Responding to an invitation to speak at an event honoring the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln wrote on April 6, 1859, to Henry L. Pierce and others that “one would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society” (1989b, 18). Citing this passage inCrisis of the House Divided (Jaffa 1959), Harry Jaffa picked out the Euclidean cast of Lincoln’s arguments about equality, as well as the foundational depth of the moral and political commitments those arguments express. The key toCrisis of the House Divided is Jaffa’s attention to the implications of Jefferson’s claim that it is a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and to the central role that claim plays in Lincoln’s thinking. Concern with the meaning of equality outweighs every other aspect of Jaffa’s treatment of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, even the question of the future of slavery in the western territories, the ostensible subject of the 1858 debates. Jaffa’s treatment is also distinctive in that he himself wishes to treat the proposition that all men are created equal as a self-evident truth, and he treats Lincoln’s politics as an instance of the consequences of taking the promise of equality in that way. Nowadays most American politicians treat human equality as axiomatic, and most American lay people, whatever their politics, at least give equality lip service. But it is customary for scholars to treat the idea in a historicist way, which requires them
{"title":"The Promise of Equality in Lincoln and in Jaffa","authors":"John Burt","doi":"10.1086/724456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724456","url":null,"abstract":"Responding to an invitation to speak at an event honoring the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln wrote on April 6, 1859, to Henry L. Pierce and others that “one would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society” (1989b, 18). Citing this passage inCrisis of the House Divided (Jaffa 1959), Harry Jaffa picked out the Euclidean cast of Lincoln’s arguments about equality, as well as the foundational depth of the moral and political commitments those arguments express. The key toCrisis of the House Divided is Jaffa’s attention to the implications of Jefferson’s claim that it is a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and to the central role that claim plays in Lincoln’s thinking. Concern with the meaning of equality outweighs every other aspect of Jaffa’s treatment of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, even the question of the future of slavery in the western territories, the ostensible subject of the 1858 debates. Jaffa’s treatment is also distinctive in that he himself wishes to treat the proposition that all men are created equal as a self-evident truth, and he treats Lincoln’s politics as an instance of the consequences of taking the promise of equality in that way. Nowadays most American politicians treat human equality as axiomatic, and most American lay people, whatever their politics, at least give equality lip service. But it is customary for scholars to treat the idea in a historicist way, which requires them","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"192 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48370964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I focus on Harry Jaffa ’ s teaching within the scope of my experience for two suf-fi cient reasons. Most importantly, there is a suf fi cient distinction between one ’ s teaching and one ’ s publications that there is no squared overlay of teachings and publications. That distinction does not emerge from considerations of esoter-icism and exotericism. It emerges, rather, from the force of mutual exploration between teacher and student, on the one hand, and the dynamics of exhortation, on the other hand. Although one may write in an exploratory manner, seeking to engage readers in discourse more or less open-ended
{"title":"What Harry Jaffa Taught","authors":"W. B. Allen","doi":"10.1086/724453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724453","url":null,"abstract":"I focus on Harry Jaffa ’ s teaching within the scope of my experience for two suf-fi cient reasons. Most importantly, there is a suf fi cient distinction between one ’ s teaching and one ’ s publications that there is no squared overlay of teachings and publications. That distinction does not emerge from considerations of esoter-icism and exotericism. It emerges, rather, from the force of mutual exploration between teacher and student, on the one hand, and the dynamics of exhortation, on the other hand. Although one may write in an exploratory manner, seeking to engage readers in discourse more or less open-ended","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"164 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48267192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Harry Jaffa had long retired by the time I arrived at his old department. But he was around on occasion in my first few years at Claremont McKenna, and some graduate students at neighboring Claremont Graduate University still revered Jaffa in a manner that tended toward idolatry. Stories about his preoccupation with himself still circulated among faculty, many of whom had long been his colleagues. Even some of his friends found him tiresome and his friendship a burden. Hearing about the quarrels between Jaffa andMartin Diamond, it was easy to sympathize with Diamond’s sobriety and sense of humor against Jaffa’s self-important crusades. I got to witness Jaffa’s famous self-absorption firsthand, as on several occasions I had to interrupt himwhilemoderating theQ and A for a visiting speaker. Jaffa, oblivious to everyone else in the room, was sure he was the main event and sought to conduct a Socratic dialogue with the speaker where he could control the questions and direction of the dialogue. I quickly learned to cut him off. And there were the awful screeds and quarrels that seemed to account for somuch of his writing. All in all, it putme off returning to Crisis of the House Divided.
{"title":"Crisis as Critique of the Founding","authors":"G. Thomas","doi":"10.1086/724455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724455","url":null,"abstract":"Harry Jaffa had long retired by the time I arrived at his old department. But he was around on occasion in my first few years at Claremont McKenna, and some graduate students at neighboring Claremont Graduate University still revered Jaffa in a manner that tended toward idolatry. Stories about his preoccupation with himself still circulated among faculty, many of whom had long been his colleagues. Even some of his friends found him tiresome and his friendship a burden. Hearing about the quarrels between Jaffa andMartin Diamond, it was easy to sympathize with Diamond’s sobriety and sense of humor against Jaffa’s self-important crusades. I got to witness Jaffa’s famous self-absorption firsthand, as on several occasions I had to interrupt himwhilemoderating theQ and A for a visiting speaker. Jaffa, oblivious to everyone else in the room, was sure he was the main event and sought to conduct a Socratic dialogue with the speaker where he could control the questions and direction of the dialogue. I quickly learned to cut him off. And there were the awful screeds and quarrels that seemed to account for somuch of his writing. All in all, it putme off returning to Crisis of the House Divided.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"256 - 266"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44419029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2019 I published America’s Revolutionary Mind (ARM), subtitled “AMoral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It” (Thompson 2019b). The book is the first in what is hoped to be a three-volume study of America’s revolutionary and founding periods. ARM explores the nature, causes, andmeaning of the AmericanRevolution. The book’s general purpose is twofold: first, to elucidate the logic, principles, and significance of the Declaration of Independence as the embodiment of what I referred to as America’s revolutionary mind; and second, to shed light on what John Adams called the real American Revolution—that is, the moral revolution that occurred in the minds of the people in the 15 years before 1775. More specifically, ARM uses the Declaration of Independence as a kind of ideological roadmap bywhich to chart the intellectual andmoral terrain traveled by American revolutionaries as they searched for new moral principles to deal
{"title":"The Anatomy of a Smear: A Response to Ken I. Kersch","authors":"C. Thompson","doi":"10.1086/724515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724515","url":null,"abstract":"In 2019 I published America’s Revolutionary Mind (ARM), subtitled “AMoral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It” (Thompson 2019b). The book is the first in what is hoped to be a three-volume study of America’s revolutionary and founding periods. ARM explores the nature, causes, andmeaning of the AmericanRevolution. The book’s general purpose is twofold: first, to elucidate the logic, principles, and significance of the Declaration of Independence as the embodiment of what I referred to as America’s revolutionary mind; and second, to shed light on what John Adams called the real American Revolution—that is, the moral revolution that occurred in the minds of the people in the 15 years before 1775. More specifically, ARM uses the Declaration of Independence as a kind of ideological roadmap bywhich to chart the intellectual andmoral terrain traveled by American revolutionaries as they searched for new moral principles to deal","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"278 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42097264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editors’ Note","authors":"Jeremy D. Bailey, Susan McWilliams Barndt","doi":"10.1086/724516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724516","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"277 - 277"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49041654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were between a representative of the Democratic Party and a representative of the Republican Party. Stephen A. Douglas began his presentation in the fi rst debate by declaring, “ We are present here to-day for the purpose of having a joint discussion as the representatives of the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between these parties and this vast concourse of people ” (Lincoln 1953, 3:1). Lincoln stood before the voters as a representative of the Republican Party. He began his presentation in the second debate by stating, “ I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party at Bloomington, in May 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms of the party ” (3:39). He continued, “ if any one expects me — in the case of my elec[tion] — that I will do anything not signi fi ed by our Republican platform . . . , I tell you very frank that person will be deceived ” (3:71 – 72). What the Republican and Democratic Parties stood for and which party was more faithful to the Constitution of the United States were the central issues in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
林肯和道格拉斯的辩论是在民主党代表和共和党代表之间进行的。在第一次辩论中，斯蒂芬·a·道格拉斯(Stephen a . Douglas)在演讲开始时宣布:“我们今天在这里是为了作为州和联邦两大政党的代表，就这些政党和广大人民之间存在争议的原则进行联合讨论”(Lincoln 1953, 3:1)。林肯作为共和党的代表站在选民面前。在第二场辩论中，他这样开场:“自从共和党于1856年5月在布卢明顿成立以来，我一直认为自己是一个受党的纲领约束的党员”(3:39)。他接着说，“如果有人期望我——就我的竞选而言——我会做任何不符合我们共和党政纲的事情……我实在告诉你们，那人是被欺哄的”(3:71 - 72)。共和党和民主党的立场是什么，哪个党更忠于美国宪法，这些都是林肯和道格拉斯辩论的核心问题。
{"title":"Partisan Supremacy in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates","authors":"M. Graber","doi":"10.1086/724549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/724549","url":null,"abstract":"The Lincoln-Douglas debates were between a representative of the Democratic Party and a representative of the Republican Party. Stephen A. Douglas began his presentation in the fi rst debate by declaring, “ We are present here to-day for the purpose of having a joint discussion as the representatives of the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between these parties and this vast concourse of people ” (Lincoln 1953, 3:1). Lincoln stood before the voters as a representative of the Republican Party. He began his presentation in the second debate by stating, “ I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party at Bloomington, in May 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms of the party ” (3:39). He continued, “ if any one expects me — in the case of my elec[tion] — that I will do anything not signi fi ed by our Republican platform . . . , I tell you very frank that person will be deceived ” (3:71 – 72). What the Republican and Democratic Parties stood for and which party was more faithful to the Constitution of the United States were the central issues in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"12 1","pages":"222 - 232"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44833836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":":Race and the Rhetoric of Resistance","authors":"Kundai Chirindo","doi":"10.1086/723445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723445","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42074185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":":The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson","authors":"Davis Brown","doi":"10.1086/723440","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723440","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49622528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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