The big controversy that erupted in 2006 over the efforts to establish the Alexander Hamilton Center at Hamilton College and seemed to end when the opposition from faculty radicals who couldn’t abide the thought of an academic center devoted to the study of freedom, democracy and capitalism apparently has a happy ending after all.

In a press release this morning, Hamilton College history professor Robert Paquette states that he and two other Hamilton faculty members have founded the Alexander Hamilton Institute, which will be independent of the college.

Quoting from the release, “The AHI will have an expanded mission to create intellectual products of the highest standards for educational institutions in upstate New York and across the country. Programming will begin in the 2007-2008 academic year with an innovative colloquium, combing senior scholars and undergraduates, that will examine the vital role of upstate New York in ending slavery in the United States. In year two, the Institute will explore property rights — how they were understood by the founders, the importance of private property rights as a guarding of all other rights, and the history of eminent domain….”

This is very good news, and not just for Hamilton students who will be able to hear ideas about our history and institutions that are uncongenial to the rest of the faculty. I suppose that many of them are grumbling, “Well, at least we keep that monstrosity from polluting our campus.”