Current Controversy Over Immigration

The ex-Presidency now carries perquisites and powers that would have amazed all but the last few who have held that office

Had Franklin D. Roosevelt not been so conservative, we might have had national health insurance forty years ago

One hundred years ago, Congress created two agencies—the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Ethnology. Both, according to the author, have since “given direction, form, and stimulation to the science of earth and the science of man, and in so doing have touched millions of lives.”

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, “said Abraham Lincoln, “we could better judge what to do, and haw to do it. “For nearly two hundred years, the United States Census has been trying to find out.