James Ceaser on James Madison as the First American Founder

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2019

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Did James Madison invent the idea of the American founding? Why do we venerate the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the figures who wrote and defended our founding documents? In this Conversation, University of Virginia politics professor James Ceaser explains how in 1787 James Madison deliberately encouraged the drafters of the Constitution in Philadelphia and other Americans to conceive of their project as a “founding.” Madison did so, according to Ceaser, to elevate the project beyond a mere exercise in day-to-day politics or ephemeral lawmaking. He wanted to encourage future generations to venerate—as well as rationally reflect—on the founders and the documents they produced. Ceaser argues that these efforts by Madison, as well as other founders, have had a profound effect on how Americans think about the role of reason, tradition, and law in politics. Kristol and Ceaser also consider the extent to which the Constitution and founders still influence our politics.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm joined today by my good friend Jim
0:19.6	Caesar who's been a participant in these conversations a few times and to the great benefit of all
0:25.8	who have watched, I believe.
0:28.5	Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, a great student of America, American Constitution, American constitutionalism, and author
0:37.0	of a very recent article which I'd like to focus on and depart from today on founding, the American founding, the idea of founding, the self-consciousness
0:47.1	of the American founding, particularly focusing on James Madison.
0:51.1	You say in this article, which people can read in National Affairs,
0:54.4	summer 2018 issue, that Madison, more than anyone served as the founder of the American idea of founding.
1:01.2	And we say founding fathers all the time or founding what do we say now we can't say fathers
1:07.0	founding persons persons humans.
1:10.0	Yes. I think would be right. Anyway so explain that he's the founder of the American Idea founding. What does that mean? Why is it important?
1:16.1	Yeah, well when we look back we use these words founder and founding is that they're perfectly
1:21.2	self-evident.
1:23.0	After all, we had a founding, we had founders.
1:25.9	There's no problem in using the word.
1:28.4	Yet when you go back to that period,
1:30.4	were they regarded as founders?
1:32.0	Was that concept in existence?
1:34.0	And I think the clear answer is no.
1:37.0	Founders, to the extent it was used or lawmakers,
1:40.0	referred to the great practitioners of antiquity like Kyrgyz, founder of Sparta or Moses,
1:48.0	founder of the Hebrews.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Bill Kristol, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Bill Kristol and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.