IWP Constitution Day Lecture: Reflections on Publius’ Constitution

About the Lecture

The annual IWP Constitution Day lecture will address principles, issues, and structure of the American Constitution in light of the Federalist Papers. The lecture will explain how its tripartite and federal features were designed to preserve republican government ("of the people, by the people, for the people," as Lincoln later defined it). It will highlight three issues that still roil our politics: democratic features of the original Electoral College; the problem of faction, or partisanism, in Federalist Papers Nos. 10 and 51; and the Constitution’s posture toward slavery.

About the Speaker

Professor Dennis Teti has a cumulative 35 years of experience in the executive branch, legislative branch, and private sector.

Following a business career in the private sector, he was nominated as a candidate for the House of Representatives. Although he did not win election, he was subsequently named to several federal political positions, including speechwriting and policy formulation at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the House of Representatives for members including the late Jack Kemp, Jim Courter, Jeb Hensarling, and Paul Ryan, later Speaker of the House.

Prof. Teti served on the staff of the Select House Committee Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (1987), prepared witness questions, and helped write the Report. He also coauthored The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission Report (2021) to promote civic education in America’s founding principles. In addition, he has taught political science at Hillsdale College, Regent University, and The Catholic University of America. He currently teaches at The Institute of World Politics with concentrations on American Political Thought and Western Moral and Political Philosophy.

Prof. Teti, his wife Prof. Rebecca Teti, and their family have lived in Hyattsville, MD for nearly 25 years. Prof. Teti earned his BA from Cornell University and MA from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He studied political philosophy and American government with Allan Bloom, translator of Plato’s Republic and author of The Closing of the American Mind; Walter Berns, one of the nation’s greatest scholars of constitutional law; and Harry Jaffa, America’s premier Lincoln expert, among others.