Benjamin Franklin And The Bold Experiment Of Pennsylvania’s 1776 Constitution

Benjamin Franklin And The Bold Experiment Of Pennsylvania’s 1776 Constitution

Pennsylvania tried something in 1776 that still tempts us today: push democracy to the front of the line and assume the people will keep government honest. With Dr. Beienberg, we walk through the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 and Benjamin Franklin’s surprisingly central role in a state charter that deserves way more attention in any conversation about the American founding, state constitutions, and the roots of U.S. constitutional law. We break down what Pennsylvania gets right, especially its sweeping Declaration of Rights. You’ll hear why its protections for speech, jury trials, criminal procedure, and limits on searches and seizures become so influential across the early states. We also talk through religious liberty as the founders framed it, plus early constitutional commitments that feel strikingly modern, like support for public education and constraints on debtors’ prisons. Then we turn to the part that made Pennsylvania a punching bag for the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Annual elections, a legislature with huge power, a weak executive, and weak courts add up to a system that Madison, Wilson, and the Federalist Papers repeatedly treat as a “do not copy” model. We unpack the logic Pennsylvanians believed in, including transparency and voter oversight, and why it often fails in practice without durable checks and balances and real separation of powers. We close with the Council of Censors, Pennsylvania’s later 1790 rewrite, and a quick detour into why Pennsylvania is called a “Commonwealth.” If you like constitutional history with real stakes for how we argue about democracy today, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding: Cicero And The Duty To Serve

A republic doesn’t collapse all at once. It frays in public, and it frays in private, through shortcuts that feel justified, norms that stop being enforced, and citizens who decide it’s safer to sit things out. That’s why we end our Lore of the Founding series with Cicero: Rome’s sharpest talker, a brilliant lawyer, and a painfully human political figure who tried to hold the Roman Republic together while it was coming apart. We talk with Joanna Kenty about why Cicero mattered so much to the American founding, especially to John Adams. From courtroom speeches that became the backbone of rhetoric education to the personal letters that reveal doubt, ego, and fear, Cicero shows how public service really works when the stakes are high. We unpack his exile after the Catiline conspiracy, what he saw as Senate authority weakened and corruption spread, and why he turned to philosophy when politics became a maze. The centerpiece is On Duties, where Cicero argues we are not born for ourselves alone and that justice requires an active life of civic engagement. We connect that to the Founders’ habit of turning reading into action and to Adams’s post-presidency shift into local involvement and public-minded correspondence. If you’ve ever wondered what “duty” means when politics is exhausting, polarized, or disappointing, this conversation is for you. Subscribe for more civic history with teeth, share this with a friend who cares about citizenship, and leave a review with the most challenging idea you heard. Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding: Cato And Give Me Liberty, Give Me Death

One Roman name keeps popping up wherever people argue about freedom, tyranny, and what a citizen owes a republic: Cato. We follow Cato the Younger from the final days of the Roman Republic, when Julius Caesar’s rise forces a brutal choice between compromise and principle. Cato’s answer is extreme and unforgettable, and it raises the same question that keeps resurfacing in American politics: what does “republican virtue” actually demand from us? From there, we trace how Stoicism shapes Cato’s public image. We talk about the Stoic ideal of the perfectly virtuous person, why Cato becomes known as the rare politician who cannot be bribed, and how integrity can create influence even when it costs you power. Then the story turns to the chaos after Caesar’s assassination: Mark Antony’s survival, the funeral speech that whips the crowd into a riot, and Cicero’s attempt to defend liberty with words through the blistering Philippics, echoing Demosthenes’ warnings from ancient Athens. Finally, we connect Rome to the American founding through Joseph Addison’s 1712 play Cato: A Tragedy, the Valley Forge performance that helped steel Revolutionary resolve, and the surprisingly messy origins of “Give me liberty or give me death.” We end where civics always ends, with us: can a republic survive without virtuous citizens, and what does civic virtue look like when you’re not living through a revolution? If you enjoyed this, subscribe, share with a friend who loves history and politics, and leave a review with your take on what virtue means today. Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding- Julius Caesar

A republic can look stable right up until the moment it isn’t. We sit down with Joanna Kenti to trace how Julius Caesar rises through Roman politics, builds personal loyalty through war, and finally dares the republic to stop him. Along the way, we unpack the real-world pressures behind the legend: dispossessed farmers, bitter factional conflict, escalating political violence, and the way “temporary” exceptions to the rules start to feel normal. We walk through the First Triumvirate, the Gallic Wars, and why Caesar’s own storytelling mattered almost as much as his battlefield success. Then comes the hinge of history: the Rubicon boundary, the civil war with Pompey, and the eerie tension of Caesar’s pardons, his expanding authority, and the public fear of a crown. The Ides of March lands not as a neat ending, but as proof that killing one man doesn’t automatically restore a broken constitutional order. Finally, we connect Rome directly to the US founding. Hamilton reads Caesar as the demagogue who weaponizes “zeal for the rights of the people,” while Anti Federalists writing as Brutus and Cato fear a presidency that attracts ambitious schemers and turns elections into a formality. If you’ve ever wondered why executive power, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, and even phrases like “Sik Semper Tyrannis” carry such weight in American political culture, this story is a big part of the reason. Subscribe for the next chapter of the series, share this with a friend who loves history and politics, and leave a review. What do you think is the bigger threat to a republic: unchecked ambition or everyone else looking away? Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding- Founding of the Roman Republic

A king gets exiled, a republic gets born, and the story is so brutal it still shapes how people talk about tyranny today. We dig into Rome’s founding legend with Joanna Kenty, starting with the Roman monarchy, the reign of Tarquin the Proud, and the moment one crime becomes the final straw that makes Romans swear off kings forever. It’s not clean hero worship. It’s a reminder that unchecked power can turn private violence into a public crisis, and that “freedom” sometimes begins as a vow made in anger and grief.  From there, we follow the thread straight into the American founding. You’ll hear why Thomas Paine insists “the law ought to be king,” how the Declaration of Independence frames King George III as a tyrant through a “long train of abuses,” and why revolution is presented as a last resort rather than a casual choice. If you’ve ever wondered why early American political writing sounds so obsessed with monarchy, Rome is a big part of the answer.  We also break down what the Roman Republic actually looks like: res publica as the commonwealth, a powerful senate, elected magistrates, two consuls with short terms, and a voting system shaped by wealth and class. That opens up the real debate behind “republic vs democracy,” why many founders distrust direct democracy, and why “an empire of laws and not of men” becomes the ideal. If you like civics, history, and the origins of checks and balances, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest question about Rome’s influence on the United States. Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]