From the campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

Here's your host, Scott Bertram.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome in to another edition of The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.

On this episode, we talk with Dr. Adam Carrington from Hillsdale's politics department again,

this time on some of the most notable and consequential political conventions in our nation's history.

Ted Rabarbara, CEO of Accountability Works, will tell us about a new study he authored on the

effectiveness of Common Core.

And Derek Stoff, assistant professor of music at Hillsdale, will tell us all about Johann Sebastian

Bach.

First, we're joined by Dr. Adam Carrington, Associate Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College.

Dr. Carrington, thanks for joining us.

Glad to be here again.

Talking political conventions and this time some of the more important, some of the more

consequential political conventions through our nation's history.

And we'll sort of just spend a few minutes on each.

Going back furthest in history, we start in 1860 when there were not two conventions like we think of these days, but actually four conventions happening in 1860.

Right. And the biggest problem being for the Democrats, right? They actually had two, I guess,

official conventions, one in May in Charleston that was unable to reach a consensus on a candidate.

And then in Baltimore, where they were finally able to nominate, uh, the main part of the party was able to nominate

Stephen Douglas, so the man that debated Lincoln Douglas debates out of Illinois.

And by the way, actually, he had a majority in Charleston, but the requirement was two-thirds.

And the split, remember it's 1860, was over slavery.

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