The third week of Political Studies will focus on the founding of the United States and its perpetuation.

The first section invites fellows to explore the question of American character through a close reading of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, often described as the “best book about democracy, and the best book about America.” Tocqueville’s insights, which have remained relevant for nearly 200 years, form a uniquely good guide for thinking about the way the presuppositions of a democratic society structure our thinking about political engagement, religion, career, and personal life, for both better and worse. Tocqueville sees what is best about American democracy: its constant efforts to bring about an egalitarian sense of justice, its energetic entrepreneurship, and the diversity of ways it offers to get involved in political life. He also sees how citizens of such a society can feel especially lonely and rootless, and how that unease can undermine both our personal quests for happiness and the stability of our political order. Fellows will consider how Tocqueville’s insights might help us understand better the unique society we live in, and more thoughtfully approach the particular personal and political challenges of an American life.

The second section turns to the exceptional nature of the American story by studying some of the most famous works of art in our country’s history. In this seminar, fellows will join their time in class with visiting many of the works studied: in the Capitol Rotunda, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the monuments in the capital. Fellows will consider how these art works celebrate the history and meaning of America’s constitutional republic, and they will engage the question: What does art teach us about the way America remembers its past?

Image: Adolphe Yvon, Genius of America, 1866

Dr. Storey on restlessness & the modern soul

This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 32 fellows will be selected.

Faculty

Jenna Silber Storey

Jenna Silber Storey is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and co-director of AEI’s Center for the Future of the American University. She is concurrently an SNF Agora Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, and a research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She also serves on the executive committee of the Alliance for Civics in the Academy.

Dorothea Wolfson

Dorothea Israel Wolfson is Managing Director of the Hertog Foundation. Previously, she was Director of the Master of Arts in Government Program at Johns Hopkins University. Her research and teaching interests center on democracy and civic engagement, American political thought, American politics, and family policy. She has published articles on Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, and on John Locke and children’s literature.

Meir Y. Soloveichik

Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is one of the world’s preeminent Jewish thinkers and educators, and he’s one of America’s most influential religious leaders. He is the senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He is also director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured internationally to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on topics relating to faith in America, the Hebraic roots of the American founding, Jewish theology, bioethics, wartime ethics, Jewish-Christian relations, and more.

Meir Y. Soloveichik

Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is one of the world’s preeminent Jewish thinkers and educators, and he’s one of America’s most influential religious leaders. He is the senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He is also director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured internationally to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on topics relating to faith in America, the Hebraic roots of the American founding, Jewish theology, bioethics, wartime ethics, Jewish-Christian relations, and more. He writes a monthly column in Commentary magazine, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Mosaic, First Things, Azure, Tradition, the Jewish Review of Books, and many other outlets. Rabbi Soloveichik is a descendant of one of the Jewish world’s great rabbinic dynasties. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University, received his rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and studied at its Beren Kollel Elyon. He has also studied at Yale Divinity School, and in 2010 received his doctorate in religion from Princeton University.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Preparing for the course:

This course will be run as a seminar, at the center of which is a conversation that depends on efforts of all participants. You should plan to read each of these selections carefully, at least once, before coming to class. Take notes; mark up the book. Above all, keep track of the questions the reading raises in your mind.

“A question is a form of desire,” Leon Kass says. A good question gives shape to what it is you want to know. After you read the selection for the day, write down the questions it brings to your mind. What intrigues you? Inspires or confuses? Causes you to embrace the book ecstatically? Or throw it across the room in frustration? Start there. And articulate your reaction as a question that you can pose to the author.

Then, look for the response the author might give. What parts of the text address your thoughts or concerns? Identify one or two, and bring your questions and passages to class. Each day, I’ll ask several of you to present your questions and passages.

Readings:

  • Jenna Storey, Short Biography of Tocqueville
  • Frontispiece of the Great Bible, 1539
  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Introduction, Democracy in America, pp. 3–15

Readings:

  • 1, Part 1, Ch. 2: “On the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo-Americans,” pp. 27–45
  • 1, Part 2, Selections from Ch. 9:
    • “On Religion Considered as a Political Institution,” pp. 275–77
    • “Indirect Influence that Religious Beliefs Exert on Political Society in the United States,” pp. 278–82
    • “On the Principal Causes that Make Religion Powerful in America,” pp. 282–88
  • 1, Part 1, Ch. 3: “Social States of the Anglo-Americans,” pp. 45–53

Readings:

  • 2, Part 1, Chs. 1–7:
    • “On the Philosophic Method of the Americans,” pp. 403–07
    • “On the Principal Source of Beliefs among Democratic Principles,” pp. 407–10
    • “Why Americans Show More Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas than Their English Fathers,” pp. 411–15
    • “Why the Americans Have Never Been as Passionate as the French for General Ideas in Political Matters,” pp. 415–16
    • “How, in the United States, Religion Knows How to Make Use of Democratic Instincts,” pp. 417–24
    • “On the Progress of Catholicism in the United States,” pp. 424–25
    • “What Makes the Mind of Democratic Peoples Lean toward Pantheism,” pp. 425–26
  • 2, Part 1, Ch. 17: “On Some Sources of Poetry in Democratic Nations,” pp. 458–63
  • 2, Part 2, Chs. 18–20:
    • “Why Among the Americans All Honest Professions Are Reputed Honorable,” pp.
    • “What Makes Almost All Americans Incline toward Industrial Professions”
    • “How Aristocracy Could Issue from Industry”

Readings:

  • 1, Part 1, Ch. 4: “Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America,” pp. 53–56
  • 1, Part 1, Ch. 5: “Necessity of Studying What Takes Place in the Particular States before Speaking of the Government of the Union,” pp. 56–65 only
  • Vol 2, Part 2, Chs. 4 & 5:
    • “How the Americans Combat Individualism with Free Institutions,” pp. 485–88
    • “Of the Use that Americans Make of Association in Civil Life,” pp. 489–93
  • 2, Part 4, Chs. 1–3 and 6–8:
    • “Equality Naturally Gives Men the Taste for Free Institutions,” pp. 639–40
    • “That the Ideas of Democratic Peoples in the Matter of Government are Naturally Favorable to the Concentration of Powers,” pp. 640–43
    • “That the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples are in Accord with Their Ideas to Bring Them to Concentrate Power,” pp. 643–45
    • “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear,” pp. 661–65
    • “Continuation of the Preceding Chapters,” pp. 666–73
    • “General View of the Subject,” pp. 673–76

Readings:

  • 2, Part 2, Ch. 2: “On Individualism in Democratic Countries,” pp. 482–84
  • 2, Part 3, Chs. 8–12:
    • “Influence of Democracy on the Family,” pp. 558–63
    • “Education of Girls in the United States,” pp. 563–65
    • “How the Girl Is Found Beneath the Features of the Wife,” pp. 565–67
    • “How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Mores in America,” pp. 567–73
    • “How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman,” pp. 573–76
  • 2, Part 2, Chs. 10–16:
    • “On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America,” pp. 506–08
    • “On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyments Produces in Democratic Countries,” pp. 508–11
    • “Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism,” pp. 510–11
    • “Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being,” pp. 511–14
    • “How the Taste for Material Enjoyments among Americans is United with Love of Freedom and with Care for Public Affairs,” pp. 514–17
    • “How Religious Beliefs at Times Turn the Souls of the Americans toward Immaterial Enjoyments,” pp. 517–21
    • “How the Excessive Love of Well-Being Can be Harmful to Well-Being,” pp. 521–22

When John Trumbull wrote to John Adams about his intention to create a series of paintings for the Capitol Rotunda, the former president cautioned the artist that images of historical events could mislead, as a visual medium could never capture the complex series of events that brought America into being. Jefferson, in contrast, encouraged Trumbull, and stressed that creativity was an essential aspect of artistic depiction. Can Adams’ and Jefferson’s views be reconciled?  How do we celebrate artistic license while judging a work of American art regarding the way in which it captures the meaning of this country’s story, and how it inspires us as Americans?

 

Artwork:

 

Readings:

  • Paul Staiti, “John Trumbull’s Second Act”, Of Arms & Artisans
  • David Hackett Fischer, “Introduction: The Painting,” Washington’s Crossing

A striking feature of American art is the fact that even as the country’s military history is replete with victories, many of its most famous artistic creations center around those that fell in battle, both in victory and defeat. Moreover, the most well-known artist of the Civil War, Winslow Homer, and the most well-known photograph of America at war, the image of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, focus not on leaders in battle, but rather simple soldiers. What does this teach us about the nature of war in general, and about the way in which America remembers?

 

Artwork:

 

Readings:

  • Paul Staiti, “John Trumbull’s Martyrs,” Of Arms & Artisans

It is striking that while there are several famous images of the Founding, there are not really well-known words of art celebrating the practice of American politics. Why is this so? How can one utilize art to celebrate the nature of a constitutional republic, which is so central to the meaning of America?

 

Artwork:

 

Readings:

  • Paul Staiti, “Benjamin West’s Peace,” Of Arms & Artisans

One of the most illustrative aspects of the unique way in which America celebrates its leaders is the fact that one of its most famous artistic images is of a leader giving up power, rather than attaining it. The most celebrated paintings of Lincoln emphasize his signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and his preserving the union. Can we deduce from these works of art that there is a unique version of American leadership, distinct from the way statesmanship is celebrated in Europe?

 

Artwork:

 

Readings:

  • Paul Staiti, “Gilbert Stuart’s Washington,” Of Arms & Artisans

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Biography Image

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

Gary J. Schmitt

Gary J. Schmitt is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies issues related to the American presidency, the U.S. constitution and its principles, and American civic life.