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Jay Cost Residency

The American Founding, the period in which the United States established a new constitutional order, has become a kind of constitutive myth in the nation’s political identity — the moment in which individuals of seemingly titanic integrity forged a new system of government to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” as the Preamble to the Constitution says. Exactly what this blessing should look like remains a point of contention to this day — debated ceaselessly by both the left and the right. Perhaps this should come as no surprise, for the “proper” meaning of the Founding would influence our politics in the 21st century.

But as this new lecture series will argue, if the Founding remains contentious today, it was just as much a point of controversy when it was established. Indeed, the individuals who contributed most significantly to its establishment — including George Washington, John and Abaigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton — had different visions of what this new republic was to look like. Sometimes, their disagreements were dramatic, pointed, and very personal.

To appreciate the full complexity of the Founding, this series will examine it from the perspective of each individual, tracing their narratives from the signing of the peace with Great Britain in 1783 until the election of 1800. What emerges will be contested visions that ultimately have to be tempered and refined through the caldron of democratic politics in the 1790s.

Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Visting Scholar at Grove City College. He has spoken at the JES several times before, most recently in Spring 2025. He is the author of several books, including Democracy or Republic? The People and the Constitution, James Madison: America’s First Politician, and The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy.