Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Episodes
186 episodes
How Reconstruction Built Birthright Citizenship And Equal Protection
The Fourteenth Amendment is often treated like a simple shortcut for “civil rights,” but its real story is messier, more political, and far more useful for understanding today’s constitutional fights. We pick up in Reconstruction, right after s...
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Season 1
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Episode 182
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17:27
How The 13th And 15th Amendments End Slavery And Redefine Voting
The Constitution can promise freedom and still fail to deliver it. We dig into the 13th and 15th Amendments and ask what they were really designed to fix after the Civil War and why their impact has swung so wildly across American history. ...
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Season 1
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Episode 181
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18:52
Reconstruction Under The Constitution
Reconstruction sounds like a neat “after the Civil War” chapter until you look at the Constitution and realize the country is trying to do something almost impossible: bring the South back into the Union while dismantling slavery’s political or...
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Season 1
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Episode 180
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18:44
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
A president stands at the Capitol near the end of the Civil War, with victory in sight and grief everywhere and he chooses restraint over celebration. We dig into Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, a roughly 700-word speech that still ...
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Season 1
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Episode 179
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11:12
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
A three-minute speech at a mass grave should not be able to reframe a nation’s purpose, yet the Gettysburg Address does exactly that. We sit down with Dr. Aaron Kushner to set the scene at Gettysburg just months after the battle, when the groun...
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Season 1
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Episode 178
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41:13
The Emancipation Proclamation
Freedom didn’t arrive with a single stroke of Lincoln’s pen—it arrived through a careful, constitutional strategy forged in the pressure of civil war. We walk through how the Emancipation Proclamation actually worked, why its language is so spe...
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Season 1
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Episode 177
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15:58
Habeas Corpus, War Powers, And The Constitution
What happens when a nation must choose between immediate safety and the legal guardrails that define its freedom? We dive into Abraham Lincoln’s most contested constitutional move: suspending habeas corpus as the Civil War threatened to choke t...
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Season 1
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Episode 176
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13:28
Lincoln's First Inaugural
A nation is splitting, nerves are raw, and a new president steps onto the stage with a lawyer’s caution and a moral compass fixed on first principles. We take you into Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address to map the real conflict of 1861: ...
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Season 1
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Episode 175
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12:04
Real Cabinet Wives Of The Jackson Administration: The Petticoat Affair
A dinner party snub shouldn’t derail a presidency—unless it reveals everything about how power really works. We follow the Petticoat Affair from whispered rumors around Peggy Eaton to a capital-wide boycott that paralyzed Andrew Jackson’s cabin...
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Season 1
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Episode 174
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19:54
Dred Scott
A single Supreme Court opinion tried to quiet a nation by declaring the Constitution pro-slavery—and instead lit a fuse. We revisit Dred Scott v. Sandford with fresh eyes, tracing how Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority opinion denied Black ci...
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Season 1
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Episode 173
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25:32
Douglass, Garrison, And The Constitution
Two abolitionists, one Constitution, and a nation on the brink. We sit with the razor’s edge between moral clarity and political strategy as William Lloyd Garrison brands the Constitution a “covenant with death,” while Frederick Douglass insist...
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Season 1
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Episode 172
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23:46
Frederick Douglass- "What To The Slave is the Fourth of July"
A July Fourth stage without a full share of freedom is a hard place to stand, which is exactly why Frederick Douglass chose July 5th. We dig into the strategy and soul of his 1852 address—why he scorched national hypocrisy, invoked Exodus, and ...
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Season 1
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Episode 171
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22:25
From Declaration To Declaration: How Seneca Falls Reframed American Equality
Ever read the words “all men and women are created equal” and felt the ground shift under American history? We revisit the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 to explore how Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with Frederick Douglass at her side, adapted the D...
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Season 1
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Episode 170
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21:14
Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address And The Fight For Law
A young lawyer in 1838 stood before the Young Men’s Lyceum and asked a chilling question: what happens to a republic when people start believing the law binds everyone but themselves? We welcome Dr. Aaron Kushner to explore Abraham Lincoln’s Ly...
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Season 1
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Episode 169
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19:56
Andrew Jackson, Calhoun, And The Crisis That Nearly Split The Union
A tariff fight doesn’t usually threaten to crack a nation, but the Nullification Crisis came dangerously close. We open with a plain-English primer on nullification—what it is, where it came from, and why Calhoun turned it into a weapon for Sou...
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Season 1
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Episode 168
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13:50
Field Trip Friday: How Gathering On The National Mall Shapes Memory And Democracy
The National Mall isn’t just a backdrop for photos; it’s a working stage where free speech, public memory, and civic learning come alive. We sit down with Jeremy Goldstein of the Trust for the National Mall to unpack how this stretch of grass a...
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Season 1
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Episode 167
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18:59
Jackson’s Bank Veto Explained
Power, personality, and constitutional guardrails collide as we unpack Andrew Jackson’s two most consequential vetoes: the Maysville Road and the Second Bank of the United States. We trace how a single-state infrastructure bill became a proving...
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Season 1
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Episode 166
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12:21
How Cherokee Law Challenged Georgia And Jackson
A constitution became a shield. That’s the unlikely turning point at the heart of this story, where the Cherokee Nation adopted a written charter in 1827—not to surrender identity, but to defend communal land, translate sovereignty into America...
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Season 1
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Episode 165
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32:47
Tocqueville On Reflective Patriotism
Patriotism without thinking is brittle. Thinking without affection is cold. We bring those forces together through Tocqueville’s lens of reflective patriotism and ask how a nation can love itself honestly while arguing for better. With Dr. Paul...
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Season 1
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Episode 164
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24:43
Tocqueville On Parties Today
What if the very thing that makes politics feel unbearable is also what keeps a republic free? We dive into Tocqueville’s sharp take on political parties—why they inflame passions, tempt narrow thinking, and yet remain essential to preserving l...
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Season 1
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Episode 163
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22:22
Field Trip Friday: Inside America 250 On The National Mall
Step onto the nation’s front yard as we unpack how the National Mall is preparing for America’s 250th—through bold infrastructure upgrades, inclusive programming, and a reimagined visitor experience that blends history, community, and learning....
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Season 1
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Episode 162
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14:04
Jackson’s First Inaugural, Explained
A soft-spoken inaugural, a roaring political realignment. We unpack Andrew Jackson’s first days as president to reveal how a short address helped usher in a long era of mass democracy, constitutional confrontation, and executive assertiveness. ...
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Season 1
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Episode 161
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19:36
John Quincy Adams, The Monroe Doctrine, And The Perils Of Power
We trace John Quincy Adams’s 1821 address from its famous “monsters to destroy” line to its deeper call for principled strength and measured engagement. We connect it to Washington’s Farewell and the Monroe Doctrine to show how interest and jus...
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Season 1
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Episode 160
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21:20
Monroe Doctrine
We trace the Monroe Doctrine from a daring 1823 warning to a living rulebook that still shapes how America defines security, principle, and power. From John Quincy Adams to modern strategy, we test where defense ends and intervention begins.
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Season 1
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Episode 159
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22:49
Missouri Compromise
We trace how the Missouri Compromise tried to hold a fragile Union together by pairing Missouri and Maine, drawing a line across the map, and postponing a moral decision. The story connects founding-era bargains to Kansas-Nebraska, Dred Scott, ...
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Season 1
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Episode 158
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20:45