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A Constitutional crisis erupted when President Lincoln authorized the Army to arrest suspicious persons without due process after Maryland rebels tried to cut off Washington.
Editor’s Note: Joseph Connor is a Contributing Editor for American Heritage, member of the Supreme Court bar, and former prosecutor at the Morris County (NJ) Prosecutor's Office.
Sixty years ago, Jack Ruby shot Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. What was his motive? The Warren Commission lawyer who investigated Ruby reveals the killer’s state of mind.
Her owner planned to take her from California to slave-holding Texas, so Biddy Mason went to court. After a dangerous drama, she won her freedom.
Born a
Our first president spoke about abolishing slavery, but couldn’t manage without the unpaid labor of hundreds of people at Mount Vernon.
Editor's Note: David O.
The enduring legacy of the Civil Rights Movement lies not in soundbites from its most charismatic leaders, but in the impact it had on the lives of ordinary people.
Editor's Note: Thomas C. Holt is the James Westfall Thompson Professor of American and African American History at the University of Chicago and a preeminent scholar of black heritage and descendants of the African diaspora in America.
Distinguished historians have written extensively on the misconduct in presidential administrations since George Washington.
In 1974, a team of other historians and I assisted the impeachment investigation of Richard Nixon by documenting the “misdeeds” in each Presidential administration.
Chief Justice Roger Taney made his contribution to the ideology of white supremacy when he asserted that blacks were a people apart, beyond the promise of the Declaration and the guarantees of the Constitution.
Editor's Note: H. W. Brands is a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
In five appointments to the Supreme Court, Eisenhower added conservatives, moderates, and a liberal, believing the president and courts should represent all the American people.
Editor's Note: Susan Eisenhower, a consultant and expert on international policy and security, has recently published
In five appointments to the Supreme Court, Eisenhower added conservatives, moderates, and a liberal, believing the president and courts should represent all the American people.
Editor's Note: Susan Eisenhower, a consultant and expert on international policy and security, has recently published
Her philosophy was embodied in the words engraved over the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law"
The thousands of Japanese-Americans interned in Wyoming during World War II maintained their dignity and community spirit.
Editor's Note: Tom Brokaw was the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years.
The ex-slave and investigative journalist spent a lifetime fighting against lynching and segregation — but also for voting rights for African-American women.
Editor's Note: Susan Ware is a historian, general editor of the American National Biography, and editor of the biographical dictionary, Notable American Women.
At the end of the War for Independence, Philadelphia nationalists, together with disgruntled officers in the Continental Army at Newburgh, began a plot to challenge congress' authority. But can we really call it a conspiracy?
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution, by David Head (Pegasus Books).
Jim McCloskey and a handful of other advocates do the tough work of helping the wrongfully convicted.
Editor’s Note: Since writing his first novel, A Time t
In the largest protest of the Depression, World War I veterans converged on Washington, DC seeking justice. They were met with tanks, bayonets, and tear gas.
Editor’s Note: We asked historian Paul Dickson to give us some perspective on the recent demonstrations in the nation’s capital.
Not given credit for their work and paid half a man's salary, women writers won a landmark suit against discrimination at the magazines of Time, Inc., but their success has been largely overlooked.
In 1967, Time Inc. was the biggest magazine publisher in the world, and highly profitable. Its founder, Henry Luce, was still alive.
The architect of American race relations in the 20th century, he ended legal segregation in the United States and became the first African-American on the Supreme Court.
Editor's Note: Juan Williams is a journalist and political analyst for Fox News and writes for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and other publications.
In many ways, the Constitution as we know it results from their landmark decisions.
A half-century ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren retired from the Supreme Court, marking the end of the Warren Court in 1969. In many ways, the Constitution as we know it today is the result of judgments handed down in the 16 years after President Eisenhower appointed Warren to be Chief Justice.
In many ways, the Constitution as we know it results from their landmark decisions.
A half-century ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren retired from the Supreme Court, marking the end of the Warren Court in 1969. In many ways, the Constitution as we know it today is the result of judgments handed down in the 16 years after President Eisenhower appointed Warren to be Chief Justice.
Our greatest Chief Justice defined the Constitution and ensured that the rule of law prevailed at a time of presidential overreach and bitter political factionalism.
Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith was the first in Congress to stand up to the bullying of Joe McCarthy.
The first ten amendments prevent majorities from exercising power at the expense of individuals. But they weren’t called a “bill of rights” until more than a century after ratification.
On December 15, 1941, America was at war. Just one week earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned the nation that “our people, our territories, and our interests are in grave danger” after the “unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan” on Pearl Harbor.
The 1807 prosecution of Aaron Burr for treason was a highly flawed and failed endeavor.
In late March of 1807, Aaron Burr arrived in Richmond, Virginia, in a vile mood, filthy, and stinking. He had just endured a month of hard travel under heavy guard through the dense forests of the Southeast.
After assassinating President Garfield, a lunatic gunman mounted an insanity defense, which the jury--and the nation--rejected, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.
One warm summer night in 1881, a scrawny, nervous man sat in his boarding house a few blocks from the White House. Outside his window, gaslights flickered and horses clopped over cobblestones, but Charles Guiteau barely noticed.
A lively dialogue over the economics of slavery played out in newspapers and magazines on the eve of the Civil War.
150 years ago on a “frigid and repulsive” January day in New York, 30-year-old William G. Sewell departed on a steamer for Barbados, the first stop on a tour of the Caribbean island colonies of the British West Indies.
Critical decisions by the chief justice saved the Supreme Court’s independence — and made possible its wide-ranging role today.
On March 6, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the case of Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford.
Was he the Beast of Bataan, or was his true war crime defeating Douglas MacArthur in Manila and on Corregidor? Here is a troubling look at the problems of military "justice."
The strange story behind the most-cited Supreme Court case in American history, the Miranda decision
The strange story behind the most-cited Supreme Court case in American history, the Miranda decision