The Founders and Their Constitution

This institute will study the Founders and their view of the Constitution, with the assistance of a group of leading historians, philosophers and lawyers. We’ll ask how their ideals transformed America, with a look at how they were influenced by the frontier and restated by Lincoln. We’ll also examine specific legal questions, with the view to understanding how the Founders understood them as well as how they are understood today.

Historical Background	Gordon S. Wood	Brown University History
Religion and the Founders	Jeremy Waldron	NYU Law
Separation of Powers	Thomas L. Pangle	The University of Texas Government
The Influence of the Frontier	Paul Cantor	University of Virginia English
Lincoln Federalism	Allen Guelzo Ilya Somin	Gettysburg College History George Mason Law
The Bill of Rights: Free Exercise	Douglas Laycock	University of Michigan Law

Gordon S. Wood, is Alva O. Way University Professor at Brown University and the recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Radicalism of the American Revolution. His The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 won a 1970 Bancroft Prize. Jeremy Waldron is one of the leading political philosophers and the author of God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of Locke’s Political Thought. Thomas L. Pangle holds the Joe R. Long Chair in Democratic Studies in the Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin, and is the author The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders. Paul Cantor’s Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2001 by the LA Times. Ilya Somin is a one of the most prolific young scholars in law teaching. Douglas Laycock is the Yale Kamisar Professor at the University of Michigan Law School and one of the nation's leading authorities on the law of religious liberty.