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The Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University requested a Chairman's grant of $29,300 to support a special series of lectures on "America's Founding Ideas." The Ryan Center is dedicated to the study of America's founding principles and institutions, the thought of founders and leading political thinkers such as Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln, and their intellectual forebears such as Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Locke. Central concerns of Ryan Center programs are human rights, constitutionalism, political institutions, civil, economic, and religious freedom, democracy, and moral self-government. The special series envisioned includes a major two-day national conference on Abraham Lincoln in the bicentennial year of his birth, featuring prominent scholars and held at the Union League in Philadelphia and at Villanova University. Also included will be a lecture on George Washington as America's "first progressive" and a roundtable discussion on James Madison. The NEH Chairman's Grant of $29,300 will cover travel, publicity, and honoraria, as well as administrative support. Other major expenses will be provided by private sources.

A series on "America's Founding Ideas" will consist of: a major national 2-day conference on Abraham Lincoln, February 12 -13 2009; a public lecture on "George Washington: America's First Progressive" by William B. Allen; public lectures/roundtable discussion on "James Madison: Scholar and Statesman"