Your Weekly Constitutional

Of the many constitutional issues we've followed over the past several years, two stand out as the most dynamic: gay marriage and marijuana legalization. We can hardly keep up with the many changes to the laws and attitudes surrounding them.

But we keep trying. And here's our latest effort, courtesy of Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and COP, Citizens Opposed to Prohibition.

How do we know so much about James Madison? Telepathy? Osmosis?

Actually, our knowledge about the Father of the Constitution is the product of hard work - hard work done by a number of dedicated Madison scholars, men and women who take the time to read Madison's papers, unearth his artifacts and tell his story. One of the most important of these hard-working scholars is Ralph Ketcham, who wrote the definitive one-volume biography of Madison over forty years ago, in 1971.

That's why Stewart was so thrilled to meet Ralph at Montpelier during a recent visit. The two of them sat down for a long talk in the Constitutional Village, and Stewart turned on his microphone.

When Stewart made a reservation at the historic Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, he didn't fully appreciate just how historic the hotel is. It turns out that the Irish Constitution was drafted there, and he heard all about the process from the hotel’s unofficial historian, Denis O’Brien.

Benjamin Franklin has been called the first American. We might also call him the last American Englishman, because he was one of the last of our Founders to abandon his hope that, somehow, America and England could patch up their differences and avoid armed conflict. Indeed, our Founding Grandfather spent sixteen years in London just prior to the American Revolution, trying to keep the American colonies British.

Stewart recently travelled to London, where he visited the house where Franklin lived, near Trafalgar Square. He spoke with the staff at what is now called the Benjamin Franklin House, who told him the whole story. They even played a musical instrument that Franklin invented while he was there, the Glass Armonica.

In 1940, one constitutional democracy stood alone against the onslaught of Nazi aggression. And one man led that nation, alone, for the next year, until, "in God's good time," the New World came to the aid of the Old.

That nation was the United Kingdom, and that leader was Winston Spencer Churchill. Stewart recently visited Churchill’s home, Chartwell, in the South of England, and spoke to a number of knowledgeable and helpful volunteers there. Now he wants to share that visit with you.

If you want to see the U.S. Constitution, it’s easy – just take a trip to the National Archives where it’s on public display. But what if you want to see the British Constitution? That’s not so easy, because it’s not written down. Or, more properly, much of it is unwritten, and the parts that are written down are spread over many different documents.

If you find this confusing, join the club. Stewart was so confused that he went all the way to the UK to get an explanation from Dan O’Boyle, a law professor from the University of Law in Guildford, England.

Only once in its history has the United States gone to war to resolve a constitutional issue. The war was the American Civil War and the issue was slavery.

In this episode we go to where it all effectively came to an end: a small, remote town in Virginia called Appomattox Court House.

As this podcast gets posted, in the summer of 2014, the voters of the State of Tennessee are about to go to the polls to decide whether to retain three of the Justices of their Supreme Court.

While judicial retention elections are traditionally sleepy affairs, this one is different: the Lieutenant Governor and others are making a concerted effort to convince the voters to "non-retain" these three Justices. Why? We wanted to ask the Lt. Governor, but, to our disappointment, he did not return our calls and emails.

So we've reached back twenty years, to the last (and only) time that a Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court -- Stewart's colleague at the University of Tennessee, Penny White -- was non-retained. And we've found some eerie similarities to the current controversy.

Dolly Parton! Whaa?

It turns out that the country music superstar is a high school friend of the Chief Justice of Tennessee. His name is Gary Wade, and he tells us some fascinating stories about how he became the highest judicial officer in his state, what his job entails, and how he now faces a coordinated political attempt to have him removed from the bench, along with two of his Supreme Court colleagues.

On a happier note, he also tells us some great stories about his high-school friend and "television girlfriend," Dolly Parton. Do you know, for example, what instrument Dolly played in the Sevier County High School Band? Hint: it wasn't the flute. But you'll have to listen in to find out more.

Cloaks and daggers? Old news. Now it's keypads and iPads and other high-tech spying.

The United States and China both do it. But they do it differently - or so they say. Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis, the Director of the King Institute for Security and Intelligence Studies, tells us all about this secret struggle for security supremacy.