CBH Talk | Jesse Wegman and Alexis Coe Discuss “The Lost Founder”

For most Americans, the story of the nation's founding begins and ends with a familiar cast of names: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison. But what if one of the most influential architects of American democracy has been hiding in plain sight?

Join journalist and Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center Jesse Wegman for a conversation about The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution, a revelatory new biography that restores James Wilson to his rightful place among the founders of the United States. A signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Wilson championed the radical idea that political power belongs to the people themselves, helping shape principles that continue to define and challenge American democracy today. Yet scandal and circumstance left his extraordinary legacy largely forgotten.

In conversation with acclaimed historian and bestselling author Alexis Coe, Wegman explores the dramatic life of this overlooked founder, the fierce debates that forged the Constitution, and why Wilson's vision of popular sovereignty remains strikingly relevant as the nation marks the 250th anniversary of its founding. Together they'll reconsider the revolutionary ideas at the heart of the American experiment, and ask what they still demand of us today.

Participants

Jesse Wegman is a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, where he writes about Supreme Court reform and constitutional amendments. From 2013 to 2025, he was a member of the New York Times editorial board, covering law and politics, the Supreme Court, democracy, and electoral reforms. His first book, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College, was published in 2020.

 Photo by Bill Waldman

Alexis Coe is a presidential historian, an award-winning, New York Times bestselling presidential historian, and a senior fellow at New America, a bi-partisan think tank. In July 2025, Coe became the American History columnist at the New York Times Book Review. The author of, most recently, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George of Washington, her next book is Young Jack: A Biography of John F. Kennedy, 1917-1957 and her first book, Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, debuted in2014.

​ Coe frequently appears on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, History, PBS, and other networks and has been featured in and written for most major publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Best American Essays.