Benjamin Price to Present Southeastern Constitution Day Lecture
Contact: Elise Doster
9/11/09
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University’s Department of History and Political Science will celebrate Constitution Day, Thursday, Sept. 17, with a lecture by American colonial and classical history scholar Benjamin Price.
Scheduled for 11 a.m. in Southeastern’s Pottle Music Building Auditorium, the lecture is free and open to the public.
A member of Southeastern’s faculty, Price will discuss “18th Century English Whig Thought and the Constitutional Ratification Conflict,” and will examine various critiques of the Constitution voiced by anti-federalists.
Bill Robison, head of the Department of History and Political Science, said Price’s lecture will examine the important influence on early American political thought exercised by the Whigs in England, many of whom sympathized with the American Revolution.
“The lecture shows how Whig thinking affected the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over ratification of the Constitution,” Robison said. “Many of the issues that divided these two groups in the late 1780s continue to be controversial in today’s America.”
Price said he became interested in the topic while performing research for his book “Nursing Fathers: American Colonists’ Conception of English protestant Kingship 1688-1776” published in 1999.
“As we enter the 21st century and reflect on some of the more controversial aspects of the last and present administrations, some of those criticisms made by the anti-federalists pertaining to the powers of the federal government such as the power to tax and spend and military powers are as timely today as they were over 200 years ago,” he said.
Price earned his master’s degree in classical history and doctorate in American history from Louisiana State University. He also served as a historical consultant for the Louisiana Public Broadcasting film series, “Louisiana: A History.”
For more information about Price’s lecture, contact Bill Robison at (985) 549-2109.
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