This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

Up next, an old speech from the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In 2011, Scalia delivered this opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on a subject he cared about,

American exceptionalism, and how the

Constitution plays such a vital part in why we're so exceptional. Let's take a listen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I'm happy to be back in front of the Judiciary

Committee where I started this pilgrimage

i'm going to get even more fundamental than uh...

my good friend and colleague

like him i i speak to students especially law students but also college

students and even high school students

quite frequently about the constitution because i feel that we're

we're not teaching it very well.

I speak to law students from the best law schools, people presumably especially interested in the law,

and I ask them, how many of you have read the Federalist papers? Well, a lot of Hansel go out.

No, not just number 48 and the big ones. How many of you have read the Federalist

papers, cover to cover? Never more than about 5%. And that is very sad. I mean, especially

if you're interested in the Constitution. Here's a document that says what the framers of it

thought they were doing. It's such a profound exposition of political science that it is studied in political science

courses in Europe.

...