Lafayette and the Enduring Struggle for Human Rights and Democratic Governments

Lafayette and the Enduring Struggle for Human Rights and Democratic Governments

Edited by Alan R. Hoffman, Lloyd Kramer, and Jan O’Sullivan

This book includes eight outstanding essays in which historians explain why Lafayette remains a valuable ally for twenty-first-century defenders of human rights and democratic institutions. Each chapter was originally presented during a public Symposium in September 2024 at Fairfield University, where the “American Friends of Lafayette” (AFL) and members of the Fairfield community met to analyze and honor the bicentennial anniversary of Lafayette’s famous tour of the United States in 1824-25. Focusing on Lafayette’s historical reputation, influential ideas, and courageous public actions, the authors provide well-informed insights that explain why Lafayette still matters in our own time.

These essays will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Lafayette’s enduring significance for the history and the future of democratic political values.

Paperback, $25

ISBN 13-979-8-9903021-4-3

Published by the American Friends of Lafayette, Gaithersburg, Maryland, with the collaboration and support of Fairfield University

Publication Date: October 2025

149 pages

Summary of Contents:

Preface: Lafayette’s Enduring Historical Significance, by Lloyd Kramer

Part One: Lafayette: Historiography, Biography, and Lessons for Today

Historical Narratives and the Multiple Meanings of Lafayette’s Life, by Lloyd Kramer

Lafayette, “History” and Historians, by Robert Rhodes Crout

Lafayette’s Power as a Political Prisoner, by Paul S. Spalding

Lafayette’s Second Act, 1814-1834, by Mike Duncan

Part Two: Lafayette and Human Rights

Lafayette and the Anti-Slavery Cause: “To Ameliorate the Condition of the Distressed,” by Alan R. Hoffman

Lafayette and the Abolitionists, by John Stauffer

Lafayette, Napoleon, and the Struggle for Women’s Rights, by Lloyd Kramer

“Envoy of the Great Spirit”: Lafayette’s Relationship with Native Americans,” by Diane Windham Shaw

Closing Remarks, by Fairfield University Dean Richard Greenwald

ALAN R. HOFFMAN obtained his BA in history from Yale where he studied under Professor Edmund Morgan, before earning a JD at Harvard Law School. He practiced law in Boston for 50 years. An avid reader of early American history, he “discovered” Lafayette in 2002 and spent two years—2003 to 2005—translating Auguste Levasseur’s Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, the first-hand account of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour of America written by his private secretary. This translation was published in 2006 and is in its fourth printing. Hoffman has lectured widely on Lafayette – over 260 talks – and has spoken in each of the 24 states (and Washington DC) which Lafayette visited during the Farewell Tour.
He has written scholarly articles about Lafayette including, “The Marquis de Lafayette in Savannah” (sidebar) in Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2014), Leslie M. Harris and Daina Ramey Berry, editors, and “Lafayette’s Anti-Slavery Lament, Revisited,” in the Gazette of the American Friends of Lafayette, No. 96, May 2022, p. 121. Hoffman has also co-produced and was the principal author of virtual travelogues covering Lafayette’s Farewell Tour visits to four states: New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and New Hampshire (with TravelStorysGPS).
Hoffman is an officer of two Lafayette societies: he currently serves as President of the American Friends of Lafayette and President of the Massachusetts Lafayette Society. He is also the editor of The Gazette of The American Friends of Lafayette. He has been designated a scholar in the New Hampshire Humanities Council’s “Humanities to Go” program.