Survey American history from distinct colonial cultures and the Revolution through constitutional conflict, territorial expansion, sectional crisis, Civil War, and the contested reconstruction of the Union.
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Explain how settlement patterns, religion, commerce, labor, local government, and relations with Indigenous peoples shaped distinct colonial societies.
Analyze how imperial taxation and constitutional resistance led to independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Philadelphia Convention, and ratification.
Compare competing interpretations of federal and state authority across early administrations, party struggles, landmark court cases, and sectional disputes.
Explain how territorial growth, slavery, abolitionism, economic policy, and party realignment intensified the sectional crisis of the 1850s.
Examine the Civil War through military strategy, political dissent, executive power, emancipation, civilian costs, and rival understandings of the Union.
Evaluate Reconstruction’s constitutional, racial, political, economic, regional, and western dimensions through its military enforcement and contested conclusion in 1877.
U.S. History to 1877 traces the development of British North America and the United States through five connected eras. It begins with European expansion and the distinctive institutions, economies, religions, and political cultures of the colonial regions. The course then follows the imperial crisis, independence, constitutional reform, ratification, and the precedents and disputes of the Washington administration. Lessons on the early republic examine party conflict, federal power, the Marshall Court, territorial growth, Jacksonian politics, and war with Mexico. The final sections analyze abolitionism, slavery’s expansion, collapsing national parties, secession, and competing constitutional arguments before examining the Civil War’s military, political, social, and emancipatory dimensions. Reconstruction is presented as a contested remaking of the Union, encompassing constitutional amendments, civil rights, economic centralization, regional conflict, western settlement, and the withdrawal of federal troops in 1877.
Historian and Author · The Brion McClanahan Show
Brion McClanahan is an American historian and author whose work examines the Founding era, the Constitution, and the American political tradition.
View full profileProfessor of History · Western Connecticut State University
Kevin R. C. Gutzman is a historian and constitutional scholar specializing in the American Revolution, the early republic, Jefferson, Madison, and constitutional history.
View full profileAuthor, Historian, and Podcast Host · The Tom Woods Show
Tom Woods is an author, historian, and host of The Tom Woods Show. He founded Liberty Classroom to make serious history and economics available beyond the conventional classroom.