In this podcast episode accompanying Yale's DeVane course America at 250: A History, professors David Blight, Beverly Gage, and Joanne Freeman discuss Freeman's final lectures on Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, and how the American experiment with democracy was perceived and interpreted in its early decades. The conversation raises the underlying question of what a republic actually is and how that definition shifted as democratic participation expanded. As a companion to the formal DeVane lectures, the episode offers an informal, discussion-based format that closes out the podcast coverage of Freeman's section before Blight's lectures begin.