This Constitution

The Battle of Yorktown marked a turning point in the American Revolution, leading to the British surrender on October 19, 1781. But how did George Washington and his allies achieve this decisive victory?

In this episode of This Constitution, hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon explore the military strategies, international alliances, and pivotal decisions that led to Britain's defeat. From the failure of Britain's southern strategy and Washington's secret march to Virginia to the French naval victory at the Battle of the Capes, they examine how American and French forces successfully trapped General Cornwallis at Yorktown.

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Women in colonial America were legally invisible. Married women could not own property, vote, serve on juries, or speak publicly on politics. Yet the American Revolution was a watershed, inviting women into political life as boycotters, writers, and even voters. What opened that window, and why did it close so abruptly?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston sits down with Rosemarie Zagarri, distinguished university professor of history at George Mason University and author of Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic. Together they trace women's political engagement from the colonial period...

America was born with a promise and a lie. Frederick Douglass lived in the gap. How did a fugitive slave become one of the nation’s most radical constitutional thinkers? Why did he reject the Garrisonian view of the Constitution as a “covenant with death” and come to see it as anti-slavery?

In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon sits down with Bradley  Rebeiro, law professor at Brigham Young University and author of Until the Last Yoke Is Broken: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass. Together they trace slavery and race from the Revolution through Dred Scott...

Could the American Revolution have ended not on a battlefield, but in a mutinous meeting at Newburgh? What happens when the army that won independence is told there’s no money to pay it? Can a republic survive when its officers have just grievances and the power to enforce them? And how did George Washington stop a coup without firing a shot, by reaching for his spectacles?

In this episode of The Constitution, Matthew Brogdon sits down with Greg Jackson, America 250 Professor in Constitutional Studies at UVU, history faculty member, National Security Studies Program fellow, and author of...

The American Revolution was fought on battlefields, but victory depended on winning another fight overseas: the battle for international support. As the colonies challenged the British Empire, American diplomats had to convince foreign powers that the new nation deserved recognition, financial assistance, and a place among the nations of the world.

In this episode, Matthew Brogdon and Savannah Eccles Johnston examine the diplomatic efforts that helped secure American independence. They explore the early mission of Silas Deane, Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable success in France, John Adams’ efforts to gain support from the Netherlands, and John Jay’s crucia...

Congress went to war in 1775 against the most powerful empire in the world, but could a legislative body actually run a war? With no executive departments, no Pentagon, and little experience managing a national military, the Second Continental Congress had to figure out how to transform colonial militias into a Continental Army, appoint a commander in chief, supply the troops, and direct a war that stretched across thousands of miles.

In this episode, Matthew Brogdon and Savannah Eccles Johnston examine Congress's extraordinary experiment in wartime government. They trace the creation of the Continental Army and George Washington's...

The American Revolution wasn't fought only on battlefields. It unfolded in homes, farms, towns, and military camps, where women faced shortages, violence, displacement, and the enormous responsibility of keeping families and communities alive.

In this episode, Savannah Eccles Johnston speaks with historian Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor of History (Emerita) at Baruch College, and author of Revolutionary Mothers, about the essential and often-overlooked role women played in the Revolution. They explore how women became central to colonial boycotts, managed farms while men were away, worked alongside the Continental Army, carried military intelligence, and sometimes disguised themselves as men...

The American Revolution wasn't won by ideals alone. It required an army. But how do you build a fighting force from scratch when your citizens believe standing armies are the tools of tyrants? And how does that ragtag collection of farmers, apprentices, and adventurers end up creating something far more lasting than military victory: a shared national identity?

In this episode, Matthew Brogdon and Savannah Eccles Johnston examine the extraordinary challenge of forging the Continental Army. They trace the journey from the spontaneous militia mobilization around Boston to Washington's desperate Christmas gamble at Trenton, from the crisis...

The Southern Campaign is one of the most overlooked turning points of the American Revolution. This episode asks a sharper question: what happened when the fight for independence stopped looking like British regulars against American patriots and started looking like Americans fighting Americans?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon examine why the British turned south after failing to defeat Washington in the North. The British believed the South offered better odds because of loyalist support, economic dependence on British trade, and cultural ties to England. At first, the strategy seemed to...

Are Americans Declaration People or Constitution People?

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are two of America’s most important founding documents, but this episode asks a deeper civic question: which one actually defines who Americans are?

In this Fourth of July episode, Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Dr. Leah Murray, Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Philosophy and Director of the Walker Institute of Politics & Public Policy at Weber State University. Together, they explore whether Americans are more emotionally shaped by the Declaration’s ideals or more practically shaped by the...

What Happens When an Army Freezes and a Government Can’t Supply It?

Valley Forge is remembered as one of the great symbols of American endurance, but this episode asks a deeper constitutional question: what happens when a revolution depends on a government too weak to supply its own army?

In this episode, co-hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon tell the story of the Continental Army’s brutal winter after the British captured Philadelphia. Washington chose to camp just 18 miles from the occupied city, close enough to pressure the British but far enough to avoi...

When we talk about America's founding, we tend to jump straight from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution. But what held the country together in the eleven years between? What happened after independence was declared? Who ran the war? Who paid for the army? And how did thirteen quarreling states manage to hold together long enough to win?

In this episode, co-hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon dive into the much-maligned Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first written constitution. They ask whether the Articles deserve their bad reputation, or whether they were actually a su...

Was the American Revolution really about breaking away from Britain? Or was it first a fight over who had the right to govern local communities?

In this episode, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with constitutional scholar Sean Beienburg to unpack the forgotten federalism debate at the heart of the American Founding. Long before the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, Americans were already arguing that Parliament could not truly represent people living thousands of miles away. What began as a dispute over taxation quickly became a much deeper constitutional conflict about sovereignty, local self-government, and the dangers...

When we picture the American Revolution, we see George Washington on horseback, minutemen at Concord, and the signing of the Declaration. But what if the real story of independence was written not on land, but on water? 

In this season premiere, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with National Book Award–winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick (author of Bunker Hill, Valiant Ambition, In the Heart of the Sea, and Travels with George) to explore the revolution as a maritime conflict. 

From the siege of Boston to the desperate crossing of the Delaware, from Benedict Arnold’s makeshift “mosquito...

Why has civic education taught students to look to Washington, when citizenship starts in their own neighborhood?

In this episode, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with David Bobb, president of the Bill of Rights Institute, to explore the state of civic education in America as the country approaches its 250th birthday. Together, they make the case that civic life begins not in Washington, D.C. but in local communities, mediating institutions, and the habits formed early in life. 

Bobb introduces BRI's expanding library of free resources, including BRI Jr. for elementary students, and argues that c...

Does the freedom of the press protect only journalists with printing presses or everyone with something to say?

From the founding era to social media, the line between “speech” and “press” has blurred. In this episode, host Savannah Eccles Johnston talks with legal commentator and former DOJ official Sarah Isgur about how the First Amendment’s protection of the press has evolved and whether it has gone too far.

They explore three eras: the original understanding in 1791 (when “press” meant owning a printing press), the Supreme Court’s twentieth-century expansion of free speech, and today’s dilemmas over in...

Is Congress the most underrated institution in American government? Widely criticized for gridlock, partisanship, and dysfunction, it’s often seen as the weakest branch. But what if that frustration reflects a misunderstanding of what Congress is designed to do?

In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon sits down with Princeton professor Frances E. Lee, author of A Case for Congress, to challenge the narrative that Congress is broken. They begin by rethinking “gridlock.” While fewer individual laws are passed today, modern legislation is far more expansive, often bundling multiple policies into single bills. By that measure, Congre...

How did America move from the religious pluralism of the founding era to the “Judeo-Christian consensus” of the twentieth century? Why did that consensus begin to fracture?

In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon continues his conversation with James Patterson, associate professor of public affairs at the Institute for American Civics at the University of Tennessee. They explore how religious pluralism evolved during the twentieth century as immigration, world wars, and political movements reshaped the nation’s religious landscape.

They begin the conversation with the massive immigration waves of the nineteenth and early twentieth centur...

When we think of the American Founders, we typically imagine figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison—all Protestant gentlemen. But what about the Catholics? And how did a nation built on religious establishments become a model for religious pluralism?

In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon and James Patterson, associate professor of public affairs at the Institute for American Civics at the University of Tennessee, explore the religious landscape of early America and the surprising role that Catholics, Baptists, Quakers, and other minority groups played in shaping the nation’s commitment to religious freedom.

The...

Did you know that while Americans were celebrating independence on July 4, 1776, it took until August for the news to reach London? Across the Atlantic, the reaction was far more muted, highlighting how information traveled slowly in the 18th century and how the bold step of declaring independence was experienced differently on each side of the ocean.

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon explore how the world reacted to America’s bold declaration of independence. They trace the document’s uncertain journey across the Atlantic, with copies lost in shipwrecks and others seiz...

Was the American presidency meant to be weak, or was it powerful from the start?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston sits down with Dr. Sai Prakash to examine the original design of Article II and how George Washington shaped the presidency in practice. They explore the Vesting Clause, the creation of a unitary executive, and why early Americans ultimately embraced a strong president after rejecting monarchy.

The conversation then turns to the modern “living presidency.” Executive power has expanded through precedent, practice, and political necessity rather than constitutional amendment. From war powe...

What good is a declaration if no one hears it? After the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the real work began: Announcing it to the American people and the world. 

In this episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Matthew Brogdon to explore how the Declaration of Independence was published, proclaimed, and received in 1776. Together, they trace the Declaration’s journey from Congress to the public square, examining how a fledgling nation used print culture, public readings, and a robust free press to unite the colonies and justify rebellion to...

Who really wrote the Declaration of Independence? Was it Thomas Jefferson’s carefully crafted vision, or the outcome of an intense, compromise-driven process inside Congress?

In this episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Matthew Brogdon to examine how Congress transformed Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence into the document the world would come to know.

The conversation traces the Declaration’s path from the Committee of Five to the Committee of the Whole, where Congress cut a quarter of Jefferson’s draft. Savannah and Matthew unpack the most...

How can the same Declaration of Independence lead Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. to such different conclusions about the Constitution? 

In this special MLK Day episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Dr. Lucas Morel, professor of ethics and politics at Washington and Lee University, to delve into how Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. interpreted the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the American political order.

The conversation traces Douglass’s intellectual evolution from initially condemning the Constitution as a pro-slavery pact, influenced by William Lloyd Garrison, to...

Was Thomas Jefferson the sole author of the Declaration? In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon sits down with Holly Megson, senior documentary editor on the Quill Project at Pembroke College, Oxford, to trace how the Declaration of Independence actually took shape inside the Second Continental Congress. Together, they move beyond the familiar image of Jefferson writing alone and uncover the collective effort that produced one of history’s most influential political texts.

Matthew and Holly explore the formation of the Committee of Five—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston—and examin...

What if the Declaration of Independence wasn’t just Jefferson’s triumph, but John Adams’s victory too?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon make the case for giving John Adams his due. Often remembered as prickly, pompous, or perpetually overshadowed, Adams was in fact one of the most important and hardest-working architects of American independence.

Savannah and Matthew trace Adams’s rise from a New England farmer’s son to the fiercest and most relentless advocate for independence in the Continental Congress. Long before July 4, 1776, Adams was pushing Congress t...

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson originally wrote a fierce condemnation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, only for Congress to remove it before signing the final document? And did you know that in 1776, no one was certain whether slavery in America would fade away, transform, or expand?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Dr. Nicholas Cole, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, explore the complicated world of slavery at the time the Declaration was written. Together, they walk through why Jefferson’s anti-slavery passage was removed, how Americans understood slavery in 1776, and wh...

What if the story of American independence didn’t actually begin with Jefferson at his writing desk? What if long before the Declaration of Independence, more than a hundred towns, counties, militias, and even grand juries had already taken matters into their own hands and declared themselves free of Britain?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon uncover the astonishing world of forgotten declarations that came before July 4, 1776.

Savannah and Matthew trace how these early statements emerged from every corner of American life: Massachusetts town meetings, South Carolina grand juries, mi...

Did you know the man who wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that inspired Americans to fight for independence, died alone with only six mourners at his funeral? In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon unpack the fascinating and tragic story of Thomas Paine, a man who helped spark the Revolution but couldn’t find a home in the nation he helped create.

They follow Paine’s incredible journey from a struggling English immigrant to one of the most gifted writers of his generation, standing shoulder to shoulder with Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamilton whos...

How did the Americans go from loyal British subjects to full-blown revolutionaries? Were the British really that bad, or were the colonists simply overreacting?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon unpack the long and escalating list of grievances that transformed loyal British subjects into determined revolutionaries.

Moving beyond the myths of the Boston Tea Party, they trace a history of constitutional conflict, from the Proclamation of 1763 and the Stamp Act to the Boston Massacre. The conversation reveals how British attempts to reassert control, such as closing the Boston Harbor...

Have you ever wondered where America’s revolutionary ideas really came from? Was it the genius of the Founders? What if the story of the Constitution didn’t begin in Philadelphia in 1776, but in colonial homes, small-town churches, and the stubborn belief that no one has the right to rule another?

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon trace the folk origins of American self-government. Through the voices of farmers, ministers, and everyday colonists, they uncover how the principles of liberty and equality were not imported from Europe’s philosophers but bo...

What if the American Revolution didn’t begin in the halls of Congress, but in the pews of colonial churches? 

In this episode of This Constitution, hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon uncover the spiritual and intellectual fire that helped ignite the Revolution. Before muskets were fired at Lexington and Concord, preachers across New England were already preparing their congregations for rebellion, not just politically but theologically.

From the sermons of Reverend Jonas Clark to the democratic church governance of the Puritans, and from Jonathan Mayhew’s biblical case for resistance to tyranny to Peter...

Season 3 of This Constitution focuses on the people and events surrounding the making of the Declaration of Independence.

What if America’s Revolution had collapsed before it truly began? In this episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston sits down with Dr. Kevin Weddle, retired U.S. Army colonel, military historian, and author of The Compleat Victory, to explore how George Washington survived the most dangerous year of the war.

From the daring crossing of the Delaware to the humiliating loss of Fort Ticonderoga, Washington faced both battlefield disaster and political backstabbing. Yet, in th...

What if America’s greatest strength wasn’t just its leaders, but the way everyday people came together to shape history? In this episode of This Constitution, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with Nicholas Cole of Oxford’s Pembroke College, creator of the Quill Project, to dig into the overlooked story of America’s founding.

Far from being the work of a single “lawgiver” like Solon or Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence and other revolutionary texts were born out of spirited collaboration. From town halls in Massachusetts to Virginia’s Fairfax Resolves, communities debated, revised, and ultimately claimed owners...

Did you know that George Washington could have become an American Caesar, but instead chose to walk away from power? Unlike Napoleon or Cromwell, he rejected dictatorship and dynasty, setting the precedent for civilian control of the military, limited executive authority, and the peaceful transfer of power.

In this episode of This Constitution, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with eminent historian Jeremy Black to trace Washington’s extraordinary balancing act. From the battlefields of the Revolution to the presidency, Washington navigated fragile institutions, fractious states, and the lure of personal power and, in doing so, set precedents th...

How did a political system founded by leaders who warned against factions end up making political parties an indispensable part of democracy? And why has the United States remained a two-party nation for nearly two centuries?

In this episode of This Constitution, host Matthew Brogdon sits down with political scientist Daniel DiSalvo to trace the fascinating constitutional and political journey of America’s party system. From Jefferson’s “party to end all parties” to Martin Van Buren’s invention of the enduring two-party model, they unpack the forces that created, shaped, and sustained the parties we know today.

How should a democracy balance the need for independent investigations of government wrongdoing with the president’s constitutional authority over prosecutions? Where do we draw the line?

In this episode of This Constitution, hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon dig into the fascinating and often murky world of special counsels. From their origins in President Grant’s efforts to distance himself from scandals, to the dramatic moments of the Watergate era and the "Saturday Night Massacre," the history of special counsels is anything but straightforward.

They break down the creation of independent counsels under the...

When we hear “impeachment,” most of us immediately think: the President. But what if that’s only part of the story? In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon explore the lesser-known history of impeaching cabinet secretaries and other executive officials, revealing how the process has always been more political than legal.

They revisit the case of Secretary of War William Belknap, who resigned in tears in 1876, hoping to dodge impeachment—only to face it anyway. Fast-forward to 2024, and Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is at the center of a modern-day controversy that reopens the same unr...

In This Episode

In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon explore one of the least understood and most powerful tools in the U.S. Constitution: impeachment. But forget presidents for now, this episode dives deep into judicial impeachments: how they work, why they're rare, and why judges have historically been the ones who get removed.

Savannah and Matthew unpack what it means for Congress to wield this political sword, why it's not a criminal process, and how colorful cases like Samuel Chase and Alcee Hastings shaped our understanding...

In this Independence Day episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon is joined by Dr. Jane Calvert, Director of the John Dickinson Writings Project and author of Penman of the Revolution. Together, they explore the legacy of John Dickinson, one of America’s most influential yet often overlooked founders.

Best known for Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Dickinson was a leading advocate for colonial rights but notably opposed the rush toward independence. Jane explains how Dickinson’s belief in natural rights, his cautious approach to revolution, and his commitment to unity positioned him as both a voice of r...