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March 1, 2021

RECAP: “Misleading Myths of the Missouri Crisis,” Colloquium w/ Rothermere American Institute Senior Fellow Donald Ratcliffe

Some key stories in the national narrative have become so familiar, RAI Senior Fellow Donald Ratcliffe argued in introducing his February 26 colloquium at the Kinder Institute, that our telling of them reflects not historical knowledge but gaps therein, not understanding but a perversion thereof. The Missouri Compromise is a prime example of this phenomenon, […]

February 22, 2021

RECAP: “The Missouri Compromise, Black Americans, and the Question of State Citizenship in the Antebellum United States,” Colloquium w/ Northwestern Prof. Kate Masur

In May of 1848, John Jones, a Chicago tailor, real estate owner, and vocal advocate for racial justice, sent a letter to New Hampshire Senator and congressional anti-slavery up-and-comer John Hale inquiring about the odds that his state suit petitioning for full rights as a citizen of Illinois might reach the Supreme Court. While the […]

February 8, 2021

RECAP: “‘A terror to others’: Thomas Jefferson’s Quiet Campaign against the Slave Trade,” colloquium w/ Andrew J. B. Fagal (TJ Papers) and Craig Hollander (College of NJ)

For a figure as studied as Thomas Jefferson, relatively little ink has been spilled on his time in the executive office. We get the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis & Clark expedition in our textbooks, Jefferson Papers Associate Editor Andrew J. B. Fagal noted, and if we’re lucky, The Embargo Act. Similarly, as understandably central […]