160 The History of Impeachment
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
Release Date: 07/31/2019
199 Who Was Alexander Hamilton?
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
In this episode of ITPL, we focus on Alexander Hamilton. You may have noticed that Hamilton has become the hottest Founder in recent years – and it’s all due to the smash Broadway hit, “Hamilton: The Musical.”
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198 The Civil War Draft Riots
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, we take a look at a significant but often overlooked event during the Civil War, the Draft Riots of July 1863. Protests against drafting men into the Union Army broke out in many places, but the worst occurred in New York City. For four days rampaging crowds tore the city apart, destroying property and leading to the deaths of more than 100 people, including 11 African Americans who were lynched. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the largest civil uprising in US history.
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197 Brutality & Lawlessness: America's First Great Police Scandal
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the first great police scandal in US history. It occurred in the mid-1890s in New York City when an investigation into the NYPD exposed widespread corruption and brutality. To tell us about this scandal, I speak with historian Daniel Czitrom author of New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era. It’s a story that makes clear that policing in the US has always been controversial.
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196 The Molly Maguires
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a legendary labor uprising by a mysterious group known as the Molly Maguires. They were Irish and Irish American coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s who used vigilante violence to fight back against the powerful and exploitative mine owners. But in the end, the mine owners used their dominance over the political and legal establishment to see to it that 20 men, most of whom were likely innocent, were executed by hanging. Feature Story: The Molly Maguires Hanged On Thursday June 21, 1877 – 143...
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195 Where Have You Gone, Robert F. Kennedy?
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week I speak with author Larry Tye about his biography, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of A Liberal Icon (2016, Random House). Tye is the author of many best-selling biographies and he’s at his best in this new look at RFK. One of the myths he’s eager to dispel is the notion that there were two, polar opposite Bobby Kennedys – the bad boy in the 1950s who worked for Sen. Joseph McCarthy and later waged war on organized labor and the saintly good guy in the mid-1960s who fought for social justice.
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194 The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the most deadly incidents of anti-black violence in US history: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. White mobs rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s African American neighborhood and burned it to the ground, killing between 100 and 300 black residents in the process. The incident was quickly covered up and driven from public memory. But in the 1990s activists and scholars began to unearth the shocking truth.
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193 The Pullman Strike of 1894 + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the Pullman Strike of 1894. It began as a protest over wage cuts in the midst of a severe economic depression and quickly grew to virtually paralyze the nation’s railroad system. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in the military and smashed the strike. The workers lost the strike, but they did gain a new spokesperson – socialist Eugene Debs – who would play an influential role in American society in the decades to
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192 The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, I speak with historian Nancy Bristow about her book, "American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic." In November 1918, even as millions of Americans and Europeans celebrated the end of World War I, their communities were being ravaged by a global influenza pandemic. Over the course of almost three years, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people were killed in the pandemic, including nearly 700,000 Americans.
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191 Coxey’s Army and the Original March On Washington + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the original March on Washington. “Coxey’s Army” was a group of 500 men who amidst a terrible economic depression in 1894, marched from Ohio to the nation’s capital to demand that Congress provide employment through public works projects. They were turned away, but many of the Populist ideas that inspired them were enacted into law in the coming decades.
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190 The Story of Earth Day + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the origins of Earth Day 50 years ago this week, and the two high profile environmental disasters in 1969 that helped to inspire it, the Santa Barbara, CA oil spill and the an oil fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH. In the years that followed, the US enacted landmark environmental legislation ranging from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act.
info_outlineThis week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, I speak with historian Jeffrey A. Engel, co-author of “Impeachment: An American History.” With all the talk about impeachment over the past two years, this seems like a superb moment to do an episode on the history of this rarely-used constitutional mechanism.
In the course of our discussion, Jeffrey Engel explains:
Why the Founders’ fear of potential abuse of power by a president or high government official led them to include an impeachment provision in the US Constitution.
Why the Founders made a key distinction between maladministration – essentially doing a bad job as president – and actions taken by the president that harm the nation. Only the latter required impeachment.
How the Founders meant by “high crimes and misdemeanors” actions that might not be illegal, but are judged to be harmful to the nation.
Why Republicans decided to impeach President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and how Johnson’s own actions and personality played a key role in his near removal from office.
What Richard Nixon did to merit the commencement of impeachment proceedings against him – a process he avoided by resigning.
How in the aftermath of Watergate, Congress changed the rules to allow future special prosecutors investigating alleged presidential wrongdoing greater freedom and independence.
And how that reform led to the wide-ranging investigation of President Bill Clinton that started with a sketchy land deal in Arkansas and ended up focused on an affair between the president and a 22-year old intern named Monica Lewinsky.
And in turn, how that experience led to new rules that restricted the independence of special prosecutors, leading to the current day complaints by some that SC Robert Mueller was not allowed to fully investigate the many charges against President Trump.
And, finally, what it means that we might soon witness the third impeachment effort in the last 50 years, after having only one impeachment in the first 185 years of the nation’s history.
Recommended reading:
Jeffrey Engel, et al, Impeachment: An American History (Modern Library Press)
Howard Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Nixon Impeachment— Roadmap for the Next One
Richard A. Posner, An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton
David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy
Cass R. Sunstein, Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide
Jeffrey Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President
Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment
Brenda Wineapple, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
More info about Jeffrey Engel - website
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Music for This Episode
Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)
Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive)
Andy Cohen, “Trophy Endorphins” (Free Music Archive)
Blue Dot Sessions, “Sage the Hunter” (Free Music Archive)
Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive)
The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer
Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson
Podcasting Consultant: Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting
Podcast Editing: Wildstyle Media
Photographer: John Buckingham
Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci
Website by: ERI Design
Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
Social Media management: The Pony Express
Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates
Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight
© In The Past Lane, 2019
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