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Patrick Henry Addressing the Virginia Assembly, by Henry Bryan Hall, after Chappel, 1856. Mount Vernon Collection [Print-3263]

Founding Partisans by bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, is a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States.

A book signing and reception with complimentary beer, wine, and hors-d'oeuvres will take place after the lecture. 

This event is part of the 2024 Michelle Smith Lecture Series. 

Member Tickets

In Person - 1 Lecture Virtual

General Public Tickets

In Person - 1 LectureVirtualBuy the Book

The Michelle Smith Lecture Series is supported by an endowment established by a generous grant from the late Robert H. and Clarice Smith.

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Cost

In-person:
$55 for members, $60 for non-members

Virtual:
$15 for members, $20 for non-members

The Michelle Smith Lecture Series

Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics

To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a threat to republican virtues. Yet parties emerged even before ratification of the Constitution, and they took firmer root in the following decade. Founding Partisans offers a fresh and lively narrative of the early republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be.

The first party, the Federalists, formed to overthrow the Articles of Confederation and make the federal government more robust. Its opponents, the Antifederalists, feared corruption and encroachments on liberty by a strong central government. The Antifederalists lost but regrouped under the new Constitution as the Republicans whose bruising contest against Federalist John Adams marked the climax of this turbulent chapter of American political history.

The country’s first years unfolded in a contentious spiral of ugly elections and blatant violations of the Constitution. Still, peaceful transfers of power continued, and the nascent country made its way towards global dominance, against all odds. Founding Partisans is a powerful reminder that fierce partisanship is a problem as old as the republic.

H. W. Brands

H.W. Brands is the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He writes on American history and politics, with books including The Last Campaign, Our First Civil War and The Zealot and the Emancipator. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He lectures frequently on historical and current events and can be seen and heard on national and international television and radio. He publishes history-themed poetry on Twitter and “A User’s Guide to History” on Substack.