The Pursuit of Liberty
The 10th annual COA Summer Institute welcomes Jeffrey Rosen, CEO emeritus of the National Constitution Center.
Longtime friend of the Summer Institute, Jeffrey Rosen, returns this year to offer a talk on his new book, The Pursuit of Liberty. Exploring the enduring tension between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions of American democracy, Rosen considers how competing ideas about national power, democracy, the constitution, and the role of government have shaped the nation’s history.
Looking back across the founding era to today, he offers insights into how these two visions have influenced the development of American political life for the past 250 years. He also looks ahead, considering how this dynamic may continue to evolve and what it might mean for the future of the American experiment.
The 2026 Summer Institute: Toward a More Perfect Union will mark the country’s 250th anniversary with a forward-looking series of conversations about the future of the American experiment. By late July, we anticipate that audiences will have encountered plenty of historical retrospectives and the predictable swing between overly patriotic and overly critical narratives. Our goal is different: To convene voices from across American culture—journalism, the arts, science, philanthropy, civic life, and beyond—and explore how the nation’s founding values have been, and continue to be, tested, reshaped, and reimagined. The Institute asks how these ideals can be stewarded, strengthened, and carried into the future.