American Political History
With American Political History I'm committed to bringing you bite-sized, digestible episodes that make history approachable for everyone, not just the history buffs. My goal is to engage you, to make you feel connected with the past, and to understand how it shapes our present and future.
So, sit back, or better yet, take a walk or a drive, and let's journey through history together, one bite, at a time."
Episodes
174 episodes
Washington's Second Term - The Whiskey Tax Crisis
Does the federal government have the authority to use military force against its own citizens?Or can states, or counties, ignore federal taxes they believe are unconstitutional?What happens when citizens believe a law violates the...
Washington's Second Term - Washington Takes the Field
President Washington is not just sending an army, he's personally leading it.
Washington's Second Term - The British Problem
The Royal Navy controls the Atlantic. In November 1793. Whitehall issues orders, any neutral ship trading with France can be seized, cargo confiscated, and the ship taken as a prize. The crews can also be impressed into the Royal Na...
Washington's First Term - The Election of 1789
This wasn't really an election... not in the way we think of elections today. This was more like... a coronation by consensus.
Washington's First Term - Building The Machinery
President Washington selects his cabinet and sets the precedent on how cabinet meetings work.
Washington's First Term - The Establishment of the Third Branch
We cover the creation of the court system and the earliest history of the Supreme Court.
Washington's First Term - The People's Shield
We cover the story of the ratification of the Bill of Rights
Washington's First Term - The Debt Assumption Fight
America still is buried by the accumulation of debt from the revolutionary war. Secretary of Treasury Hamilton has a plan.
Washington's First Term - The Bank Wars
Secretary Hamilton moves to create the Bank of the United States, in pushing so hard, the national divide over the issue marks the creation of political parties in America.
Washington's First Term - The Emergence of Political Parties
We detail the emergence of political parties from Washington's own cabinet.
Washington's First Term - Western Troubles
We cover the battles to secure the Ohio territory ceded to America in the Treaty of Paris.
Washington's First Term - Neutrality Crisis
The French revolution breaks out, then France declares war on England. America is unprepared for war.
Washington's First Term - The Election of 1792
Short, Simple, Duty. President Washing accepts his second term.
Ratification - Introduction
Without records of all of the debates, I give the context of the materials we will cover in this season.
Ratification - The People's Attention
The proposed constitution hit the newspapers, and public figures start taking positions and or writing with pen names to argue their points in the public sphere
Ratification - Pennsylvania
The first major convention starts in Philadelphia with mobs forcing a vote for the date. Everyone knows, so goes Pennsylvania so goes the small states around them.
Ratification - Massachusetts
We turn to the debates in the Massachusetts ratification convention.
Ratification - Virginia
We move to Virginia, whose ratification will complete the supermajority required for ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Independence - A War to Win
In June 1778, a barefoot Connecticut private named Joseph Plumb Martin marched out of Valley Forge and, for the first time in the war, toward the enemy. This is the story of the moment the American Revolution stopped being a war of survival and...
Road to The Constitution - The Federal Convention
In May 1787, the Federal Convention begins to assemble in Philidelphia.
Independence - The Open Field
On a Sunday in June 1778, in heat that killed men where they stood, Washington’s reborn army finally caught the British in the open at Monmouth Court House. This is the story of the day the Continental Army proved it could stand. It nearly went...
Road to The Constitution - The Virginia Plan
The convention begins with the unveiling of the, which was to the shock of many, an outline for a new government.
Independence - The Southern Strategy
In December 1778, a British army took Savannah in an afternoon — guided around the American line by an enslaved man betting on which side would make him free. It was the opening move of Britain’s new plan: the South was said to be full of Loyal...
Road to The Constitution - The Whole of the People?
The convention will discuss the makeup of the legislative bodies House/Senate while avoiding the truly contentious topic of the allocation of the votes of the states
Independence - The Swamp Fox
In August 1780, the “Hero of Saratoga,” General Horatio Gates, marched the last American army in the South to Camden — and lost it in a single morning, his militia breaking at the first bayonet charge while he galloped 180 miles to safety and t...