THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY'S FALL REGIONAL MEETING
OCTOBER 3-4, 2003, WILLIAMSBURG WOODLANDS, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS

The link on the name leads you to biographical information.  The link on Extended Version of Speech leads you to the talk or an expanded version of it. 

As always, we use history, the lamp of experience, to provide a reasonable basis for action in the present.  We have an historical gallery of classical republicans in our online exhibit: Print Exhibition of Classical Republicans, Whigs, and Tories, 1650-1750.  

George Washington reminds us in his First Inaugural Address: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Friday
4:00 - 6:00    Registration        
5:30 - 6:00    Scholarship Orientation            
6:00 - 7:00    Reception        
7:00 - 9:00    Dinner        
                      Lee Edwards, The Heritage Foundation, Chairman
                      Forrest McDonald, University of Alabama, Extended Version of Speech

Saturday        
8:30 - 10:00   Foundations of Republican Government: Self-Interest, Commerce, and Virtue
                       James E. Hinish, Jr., Regent University, Chairman
                       Gary McDowell, University of Richmond
                       Jean Yarbrough, Bowdoin College
                       Barry Shain, Colgate University, Speech

10:15 - 11:45  Republicanism, Federalism, and the Constitution
                        Gary L. Gregg, McConnell Center, University of Louisville, Chairman
                        Ross Lence, University of Houston
                        George Carey, Georgetown University
                        Ralph A. Rossum, Claremont McKenna College, Extended Version of Speech

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, asked for the “support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.”

One of our past Presidents, Mel Bradford, pointed out: “We were republican long before we were a republic.”

Luncheon
 12:00 - 1:30    The Republic and the Conservative Movement
                        Charles R. Kesler, Claremont Institute, Chairman
                        Harry V. Jaffa, Claremont Men's College

Harry Jaffa succinctly stated: “The moral rightness of republican government was moreover identical, in principle, with the moral wrongness of slavery.  Republican government could not be right unless slavery was wrong.” (A New Birth of Freedom, p. 403)

2:00 - 3:30      Religion & Republicanism
                        W. Winston Elliott III, Center for the American Idea, Chairman        
                        Ellis Sandoz, Louisiana State University, Extended Version of Speech    
                        John G.. West, Jr., Seattle Pacific University    
                        Daniel L. Dreisbach, American University, Extended Version of Speech

John Adams stated that the Bible served as “the most republican book in the world.”
        
3:30 - 4:00    Coffee Break

4:00 - 5:30      Keeping a Republic: Transmitting the Torch to the Younger Generation
                       Steven D. Ealy, Liberty Fund, Inc., Chairman
                       Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation
                       Stephen Klugewicz, Bill of Rights Institute, Extended Version of Speech
                       Jeffry Morrison, Regent University, Visiting at Princeton University
                      C. Bradley Thompson, Ashland University

On Sept. 18, 1787, as the Philadelphia sun was rising on the infant Constitution, a Mrs. Powell approached Dr. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most respected among the Convention delegates. She inquired, "Well Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic," replied Franklin, "if you can keep it."

Saturday Optional Dinner - A Tribute to the American Founders, sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute.  For more information about the Bill of Rights Institute, visit their website at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org.