Latest Afternoons live Podcast Episodes
South Carolina
Constitution Thursday - May 26, 2016 17:32 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs the ratification process turns to South Carolina, it is clear that the Federalists who run the State favor ratification. It was South Carolina, after all, that teamed up with James Wilson to cement the 3/5th's compromise and stuck to the deal as the tides of anti-slavery climbed against it. B...
Maryland My Maryland
Constitution Thursday - April 30, 2016 01:40 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsOver the course of the Convention, Luther Martin (Maryland) had been a petulant opponent of the plan and an irritant to pretty much everybody there - even those who agreed with him. Now that his State, Maryland, is taking up ratification, he will continue to adamantly and vociferously oppose the ...
Social Media
Constitution Thursday - February 18, 2016 19:05 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs momentum builds for ratification, the two biggest States, New York and Virginia are hesitating. New York is seemingly against ratification, but as the pillars of the needed nine States continue to fall, the debate intensifies. With their convention not scheduled to begin for several weeks, th...
Alterations & Provisions
Constitution Thursday - February 11, 2016 17:39 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAfter "impartial discussion & full consideration," the Massachusetts delegates to their State ratifying Convention agreed to what became known as the "Massachusetts Compromise." This allowed a number of anti-Federalists, including Samuel Adams, to vote in favor of ratifying the Constitution. But ...
The Maine Problem
Constitution Thursday - February 04, 2016 21:27 - 27 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsWhen the Massachusetts Convention gathered in early January, 1788 to consider ratification off the Constitution, the state faced three hurdles to ratification. First, the lingering suspicion and distrust of a central government from the western part of the State when just two years before, Shay'...
You Ain't Seen Noithing Yet
Constitution Thursday - January 21, 2016 18:54 - 29 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsIn early 1788, a Weston, Massachusetts newspaper reported that, "Little else, among us, is thought or or talked of, but the new Constitution." The debate seemed to engross the attention of all classes of people, including women, who normally would be excluded from politics. . But as Massachusett...
Connecticut
Constitution Thursday - January 14, 2016 18:04 - 29 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsConnecticut's path to ratification was decidedly more smooth than some of the other States. While there would be debate, and the final vote would not be unanimous, the entire process reflected the character of Connecticut in a way perhaps no other process had. Certainly not the Revolution, which ...
Georgia
Constitution Thursday - January 07, 2016 18:42 - 25 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsBy the summer of 1787, George, the youngest and smallest (population size) State, seemingly had very little to offer to the nation, and needed a great deal of help to deal with her problems, many of which could be described as more or less self-produced. The biggest problem was Georgia's indiffe...
Pennsylvania
Constitution Thursday - December 10, 2015 18:24 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsIn late 1788, Pennsylvania was, without a doubt, the most culturally, religiously and politically diverse State in the Union. It was also the one State that managed to spend most of the preceding decade disenfranchising most of its own citizens as a small powerful, anti-British, anti-Quaker minor...
The First State
Constitution Thursday - December 03, 2015 18:22 - 29 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe first State conventions in Pennsylvania and Delaware are called to debate the proposed Constitution. While Pennsylvania will actually debate, and question the wisdom of proceeding sans Bill of Rights, Delaware's internal issues and her external debates with the other States, have put her in a...
No Religious Tests
Constitution Thursday - November 19, 2015 21:40 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsBreaking both the timeline and the 4th Wall, the debate of religion and government in the United States has taken on a new and particularly partisan tone in recent days, as the Nation tries to decide what to do about the Syrian Refugee problem. Oddly enough, the debate has taken on religious tone...
A Bill of Rights?
Constitution Thursday - November 17, 2015 19:31 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsJohn DeWitt issues his second letter, in which he begins to get to the details of issues over which he is concerned about the proposed Constitution. Later, Hamilton, writing as Publius, will answer the objection to the lack of the Bill of Rights in Federalist #84. But both arguments should remin...
Join, or Die
Constitution Thursday - November 10, 2015 18:39 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs he closes the 2nd Federalist Paper, Publius appeals to the words of the poet to remind Americans that all of our greatness, all that we have achieved and could yet be, will be erased if we reject Union. The arguments take on a more philosophical tone, between classic republicanism and what eac...
Publius
Constitution Thursday - October 29, 2015 21:12 - 32 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsBy the end of October, 1787, the two side in the debate had been clearly delineated. There were those who were opposed to the Constitution, and there were those who favored it. Those opposed, the Anti-Federalists, as they would become known, had been first to publish their ideas with the first t...
The Journey of 1000 Steps
Constitution Thursday - October 01, 2015 17:48 - 30 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe Convention is over, and the delegates disperse home. George Washington can hardly wait to get out of town and on his way back to Mt. Vernon. He is so anxious to leave, that it almost costs him his life. The issue is now before the States to decide. Ratification and Union or reject the propos...
Let Us Astonish Our Enemies
Constitution Thursday - September 17, 2015 14:00 - 44 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsOver the course of the convention, Gouvernor Morris has lost every single debate, discussion, argument and point. It would be hard to find any single man who had less successful direct influence on the direction of the debates. Everything that he wanted or stood for in the new government had been...
The Two Anchors
Constitution Thursday - September 10, 2015 22:39 - 44 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs the convention reaches the end of the first week of September, it seems, at least on the surface of things, that all their work is about to come undone. Luther Martin is convinced that the only way the American people will agree to this Constitution is to be hurried into it by surprise. Edmun...
Life, Libery and Property
Constitution Thursday - August 27, 2015 23:36 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs August fades into September, General Washington is feeling pretty upbeat about how things are going. At least one delegate believes that they will be done "i9n three weeks time." Others aren't so ready to finish things without getting their say. Every attempt to resolve the matter of the Presi...
The Steamship Perseverance
Constitution Thursday - August 21, 2015 00:17 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsToday, we debate and discuss the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which may, depending on how you read it, gives the President the authority to make war, while Congress has not declared a war. Oddly enough, the delegates had exactly the same debate, which is why the Constitution gives Congress the ...
10 to 4
Constitution Thursday - August 06, 2015 20:19 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs the Delegates return from their vacation, so does the summer heat. Sitting down to work, they begin to read and digest the draft that Rutledge of South Carolina has put together while they were gone. There are many points of contention, but also many points of agreement. One agreement is tha...
Shark Fins
Constitution Thursday - August 03, 2015 04:36 - 43 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe LPOV Group sits down for a wide ranging discussion of Article VI Clause 2, the Supremacy Clause. Shark_finningWhen California passes a law that bans the possession, distribution or sale of Shark fins in the State, a Chinese-American Neighborhood Association sues, claiming that they are being...
Gone Fish'n...
Constitution Thursday - July 31, 2015 02:43 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAfter some "housekeeping" about what is going on with Dave, the discussion moves to the idea of who and what makes a "Hero?" Rick RescorlaWe begin with a picture of a Soldier in Vietnam. What can we glean from the picture? Is he a "War Hero?" The ancient Greek ideals of heroes are useful, but t...
The Second Man
Constitution Thursday - July 23, 2015 14:00 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe small States have won their battle for Equal representation in what will become the Senate. The Slave States have held on to their three fifth's compromise. For now, the Convention will move another element of the plan, the Presidency. Ideas of how he should be elected and for how long domin...
You Mean To Take Our Slaves
Constitution Thursday - July 19, 2015 20:51 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsFor some weeks, Gouverneur Morris of New York has been absent from the Convention. Now, at the lowest point of the proceedings, he arrives with a single purpose: to derail the 3/5th's compromise. The tensions rise as the Slave States begin to believe that there are those, "within or without doors...
The Breadth of a Human Hair
Constitution Thursday - July 02, 2015 14:00 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs the Convention prepares to adjourn for the Independence Day holiday, there is a great deal of anger and frustration in the room. Luther Martin expresses it best, when he says that the convention hangs by no more then the width of a human hair. To move forward, a committee of Eleven is chosen ...
Not Even a Prayer
Constitution Thursday - June 25, 2015 08:00 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsSince June 11th, the Convention has been stuck on one question - will the representation in the proposed senate be equal (one state, one vote), or proportional? But now, the debates are becoming personal. James Madison will stoop to personal insults. Gunning Bedford (Delaware) will threaten to s...
Hamilton's Folly
Constitution Thursday - June 18, 2015 21:38 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsTwo days after the Committee of the Whole accepts the 3/5th's Compromise and adds another four resolutions to the Virginian's Plan, it is now clear that the Virginian's mean to abolish the Articles of Confederation and establish a new government based on the principles of Liberty and freedom. Thi...
Wilson's Way
Constitution Thursday - June 11, 2015 19:56 - 45 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsAs the first couple of weeks of the Convention drone on, the debates become very heated. Perhaps best described as "frank, bordering on direct." The small States, led by New Jersey's Attorney General William Paterson, attack the idea of proportional representation as destructive to them. It is ...
The 14th President of The United States
Constitution Thursday - June 04, 2015 18:27 - 46 minutes - ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe Virginian's introduce their plan for a new National Government, which officially shocks the Convention, since they believed (officially) that they were there only to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation. The Convention adjourns to the Committee of the Whole - which is the same peo...
September 8, 1974
Constitution Thursday - May 28, 2015 17:20 - 40 minutes ★★★★ - 6 ratingsThe new President, Gerald R. Ford, pardons the old Presedint, Richard M Nixon. Thirty-nine years later, Dave & John take a look at Article 2 Section 2, Opinions and Pardons
Related Afternoons live Topics