VFH Lunchtime Fellowship Series presents John A. Ragosta

These lectures, held in Charlottesville City Council chambers, are free and open to the public. On Tuesday, October 11, at noon, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities fellow John A. Ragosta will discuss how Patrick Henry (and George Washington) understood politics in the latter part of the 1790s and, in particular, how they saw a middle ground between Alexander Hamilton's "high federalism" and Jefferson's states' rights republicanism— a middle ground that Ragosta contends may have disappeared forever with the rise of party politics in Jefferson's election to the presidency in 1800.

Ragosta is a Charlottesville historian, lawyer, and beekeeper and a 2011-12 resident fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Previously he was the Gilder Lehrman Junior Research Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. His first book, Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia’s Religious Dissenters Helped to Win the American Revolution & Secured Religious Liberty, was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. He is working on a second book tentatively titled Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Legacy, Our Heritage (forthcoming University of Virginia Press).

For more information about the event, contact Ann White Spencer, aspencer@virginia, or visit the VFH website, VirginiaHumanities.org.