The Grand Convention - Eleven Days Early
James Madison stepped off the New York stage on May 3rd, 1787 — 11 days before the Federal Convention was scheduled to open, and 22 days before it actually could. This is the story of those waiting we...
22 Syys 27min
A Failed Nation - Sole and Express Purpose
This is the finale of A Failed Nation. In February of 1787, the Confederation Congress faced the most awkward decision in its short and unhappy life: whether to bless a convention summoned, however po...
17 Syys 27min
A Failed Nation - A Convention of the States
The convention that produced the Constitution was born, improbably, out of a fishing dispute and a failure. This is the story of the strange chain of events that led to Philadelphia. It begins in 1785...
15 Syys 26min
A Failed Nation - Vices of the Political System
While the Confederation staggered, a small, sickly, soft-spoken Virginian sat in his study and tried to think his way out of the crisis. This is the story of James Madison’s quiet revolution — the tru...
10 Syys 32min
A Failed Nation - On an Equal Footing
The Confederation has failed at nearly everything — paying its debts, defending its frontier, commanding the world’s respect. This is the episode about the one enormous thing it got right. In 1785, a ...
8 Syys 27min
A Failed Nation - Thirteen Nations
There were thirteen United States — and to the rest of the world, there were thirteen nations. This is the story of what that cost. In 1785, pirates out of Algiers seized two American ships and enslav...
3 Syys 26min
A Failed Nation - Driven into a Separation
The Treaty of Paris handed the United States a wilderness empire running to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes — and the bankrupt Confederation needed to sell it, fast, because western land was very ...
1 Syys 32min
