Jul 26, 2022
Popular opinion rises against child labor, and the Supreme Court shrugs. Congress tries again, but the Court is unmoved. Congress passes an amendment, ratification stalls, we take a detour through Kansas, and questions about the ratification process are raised but not settled. Eight years of the Great Depression and...
Jul 19, 2022
A multi-decade organizing project by the WCTU and ASL and the malapportionment of state legislatures leads to the passage of the 18th Amendment, with support from various factions. Alcohol use goes down, then doesn’t. Congress goes overboard in using criminal law to combat a public health problem, leading to backlash...
Jul 12, 2022
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention create distinctions without comprehensible differences. The advocates of broad taxation join the adversaries to luxuries to tax the carriage-riding classes. Justice Paterson begins a proud tradition of opinions on taxation that are long on rhetoric and short on reason. The...
Jul 5, 2022
We’re back for the final season of How to Build a Nation in 15 Weeks. Join us as we discuss events and amendments from the past 100 years that remodeled the written Constitution into what it is today, including income taxes, the rise and repeal of prohibition, the expansion of democracy through the direct election of...