Jesse Wegman

We talk of states till we forget what they are composed of.

Right.

He he had this just laser like focus on people as the foundation of all government power.

And so he really leads the charge along with James Madison and a few others for a house of representatives at least that is apportioned by population.

Well, yes.

I mean this is the part of Wilson that I think is in some ways the most thrilling and the most I think useful to us today is how much he understood –

the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as being connected.

So the Declaration of Independence, you know, is based on this theory of popular sovereignty, the idea that when people are not happy with their government, they may change it.

They may change it whenever and however they please.

And that is what they do by first promoting

declaring independence and fighting a war to be independent from Britain, and then by drafting a constitution.

And perhaps the way in which Wilson brings the spirit of the Declaration of Independence most directly into the constitution

happens in the middle of the summer.

He's on this committee.

It's called the Committee of Detail.

Most of the other delegates go away for 10 days and just take a break because they're all exhausted fighting for the last two months over Congress.

And Wilson and a few other delegates write the first draft of the Constitution.

We have no records of what exactly they discussed.

But what comes out of that committee is Wilson's opening words of the Constitution.

He put the words, we the people, at the beginning of the Constitution.