The Constitution is a document of “We the People.” The ways Americans have supported, debated, and interpreted the Constitution since 1787 have played a vital role in the rise of politics and political parties within the United States.

What kind of political culture did the United States Constitution and its interpretations help establish? What were the expectations, practices, and cultural norms early Americans had to follow when debating the Constitution or its interpretation in the early American republic? 

In honor of Consitution Day on September 17, the day the United States commemorates the signing of the United States Constitution, we speak with two historians–Jonathan Gienapp, an Associate Professor of History and Associate Professor of Law at Stanford University and Rachel Shelden, Director of the Richard Civil War Era Center and an Associate Professor of History at Penn State University– about early American political culture and political civility in the early American republic. 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/393



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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 078: Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War 
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
• Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Congress
• Episode 210: Considering John Marshall, Part 1
• Episode 211: Considering John Marshall, Part 2
• Episode 285: Election & Voting in the Early Republic 

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