Winning independence and writing a constitution were only the beginning of the American experiment. The founding generation also had to make the new republic work. “From Founding to Governing: The First Five Presidents” examines George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe as both architects of the new nation and the leaders responsible for translating its founding principles into the practical work of governing.
Participants will explore the lives and formative experiences of the five presidents – their education, military service, intellectual influences, friendships, rivalries, diplomatic careers, and roles in the Revolution and founding. The seminar will consider how these experiences shaped their political principles and, ultimately, their approaches to presidential leadership.
At its center is the transition from founding to governing. Article II of the Constitution established the presidency, but left many questions about executive power unanswered. Washington created essential precedents for the office; Adams confronted partisan division and demonstrated that the presidency could survive its first succession; Jefferson wrestled with tensions between limited-government principles and executive action; Madison faced the demands of wartime leadership; and Monroe governed an expanding nation confronting new questions of sectionalism and America’s place in the world.
A field study at George Washington’s Mount Vernon will connect biography, place, and leadership. Presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky will provide a focused examination of John Adams and the challenge of succeeding Washington, while scholars including Stephen Knott will help teachers explore the seminar’s central question: How did the generation that founded the American republic learn to govern it?
Speaker:
Stephen F. Knott, PhD
Dr. Stephen F. Knott is a presidential historian and Professor Emeritus of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he taught from 2007 until his retirement in 2022. He is also the Thomas and Mabel Guy Professor of American History and Government at Ashland University. His scholarship focuses on the American presidency, executive power, the Early Republic, national security, intelligence, and American foreign policy.
Knott earned his BA from Assumption College and his PhD from Boston College. Before joining the Naval War College, he served as Co-Chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, where he participated in oral-history projects involving the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations. Earlier in his career, he taught political science at the United States Air Force Academy and worked at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
Knott is the author or editor of numerous books on the presidency and American political history. His works include Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America, co-authored with Tony Williams; Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth; Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency; The Reagan Years; Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics; and The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal.
His 2022 book, Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy, combines presidential history with Knott’s personal experience working at the Kennedy Library and reassesses Kennedy’s presidency and historical reputation. Across his scholarship, Knott has examined the constitutional presidency, executive leadership, presidential character, and the tension between energetic executive power and constitutional restraint.
Lindsay Chervinsky, PhD
Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian and Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, where she leads the library’s scholarly research, fellowship programs, collections, public history initiatives, and civic programming. Her scholarship focuses on the American presidency, political culture, executive institutions, George Washington, John Adams, and the Early Republic.
Chervinsky earned her BA in History and Political Science from George Washington University and her MA and PhD in History from the University of California, Davis. Before assuming leadership of the Washington Library in 2024, she was a senior non-residential fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and a historian at the White House Historical Association. She has held research fellowships at the Library of Congress, International Center for Jefferson Studies, Society of the Cincinnati, Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, and Mount Vernon.
Chervinsky is the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, an influential study of how Washington created the presidential cabinet despite its absence from the Constitution and, in doing so, established enduring precedents for executive governance. The book received the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize and the Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in History Prize.
Her most recent book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic, examines how Adams inherited the presidency from Washington and helped demonstrate that the institution could survive intense partisanship, foreign-policy crises, and the transfer of power between political opponents. She also co-edited Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture.
Typically scheduled from Sunday through Friday in the summer, Founding Forward’s week-long teacher seminars are hosted at Union League Liberty Hill, a 300+ acre private conference center and golf course in suburban Philadelphia. Each seminar has a single theme and consists of content-focused talks by highly regarded scholars (morning and afternoon) interspersed each day with activation sessions featuring either lesson demonstrations from master teachers and presentation from resource providers like Retro Report or Periodic Presidents. Finally, each seminar includes an out-of-classroom field study to historic sites, archives, and museums.
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