Lincoln & the Declaration of Independence
Featuring Tony Williams — Senior Fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute and co-author of Divided by the Declaration.
An evening exploring how Abraham Lincoln returned to the Declaration as the moral foundation of the American experiment — and why that debate still shapes our nation today.
Location: 2067 Magnolia Ave., Suite A, Buena Vista, VA 24416 · Map
Event DetailsCivic education for every generation
In a republic, civic education is the indispensable ingredient to perpetuating our constitutional form of government. We serve three audiences:
Citizen Education
Classes on the Constitution and the lives & writings of the Founders for civic groups across central Virginia — Rotary Clubs, DAR, SAR, the League of Women Voters, and more, since 1996.
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Teacher Education
Continuing-education seminars, workshops, and roundtables for U.S. History and Government teachers, in affiliation with the Virginia Institute for American History.
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Student Education
Non-credit classes, field trips, and seminars for high school and college students — forming reasoning faculties, enlarging minds, and instilling precepts of virtue and order.
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I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.— Frederick Douglass
“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” · July 5, 1852
“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.”— President Calvin Coolidge, on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration, July 5, 1926
Three decades in defense of the Founding
Civic education is in decline in America. Study after study documents the deterioration in basic knowledge of our nation's founding and source documents — among students and citizens alike.
For nearly thirty years, the Institute has answered that decline with substance: natural-law principles, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Washington's Farewell Address, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights — taught with depth, to citizens, teachers, and students.
About the Institute
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