Constitutional
23 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2.5K ratingsWith the writing of the Constitution in 1787, the framers set out a young nation’s highest ideals. And ever since, we’ve been fighting over it — what is in it and what was left out. At the heart of these arguments is the story of America.
As a follow-up to the popular Washington Post podcast “Presidential,” reporter Lillian Cunningham returns with this series exploring the Constitution and the people who framed and reframed it — revolutionaries, abolitionists, suffragists, teetotalers, protesters, justices, presidents – in the ongoing struggle to form a more perfect union across a vast and diverse land.
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Episodes
Introducing “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop”
October 16, 2023 11:00 - 3.25 MBGrenada’s Black revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, was executed in a coup in 1983, along with seven others. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown. Now, The Washington Post’s Martine Powers uncovers new answers about how the U.S. fits into this 40-year-old Caribbean mystery. “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop” is an investigative podcast that delves into the revolutionary history of Grenada, why the missing remains still matter and the role the U.S. government played in shaping the...
Listen to the first episode of “Field Trip”: Yosemite National Park
June 29, 2023 10:00To hear the rest of the series, follow “Field Trip” wherever you listen. California’s Sierra Nevada is home to a very special kind of tree, found nowhere else on Earth: the giant sequoia. For thousands of years, these towering trees withstood the trials of the world around them, including wildfire. Low-intensity fires frequently swept through groves of sequoias, leaving their cinnamon-red bark scarred but strengthened, and opening their cones to allow new seeds to take root. But in the er...
Introducing “Field Trip”
June 14, 2023 11:00 - 2.94 MBJourney through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the marked trail to better understand the most urgent stories playing out in five iconic landscapes today. “Field Trip” is a new podcast series that will transport you to five national parks: Yosemite, Everglades, Glacier, White Sands and Gates of the Arctic. Follow the show wherever you listen.
Introducing "Broken Doors"
April 27, 2022 20:00 - 4.01 MBNo-knock warrants allow police to force their way into people’s homes without warning. What happens when this aggressive police tactic becomes the rule, rather than the exception? "Broken Doors" is a new investigative podcast series from the Washington Post about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system - and the consequences for communities when accountability is flawed at every level. Hosted by Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca.
Introducing Moonrise
July 19, 2019 14:00Host Lillian Cunningham's next podcast explores the real story of why we went to the moon -- a darker, but truer story than the one you've heard before. Listen to this trailer, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or at washingtonpost.com/moonrise.
Ourselves and our posterity
February 12, 2018 08:00 - 49.9 MBIn the "Constitutional" finale, we address listener questions about the history--and future--of the nation's governing document.
The First Amendment
January 29, 2018 08:00 - 47.7 MBWhy do First Amendment rights trump nearly every other right in America? Thank Jehovah's Witnesses.
Privacy
January 15, 2018 08:00 - 41.4 MBHow should the Constitution's privacy protections be translated for a new era? This is a question before the Supreme Court today, but it was also a question that captivated a justice appointed to the Supreme Court 100 years ago — Louis Brandeis.
Prohibition
January 01, 2018 08:00 - 48.5 MBThe passage and then repeal of the 18th Amendment, banning alcohol in America, highlighted the pitfalls of trying to legislate against vice.
Taxes
December 18, 2017 08:00 - 38.5 MBCongress today faces the same question it faced a century ago when creating the modern tax system: What kind of society should America be?
The common defense
December 04, 2017 08:00 - 45.3 MBOne intention the framers had when creating the U.S. Constitution was to “provide for the common defense.” But who shoulders that duty has not always been so clear.
War
November 20, 2017 08:00 - 37.8 MBWhat was the original point of the Second Amendment? We examine its colonial and revolutionary roots—plus its quiet companion, the Third Amendment—with renowned American history scholar Gordon Wood.
Love
November 06, 2017 08:00 - 35.4 MBThe words "marriage" and "love" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet 50 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision that would embed those concepts in the heart of the document itself.
Fair punishment
October 23, 2017 07:00 - 46.7 MB"There is so much feeling of racial injustice around the issue of punishment. And you have to understand that those feelings have a history -- and that history is Parchman Farm."
Fair trials
October 09, 2017 07:00 - 42.6 MBIn 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must offer a defense attorney to all poor people accused of crimes. The decision transformed the concept of fair trials in America, but left major challenges to the justice system today.
Congress and citizens
September 25, 2017 07:00 - 35.4 MBIs it a feature or a bug of the amendment process that an idea of James Madison's, more than 200 years ago, could be recently resurrected and etched into the U.S. Constitution?
Senate and states
September 11, 2017 07:00 - 41.5 MBWhen the United States changed its process for electing senators, did that lead to a decline in state power? Or did it instead bring us closer to a "more perfect union"?
Gender
August 28, 2017 07:00 - 44.5 MBFrom the American Revolution through today, women have been leading a long-burning rebellion to gain rights not originally guaranteed under the Constitution.
Race
August 21, 2017 07:00 - 47.2 MBAs powerful as it was to change the Constitution after the Civil War, and enshrine racial equality into our governing document, that wasn’t enough to change the reality of life in America.
Nationality
August 14, 2017 07:00 - 43.3 MBWhat makes someone American? A landmark Supreme Court case in 1898, involving a child born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, would help answer that question.
Ancestry
August 07, 2017 07:00 - 37.2 MBIn 1879, a case involving Chief Standing Bear came before a Nebraska courtroom and demanded an answer to the question: Are Native Americans considered human beings under the U.S. Constitution?
Framed
July 24, 2017 07:00 - 57.8 MBIn the premier episode of “Constitutional,” we go back in time to that hot Philadelphia summer in 1787 when a group of revolutionary Americans debated, drank and together drafted the U.S. Constitution.
Introducing 'Constitutional'
June 29, 2017 14:00 - 5.52 MBPreview The Washington Post's newest podcast, a narrative series about the revolutionary figures who shaped America's story. Subscribe now to get the first episode when it launches July 24.