The Alexander Hamilton Institute

The Alexander Hamilton Institute is pleased to announce the award of the first annual William Vick AHI Internship to Mark Garcia, a member of the Hamilton chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity.  Mark, a 2010 graduate of Hamilton College will be attending Vanderbilt Law School in the fall.

The William Vick AHI internship honors William "Bill" Vick, a 1964 graduate of Hamilton College.  Bill placed a high value on the sacred Constitutional right of private association and on his membership in the Hamilton chapter of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.  In adulthood, he tenaciously fought to preserve the the rights of private societies in the face of opposition from hostile forces on campus.  Jon Vick, Bill's son and the President Emeritus of  Alpha Delta Phi, has committed funds to support the internship on an annual basis. 

The internship will be awarded annually to a member of the Hamilton chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. Candidates will be judged by the standard of character and accomplishment exemplified by Bill Vick. Each intern will receive a $2000 summer stipend and be housed free of charge in the AHI's headquarters.  He will participate in AHI functions and help AHI fellows in an administrative capacity.

Anthony Mark Garcia, the inaugural winner, arrived at Hamilton College after graduating from the Pingry School in Martinsville, NJ.  At Pingry, he participated in a variety of extracurricular and athletic activities, earning 10 varsity letters in 4 different sports.  He continued his athletic career as a member of the Hamilton Men's soccer program.  He was also a dedicated member of the fraternity Alpha Delta Phi.  Under the guidance of AHI co-founder James Bradfield, Mark majored in economics and earned a minor in Hispanic Studies.  He graduated receiving honors from the economics department after undertaking in his senior thesis an empirical research study of the efficiency in prediction markets.  Mark was inducted into the national honor societies for both economics and foreign languages. 

During the school year, Mark worked as both a teaching assistant to Professor Bradfield and as a peer tutor in the economics department.  In upholding the literary traditions of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, Mark became heavily involved in the work of the Alexander Hamilton Institute, where he became one of members of the first class of undergraduate fellows.   "Mark Garcia," observed Professor Bradfield, has an impressive bundle of gifts.  He is intelligent, gentlemanly, reliable, and industrious."  The AHI family could not be more proud of his achievements and thankful for his service to our enterprise.

Good luck at Vanderbilt Mark, and many thanks.

Conference participants enjoyed two days of discussion this summer on the writings of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ralph Ellison.  The annual Baylor University/AHI summer conference, held July5-6, was organized by David and Mary Nichols of Baylor University. Discussion leaders were Pamela Jensen, of Kenyon College, and Flagg Taylor, of Skidmore College. 

The Alexander Hamilton Institute is pleased to announce that Pamela Jensen, Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College, and Dan Mahoney, Chairman and Professor of Political Science at Assumption College, have accepted invitations to join the AHI as senior fellows. 

"Both Pam and Dan bring considerable energy, experience, and wisdom to the AHI," commented AHI co-founder  Robert Paquette.  "They are not only outstanding scholars but stimulating teachers.  Those associated with the AHI will draw on their counsel in designing future programming, particularly for 2011-2012, which will be devoted to the interconnectedness of limited government, free markets, and political liberty." 

Professor Mahoney is an authority on Bertrand de Jouvenel, a brilliant French political theorist who ranks as one of the most important anti-totalitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. Professor Jensen's work ranges from Aristotle, to Shakespeare, to Rousseau. 

WELCOME ABOARD!

The AHI is pleased to announce the receipt from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation of a grant for the establishment of two student educational groups devoted to the study of Friedrich Hayek.  The mission of the Koch Foundation  “is to advance social progress and well-being through the development, application, and dissemination of the Science of Liberty.”

 The word “freedom,” as the AHI’s charter observes, “had no equivalent in the vocabularies of non-Western civilizations until imported from the West. . . . While the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange seems to have been inscribed in humanity’s genes, a full-blown capitalist system, one based on the private ownership of the non-personal means of production, originated in England.”  Yet at many  elite institutions of higher learning the undergraduate study of free-market economics and of Western culture generally has waned.

On June 9^th Friedrich Hayek’s  Road to Serfdom reached #1 on Amazon’s list of  best sellers. Interest in Hayek has probably never higher, even as his contributions remain totally underappreciated within the disciplines of history and economics. With funding from the Koch Foundation, the AHI will establish during the 2010-2011 academic year two Hayek reading groups:  one formed from students at the University of Rochester and one formed from students who are AHI undergraduate fellows, from Hamilton College, Utica College, and other neighboring institutions. Each reading group will consist of between fifteen and twenty students. They would have a common set of core readings. During the course of the year, the groups will meet together at least twice for collaborative discussion centered on a featured speaker, an expert on Hayek. One of the joint gatherings will occur at the University of Rochester; one of the joint gatherings will occur at the Alexander Hamilton Institute. The collaborative sessions that feature guest lecturers on Hayek will be open to the public.

Each reading group will consist of fifteen to twenty students.  The Rochester group will be directed by Professor Michael Rizzo, an AHI Senior Fellow and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester.  The  AHI group will be directed by Professor James Bradfield, co-founder of the AHI and Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Economics, at Hamilton College.

Each reading group will have a common core of readings:

1. The Road to Serfdom

2. The Constitution of Liberty

3. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism

4.  “The Use of Knowledge in Society” (available on-line http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html)

The Hayek Society at the London School of Economics provides a list of other recommended readings, and Professors Rizzo and Bradfield will draw on those recommendations for additional readings. 

Both Professors Bradfield and Rizzo envision the reading group as a site where Hayek’s major ideas are analyzed and then applied to contemporary issues of interest, including but not limited to, eminent domain and property rights, the current fiscal state of many governments, the extension of government activities into the economy, private money, technological change, innovation, social change, institutional progress, legal culture, and developmental economics.

Many of themes that Hayek emphasizes throughout his works are woefully mishandled or ignored even by economists. Hayek focuses on how order emerges without a conscious planner, on the role of “prices” in accumulating and disseminating dispersed, on decentralized knowledge (and the limits to planning in such an environment), and on the underlying incentive structures in institutions that do not fully respect or protect private property rights.

Students in the proposed reading groups will work on brief case studies in planning and development, which serve to highlight Hayek’s major insights in these areas in ways that are not commonly presented in the academic or popular literature.

In expressing his thanks to the Koch Foundation and his enthusiasm for the work ahead, Professor Rizzo commented: “Hayek defined the ‘curious task of economics’  as the  need  ‘to demonstrate to men how little it is they really know about what they imagine they can design’   Studying Hayek allows us to apply this idea more  broadly to all human behavior, not just that which falls within the traditional economic realm.”

The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) has received a grant to offer free to the public two seminars on the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.  One seminar will be taught beginning in September 2010 and the other will be taught beginning in January 2011.  The fall seminar will be located at the Media Center Room in the AHI’s headquarters, 21 West Park Row, Clinton, NY.

“The Making of American Scripture” builds on a major colloquium sponsored by the AHI in April 2010 and focuses on how the interpretation of these two cherished documents by prominent thinkers and politicians shaped the meaning of America. The course will explore the differing philosophical and political assumptions that underlie the documents and will cover the period from the American founding to the Fourteenth Amendment.

 With the current political debate on the relationship between the rights of the federal government, the states, and individuals, the AHI hopes that this course will provide a timely discussion of the origins and importance of liberty. Both the fall and spring courses will be led by AHI resident fellow Dr. Christopher Hill, a prize-winning teacher and author, and will feature contributions from several other prize-winning teacher/scholars.

The seminar will meet Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9:30 PM, beginning 8 September. The seminar will end the evening of 8 December.  We are currently seeking applicants for the course and hope to reach teachers, attorneys and others with a particular interest in this subject. The seminar is free and open to the public, but enrollment for each course will be limited to twenty. If you are interested, please contact Bob Paquette at bob@theahi.org or Christopher Hill at chill@theahi.org  We hope to see you there!

 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. The AHI offers 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 and reasoned conversations on American history and Western culture.

The Alexander Hamilton Institute's staged renovation continues this summer.  A room on the second floor of our headquarters will serve as an archive for documents pertaining to its attemped beginnings as an on-campus center at Hamilton College and to its eventual establishment as an independent  edifice of learning.   File cabinets are also in place to house collections that will be donated by friends and supporters.  AHI co-founder Robert Paquette has committed his extensive collection on the history of slavery and slave resistance to the AHI.

A large part of the extensive basement area, which now contains the The Encounter Bookshelf, is being renovated into a stylish media center and classroom, complete with lounge area.  "Thanks to a grant from a philanthropic foundation,"  Paquette observed, "the AHI will be holding during the fall 2010 its first ever course, "The Making of American Scripture," to be taught by AHI fellow Chris Hill  as well as other AHI fellows."  The Media Center will allow lecturers and students to engage in a full range of teaching possibilities using new technologies.   The AHI will also hold summer film series with guest speakers in the Media Center.  AHI undergraduate fellows and other students and interested adults will find in the renovated rooms a comfortable gathering spot where they can read an Encounter Book, proudly watch a John Wayne movie, or pop in a DVD of Friedrich von Hayek in an episode of William F. Buckley's Firing Line. 

Dr. Christopher Hill, a specialist in the origins of the common law, has agreed to join the Alexander Hamilton Institute as a resident fellow.  

Dr. Hill earned his PhD from The University of Texas at Austin in 2008 and has advanced degrees in both medieval and modern European history. He has taught at the University of Texas and Hamilton College, where he received the Sidney Wertimer Award for excellence in teaching in 2010. A legal historian by training, he is particularly interested in the relationship between religion and law during the high Middle Ages and the impact that relationship had on the idea of individual liberty in the development of English common law. An ardent critic of political orthodoxy in academe, he wrote while a graduate student a novel satirizing political correctness on a fictional college campus. The book, Virtual Morality, won the Editors’ Book Award from Pushcart Press in the year 2000. His reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal. He is currently researching the history of the concept of liberty as a Bakwin Fellow at the AHI. He and his wife, Stephanie, live with their three children in Waterville, NY.

"Chris Hill, is an outstanding teacher and scholar whose wide-ranging interests are a perfect fit for the AHI, observed Professor Ted Eismeier of the Hamilton College Department of Government. "As the AHI continues to expand its national reach, Chris will be a great asset in programming and management."  "The AHI is thrilled with Chris Hill's acceptance of our offer and very thankful to those Hamilton College alumni and foundations who stepped forward in recent weeks with substantial donations to make his residency possible," said AHI co-founder Robert Paquette.  "We envision several major projects for Chris when the academic year begins in the fall, and the AHI will also support his budding scholarship on an important topic in medieval history."

 In 2009, the Alexander Hamilton Institute partnered with the Department of Political Science at Baylor University, to host a summer seminar on a major theme related to the history and culture of Western Civilization.  Mary and David Nichols, AHI Senior Fellows and professors in the Department of Political Science at Baylor. organized the conference devoted to “Machiavelli and Shakespeare: Alternative Visions of Modern Politics."  The conference  featured as discussion leaders AHI academic adviser Michael Zuckert, Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor, and Chairman, Department of Political Science, Notre Dame University and Catherine Heldt Zuckert, also Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

The success of the first seminar led to a continuing partnership.  On 5-6 July 2010, the AHI and the Department of Political Science at Baylor will host its second annual summer seminar, “Race, Liberalism, and the Meaning of America.”  The seminar will consist of five sessions over two days and will take place at the AHI’s headquarters, 21 West Park Row in Clinton, New York.

Professor Pamela Jensen, Department of Political Science, Kenyon College and Professor Flagg Taylor, Department of Political Science, Skidmore College, will serve as discussion leaders.  Conferees will include graduate students in political science from Baylor University and  recent graduates of  Hamilton College.

Limited seating is available for members of the public who wish to attend.  Interested parties should contact AHI Co-Founder Robert Paquette at bob@theahi.org.

Schedule:  "Race, Liberalism, and the Meaning of America"

Monday July 5

9:30 Breakfast at the Alexander Hamilton Institute

10:45 Welcome and Introduction – Robert Paquette and Mary Nichols

Session 1

11:00-12:30 

Frederick Douglass

“Change of Opinion Announced” (1851) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1107 

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” (1852)

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=162 

“The Constitution of the United States: Is it Pro-slavery or Anti-slavery?” (1860) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1128 

 “The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America” (1863) (African-American Social and Political Thought, 1850-1920, ed. Howard Brotz)

‘What the Black Man Wants” (1865) (Brotz)

“Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln” (1876)

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=39 

12:30-1:30 Lunch

Session 2

1:30-3:00 

Booker T. Washington

“The Educational Outlook in the South” (1884) (Brotz)

“Atlanta Exposition Address” (1895) (Brotz)

“Our New Citizen” (1896) (Brotz)

“Democracy and Education” (1896) (Brotz)

“The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob” (1911) (Brotz)

Session 3

3:30-5:00

W. E. B. DuBois

“The Talented Tenth” (1903) (Brotz)

“The Forethought” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903)

“Our Spiritual Strivings” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903)

“Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903)

“Of the Wings of Atalanta” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903)

“Of the Training of Black Men” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903)

6:30 – Picnic at Hatch Lake, hosted by the Nichols and sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Institute

Tuesday July 6

9:30 Breakfast at the Alexander Hamilton Institute

Session 4

11:00-12:30   

Ralph Ellison

“Society, Morality, and the Novel” (1957) (The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison)

“Black Boys and Native Sons,” by Irving Howe (A World More Attractive, 1963)

“The World and the Jug” (1963/64) (The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison)

12:30-1:30    Lunch

Session 5

1:30-3:00  

Ralph Ellison

“What America Would Be Like Without Blacks” (1970) (The Collected Essays) and http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=574

“The Little Man at Chehaw Station” (1977) (The Collected Essays)

Organizers:

Professors David and Mary Nichols
Department of Political Science
Baylor University
Waco, Texas

Discussion Leaders:

Professor Pamela Jensen                                                         
Department of Political Science                                              
Kenyon College                                                                      
Gambier, Ohio                                                                        

Professor Flagg Taylor
Department of Political Science
Skidmore College
Saratoga Springs, NY

Participants

Elizabeth Amato
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Susan Benfield
nstructor, English as a Second Language
Washington Baptist University
Annandale, VA

Christopher Bissex
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Steve Block
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Matt Brogdon
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Brenna Gallagher
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Martha Rice Martini, Esq.
Public Defender
Salem, MA

Mary Mathie
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Tom Pope
Lee University
Cleveland, TN

Tony Romano
Department of Political Science
Baylor University

Stephen Thomas
Department of Political Science
Ohio Dominican University
Columbus, Ohio

Germaine Paulo Walsh
Department of Political Science
Texas Lutheran University
Seguin, Texas

Mark Garcia
Vanderbilt Law School
Vanderbilt University

H. Lee Cheek, Jr., an AHI Senior Fellow, has published an essay Confronting Modernity:  Towards a Theology of Ministry in the Western Tradition for the Wesley Studies Society Monograph Series.

Dr,. Cheek, a United Methodist minister who served as chaplain in the U.S. Army, also holds a doctorate in political science from Catholic University. He currently is  Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Political Science and Religion at Athens State University in Athens, Alabama. His books include Calhoun and Popular Rule (University of Missouri Press, 2004).

Professor Cheek's monograph "seeks to define and explicate a theology of ministry as an attempt to understand God working in the world as part of a persistent dialectical enterprise, grounded in a desire to participate in the ancient conversation between God and the people of God, and to facilitate sharing among the People of God.  It is faith seeking understanding, which requires an intellectual appreciation of God, namely, reflective theology.  At the center of this activity is faith, which makes the enterprise possible.  The foundational element in this worldview is a transcendent God, the creator of heaven and earth.  The pursuit of this appreciation must involve a comprehensive view of reality.  It must concern itself with life before human existence, the interaction of the creations of God and ultimate heavenly union with God." 

The Alexander Hamilton Institute has awarded its second annual E. M. (Peter) Bakwin Fellowship to Dr. Christopher Hill, who will be leaving his position as visiting assistant professor of history at Hamilton College in May. Before departure, Professor Hill received the Sidney Wertimer award, given by Hamilton College's  Student Assembly. The annual award recognizes a faculty member "who is recognized as a mentor and active participant within the Hamilton community."

Professor Hill received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2008.  His dissertation reexamined the celebrated struggle between Henry II of England and  Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas a Becket by analyzing the thinking of Becket's key clerical opponent Gilbert Foliot.  A voluminous literature exists on this crisis in twelfth century England because of its implications for church-state relations.

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.  Recipients of the award  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 evaluated the applications.

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.

Professor Hill, a specialist in the origins of the common law, will use the Bakwin Fellowship to explore the pre-modern roots of the concept of liberty.  In particular, Professor Hill will explore how medieval thinkers understood and applied the concept of libertas.  This inquiry will feed into a larger contrarian project on what Professor Hill  contends is  the medieval origins of the liberal tradition.

The AHI congratulates Professor Hill and looks forward to his public presentation on the subject at the AHI.

The Christopher Dawson Society will hold its monthly meeting at the Alexander Hamilton Institute on Wednesday  evening, 7 April, at 6 pm.  Attendants are asked to prepare for the gathering by reading St. Augustine's  City of God, book 19, chapters 17-28.

The Christopher Dawson Society (CDS) seeks to foster conversation in which people of all religions can pursue truth, learn the connection between academics and vocation, and live accordingly with a purpose and vision. We explore both the big ideas that shaped Western civilization and religion, which Christopher Dawson argued is the soul, or life-blood, of a culture.

People of any faith, or lack thereof, are welcome. 

The public is welcome and refreshments will be served.

John Stauffer, Chairman of the doctoral program in the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, spent four days, 30 March- 2 April, at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, conducting a series of scholarly events for faculty, students, and the public.  Professor Stauffer the author of two recent best-selling books, The State of Jones (Doubleday, 2009; coauthored Sally Jenkins) and GIANTS:  The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (Twelve 2009).  Professor Stauffer, one of the leading scholars of the history of abolition and emancipation of his generation, was co-winner of the prestigious Frederick Douglass prize for his Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionisnm and the Transformation of Race (Harvard University Press, 2004)

On 30 March, Professor Stauffer delivered a lecture "Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the Great Books,"  to a full house  in the Kennedy auditorium at Hamilton College.  Professor Stauffer discussed the self-making of both Lincoln and Douglass and the role that six great books in common had in advancing both men from youthful awkwardness and struggle into rhetorical and intellectual greatness.

On 31 March, Professor Stauffer directed a Leadership Luncheon attended by the AHI's undergraduate fellows.  Professor Stauffer assigned as the prescribed reading his essay "Douglass's Self-Making and the Culture of Abolitionism  in the Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass (2009).

On 1 April, Professor Stauffer joined the class on the Old South taught by AHI co-founders Douglas Ambrose and Robert Paquette to speak about the meaning of the antislavery crusade at a both a global and national level.  The ecumenical crusade against slavery originated in England during the second-half of the eighteenth-century and registered a seismic shift in moral sensibility that would eventually capture the world.  Professors Stauffer, Ambrose, and Paquette discussed with students how northern abolitionists like Gerrit Smith, one of Hamilton College's most famous alumni, transformed within a few decades theoretical abolitionism into a mass antislavery movement with appeal to common working white men and women in the North.  The class ended with Professor Stauffer leading a searching discussion of Frederick Douglass's famous speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

On 2 April, Professor Stauffer led a caravan of vehicles with students, faculty, and others to Peterboro, New York to visit the National Abolition Hall of Fame and the remnants of the Gerrit Smith estate.  Along with Professor Stauffer, representatives of NAHOF and local historical societies provided a guided tour of relevant buildings and artifacts.  Beth Spokowsky of the Peterboro Area Historical Society, added to the rewards by disclosing to Professor Stauffer the discovery of a letter from George Fitzhugh, a prominent proslavery thinker, to Ann Smith.  Professor Stauffer and Douglas Ambrose are preparing for publication a volume on the remarkable correspondence between Gerrit Smith and George Fitzhugh.  Fitzhugh was related to Gerrit Smith's wife Ann.

The AHI would like to thank Professor Stauffer publicly for his uncommon generosity in lending his time, energy, and intellect to these special events.

The meeting of the Publius Society scheduled for  7PM on Thursday, February 25  but postponed because of bad weather will take place on 8 April at 7 pm at the Alexander Hamilton Institute. 

AHI Undergraduate Fellows Jenna Cohen, Jack Dunn, Will Eagan, and Will Leubsdorf will lead a lively discussion about Citizens United v FEC, a recent SCOTUS decision holding restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations in support of or opposition to candidates to be unconstitutional. The decision leaves in place bans on direct corporate contributions to federal candidates and limits on direct contributions by individuals and political action committees.

The first link below is a summary of the case and decision. The next links are a sampling of opinion about the merits of the decision and its possible effects. Supporters of the decision see it as a victory for the first amendment; critics see it as an activist conservative court tilting American democracy toward corporate power. The last link includes the text of a recently introduced constitutional amendment that would exclude corporations from the protections of the First Amendment. We suggest that you read the first linked piece and sample the rest.

You are cordially invited to join the discussion. The Publius Society is a merry band of students, faculty, and citizens with diverse political views and a shared interest in issues of American constitutionalism. We meet once a month for lively discussion, good cheer, and good food at the stately Alexander Hamilton Institute http://www.theahi.org/, a nationally acclaimed center of scholarly excellence founded by Professors Ambrose, Bradfield, and Paquette and home for a variety of student groups at Hamilton.

We hope you will join us. To rsvp and see who else is attending, you can go to this event on AHI's Facebook page  http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=106267586072371&ref=mf.To stay informed about Publius and other AHI events, join the 440 Facebook fans of AHI.

If you need a ride or can give a ride, come to KJ Circle at 6:45PM.


http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2008/2008_08_205

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/01/22/what-the-smart-erotti-are-saying-about-citizens-united/

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/what-is-the-first-amendment-for/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/what-should-congress-do-about-citizens-united/#more-15469

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/citizens-united-shareholder-rights-and-free-speech-restoring-the-primacy-of-politics-to-the-first-amendment/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/citizens-united-shareholder-rights-and-free-speech-restoring-the-primacy-of-politics-to-the-first-amendment-2/

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31878.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055922496646104.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055340863805062.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

http://donnaedwards.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=54&sectiontree=29,54&itemid=121

The Christopher Dawson Society, a student organization advised by AHI co-founder Douglas Ambrose, has organized a one-day conference, "Relationship 101:  Finding True Love in Today's World" for Saturday, 10 April on the Hamilton College campus.  The AHI will be cosponsoring the event with the Dean of Student's Office at Hamilton College, the College's chaplaincy, Student Assembly, and the Love and Fidelity Network at Princeton University.

For the schedule of events, registration, and list of speakers go  here.  The Reverend Dale Kuehne will speak on "Standing on the Threshold of an Inconceivable Age:  Sexuality in the 21st Century"; Dr. Toby Taylor will address Physical and Emotional Responses to Sexual Intimacy"; and Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox will discuss "Wedded Bliss:  How to Find and Maintain Lasting Love in Contemporary America."

The Watson-Brown Foundation seeks to "improve education in the American South by funding its schools and students, preserving its history, encouraging responsible scholarship, and promoting the memory and values of our spiritual founders."  In a letter dated 24 February, Tad Brown, President of the Watson-Brown Foundation, announced that the AHI and Baylor University had received a major grant to support the participation of students in the University's graduate program in Political Science Department to participate in the AHI April Colloquium:  "Dedicated to a Proposition:  Examining the Relation between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,"  April 15-18, at the Turning Stone Resort.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for a group of talented Baylor graduate students with a serious interest in the American Founding to participate in the AHI conference on the Declaration and the Constitution," commented Mary Nichols, Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Baylor University.  "The AHI has gathered a group of distinguished scholars who will have much to contribute to the education of these future professors.  We at Baylor are most grateful to AHI and Watson-Brown for making this possible.”

"Baylor University has an outstanding Department of Political Science," observed AHI co-founder Robert Paquette, "and the University, now with Kenneth Starr at the helm, will continue its advance to the front ranks of elite universities in this country.  We are most grateful to Tad Brown, who presides over the premier foundation for the promotion of southern history and culture in the country, for supporting the participation of a southern contingent in the AHI colloquium. Stay tuned for major announcements about other collaborative endeavors."

The Charles McKinney prizes, established in 1878, award excellence in oratory.  This year AHI undergraduate fellow Xiaohan Du, Hamilton College class 2012, won first prize for her speech "A Call for the Revival of Humanism in Liberal Arts Education: When the Diversity of Ideas meets the Ideas of Diversity."

Ms. Du, a native of China who had studied math and science in Shanghai, "had long felt an urge to understand where I come from, to locate myself within the vastness of time and space, to process the phenomenon of today's world, to lead an examined life in a most meaningful way."   Arriving in the United States in transit on her intellectual journey, she embraced her newfound freedom, began enjoying it, but eventually wondered where the freedom was taking her and toward what end.  She found the  anything-as-you go education enshrined by an open curriculum ultimately unsatisfying. She had no desire to run "adrift in a sea of nihilism, relativism, and political correctness."

Ms. Du's peroration, drawing on the work of James Piereson and Allan Bloom, called for a return to the traditional understanding of a humanistic education as the real meaning of "diversity" in a liberal arts education.  The AHI congratulates Ms. Du on her award-winning performance.

The AHI and the Hamilton College Department of History will co-sponsor the appearance of Henry T. Edmondson III, Professor of Political Science at Georgia College and State University, on Thursday, 4 March and Friday, 5 March.  Professor Edmondson has authored books and essays on politics, literature, ethics, and education.  He directs the Georgia State’s University Center on Transatlantic Studies.  He is a leading authority on John Dewey and will be speaking on "Dewey and the Decline of American Education" on Thursday in the Red Pit (127 Kirner-Johnson Building, Hamilton College) at 4:15 pm.

On Friday, 11:45-1:30, Professor Edmondson will be directing a Leadership Luncheon with the AHI’s undergraduate fellows. He has chosen for discussion a marvelous essay “The Enduring Chill” by Flannery O’Connor.

In a letter dated 19 February, the Board of Directors of DonorsTrust announced that the AHI had received a major grant from VERITAS to support the  continued partnership of the AHI with Encounter Books.  In October 2009, the AHI unveiled at its headquarters, the Encounter Bookshelf, a bookstore that features publications by Encounter Books and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

"The AHI family could not be more delighted with this news, said AHI co-founder Douglas Ambrose.  The grant will advance our common interests at educational reform and in elevating civic literacy."  "That VERITAS saw fit to continue to fund our efforts with a major grant honors us,"  observed Robert Paquette, "and also energizes us to greater deeds.  James Piereson has stood as a steadfast supporter of the AHI from its inception, and his presence at our headquarters in October allowed us to show what we have accomplished in little more than two years of operation.   We are deeply grateful to him in particular."

Encounter Books seeks to strengthen "the markeplace of ideas" and to promote "educational activities to help preserve democratic culture." Encounter specializes in the publication of  non-fiction, including current affairs, biography, history, political science, and public policy. 

Roger Kimball  serves as President and Publisher of Encounter Books.

"We are thrilled to be working with the Alexander Hamilton Institute to bring a bit of genuine intellectual diversity to Clinton, NY, and environs.  Imagine introducing students to the ideas of writers like Thomas Sowell! Imagine exposing them to the idea that 'global warming' is not exactly what Al Gore told them it was!  Imagine books and magazines that do not present America as a racist, homophobic, patriarchal exercise in oppression but as one of history’s signal success stories! Imagine writers who come to the AHI and local institutions who challenged the reigning politically correct orthodoxy on a wide range of social, moral, and aesthetic questions!  That’s what this collaboration between Encounter and the AHI aims to do  and I am delighted that our efforts have succeeded so well in the first year that our generous supporters have enabled us to carry on for another year. " 

The meeting of the Publius Society scheduled for  7PM on Thursday, February 25 at the Alexander Hamilton Institute has been postponed because of bad weather.  The event will be rescheduled for March.  Check the AHI homepage for further details as to the precise time. 

In March, AHI Undergraduate Fellows Jenna Cohen, Jack Dunn, Will Eagan, and Will Leubsdorf will lead a lively discussion about Citizens United v FEC, a recent SCOTUS decision holding restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations in support of or opposition to candidates to be unconstitutional. The decision leaves in place bans on direct corporate contributions to federal candidates and limits on direct contributions by individuals and political action committees.

The first link below is a summary of the case and decision. The next links are a sampling of opinion about the merits of the decision and its possible effects. Supporters of the decision see it as a victory for the first amendment; critics see it as an activist conservative court tilting American democracy toward corporate power. The last link includes the text of a recently introduced constitutional amendment that would exclude corporations from the protections of the First Amendment. We suggest that you read the first linked piece and sample the rest.

You are cordially invited to join the discussion. The Publius Society is a merry band of students, faculty, and citizens with diverse political views and a shared interest in issues of American constitutionalism. We meet once a month for lively discussion, good cheer, and good food at the Alexander Hamilton Institute

We hope you will join us. To rsvp and see who else is attending, you can go to this event on AHI's Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=25554939255&ref=ts .To stay informed about Publius and other AHI events, join the more than 400 Facebook fans of AHI.

If you need a ride or can give a ride, come to KJ Circle at 6:45PM.


http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2008/2008_08_205

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/01/22/what-the-smart-erotti-are-saying-about-citizens-united/

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/what-is-the-first-amendment-for/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/what-should-congress-do-about-citizens-united/#more-15469

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/citizens-united-shareholder-rights-and-free-speech-restoring-the-primacy-of-politics-to-the-first-amendment/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/citizens-united-shareholder-rights-and-free-speech-restoring-the-primacy-of-politics-to-the-first-amendment-2/

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31878.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055922496646104.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055340863805062.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

http://donnaedwards.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=54&sectiontree=29,54&itemid=121

The Christopher Dawson Society seeks to foster searching conversation about the relation of faith and reason in the Western tradition.  The next meeting, which will begin at 6 pm at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, will explore "What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens?"

The prescribed reading will be  Paul G. Tyson’s “Transcendence and Epistemology: Exploring Truth via Post-Secular Christian Platonism.”  In this essay, Tyson discusses the ideas of Plato and Aristotle and how they have influenced both orthodox Christian theology and modern secular rationalism.

The gathering is open to the public; refreshments will be served.