From our friends at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities:

VFH Fellow John A. Ragosta speaks on Patrick Henry: Federalist

Tuesday, October 11, 2011, 12:00 PM - 1: 00 PM
Charlottesville City Council Chambers , City Hall 605 E. Main St.
Charlottesville, VA 22901

Lectures are free and open to the public.

Patrick Henry argued long and eloquently on behalf of states' rights in
his unsuccessful effort to prevent ratification of the U.S. Constitution
in 1788. His defense of states' rights has become a classic text for
those concerned with excessive federal power. In 1799, however, George
Washington encouraged Henry to reenter politics largely in response to
the radical states' rights theory of nullification, espoused by Thomas
Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions. Ailing, Henry returned to the
lists in the belief that the nation was endangered. He successfully
campaigned for a position in the Virginia House of Delegates but died
before he could take office. Patrick Henry, the greatest of the
anti-federalists, died a federalist. John Ragosta will discuss how Henry
(and Washington) understood politics in the latter part of the 1790s
and, in particular, how they saw a middle ground between Alexander
Hamilton's "high federalism" and Jefferson's states' rights
republicanism-a middle ground that Ragosta contends may have disappeared
forever with the rise of party politics in Jefferson's election to the
presidency in 1800. 



For more information, contact Ann White Spencer, aspencer@virginia, or
visit our web site www.VirginiaHumanities.org.

John Ragosta is a historian, lawyer, and beekeeper who lives in
Charlottesville. He is a 2011-12 resident fellow at the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities. Previously, he was the Gilder Lehrman
Junior Research Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for
Jefferson Studies at Monticello. His first book, "Wellspring of Liberty:
How Virginia's Religious Dissenters Helped to Win the American
Revolution & Secured Religious Liberty," was published in 2010 by Oxford
University Press. He is working on a second book tentatively titled
"Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Legacy, Our Heritage" (forthcoming
University of Virginia Press). Ragosta has taught history at the
University of Virginia and Randolph College and law at the University of
Virginia and George Washington University. Ragosta has degrees in early
American history, law, and physics-chemistry.

 

 

 


______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html