Andrew Delbanco

By 1850, with America on the verge of collapse, Congress reached what it hoped was a solution -- the notorious Compromise of 1850, which required that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. Like so many political compromises before and since, it was a deal by which white Americans tried to advance their interests at the expense of black Americans. Yet the Fugitive Slave Act, intended to preserve the Union, in fact set the nation on the path...

Five stories by the nineteenth-century American writer best known for his tales of horror.

In interviews taped in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, host Bill Moyers talks with his guests about loss and grief, strength and hope.