Several members of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) attended a special Liberty Fund colloquium on “The Emancipation Proclamation at 150 Years.” The event took place September 26 -29 near the oceanfront at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort, Santa Barbara, California. AHI Senior Fellow David Nichols, Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, and John Yoo, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, Berkeley Law, University of California, Berkeley, organized and directed the colloquium.
AHI Charter Fellow Robert Paquette and AHI academic advisor Mark Smith, Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina, numbered among the sixteen conferees. Each conferee received in advance of the colloquium a set of prescribed readings to focus discussion during six sessions: “Slavery and the Constitution,” “The Lincoln Douglas Debates,” “Slavery and the Coming of the War,” “War and the Constitution,” and “Emancipation and Presidential Powers.”
Liberty Fund, Inc. headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, “is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. The Foundation develops, supervises, and finances its own educational activities to foster thought and encourage discourse on enduring issues pertaining to liberty.”
“For many of us who find the intellectual life on campus rather sterile,” Liberty Fund colloquia arrive as a godsend,” observed Paquette. “I remember my first Liberty Fund colloquium more than twenty years ago vividly. It was on the subject of liberty and power, and during the sessions, I thought I had died and gone to heaven given the seriousness and quality of the debate. In my view, Liberty Fund represents the gold standard in educational foundations of its kind. Indeed, Liberty Fund has proven over the years a very gracious friend of the AHI thanks in part to the good offices of Liberty Fund Senior Fellow Steve Ealy.”
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