harmful. >> let's hear from george in new york city. >> thank you to c-span for this wonderful program. my question deals with the fundamental principle enshrined in the constitution that no person is above the law. apart from the immunity granted by article one, clause six of the u.s. constitution, which grants legislators immunity, do the federalist papers speak to the question of immunity of the president of the united states or of judges, or do the federalist papers speak as to the question of immunity more broadly that can give us some guidance today? >> they do not speak expressly to those topics, at least not to my knowledge.

when those cases have come up at the supreme court, they had to look at other sources. presidential privilege, immunity , all of these have been established by the supreme court to some extent. you cannot find them expressly in the text of the constitution. there is the speech and debate clause for congress, but there is nothing comparable. similar to judicial immunity. they thought of judges the way judges were thought of at the time and there was judicial immunity there. you are right that these things were not in the constitution and to my knowledge they are not discussed in the federalist papers. i would have to study that specific question more clearly but i do not recall anything specifically about them. >> given his question about the timeliness, let us bring in caroline feddersen, a law

professor. she joins us now. our last caller asked about the timeliness of the federalist papers. what do they mean in your view? >> i am speaking as a law professor and how relevant they are to the teaching of constitutional law. what i think is so helpful is to have the students read the federalist papers while they are starting to dig into the structure of the constitution and get a more theoretical framework about what the framers were trying to achieve for separation of powers and federalism. and bring in that into the conversation. so many of us grew up knowing that is the structure we have and do not really dig deep.

the rich argumentation provided in the papers is a wonderful opportunity to have a discussion around what they were thinking, why they put the constitution together the way they did. and also, whether it has been a successful project. >> in your view, has it been successful? >> by and large, we are still here. we are still a nation that continues to have a fairly robust democracy, a democracy that has gotten much stronger since the founding. there were a lot of flaws that have to be discussed in the initial constitution, grave problems. we have been making improvements all along the way they have made the country a much better country when we look at the

reconstruction amendments and the description of that as the second founding, the birth of a new nation after the civil war and the end of slavery. so i think yes, but is my answer. >> when you teach the federalist papers, what is the first lesson for your students? >> trying to understand the whole argument about why we needed to have both a republic that had a little bit of distance to the federalist papers from the people, why it was important to have a central government, not just have each state being its own government. you mentioned ambition checking ambition, but what was the idea

the founders had about setting up the different branches of government as mechanisms for checking abuses of power. we also talk about what they missed. sorta the irony of not anticipating the rise of partisanship. parties have become such a dominant force that it undermines the idea that the branches check each other. when you read the fierce political battles that were taking place at the beginning, you see it all happened immediately. you kind of wonder about the blind spot. we talked about that. their great vision and their areas of great blindness. >> are there robust debates in

your classroom about the federalist papers? >> to some extent, yes of course. about a broader question about constitutionalism generally. and how do we understand the constitution. to what extent does the document remain in the 18th century govern us now and did the framers anticipate how we would handle these issues? that is obviously a debate that consumes far more than the legal community, but really goes to the heart of how we imagine our democracy. the federalist papers are a vantage point to get into that debate and try to figure out how and why should we adhere to this document. >> the judge has been nodding

his head. what were you hearing, judge? >> i agree with every point she made. i teach it george washington university as an adjunct and i have the same reaction from my students. it is interesting how they got so many things right, but they missed a few things they did not quite think about. ask the professor said, it is hard to imagine that they did not understand that parties would play such a hard -- large role, and yet they do. we do not have a perfect constitution. he says how to make a treaty, but not how to get out of a treaty. >> i teach that class too. >> early on in discussed in the

articles of confederation, you have to remember the circumstances in which they were written. they were very trying circumstances so we did not come out perfectly. i think the same thing is true with the u.s. constitution. one thing they had the advantage of is that they had about 11 -- about 13 years of state constitutions that had been written. 11 years of 13 state constitutions that had been written. some were very good, some were not so good. they learned a little bit about how to write a constitution. >> colleen sheehan, what have you been hearing? >> i want to agree with what has been set as well. they saw a lot, they missed some things. the question of political

parties -- remember who started parties in america was actually madison and jefferson on one side, and alexander hamilton on the others. so the authors of the federalist papers, four years later are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. the federalists versus the republicans. i do not think they were totally naive about that. what they did not want was parties in the way they had known them through the british system. i think madison's idea about funding the republican party in the united states was not to find a party along the partition model. he thought of it as against those he considered anti-republicans.

he was afraid the moneyed men in hamilton's new york city were going to take over and not let the common man have their say. there was a little bit more to that dispute that goes on between them and to the question of parties that sometimes we make it out to be. >> i do not have any argument with that. how did they not figure some of this into the division of power between the branches? perhaps they would have had to be too omniscient to understand how certain mechanisms, like impeachment for example, is basically a nonfunctional part of the constitution, except for a handful of judges who have been impeached.

the alignments are not based on the branch, but based on partisanship. so it does not function as a way of checking elected officials who have otherwise been engaged in some activities that might be impeachable under other circumstances. we can see parts of the constitution that do not work the way they were supposed to with the rise of parties. it was right from the get go. you see it in marbury versus madison.

we held up this case for obvious reasons as being so profound. when you look at the facts underlying it, they are pretty defining. >> thank you for spending a few minutes with us on books that shaped america. >> pleased to be with you. >> we are talking about the federalist papers. there are nine public schools named after alexander hamilton, fiveor john jay, there is

james madison unerty in virginia. there are more than 200 breakfas since to the federalist papers and supreme urt decisions. more than 3000 references to federalist 78 by supreme court justices there hamilt statues in washington dc. the james madison building at the library of congress and the john jay statue at new york city college. this is alexander hamilt. liberty can have nothing to fear from the judicia ane, but what have everything to fear from its what was the importance of federalist number 78? judge maggs: hamilton described the judiciary, talking about how

judges were appointed, the tenure and powers and one of his famous quotes was, they have neither the sword nor the purse, they only decide questions. they cannot spend money or engage in any action except deciding questions. he wrote about the importance of having an independent judiciary. he said it does not make sense to have limited government without it because there is no way to enforce it. if you talked about judicial review before that but it is clear hamilton had thought about the idea that there were unconstitutional laws that would not be enforced. he also talked about the idea that judges had to be learned and know that presidents and the idea that they had to be independent to carry out duties.

i think every judge is familiar with federal 78 and i think it is no doubt the reason why so many supreme court justices have cited the article. that is was not published until may 1787 and by then eight states had already ratified. so we did not influence those states. peter: sergio is on the phone from albany, new york. >> i have a two-part question. i am interested in finding out whether the federalist papers served the purpose of the scope of work to develop the republic as well and also, who were the essays directed to?

the general population at the time, or the landowning gentry? thank you. peter: thank you. prof. sheehan: the second question, they were directed to the people of the state of new york, landholders who voted but virtually anyone, it was not that difficult to own land. so that is the second question. the first, as a template to the republic, if i understood your question correctly, interesting enough, medicine uses the federalist papers a few years later as the basis to build on for an outline to try to get at an understanding of what republican government is and how to make it work.

he figured he had started the project in the federalist papers and had not finished it so he spends weeks or months prior to his trip up lake champlain in new york state with jefferson in spring 1791 writing an outline on republicanism, starting with people like plato and trying to figure out how to make government by the people really work in the united states. what he is doing on this tour up lake champlain, it looks like he is organizing a political party. peter: back to federalist 78, one line from ham the

judiciary is beyond comparison. the weakes the three departments of our. we have a text message -- of power. we have a text message from tom in new jersey. when hamilton states the judiciary does not bestow the sword or purse is he stating the additional branch has less power than the congress or merely independent of the other two branches? prof. sheehan: he is stating both. when we say that this is a balanced government, when we say checks and balances, that term is not in the federalist papers. this is not in the constitution at all, we look to that federalist papers to explain what is going on in the constitution. this is not a balanced government and that all branches are equal. they are meant to check each

other, but not equal. the legislative branch is by far the most powerful. it represents the people. that is why it is divided into two houses, the senate and house, because it is so powerful. do you shift -- the judiciary was thought to be the weakest branch. it was definitely a blind spot of the poop leah's. it has turned -- of publius. peter: we have a representative of that branch. judge, do you agree with the sentiment by alexander hamilton? judge maggs: i agree with professor sheehan assessment of hamilton's statement, which is that it is somewhat of a blind thought -- blind spot, he thought the judiciary would be weaker than it turned out to be.

in that same passage where he talks about judicial review, hamilton said no weight can be given to the idea that judges will avoid applying statutes based on the pretense that they are unconstitutional. i am paraphrasing. certainly today that is the concern of judicial power, is the supreme court striking down things that are constitutional. he did not see this would happen . maybe judges were different in his day. maybe with a smaller group or for whatever reason, i agree completely with professor sheehan that they were saying the judiciary was the weakest but i think they would have been surprised at how it turned out. peter: whoever considers the different departments of power

must perceive in a government where they are separate the juciy from the nature of functions will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of thcotitution because it will be leased in the capacity to injure them. john in columbus, ohio, thanks for holding. >> thank you for having me on. my question is about these authors as political operators. i understand they were trying to achieve something in their time and i am wondering, were there historic examples they looked to that made them think that writing the papers would be effective? peter: do you go to ohio state? >> no. i work in the area but i do not go to school, no. peter: thank you. judge? judge maggs: the watches of the

show will know that last week there was a program on the pamphlet common sense. but they did not have television or radio, they had newspapers. essays written in newspapers with a grand tradition of trying to make political points and have it work in their favor. they used the means of communications that were readily available to them. they were not the only ones doing it. there was a whole group of people also writing essays saying the constitution should not be adopted, the antifederalists. now we have c-span on television allowing us to hear both sides but that was not the case then and there was a tradition of writing pamphlets of this kind and i think they thought it would be useful. professor sheehan mentioned new

york was a crucial state. it was also tilting towards opposing the constitution. the president of the constitutional convention was an opponent of the constitution. others left the convention. there were big players in new york politics and opposed it. so they thought something had to be done. that is why they wrote these papers. peter: we are going to show a little video about how the founding era and hamilton in particular had entered into popular culture. >> ♪ hear me out. a series of essays anonymously

published defending the documents of the public. >> no one would read it. if it fails? >> that's why we would need it. ♪ ♪ peter: professor sheehan, what has been the impact of the musical hamilton on the understanding and popularity of studying the constitution? prof. sheehan: it is fabulous. i love it. i did not get to see the musical, hamilton, but i know most of the songs because my students know them all and when it first came out, i heard them singing them in the hallways. so it was a slice of american history that became not only popular, but became a topic of conversation among people.

just like that series on john adams did. these are not things just for history books. these are ideas that live with us today and if this is one way to bring them alive, i am all for it, absolutely. peter: we have not talked about john adams. did he have a role in the federalist papers? prof. sheehan: he was in england and when they were sitting at the constitutional convention, he was publishing one of his volumes of defense of the constitution of the united states and people were reaching it at the constitutional convention. it made its way across the ocean. i know for one madison was disgusted with what he called atoms of noxious principles.

adams was a bit of a -- john adams of noxious principles. -- obnoxious principles. >> is there such a thing as [indiscernible] it is debated back and forth, can you go inside the mind of someone who lived in the 18th century? peter: judge? judge maggs: originalism is the idea that judges should be influenced but not bound by the original meaning of the constitution but it gets quite complicated because it turns out there is more than one view of what we mean by the original meaning. we could mean the original intent of the framers at the constitutional convention, the people who wrote the document, what did they think.

or it could mean the original understanding by those who ratified the constitution in 1787 and 1788. we could talk about the origal public meaning or objective meaning, which is what would the average people would have understood this to mean? what did the words mean when they were used? you asked a very important question, how are we to know what someone then would have thought? not without tools. there are many historical sources and if you can find an agreement among those sources it gives you more confidence but i think where you get into difficulty is may be all you have is a snippet of the federalist papers or a snippet from the debates recorded at the constitutional convention. in such cases, your point is right, to be we just cannot figure out what the original

meaning is. but then there is the question of, who has the burden of proof and how certain do we have to be? a entire course could be taught on the question you asked. peter: people who teach the federalist papers, we want to introduce you to a professor of social science at a california high school. >> this is my 24th year teaching social science in orange county, california. i have taught government and economics and i am a law academy coordinator. when students learn about the federalist papers, it is because

this is our story. this is our origin story. the history of the world does not whene start paying attention to it. these things are connected. there are three lines -- through lines between what we are experiencing now and then. what do we know about the federalist papers? it is for the constitution. great. who wrote them? >> james madison, alexander hamilton, and john jay. >> the supreme court indicated courts are supposed to evaluate historical standards in deciding whether or not fire alarms regulation -- firearms regulations are constitutional.

we will be at a tremendous loss if we do not know where we came from. understanding the federalist papers understand -- helps us understand what was going on when they wrote the constitution. we have to understand what it is we are trying to achieve so we can continue to become more perfect. the biggest challenge is the language. it is difficult to navigate. people are people but the way we talk changes. when we are thinking about what was written in the newspaper and compare it to a current newspaper articles they do not have much in common in terms of language and phrasing so getting the students t unpe language is one of the biggest challenges. what i want my students to understand is that these ordinary humans were extraordinary heroes.