Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
The Father of the Constitution: Madison's Vision
Dr. Colleen Sheehan explains why James Madison deserves the title "Father of the Constitution" and explores how this quiet, scholarly founder shaped American democracy through his preparation, vision, and belief in self-government.
• Madison was uniquely prepared for the Constitutional Convention, having studied the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation
• The Virginia Plan, based on Madison's ideas, set the agenda for the Constitutional Convention
• Madison combined the roles of statesman and scholar, preferring books over fashion
• The founders faced the unprecedented challenge of creating a government where people could rule themselves
• Madison believed the Constitution's purpose was to provide a framework for self-governance based on justice
• Important Madison writings include Federalist 39, 49, 51, and his piece "Public Opinion"
• Unlike Washington or Jefferson, Madison has no monument, but the Library of Congress is a fitting tribute.
Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!
School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back everyone to the Civics in a Year podcast. I am very excited today for two reasons One, because we are joined by Dr Colleen Sheehan, who is one of our professors here at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, and two, because it is all my favorite founder, james Madison. Dr Sheehan, thank you so much for hopping on this call and talking about James Madison. So, dr Sheehan, the question is who was James Madison and why is he called the father of the Constitution?
Speaker 2:Well, good to be here, Liz, and especially, it's fun to do this, isn't it? Because we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of this place we call the United States of America, and it's going to be what they call the semi-quincentennial.
Speaker 1:That's a mouthful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really, for the next 11 years, because right now it's this, next year is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and then we'll be leading up, of course, to the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution. So James Madison is the one of all the founders that has been referred to as the father of the Constitution. Now some scholars now say, well, you know, he really doesn't deserve that title. But I would actually disagree with them. I think he does. The reason that some people say he doesn't deserve it is because he wanted some things at the Constitutional Convention. That's, of course, when they met in Philadelphia that long, hot summer of 1787 to draft the Constitution, and that there were some things he wanted that he didn't get. So they say, why should he be called the father of the Constitution when he didn't even get what he wanted? Well, here's the deal. I think Madison, more than any of the other founders and there were 55 of them who actually were delegates to the convention of 1787, and 33 of them at the end were there to the last day, september 17th, to decide whether to sign or not sign.
Speaker 2:Madison was the most prepared of any of them. He was a Virginian, he was a bachelor in his 30s. He spent the time in the months leading up to the convention really doing his homework and he wrote a piece called Vices of the Political System of the United States. He wanted to know what were the weaknesses. Why weren't we doing as well as we had hoped for after we established our first constitution under the Articles of Confederation? And things weren't that great, liz, of course, as you know, because we were in a very poor economic situation. We were trying to pay back our war debts from the Revolutionary War and not doing a very good job of it, partly because inflation was so high and our political situation was precarious.
Speaker 2:In 1786, right before the convention in 1787, there was a rebellion of the farmers in western Massachusetts called Shays' Rebellion and I bet a lot of students know about this because the farmers couldn't pay their mortgages and so they were being foreclosed and their farms were going to be taken away from them and so they'd have to go to debtor's prison. Well, instead they rebelled and that had to be put down. So people were pretty unhappy. So Madison said why is this? Why isn't this constitution under the articles working and what can we do about it?
Speaker 2:Ultimately, he wrote some notes on that went to the convention in Philadelphia very prepared with a plan which one of the other delegates from Virginia, edmund Randolph, essentially introduced as the Virginia Plan and that became the oh the plan to deal with.
Speaker 2:It set the agenda, it called for a stronger national government, it called for two houses of the legislature, it called for an executive and an independent judiciary and the president under this new plan and the Congress under this new plan would have much more power than they did under the Articles of Confederation. So that's one of the reasons I think Madison is the father of the Constitution, that he actually was the one, more than anybody else, who thought through the problems of founding the United States and the new government under which we should live. And I think, ultimately I think Washington was the father of the country. I think Hamilton was the father of, you know, economics for the United States when he becomes Secretary of Treasury under Washington in the first administration. But it's Madison who thought through this small R Republican government and how to put this on paper and into practice.
Speaker 1:So, dr Sheehan, you know we talked about the Virginia plan and I know that that's something that students learn about in school, and I know there's another plan, the New Jersey plan. You know there's lots of compromise. Can you tell us a little bit more about Madison? And you know he does all this work beforehand and, in my kind of reflection of Madison, he is one of the founders who is willing to listen, to have conversations, to kind of do more. You know research and understanding of, you know the government and how to kind of change it. Do you feel, like you know of the we talk about the founding fathers that he was kind of the most studious and really wanting to have an understanding of how things work in order to write this new constitution?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, Liz. I think he was both a political figure, or let's say statesman and a scholar, or let's say statesman and a scholar. Madison was a real scholar. He was very quiet. In fact, he often had to be asked to speak up in public debate, so much so that one Frenchman, when writing home, called him Mr Mudderson. But he was shy, he was shy, he was quiet. He was quiet, he liked his books. They were important to him. When he went to Philadelphia, he packed his books, probably more books than clothes, because clothes he wasn't exactly what we'd call a fashionista these days. He always wore black, he always dressed in black. And so, yeah, madison was a statesman and a scholar.
Speaker 2:And here's one of the things that I think is well and the other founders understood, was that government by the people had never really worked before in the history of the world, worked before in the history of the world. Imagine that something we're so used to today that we call democracy or small R, republicanism, popular government. In other words, it had never worked before, never really been successful. I mean, there were very, you know, short moments of success, so much so that Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, and I probably should just say a note on that. The Federalist Papers were written by three people, though they all signed it publius, because they didn't want people to know who wrote it for a while, because they didn't want people to judge it based on whether they liked you or didn't like you. But, as Madison said in one of them, it matters not from whom the advice comes, but whether the advice be good. And so they wrote these Federalist Papers and signed them Publius.
Speaker 2:And in one of them, hamilton said that he talked about those petty republics of ancient Greece and Italy that, while they sometimes dazzle us with a fleeting brilliance, they remind us that popular government has never really worked. It's just momentary rays of glory breaking forth from the gloom, hamilton says, and so it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country. Hamilton wrote in the first Federalist paper to decide the important question whether or not societies of men are capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they're forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. That was the challenge that Madison and the other founders faced. Could we find a way, for the first time in human history, to make government of and by and for the people a success. Could the people actually govern themselves? That was the challenge. They called it the great experiment in self-government.
Speaker 1:And let me bring up the Federalist Papers, because our next section we're kind of doing a deep dive into the Federalist Papers. Can I ask and I hope that I'm not putting you two on the spot with this because it might be a hard question to answer Of Madison's writings, do you have a favorite that you feel really kind of encapsulates him as a statesman, as somebody who you know likes books and enjoys the research kind of part of these things?
Speaker 2:Ah, you know just how about I name a couple or something. Perfect. I like the opening. It's, you know, at the beginning of Federalist 39,.
Speaker 2:At the beginning of Federalist 39, he talks about is this new government strictly small or Republican? And he says something to the effect he says well, yes, it is. No other form of government would be reconcilable with the genius of the American people or with the spirit of the revolution, or with that honorable determination that the people of America feel to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. That was the challenge and I think that really captures what drove Madison, what made him tick. He was a believer in his fellow citizens and in showing to ourselves and to the world that, yes, the people can govern themselves. So that passage is a favorite. I really like Federalist 49. I really like Federalist 51. Those are favorites.
Speaker 2:In Federalist 51, he says justice is the end of government, it is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained or until liberty be lost in its pursuit. I like that. And his little short piece that he published in the National Gazette in 1791 called Public Opinion, that's another favorite, which he says public opinion sets bounds to every government and is the real sovereign in every free world. In other words, he means the people really do rule. All of these things that we set up through separation of powers, and checks and balances, and representation, all of those things are important, but they're not meant to stop the people from governing. They're meant to as an assist. It's like an assistant basketball. You know, you can't do it on your own. We need each other, and so the idea is that, in the end, though, it's those guys calling the shots, so to speak, and that's what Madison, his plan was meant to do, that he outlined and was fairly successful in accomplishing in terms of the Philadelphia Convention.
Speaker 1:Thank you for giving us a cup ball Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Just one other thing you know, the Constitution never says separation of powers, it never says checks and balances, you know. But if you read it carefully and it's worth reading it's not that long and it's worth reading, it's not that long and it's worth reading. You can see in it not only a design but a purpose. Our constitution has a purpose, and I think that purpose is to provide a framework so that the people can govern themselves. And what does that mean? Not just that they make decisions, yes, it means that that they make decisions, but they make decisions based on justice, so that we can live with each other in a way. That's a decent way of life, a good way of life.
Speaker 2:And so politics sometimes seems like a nasty and dirty business, and for sure, sometimes it is. Too often it is Sure, that's all true, but it's also. Politics is a noble pursuit, or at least it should be and it can be. And it can be with the right kinds of leadership, with the right kind of statesmen and stateswomen who understand that the purpose of politics is to ennoble us, to help us live in such a way that makes life worth living. And you know this, liz, we teach and work at a place called the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. And that leadership is not there for no reason at all. It's there because that whole idea of leadership, of good political leadership or statesmanship, does have this purpose. And we want to think about these things with others and in our classes so that this place we call America is a place, you know, worth living in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I'm so glad you gave us lots of Sorry. I'm so glad you gave us lots of Sorry. I'm so glad you gave us lots of different things to read for Madison. And you know I've been to DC so many times, dr Sheehan, and I've always said, like how come Madison doesn't have a monument? And I know that he has, you know, the building of the Library of Congress and hearing you talk about him it feels like that is the perfect nod to this founding father is to have, you know, a building that is the Library of Congress, where people still go to do research and really dig into these things. So, dr Sheehan, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1:Listeners, all of the readings that Dr Sheehan mentioned I will make sure to link in our notes. We will have episodes on Federalist 10, federalist 39, and Federalist 51 that also mentions 49 and 50 in it, upcoming in our September kind of constitution. But, dr Sheehan, I feel like I could talk to you forever about James Madison because he is truly. I've always found him so fascinating. I find Dolly Madison very fascinating. He was just such a quiet founder in comparison to a Hamilton. So I really appreciate your time and expertise.
Speaker 2:Sure Liz, and thanks very much and good luck with this.
