Village Square Event: "In Pursuit of Liberty" with Jeff Rosen

Event Topic:
"UNUM: In Pursuit of Liberty - How the productive tension between competing principles keeps us free" with Jeff Rosen

Registering for the Online Event:
This is a FREE event; however, you will need to register for it. Go to the following Eventbrite link & fill out the registration form:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unum-in-pursuit-of-liberty-with-jeff-rosen-tickets-1979998516864

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About this Event:
National Constitution Center's Jeffrey Rosen joins us to examine the enduring—and defining—ideological tensions in the American experiment.
Join us via Zoom or Facebook live on March 2, 7:00-8:30pm EST.

As we now find ourselves officially in America’s 250th anniversary year, we are truly honored to be joined by the legendary scholar Jeffrey Rosen. As the President and CEO of National Constitution Center and the author of numerous books, Rosen’s iconic body of work gives us a richer understanding of the tensions, rivalries, and principles that have shaped the American experiment. His most recent book, “In Pursuit of Liberty,” tells the vibrant story of how the tensions in the visions of founder Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton haven’t just endured since the founding—they’ve defined us.

According to Jeffrey Rosen, Hamilton and Jefferson “are like golden and silver threads woven throughout American history—sometimes they cross, sometimes they are side by side, sometimes they pull so far apart that they threaten to snap, but it’s the productive tension on both sides of the thread that sustains American history.”

Rosen's book explores the clashing visions of Hamilton and Jefferson about how to balance liberty and power in a debate that continues to define—and divide—our country: Jefferson championed states’ rights and individual liberties, while Hamilton pushed for a strong Federal government and a powerful executive. This ongoing tug-of-war has shaped all the pivotal moments in American history, including Abraham Lincoln’s fight against slavery and southern secession, the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Ronald Reagan’s and Donald Trump’s conservative push to shrink the size of the federal government.

Rosen also shows how Hamilton and Jefferson’s disagreement over how to read the Constitution has shaped landmark debates in Congress and the Supreme Court about executive power, from John Marshall’s early battles with Andrew Jackson to the current divisions among the justices on issues from presidential immunity to control over the administrative state.

About our speakers:

• Jeffrey Rosen is a professor of law at George Washington University, the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. His previous books include The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America(2001), The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America (2006), Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change (2013), and The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America (2024).
• Steve Seibert, the facilitator, is the former Executive Director of Florida Humanities and a former Board Chair of The Village Square. A Florida Supreme Court-certified mediator for over 20 years, Steven gained a statewide reputation for helping resolve contentious public and private sector disputes. He holds a J.D. from the University of Florida's Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

About the Event Host:
The Village Square is a non-profit, non-partisan public educational forum founded in 2006 by Liz Joyner, Allan Katz, and Bill Law in Tallahassee, Florida. They lamented the lack of a shared civic space where people could air their differences of opinion, so they created one. They now spearhead a variety of programming centered around civility and community-building, especially among political opponents. The group is dedicated to maintaining factual accuracy in civic and political debate by growing civil discourse on divisive issues, and recalling the history and principles at the foundation of our democracy.