Northfield, Massachusetts | October 9–11, 2026
“By the Dawn’s Early Light”
America’s First Principles and Their Enduring Legacy
Every year, 91 hosts weekend seminars to give friends from around the country a taste of its unique program of Catholic liberal education. With the guidance of faculty members, participants discuss selections from the Great Books on a given theme. They work together to unfold the authors’ meaning and discern what truths it contains.
Our Fall Seminar Weekend takes place on the College’s century-old New England campus, about 100 miles northwest of Boston in Northfield, Massachusetts. It features three discussions about the selected texts, nightly on-campus receptions, fine dining, and delightful company. Our chaplains offer Masses and Adoration daily in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel and are available for confession and spiritual direction throughout the weekend. There is also ample opportunity to visit with members of the student body and — at Sunday morning’s Mass — to take in the beautiful music of the 91 Choir.
Your Seminar Weekend will be a time of intellectual stimulation, deepening faith, and enduring friendships.
“I felt warmly received here. Found everyone to be gracious and caring. The discussions were fruitful and interesting. The cuisine was excellent and memorable.”
Theme
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
These earliest articulations of our noblest aspirations once served as both our nation’s foundation and the promise for its future. But now, on the 250th anniversary of the country’s birth, do we even remember what these words mean?
Some would argue that the Declaration of Independence’s lofty ideals cannot be reconciled with the U.S. Constitution, which sanctioned the evil of slavery. Others contend that it’s not self-evident that our inalienable rights come from God — rather, they come from the government. Such disputes have riven the country since its inception. They have fueled the acrimony now threatening to topple the Republic that our founders sacrificed to establish.
More than ever, then, it is time that we wrestle with the intention of the Founders when they made their bold claims. In what ways can their understanding of rights, happiness, liberty, equality, and the Creator Himself provide the principles by which our nation can live up to its highest ideals?
Join us at our historic New England campus as we examine the words of Jefferson and Lincoln, the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court, so that their legacy may illumine and guide the next chapter of American democracy.
Registration
All-inclusive price includes lodging, meals, seminars, and readings.
Discounts are available for President’s Council members.
