And the Welcome to Conversations, I'm Bill Crystal and I'm very pleased to have us our guest today, Jim

Caesar, Professor of Government at the University of Virginia,

Distinguished Scholar, a writer for the Weekly Standard,

and other important journals, and a public figure

in your own right, as well as being a great scholar.

Thank you for the invitation.

Good to have you. So most people think of you as a popular professor and a well-known scholar

and intellectual, but I think of you as the person who drives around Virginia with Fed 49 on your license plate.

Is that right? I think that's right.

That is correct.

Now what is that about?

Well it stands for Federalist 49, which is the Federalist paper which defends the Constitution and therefore

defends law. So for everyone on the road they have a chance to remind themselves

as the Constitution and especially the tailgators because when they come close they see it straight up and

those are the ones who need the most restraint.

Does that work?

I haven't been able to do a rigorous scientific test yet of its efficacy but I do my part

in whichever way I can. This shows your loyalty to the Federalist Papers and

separation of powers in the Constitution.

It does.

And in that case, I think that paper is especially important.

Because in a way when you think about it, that's the paper that invented constitutionalism.

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