Dr. James Ceaser

Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia

Americans today refer regularly to our founders and our founding, honoring those who led the Revolution and created the Constitution. Yet did Americans at that time understand these figures to be founders? Was this idea, which we now take for granted, part of the political understanding of the day? Almost certainly not. It took a bold step by James Madison to introduce the classical theme of the founder into American thought and ask Americans to see events of the time through the lens of founding. This simple yet powerful shift has changed how we understand our entire political heritage.