In Pursuit USA

06/05/2026

Public service demands loyalty, courage, and resilience—not perfection

06/04/2026

Lois Romano writes about Mary Todd Lincoln and what resilience looked like under constant public scrutiny, personal loss, and political attack.

The essay follows her work during the Civil War, from housing troops in the East Room to visiting hospitals and front lines, while facing accusations of disloyalty, extravagance, and worse.

It also traces the private side of her story, including the deaths of three sons, her husband's assassination, and the long fight for recognition and financial survival that defined her years after the White House.

Read the full essay:

Public service demands loyalty, courage, and resilience—not perfection

06/02/2026

Abraham Lincoln understood, perhaps better than anyone, what it means to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and how personal liberty and self-reliance are at the heart of the American experience.

But Lincoln also understood something else. He recognized that while each of us must do our part, work as hard as we can, and be as responsible as we can — in the end, there are certain things we cannot do on our own. There are certain things we can only do together. There are certain things only a union can do.

That union is not simply a matter of law or accident of geography, but a moral commitment we make to our fellow citizens and to our shared future. That democracies endure not only because of constitutions or armies, but because free people choose, again and again, to bind their fates together. That only by maintaining a sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility — for ourselves and one another — can we do the work that must be done in this country. And that it is precisely when the climb is steepest that we relearn how to take the mountaintop, as one nation and one people.

I shared more in my essay for In Pursuit USA at https://inpursuit.substack.com/p/abraham-lincoln-by-barack-obama

06/02/2026

President Barack Obama writes about Abraham Lincoln and what held the Union together when everything was working to pull it apart.

At the center is Lincoln's argument that individual liberty and the common good aren't opposing forces, and that a democracy survives only when its citizens keep choosing to bind their fates together.

Read the full essay:

There isn’t any dream beyond our reach, any obstacle that can stand in our way, when we recognize that our individual liberty is served, not negated, by pursuit of the common good

05/26/2026

Drew Gilpin Faust ( / / ) writes about James Buchanan as a president defined by experience, caution, and a belief that the country could be held together through careful management. The essay tracks Buchanan’s long resume before office, then his attempts to settle the slavery question through institutions, influence, and compromise, including his behind-the-scenes involvement with the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Read the full essay at the link in bio.

05/21/2026

Diana Carlin writes about Jane Pierce as a first lady shaped by grief, conviction, and a complicated relationship to power. Entering the White House after the death of her last surviving child, Jane withdrew from public life in ways that made her easy to dismiss.

The essay looks closer, following her private moral stance against slavery, her connections to the Kansas struggle, and the moments where she chose to intervene, even while resisting the public role the presidency demanded of her.

Read the full essay at the link in our bio.

05/19/2026

David Blight writes about Franklin Pierce as a president with deep experience who still misread the country he was trying to lead.

The essay traces Pierce’s rise from New Hampshire politics to the Senate and the Mexican War, then into a presidency overtaken by the accelerating fight over slavery. Centering on Kansas-Nebraska and the violence that followed, Pierce’s choices helped unravel the existing party system and harden sectional distrust.

Read the full essay: https://open.substack.com/pub/inpursuit/p/franklin-pierce-by-david-w-blight?r=6mmis5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

05/18/2026

Coming up on Wednesday, June 24: Colleen Shogan, Jack Rakove, and Eric Schickler in conversation at the
in Downtown San Francisco, reflecting on the country’s 250th. Tickets available at the link in bio.

05/12/2026

Steve Israel writes about Millard Fillmore and the political calculation behind the Compromise of 1850. After Zachary Taylor's sudden death, Fillmore inherited the crisis over slavery in the new territories and helped steer the compromise into law.

The essay traces what the package tried to accomplish, why it temporarily lowered the temperature, and how enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act ended up sharpening the divisions it was meant to resolve.

Read the full essay:

Avoiding conflict can precipitate a worse one

05/11/2026

What did Thomas Jefferson believe future Americans could accomplish that his own generation could not?

On the latest episode of In Pursuit, Colleen Shogan speaks with Andrew Davenport of Monticello about Jefferson’s contradictions, his Virginia, and his enduring faith in the generations to come.

Listen now.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thomas-jefferson-futurist/id1885876008?i=1000766163543

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Podcast Episode · In Pursuit with Colleen Shogan · 5 May · 22min