Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward Larson discusses his newest book, Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Still Matters, which traces the idea of American independence in one pivotal year—1776—and its continued significance today. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  
 
This conversation was originally streamed live as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series on November 24, 2025.  

Resources 

• Ed Larson, Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters (2025) 
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) 
• John Adams, Thoughts on Government (1776) 
• George Mason, First Draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) 

Stay Connected and Learn More   

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ 
• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 
• Explore the ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠ 
• Explore Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness 
• ⁠Sign up⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate 
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠live program⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠YouTube⁠ 
• Support our important work

⁠⁠Donate

In this episode, Thomas Berry of the Cato Institute and Jed Shugerman of the Boston University School of Law join the recap the oral arguments from Trump v. Slaughter and debate whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  

Resources 

• Thomas Berry, Brief of the Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners (10/17/2025) 
• Jed Shugerman, Brief Amicus Curiae of Professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman in Support of Respondents (11/14/2025) 
• Jed Shugerman, “The Indecisions of 1789: Inconstant Originalism and Strategic Ambiguity” (2023) 
• Jane Manners and Lev Menand, “The Three Permissions: Presidential Removal and the Statutory Limits of Agency Independence” (2021) 
• Marbury v. Madison (1803) 
• Myers v. United States (1926) 
• Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) 
• Morrison v. Olson (1988) 
• Seila Law LLC v. CFPB (2020)

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠
• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr
• Explore the ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠
• Explore ⁠Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness⁠
• ⁠Sign up⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠live program⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠YouTube⁠
• Support our important work:  

⁠⁠⁠Donate

In this episode, the National Constitution Center launches our Article V Project, a new initiative examining the founders’ vision for Article V and an historical look at the use of the Article V process from 1789 to the present. Project contributors and constitutional law scholars Gerard Magliocca, Sanford Levinson, Michael Rappaport, and Stephen Sachs explore the origins, debates, and ongoing challenges surrounding Article V, as presented in their essays.  Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This conversation was originally streamed live as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series on December 3, 2025. The Article V Project was made possible with the support of Democracy Restated. 

Resources 

• Article V: Amending the Constitution 
• Gerard Magliocca, Report: Article V Constitutional Conventions 
• Sanford Levinson, Reflections on the Possibility of a New Constitutional Convention 
• Michael B. Rappaport, The Convention Method for Proposing Amendments: Essential, Misunderstood, and Broken 
• Stephen E. Sachs, Restoring Conventions, One Amendment at a Time 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]
• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr
• Explore the America at 250 Civic Toolkit
• Explore Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness
• Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube
• Support our important work:  

⁠⁠Donate

In our 12-part podcast series, Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness, Jeffrey Rosen explores the founders’ lives with the historians who know them best and filmmaker Ken Burns shares his daily practice of self-reflection. 

The “pursuit of happiness” is one of the most famous phrases in American history. When America’s founders wrote it in the Declaration of Independence, they intended it to mean happiness through lifelong learning and self-improvement. 

In the last episode of the series, listeners share some big and small changes that they have made. Plus, Jeffrey Rosen, filmmaker Ken Burns, and scholar Robert P. George explore Benjamin Franklin’s virtue of silence, which he defines as “speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” 

Listen to Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness on Apple Podcast and Spotify. 

Watch the full performance of the Pursuit of Happiness: Song Cycles by Jeffrey Rosen. 

Stay Connected and Learn More   

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected] 
• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr 
• Explore the America at 250 Civic Toolkit 
• Learn more about the NCC’s and Arizona State University's new online course on civic virtue, 'What the Founders Meant by “Happiness”: A Journey Through Virtue and Character’ and sign up for email updates 
• Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate 
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen 
• Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube 
• Support our important work:  

⁠Donate

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Eric Foner joins to discuss his book, Our Fragile Freedoms, a new collection of essays exploring a range of topics, including debates over slavery and antislavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the battle to dismantle it, and modern debates over the Constitution and how to teach American history. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This conversation was originally streamed live on September 24, 2025, as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series. 

Resources 

• Eric Foner, Our Fragile Freedoms (2025) 
• Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019) 
• Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) 
• Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) 
• Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected] 
• Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr  
• Explore the America at 250 Civic Toolkit 
• Explore Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness 
• Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate 
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen 
• Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube 
• Support our important work:

Donate

In this episode, best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson joins to discuss his new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, with Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding, Isaacson explores the intellectual inspirations and drafting history of the Declaration’s famous second sentence, which lays the foundation for the American dream and defines the common ground we share as a nation. 

Resources

• Walter Isaacson, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written (2025)  
• Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2004)  
• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) 
• Benjamin Franklin, “Apology for Printers,” The Pennsylvania Gazette (1731) 
• John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1690)

In our new podcast, Pursuit: The Founders’ to Guide to Happiness Jeffrey Rosen explores the founders’ lives with the historians who know them best. Plus, filmmaker Ken Burns shares his daily practice of self-reflection. 

Listen to episodes of Pursuit on ⁠Apple Podcast⁠ and ⁠Spotify⁠. 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠⁠

In this episode, Samuel Estreicher of the NYU School of Law and John Yoo of the UC Berkeley School of Law join to recap the oral arguments from the pair of challenges to President Trump’s tariffs and discuss whether International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the president to impose extensive tariffs on nearly all goods imported into the United States. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  

Resources 

• Samuel Estreicher et al., “Brief of Professors of Administrative Law, Separation of Powers, Foreign Relations Law, Legislation and the Regulatory State, and Trade Law” (10/24/2025) 
• Sam Estreicher and Andrew Babbit, “The Case Against Unbounded Delegation in Trump v. VOS Selections,” Lawfare (10/30/2025)
• John Yoo, “What Could the Supreme Court Rule About Trump’s Tariffs,” Civitas Institute (9/8/2025) 
• Biden v. Nebraska (2023) 
• Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc. (2001) 
• Dames & Moore v. Regan (1981)
• Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1953) 
• United States v. Yoshida International, Inc. (CCPA, 1975)
• United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936)
• Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935) 

In our new podcast, Pursuit: The Founders’ to Guide to Happiness Jeffrey Rosen explores the founders’ lives with the historians who know them best. Plus, filmmaker Ken Burns shares his daily practice of self-reflection. 

Listen to episodes of Pursuit on Apple Podcast and Spotify. 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠⁠⁠live program⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠

This episode is a two-part show on Alexander Hamilton. First, in a new episode of the podcast Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness, Jeffrey Rosen, historian Stephen Knott, and filmmaker Ken Burns unpack Hamilton’s life and legacy to see what lessons he can teach us about restraint. Then, Jeffrey Rosen and acclaimed historian and biographer Ron Chernow further explore the meteoric rise, inspiring life, and tragic death of Hamilton in a conversation from the NCC’s 2025 Liberty Medal Ceremony.  

Resources 

• Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness
• Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (2005) 
• Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America (2025)
• The National Constitution Center’s 37th annual Liberty Medal 
• Pursuit of Happiness, Song Cycles by Jeffrey Rosen, (2025)

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠⁠live program⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠

Jeffrey Rosen launched his new book, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America, at the National Constitution Center in conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic. The book explores how the opposing constitutional visions of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton have defined the nation since its founding, shaped presidents from Washington to Trump, and continued to drive today’s debates over government power. This program was recorded live in Philadelphia on October 21, 2025, and presented in partnership with The Atlantic and the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History

Resources

• Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America, (2025)

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming ⁠live program⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate

In this bonus episode, we’re sharing a live conversation with Jeffrey Rosen, Joanne Freeman, George F. Will, and Sean Wilentz exploring Rosen’s new book, which is out this week: The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America. Their conversation explores how the opposing constitutional visions of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton have defined the nation since its founding and continued to drive today’s debates over the balance between liberty and power. 

This conversation was originally recorded on February 22, 2025, as part of the NCC’s President’s Council Retreat in Miami, FL. 

Resources 

• Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America, (2025) 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming live program⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠⁠

In this episode, William Banks of Syracuse University College of Law and Laura Dickinson of the George Washington Law School join to discuss the history and meaning of the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  

Resources

• Illinois v. Trump (N.D. Illinois, 2025) 
• United States v. Cruikshank (1875) 
• Martin v. Mott (1827) 
• William Banks and Stephen Dycus, Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military (2016) 
• William Banks, “Providing ‘Supplemental Security’ – The Insurrection Act and the Military Role in Responding to Domestic Crises,” Journal of National Security Law & Policy (12/15/2009) 
• Laura Dickinson, “Protecting the U.S. National Security State from a Rogue President,” Harvard National Security Journal (1/9/2025) 
• Laura Dickinson, “How the Insurrection Act (Properly Understood) Limits Domestic Deployments of the U.S. Military,” Lawfare (9/12/2024) 

In our new podcast, Pursuit: The Founders’ Guide to Happiness, Jeffrey Rosen explores the founders’ lives with the historians who know them best. Plus, filmmaker Ken Burns shares his daily practice of self-reflection. 

Listen to episodes of Pursuit on ⁠Apple Podcast⁠ and ⁠Spotify⁠. 

Stay Connected and Learn More

• Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr ⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Explore the⁠⁠⁠ ⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate
• Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen
• Join us for an upcoming⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠live program⁠⁠⁠⁠ or watch recordings on⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Support our important work: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠⁠⁠