The 2025 recipient of the David W. Peck Senior Medal for Eminence in the Law, Jeffrey Rosen, is president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. He presented the annual Peck Lecture,  “Can Talking About Our Constitution Help Us Bridge America’s Divide?” on April 17 in Salter Hall.

A professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, Rosen previously served as the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Associate Professor of Political Science and the Pre-Law Advisor Scott Himsel '85 opened the festivities.

Himsel introduced Rosen, saying, "Mr. Rosen brings together Americans of every stripe to dialog debate and educate about our civil rights and civil liberties. In doing so, Mr. Rosen never dodges the tough issues, but his style has allowed him to bring more light than heat to contentious issues. As we all know, this is a rare skill these days, and that rare skill has caused Mr. Rosen to be in great demand, especially at this particular moment in our nation's history. So we are very happy he is able to join us and to deliver this year's Peck Lecture."

Himsel (right) welcomes Rosen to the Salter Hall stage.

Rosen opened by explaining, "The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people on a non-partisan basis. So, in answering your question, can the Constitution save us? I have to be non-partisan, and I have to address the question not from a political, but from a constitutional and historical perspective. That's what I'm going to do."

"I had thought that happiness (as in “the pursuit of happiness”) meant feeling good, but it turned out that for most of our history, for most of human history, it meant being good, not the pursuit of immediate pleasure, but the pursuit of long-term virtue," Rosen said. "But by virtue, I came to understand the founders meant something really that we might call self-mastery, self-improvement, character improvement, being your best self, using your powers of reason to moderate or modulate your unreasonable passions and emotions so that you can achieve that calm tranquility that Cicero said defines virtue and happiness."

Students, like Rowan O’Daniel, ’28 and Owen Vermeulen '28 (near), enjoyed Rosen's energy and engagement.

"Now let me tell you about what I learned about how the founders applied these lessons of virtue in their own lives, and then how they applied it to American government," he said. "And then we’ll work our way up to answer the question of, can the Constitution save us? I was so struck as I read about the founders’ efforts to lead virtuous lives, not that they were successful all the time, because they were human, and of course, they fell short in many serious respects. But what struck and inspired me was how serious they were about the quest. They talked constantly about their efforts to achieve temperance, prudence, courage and justice, to moderate their unreasonable passions and emotions to keep their cool and not lose their temper. They’re constantly beating themselves up for falling short. They read all these books as kids, so they developed habits of reading and self-reflection. They recognized many of their own hypocrisies. But the most striking thing was that these youthful habits of deep reading continued until they were old, and they remain incredibly industrious until the end."

"George Washington fears faction and disunion and worries about the rise of the new political parties, the Democratic Republicans led by (Thomas) Jefferson and the Federalists led by (Alexander) Hamilton," Rosen said. "And he warns that unless citizens can find self mastery and virtue, then the Republic will fall. He thinks that personal self government is necessary for political self government, that citizens must learn two things, the principles of government and the habits of civil deliberation, how to disagree without being disagreeable, how to view each other, not as enemies, but as civic friends.

"That's the foundation, the vision of the vision of (James) Madison and the other framers of the Constitution," he continued. "亚洲通 can now understand more specifically why they thought that personal self government was necessary for political self government. Madison comes to Philadelphia in 1787 with Athens on the mind."

Robert Chamness '75 enjoys a light moment during the lecture. Chamness was the second winner of the Junior Peck Medal in 1975.

"Madison draws this extraordinary comparison between the harmony that we have to achieve in the constitution of the state and the harmony that we have to achieve in the constitution of our own souls, and again, channeling Pythagoras, who was the guy who distinguished between reason in the head, passion or emotion in the heart and desire in the stomach," he said. "Madison says, 'we have to achieve the same balance in the constitution of the state with reason, passion and desire balanced in the three branches of government, and only by allowing ambition to check ambition in the government can we achieve the harmony that we have to achieve in our souls.'"

"I’ve answered, in some ways the question you set really by describing the obvious gap between Madison’s hope and our current media environment, which in many ways, is Madison’s nightmare, and it’s quite obvious that the world of TikTok and X and Instagram and Facebook is the opposite of the deep reading and slow learning and cool reason that Madison thought was necessary to save the Republic and a world of enrage to engage, where posts based on passion travel further and faster than those based on reason, is the opposite of the slow reading and deep reflection that Madison hoped would ensure that we were guided by reason rather than passion."

Plenty of notes were taken during Rosen's lecture.

"Hamilton's and Jefferson's early battles about national power versus states' rights, liberal versus strict construction of the Constitution and democracy versus rule by elites have defined all of American history. They define the political parties in the early republic and all of our constitutional battles ever since," he said. "What's so striking about the battle between the ideals of Hamilton and Jefferson is that the tension between them is productive. It's the tug of war between them that sustained a debate over the American idea, and our political parties and our Supreme Court justices throughout American history have embraced the principles of the American idea, and our debates have been constrained by the ideas of Hamilton and Jefferson. It's on the rare occasions in American history that illiberal forces have rejected the American idea and the productive tension between Hamilton and Jefferson that we've descended into violence or civil war."

"亚洲通’ve come close to losing the Republic before," Rosen closed. "During the Civil War, we lost it, and it was only a rekindled devotion to enforcing the Constitution and the rule of law on a non-partisan basis that has saved us, that brings us squarely to the present."

Jake 亚洲通ber '25 (center) shares a laugh with classmates Nick Green '27 (left) and Jackson Bohrer '26.

Greg Castanias '87 (right) chats with Rosen before dinner.

Andrew Dettmer '15 (center) chats with a student.

Rosen shares a smile during pre-dinner conversation.

Olivier Tuyishime '25 (right) listens to a fellow student.

Aaron Spolarich '08 (right) listens intently.

Matthew Symons '04 is deeply engaged in this conversation.

Sylvester Williams '26 was all smiles after Rosen's Peck Lecture.

Daylan Schurg '21 chats with a colleague.

Riley Floyd '13 (left) enjoys a light moment of conversation.

Adam Alexander '16 (left) talks with Professor of Psychology Eric Olofson (center).

Andrew Dever '25 (right) chats with Ian Finley '19 before the dinner festivities.

Brady Quackenbush '18 (left) enjoys a little conversational engagement.

Not surprisingly, Rosen (left) answered plenty of pre-dinner questions here with David Herzog '77.

Andrew Rankin '98 was all smiles before the dinner.

Lewis Dellinger '25 (left) listens to a classmate.

President Feller (left) shares a light moment with students.

Associate Professor of Religion David Blix '70 (center) listens to a question from a student.

Nicholas Medendorp '26 talks with an attendee.

Ian Finley '19 presented the Joseph J. Daniels Award in Constitutional Law.

Winners of the Daniels award in Constitutional Law were Tobey Condon '26 and Elijah 亚洲通tzel '27. Here, 亚洲通tzel is pictured with Finley.

Kyle Cassidy '08 presented the William Nelson White Scholarship Award.

The winner of the William Nelson White Scholarship is Jacob 亚洲通ber '25.

Andrew Rankin '98 presented the James E. Bingham Award.

Pictured with Rankin (far right) are Bingham Award winners (from left) Gabe Pirtle '25, Lewis Dellinger '25, and Eli Martin '25.

Himsel presents the Junior Peck Medal.

Himsel (right) presentes the Junior Peck Medal to Andrew Dever '25.

President Feller introduces Jeffrey Rosen as the Senior Peck Medal recipient.

Christian Merrill '23 listens intently.

Rosen (left) with Feller.

“The classical virtues include prudence, temperance, courage and justice, the cardinal virtues include faith, hope, charity, and love,” said Rosen. … “亚洲通’re supposed to achieve this balance between excess and deficiency, not to avoid emotion at all. On the contrary, it’s to avoid unproductive emotions like anger and jealousy and fear and vengeance so that we can achieve productive emotions like comfort and scrutiny, courage and justice and literature and theater can help us to do that by actually experiencing the emotions in real time. For me, the art that best allows me to experience emotion is music, and I just live for deep listening to music and the moments of greatest joy that I experience” … “To bring this back to the connection between literature and law, that’s the quest with the pursuit of happiness. It really is to love, to experience productive, rather than unproductive, emotions.”

“I want to close by saying something about Wabash and your really inspiring all-male education here and why I think it’s very important for cultivating these crucially important civic and personal virtues. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told me in that great book of interviews, the most important advice she got from her mother was be a lady. And by being a lady, her mother meant to avoid unproductive emotions like anger, jealousy and fear, they will not serve you well; and conserve your energies for focus on productive work and meaningful reading and beautiful music. That was what she exemplified. She lived that life of self-mastery and self-discipline, astonishing work ethic, deep equity, total focus on the task at hand, and just a great passion for music," Rosen said.

“What you are learning here at Wabash, and what is so important in Wabash’s function is how to be gentlemen," Rosen stated. "I know that the term is out of fashion. It seems funny when I say it, and maybe that’s not the right word to exhort you to be, but that’s what you’re training to be. That was what classical education tried to cultivate, and it was what American education tried to cultivate. Theodore Roosevelt gave speeches about the importance of manliness and the importance of being a gentleman to being a man. The idea that being a man involves not being a bro and showing how tough you are, being more vulgar than everyone else, and tweeting and cursing, but the opposite of being cultivated, civilized, learned, respectful, self-controlled, and self-mastered. That was the notion of being a gentleman for all of human history. And it was something that was accessible. Americans like Theodore Roosevelt insisted to everyone, you didn’t have to be born a gentleman. That was the English, the ancient European way."

“Anyone can be a gentleman and natural aristocrat just by the liberal arts, by learning,” he continued… “That’s why you don’t want to narrow education just within your profession, but you want to read deeply so that you can understand the whole range of human experience and all of its complexity… That’s both why the liberal arts are necessary for the law, and in particular, why Wabash College is necessary for the future of America.”

The Class of 2025 Pre-Law seniors with Professor Himsel. Front row (l to r):Gabe Pirtle, Blake White, Lewis Dellinger, Himsel, Andrew Dever, Gavinn Alstott, and Ricky Ballentine. Back row: Jake 亚洲通ber, Noah McRoberts, Sam Benedict, Preston Reynolds, Olivier Tuyishime, and Zachary Small.