All graduating Ashbrook Scholars are required to write a Statesmanship Thesis during their final year as a Scholar. The best of these theses are given the Charles Parton Award, named in honor of the former director of the Ashbrook Center who inspired the creation of the Statesmanship Thesis program. The following are past winners of this honor:

• 2009

  Rule in The Tempest: The Political Teachings of Shakespeare's Last Play (pdf)
  by Lauren Arnold

  Bletchley's Secret War: British Code Breaking in the Battle of the Atlantic (pdf)
  by Colleen Carper

  The Higher Law Background of the Constitution: Justice Clarence Thomas and Constitutional Interpretation (pdf)
  by Michael Sabo

• 2008

  Moral Beauty's Divine Center: Jonathan Edwards and the Necessity of God in Ethics (pdf)
  by Adam Carrington

  Power and Pretext: The Status of Justice in Thucydides (pdf)
  by Caitlin Poling

  The Morality of Killing in Self-Defense: A Christian Perspective (pdf)
  by Jonathan Spelman

  Elena's War: Russian Women in Combat (pdf)
  by Samantha Vajskop

• 2007

  A Two Horse Race: An Explanation of The Virginian's Natural Equality Based on Man's Faculty of Reason and Sentiment of Pity (pdf)
  by Clint Leibolt

  Abraham Lincoln's Understanding of the Nature of the Union: Secession, Slavery and the Philosophical Cause (pdf)
  by Jason Stevens

• 2006

  "The Hands of a Healer": J.R.R. Tolkien's Understanding of Kingship (pdf)
  by Lauren Calco

  "The Dictates of Conscience": The Debate over Religious Liberty in Revolutionary Virginia (pdf)
  by Deborah O'Malley

• 2005

  Improvisation and Self-Emancipation in the Novels of Ralph Ellison (pdf)
  by Carolyn Garris

• 2004

  The Thought of Sayyid Qutb: Radical Islam's Philosophical Foundations (pdf)
  by Luke Loboda

Each semester, the Ashbrook Scholars may submit essays for consideration for the Taylor Excellence in Writing Award. The selection criteria for the Taylor Award are quality of thought, logic of argument, felicity of style, and mastery of grammar and diction. The authors of the selected essays each receive the Taylor Excellence in Writing Award with its cash award of $100-$400 for each essay. Each summer, the winning essays from the previous fall and spring semesters are published in Res Publica. Read essays from the most recent edition of Res Publica.