Consider the 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 Madi...

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 Cra...

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...

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 t...

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 evide...

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 wo...

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison agreed on almost everything when it came to religious freedom. But they talked about it in completely different ways. Historian Dr. John Ragosta joins Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey to unpack that difference — Jefferson's intellectual, almost deistic case for separating church and state, and Madison's surprisingly reverential, scripture-laced language defend...

We know James Madison as the Father of the Constitution. But who was he before that? In this special episode, Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey takes the guest seat to explore the formative years that made Madison who he is. At 25, Madison was the youngest major figure of the founding era — small, sickly, quiet, and easy to overlook. He never commanded armies or delivered rousing speeches. What he had wer...

What does the Constitution actually say — and why haven't most of us read it? Ben Sheehan, bestselling author and award-winning digital creator, joins host Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey to talk about the civic knowledge gap and how he used his background in comedy to make one of the most important documents in American history genuinely readable. Ben traces his own constitutional education — from...

The words are familiar — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness — but do we really know what they meant to the men who wrote them? As America marks 250 years of independence, Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey sits down with Dr. Lynn Uzzell, Julia Van Geest, and T.C. Le, co-authors of the forthcoming book Locking and Unlocking the Declaration of Independence: An Introduction to Jefferson's Philosophy...

Before the Declaration of Independence, before the Constitutional Convention, colonists were already debating the meaning of a constitution — and it didn't look anything like the document we know today. Dr. Zachary Deibel, assistant professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute, joins Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey at Montpelier to trace the constitutional ideas that shaped the American...

This episode is part of a special five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. As part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, in partnership with Virginia Humanities. In this final install...

When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, women weren't explicitly excluded — they were simply not addressed. Dr. Catherine Allgor, historian and former President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, joins host Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey at Montpelier to unpack what that silence actually meant — and why it wasn't accidental. At the center of the conversation is a word every listener...

This episode is part of a five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission in partnership with Virginia Humanities. What does it actually take to sus...

The Supreme Court has no army, no budget, and no way to enforce its own rulings. Its power rests entirely on the credibility of its words. Attorney and author Peter Cohen joins Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey to explore what happens when you go straight to the source — reading the justices' opinions directly rather than relying on outside interpretation. Drawing on his book In the Supreme Court&apo...

This episode is part of a special five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. As part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, in partnership with Virginia Humanities. James Madison's...

When Congress can't pass laws, is the problem in the Constitution—or in the rules that govern how legislators actually do their work? In this episode, Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey welcomes back Dr. Lauren Bell to discuss her new book, Transatlantic Majoritarianism: How Murder, Migration and Modernity Transformed 19th Century Legislatures . Dr. Bell reveals how 19th-century lawmakers in both the...

This episode is part of a special five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. As part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, in partnership with Virginia Humanities. Dr. Katie Crawford La...

What can 500 pounds of slag reveal about the American Revolution? In this episode, Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey talks with Dr. Matt Reeves, Montpelier's Director of Archaeology , about the blacksmith shop that powered James Madison Sr.'s plantation during the Revolutionary War. Through archaeological evidence and surviving ledger books, they uncover a regional network of production, the exp...

This episode launches a special five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission in partnership with Virginia Humanities . Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey...

In this special year-end episode, Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey looks back at 19 conversations from 2025 with historians, lawyers, constitutional experts, and public servants.

In this special episode commemorating the 25th anniversary of the co-stewardship partnership between the National Trust for Historic Preservation and The Montpelier Foundation, host Dr. Katie Crawford Lackey welcomes Tom Mayes, Chief Legal Officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Together, they explore how historic places like James Madison's Montpelier connect us to the origi...

In this special episode of Consider The Constitution, Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey is joined by Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz, Montpelier's Chief Advancement Officer, to explore how James Madison's Montpelier reveals history's most essential truth: no story stands alone. Deetz reveals why Madison's constitutional genius, Dolley's political mastery, and the enslaved community's...

Host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey welcomes back Dr. Lauren Bell to explore how the Constitutional Convention's historic compromises shaped Congress into America's most powerful branch of government. From Madison's Virginia Plan to the Great Compromise that created our bicameral legislature, Bell reveals how enumerated and implied powers actually work in practice. Discover why congressi...

For the first time in over 20 years, James Madison's Montpelier is opening its transformational constitutional seminars to the general public. Join host Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey and Center Director Patrick Campbell as they extend a personal invitation to an extraordinary three-day immersive experience . Imagine sleeping on the same grounds where Madison wrestled with the ideas that became ou...