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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 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 Sep 27min
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 Sep 32min
