This thematic biography demonstrates how Stephen Douglas's path from a conflicted youth in Vermont to dim prospects in New York to overnight stardom in Illinois

It didn't take long for freshman Congressman Stephen A. Douglas to see the truth of Senator Thomas Hart Benton's warning: slavery attached itself to every measu

As the sectional crisis gripped the United States, the rancor increasingly spread to the halls of Congress. Preston Brooks's frenzied assault on Charles Sumner

"This book is about citizenship, or membership in a political community, and Lincoln's evolving understanding of who belonged and who didn't belong in that comm