LSUS center to stage Jefferson-Lincoln conference
10/10/03

The LSUS International Lincoln Center will continue its award-winning Deep South Presidential Conference Series Thursday through Saturday (Oct. 16-18) with an agenda devoted to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. The conference, “Thomas Jefferson: His Life, Times and Legacy,” is subtitled, “Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Reflections on a Renaissance Man with an Abraham Lincoln Symposium.”

Directors of the conference, which is open to the public, are Lincoln Center director Dr. William D. Pederson and Chief Justice Frank J. Williams of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Pederson is an LSUS professor of political science and holder of the LSUS American Studies Chair. Williams and his wife, Virginia, sponsor the center’s annual Lincoln Lecture Series.

Pederson expects about 60 outside scholars to participate in the conference, which will be held in the University Center on the LSUS campus. Keynote scholars include James F. Simon, of the New York Law School, author of “What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall” (2002); Harold Holzer, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, author of numerous Lincoln volumes, and Robert P. Watson, founding editor of “White House Studies Journal.”

Conference sponsors include the International Lincoln Center, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Lincoln Forum, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum and Library, Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership and White House Studies.

The conference begins at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, with brief opening ceremonies in the University Center. Williams will chair a general session on “Jefferson Relations” from 8:15 to 9:45 a.m. Two concurrent sessions from 10 to 11:45 a.m. will be “Jefferson, Lincoln and the First Amendment” and “Jefferson World View and Legacy.” Williams will chair another general session, “Jefferson and Lincoln Abroad (Israel, Cuba, England and Venezuela),” from 1:45 to 3:30 p.m.

Friday’s agenda begins at 8 a.m. with three concurrent sessions: “Jefferson-Lincoln World View,” Jefferson and Equality (Part 1)” and “Party Leader Legacy.” Two concurrent sessions, “Jefferson, Lincoln and the South” and “Jefferson, Lincoln and the Law,” will run from 10 to 11:45 a.m. Williams will deliver the annual Lincoln Lecture from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Friday afternoon’s program consists of three concurrent sessions from 1:45 to 3:30. They are: “Jefferson, Lincoln, Rhetoric and Political Institutions,” “Jefferson and Science” and “Jefferson and Lincoln Abroad (Argentina, Mexico and Japan).”

Saturday kicks off at 8 a.m. with three concurrent sessions, “Jefferson, Education and Lincoln,” “Jefferson, Lincoln and the Military” and “Jefferson and Equality (Part 2).” A general session, “Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase,” then runs from 10 to 11:45 a.m.

The conference closes with a 7:30 p.m. Saturday presentation, “Jefferson and Marshall,” by James F. Simon.

For more information, contact Pederson at 318-797-5349 or wpederso@lsus.edu.