In this episode, John explains how it is that the United States, less than 30 years after fighting Great Britain to become and independent country, wound up fighting the British once again. John begins by discussing James Madison as a presidential figure: how he became president, what he wanted to achieve and how he differed from the first three presidents. John also breaks down the issues that Madison had to deal with during his term that didn’t involve Great Britain and France messing with American shipping and trade, including the annexation of Florida, congressional and party factionalism and maintaining national unity in the face of growing sectionalism.

John then concentrates on the titanic struggle between Great Britain and France and how the United States found itself caught in the middle. He covers the ways that the U.S. tried to stand up for itself as a sovereign country, short of war, what was entailed in the so-called “restrictive regime”, and why it was so difficult for the American government to control its destiny in the early 1800s. Finally, John details how it was the U.S. came to declare war against Great Britain in the summer of 1812, despite the fact that the British really did not want war and attempted to placate the U.S. in a number of ways in the weeks and months before the declaration was issued.

In this episode, John stacks up the lives and careers of two of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. John goes into a lot of detail about the endeavors and accomplishments that make both men the legendary historical heavyweights that they are. He talks about their impact on American governance, American economics, American culture, American religion and the trajectory of American society from independence onward.

But John also deals with the many shortcomings and foibles of both men. John explains why he is more “Team Hamilton” than “Team Jefferson” because of they way that they each felt and wrote and talked about human nature, the purpose and operation of government and how they envisioned the future of the United States. John confesses why he sympathizes so much more with Hamilton than with Jefferson, despite both men being titans of American history who have a great many character flaws between them.

In this episode, John explores the mass religious movement in the United States referred to as The Second Great Awakening. John discusses the origin of this explosion of religious growth and diversification and why it was that it occurred in the aftermath of the American Revolution. John talks about how the movement defied expectations of the Founding Fathers, who anticipated a more secular society after the Revolution, and how it demonstrated another dichotomy between the elites and the “middling sort”, in much the same way the divergence between Federalists and Democratic Republicans did.

John also goes through some of the prominent leaders of the Second Great Awakening and how the leadership of this movement defied the typical leadership of religious sects up to this point. He covers the various ways in which the Second Great Awakening was a grassroots movement that eschewed the role of traditional clergy in the Congregationalist or Episcopalian denominations. Finally, John talks about the way that the Second Great Awakening reflected a larger movement for more democratic input in American institutions.

In this episode, John focuses on slavery in the United States in the years after the American Revolution. John investigates why it is that slavery did not die out, as most of the Founding Fathers expected it would in the 1780s and 1790s. John talks about the reasons why so many Americans believed that slavery was on its way out in America, not the least of which was the fact that slavery absolutely did not comport with the ideals on which the United States was founded as an independent country.

John explores the social, economic and political factors that led, not only to the continued existence of slavery in the U.S., but to the rapid and widespread expansion of slavery, despite many states having explicitly abolished the institution within their borders. The growth of the so-called “Cotton Kingdom”, the market revolution within the U.S. and the continuing evolution and development of industrialization both in America and in Europe were factors in slavery’s expansion. Finally, John discusses the immense power and wealth of the “Planter Aristocracy” of the Deep South and the ways in which the Haitian Revolution and Gabriel’s Rebellion led to a backlash against freeing slaves, which had picked up steam after the success of the American Revolution.

In this episode, John discusses the important events and decisions of Thomas Jefferson’s second term as the third U.S. President. John begins by talking about the Sally Hemings affair, which was actually brought to public attention in a very direct way for the first time about halfway through Jefferson’s first term. John explains how and why it was that Jefferson’s decades-long relationship with one of his slaves became a national story, why it matters when considering Jefferson’s legacy and how it was that Jefferson dealt with it all when it became a public scandal.

John then dives into Jefferson’s troubled second term, which went nowhere near as smoothly as his first term. John talks about the administration’s decision to break with Great Britain, even as the U.S. was benefiting tremendously from trade facilitated in part by the detente achieved with Britain through the Jay Treaty. John explains how things got ugly really fast for American ships and seamen in 1805, how the Napoleonic Wars figured into this situation and what the American government chose to do about it. Finally, John discusses how Jefferson decided to start a trade war with Britain and France, why it failed and what the results were from the American perspective.

In this episode, John reviews through what he has learned so far doing the show. John covers a variety of topics that he has gone into detail on in previous episodes, stretching all the way back to the very first How the Hell Did We Get Here. John starts out by talking about the Pre-Columbian period and the years between Columbus and the settlement of Jamestown, before discussing all the things he learned about the colonial period that he did not know before he started researching for the show, including the plantation of Ireland, how it affected English settlement of North America, Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design, and other lesser known historical tidbits.

John goes on to cover the American Revolution, the creation of the U.S. Constitution after the Articles of Confederation showed itself to be unworkable, and the ways that the experiment in democratic republicanism brought about unexpected problems and benefits. John Also talks about the first three presidential administrations and the things he learned that went on during those administrations. There’s also a pretty spicy assessment of the Trump administration before he gets to the history stuff, so don’t say we didn’t warn you!

In this episode, John does a deep dive into the early years of the Judicial Branch of the federal government. John begins by explaining how courts, judges and lawyers were perceived by the colonists in the decades before the American Revolution and what role it was in society and in the colonial governments that these elements played. John then discusses the changes that Americans wanted to see in the judicial system upon achieving independence from Great Britain and how the rapid evolution of democracy in the various states led to a push for a more uniform legal system in the country and a less hostile view of lawyers, judges and the judiciary more broadly by the time of the Constitutional Convention.

Finally, John covers the impact of the Marshall Court in general and the Marbury v. Madison case decided by that court in particular. John gives some background about who John Marshall was, how he ended up as the Chief Justice and his approach toward that position before explaining the details of the Marbury case. John concludes by breaking down the concept of Judicial Review and how the Judicial Branch was transformed by the other branches’ acceptance of the notion that judges and justices should exercise this authority in the U.S. government.

In this episode, John discusses the circumstances that allowed the Jefferson administration to complete the Louisiana Purchase from France. John explains how it was that France came to acquire Louisiana again and what it was that drove Napoleon to sell the territory to the U.S. less than five years after acquiring it. John also talks about the Lewis and Clark expedition and its importance to the foundation of an American presence in the middle of North America.

John also goes through the Jefferson administration’s decision to go to war with the Barbary Pirates in 1801. John covers the background of the conflict and why it was that Jefferson, despite his general opposition to warfare, decided that pursuing aggressive action against the Barbary states was warranted. John discusses how the conflict was ultimately resolved and why it was an important event in early American history.

In this episode, John dives into the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, focusing specifically on his most important ideas and priorities as he took over from the Federalists as America’s third president. John discusses why Jefferson was such a monumental figure in American history, how he and his ideas came to dominate the first quarter century of the 1800s and how he saw his role in America’s “Empire of Liberty”. John talks about the Jeffersonians’ goals to shrink the size of the federal government, pay off the national debt, demilitarize the U.S. from the brink of war with France and encourage the growth of democracy and the influence of Americans who did not come from the wealthy or educated elite classes.

John also devotes a significant amount of time to explaining the shortcomings of Jeffersonian Democracy. He talks about how Jefferson seemed to have some really significant blind spots when it came to who his style of governance and his foreign and domestic policies would benefit. John also points out the ways in which Jefferson moderated from his stalwart opposition to the Federalists when he became president, in part because Jefferson recognized that he would be setting the example for what future presidents would do when they took power from departing presidents who belonged to an opposition party.

In this episode, John discusses the conditions leading up to the presidential election of 1800. He breaks down who the main candidates were, how both the Federalist and Democratic Republican parties campaigned in this very early era of party politics and what the strengths and weaknesses of both sides were as the election approached. John also explains the division within the Federalist Party between Alexander Hamilton and John Adams and how this internal rift made winning the election very difficult for the party in general and John Adams in particular.

John also examines how the structure of the Electoral College, as it operated at this time, created a serious crisis for the country. John runs through what the crisis was, how different actors in the political system approached it and how it was ultimately resolved, ending with Jefferson’s election to the presidency.