Remembering the nation's 'Lost Founder'

about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.

“Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what I've never seen”

this happen. This is true. Mysteries have every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. I'm Dave Davies. As we celebrate America's 250th birthday day. We'll hear a lot about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others. But what if I told you that one of the nation's founders, one of only six who signed

both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a critical voice at the Constitutional

Convention, and arguably the man most responsible for the government we've had for two centuries, is someone you've never heard of. That's precisely the case made by our guest today, Jesse Weggman. He's a journalist who writes about the Constitution and democracy. Weggman's new book is about James Wilson. A man regarded as one of the American colonies most brilliant lawyers in the late 18th century, and one who led a colorful and impactful life.

He was nearly killed during the Revolutionary War when rioters attacked his house in Philadelphia. He later became a Supreme Court Justice and died at the age of 55 in the backroom of a tavern in North Carolina on the run from the law and creditors. But Weggman argues that a careful review of records from the founding show that James Wilson was a highly influential

figure in crafting the Constitution and a powerful voice for democracy, insisting that

direct rule by the people should be the guiding principle of the new government. Jesse Weggman serves for 12 years on the editorial board of the New York Times. He's currently a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. He was last on fresh air to talk about his earlier book. Let the people pick the president, the case for abolishing the electoral college. Lately, he's written opinion pieces advocating term limits for Supreme Court

justices. Weggman's new book is the lost founder, James Wilson, and the forgotten fight for a People's Constitution. Jesse Weggman, welcome back to fresh air. Thanks for having me. You know, you're right about James Wilson and how he was a significant lawyer in the colonies. You know, the 1760s when tensions between the colonies and Great Britain were growing. And he wrote this essay, which was a groundbreaking legal

analysis, which concluded that the British Parliament had no legitimate authority over American colonies because all lawful government is founded on the consent of those subject to that government. This essay proved very influential in the years to come. And as I was reading

about this, it struck me these ideas don't seem so novel or revolutionary. I mean, to the

modern years, right there, it's commonplace. We have lived with this notion of, you know, government by this consent of the government for a long time. And I wonder, was it hard for you as you got deeply into this research to get into the mindset of the 18th century when these ideas were really new? That's a great question. And I was at first having trouble, you know, remembering how radical these ideas were at the time. They aren't particularly

“new to us now. They weren't even particularly new then. I think a lot of people were saying”

bits and pieces of these things, obviously, you know, the consent of the government goes back to lock and before. And many of these ideas are floating around. But nobody took them up with the clarity and the vigor of Wilson. And I think that came through in this essay, which he writes as a 26 year old, who's just come over from Scotland on about a few years before to the colonies. And, you know, apprentices in law and quickly becomes one of the sharpest and most sort of

forward-thinking lawyers in the colonies. So he writes this essay in 1768, in which he says, all men are by nature equal and free. No one has a right to any authority over another without his consent. All lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it. So, you know, these are words and phrases that we actually know very well because several years later, they end up only slightly altered in the Declaration of Independence. And so when I see these words

“coming, you know, eight years before the Declaration of Independence comes out, I think, who is this guy?”

How did I miss him? Did I skip some class? Because, you know, Wilson seems to be at the center of everything from almost the moment he arrives in America. You know, many of the founders came from very privileged backgrounds. You know, some were wealthy farmers, merchants, many owned slaves. James Wilson was different, right? We grew up in Scotland. Tell us about his background. James Wilson was like a few of the framers of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, I think,

family in the lowlands of Scotland outside of Edinburgh. And so he has this pretty standard Scottish

upbringing for a young farm boy of the, you know, in the mid to later 18th century. He grows up, you know, in the Presbyterian Church, which is far more democratic in its governance than say the Anglican Church or the Catholic Church. The parishioners vote for the elders. There's much more involvement by the regular people in the church than in these other churches where it's much more of a top-down hierarchy. So Wilson is, he's imbued with this democratic notion of governance

early in his life. He's also educated in schools in Scotland that are explicitly there to educate all Scottish children. Everybody is expected to get an education. Everyone is expected to learn to read and write. So Wilson, you know, by the time he's a teenager, he is already sort of filled with these just very natural ideas of democratic rule, the equality of all people. And the sense that everybody no matter what their station in life where they come from has equal

“access to the truth and has an equal right to govern themselves. And that's what he brings over to”

America. And it's true, you know, few of any of the other founders that he worked with had that kind of background had that kind of upbringing. Right. He immigrates to the United States and settles in Pennsylvania, gets a lot of green and quickly becomes a well-recognized and prosperous lawyer. He eventually is a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, which drafted the declaration of independence. What have you learned about his role in drafting that document?

So Wilson does not have a direct role in the drafting of the declaration itself. That's obviously Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and a few of the others that we know well. But what Wilson did do was

write this essay that, you know, he first drafted in 1768 arguing that the British Parliament had

no authority at all over the colonies. This was a groundbreaking argument at the time because everyone else was trying to argue that well, you know, Parliament has some power over us. Parliament is sovereign over us, but, you know, they can't impose taxes. You know, all of the things that we know that the colonists were arguing over are against this backdrop of Parliament being sovereign, Parliament having ultimate authority over the colonies. James Wilson is the first to argue,

no, they have zero. They have no authority over us at all. Now, this is such a groundbreaking argument that one of his mentors reads it and says, "James, you're a young man. You have a, you know,

“big career ahead of you. Don't put this out there yet. It's too bold." So we kept it secret for”

what? So we put it away in a drawer for six years, but in 1774 he publishes it. It's published anonymously. And instantly, it was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who, you know, very quickly says, "No, this isn't by me. You know, it's by, I mean, James Wilson." And, you know, suddenly people start to find out who this guy is. We know that Thomas Jefferson, who's the writer of the Declaration of Independence, had whole sections of Wilson's essay, this essay on the authority of Parliament,

pasted into his commonplace book, where he kept, you know, quotes that were important to him. We know that the essay has a whole deeply influenced Jefferson, and historians going back now about 100 years have theorized that Wilson's essay was one of the biggest, if not, the biggest influence on Jefferson as he sat down to draft those famous words of the Declaration.

“Right. There were, there were, we hold these truths to be false, isn't it?”

That all men are created equal. It's likely that Wilson had some significant influence on Jefferson's thinking. That's right. Right. It's interesting that he authored this legal theory, which led to the radical conclusion that the colonies could separate from Britain, but he himself was more cautious about that. Wasn't anxious to do that initially. But nonetheless, the Declaration

was signed. The rupture was complete. The Revolutionary War erupted. And there's this remarkable

episode in 1779, just a few years into the war when James Wilson has moved his family into Philadelphia. After the British have evacuated it, they had occupied the city for, I guess, nine months or so. And it was tough. I mean, there were, you know, there were killings. There were shops and homes were looted. The population suffered. There were food shortages. And there was a lot of anger there. And in 1779, a mob starts going after people regarded as disloyal. They target Wilson's home.

period, because it is Americans targeting other Americans. You know, they're in the middle of a war

against Great Britain at the time for their independence. And this really shakes a lot of the people down to their core. Wilson is one of the elites of Philadelphia at this time. He is a leading lawyer. He's become very wealthy. He has a young and growing family with his wife, Rachel. And, you know, he's enjoying the high life. You know, for all his commitment to popular rule and to the power of common people to govern themselves, he really is happy being an elite. And, you know, he's an awkward

“guy, too. This is part of what I think made him fall out of the sort of the founding narrative.”

Our national narrative of the American founding is that he's a difficult guy to get to know and to like. And so he doesn't have a lot of, let's say, social capital at the time. And in 1779, it's a pretty tough time. And so people like Wilson stand out on this particular day in October of 1779, a mob of militiamen gather at a bar. They drink all morning. They get themselves liquored up and then they go out looking for the elite of Philadelphia to capture and to, you know,

teach a lesson to. Wilson gets word that there is a mob of, and now, I think several hundred men coming toward his house. They're armed. They're drunk. And he barricades himself in his house with about two dozen of his friends and allies. And the mob approaches the house. There are words

“exchanged. Gun is fired. They're end up being about seven people who are killed. There are”

many more wounded. Wilson is almost pulled out of the house himself. They breach the front door. They go in with clubs and they try to pull him down the stairs. He actually escapes, you know, with his life. He leaves town in the middle of the night. He hides out for several days and doesn't come back until things have quieted down. But it was this incident really drove me to want to write this book because I was so struck that a man who was committed to the idea of popular sovereignty,

the idea that people are the foundation of all power in government would experience a life-threatening attack by a mob and come out the other side, no less committed to that idea. I wanted to know how could

somebody experience that sort of attack and not for a second stop and think maybe I don't want democracy.

“Maybe democracy is too dangerous. So let's talk about the constitutional convention”

in the summer of 1787. Colonies after they separated from Britain were they had a loose federation, governed by the articles of Confederation which didn't really work. And so a bunch of them came together in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia to craft a new constitution. And it's really kind of interesting just what a weird enterprise this was. These were people who had no particular authority to do this, right? I mean, I mean, who does, you know, bring birth to a nation.

You write that one delegate from Georgia said Wilson ranks among the foremost in legal and political knowledge. The delegates were very impressed with them. Tell us about that relationship. Wilson is without question one of the leading lawyers in the country at the time, if not the leading lawyer, everyone looks to him for his legal acumen but also his knowledge of history and of government that he developed through his training in the Scottish Enlightenment. But Wilson

brings this energy to the convention that I had not noticed before. He's constantly saying things that sound more like they were said by someone in the 21st century than someone in the 18th century. And those have to do primarily with the ideals of political equality, the idea that people are the foundation of government and all people are equal, right? This is not very welcome to a lot of the delegates who are much more interested say in their states, right? They care about making sure their

state has equal power. So one of the biggest fights at the convention is over the Senate. Will the Senate be a body of states with equal power or will it be based on the population of the states and the people themselves? Wilson argues tirelessly throughout the summer for a government based on population and he says people should be represented in accordance with their numbers. Why is this so hard? And he can't understand why so many of the other founders resist him.

So that fight over popular rule versus state equality takes up the entire first half of the

James Madison and a few of the other nationalists had really wanted a government based on

population. They don't get it. They get a Senate that has equal state power. Right, but there were some things he did win and that was the popular election to representatives of the House of Representatives. And that wasn't an equal abortion for each state. It was based on population. But there was this this huge troubling debate about the slave holding the states, which wanted their slaves to count as members of their population, even though they

had no legal rights and no vote. There was a compromise that resolved this question. What was Wilson's role in that? And this is one of the ironies of Wilson's life and of his role in our founding.

“And it's a complicated one. And I take him to task for it in the book, which is he really I think”

did not go after slavery with the energy and the commitment of some of the other founders, including slaveholders themselves who were quite open about the evil, the moral evil of the practice. Wilson actually introduces the three fifths clause, which counted enslaved people as three fifths of a free person for purposes of representation in Congress and for taxation. Now, Wilson didn't come up with the three fifths number himself. It was already there floating around

from earlier debates under the articles of Confederation. But the fact that he was willing to count and that the fact that he said it's okay, it's more important for us to have a union here, even if it means the perpetuation of slavery, I think really undercuts a lot of his fundamental commitments to equality, to popular self-rule, to the basic dignity of humans. And in the book, I quote a number of his contemporaries being very open about the fact that this is an evil,

this is a moral profanity, and Wilson is really quite muted on this point, and it's something that there's no good resolution to. He wanted the union more than he wanted an end to slavery,

“and he accepted, although he was opposed to slavery, he accepted this compromise, and I think”

you know, he doesn't get a pass for that. Yeah, well, I think there are clearly a number of cases.

That is one. Another one is the proportional representation in the Senate, where he finally

agrees to let each state have equal representation. We should also note that there were some things he did win, like for example, in the discussion initially began on how Congress would be structured. There was a lot of strong support for having members of Congress selected by state legislatures. I mean, simply the direct election of members of Congress was a contested issue, right? Absolutely, and Wilson was the strongest advocate for popular self-rule. You know, he says at one

point, can we forget for whom we are forming a government? Is it for men or for the imaginary beings called states? It is all a mere illusion of names. We talk of states till we forget what they're composed of. Right? He had this just laser-like focus on people as the foundation of all government power. And so he really leads the charge along with James Madison, and a few others, for a house of representatives, at least, that is, you know, a portion by population. Right? And

who would often invoke the phrase in the Declaration of Independence, you know, that all men are created equal. It doesn't say all states are created equal. And he brought that up, right? Well,

“yes, I mean, this is the part of Wilson that I think is in some ways the most thrilling and the”

most, I think, useful to us today is how much he understood the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as being connected. So the Declaration of Independence, you know, is based on this theory of popular sovereignty, the idea that when people are not happy with their government, they may change it. They may change it whenever and however they please. And that is what they do

by first declaring independence and fighting a war to be independent from Britain and then by

drafting a Constitution. And perhaps the way in which Wilson brings the spirit of the Declaration of Independence most directly into the Constitution happens in the middle of the summer. He's on this committee. It's called the Committee of Detail. Most of the other delegates go away for 10 days and just take a break because they're all exhausted or fighting for the last two months over Congress. And Wilson and a few other delegates write the first draft of the Constitution. We have no records

of what exactly they discussed. But what comes out of that committee is Wilson's opening words of the Constitution. He put the words "we the people" at the beginning of the Constitution. And what he was doing there, he was making clear that this is a Constitution. This is a government

words in the Constitution. We need to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking

“with Jesse Wegman. His new book is The Lost Founder. James Wilson and the forgotten fight for”

a People's Constitution. He'll be back to talk more after the short break. I'm Dave Davies and this is fresh air. Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture Podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow it's been a minute wherever you get your podcasts. We'll break down the zeitgeisty topics

that are filling your feed. We were talking about the Constitutional Convention. This was, you know, the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. It's hot. It's humid. And in the middle of the count of the proceedings, there's a break. And I five member committee called the Committee of Detail actually drafts the text of the Constitution. And Wilson was one of those five. He was very influential here. And one of the big issues they had to confront was how much power the federal

“government would have as opposed to the individual states. Remember that as the country was governed”

then, the states had enormous power. The Congress had no power to tax it. And so it all these centrifugal forces were sort of turning the country apart. So what perspective did Wilson bring to this question of how much power a central government should have and how did he wield it in this debate

and in the drafting? Wilson very much wanted a powerful central government with several of the

other founders on this point. You know, he said going back, I think to 1776, he said, we are not so many states. We are one large state. We lay aside our individuality whenever we come here. And I think that sort of sums up his philosophy. He believed that the states were, you know, pointless imaginary beings that deserve no respect. And Wilson in the committee of detail comes up with what we call the necessary improper clause. This is a clause that ends up being one of the most consequential

in the Constitution. It gives Congress massive power to legislate for the nation and over the states. And, you know, there's a huge amount of resistance to it from the opponents of the Constitution who come to being known as the anti-federalists. But Wilson pushes strongly for the inclusion of this clause because he believes Congress cannot legislate. It can't do its job. The federal government can't do its job without an enormous amount of power, without enormous latitude and authority

to pass laws and do the things that a federal government needs to do, such as raise an army, collect taxes. All of these things, Congress has used that clause throughout American history

“to justify its power to pass laws that have transformed America. So, I think Wilson himself is”

really at the, at the heart of giving the federal government the power that it has today. No, another big, big issue that they had to resolve at the Constitutional Convention was the nature of the executive branch of the government. And, you know, today we're used to the idea of a single chief executive, the president chosen international election. But this was not assumed at all, right? I mean, some people saw, maybe thought the executive branch should be a council controlled

directly by Congress. Wilson felt that it's critical that they have a strong executive and that it

be vested in a single person. What were the objections and alternatives? How did that debate go? Well, this is how I came to Wilson in the first place. I was writing my book on the Electoral College and I was looking through the notes of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison's notes, to find when was the moment that the Electoral College is adopted. And here's this guy, this long-winded Scott, who keeps saying things that sound more like they come from our era than his own.

And saying, you know, the president should be a single person, which was not at the time fully agreed upon, and that he should be elected directly by the people. When Wilson says this about the president being a single person, James Madison records what he calls a considerable pause in the room. You know, the other delegates are sitting there basically shifting in their seats. Nobody's very comfortable at this prospect. You know, they don't want to have another tyrant like King George.

And they're also sitting right there in front of another George George Washington, who is widely understood to be the frontrunner for any sort of executive office that might be created. So everyone's feeling awkward at that moment. Wilson is not at all. He says this is obvious. Of course, you need a single executive who has the power to carry out his duties.

And he should be elected directly by the people, because anyone who's that powerful

there will be problems. So Wilson basically is the first person to argue for a direct popular vote for president, which is what we still talk about today. He's saying it in 1787. He does not get a lot of support for this. So they say, you know, James, go home, come up with something a little better. He comes back in the next day, and he proposes a system of electors, who are chosen by eligible voters, and who then in turn choose the president. That is remarkably

similar to the system that we have today that we call the electoral college. So this is yet another

“of the ironies of James Wilson's life is that he ends up proposing the very system that he”

opposed for choosing the president. But once he agreed and the convention agreed that people would choose electors who would themselves choose the president. The question was, how many electors

does each state get? Which is pretty critical, right? I mean, is it going to be proportional

to their population? Is it going to be equal numbers of electors for the states? How does that work out? What ends up being adopted is the system that we know today, which is that each state gets a number of electors equal to its representation in Congress. So that's the number of members of the House of Representatives. It has plus its two senators. So that means smaller states get a real benefit in the electoral college because they have proportionally more electors given their

voters. Again, Wilson was not happy with this arrangement, but he accepted it as the price of business.

“And as the convention near its end in September, I think everyone was so exhausted and wanting”

just to get this document out the door and ratified that he agreed to it. But in the end, they come up with a document that will bring a far more unified country because it there's a strong central government. There is popular election of the members of the House. And some participation by voters in the election of the Senate and the president. So it's a lot of what Wilson wanted. There is, of course, this glaring hypocrisy here in that it tolerates

a half million humans being held in bondage and women are denied the right to vote as well as

other basic rights. What if anything that Wilson have to say about those so disenfranchised and exploited? At the ratifying convention in Pennsylvania, where Wilson takes a leading role in convincing the delegates to that convention to support the Constitution. You know, he says, I acknowledge this was not the best arrangement. I would have done it differently if I had had my way, but we have laid the groundwork for the eventual elimination of slavery in the states. You know, obviously the

Constitution as it was written, barred, any intrusion on the slave trade for 20 years after its ratification. But as we know, that fight would continue on into the middle of the 19th century and

lead to the Civil War, which resulted in the deaths of more than half a million people.

And, you know, it was only then that slavery was actually banished from the Constitution. Wilson did oppose slavery, but, you know, he was willing to live with it as the price of a Constitution with the other elements that he wanted so badly. Need to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Jesse Wegman. His new book is The Lost Founder, James Wilson, and The Forgotten Fight for

Of People's Constitution. We'll talk more after this break. This is fresh air. This week, on our first from NPR News, President Trump is at the G7 in France, and is supposed to sign a peace deal with Iran. That deal, if it happens as planned, will let big effects in the global economy and more. And we will track the changes as they unfold. On a week of major geopolitical news, listen to up first every morning on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You know, so this government that was drafted by these 50 men in Philadelphia has endured. I mean, it's not without some problems. And we needed to civil war to settle the question of slavery in another century to recognize basic civil and voting rights. And of course, women couldn't vote until the 1920s. But this basic structure of an elected Congress, you know, a president and independent judiciary, the three branches checking one another's power

has kind of held together, arguably until, well, really recent years, and the current administration and the White House, where we've seen, I mean, it's just a fact that long-standing boundaries and norms have been violated. You're following this closely. I mean, this is a big

“question, but what's the impact of the changes we're seeing and what lies ahead?”

I mean, one of the reasons I wrote the electoral college book back in 2020 was the election twice in the century to that point of the person who won fewer votes. That's a fundamental violation of

Because majority rule is the only way that we ensure political equality. It's the only way

that you count all votes as equal. Any other method by definition counts some votes as worth more than

“others. So, you know, this violation of majority rule, I think, is at the heart of so much of what”

ails us today. You know, both George W. Bush in 2000 and then Donald Trump in 2016 were elected to the White House with fewer votes than their opponent. And I really think that there's a toxin there that people feel that their wishes as a majority are not being represented. And that leads to all these other problems that we see every day now. I think the Senate itself is obviously a, you know, by design non-majoritarian institution. The House of Representatives is technically majoritarian,

but with, you know, partisan gerrymandering kind of spiraling out of control now with the help of the

Supreme Court. We are finding that fewer and fewer people feel represented by that House of Congress. So, on every level of government, you have this sense that what a majority of the people want

“is not being reflected in their government. And that I think Wilson understood that 250 years ago”

as being what he called a poison, contaminating the government. And that was why he fought so hard to make sure that there were mechanisms to ensure majority rule would be the way we governed. You know, the other thing we've seen is we've seen enormous influence on the judicial branch by the president, him picking political loyalists for, you know, district courts, appeals courts, and arguably for Supreme Court. No way around that really is there. I mean, that's the power

that was given to the president at the Constitution. Yeah, I mean, every, every president chooses judges, you know, who are, you know, they think will be ideologically aligned with them. And that's, that's understandable. But at the same time, you know, this, this interacts with this life tenure that the founders gave to Supreme Court, well, to all federal judges. And this creates a problem because now you have people living far longer than they did at the founding. People serving on the court

like Clarence Thomas for 30 plus years. He may, he could go 40. He could even go 50 years. He's not even

“that old by the standards of Supreme Court justices. And I think when you have presidents appointing”

justices who sit on the court that long, then you add on top of that president who were chosen by, you know, a minority of the population, you have essentially minority rule in America where you have the judiciary representing political realities from decades before. And sometimes not even a reality that was, you know, represented the majority of the people. So I think you have a real problem with the court that is so unrepresentative. You know, the court is not supposed to be

democratically represented of the way that the elected branches are. But when it is so far removed, I think you start to run into serious problems of legitimacy. You have a specific proposal for the Supreme Court. You want to explain that? Right. Well, this, this has been suggested for a long time, but term limits for Supreme Court justices. I think would go a long way to making people feel more like that the court was a democratically legitimate branch of government. So

the most popular proposal out there is 18-year terms. So on a nine-member Supreme Court, that would mean that every two years a new vacancy would open up and every president would by definition get two appointments to the Supreme Court per term. The justices who finished their 18-year term would be allowed to stay on as senior justices, which is the system we have now in the lower federal courts of appeals. But I think it would make a really big difference in

giving people the sense that there wouldn't be this unpredictability, this sort of unfairness where one president gets four picks to the court and the next one gets zero. We want a Supreme

Court that basically reflects the country as it is today, not as it was decades ago.

You know, you write regularly on constitutional questions. You have a substrate, right? Yes. Major questions, I think is what it's called. Yes, right. And you know, as we talk about this stuff, I mean, these are interesting but very tough questions and require a lot of knowledge and thought and you know, you want to bring experience to bear. And when I think about the fact that, you know, nobody reads a newspaper anymore and like internet means capture our attention so

quickly with all the algorithms of the social media. Do we have a shot at actually doing thinking

same question. There was a real concern that most people would not understand politics, we're not educated enough. At that time, they were largely right. And I'm not going to stand

“here and say, I think social media is an, an alloyed good. But I do think we also live in this”

moment of incredible explosion of good writing and thoughtful commentary on the constitution, on democracy, on the way that we can live together as a people and incredibly large and diverse

country. When the founders built this country, they were trying to do something that had never been

done before, which was to design a republic, you know, over an expense that was larger than any that had been tried in the past. And I think we're still in some way trying to do that. We're trying to keep a government running that is far larger and more diverse than anyone could have imagined. And I mean, I'm actually, when I read other writers and other thinkers, not just legal scholars, but regular people talking about what they want and what they imagined for the country, I'm actually

“quite invigorated by it. I think most people want a country in which their voice is heard,”

in which the majority gets its way in which there are protections for minorities that are generally, you know, applied by the courts. But that majority rule and politically quality are the fundamental guiding lights of our system. And I think, you know, in this moment, we actually have more people more thoughtfully and more critically talking about these things than we've had in my lifetime. All right. Well, a hopeful thought there. Jesse Wegman, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Jesse Wegman's new book is The Lost Founder, James Wilson, and The Forgotten Fight for People's Constitution. Coming up, David B. and Kooley reviews the new Prime video series Spiderman Noir. This is fresh air. Every story from shortwave and piercines podcast starts with a question.

“Like, why do we have nightmares? How does AI affect my energy bill?”

At NPR, we are here for your right to be curious about the world around you. Follow shortwave wherever you get your podcast because the more you ask, the more interesting the world gets. The Spider-Man character was introduced in a Marvel Comics book in 1962. Since then, he's been the center of several live-action superhero movies over the decades, some well-received animated features, and has been reimagined in stories said in different times,

even in different universes. One comic book series that began in 2008, Spider-Man Noir, imagined the hero as a gum shoe of the 1930s, but with superpowers. Now Prime video has brought that concept to television as Spider Noir starring Nicholas Cage. Our TV critic David B. and Kooley says everything about the series is unexpectedly enjoyable. In this universe, I'm pretty much tired of superhero films and TV series and random multiverses, and don't approach any new one with

much enthusiasm. When I heard about Spider Noir and that Nicholas Cage was starring,

I couldn't imagine why he'd choose a superhero story for his first TV starring role.

Then I watched the 8-episode first season, and realized it probably represents one of the best and boldest Nicholas Cage performances of his entire risk-taking career. From the very start, Spider Noir takes the noir part seriously. It's said in the Depression era New York of the 1930s, in Cage plays a super-powered masked character known as the Spider. When we meet him, he's loved and lost a woman, a story he recounts in the rain over her grave. He's gone on a

multi-year bender, and now has an office as a private eye. His name is Ben Ryan. We were going to be marrying in the spring. I even bought a ring to make it official.

A ring I never had the chance to give her.

Ruby once told me that, with great power, it comes great responsibility. Well, she was the greatest responsibility I ever had, and I failed her. The Spider failed her. After that, I didn't want the power or the responsibility. Oh, I went back to being just an ordinary man. That was five years ago. If that opening narration sounds as though Cage is channeling a bit of bogey,

well, he is. But the imaginative conceit of Spider-Noir is that the bite that gave the spider

really does have to act like a human, and like a private eye. So he goes to the movies,

and watches the latest Humphrey Bogart in James Cagney films, and imitates them a bit. But there also are scenes where Ben Riley, the gum shoe, like James Garner's Jim Rockford in the Rockford files, hands out fake business cards, and adopts different accents and dialects. Cage has enormous fun with all of this. But also establishes that his character sometimes is primarily a spider, and physicalizes that in a way that's just a riot.

If you saw him in Vampire's Kiss, you're familiar with his brand of unbridled acting. And he's not acting alone. Lamourne Morris, who want to well-deserved Emmy as the deputy on season

“five of FX's Fargo, plays a reporter who works with the spider and keeps his secret.”

It's a rich role in Morris delivers, and so do the show's other co-stars.

The always commanding Brendan Gleason plays the ruthless power broker Silver Main,

who tracks down superpowered mutants to persuade them to join his gang. As always with this genre, the villains have a lot of fun. Gleason, as Silver Main, veers easily between playful and menacing. As when he captures a mutant play by Andrew Lewis Caldwell, and introduces himself. Caldwell, for his part, is great fun too. Well, you seem you know who I am. The man with the main of Silver,

born from nothing, milked his empire through gutten Gile, per veer of the finest bear with it potions, king of the five borrows, Mr. Finn Barburn himself, Bar.

“I see you late to talk. I think you could listen for a second. Oh, I am like an”

a brasskin corn field. All he is. Of course, every classic noir, even a spider noir, has to have a femme fatale. This one is a shantoo's and heartbreaker played by Lee June Lee, who played gracing sinners, and was a star of the 2008 Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific.

She gets to show off her musical talent when Cages Ben Riley first sees and hears her

at Silver Mane's Nightclub. Ladies and gentlemen, Ka-Hardy! Bird singin' in the sick of more trees. Dream a little dream of me. She sounds beautiful and looks dazzling too, outfitted in stylish costumes with vibrant colors. Well, their vibrant and in color, depending upon how you choose to watch spider noir. Or an oozele, who developed this series for TV, is presenting it in an unprecedented manner.

On prime video, you can decide to watch in what it calls either true hue color or authentic black and white, or toggle between the two. I found it fun to keep switching, especially to learn the colors of sets or costumes in the color saturated versions. But both versions are exciting to watch. There are loads of illusions to classic films. The fight scenes explode with energy, and the various writers and directors work as a coherent team. Whether they're presenting

intimate scenes between characters or wildly hallucinatory dream sequences. No matter which way you watch it, spider noir is the best TV superhero series since the Penguin. TV critic David B. and Cooley reviewed spider noir starring Nicholas Cage. On tomorrow's show, New Yorker staff writer Ben Talb gives us an insight look at Donald Trump's campaign to acquire Greenland. While it's faded from the headlines, Talb says there are ongoing influence operations at Trump's direction

“to keep the possibility alive. In a new article, Talb reveals some key players in the effort”

and its impact on Greenland and our European allies. I hope you can join us.

at NPR Fresh Air.

“Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger, our technical director and engineer is Audrey”

Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Filis Myers and Marie Baldenado,

Lauren Crenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth. Thank you, Challenger, Susania Coondy,

“Anna Bowman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisseler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesfer,”

Roberto Schorock directs the show, the cherry gross Antonio Mosley, and Dave Dees.

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