The founding and its people
🏛️ The Founding of the Republic
From colonial self-government to the first peaceful transfer of power in 1801: the road to revolution, independence, the Articles of Confederation, the crisis of the 1780s, the Constitutional Convention, ratification, the Bill of Rights and the precedents Washington set.
- 1Colonial Self-GovernmentFrom the church at Jamestown in 1619 to Franklin's snake in 1754: how English colonists learned to write their own rules, elect their own assemblies and hold the purse, and why Britain's long neglect let the habit harden.24 min
- 2The Road to Revolution, 1763-1775Twelve years from the end of the French and Indian War to Lexington: the taxes, the Stamp Act Congress, the shootings on King Street, John Adams's defense of the soldiers, the Tea Party and the Coercive Acts, told from the documents each side wrote.26 min
- 3Independence, 1776From the Olive Branch Petition to the signing: how Congress moved from begging the King for peace to declaring independence, what Common Sense did and did not do, what Congress cut from Jefferson's draft, and what Trumbull's famous painting gets wrong.26 min
- 4War and the Articles of ConfederationHow the war was won, what the first American constitution gave Congress and withheld, how Washington refused a military coup at Newburgh, and why his resignation at Annapolis mattered as much as Yorktown.25 min
- 5The Crisis of the 1780sWhy a government that won the war struggled in peace: debts, paper money, trade barriers and Shays' Rebellion, and the chain of meetings from Mount Vernon to Annapolis that led Congress to call a convention, with the Northwest Ordinance as the Confederation's best work.24 min
- 6The Constitutional Convention of 1787Four months behind closed doors in Philadelphia: the Virginia and New Jersey plans, the compromise that gave the Senate its equal vote, the bargains over slavery, and the September day when thirty-nine men signed and three would not.22 min
- 7Ratification: Federalists and Anti-FederalistsHow thirteen states argued over the Constitution for thirty-two months: the Federalist essays, the Anti-Federalist replies, the Massachusetts compromise on amendments, and the close votes in Virginia and New York.21 min
- 8The Bill of Rights and the First GovernmentHow the first Congress built a government from a blank page: Washington's inauguration, the federal courts, Madison's June 1789 speech, twelve amendments of which ten were ratified in 1791, Hamilton's debt plan and the argument over a national bank.22 min
- 9Washington's Precedents and the Peaceful TransferFrom the fight over what to call the president to the morning in March 1801 when one party handed power to another with no violence: neutrality, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Farewell Address, the Alien and Sedition Acts, the tied election of 1800, and the questions the founders left open.22 min