The Secret History of the U.S. Constitution: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of the United States s+2
at McNally Jackson s+6

Presented by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel: 

Largely forgotten today, except for his peg-leg and his extensive romantic history, New Yorker Gouverneur Morris has a much stronger claim to being the Father of the Constitution than James Madison, who is generally thought to deserve that title, and he strongly disagreed with Madison on fundamental principles of constitutional governance and on what type of nation the United States should be.

Although he has largely disappeared from our collective memory,  he would seem to have been unforgettable — charismatic, witty, sarcastic and given to bombast, a near-giant at 6’4”, a genius (according to both Madison and Hamilton), a superb businessman, a brilliant wordsmith, a master orator, and the leading opponent of slavery among the delegates at the convention. He was the Constitution’s Penman — including drafting the immortal opening “We the People of the United States” – and he had a vision of the Constitution that is dramatically different from that of today’s Supreme Court’s originalists, who are Madisonians.

Former dean of Fordham Law School and of Georgetown Law Center Bill Treanor is writing “Fathers of the Constitution,” a history of the constitutional convention. He will discuss Morris’s extraordinary and colorful life story, his central role at the convention, and the significance of his ideas for modern constitutional jurisprudence.

William M. Treanor is the Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Constitutional Law and Constitutional History and Dean Emeritus at Georgetown Law Center. He has served as both dean of Georgetown Law and Fordham Law School.  He received a B.A. and a J.D. from Yale University and a Ph.D from Harvard University.  He has written extensively on the original understanding of the Constitution, and his book on the drafting of the United States Constitution Fathers of the Constitution: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Creation of the American Republic  will be published next  year by W.W. Norton. He has held a range of positions in the government, including service as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice and Associate Counsel in the Iran-Contra Independent Counsel’s Office. He is currently a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School and a Visiting Scholar at Fordham Law School, and he is a contributing expert for the Netflix series “The American Experiment.” He has been elected a Fellow of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  The National Jurist magazine has chosen him as one of the most influential people in legal education five times, and he has received the World Jurist Association’s  Medal of Honor and the American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dennis C. Rasmussen is a Professor of Political Science and the Hagerty Family Fellow at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of six books, including Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders, which was named a best politics book of the year in the Wall Street Journal; The Constitution’s Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter, which was a runner-up for the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award; and Frederick Douglass’s American Founding: How the Nation’s Fiercest Critic Embraced the Constitution, which is forthcoming in September 2026.

Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel is an author, curator, and civic leader whose work advances civic engagement and the public realm in New York City and beyond. She was a White House assistant, the first director of Cultural Affairs for NYC, vice chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, and chair of the New York State Council on the Arts. The longest-term NYC Landmarks Commissioner and founding member of the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and The High Line, she also created the NYC Historic District Street signs and the NYC Cultural Medallion programs. Her latest project is Notable New York, a vibrant mosaic of New York City’s cultural, social, and architectural evolution honoring the diversity of voices, communities, and experiences that have defined New York from its earliest days. Contributors include: Brent Reidy, Helen Shaw, Arne Glimcher, Darryl Pinckney, Prudence Peiffer, Nicholas Boggs, and many other luminaries.