“Independence Forever!” - The American Mind
The highest attainment of all future American generations would be to understand and live up to the greatness of the Revolution.| The American Mind
Many Americans celebrated April 30, 1789, as a defining moment for the United States, a sort of political BC/AD demarcation point in the republic’s short history.[1] Once the initial jolt of national optimism and political unity induced by President George Washington’s first inauguration had worn off, however, the first administration took up the thankless business […] The post “The Good Old Republican Cause”: Philip Freneau’s Principled Stand against the Shadow of Monarchy appear...| Journal of the American Revolution
Is Israel Jefferson’s 1873 Account of Jefferson’s Paternity of Sally Hemings’ Children Worthful or Worthless? It is commonplace for many Jeffersonian scholars, uncritically accepting Jefferson’s paternity of all of Sally Hemings’ children, to speak of slave Israel Gillette’s 1873 comments on Jefferson’s paternity as being corroborative or confirmatory evidence for that paternity—e.g., the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s account of Gillette’s published...| Abbeville Institute
Your question reminds me of a dinner for Nobel Prize Winners at the White House, 29 April 1962. President John F. Kennedy declared them welcome:I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a ...| The Churchill Project – Hillsdale College
The highest attainment of all future American generations would be to understand and live up to the greatness of the Revolution.| The American Mind
One day in the late winter of 1788 in Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette and two other champions of republicanism, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, held a little “convention of our own,” according to Lafayette. They were discussing the latest news from America about the debates taking place over ratifying the Constitution of 1787.[1] Jefferson […]| Journal of the American Revolution
As editor-in-Chief of the inaugural issue of the now-defunct theme-based journal, The Journal of Thomas Jefferson’s Life and Times, I was asked to write the feature, introductory essay, which I titled “‘A silent execution of duty’: The Republican Pen of Thomas Jefferson.” It was a daunting task, as I aimed to introduce the journal by constructing an essay that would give readers some feel for the breadth and depth of Jefferson’s mind. Given the obvious spatial constraints, there w...| Abbeville Institute
Jefferson’s geopolitical and diplomatic gestures, alongside his formal and personal correspondence, allow us to understand his essay on Cervantes. I refer to “Query VI” of Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). The meaning of this text remains invisible to those unfamiliar with the protocols of Don Quijote de la Mancha (DQ). Most readers expect Montesquieu’s […]| Minding The Campus
A review of Black Reason, White Feeling: The Jeffersonian Enlightenment in the African American Tradition (University of Virginia Press, 2024) by Hannah Spahn| Abbeville Institute
After a lengthy respite due to tensions between the two that began during Adams’ presidency, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, with the intervention of Benjamin Rush, resumed their correspondence with a brief letter from Adams to Jefferson on January 1, 1812.| Abbeville Institute
Recently, I watched the Abbeville Institute’s Zoom conversation with Mike Kitchens on the loss of historic antebellum homes. Many have been lost to demolition or neglect. But there is another kind of loss threatening these historic sites. While it is important to discuss the people who built and kept these plantations afloat, some house museums are focusing disproportionately on the subject of slavery to the detriment of the original white inhabitants. But also because of how it is being ...| Abbeville Institute
A Critique of Thomas Fleming’s The Great Divide: The Conflict between Washington and Jefferson that Defined a Nation| Abbeville Institute
This piece was originally published at the Independent Institute.| Abbeville Institute
“Travelling through a desert, a man saw a woman, standing alone and with her eyes fixed to the ground.| Abbeville Institute
Letters of introduction were the reference letters of the past.| Shannon Selin
Government, Thomas Jefferson all too frequently notes, is for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, each considered the political equal of all others and, in consequence, deserving of the same rights. Government, thus, exists for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, considered as individuals. Government, he often says, is of and for the people.| Abbeville Institute
