Meet the Four Congressmen Who Won the Civil War and Shaped Reconstruction

Meet the Four Congressmen Who Won the Civil War and Shaped Reconstruction

The popular conception of the Civil War is that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory. But in addition to the Great Emancipator, we can also thank four influential members of Congress–Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the proslavery Clement Vallandigham. They show us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history.
Today’s guest is Fergus Bordewich, author of “Congress of War.” He shows that from reinventing the nation’s financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century.

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Episoder(1079)

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During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries c...

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Daniel Boone is considered one of the United States' first folk heroes for his exploration beyond the thirteen colonies into Kentucky. His exploits are rightfully legendary. He famously rescued his da...

17 Feb 42min

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The most valuable shipwreck of all time is the San José galleon—an 18th century Spanish ship that carried 11 million gold coins, silver, and emeralds—and worth $20 billion in today's currency. It sunk...

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Thomas Willing: The Revolutionary War Arms Dealer Who Led the First Bank of the United States

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America’s revolutionary war would have almost certainly been lost if not for the colony’s wealthiest merchant. Thomas Willing was a prominent Philadelphia merchant and financier who, in partnership wi...

10 Feb 54min

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Most of us only know Thomas Paine for one thing: writing Common Sense in 1776, which helped kickstart the Revolution by selling hundreds of thousands of copies. But he was far more than a writer. Pain...

5 Feb 44min

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Fad workouts have been with us for decades, but they go back much further than we realize. Long before CrossFit, Zumba, P90X, Tae Box, Jazzercise or Jack LaLanne, we had 19th century strongmen. These ...

3 Feb 48min

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