Our Constitution

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Declaration of Independence (Grievance 22): The King Approves Suspending Colonial Legislatures Sep 22, 2026

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This is the eighteenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Grievance 22 charges that the King and Parliament have not just suspended colonial legislatures but have also claimed absolute power to make laws for the colonies, even with respect to local matters. This episode addresses Parliament exercising its authority to suspend colonial legislatures; the role of the Declaratory Act of 1766 and the New York Restraining Act of 1767; and various ways that the Constitution protects state autonomy.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 21): The King Approves Rewriting Colonial Charters Sep 15, 2026

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This is the seventeenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Grievance 21 accuses the King and Parliament of abolishing colonial charters, which were the colonies’ fundamental laws that established the terms under which they operated. This included Parliament’s passage of the Massachusetts Government Act in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party, which replaced critical provisions of Massachusetts’s Charter of 1691 in order to increase the King’s authority over the colony. This episode explores the various ways in which the Constitution’s Framers protected state governments from federal encroachment, including Article V of the Constitution, which bars amendments that would abolish equal state suffrage in the Senate.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 20): The King Approves the Quebec Act Sep 08, 2026

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This is the sixteenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. The 1774 Quebec Act established a new form of provincial government in Quebec without locally elected assemblies and expanded the province’s territory into land the colonists hoped to settle. This episode explores the influence of the Declaration’s twentieth grievance, which describes these changes as a dangerous example of arbitrary rule that could spread to the thirteen colonies and how the Constitution counteracts the danger of government overreach and arbitrary action.

Declaration of Independence (Grievances 18 and 19): The King Deprives Colonists of Trial by Jury Sep 01, 2026

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This is the fifteenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Grievances 18 and 19 charge the King with denying colonists the right to a local trial heard by a jury of their peers. Although the jury was a fixture of English justice, the power of colonial juries to acquit defendants stoked fears in Great Britain that colonial lawbreaking would go unpunished. These fears culminated in Parliament’s passage of several laws that made it easier to try colonists without a jury, and, in some cases, allowed British authorities to try colonists in England. This episode discusses the role of the colonial jury and how Parliament’s attempts to disempower the jury invigorated the right to a jury trial in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 17): The King Taxes Colonists Without Their Consent Aug 25, 2026

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This is the fourteenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Grievance 17, which charged the King and Parliament with imposing taxes on the colonists’ without their consent, is often given as the primary reason for the American Revolution. Chief among the British taxes that fueled the American Revolution were the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Revenue Act of 1767. In granting the national government’s taxing authority to Congress, the Framers ensured that taxes would reflect the will of the people and linked a state’s responsibility for paying direct taxes to the size of the state’s representation in Congress so that poor states with large populations could not shift the burden of direct taxes to wealthy states with small populations.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 16): The King Cuts Off Colonial Trade Aug 18, 2026

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This is the thirteenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. In late December 1775, Parliament passed the Prohibitory Act, which barred “all manner of trade and commerce” with the colonies during the “continuance of the present Rebellion.” The act provided that all ships of the colonies or ships of other countries attempting to trade with the colonies along with their cargoes would be subject to forfeiture to the King “as if the same were the ships and effects of open enemies.” This episode explores Grievance 16 and how the Framers’ experiences with the Prohibitory Act and other restrictions on colonial trade contributed to provisions of the Constitution that facilitate American trade, including by providing Congress with exclusive or plenary authority over commerce among the states.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 15): The King Approves the Murder Act Aug 11, 2026

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This is the twelfth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Grievance 15 addresses Parliament’s 1774 Administration of Justice Act, which authorized the Massachusetts governor (or lieutenant-governor in his place) to move capital trials of British officials, and those working at their direction, to England. Enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party, the Act reflected Parliament’s increasing concern about colonial hostility to British civil and military personnel stationed in Massachusetts. This episode explores how our Constitution addresses federal and state court jurisdiction over crimes.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 13): The King Imposes Parliament’s Illegitimate Laws on the Colonies Aug 04, 2026

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This is the eleventh episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. Thomas Jefferson attributes seventeen of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence to King George III exclusively, and ten to King George and Parliament. The first of these ten, Grievance 13, charges that Parliament, which Jefferson refers to as the “others,” has no authority over the colonies. Consequently, the King’s implementation of Parliament’s laws in the colonies is an act of tyranny. The Framers of the Constitution debated the extent to which the British Parliament should serve as a model for the new Congress and avoided Parliament’s problems of virtual representation and rotten boroughs by providing under the Constitution for a census and redistricting every ten years.

Declaration of Independence (Grievance 12): The King Imposes Martial Law Jul 28, 2026

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This is the tenth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. After General Thomas Gage, the commander of British forces in North America, was appointed royal governor of Massachusetts and placed Boston under martial law, many Americans believed that the Crown had upended the proper structure of government by making military authorities superior to civil officials. This episode explores the intellectual and historical roots of Grievance 12 and its role in shaping America’s later constitutional structure.

Declaration of Independence (Grievances 11 and 14): The King Stations Troops in Colonial Cities Jul 21, 2026

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This is the ninth episode in a podcast series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by exploring the colonies’ grievances against King George III. In colonial America, peacetime standing armies were often viewed as tools that monarchs could use to wield power over the populace rather than protect the people’s security. This episode examines the source of that view; Grievances 11 and 14, which alleged that the King kept armies in places in Boston and quartered troops among the civilian population; and the influence of these experiences on the Constitution.

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