In Pursuit USA

06/16/2026

Gen. Stanley McChrystal writes about Ulysses S. Grant and the harder test that comes after victory. Grant's leadership is usually told through the Civil War, but this essay turns to the years when the battlefield was gone and the stakes were institutional.

McChrystal focuses on the Stanton Crisis of 1868 and what it revealed about Grant's priorities, discipline, and sense of duty when the pressure was to choose loyalty to a president over loyalty to the law.

Read the full essay here:

Loyalty to principle is harder—and more vital—than loyalty to power

06/10/2026

For Presidents Day we are proud to support In Pursuit USA, a new project from More Perfect.

WWPL's very own President & CEO, Robin von Seldeneck, sits on the advisory board of More Perfect, and we are proud to be one of 43 Presidential Centers joining this national initiative to help being together American scholars and public figures to share essential lessons from American Presidents and First Ladies.

This initiative was born from gatherings of Presidential Centers at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon, where it was discussed on ways to make presidential history more accessible and meaningful to people and Americans everywhere.

The result is a collection of essays that are clear, credible, and relevant to civic life today.

https://www.inpursuit.org/

06/10/2026

After 250 years, it's time we ask what have we learned. 🇺🇸

In Pursuit USA, a new project from More Perfect, is answering that question ​by surfacing game-changing lessons through the lens of America's presidents and first ladies.

Led by the country’s most insightful and respected students of history — former presidents, scholars, journalists — they're uncovering and sharing the wisdom of the past 250 years, to inspire us for the years ahead.

New essays are dropping weekly for free on In Pursuit's Substack: InPursuit.Substack.com

06/09/2026

Annette Gordon-Reed writes about Andrew Johnson and the moment he inherited.

With the Civil War ending and slavery destroyed, the country faced a narrow window to rebuild the Union and define what freedom would mean in practice.

Read the full essay:

Institutions are only as strong as the individuals who occupy them

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.