Welcome
"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted (1775)
"It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force." Alexander Hamilton, Federalist # 1.
About Us
The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) promotes rigorous scholarship and vigorous debate in the study of freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Three Hamilton College professors, Douglas Ambrose, James Bradfield, and Robert Paquette, inspired by the contributions of Alexander Hamilton to the founding and survival of the Republic, established the AHI as an independent entity, unaffiliated with Hamilton College, during the summer of 2007.
The AHI will offer a rich menu of scholarly activities--lectures, colloquia, conferences, fellowships, internships, and awards--to educational institutions in upstate New York and across the country in support of scrupulous research into American history and Western culture and of reasoned conversations about them. Programming will center on annual themes. Each year the AHI will sponsor an innovative colloquium that will bring together for intellectual exchanges senior experts in the subject under discussion and select undergraduates from multiple colleges.
In concept and implementation, the AHI owes a considerable debt to such centers of excellence as the James Madison Program at Princeton University and the Witherspoon Institute. With the help of kindred spirits on and off campus, we not only hope to enter into cooperative programming, but to build an enduring edifice of learning in American ideals and institutions.