Conference on the American Revolution

The SAR is pleased to announce the 2013 SAR Annual Conference on the American Revolution, Revolutionary Prophecies: The Founders on the Future. The 2013 SAR Annual Conference will convene in St. Louis, Missouri on June 21-23, 2013.

The founding generation had an ambivalent relationship with the future. Thomas Jefferson, for example, wrote to John Adams that ‘I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.’ Yet he also proclaimed that ‘the natural order of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.’ With few exceptions, the cohort of leaders and citizens who brought about American independence seemed to share an optimism in the progress made possible by the Enlightenment as well as a fear of humankind’s natural tendencies toward corruption and vice. At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, a woman reportedly asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government the new nation would have. ‘A republic,’ he supposedly said, but only ‘if you can keep it.’

Would future generations of Americans prove themselves worthy of the opportunities for liberty that American revolutionaries had fought to secure? Would their character and their nation’s Constitution allow them to avoid the depravity and decay that had undermined once-great civilizations? Would America gain in power and influence and liberty, or would it atrophy and suffer from citizens’ apathy?

These questions are the focus of the 2013 SAR Annual Conference on the American Revolution, which surveys the thoughts not only of leading founders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, but also common citizens.

The registration form for the 2013 SAR Annual Conference may be found on the SAR website.

Fraternally,

Joe Dooley

Vice President General

Sons of the American Revolution