"Unpacking Douglass’s constitutional ideas and their ongoing relevance"

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, constitutional scholar Bradley Rebeiro discusses his new book, Until the Last Yoke Is Broken: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass. This groundbreaking analysis of Douglass as a constitutional theorist reveals that his abolitionism was guided by rigorous constitutional interpretation and explains how his approach, which melded history with natural rights to address the evil of slavery, remains relevant to modern debates about originalism. Jeffrey Rosen, senior fellow at FIRE and CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Participants

Bradley Rebeiro is an associate professor of law at BYU Law School, where his research ranges from US constitutional history to comparative constitutional inquiries. He is the author of Until the Last Yoke Is Broken: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass (Harvard University Press, 2026).

Jeffrey Rosen is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.

Additional Resources

• Bradley Rebeiro, Until the Last Yoke Is Broken: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass (2026)
• Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (1852)
• Frederick Douglass, “The American Constitution and the Slave: An Address Delivered in Glasgow, Scotland” (1860)
• Civil Rights Cases (1883)
• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• Jones v. Van Zandt (1847)

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Thank you to our presenting sponsor, FIRE, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans—especially freedom of speech and free thought. Learn more about FIRE’s work at FIRE.org/blessings.

How their debates ignited the lasting battle over power in America

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, podcast host Jeffrey Rosen discusses the competing constitutional visions of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and explores how debates over national power vs. states’ rights; rule by elites vs. democracy; and liberal vs. strict construction of the Constitution have influenced the trajectory of American history. This talk was originally recorded at the 10th annual College of the Atlantic Summer Institute: Toward a More Perfect Union, held on the college's seaside campus in Bar Harbor, Maine, from July 27 - 31, 2026. To learn more about the Summer Institute, visit coa.edu/si .

Participants

Jeffrey Rosen is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.

Additional Resources

• Jeff Rosen, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America (2025)
• Jeff Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America (2024)
• All Summer Institute sessions can be watched on the College of the Atlantic YouTube channel.

• Substack: @rosenjeffrey
• Instagram: @TheBlessingsOfLiberty
• X: @JeffreyRosenPod
• X (Personal): @RosenJeffrey
• YouTube: @TheBlessingsofLibertyPod

Thank you to our presenting sponsor, FIRE, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans—especially freedom of speech and free thought. Learn more about FIRE’s work at FIRE.org/blessings.

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, Mary Sarah Bilder, Justin Collings, and Alan Taylor discuss the history of the rights of conscience, which James Madison in 1792 called “the most sacred of all property,” and how Madison, Washington, and Jefferson approached questions of religious liberty. Jeffrey Rosen moderates. This program was originally recorded as a panel during the September 16th conference, “The Most Sacred of All Property”: Rights of Conscience in American Constitutional Thought, co-hosted by the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and The George Washington School of Law.

Participants

Mary Sarah Bilder is the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. A constitutional historian and author of three books, Bilder was awarded the 2016 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy for Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention.

Justin Collings is the Academic Vice President at Brigham Young University and a Professor of Law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. A scholar of constitutional law and constitutional history, Collings’ most recent book is Scales of Memory: Constitutional Justice and Historical Evil.

Alan Taylor is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Chair Emeritus at the University of Virginia. The author of seven books, his most recent book is American Revolutions: A Continental History.

Additional Resources

• Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (2017)
• Justin Collings, Scales of Memory: Constitutional Justice and Historical Evil (2021)
• Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History (2016)
• Live from the Washington National Cathedral (2026)

Thank you to our presenting sponsor, FIRE, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans. Learn more about FIRE’s work at FIRE.org/blessings.