The Alexander Hamilton Institute

The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) ranks as New Orleans' premier center devoted to the study and preservation of the history of  lower Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.  The HNOC operates a complex of buildings in the French Quarter, including a museum and research center.  Each year the HNOC holds an annual symposium open to the public.   The Omni Royal Orleans Hotel hosted the fifteenth symposium, "Between Colony and State:  Louisiana in the Territorial Period."  Organizers invited AHI co-founder Robert Paquette to speak about one of the most dramatic events during the period, a slave insurrection that broke out in the United States' first major sugar-producing zone, about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans. 

The insurrection, as Paquette pointed out, although the largest in US history, remains something of a mystery even to specialists. In 2009, the journal Historical Reflections invited him to publish an analysis of the event in a special issue devoted to historical understandings of collective violence.  This article "A Horde of Brigands?:  The Great Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811 Reconsidered," 35 (Spring 2009) forms the core of a forthcoming book on the subject.

Paquette discussed the event  in front of an audience of 400.  He spoke about the causes, content, and consequences of the insurrection, which, in part, reflected new understandings of the meaning of freedom in an age of democratic revolution.  A rich folkloric tradition surrounds the event in lower Louisiana to this day, and Paquette attempted to separate fact from fiction in light of available evidence drawn from archival research on both sides of the Atlantic. 

The HNOC, said Paquette, "is a world-class repository populated by first-class professionals.  Their hospitality sets a high standard indeed."  The symposium closed with a sumptuous dinner with HNOC officers and trustees at Arnaud's Restaurant on Bienville Street.  "In addition to discussing Louisiana history," Paquette added, "I received many questions from attendants about the AHI.  Their interest  was most gratifying."

The Publius Society, a student-run organization devoted to the study of the American political tradition, will begin the spring semester with a discussion of "What Would the Founders Think of Health Care?"  The discussion will center on such issues as party politics, partisanship, majority factions, filibusters, and the role of the federal government.

The gathering, which is open to the public,  will take place at 7 pm at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, 21 West Park Row, Clinton.  Refreshments will be served.

Participants are encouraged to read the following brief articles in preparation for the event.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612630389421904.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703278604574624021919432770.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122301319.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/12/why_the_filibuster_is_more_ess_1.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/15/healthcare_and_progressivism_99904.html

AHI undergraduate fellow Liz Farrington receives a gift from her thesis advisor Christopher Hill after presenting at the AHI on "Is Marriage a Sacrament?"  Her talk focused on the sixteenth-century challenges to the sacramentality of marriage posed by Henry VIII, Martin Luther, and John Calvin and to the ambivalent legacy of their challenges.

On Wednesday, 9 December at 7 pm, the Christopher Dawson Society for the Study of Faith and Reason  will discuss the historical debates surrounding  sacraments is and whether marriage  qualifies as one.

Liz Farrington, Hamilton College, Class ’10, will lead the discussion with a brief  talk on the challenge to the sacramentality of marriage from  1517-1537. Her presentation derives from a history department senior honor's thesis, dirested this semester by Professor Christopher Hill.

Ms. Farrington will touch on the views of Protestant challengers  such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, a few key Catholic  respondents, and the ambivalent legacy of Henry VIII.

Refreshments will be served; the presentation is open to the public.

 

On Sunday, December 6 at 7PM  the Alexander Hamilton Institute 21 West Park Row the Publius Societywill hold a lively discussion about conservatism open to all students, faculty, and citizens. AHI Undergraduate Fellows Woodger Faugas and Adam Vorchheimer will spark the discussion with brief presentations about the essays by Sam Tanenhaus and James Piereson linked below.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/conservatism-dead

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Is-conservatism-dead--4166

The Publius Society is a politically diverse group of students and faculty interested in issues of American constitutionalism. Publius meets monthly in the Alexander Hamilton Institute http://www.theahi.org/, a parallel safe zone for intellectual diversity and civility. You are cordially invited to join the Facebook groups of AHI and Publius.

The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) is pleased to announce the opening of competition for the second annual E. M. Bakwin Fellowship. Mr. Bakwin, a graduate of Hamilton College (1950) and the University of Chicago (1961), served as Chairman of the Board of MB Financial Bank in Chicago. A long-standing student of Western culture, Mr. Bakwin owns one of the finest private collections of modern art in the world. His generosity has touched Hamilton College, the University of Chicago, Shimer College, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and many other institutions.

The Bakwin Fellowship awards a stipend of $1600 for advanced research in regional archives and libraries on subjects that comport with the central concerns of the AHI as defined in its charter. Doctoral and post-doctoral researchers are encouraged to apply. Recipients of the award will reside, free of charge, for one summer month (June or July) in the Jane Fraser Room of the AHI’s headquarters, a historic mansion located in 21 West Park Row, Clinton, New York. A panel comprised of AHI fellows and trustees will evaluate the applications. Deadline for their receipt is Monday, 15 March  2010; the AHI will announce the award winner on Wednesday, 5 April  2010.

To apply, candidates will need to fill out a fellowship application. It must include a copy of the applicant’s résumé, two letters of reference, and a proposal that should not exceed five double-spaced pages.

Proposals should reference the manuscript or rare book collections to be consulted and how precisely they will contribute to the intellectual significance of the project. Area repositories include the Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University; the Oneida County Historical Society; Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University; Special Collections and Archives, Colgate University; Rare Books and Special Collections, Hamilton College. In assessing proposals, evaluators will follow closely those criteria spelled out in the fellowship program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thus,

1. The intellectual significance of the proposed project, including its value to scholars and general audiences in the humanities.

2. The quality or promise of quality of the applicant's work as an interpreter of the humanities.

3. The quality of the conception, definition, organization, and description of the project and the applicant's clarity of expression.

4. The feasibility of the proposed plan of work, including, when appropriate, the soundness of the dissemination and access plans.

5. The likelihood that the applicant will complete the project.

Completed applications should be sent to Robert L. Paquette, Alexander Hamilton Institute, 21 West Park Row, Clinton, NY.

On Wednesday, 2 December at 11:45 am, the Alexander Hamilton Institute will host a Leadership Luncheon featuring Professor Michael Rizzo, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester.  Professor Rizzo will converse with the AHI's undergraduate fellows on the various meanings and implications of "sustainability."   

In his 1956 essay “The Challenge of Secularism,” the English historian Christopher Dawson notes how the “consciously anti-religious ideology” of Communist education—an education that effectively works to eradicate religious faith from the entire populace—“is only completing the work that the liberal state began.” For, as Dawson continues,  “already in the nineteenth century the secularization of education and the exclusion of positive Christian teaching from the school formed an essential part of the program of almost all the progressive, liberal and socialist parties everywhere.”

Dawson, a Catholic with a grounded faith in the veracity of Christianity, believed that Christians must counter such claims with a response that demonstrates the truth of their faith in age of growing skepticism and disbelief.  Himself an academic who held the Chauncey Stillman Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at Harvard University, Dawson believed in the essential role of the academy in countering this wave of secularization.  Indeed, as Dawson writes, “today the intellectual factor has become more vital than it ever was in the past.”

On Wednesday evening, 11 November, at 7:30 pm , the Christopher Dawson Society, a student group that explores the relation between religious belief and intellectual inquiry within the Western intellectual tradition, will explore at  "The Challenge of Secularism."  The meeting, at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, is open to the public, and refreshments will be served. 

Those who intend to participate should read Dawson's "The Challenge of Secularism" and another article by Dawson, Os Guinness, or someone similar that you believe complements Dawson's article, available here and here.

On 30 October, AHI co-founder Douglas Ambrose participated in an NEH-sponsored faculty development initiative at CUNY's Hostos Community College in the South Bronx.  The initiative's "goal is to promote the study of the humanities through workshops and seminars centered on the theme of 'conflict and dialogue.'” Professor Ambrose spoke on "The Past is Another Country: Reflections on History and the Humanities."   One of the main objectives of historical inquiry, he told attendants, was to enable students to develop "historical sympathy" with the subjects they study.  Doing so requires students to enter the worldviews of people with fundamentally different understandings and assumptions about everything from human nature, social and familial relations, the nature of the "good," and the ends of human striving.  Practicing historical sympathy enriches students by helping them to recognize their own assumptions and beliefs as, in some ways, historically conditioned.  It thus broadens their understanding of what it means, and has meant, to be human.  It also allows students to recognize those aspects of the human condition that are not historically specific or conditioned, that there are fundamental questions of human existence that all people and societies must ask and, explicitly or implicitly, answer.  We gain through historical study an appreciation for both the differences and the commonalities that mark the human experience across time and space. 

Professor Ambrose also conducted a workshop in which he and more than a dozen participants examined a text that would help them understand how historians practice their craft.  He  focused on James Henley Thornwell's sermon The Rights and Duties of Masters (Charleston, 1850), which Thornwell delivered at the 1850 dedication of Charleston's Zion church. Thornwell (1812-1862), born and raised in South Carolina,  a Presbyterian minister, and one of the most influential antebellum theologians,
published widely on theological matters, although he is best known to historians for his writings in defense of slavery.  The subtitle of  The Rights and Duties of Masters clearly establishes the sermon's context: A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected in Charleston, S.C. for the Benefit and Instruction of the Colored Population. According to Professor Ambrose, a lively discussion on Thornwell, proslavery thought, the clash of civilizations, and the limits of "dialogue" during certain historical--and contemporary--conflicts ensued.

Professor Michael Rizzo, an economist at the University of Rochester, has joined the AHI as a senior fellow.  A 1996 graduate, magna cum laude, of Amherst College, Professor Rizzo received his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.

"Professor Rizzo brings a wealth of learning, enthusiasm, and energy to the AHI," observed Robert Paquette, co-founder of the AHI.  "He made notable contributions to our colloquium on property rights, and his stimulating economic blog "The Unbroken Window," comports with one of the AHI's central goals:  to elevate civic literacy.  Each of three co-founders of the AHI has a University of Rochester connection, and we look forward to working with Professor Rizzo on programmatic endeavors that will advance his interests and the mission of the AHI."

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The administration of President George W. Bush argued that the Constitution gives presidents broad authority and discretion, especially in matters of national security. Critics dispute this interpretation and worry about an imperial presidency.

On Sunday, October 25 from 7-8 PM at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, the Publius Society will sponsor a discussion of these issues, focusing on John Yoo and his critics. Yoo, Professor of Law at Berkeley, developed and defended President Bush's broad warrants of authority.

Liz Farrington '09, President of the Hamilton College Republicans and Undergraduate Fellow of AHI, and Will Leubsdorf, President of Hamilton College Democrats and Undergraduate Fellow of AHI, will frame the issues for a lively discussion of the following materials:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770304290648701.html

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/960315in.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/holmes

We will also consider to what extent the policies of the Obama presidency represent change or continuity:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/us/politics/04bar.html?_r=3

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/us/politics/09signing.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Publius gatherings are open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

To see who else is attending, go to John Yoo's Constitution event on Facebook. The Publius Society and the Alexander Hamilton Institute have Facebook groups.

The Christopher Dawson Society will host an appearance at the AHI of William Murchison, author of Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity (Encounter, 2009).  Mr. Murchison has worked as a professional journalist since 1964.   His columns in the Dallas Morning News  became nationally syndicated in 1981. He is currently Radford Visiting Professor of Journalism at Baylor University.

Mortal Follies tells "the story of the Episcopal Church’s mad dash to catch up with a secular culture fond of self-expression and blissfully relaxed as to norms and truths. An Episcopal layman, William Murchison details how leaders of his church, starting in the late 1960s, looked over the culture of liberation, liked what they saw, and went skipping along with the shifting cultural mood—especially when the culture demanded that the church account for its sins of “heterosexism' and 'racism.' Episcopalians have blended so deeply into the cultural woodwork that it’s hard sometimes to remember that it all began as a divine calling to the normative and the eternal."

Mr.  Murchison's presentation will occur at the AHI on Friday, 23 October at 7 pm and is open to the public.  A reception and book-signing will precede his talk, beginning at 5 pm. 

On 27 October, the AHI will host at its headquarters a Leadership Luncheon that features James Piereson, Senior Fellow and Director of Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University and president of the William E. Simon Foundation.

Dr. Piereson is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter 2007) and The Pursuit of Liberty: Can the Institutions that Made America Great Serve as a Model for the World? (Encounter 2009). 

Fifteen invited undergraduates from Hamilton College will converse over lunch with Dr. Piereson on two prescribed readings:  Piereson's review of Samuel Tanenhaus's Is Conservatism Dead? and Mark Lilla's "Taking the Right Seriously," a recently published essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education by a non-conservative who wonders why so few self-identified right-of-center intellectuals exist on today's college campuses.

This event will kick-off a series of luncheons in which the AHI will invite select students from area colleges and universities to meet and converse with distinguished guests.

Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University, will deliver a public lecture “Smart Kids in a Stupid Culture: History, Politics, Literature vs. Twitter, Facebook, iPhone" at 7:30 in Room GO27, Kennedy Auditorium, Science Center, at Hamilton College. 

A reception and book-signing at the AHI will precede the lecture at 4:30 pm.  Professor Bauerlein is the author most recently of  The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) (Tarcher, 2009) and Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (Encounter 2002).

The accretion of power in the United States by the federal government stands as one of the most important political developments of the last century.  Advocates of state sovereignty have mounted resistance to this trend recently, introducing resolutions that assert the powers of states under the ninth and tenth amendments.  The New York Times chimed in as recently as 28 September that some state legislatures are currently considering constitutional amendments that would block Congress from mandating that their citizens have health insurance. 

Is the state sovereignty movement the wave of the future or a futile last gasp?  Is Federalism dead? If so, why should we care?

On Sunday, 3 October at 7 PM at the AHI, the Publius Society will sponsor an hour-long discussion of these issues.  It will draw on these prescribed readings:

1. Randy E. Barnett, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, "Is Federalism Dead?"

2. The 2009 Bill of Federalism

3. Jay S. Bybee, "The Tenth Amendment among the Shadows:  On Reading the Constitution in Plato's Cave"

As always, meetings of the Publius Society are open to the public, and refreshments will be served.

Carl B. Menges (upper left) chats with students and
other guests who attended the Constitution Day award
ceremony at the AHIOn 17 September, Constitution Day, the AHI celebrated its second birthday by holding the Second Annual David Aldrich Nelson Lecture in Constitutional Jurisprudence.  During the dinner that preceded the lecture, the AHI's founders awarded three students with prizes for scholarly excellence. The students attended the AHI's second annual colloquium and produced outstanding papers that explored  the nature of property rights and their connections to liberty.

The AHI is pleased to announce that Justin Villa of the University of Rochester and Timothy Minella of Hamilton College received first prizes--a one year's subscription to the Wall Street Journal--for their papers on property rights.  Max Brindle from Hamilton College received honorable mention and was awarded an inscribed copy of Carla Main's Bulldozed (Encounter Books, 2007), a riveting account of the abuse of the power of eminent domain in the city of Freeport, Texas.

Carl B. Menges, a graduate of Hamilton College and the Harvard Business School, established these awards in 2007 to recognize student achievement at the innovative colloquium that the AHI holds each year.  The third annual colloquium will be held at the Turning Stone Resort April 15-18 2010 and will be devoted to an exploration of the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Robert George, founder of the Madison Program at Princeton University, will keynote the event.