Town Hall

Carol Berkin: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

May 18, 2017

Carol Berkin, professor of history at City University of New York, discusses her new book, A Sovereign People, and explores how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams navigated the nation through four major crises and caused the first stirrings of American nationalism. 

Tom Donnelly, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Loading...

Explore Further

Podcast
Best of 2025: Michael Lewis on Who Is Government?

Examining the lives of the civil servants that make up our government

Town Hall Video
The Constitutional Legacy of Justice Robert Jackson

Scholars John Q. Barrett, Gerard Magliocca, and G. Edward White discuss Justice Robert Jackson’s influential concurrence in…

Blog Post
Supreme Court tackles the question of late-arriving mail-in ballots

With mail-in voting growing in popularity, one of the questions that has arisen is the ability of election boards to count votes…

Educational Video
Article III and Supreme Court Term Review Featuring Ali Velshi (All Levels)

For our final Fun Friday Session of the 2022-2023 school year, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi returns, joining National Constitution Center…

Donate

Support Programs Like These

Your generous support enables the National Constitution Center to hear the best arguments on all sides of the constitutional issues at the center of American life. As a private, nonprofit organization, we rely on support from corporations, foundations, and individuals.

Donate Today