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Consider the Constitution: Daily Summaries Delivered
by The Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution
Consider the Constitution is a podcast from the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier. The show provides insight into constitutional issues that directly affect every American. Hosted by Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey, the podcast features interviews with constitutional scholars, policy and subject matter experts, heritage professionals, and legal practitioners.
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- Today33 min
That’s How Change Happens
The Constitution begins with three words: We the People. But in 1787, who counted as “the people”? And what did it mean to take part in the political life of a brand-new nation? Host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey talks with Dr. Rosemarie Zagarri, professor of history at George Mason University and author of Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic and The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776–1850. They trace the shift from subjects of a king...
- 2 weeks ago35 min
You Can’t Defer the Maintenance on the Republic
The Constitution created a government. It did not create citizens. Once it took effect, Americans had to figure out what people needed to know to govern themselves, and who should get the chance to learn it. Again and again, their answer was education. Host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey talks with Dr. Mark Boonshoft, associate professor of history at Virginia Military Institute, where he directs the constitutional history program, and author of Aristocratic Education and the Making of the America...
- 4 weeks ago35 min
The Unfinished Constitution
The Constitution began as an experiment. Once it took effect, Americans had to figure out what it actually meant. They did not agree. Host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey talks with Dr. Jonathan Gienapp, professor of history and law at Stanford University and author of The Second Creation and Against Constitutional Originalism. They look at what the word "constitution" meant in 1787, why Madison saw the Articles of Confederation as a treaty rather than a true constitution, and how the First Federal...
- Sep 23, 202624 min
The Declaration Is Our Inheritance
The Declaration of Independence announced more than a separation from Britain. It made a claim about government itself: that people hold rights government did not grant and cannot take away, and that legitimate power rests on the consent of the governed. Those ideas were unprecedented in 1776. Two hundred fifty years later, they are still unfinished business. Judge Douglas Ginsburg joins Katie Crawford-Lackey to consider what the Declaration has meant at home and abroad. He served on the U.S....
- Sep 9, 202633 min
You Compromise on Politics, Not on Principles
We know James Madison the thinker. The architect of the Constitution. The author of the Bill of Rights. But Madison was also a working politician — and a very good one. Dr. Matthew Goetz, senior historian at the White House Historical Association, joins Katie Crawford-Lackey to look at the side of Madison we tend to skip. With Jefferson, he built the country's first political party and its first partisan newspaper — then wrote attacks on the Washington administration under a pen name an...
- Aug 26, 202633 min
The Chapter Between the Revolution and the Constitution
We tend to jump straight from the Revolution to the Constitutional Convention — from a young James Madison to the Father of the Constitution. But the years in between are where the promises of independence collided with the hard work of governing. Dr. Frank Cogliano, professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh and author of A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic, joins Katie in the studio to walk through that chapter. They start with the ...
- Aug 12, 202631 min
More Than Decoration: What Montpelier's Objects Reveal About Power and Slavery
What can a bird's nest, a set of porcelain ice cream vases, and a portrait of Confucius tell us about the early American republic? In this episode, host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey sits down with Dr. Lisa Goff, Associate Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Virginia and former director of its Institute for Public History, to explore how historians read objects as evidence. Lisa walks us through the furnishings, art, and tableware inside James and Dolly Madison's Montpe...
- Jul 29, 202637 min
The Man Behind "We the People": Recovering James Wilson
The three most famous words in American government — We the People — were written by a founder most Americans have never heard of. Host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey sits down with author and journalist Jesse Wegman to recover the story of James Wilson: a Scottish immigrant who arrived in 1765, signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, drafted the Constitution's opening words, and sat on the first Supreme Court — then vanished almost entirely from national memory. Wegman's...
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About Consider the Constitution
Consider the Constitution is a podcast from the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier. The show provides insight into constitutional issues that directly affect every American. Hosted by Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey, the podcast features interviews with constitutional scholars, policy and subject matter experts, heritage professionals, and legal practitioners.
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