America at 250: The Most Important Founder You've Never Heard Of

America at 250: The Most Important Founder You've Never Heard Of

From The Lincoln Project by The Lincoln Project

July 1, 2026 · 32 min

About this episode

The episode explores the life and contributions of James Wilson, a founding father who has been largely forgotten in American history.

Six men signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. You can probably name Franklin. You've almost certainly never heard of James Wilson — the man who did more than almost anyone to put "We the People" at the heart of American government, sat on the first Supreme Court… and then died broke, on the run from creditors, and was quietly erased from the story of the founding. As part of our special 250th podcast rollout celebrating this amazing country of ours, Rick Wilson sits down with Jesse Wegman — New York Times editorial board member and author of the new book on James Wilson — to resurrect the most important founder nobody remembers. They get into how Wilson shaped the Constitution, why his radical idea of popular sovereignty still defines (and haunts) American democracy, how a founding genius ended up in a debtor's ruin, and what his erasure tells us about the myths we build around 1776. It's the perfect 250th-birthday story: not the founders on the money, but the one history decided to forget — and why remembering him matters now more than ever. • • • • • Jesse Wegman is a member of the New York Times editorial board and the author of the new book, The…

People in this episode

Host: Rick Wilson

Guest: Jesse Wegman

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: New York Times

Books & works: The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution

Places: America

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