In this presentation, Dr. Zink will use James Wilson’s institutional science of politics as a lens for examining his broader understanding of American constitutionalism. Wilson accepted the Madisonian view that government institutions should be designed to check humans’ vicious tendencies, both among the people and within government. But he also thought they could be carefully crafted to simultaneously encourage humans’ other-regarding passions and innate moral propensities, thereby establishing popular politics on the most stable of foundations: a benevolent people.