American Political History

The most notorious fraction in American history did not begin as a claim about personhood. It began as a tax formula — proposed in 1783, in the same Philadelphia room, by James Madison himself, to set...

8 Loka 21min

On June 11th, 1787, Roger Sherman proposed the settlement — population in the House, one vote per state in the Senate — and the Constitutional Convention voted it down without a debate. This is the st...

6 Loka 34min

In the second week of June 1787, the small states stopped losing votes politely. David Brearley proposed erasing every state boundary and redrawing America into 13 equal parts. William Paterson declar...

1 Loka 32min

On May 29th, 1787, Edmund Randolph — 33 years old, governor of Virginia, owner of the finest voice in the room — rose to open the main business of the Federal Convention, and 3 notebooks took him down...

29 Syys 29min

4 prisoners from the Walnut Street jail carried Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention in a sedan chair — the oldest delegate, 81, riding above the cobblestones to sit with the youngest, a...

24 Syys 29min

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

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

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