This seminar will deal with the framing of the federal Constitution of 1787 and the debates it engendered. This will involve not only the particular ideas and deliberations of the major leaders, such as James Madison, in the period leading up to the Convention but also the larger and more important changes that were taking place in the Americans’ conception of representation. By the time of the ratification debates, both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists had come to focus on this issue of representation. These debates, in turn, fundamentally altered Americans’ theoretical understanding of politics.