American History Tellers

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Supreme Court Landmarks | The Predicament of John Marshall | 1 Oct 21, 2020

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After the War of Independence, the new American government created the Supreme Court to be have the final word on disputes that the states couldn’t settle. But at first, the Court was anything but Supreme.

For nearly a decade, Congress and the President held the real power. In practice the Supreme Court was weak, ineffectual and disorganized – a post so unappealing that many men turned down nominations to serve on its bench.

All that would change with the appointment of Chief Justice John Marshall and the arrival of a case called Marbury v. Madison — a political drama that would embroil the new President Thomas Jefferson, outgoing president John Adams, the U.S. Congress, and even the Chief Justice himself.

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Encore: Political Parties | The Reagan Revolution | 6 Oct 14, 2020

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The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt two generations earlier and leading to a conservative surge.

The political sea change would drive Republican nominee Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968. And it would eventually elect a former actor and California governor who would change the face of American politics in ways that are still being felt to this day. His name was Ronald Reagan.

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Encore: Political Parties | The New Deal Coalition | 5 Oct 07, 2020

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The 1929 stock market crash saw 14 billion dollars vanish in a matter of hours — and with it, the Republican party’s decades-long grip on American politics. As Americans lost their livelihoods, they turned to President Herbert Hoover for relief. But the self-made man who had so successfully reversed his own fortunes seemed unable to do the same for his country. With discontent growing, Hoover turned on World War veterans demanding early bonus payouts to support their families. It would prove the last straw for many Americans.

The landslide election of 1932 would mark a profound realignment in U.S. politics, bringing urban centers under Democratic control for the first time in the party’s history. And it would propel into the White House Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose sweeping New Deal would permanently transform the American political landscape.

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Encore: Political Parties | The Golden Age of the GOP | 4 Sep 30, 2020

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As the Civil War came to a close, the government set its sights once again on the future of the United States. Working closely with a Republican President, the Republican Congress expected a swift and peaceful road to Reconstruction. But then, a mere four weeks into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the country in the hands of Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had personally owned slaves just three years before.

While Johnson’s unwavering commitment to states rights cultivated a fraught relationship with his Congress, the tumult would ultimately be short-lived. After just four years of a Democratic president, America’s Grand Old Party would ascend to power—and hold it—for over 70 years.

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Encore: Political Parties | The Turbulent 1850s | 3 Sep 23, 2020

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The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of all stripes.

While the Whig Party collapsed over the issue, Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Republican Party tried to bind the Union with an appeal to old Jeffersonian values. But in the houses of Congress and across the nation, negotiations fail, compromise is abandoned; and the issue of slavery will overshadow all else, leading to Civil War.

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Encore: Political Parties | Jacksonian Democracy | 2 Sep 16, 2020

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Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams through what some called a “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. The maneuver was masterminded by hot-headed but politically savvy Henry Clay, who with Adams, announced their intent for far-reaching new federal programs. Fierce opposition to these policies united pro-Jackson supporters who formed a new party, the Democrats, to rally around their hero and elect him to president in 1828.

But while Adams was defeated, Henry Clay had no intention of leaving the fight. He helped lead a new party which gathered together anti-Jackson, fiscal conservatives, and pro-states rights factions. The rise of Clay’s new Whig party seemed unstoppable–they captured both houses of Congress and the presidency–until, on April 4, 1841, president William Henry Harrison died in office and gave John Tyler the power of the veto.

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Encore: Political Parties | A Tale of Two Parties | 1 Sep 09, 2020

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In the earliest days of the United States, there was no such thing as an organized political party. George Washington, elected twice to the presidency unanimously in the Electoral College, warned the new nation against political factions, writing that organized parties would become, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men subvert the power of the people.”

But immediately after Washington vacated the Presidency, factions did spring up and bitter personal rivalries began to shape the nation. The two first political parties–the Federalists and the Republicans–had very different views of what America should become, and were led by very different men: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

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The Gilded Age | What America Failed to Learn from the Gilded Age | 7 Sep 02, 2020

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Throughout our series, corporate giants and their exploitation of workers was disturbing evidence of capitalism run amok. That greed and disregard for the working class defined the Gilded Age.

But the problems of that era haven’t disappeared. The economic disparities that were forged in the Gilded Age are still affecting our country. And monolithic companies like Facebook and Apple continue to grow, leaving a burning question of whether big tech has too much power.

Today, Lindsay speaks with Tim Wu, a Columbia law professor and author of “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age,” about the economic and social changes that took place then, and how they set the stage for modern America.

For more on Tim Wu: http://www.timwu.org/about.html

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The Gilded Age | Cross of Gold | 6 Aug 26, 2020

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In the spring of 1894, hundreds of unemployed workers trudged through rain and snow on a 400-mile trek from Ohio to the nation’s capital. They joined armies of jobless men from all across the country to march on Washington, fed up with the government’s inaction in the face of the crippling Panic of 1893.

The century’s most punishing economic depression unleashed fierce political turmoil. A bitter debate over the gold standard consumed Americans nationwide. With the Treasury on the brink of collapse, President Cleveland made the desperate and controversial decision to turn to the nation’s top banker for a bailout.

The conflict over currency culminated in the emotional election of 1896, which pitted William McKinley against the charismatic reformer William Jennings Bryan, who electrified voters with his sensational “Cross of Gold” speech.

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The Gilded Age | Workers Revolt! | 5 Aug 19, 2020

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As the century came to a close, labor unrest reached explosive new heights. Industrial expansion made businessmen and bankers rich. But workers faced low wages, long hours, and dangerous conditions. They sought strength in numbers, fighting for basic rights against the power of big business—and often faced violent pushback.

In May 1886, a bomb exploded at a peaceful labor protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Police fired their guns into the crowds. Panic engulfed the city. And the nation’s most powerful labor union suffered a devastating blow.

In Homestead, Pennsylvania, steelworkers waged a bloody battle against private security forces. And in Pullman, Illinois, railroad workers laid down their tools, sparking a nationwide railroad shutdown—one that President Grover Cleveland would crush with brutal force.

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