Index/Topics/Civil War

Civil War

The historical period during which many expulsions from Congress occurred, primarily due to support for the Confederacy.

Fact-Checks

25 results
Jan 17, 2026
Most Viewed

Which presidents used the insurrection act

The Insurrection Act has been invoked intermittently since the early republic, with sources counting roughly 30 separate invocations over U.S. history and attributing those uses to somewhere between 1...

Jan 16, 2026
Most Viewed

Can a presidential election take place when the us is at war

Yes — both legally and historically the United States can hold a presidential election while at war: the Constitution fixes election dates, Congress and the states run the process, and U.S. history re...

Jan 7, 2026
Most Viewed

Have there been instances of postponed or cancelled federal elections in US history?

No U.S. president has ever canceled or postponed a presidential election, and federal law and constitutional structure make unilateral deferral by the executive effectively impossible; even during the...

Jan 28, 2026

What were Trump's exact words about the Civil War?

has made several public remarks about the across years; his most direct, repeatedly reported formulations include: “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” and “Why...

Jan 24, 2026

During a war can the US have an election of their presidency

can and has held presidential elections during wartime; historical precedent includes contests during the , the and , and scholars note that U.S. elections during conflict have generally proceeded on ...

Jan 16, 2026

Can a war stop federal elections

A war by itself does not legally permit the cancellation of U.S. federal elections: Congress fixed the presidential election date in statute in 1845 and precedent and experts say no president can unil...

Jan 18, 2026

When has the Insurrection Act been used in U.S. history and what were the outcomes?

The Insurrection Act, a federal statute first enacted in 1807, has been invoked roughly 30 times across U.S. history to authorize deployment of federal troops or federalization of state militias to su...

Jan 19, 2026

What are the grounds for expelling a member of Congress?

Expulsion of a Member of Congress is an extraordinary, constitutionally authorized sanction: Article I, Section 5 gives each chamber the power to "punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with...

Jan 28, 2026

Which presidents invoked the insurrection act.

The has been used sporadically across —beginning in the early republic and reappearing in reconstruction, labor disputes, civil‑rights enforcement and urban unrest—with presidents from through invokin...

Jan 16, 2026

What did the Revenue Act of 1862 tax and how was it structured?

The Revenue Act of 1862 broadened the federal tax base far beyond the short-lived 1861 income provision by levying excise duties on many retail and business items, instituting the nation’s first susta...

Jan 28, 2026

who said "america is the world's last best hope"

coined the phrase in question — writing “we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the ” in his Annual Message to on December 1, 1862 — and the formulation has been quoted and adapted by many later n leade...

Jan 28, 2026

How many presidents invoked the insurrection act

has been used intermittently across history: sources tally roughly 30 invocations over time and attribute those invocations to between 15 and 17 different presidents, depending on how one counts dispu...

Jan 18, 2026

Which presidents are most commonly ranked below Donald Trump by scholars, and why?

Scholars most often place James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding and Franklin Pierce (and in many recent surveys William Henry Harrison and Herbert Hoover) below Donald Trump, though the ex...

Jan 25, 2026

How has the Insurrection Act been invoked historically and what legal challenges has it faced?

The has been a sporadically used but consequential statutory doorway for presidents to deploy federal troops on soil — invoked about 30 times across 230 years and most recently in 1992 during the riot...

Jan 15, 2026

What are the historical precedents for presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act?

The Insurrection Act, enacted in 1807, has been invoked roughly 30 times by about 15 presidents to authorize deployment of federal military forces on U.S. soil in extreme crises; its use ranges from e...

Feb 5, 2026

How often have U.S. Representatives been expelled historically, and what were the reasons?

is exceptionally rare: across history 21 members have been expelled—15 senators and six representatives—under the Constitution’s two‑thirds rule (Article I, §5) . Most expulsions clustered in the era ...

Feb 4, 2026

james buchanan was the worst presidne

is widely judged by scholars to be among the presidents—often the worst—because his administration failed to avert the secession crisis that led to the and because he presided over a fractured party a...

Feb 4, 2026

Which presidents have historians most tied to causing mass human suffering, and how are those assessments made?

Historians most frequently tie -of-us-presidents">mass human suffering to presidents who mismanaged existential crises, upheld or expanded institutions of slavery, or pursued policies that produced la...

Jan 28, 2026

What legal arguments and court decisions govern who must be counted for congressional apportionment under the 14th Amendment?

The ’s apportionment provision requires Representatives to be apportioned “according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State” (with the historical caveat “exclu...

Jan 20, 2026

should blacks havr rights

Yes — unequivocally: Black people should have rights. The arc of U.S. history — from slavery through Jim Crow to the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s — records a sustained struggle to sec...