Constitutional

Constitutional

With the writing of the Constitution in 1787, the framers set out a young nation’s highest ideals. And ever since, we’ve been fighting over it — what is in it and what was left out. At the heart of these arguments is the story of America. As a follow-up to the popular Washington Post podcast “Presidential,” reporter Lillian Cunningham returns with this series exploring the Constitution and the people who framed and reframed it — revolutionaries, abolitionists, suffragists, teetotalers, protesters, justices, presidents – in the ongoing struggle to form a more perfect union across a vast and diverse land.

Episodes

Introducing 'Constitutional'

June 29, 2017 • 4 mins
Preview The Washington Post's newest podcast, a narrative series about the revolutionary figures who shaped America's story. Subscribe now to get the first episode when it launches July 24.
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Framed

July 24, 2017 • 63 mins
In the premier episode of “Constitutional,” we go back in time to that hot Philadelphia summer in 1787 when a group of revolutionary Americans debated, drank and together drafted the U.S. Constitution.
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Ancestry

August 7, 2017 • 40 mins
In 1879, a case involving Chief Standing Bear came before a Nebraska courtroom and demanded an answer to the question: Are Native Americans considered human beings under the U.S. Constitution?
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Nationality

August 14, 2017 • 47 mins
What makes someone American? A landmark Supreme Court case in 1898, involving a child born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, would help answer that question.
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Race

August 21, 2017 • 51 mins
As powerful as it was to change the Constitution after the Civil War, and enshrine racial equality into our governing document, that wasn’t enough to change the reality of life in America.
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Gender

August 28, 2017 • 48 mins
From the American Revolution through today, women have been leading a long-burning rebellion to gain rights not originally guaranteed under the Constitution.
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Senate and states

September 11, 2017 • 45 mins
When the United States changed its process for electing senators, did that lead to a decline in state power? Or did it instead bring us closer to a "more perfect union"?
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Congress and citizens

September 25, 2017 • 38 mins
Is it a feature or a bug of the amendment process that an idea of James Madison's, more than 200 years ago, could be recently resurrected and etched into the U.S. Constitution?
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Fair trials

October 9, 2017 • 46 mins
In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must offer a defense attorney to all poor people accused of crimes. The decision transformed the concept of fair trials in America, but left major challenges to the justice system today.
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Fair punishment

October 23, 2017 • 51 mins
"There is so much feeling of racial injustice around the issue of punishment. And you have to understand that those feelings have a history -- and that history is Parchman Farm."
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Love

November 6, 2017 • 38 mins
The words "marriage" and "love" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet 50 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision that would embed those concepts in the heart of the document itself.
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War

November 20, 2017 • 41 mins
What was the original point of the Second Amendment? We examine its colonial and revolutionary roots—plus its quiet companion, the Third Amendment—with renowned American history scholar Gordon Wood.
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The common defense

December 4, 2017 • 49 mins
One intention the framers had when creating the U.S. Constitution was to “provide for the common defense.” But who shoulders that duty has not always been so clear.
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Taxes

December 18, 2017 • 42 mins
Congress today faces the same question it faced a century ago when creating the modern tax system: What kind of society should America be?
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Prohibition

January 1, 2018 • 53 mins
The passage and then repeal of the 18th Amendment, banning alcohol in America, highlighted the pitfalls of trying to legislate against vice.
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Privacy

January 15, 2018 • 45 mins
How should the Constitution's privacy protections be translated for a new era? This is a question before the Supreme Court today, but it was also a question that captivated a justice appointed to the Supreme Court 100 years ago — Louis Brandeis.
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The First Amendment

January 29, 2018 • 52 mins
Why do First Amendment rights trump nearly every other right in America? Thank Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Ourselves and our posterity

February 12, 2018 • 54 mins
In the "Constitutional" finale, we address listener questions about the history--and future--of the nation's governing document.
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Introducing "Broken Doors"

April 27, 2022 • 4 mins

No-knock warrants allow police to force their way into people’s homes without warning. What happens when this aggressive police tactic becomes the rule, rather than the exception? 


"Broken Doors" is a new investigative podcast series from the Washington Post about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system - and the consequences for communities when accountability is flawed at every level. Hosted by J...

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Introducing “Field Trip”

June 14, 2023 • 3 mins

Journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the marked trail to better understand the most urgent stories playing out in five iconic landscapes today.


“Field Trip” is a new podcast series that will transport you to five national parks: Yosemite, Everglades, Glacier, White Sands and Gates of the Arctic. Follow the show wherever you listen.

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