Jeffrey Rosen explores the life and legacy of Gouverneur Morris, author of the Preamble to the Constitution. Joining him are Melanie Miller, editor of the Gouverneur Morris Papers: Diaries Project, Dennis Rasmussen, Hagerty Family Fellow at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and author of The Constitution’s Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter, and William Treanor, dean of Georgetown University Law Center. This conversation was originally streamed live as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series on December 12, 2024.
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This episode was produced by Tanaya Tauber, Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Kevin Kilborne and Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari, Cooper Smith, Gyuha Lee, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
Melanie Randolph Miller is the editor of the Gouverneur Morris Papers, a project supported by the NEH Scholarly Editions program, since 2007. She has written papers on Morris, edited two volumes of his diaries, and is the author of two books on Morris, including Envoy to the Terror: Gouverneur Morris and the French Revolution and An Incautious Man: The Life of Gouverneur Morris.
Dennis Rasmussen is a professor of political science and the Hagerty Family Fellow at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is also director of Syracuse University's Political Philosophy Program and a senior research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. He is the author of five books, including The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought; Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders; and The Constitution's Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America's Basic Charter.
William Treanor is the executive vice president of Georgetown University, dean of the law center, and Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair. His writings have principally been in the area of constitutional history, and he has been recognized as one of the 10 most-cited legal history scholars in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Law School’s Brian Leiter. W.W. Norton will publish his forthcoming book, Fathers of the Constitution: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Creation of the American Republic.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
Additional Resources
- Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Constitution’s Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter, (2023)
- William M. Treanor, Gouverneur Morris and the Drafting of the Federalist Constitution, (2023)
- William M. Treanor, The Case of the Dishonest Scrivener: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of the Federalist Constitution, (2021)
- Melanie Randolph Miller, An Incautious Man: The Life of Gouveneur Morris, (2008)
- Gouverneur Morris Papers
- The U.S. Constitution: Preamble
- The Federalist Papers
- The Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Revolution in Government
- Gouverneur Morris, "Slavery and Representation," (Aug. 8, 1787)
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