Letters to a More Perfect Union

Bill Kavanaugh
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Letters to a More Perfect Union is one ordinary American thinking out loud about the country he loves. Each letter takes a single moment from American history, a day or a life or a document, and asks what it still has to say to us now. No party, no agenda, nothing to sell. Just thoughts from one ordinary American who loves his country enough to expect more of it.

Episodes

  1. Nov 3

    Always Ours: Election Day and the Power of a Single Vote

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! On Election Day, it is easy to believe one ballot cannot matter. In 1874, 1994 and 2006, ordinary voters overturned majorities that looked permanent. The power was always ours. The question is whether we use it only to swing back and forth, or to carry the country somewhere together. Sourced from the National Archives, the U.S. House of Representatives (history.house.gov) and U.S. Senate historical records, the U.S. Census Bureau and Ballotpedia for the 1874, 1994, and 2006 election results, and the National Archives, the U.S. Senate, and the Brennan Center for Justice for the Nineteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Cover images: left, "Opening ballot boxes," Bain News Service, circa 1915–1920, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-25364. Right, a registry clerk at the polls during local elections in Lowell, Massachusetts, November 3, 1987, Lowell Folklife Project collection (AFC 1987/042), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    Always Ours: Election Day and the Power of a Single Vote

  2. Oct 16

    The Common Tongue: Noah Webster and the American Dictionary

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Noah Webster spent twenty-six years giving a scattered people a common language, and he won. What we are losing now is not the words but the common ground beneath them. Sourced from the Noah Webster House & West Hartford Historical Society, Encyclopædia Britannica, the U.S. Census Bureau's historical statistics of the 1790 census, the New Netherland Institute, and Noah Webster's own Dissertations on the English Language and the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Cover image: frontispiece portrait and title page, Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse, 1828. First edition, University of California Libraries copy, via Internet Archive. Public domain. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The Common Tongue: Noah Webster and the American Dictionary

  3. Oct 3

    The Aim of the Fire — Samuel Adams and the Committees of Correspondence

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! October 3, 1803. We remember Samuel Adams as a firebrand, mostly because his enemies drew the portrait and we hung it in the hall. What he actually built was a committee whose only job was to write letters. Sourced from the Massachusetts Historical Society (John Adams's diary, December 1765), Founders Online at the National Archives (John Adams to William Tudor, February 9, 1819), the Boston Committee of Correspondence's 1772 pamphlet, and histories of the committees of correspondence from Encyclopædia Britannica, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. Cover image: "View of Faneuil-Hall, in Boston, Massachusetts," drawn by W. Pierpont, engraved by Samuel Hill, March 1789. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-45571. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The Aim of the Fire — Samuel Adams and the Committees of Correspondence

  4. Sep 18

    September 12th — Twenty-Five Years After 9/11

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! September 11, 2001 is the day we remember. September 12th is the one we set down. For a stretch of days and weeks, ordinary Americans became the most generous version of themselves, and nobody had to be told to. This letter was written for September 11, 2026 and published that day. The recordings are being added to the archive as they are made. Sourced from the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the 9/11 Commission Report, the Congressional Record, President George W. Bush's September 20, 2001 address to Congress, Thomas Paine's "The American Crisis," and contemporary reporting on the Montesi and Nedd families from FireRescue1, the New York Daily News, and amNewYork. Cover photograph: Military members render honors as fire and rescue workers unfurl an American flag over the side of the Pentagon, September 12, 2001. U.S. Navy photo by Michael W. Pendergrass. Public domain. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    September 12th — Twenty-Five Years After 9/11

  5. Sep 18

    The Whole of It — The Lincoln-Douglas Debates at Ottawa, 1858

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! August 21, 1858. Twelve thousand people stood in an open square with no shade and no chairs for three hours, listening to two men argue, including the parts that made their own man look worse. Two years later, one of those men published his opponent's arguments word for word alongside his own. This letter was written for August 21, 2026 and published that day. The recordings are being added to the archive as they are made. Sourced from the National Park Service's Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the Illinois State Archives, the Illinois State Historical Library's 1908 edition of the debate transcripts, the House Divided Project at Dickinson College, and Smithsonian Magazine's reporting on the debates. Cover image: Title page, "Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois." Columbus: Follett, Foster and Company, 1860. Library of Congress. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The Whole of It — The Lincoln-Douglas Debates at Ottawa, 1858

  6. Sep 18

    The Day They Signed — The Declaration of Independence, August 2, 1776

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! August 2, 1776. Not the day they declared independence, but the day fifty-six men walked forward one at a time and signed their names to it, knowing exactly what it could cost them. This letter was written for August 2, 2026 and published that day. The recordings are being added to the archive as they are made. Sourced from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, Founders Online (Benjamin Rush's July 20, 1811 letter to John Adams), and the National Park Service's history of Independence Hall. Cover photograph: Syng inkstand, made by Philip Syng, 1752, used at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Independence National Historical Park, National Park Service, catalog number INDE 11860. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The Day They Signed — The Declaration of Independence, August 2, 1776

  7. Sep 18

    The Man Who Wouldn't — Elbridge Gerry and the Origin of the Gerrymander

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! July 17, 1744. He signed the Declaration and refused to sign the Constitution. He lost nearly every fight he picked in the First Congress and kept showing up. Then, twenty-three years later, he signed something that gave his name to the thing we still argue about. This letter was written for July 17, 2026 and published that day. The recordings are being added to the archive as they are made. Sourced from the National Archives, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the Bill of Rights Institute, the Annals of Congress, Gerry's own 1787 letter to the Massachusetts legislature, and a 2025 survey by Tufts University's CIRCLE and Protect Democracy. Cover image: Elkanah Tisdale, "The Gerry-Mander," Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. Public domain. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The Man Who Wouldn't — Elbridge Gerry and the Origin of the Gerrymander

  8. Sep 17

    The American Experiment — Jefferson, the Declaration, and a Country Still Being Run

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! July 4, 2026. Two hundred and fifty years after a room of ordinary, flawed men called it an experiment rather than a guarantee, one American asks whether we are still caring for the thing we were handed. This letter was written for July 4, 2026 and published that day. The recordings are being added to the archive as they are made. Sourced from the Declaration of Independence, Gallup's polling on national pride, and the words of Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Mead, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ronald Reagan. Cover image: Thomas Jefferson, "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, June 1776, page 1, with emendations in the hands of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    The American Experiment — Jefferson, the Declaration, and a Country Still Being Run

  9. Sep 17

    Rising, Not Setting — Benjamin Franklin and the Last Day of the Constitutional Convention

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! September 17, 1787. On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, an eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin asked the room for something harder than agreement. Sourced from the National Park Service's Independence National Historical Park, the National Archives, James Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention, and the Avalon Project's transcription of the September 17, 1787 convention debates. Cover photograph: "Detail, crest rail of the Rising Sun Chair," National Park Service, Independence National Historical Park. Public domain. Narration is AI-generated using a voice model trained on the author's own voice.

    Rising, Not Setting — Benjamin Franklin and the Last Day of the Constitutional Convention
  • 9 Episodes

About

Letters to a More Perfect Union is one ordinary American thinking out loud about the country he loves. Each letter takes a single moment from American history, a day or a life or a document, and asks what it still has to say to us now. No party, no agenda, nothing to sell. Just thoughts from one ordinary American who loves his country enough to expect more of it.

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