Congress (U.S.)

The Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2021 is a landmark piece of U.S legislation that officially marked lynching as a federal hate crime. The bill was signed into law by President Biden on March 29, 2022; it's seen as a notable step in recognizing and addressing the history of U.S racial…

Over 3424 lynchings in 33 years (1889-1922) An anti-lynching bill was proposed to the senate that would have made lynching a federal felony and allowed perpetrators to be punished by fines, prison, or both. Ultimately the bill was dismissed by filibuster in the Senate by Southern Democrats. 

The Second Morrill Act of 1890 was a pivotal piece of legislation addressing racial exclusion in higher education, particularly within the Land-grant Universities (LGUs) established under the original Morrill Act of 1862. Before this act, many people of color, especially Black students, were…

On August 14, 1935, the Social Security Act was enacted, creating a system that provided old-age benefits for workers, compensation for workplace accidents, unemployment insurance, and assistance for dependent mothers and children, individuals who are blind, and those with disabilities.
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Amendments 13-15 are called the Reconstruction Amendments both because they were first enacted right after the Civil War and because they addressed questions related to the legal and political status of African Americans. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery unless used as a punishment for a crime…

President Lincoln ended slavery in D.C, 8 1/2 months before he would end slavery nationwide. Former owners who remained loyal to the union were paid for each enslaved freed.

This chart details different senate actions regarding cloture since its inception in the 65th Congress of 1917-1918. The chart is up to date as of February 2025.

This article, published on the U.S. Senate website, describes the book "The American Senate" written by Columbia University professor Lindsay Rogers. In his book, Rogers defended unlimited debate in the U.S. Senate and argued that the Senate provided a crucial check and balance on the…

Due to pressure from Southern politicians, the 1793 fugitive slave act was revisited and reintroduced in 1850 with harsher penalties for helpers who harbored and more imposed laws on the enslaved. A group of bills was proposed to help quiet the rise of southern succession.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required enslaved people who escaped the North to be brought back to their masters if recaptured. it annulled the thirteenth amendment's abolition of slavery and gave local and state laws the authority to do so; in doing so, it also declared it unconstitutional…

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Was it, as Navy Secretary Welles believed, “a conspiracy to overthrow the government”?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> A few dazzling words about that emerging metropolis, delivered in 1871 by Congressman J. Proctor Knott. Edited for 1971 visitors by David G. McCullough</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> The U.S. Post Office, 1775-1974</span> </p>

<p>The filibuster has played a key role in the enactment of federal law since 1789, but is rarely used outside the U.S. Senate.</p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The brilliant Polish engineer who made possible the victory at Saratoga was a fighter for freedom in both America and his homeland</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> A Senator’s View</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> LBJ AND VIETNAM</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">And in doing so, the fate of Congress—will it be weak? will it be strong?—is determined</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> What has befallen “the greatest peacetime achievement of twentieth-century America”s since the New Deal</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Corruption, Yesterday and Today</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> “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.</span> </p>

<p>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.”</p>

<p><span class="deck">Had Franklin D. Roosevelt not been so conservative, we might have had national health insurance forty years ago</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The ex-Presidency now carries perquisites and powers that would have amazed all but the last few who have held that office</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> The Facts Behind the Current Controversy Over Immigration</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> 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</span>. </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> 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.</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> … 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?</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> 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.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> In which a President fails to fulfill his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” And a reluctant Congress acts.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The National Archives, America’s official safe-deposit box, is only fifty years old—but it is already bulging with our treasures and souvenirs</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">For more than 200 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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> 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.</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">How Creek Indian number 1501 repaid a debt</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The two-party system, undreamt of by the founders of the republic, has been one of its basic shaping forces ever since their time.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A scholar searches across two centuries to discover the main engine of our government’s growth, and reaches a controversial conclusion.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">We tend to see the<em> Constitution</em> as permanent and inviolable, but we’re always wild to change it.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">And how it grew, and grew, and grew…</span></p>

<p><span class="body">American self-interest was involved, of course, but the Marshall Plan remains what some have referred to as a rare example of “power used to its best end.”</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee explains why it has always frustrated presidents, and why it doesn’t have to.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">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.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Suppose they could go on "Meet The Press"...</span></p>