A Failed Nation - Vices of the Political System

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

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

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

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

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

There were thirteen United States — and to the rest of the world, there were thirteen nations. This is the story of what that cost. In 1785, pirates out of Algiers seized two American ships and enslav...

3 Sep 26min

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