WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 So imagine launching a brand new country. Right. 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:06.339 Oh, an incredibly stressful thought. Yeah. And 00:00:06.339 --> 00:00:10.320 within three years, your capital city is evacuated 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:12.720 because of a deadly biological virus. Right. 00:00:13.039 --> 00:00:16.820 Your citizens are in open armed rebellion over 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:19.260 the price of whiskey. And your founding fathers 00:00:19.260 --> 00:00:22.420 are secretly drafting legislation to basically 00:00:22.420 --> 00:00:24.809 overthrow each other's authority. It really paints 00:00:24.809 --> 00:00:27.149 a different picture. Welcome to the United States 00:00:27.149 --> 00:00:31.429 in the 1790s. It completely shatters that mythological 00:00:31.429 --> 00:00:33.170 painting we all have in our heads, doesn't it? 00:00:33.310 --> 00:00:35.649 Oh, total. The one where, you know, a group of 00:00:35.649 --> 00:00:39.009 men in powdered wigs just calmly sign a flawless 00:00:39.009 --> 00:00:41.810 piece of parchment, step outside and politely 00:00:41.810 --> 00:00:44.590 hand over this perfectly functioning society. 00:00:44.789 --> 00:00:46.929 It totally shatters it. And I mean, that actually 00:00:46.929 --> 00:00:48.670 brings us to our mission for you, the listener, 00:00:48.869 --> 00:00:51.229 on today's deep dive. Right. Because you might 00:00:51.229 --> 00:00:52.990 think the founding of the U .S. was this really 00:00:52.990 --> 00:00:55.579 neat orderly process of enlightenment engineering. 00:00:56.299 --> 00:00:58.200 But our mission today is to uncover how this 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:01.219 incredibly fragile new country actually survived 00:01:01.219 --> 00:01:04.400 its first 30 turbulent years. Without completely 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:07.530 tearing itself apart. Exactly. And to do that, 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:11.290 we are using a massive comprehensive historical 00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:14.469 timeline of the United States, specifically looking 00:01:14.469 --> 00:01:17.989 from 1790 to 1819. And this source is just packed. 00:01:18.290 --> 00:01:20.950 It really is. It's full of treaties, armed rebellions, 00:01:21.409 --> 00:01:25.269 massive legal showdowns, and groundbreaking inventions. 00:01:25.349 --> 00:01:27.109 Right. And we're going to use all of it to figure 00:01:27.109 --> 00:01:29.549 out how this nation made it out of its infancy. 00:01:30.019 --> 00:01:32.400 So, okay, let's unpack this. We're starting in 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.439 the 1790s, where the blueprint finally meets 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:38.659 reality. And, um, reality hits with the force 00:01:38.659 --> 00:01:40.599 of a freight train here. Yeah, it does. Because 00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:42.780 the 1790s is the exact moment where all those 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:45.439 abstract philosophical theories of the Constitution 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:47.519 suddenly have to function in the mud and the 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:49.540 dirt of the real world. Governing real people. 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:51.739 Right, real people who have fiercely competing 00:01:51.739 --> 00:01:53.640 interests. Well, looking at these early dates 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:55.780 on the timeline, the best analogy I can come 00:01:55.780 --> 00:01:58.680 up with is that the 1790s feel exactly like launching 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.239 the beta version of a massive new software app. 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:04.140 Oh, I like that. Right. Like, the Constitution 00:02:04.140 --> 00:02:06.299 is the underlying code. The developers have launched 00:02:06.299 --> 00:02:08.780 it to the public. But immediately, you have to 00:02:08.780 --> 00:02:11.000 get everyone to actually log on and use the platform. 00:02:11.099 --> 00:02:13.740 Which is always the hardest part. Exactly. So 00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:16.719 in 1790, Rhode Island finally gives in, ratifies 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:19.259 the Constitution, and becomes the 13th state. 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:22.159 They finally log on. Yep. Then Vermont logs on 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:24.960 in 1791. But Vermont was basically operating 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.120 as his own independent republic before that. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.539 Right. Then Kentucky joins in 1792 and Tennessee 00:02:30.539 --> 00:02:34.800 in 1796. You aren't just adding lines to a map 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:38.060 here. You are shifting the balance of power away 00:02:38.060 --> 00:02:40.500 from the original coastal elites and handing 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:42.759 it to frontier settlers. Which fundamentally 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:45.699 changes the user base of this new country, to 00:02:45.699 --> 00:02:48.759 use your analogy. Yeah. And to manage that rapidly 00:02:48.759 --> 00:02:51.280 expanding user base, the government rolls out 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:53.819 major feature updates, like the Bill of Rights 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:56.500 is adopted in 1791. Right, the first big patch. 00:02:56.780 --> 00:02:59.580 Exactly. It guarantees certain individual liberties, 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:01.620 mostly to calm the fears of folks who thought 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:03.360 the federal government was already getting way 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:06.560 too powerful. And in that same year, Alexander 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.020 Hamilton pushes through the charter for the first 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:11.840 bank of the United States. Which is huge. Right. 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:14.900 Because he realizes you just can't have a functioning 00:03:14.900 --> 00:03:18.199 nation if you've got 13 different state currencies 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:21.539 floating around, plus these massive unpaid war 00:03:21.539 --> 00:03:24.900 debts. Right. So he creates the bank to literally 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:27.400 bind the wealth of the country to the survival 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:30.650 of the federal government. But... I mean, as 00:03:30.650 --> 00:03:32.629 soon as the citizens actually start interacting 00:03:32.629 --> 00:03:36.539 with this new operating system. bugs pop up everywhere. 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:38.800 Oh, yeah. And they aren't just minor glitches. 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:41.360 They are catastrophic failures. Well, what's 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:43.699 fascinating here is that the physical disruptions 00:03:43.699 --> 00:03:46.340 alone were nearly fatal. Yeah, look at 1793. 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:49.500 Right. A devastating yellow fever outbreak hits 00:03:49.500 --> 00:03:52.379 Philadelphia, which was the nation's capital 00:03:52.379 --> 00:03:54.020 at the time. Yeah, it wasn't Washington, D .C. 00:03:54.099 --> 00:03:56.419 yet. Exactly. And this wasn't just some local 00:03:56.419 --> 00:03:58.780 -ars tragedy. It essentially collapsed the federal 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:01.240 government for months. George Washington and 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:03.900 his cabinet literally had to flee the city. Just 00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:06.789 pack up and run. Yeah, the entire apparatus of 00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:09.210 the state completely shut down because of a mosquito 00:04:09.210 --> 00:04:11.469 -borne virus. But the human bugs in the system 00:04:11.469 --> 00:04:14.430 were honestly even more severe than the biological 00:04:14.430 --> 00:04:17.029 ones. I'm looking at the rebellions on this timeline. 00:04:17.310 --> 00:04:19.689 Oh, the rebellions are the ultimate stress test. 00:04:20.170 --> 00:04:23.610 You have the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 and later 00:04:23.610 --> 00:04:26.910 Fry's Rebellion in 1799. And let's look at the 00:04:26.910 --> 00:04:28.689 mechanism of the Whiskey Rebellion, because it's 00:04:28.689 --> 00:04:32.129 not just a random riot over alcohol. Right. It's 00:04:32.129 --> 00:04:34.490 way deeper than that. It represents the terrifying 00:04:34.490 --> 00:04:38.350 friction between massive federal ambition and 00:04:38.350 --> 00:04:41.370 fierce individual resistance. So the federal 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:43.910 government, led by Hamilton's economic plan, 00:04:44.329 --> 00:04:47.240 decides it needs to tax domestically produced 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:50.019 distilled spirits. To pay off those revolutionary 00:04:50.019 --> 00:04:52.660 war debts. Exactly. And the citizens on the Western 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:54.839 frontier look at that and say, hold on a second, 00:04:55.019 --> 00:04:57.959 we literally just fought an eight year bloody 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:01.800 war against a distant centralized authority taxing 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:04.339 us without our consent. Right. And now you, a 00:05:04.339 --> 00:05:06.180 distant centralized authority in Philadelphia, 00:05:06.259 --> 00:05:08.439 are doing the exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah, we 00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:11.480 aren't paying. And the defiance is so absolute 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:13.939 that George Washington realizes, you know, if 00:05:13.939 --> 00:05:16.560 he doesn't enforce this tax, the new Constitution 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:20.139 is just as worthless as the old Articles of Confederation. 00:05:20.139 --> 00:05:24.259 Wow. It forces this unprecedented moment in history. 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:26.899 George Washington, the sitting president of the 00:05:26.899 --> 00:05:29.420 United States, literally puts his old military 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:32.540 uniform back on. That is wild. He mounts his 00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:35.379 horse and leads a federalized militia of nearly 00:05:35.379 --> 00:05:38.730 13 ,000 men into western Pennsylvania to the 00:05:38.730 --> 00:05:41.310 rebellion of his own citizens. So the developers 00:05:41.310 --> 00:05:44.370 are literally bringing in the military to force 00:05:44.370 --> 00:05:46.709 the users to accept the monetization strategy. 00:05:46.829 --> 00:05:48.740 That's one way to put it, yeah. But that intense 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:50.399 friction doesn't just happen out of the frontier. 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:52.699 It completely affects the halls of power, too. 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:55.439 Because when you look at the late 1790s on the 00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:58.100 timeline, the political infighting spikes into 00:05:58.100 --> 00:06:00.360 full blown paranoia. Oh, absolutely. John Adams 00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:03.000 is president. And in 1798, his administration 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:05.759 passes the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is just 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:08.240 a staggering piece of legislation. Under the 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:10.579 guise of national security, because there's this 00:06:10.579 --> 00:06:14.220 quasi war with France going on, the Adams administration 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:17.259 essentially makes it a criminal offense to publish 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:20.279 of false scandalous and malicious writing against 00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:22.300 the federal government. Which is incredibly broad. 00:06:22.579 --> 00:06:25.379 Exactly. They were throwing newspaper editors 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:28.519 who disagreed with them into prison. It was a 00:06:28.519 --> 00:06:31.939 direct legislative attempt to criminalize political 00:06:31.939 --> 00:06:34.160 opposition. They were actively trying to ban 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:36.779 the users from leaving bad reviews of the government. 00:06:36.839 --> 00:06:40.899 Pretty much. And the pushback is immediate and 00:06:40.899 --> 00:06:43.399 honestly incredibly dangerous for the survival 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:46.439 of the union. Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.399 is Adams's own vice president at the time, he 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:51.680 and James Madison secretly draft the Virginia 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:55.879 and Kentucky resolutions in 1798 and 1799. And 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:59.079 the mechanism they propose here is wild. They 00:06:59.079 --> 00:07:01.720 essentially argue for this concept of nullification, 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:03.959 the idea that if a state believes a federal law 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:06.339 is unconstitutional, the state has the inherent 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:08.720 right to just ignore it. And think about the 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:11.439 intellectual danger of that idea. If any state 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:13.980 can unilaterally decide which federal laws it 00:07:13.980 --> 00:07:15.959 wants to follow, you don't have a country anymore. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:17.939 You have a loose suggestion of a country. Right. 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:20.600 The system was entirely at war with itself, and 00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:22.560 they were actively realizing that the initial 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.560 programming needed urgent patches to prevent 00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:28.360 a total collapse. Which brings us to a literal 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:31.040 patch on the timeline, the 11th Amendment passing 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.759 in 1795. Yeah, the 11th Amendment perfectly illustrates 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:37.629 how reactionary early American governance actually 00:07:37.629 --> 00:07:41.730 was. How so? Well, in 1793, the Supreme Court 00:07:41.730 --> 00:07:44.790 heard a case called Chisholm v. Georgia, which 00:07:44.790 --> 00:07:47.470 basically ruled that a citizen of one state could 00:07:47.470 --> 00:07:50.110 sue another state in federal court. Okay. The 00:07:50.110 --> 00:07:52.209 states were absolutely horrified by this. It 00:07:52.209 --> 00:07:55.029 was a massive breach of their perceived sovereign 00:07:55.029 --> 00:07:58.050 immunity. They realized the Constitutional Code 00:07:58.050 --> 00:08:00.410 allowed a loophole that stripped them of their 00:08:00.410 --> 00:08:02.370 power. Oh, that's what I see. So Congress and 00:08:02.370 --> 00:08:05.149 the states rapidly banded together, drafted the 00:08:05.149 --> 00:08:08.430 11th Amendment, and explicitly revoked the federal 00:08:08.430 --> 00:08:10.529 court's ability to hear those specific kinds 00:08:10.529 --> 00:08:13.990 of lawsuits. It's just constant reactive survival. 00:08:15.029 --> 00:08:17.750 And, you know, looking at the timeline, we really 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:20.850 must impartially report on a glaring contradiction 00:08:20.850 --> 00:08:23.029 regarding this foundational framework. Right. 00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:25.810 Right alongside the triumphant adoption of the 00:08:25.810 --> 00:08:28.959 Bill of Rights in 1791. The timeline notes the 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.740 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793. Yes, 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:34.580 it does. The foundational code of this ostensibly 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:38.259 free nation explicitly enforced the institution 00:08:38.259 --> 00:08:41.240 of human bondage across state lines, allowing 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.860 slaveholders to capture enslaved people who had 00:08:43.860 --> 00:08:46.700 escaped into free states. We aren't making a 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:48.440 political point here. Just reporting with the 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:51.179 source shows these deeply ingrained contradictions 00:08:51.179 --> 00:08:53.440 were present right from the beginning. It is 00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:56.259 a stark, unavoidable reality of the era based 00:08:56.259 --> 00:08:58.759 on the text. The framers were designing a system 00:08:58.759 --> 00:09:01.440 of liberty while simultaneously institutionalizing 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:03.980 human bondage into the very legal framework of 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:06.799 the republic. And that fundamental contradiction, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.360 along with the intense debates over federal versus 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:11.899 state power, acts like a pressure cooker throughout 00:09:11.899 --> 00:09:14.340 the entire 1790s. Because none of these issues 00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:16.899 are actually resolved. Exactly. They are merely 00:09:16.899 --> 00:09:21.029 deferred. And that deferral directly causes the 00:09:21.029 --> 00:09:23.889 total system failure we see as the timeline shifts 00:09:23.889 --> 00:09:26.389 into the 1800s. Right, because this complete 00:09:26.389 --> 00:09:29.529 breakdown in state versus federal trust didn't 00:09:29.529 --> 00:09:32.649 just cause protests. It completely broke the 00:09:32.649 --> 00:09:36.049 electoral system, forcing a massive constitutional 00:09:36.049 --> 00:09:38.870 crisis during the election of 1800. Oh, the election 00:09:38.870 --> 00:09:41.429 of 1800 is where the original blueprint of the 00:09:41.429 --> 00:09:44.850 Constitution spectacularly fails its first major 00:09:44.850 --> 00:09:48.980 transition of power. this incredible electoral 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:52.340 tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.399 And the mechanism of how this happened is fascinating 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:57.000 because they were actually on the same ticket. 00:09:57.639 --> 00:09:59.159 Jefferson was supposed to be the president and 00:09:59.159 --> 00:10:01.059 Burr was supposed to be his vice president. But 00:10:01.059 --> 00:10:02.899 the original constitutional code didn't account 00:10:02.899 --> 00:10:05.820 for separate ballots. Electors just cast two 00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:08.740 votes for president. So Jefferson and Burr ended 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:11.159 up with the exact same number of votes, creating 00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:13.779 a dead tie for first place. And Burr, you know, 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:16.220 seeing an opportunity, he just refuses to step 00:10:16.220 --> 00:10:19.080 aside. And Hersey does. The code literally didn't 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:21.620 have an automated fix for this edge case. So 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:23.519 the election gets thrown to the House of Representatives. 00:10:23.700 --> 00:10:28.100 What a mess. It takes 36 separate agonizing ballots. 00:10:28.350 --> 00:10:31.970 endless backroom deals, and the active intervention 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:35.070 of Alexander Hamilton to finally break the deadlock 00:10:35.070 --> 00:10:37.830 and put Jefferson in the presidency in 1801. 00:10:38.190 --> 00:10:40.250 So what's their solution to the fact that their 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:42.789 electoral system nearly triggered a civil war? 00:10:43.070 --> 00:10:45.509 They deploy another patch. The 12th Amendment 00:10:45.509 --> 00:10:49.669 is ratified in 1804. explicitly separating the 00:10:49.669 --> 00:10:51.769 electoral votes for president and vice president. 00:10:52.269 --> 00:10:53.990 So a tie like that could never happen again. 00:10:54.110 --> 00:10:56.529 And that establishes a really critical pattern 00:10:56.529 --> 00:10:58.669 for the survival of the United States. Right. 00:10:58.909 --> 00:11:01.450 When the system breaks, they don't scrap the 00:11:01.450 --> 00:11:03.970 constitution, they amend it, they adapt. Yeah. 00:11:04.159 --> 00:11:06.539 But, you know, the 1800s aren't just about fixing 00:11:06.539 --> 00:11:09.360 the political machinery in Washington. It is 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:12.779 a decade defined by an absolute explosion of 00:11:12.779 --> 00:11:14.659 boundaries. Yeah, the physical map of the country 00:11:14.659 --> 00:11:16.940 is suddenly ripped wide open. You've got the 00:11:16.940 --> 00:11:20.559 Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Napoleon needs cash 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:23.779 for his European wars. And Thomas Jefferson strikes 00:11:23.779 --> 00:11:26.480 a deal to buy a massive chunk of the continent 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:29.659 from France for 15 million dollars. Which is 00:11:29.659 --> 00:11:31.820 wild to think about. Overnight, the physical 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:33.899 server space of the nation basically doubles. 00:11:34.110 --> 00:11:37.669 Ohio becomes the 17th state that same year. And 00:11:37.669 --> 00:11:40.970 by 1804, Lewis and Clark are funded and sent 00:11:40.970 --> 00:11:43.710 out to actually walk the land and figure out 00:11:43.710 --> 00:11:45.690 what the government just bought. And this is 00:11:45.690 --> 00:11:47.809 where the timeline reveals something incredible. 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:50.860 At the exact same moment, the physical boundaries 00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:53.419 of the country are expanding westward. The legal 00:11:53.419 --> 00:11:55.200 boundaries of the government are being radically 00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:58.200 redefined back in Washington. How so? Well, in 00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:01.139 1801, outgoing president John Adams appoints 00:12:01.139 --> 00:12:03.059 John Marshall as the chief justice of the Supreme 00:12:03.059 --> 00:12:06.639 Court. That appointment leads directly to arguably 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:08.980 the most important legal event on this entire 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:12.200 timeline, Marbury v. Madison in 1803. OK, let's 00:12:12.200 --> 00:12:13.620 pause on that for a second because I have to 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:15.659 push back on behalf of the listener here. Sure. 00:12:15.850 --> 00:12:18.509 Marbury v. Madison is the famous case where the 00:12:18.509 --> 00:12:21.950 Supreme Court invalidates a law passed by Congress 00:12:21.950 --> 00:12:24.789 for the very first time. Right. But wait, did 00:12:24.789 --> 00:12:26.889 the Supreme Court just magically give itself 00:12:26.889 --> 00:12:29.149 the power to strike down congressional laws in 00:12:29.149 --> 00:12:33.899 1803? Was judicial review actually written into 00:12:33.899 --> 00:12:36.620 the original blueprint or did John Marshall just 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:39.360 invent this power out of thin air to solve a 00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:41.639 partisan dispute? If we connect this to the bigger 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:44.600 picture, I'd argue it's a brilliant piece of 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:47.840 political judo. OK, explain that. So the Constitution 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.720 establishes a Supreme Court, but it is remarkably 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:53.740 vague about its actual day to day authority. 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:57.639 The mechanism of this case is fascinating. Marshall 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.659 is navigating a petty political dispute over 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:03.000 undelivered judge commissions left over from 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.940 the outgoing Adams administration. Marshall knows 00:13:05.940 --> 00:13:08.379 if he orders Jefferson's administration to deliver 00:13:08.379 --> 00:13:10.580 the commissions, Jefferson will just ignore him, 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:12.960 which would prove the court is completely powerless. 00:13:13.179 --> 00:13:15.759 So what does he do? He sacrifices the small battle 00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:18.759 to win the massive war. Wow. Marshall rules that 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:20.860 Marbury deserves his commission, but says the 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:23.320 Supreme Court can't force the delivery because 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:25.500 the specific congressional law giving the court 00:13:25.500 --> 00:13:28.080 that power is unconstitutional. Oh, that's clever. 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:31.370 Right. In doing so, Marshall boldly declares 00:13:31.370 --> 00:13:34.169 that, quote, it is emphatically the province 00:13:34.169 --> 00:13:36.190 and duty of the judicial department to say what 00:13:36.190 --> 00:13:39.190 the law is. He essentially claims the absolute 00:13:39.190 --> 00:13:41.929 power of judicial review for the court. He stakes 00:13:41.929 --> 00:13:44.429 the flag in the ground. Exactly. He willingly 00:13:44.429 --> 00:13:47.429 gives up a tiny bit of immediate jurisdiction 00:13:47.429 --> 00:13:50.029 in order to permanently crown the Supreme Court 00:13:50.029 --> 00:13:52.029 as the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution. 00:13:53.090 --> 00:13:55.330 The institutions of the United States were actively 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:57.769 defining their own power limits in real time. 00:13:57.899 --> 00:14:01.179 The framework of the country was expanding physically 00:14:01.179 --> 00:14:04.000 with the Louisiana Purchase and legally with 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.539 Marbury v. Vadison at the exact same moment. 00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:08.700 And as they stretch those physical and legal 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:10.620 boundaries, the contradictions we talked about 00:14:10.620 --> 00:14:12.840 earlier are stretched right along with them. 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:15.379 Yes, they are. The timeline shows New Jersey 00:14:15.379 --> 00:14:19.419 abolishing slavery in 1804. In 1807, the U .S. 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:22.240 officially ends its participation in the international 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:24.860 slave trade with Africa. On paper, you see these 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:28.029 legislative steps. But simultaneously, because 00:14:28.029 --> 00:14:30.889 of the Louisiana Purchase, the nation is rapidly 00:14:30.889 --> 00:14:33.830 expanding westward into vast new territories 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:36.870 where the economic institution of slavery will 00:14:36.870 --> 00:14:39.750 fiercely take root and expand domestically. It 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.929 is the defining unresolved tension of the era. 00:14:43.289 --> 00:14:46.309 You cannot double the size of a country, rapidly 00:14:46.309 --> 00:14:48.370 increase its population, and continually defer 00:14:48.370 --> 00:14:51.230 its deepest moral and economic contradictions 00:14:51.230 --> 00:14:53.350 without eventually reaching a breaking point. 00:14:53.570 --> 00:14:56.210 Which means all of this rapid expansion is about 00:14:56.210 --> 00:14:58.029 to hit a brick wall. Oh, definitely. Because 00:14:58.029 --> 00:15:00.090 you can't double the size of a country in the 00:15:00.090 --> 00:15:03.590 early 1800s without eventually needing to physically 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:05.909 connect it, defend those new massive borders, 00:15:06.009 --> 00:15:08.330 and actually pay for all of it. Right. And that 00:15:08.330 --> 00:15:10.769 consequence brings us crashing into the 1810s. 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.379 The geographical isolation of the American frontier 00:15:13.379 --> 00:15:16.679 was a massive existential vulnerability. If you 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:18.779 couldn't efficiently move agricultural goods, 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:21.240 migrating people, or federal armies across this 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:24.059 vast new space, the nation would simply splinter 00:15:24.059 --> 00:15:26.360 apart into regional factions. It would be impossible 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:28.480 to govern. And so the nation starts building. 00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:30.980 Here's where it gets really interesting. I look 00:15:30.980 --> 00:15:33.899 at the 1810s. And it initially reminds me of 00:15:33.899 --> 00:15:35.820 a teenager who just got their first car. OK, 00:15:35.980 --> 00:15:37.759 I can see that. Right. They finally have the 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:41.700 keys and there is this exhilarating, almost reckless 00:15:41.700 --> 00:15:45.539 sense of freedom and acceleration. For the U 00:15:45.539 --> 00:15:48.799 .S., that acceleration is the explosion of new 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:52.340 infrastructure and rapid statehood. Right. Robert 00:15:52.340 --> 00:15:54.779 Fulton invents the first commercially successful 00:15:54.779 --> 00:15:58.059 steamboat in 1807, which fundamentally changes 00:15:58.059 --> 00:16:00.620 the physics of trade. You can finally travel 00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:03.299 up a river against the current. Which is revolutionary. 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.279 And by 1818, the Cumberland Road opens, which 00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:09.399 is the first major improved highway funded entirely 00:16:09.399 --> 00:16:11.379 by the federal government, cutting right through 00:16:11.379 --> 00:16:13.519 the Appalachian Mountains. But we have to elevate 00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:17.080 that analogy. from a teenager's car to a macroeconomic 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.120 reality. It's fair enough. The steamboat and 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:20.960 the Cumberland Road aren't just vehicles for 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:23.220 freedom, they are the required economic arteries 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:26.200 for a booming empire. Look at the states being 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:29.620 minted during this decade. Louisiana in 1812, 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:34.080 Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817. Illinois 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:38.360 in 1818, Alabama in 1819, the country is accelerating 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.919 at a breakneck pace. And what happens when a 00:16:40.919 --> 00:16:43.000 teenager accelerates recklessly without proper 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.879 defenses? They crash. They crash hard. And in 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:48.240 this case, the collision with reality is the 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:51.179 War of 1812. Yeah, the War of 1812, which the 00:16:51.179 --> 00:16:53.519 timeline accurately notes, is essentially a North 00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:56.379 American offshoot of the global Napoleonic Wars. 00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.379 It was the ultimate brutal stress test for this 00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:01.460 new infrastructure and this new government. It 00:17:01.460 --> 00:17:03.649 is a devastating crash. They often gloss over 00:17:03.649 --> 00:17:06.309 it, but in 1814, British troops literally march 00:17:06.309 --> 00:17:08.450 into Washington, D .C., sit down at the White 00:17:08.450 --> 00:17:10.730 House, eat the president's dinner, and then burn 00:17:10.730 --> 00:17:12.849 the Capitol to the ground. The physical seat 00:17:12.849 --> 00:17:15.329 of the federal government is set on fire. Yeah. 00:17:15.710 --> 00:17:17.829 It's only when the British are forced into a 00:17:17.829 --> 00:17:20.809 stalemate at Baltimore, and eventually decisively 00:17:20.809 --> 00:17:23.390 defeated at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, 00:17:23.910 --> 00:17:26.009 that the nation manages to secure the Treaty 00:17:26.009 --> 00:17:29.269 of Ghent. They barely survived the crash. And 00:17:29.269 --> 00:17:31.910 surviving that war triggers a massive paradigm 00:17:31.910 --> 00:17:34.710 shift. How so? Once the smoke clears, the federal 00:17:34.710 --> 00:17:37.029 government realizes how incredibly close they 00:17:37.029 --> 00:17:40.069 came to losing the country. How do you stabilize 00:17:40.069 --> 00:17:43.630 a system that almost just collapsed? You aggressively 00:17:43.630 --> 00:17:46.150 lock down its economic and legal architecture. 00:17:46.470 --> 00:17:48.609 So sticking with the analogy, you essentially 00:17:48.609 --> 00:17:50.849 get hit with the devastating insurance bill for 00:17:50.849 --> 00:17:52.869 your reckless driving and you realize you need 00:17:52.869 --> 00:17:55.950 a better bank. Precisely. The War of 1812 proved 00:17:55.950 --> 00:17:58.269 that trying to fight a national war and manage 00:17:58.269 --> 00:18:00.890 massive national debt without a centralized bank 00:18:00.890 --> 00:18:04.210 is practically impossible. Right. So in 1816, 00:18:04.230 --> 00:18:06.410 Congress charters the second bank of the United 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:08.930 States to stabilize the currency and manage the 00:18:08.930 --> 00:18:10.910 explosive growth happening out on the Cumberland 00:18:10.910 --> 00:18:13.349 Road. And the Supreme Court jumps right back 00:18:13.349 --> 00:18:16.049 into the fray to protect this new interconnected 00:18:16.049 --> 00:18:18.829 economy. They do. The timeline lists a critical 00:18:18.829 --> 00:18:21.750 case, Dartmouth College v. Woodward in 1819. 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:24.990 The mechanism here is vital because the court 00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:28.170 rules that a private corporate charter is a contract. 00:18:28.349 --> 00:18:31.650 and state legislatures cannot arbitrarily interfere 00:18:31.650 --> 00:18:35.349 with or change those contracts. It lays the absolute 00:18:35.349 --> 00:18:38.349 legal foundation for modern corporate capitalism. 00:18:38.970 --> 00:18:41.730 And then, in that same year, you have McCulloch 00:18:41.730 --> 00:18:44.210 v. Maryland, where the Supreme Court explicitly 00:18:44.210 --> 00:18:46.789 prohibits state governments from taxing the new 00:18:46.789 --> 00:18:49.039 second bank of the United States. This raises 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.079 an important question, though. Think about what 00:18:51.079 --> 00:18:53.339 that means when you synthesize all these events. 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:55.940 Physical infrastructure, like the Cumberland 00:18:55.940 --> 00:18:58.779 Road, is merging with legal protections for commerce 00:18:58.779 --> 00:19:01.799 from the Supreme Court. They are naturally, inevitably 00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:04.299 leading to the creation of a deeply interconnected 00:19:04.299 --> 00:19:07.519 national economy. A frontier farmer in Illinois 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:10.319 is now financially linked to a merchant in Philadelphia 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:13.240 who is linked to a bank in London. But an interconnected 00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.720 economy comes with a massive, terrifying new 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.769 vulnerability. Yes. Because when you link all 00:19:19.769 --> 00:19:22.950 the markets together, a failure in one isolated 00:19:22.950 --> 00:19:26.049 sector no longer stays isolated. It cascades 00:19:26.049 --> 00:19:28.650 violently through the entire system. Which leads 00:19:28.650 --> 00:19:30.710 exactly to the insurance bill we mentioned. Right. 00:19:31.049 --> 00:19:33.549 The timeline caps off this 30 -year diagnostic 00:19:33.549 --> 00:19:37.210 with the Panic of 1819. It is the first major 00:19:37.210 --> 00:19:39.890 catastrophic economic crash in U .S. history. 00:19:40.349 --> 00:19:43.230 Cotton prices collapse globally, land speculation 00:19:43.230 --> 00:19:46.190 out west completely bursts, and suddenly, because 00:19:46.190 --> 00:19:49.519 everything is connected, Local banks fail. Foreclosures 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:51.759 skyrocket. Mass unemployment hits the cities. 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:54.259 They built this incredible economic machine. 00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:56.619 They turned it on. It ran beautifully for a moment 00:19:56.619 --> 00:19:59.099 and then the engine completely seized up. It 00:19:59.099 --> 00:20:01.660 is the painful birth of the modern macroeconomic 00:20:01.660 --> 00:20:04.980 cycle, the boom and the bust. The panic of 1819 00:20:04.980 --> 00:20:06.960 proved that the United States had survived its 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:09.099 political infancy and it had survived a second 00:20:09.099 --> 00:20:11.220 war with Great Britain. But it was now entirely 00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:13.819 at the mercy of complex global market forces 00:20:13.819 --> 00:20:17.559 that its leaders barely understood. Wow. So what 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:19.579 does this all mean for you, the listener, today? 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:21.900 That's the real question. When you open a news 00:20:21.900 --> 00:20:23.940 app on your phone or turn on the television, 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:27.240 it is incredibly easy to feel overwhelmed by 00:20:27.240 --> 00:20:30.339 the modern news cycle. We are constantly bombarded 00:20:30.339 --> 00:20:32.980 with terms like unprecedented times or constitutional 00:20:32.980 --> 00:20:35.759 crisis. Right. It feels like everything we are 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:38.299 living through right now is uniquely chaotic. 00:20:39.059 --> 00:20:41.980 But taking a deep dive into this span from 1790 00:20:41.980 --> 00:20:46.470 to 1819 proves that unprecedented times are actually 00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:49.230 the historical norm. The baseline condition of 00:20:49.230 --> 00:20:51.670 this nation has never been peace. It has always 00:20:51.670 --> 00:20:53.950 been turbulence. Exactly. The modern infrastructure 00:20:53.950 --> 00:20:56.170 you drive on, the centralized banking systems 00:20:56.170 --> 00:20:58.730 you use, the legal precedents that govern your 00:20:58.730 --> 00:21:01.630 daily contracts, they weren't handed down perfectly 00:21:01.630 --> 00:21:03.930 on pristine parchment by calm men and powdered 00:21:03.930 --> 00:21:06.130 wigs. No, they weren't. They were hammered out. 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.559 through literal gritty survival. They were forged 00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:12.160 through trial and error, through devastating 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:14.519 yellow fever outbreaks, through the burning of 00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:16.680 the capital city, through electoral ties that 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:18.819 nearly broke the government, and through massive 00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:21.980 cascading economic panics. The American system 00:21:21.980 --> 00:21:23.759 wasn't designed perfectly from the start. It 00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:26.319 was patched, updated, and violently rebooted 00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:29.200 over and over again. It really forces us to reconsider 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.319 our definition of stability. Oh, definitely. 00:21:31.539 --> 00:21:34.759 Stability isn't the absence of chaos. True stability 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:38.400 is the ability of a system to absorb chaos, adapt 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:41.819 to it, and keep functioning. And looking closely 00:21:41.819 --> 00:21:44.019 at the specific events on this timeline, there 00:21:44.019 --> 00:21:47.299 is one final incredibly specific detail that 00:21:47.299 --> 00:21:49.359 I think offers a fascinating window into the 00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:51.519 psychology of the people who actually lived through 00:21:51.519 --> 00:21:53.880 this endless adaptation. Well, I saw this on 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:55.500 the source list, and I was really hoping you'd 00:21:55.500 --> 00:21:57.440 bring it up. Yeah. So if you look at the late 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:00.980 1790s, right in the middle of the timeline, sandwiched 00:22:00.980 --> 00:22:03.319 between the tyrannical alien and sedition acts 00:22:03.319 --> 00:22:05.900 and the armed tax revolt of Fries's Rebellion, 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:08.660 The source explicitly includes the publication 00:22:08.660 --> 00:22:11.259 of two novels by an author named Charles Brockton 00:22:11.259 --> 00:22:14.900 Brown. The books are Wheeland, published in 1798, 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:18.779 and Edgar Huntley, published in 1799. Wait, fiction 00:22:18.779 --> 00:22:21.859 books? Amidst all the treaties, the Supreme Court 00:22:21.859 --> 00:22:24.160 cases, and the constitutional amendments, this 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.720 historical timeline specifically lists two works 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:29.990 of fiction. Yes. And they aren't just standard 00:22:29.990 --> 00:22:33.009 frontier romances. Charles Brockton Brown is 00:22:33.009 --> 00:22:35.049 widely considered the father of the American 00:22:35.049 --> 00:22:37.170 Gothic novel. Oh, wow. These books are filled 00:22:37.170 --> 00:22:40.230 with a dark, psychological horror. We are talking 00:22:40.230 --> 00:22:43.190 about spontaneous combustion, sleepwalking, religious 00:22:43.190 --> 00:22:47.009 mania, and deep existential paranoia. That is 00:22:47.009 --> 00:22:49.569 wild. Right in the middle of all that real world 00:22:49.569 --> 00:22:51.950 chaos. It really is. And it leaves us with a 00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:54.450 lingering, provocative question to mull over. 00:22:54.609 --> 00:22:57.119 Let's hear it. What does it say about a chaotic, 00:22:57.359 --> 00:22:59.940 newly formed society that, right in the middle 00:22:59.940 --> 00:23:02.880 of literal armed rebellions, yellow fever wiping 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:05.920 out the capital, and a government seemingly on 00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.779 the brink of total collapse, its citizens were 00:23:08.779 --> 00:23:11.460 eagerly starting to consume early Gothic horror 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:14.299 fiction? Ah. Is reading about imaginary instability, 00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:17.440 ghosts, and psychological horror a society's 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:19.720 subconscious way of coping with the very real 00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.700 world chaos surrounding them? That is such a 00:23:22.700 --> 00:23:25.490 compelling thought. It's almost as if when the 00:23:25.490 --> 00:23:27.410 real world feels like an airplane falling out 00:23:27.410 --> 00:23:29.569 of the sky with the wings coming off, maybe we 00:23:29.569 --> 00:23:31.670 just need to retreat into a story about a haunted 00:23:31.670 --> 00:23:34.069 house so we can finally feel like we're in control 00:23:34.069 --> 00:23:36.730 of the fear. Exactly. It just goes to show the 00:23:36.730 --> 00:23:39.490 hardware changes, the software updates, the geopolitical 00:23:39.490 --> 00:23:42.529 borders expand, but the users, well, users always 00:23:42.529 --> 00:23:43.589 stay exactly the same.