The Last Best Hope? The Crisis Episode
May 2, 2020
Jay Sexton, historian and Kinder Institute Chair of Constitutional Democracy, gives a short take on crises in American history. He traces how contagion and rapid mobilization reshape institutions. Discussions cover revolutionary geopolitics, slavery’s metastasis into civil war, postwar transformations, and whether today’s crisis will weaken or renew the nation.
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When A Crisis Truly Exists
- A crisis spreads beyond one sector when existing political structures cannot contain it.
- Jay Sexton says such metastasizing problems require rapid mobilization of power that transforms political order.
Growth Can Be A Crisis
- Sudden demographic and economic growth can be the contagious force that breaks old political orders.
- Sexton argues the late 18th-century surge in North America made imperial institutions unable to adapt, creating revolution.
How Civil War Reshaped America
- The Civil War settled internal controversies and produced a stronger central state and new industrial-capitalist order.
- Sexton notes the war transformed America's global position by attracting capital, migrants, and adopting high tariffs.
