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.