America at 250: Due Diligence

Spring forward. Fall back. Twice a year, Americans change their clocks, and twice a year, we ask the same question: Why are we still doing this?

But the debate over who decides what time it is goes back much further. In early America, towns kept their own time based on the sun. Then came the railroads, the telegraph, and the need for a nation to operate on the same clock.

Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman explore how America went from local time to standardized time zones with historian Michael O'Malley of George Mason University, author of Keeping Watch: A History of American Time, including the origins of daylight saving time and why the debate continues more than a century later.

Then, physicist Chad Orzel of Union College, author of A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks, explains how atomic clocks keep our modern world running, from GPS satellites and smartphones to the technology we depend on every day.

We've never been better at measuring time. So why can't we agree on what to do with it?

Before there was a United States, there was an American postal system. Benjamin Franklin helped build it, the founders used it to conduct a revolution, and for 250 years, the mail helped connect a growing nation. But with fewer letters being sent, rising costs, and mounting financial challenges, can the Postal Service continue to deliver?

Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman are joined by U.S. Postal Service historian Stephen Kochersperger to explore the fascinating history of American mail, from the Revolution and westward expansion to the Pony Express, rural free delivery, ZIP codes, and even some unusual attempts to deliver letters.

Then, Mike Plunkett, president and CEO of the Association for Postal Commerce, examines the challenges facing today's Postal Service. Is its current business model sustainable? Could Americans eventually see fewer delivery days, higher postage rates, or major changes to the system?

From the institution that helped build America to the difficult decisions that could shape its future, this episode explores how the Postal Service has survived 250 years of change—and whether it can do so again.

The Little Red Schoolhouse

The Constitution never explicitly gives the federal government responsibility for education. So how did America's public schools become such an essential part of our democracy?

In this episode of America at 250: Due Diligence, Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman trace the evolution of American public education, from the one-room schoolhouses of the early republic to the modern debate over the federal government's role in the classroom.

Historian Johann Neem, author of Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, explores why the founders believed an educated citizenry was essential to self-government, how Horace Mann helped transform public education, and the role religion, immigration, and local communities played in shaping American schools.

Then, constitutional law scholar Derek W. Black, author of Dangerous Learning: The South's Long War on Black Literacy, examines the darker side of America's educational history. From laws that criminalized Black literacy to the fight for schools during Reconstruction, Brown v. Board of Education, and the expansion of federal oversight, Black explains how education became inseparable from the struggle for freedom and equal citizenship.

It's a story about far more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. It's about the relationship between education and democracy, and a question Americans have wrestled with for generations: Who is responsible for educating the citizens who ultimately govern the nation?

From George Washington buying beer, rum, wine and brandy for voters to the famous 1928 "A Chicken for Every Pot" advertisement supporting Herbert Hoover, American campaigns have long wrestled with the line between persuading voters and improperly influencing them.

Historian Andrew Robertson joins Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman to trace how American elections evolved from public voting, treating and political spectacle to secret ballots, political parties and modern election safeguards. Then UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen examines where the law draws the line today between vote buying and campaign promises — including what happens when a candidate promises voters a direct financial benefit.

It's a look at how Americans have tried to win votes across nearly 250 years, and why the distinction between a political promise and an illegal inducement still matters.

When we think of America's founding, the same names tend to dominate the conversation: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Madison. They signed the documents, commanded the armies, debated the Constitution, and held the nation's highest offices. But the American Revolution and the creation of the United States were far from exclusively male endeavors.

In this episode of America at 250: Due Diligence, Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman continue their Forgotten Founders series by turning their attention to the women whose contributions helped shape the revolution and the early republic, even as they were largely excluded from formal political power.

First, Karen Kedrowski, professor of political science at Iowa State University and director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, joins us to explore the remarkable roles women played in securing American independence. From Mercy Otis Warren's influential political writings and Phillis Wheatley's groundbreaking poetry to the women who raised money for the Continental Army, gathered intelligence, and endured the hardships of military campaigns, their contributions extended well beyond traditional expectations. We also examine the legal restrictions women faced, the surprising history of women's voting rights in early New Jersey, and Abigail Adams's famous appeal to her husband to "remember the ladies."

Then, historian Cassandra Good, associate professor of history at Marymount University and author of Founding Friendships and First Family, takes us inside the personal relationships that helped shape the new nation. How did women exercise political influence without holding office or casting a ballot? What role did Abigail Adams play in her husband's political career? And could Elizabeth Willing Powel's friendship with George Washington have helped persuade him to seek a second presidential term?

We also explore the private world of the founding generation, from the friendships between prominent men and women to George and Martha Washington's family life and the social customs of the early republic. Along the way, we revisit Benjamin Franklin's famous declaration, "A republic, if you can keep it," and the historical uncertainty surrounding the woman who may have prompted it.

The story of America's founding is often told through its great documents, celebrated battles, and famous statesmen. But behind those familiar events were women who wrote, organized, financed, petitioned, advised, and challenged the men making the decisions. Their stories offer a different perspective on the founding and raise a larger question: What does political participation really mean when most of the population is excluded from formal power?

As America marks its 250th anniversary, we look beyond the familiar names to uncover the women whose contributions belong in the story of the nation's founding.

"You have the right to remain silent."

Few Supreme Court decisions have produced words as instantly recognizable as Miranda v. Arizona. But sixty years after the landmark 1966 ruling, the constitutional argument behind those words is still very much alive.

On this episode of America at 250: Due Diligence, Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman examine how Miranda changed police interrogation, why the Supreme Court believed a new safeguard was necessary, and whether the Fifth Amendment actually required the rule the Court created.

Dr. Richard Leo, professor of law and psychology at the University of San Francisco, takes us through the history of police interrogation — from the physical brutality of the old "third degree" to psychological coercion, false confessions, and the modern interrogation room. He explains why the Court sought a clear rule and why, despite early warnings that Miranda would cripple law enforcement, police departments largely adapted.

Then Professor Tom Hogan of South Texas College of Law approaches the case from a different constitutional perspective. Before Miranda, courts already excluded involuntary confessions obtained through physical or extreme psychological coercion. Hogan asks whether the Warren Court went beyond the text and original meaning of the Fifth Amendment by creating an additional constitutional rule.

Along the way, we revisit the Supreme Court's later decision in Dickerson v. United States, the continuing importance of confessions in criminal investigations, and the tension between protecting suspects and giving law enforcement the tools to solve serious crimes.

Sixty years later, Miranda remains the law — and part of the American vocabulary. But the deeper question remains: even if Miranda is a good rule, was it the Supreme Court's rule to make?

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in America — but not completely.

Buried in its text is an exception allowing involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime." That language would become enormously consequential after the Civil War, as Southern states built systems of Black Codes, vagrancy laws, convict leasing, and prison labor that pushed thousands of newly freed Black Americans back into conditions that often looked strikingly similar to slavery.

Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman are joined first by Damon Root, senior editor at Reason and author of Emancipation War, to trace the political fight that produced the 13th Amendment, Abraham Lincoln's evolution on slavery, and why the amendment's punishment exception was included in the first place.

Then University of Mississippi Associate Professor Marvin King examines what happened after ratification — how Reconstruction gave way to new systems of racial and economic control, how the criminal justice system became part of that structure, and how those choices helped shape inequality for generations.

Finally, the episode looks at the modern effort to remove slavery and involuntary-servitude exceptions from state constitutions — and why, more than 160 years later, the debate over the 13th Amendment is still not over.

The story of America's founding is usually told through the same handful of names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin. But the creation of the United States involved a much larger cast—and some of the men who helped shape the country have nearly disappeared from popular memory.

In the second installment of our "Forgotten Founders" series, America at 250: Due Diligence examines the lives and legacies of James Wilson and Roger Sherman, two enormously influential founders whose contributions remain far less familiar than those of their more celebrated contemporaries.

James Wilson signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, became one of the first justices of the United States Supreme Court and played a central role at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He argued passionately for popular sovereignty and a government deriving its authority directly from the people. Wilson helped put the famous words "We the People" at the beginning of the Constitution and advocated for the direct election of the president long before such an idea had widespread support.

Yet Wilson's story ended dramatically. After becoming deeply entangled in land speculation and debt, the sitting Supreme Court justice was imprisoned for his debts, fled his creditors and eventually died of malaria while hiding in the back room of a tavern in North Carolina.

Jesse Wegman, author of The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution, joins Steve Herman and Bill Bernardoni to explain how Wilson became one of the most important legal and political thinkers of the founding era—and how his extraordinary fall helped erase him from the national story.

Then, Professor Mark David Hall turns to Roger Sherman, a self-taught Connecticut lawyer and statesman whose résumé rivals virtually anyone of the founding generation.

Sherman served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, the committee that developed the Articles of Confederation and the Board of War—all during 1776. He later became a key figure at the Constitutional Convention, where he helped shape the compromise between large and small states and pushed for a federal government based on limited, enumerated powers.

Sherman continued shaping the new government after ratification, serving in Congress and playing an important role in the development of the Bill of Rights. The only known surviving handwritten working draft of the Bill of Rights is in Sherman's hand.

Hall, editor of The Collected Works of Roger Sherman and co-editor of America's Forgotten Founders, discusses Sherman's political philosophy, religious beliefs, concerns about concentrated federal power and the reasons such an influential figure eventually faded from popular memory.

Together, Wilson and Sherman reveal a founding generation far larger, more complicated and more interesting than the familiar pantheon of five or six famous names.

Why do some founders become national icons while others disappear? And how different would our understanding of the Constitution be if we remembered the people who helped create it?

"I plead the Fifth."

It's one of the most recognizable phrases in American law — and one of the most misunderstood.

In this episode of America at 250: Due Diligence, Bill Bernardoni and Steve Herman look at how the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination became intertwined with guilt in the American imagination.

Brandeis University professor Thomas Doherty takes us back to the 1947 Hollywood hearings, when the Hollywood Ten refused to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee and ultimately went to prison for contempt of Congress. From there, the story moves to mob boss Frank Costello, the televised Kefauver hearings and the McCarthy era, when congressional investigations became national television events and "taking the Fifth" took on a meaning far beyond the courtroom.

Then constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen, former president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a professor at George Washington University, traces the protection against self-incrimination back to England's Star Chamber and explains what the Fifth Amendment actually protects — in criminal cases, congressional hearings and an era of cell phones, digital records and electronic evidence.

From Frank Costello and Joseph McCarthy to Oliver North and Anthony Fauci, it's a look at why Americans have been trained to hear silence as an admission of guilt — even though the Constitution says it isn't one.

Everyone knows Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin. But some of the people who played crucial roles in creating the United States have almost disappeared from the story.

In this episode of America at 250: Due Diligence, Steve Herman and Bill Bernardoni look at two of the most consequential—and most overlooked—figures of the founding generation: John Dickinson and Gouverneur Morris.

Historian Dr. Jane Calvert, director and chief editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project and author of Penman of the Founding, explains how Dickinson became one of the most famous Americans of the revolutionary era, why he refused to support independence when Congress voted in 1776, and why his decision to abstain was very different from opposing the Revolution. She also discusses Dickinson's military service, his antislavery efforts, his influential political writings and how John Adams helped shape the negative reputation that followed him for generations.

Then Syracuse University professor Dennis Rasmussen, author of The Constitution's Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America's Basic Charter, introduces listeners to one of the most colorful characters at the Constitutional Convention. Morris spoke more often and proposed more motions than any other delegate and ultimately became the principal draftsman of the Constitution's final text—including the words "We the People." Rasmussen explores Morris' opposition to slavery, his vision of a strong national government and presidency, his remarkable career in revolutionary France, and the mystery of why someone so central to the Constitution remains largely unknown today.

Two founders who helped shape the American Revolution and the Constitution. Two very different reasons they faded from public memory. And a larger question: Who gets remembered in American history—and who gets left out?