The Grand Convention - All Other Persons
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
The Grand Convention - One Vote
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
The Grand Convention - Merely Federal
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
The Grand Convention - An Assembly of Demigods
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
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
