Jesse Wegman
speaker
281 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Jul
Jesse Wegman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
the opponents of the Constitution who come to be known as the anti-federalists.
But Wilson pushes strongly for the inclusion of this clause because he believes Congress cannot legislate.
It can't do its job.
The federal government can't do its job without an enormous amount of power, without enormous latitude and authority to pass laws and do the things that a federal government needs to do, such as
raise an army, collect taxes, all of these things.
Congress has used that clause throughout American history to justify its power to pass laws that have transformed America.
So I think Wilson himself is really at the heart of giving the federal government the power that it has today.
Well, this is how I came to Wilson in the first place.
I was writing my book on the Electoral College and I was looking through the notes of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison's notes.
to find when was the moment that the electoral colleges adopted.
And here's this guy, this long-winded Scott, who keeps saying things that sound more like they come from our era than his own, and saying, you know, the president should be a single person, which was not at the time fully agreed upon, and that he should be elected directly by the people.
When Wilson says this about the president being a single person—
James Madison records what he calls a considerable pause in the room.
You know, the other delegates are sitting there basically shifting in their seats.
Nobody's very comfortable at this prospect.
You know, they don't want to have another tyrant like King George there.
And they're also sitting right there in front of another George, George Washington, who is widely understood to be the frontrunner for any sort of executive office that might be created.
So everyone's feeling awkward at that moment.
Wilson is not at all.
He says this is obvious.
Showing 181–200 of 281 · page 10 of 15
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