2023 Stephen Whelan '68 Senior Thesis Prize for Excellence in Constitutional Law and Political Thought

June 1, 2023
Abigail Anthony

The James Madison Program is pleased to announce the winner of the 2023 Stephen Whelan '68 Senior Thesis Prize for Excellence in Constitutional Law and Political Thought: Undergraduate Fellow Abigail Anthony, whose thesis was titled “The Republic of Drunkards: The Political Pathogenesis of Addiction and Development of the Temperance Philosophy in America, From the Plymouth Colony to 1850" and advised by Professor Gregory Conti.

"Anthony's thesis masterfully documents the evolution of thought about the kind of problem that alcoholism and alcohol use posed in the fledgling American republic," her committee noted. "She shows, among other important insights, where and when the notion of 'addiction' emerged and how that conception of addiction differs from our modern ideas; what role religion played in the temperance movement; how temperance was framed differently among African Americans, and how they related this idea to their struggle against slavery. Her key finding is that concern with alcohol in Revolutionary and Antebellum America was primarily social and political, rather than a matter of the individual's health and well-being; the principal anxieties around alcoholism up to 1850 centered on its potential to impair the population for self-government.  This is an unusually vast terrain to have covered in a senior thesis; yet Anthony handles it skillfully. Throughout she shows a real deftness in conceptual reconstruction and an ability to draw meaningful and illuminating theoretical distinctions."

The Stephen Whelan '68 Senior Thesis Prize for Excellence in Constitutional Law and Political Thought is an endowed University prize awarded by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. It is awarded to a senior whose thesis in the area of constitutional law or political thought is judged to be of superlative quality. Nominations are accepted from all disciplines.