In a recent Kansas City Star op-ed, From Bloody Kansas to today, we recall history nostalgically, not honestly, Chicago Council of Lawyers Board Member Robert E. Lehrer examines what some of the most divided periods in American history can teach us about the nation today.

Drawing a line from the Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska Act through Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, Lehrer challenges nostalgic portrayals of America’s past as a time of greater unity and shared purpose. Instead, he argues that meaningful progress toward the nation’s constitutional ideals requires an honest understanding of its history, including periods of democratic breakdown, racial discrimination, and the long struggle to fulfill the promises of liberty and equal protection.

Lehrer also emphasizes that America’s progress has never depended on a single heroic figure. Rather, it has been achieved through the collective work and sacrifice of legislators, judges, public servants, soldiers, reformers, and ordinary citizens committed to advancing the country’s constitutional principles.

Click here to read Robert Lehrer’s full op-ed in The Kansas City Star.