Critical decisions by the Chief Justice saved the Supreme Court’s independence—and made possible its wide-ranging role today
A thoughtful discussion of the men who contributed the most to what is now the dominant political pattern
The 70-year-old statesman lived the high life in Paris and pulled off a diplomatic miracle
When John Adams was elected President, and Thomas Jefferson Vice President, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.
The DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE is not what Thomas Jefferson thought it was when he wrote it—and that is why we celebrate it
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson stood together in America’s perilous dawn, but politics soon drove them apart. Then in their last years the two old enemies began a remarkable correspondence that is both testimony to the power of friendship and an eloquent summary of the dialogue that went on within the Revolutionary generation—and that continues within our own.
They’ve all had things to say about their fellow Executives. Once in a great while one was even flattering.
A fond, canny, and surprising tour of the town where the Constitution was born
This is not a test. It’s the real thing.
The early years of our republic produced dozens of great leaders. A historian explains how men like Adams and Jefferson were selected for public office, and tells why the machinery that raised them became obsolete.
An Interview With Edward L. Beach
The captain who first took a submarine around the world underwater looks at the U.S. Navy past and present and tells us what we must learn from the Falklands war
What really happened when Thomas Jefferson met George III
Americans first learned to read to save their souls, then to govern themselves. Now the need is not so clear.
A Chapter From Our Past
The Unknown Alexander Hamilton
WHERE DID IT GO?
Vain, snobbish, distinctly upper-class in his libertine social habits, Gouverneur Morris nevertheless saw himself justifiably as "A Representative of America"
“I … sigh in the midst of cheerful company”
The Most Uncommon Pamphlet of the Revolution
A shy Yankee named Hannah Adams never thought of herself as liberated, but she was our first professional female writer.
OR DON’T PUT OFF UNTIL TOMORROW WHAT YOU CAN RAM THROUGH TODAY
Mortally ill as his century dwindled to its close, Washington was helped to his grave by physicians who clung to typical eighteenth-century remedies. But he died as nobly as he had lived
The American system of choosing a President has not worked out badly, far as it may be from the Founding Fathers’ vision of a natural aristocracy
When Pancho Villa sacked an American town, Pershing was ordered to find him and bring him to book. But the orders failed to say where — or how
Long before Lexington, James Otis’ fight for civil liberties gave heart to the rebel cause. But why did he behave so strangely as the Revolution neared? Which side was he on?