VIEWSrnMr. Lincoln’s WarrnAn Irrepressible Conflict?rnby Patrick J. Buchananrn”[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independencernon that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between thernNorth and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen RevoltedrnProvinces. These opinions … are the...

War for Southern Independence.rnThe Birth of a MythrnAt the dedication of Gettysburg Battlefield, on November 19,rn1863, three years after Lincoln’s election, the Great Myth wasrnborn. There, Abraham Lincoln declared that the war hadrnbeen, all along, about equality.rnFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought forthrnon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty,rnand dedicated...

Union, they said, but not for black freedom… . Desertionrnrates rose alarmingly. Many soldiers blamed thernEmancipation Proclamation.rnClosing his address, Lincoln spoke of the duty imposed onrnAmericans bv those who had fallen on the great battlefield. Wern”here highly resolve,” he said, in his immortal words, “thatrnthese dead shall not have died in ain—that this nation, underrnGod,...

eral Donn Piatt, who thought Lincoln “the greatest figurernlooming up in our history.” After meeting with the Presidentelectrnin Springfield, Piatt wrote on the e’e of Lincoln’s departurernfor Washington:rnExpressing no svmpathy for the slave, [Lincoln] laughedrnat the Abolitionists. . . . We were not at a loss to get atrnthe fact, and the reason for it,...

nent an institution tliat all now agree was odious and evil? Onlyrnthis: if it was not wrong for the Founding Fathers to acceptrnslavery as the price of a constitution to establish the UnitedrnStates, it cannot be wrong for Lincoln to reaffirm the FoundingrnFathers’ concession—to repair and restore his fractured country,rnhi appeasing the South on slavery,...

Pickering in 1805: “I will rather anticipate a new confederacv,rnexempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppressionrnof the aristocratic Democrats of the South.”rnBy a twist of fate, Jefferson’s rival, Alexander Hamilton, whornhad made Jefferson President in 1801 by persuading his allies tornabandon Aaron Burr in the Mouse of Representatives in the tiernelection of 1800,...

Tlic Confederate firing on Fort Sumter may hae been thernspark that ignited the eonflagration, but the real cause of thernwar was tlie iron will of Abraham Lincoln, as resolute a Unionistrnas was Andrew Jackson, who also would have accepted warrnrather than let South Carolina secede. Thus, as the Mexicanrn\;rr had been “Jimmv Polk’s War,” this...

But Lincoln’s policy was not emancipation. It was to returnrnthe South to the Union, even if it meant appeasing the Southrnon slaery. As Lincoln wrote Greeley in his famous letter of Augustrn22, 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to saernthe Union, and is not eitlicr to sa e or destroy slaver’. If I...

may keep vour slaves, but you cannot keep your duty-free ports!rnBritish intellectuals like John Stuart Mill blithely declared,rn”Slavery the one cause of the Civil \4ir.” But, as Adams writes,rnothers in Britain put the cause elsewhere:rnhi the British House of Commons in 1862, WilliamrnForster said he believed it was generally recognized thatrnslaver’ was the cause of...

encd President John Tyler with secession if Texas were admittedrnto the Union. By the Jeffersonian test, that, to be legitimate, arngovernment must rest upon the consent of the governed, thernConfederacy had legitimacy by the time of Fort Sumter. Whatrnthe Union took back in 1865 was not free men and free states,rnbut defeated rebels and conquered...

obtaining the new power his supposed adversaries had justrnhanded him.rnBut the failure of the “Repubhcan Revolution” is due only inrnpart to the apparently genetic mental inferioritv of Rcpublieansrnand results at least as mueh from the institutional subservieneernof Congress to the presideney and its bureaueraev. Nevertheless,rnif Congress has been absorbed within the digestive tract ofrnthe executive...

rather the Northern mihtary vietory) “saved the Union”—rnthough he never seemed to grasp that a union “saved” by militaryrnconquest and devastation of more than half of it is nornlonger a union but an empire.rnLincoln wounded the Old Republic, but he failed to kill it, asrnhe failed in just about everything else that he touched. Afterrnhim,...

ating it. The apparatus required continuous feeding byrn”trained specialists” in the new science of “national security,”rnand the G.I. Bill made certain that the personnel the apparatusrndemanded would be available and that universities thenrscK’csrnwould be reconstructed to meet the needs of the new class.rnFor all the lachrymose quacking of the Watergate era aboutrnthe “imperial presidency” and...

democratic autocracy. And to some extent they did. But thernelites were not stupid: they were careful to insist that the Watergaterncontrocrs was not about the presidency as such, butrnonl about Nixon the man. That is why it became necessary tornseparate the two. How? By keeping the focus on Nixon, makingrna dc il out of him,...

Truman and Kennedy, from Nixon and Reagan to Bush andrnClinton, it has been the means by which our rights to liberty,rnproperts, and self-government have been suppressed. I canrncount on one hand the actions of Presidents that actually favoredrnthe true American cause, meaning liberty. The overwhelmingrnhistory of the presidency is a tale of overthrownrnrights and liberties,...

from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecutionrnand punishment in the ordinary course of law.rnThe person of the king of Great Britain is sacred andrninviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to whichrnhe is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected.rn. . .rnThe President will have onlv the occasional commandrnof such part of...

Conservatives used to understand this. In the last eentury,rnall the great political philosophers—men like John Randolphrnand John Taylor and John C. Calhoun—did. In this century,rnthe right was born in reaction to the imperial presidency. Menrnlike Albert Jay Nock, Caret Carrett, John T. Flynn, and FelixrnMoriey called the FDR presidency what it was: an Americanrn’crsion of...

wide latitude over Congress. It takes ava from Congress thernright to control the purse strings.rnAlso part of the Contract With America was term limitsrnfor Congress. This would represent a severe diminution ofrncongressional power with respect to the prcsidenc. After all,rnit would not mean term limits for the permanent bureaucracvrnor for federal judges, but onlv for...

to the west of the slac state of Missouri and of the same latitudernas Kentueky and Virginia was considered to be a naturalrnarea for Southern settlement. Far from discriminating againstrnNortherners or favoring the extension of slave territor oerrnfree, the act actually left the larger portion o{ the new tcrritorvrn(Nebraska) for Northern settlement. It was understood...

thev ought to make significant political concessions and grantrnconstitutional safeguards; as he pointed out, it was they, not thernSouth, who were mostly to blame for the sectional conflict.rnWhen he heard of Lincoln’s decision to reinforce and resupplyrnSumter he wrote: “I cannot conceive of a more idle, foolish, illadvised,rnif not criminal thing.” He considered this decision...

ties of the people, and its foot tramples a desecrated Constitutionrn[Applause]. Aye, in this land of free thought, free speeehrnand free writing—in this Republic of free suffrage, with libert}’rnof thought and expression as the very essence of republican institutionsrn—even here, in these free States, it is made criminalrnfor a citizen-soldier, like gallant Edgeriy, of New...

still believe they are above all else membersrnof a religious communitx. As anrncthnie, eultural, or political entity thernarc doomed.”rnBut religion is not a solution to thernthreatened problems of an ethnic group:rnit is a va of life, a worldview, embodiedrnby a social entity deemed holy, concernedrn(in the case of Judaism) withrnGod, God’s self-manifestation in thernTorah, God’s...

Targeted Missiles, Guided Democracyrnby Paul Gottfriedrn”Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.”rn—SenecarnGeorge F. Kennan and the Originsrnof Containment, 1944-1946rnby George F. Kennan and John LukacsrnColumbia: Vniversitv of Missouri Press;rn85 pp., $19.95rnThe correspondence on the origins ofrnthe Cold War between John Lukacsrnand George Kennan, who have beenrnfriends for more than four decades, is notrnentirely unknown...

Rothbard, while impressed by the ostensiblernhousecleaning within the federalrngovernment undertaken by postv-ar anticommunists,rnheld no brief for an interventionistrnforeign policy. Like RobertrnTaft, they saw McCarthyism, rightly orrnwrongly, as an expression of anti-NewrnDeal republicanism, but not as a call tornengage in crusades beyond America’srnborders. For Chodorov and other opponentsrnof the welfare state, the overridingrnconcern was not communism...

ing like the liberal opposition, while atrnthe same time appealing to Cold Warrnimperatives. This first impressed itselfrnupon me while listening to an address b’rnthe conservative celebrity Harry Jaffa, deliveredrnat a conservative youth gathering.rnThe speech, far from being greeted asrnpoppycock, brought forth extended applausernand was printed with minor variationsrnin several conservative journals. Inrnhis remarks Jaffa explained...

Wolf to find that when it comes to anythingrneven shglitly unpleasant for anyrnwoman, a cigar is never just a cigar:rn”What Daria heard was: You’re no woman;rnjust the thought is ludicrous. Yourrnnakedness is a failure.” The grandmotherrnlater apologized, but Miss Wolf explainsrnthat Daria “got the message thatrnher grandmother would not love her asrnmuch if she were...

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter FromrnAlabamarnby Michael HillrnThis Dog Won’t HuntrnJudge Roy Moore of Etowah County,rnAlabama, was sued by the ACLUrnand something cahed the AlabamarnFreethought Association (Unitarian-rnUniversalists, I believe they are) back inrn1995 for displaying the Ten Commandmentsrnon his courtroom wall and for beginningrneach session with a prayer by arnChristian clergyman. Over the past year,rnthe affair has taken several...

VITAL SIGNSrnPOLITICSrnOne NationrnIndivisiblernbyrnDonald Livingston andrnThomas H. NaylorrnI pledge allegiance to the flag of thernUnited States of America and to thernrepublic for which it stands, one nationrnunder God, indivisible, with libertyrnand justice for all.rnThere is irony in the fact that althoughrnprayer has been banned inrnour public schools, millions of Americanrnschoolkids are required to recite thernpledge to...

theorv: “The federal government didrnnot ercate the states; the states ereatedrnthe federal government.” But, whilernpretending to be a deeentralist, Reaganrnmav have contributed more to the massiverneoncentration of power in Washingtonrnthan any other President with hisrnmultitrillion-dollar peacetime militaryrnbuild- up.rnWhen there is increasing agreementrnamong liberals and conservatives alikernthat the federal government has becomerntoo big, too powerful, too...

against human nature.rnUse of manipulatives. These are basicallyrntoys of various kinds—counters,rncubes, sticks, marbles, grids, and so on.rnEven the NCTM admits in its Standardsrnthat manipulation of manipulatives is incapablernof proving any mathematicalrnproposition, yet it advocates such arnhands-on approach well into the fifthrngrade.rnThis approach is closely related to verbalization/rnvisualization in that it is innumerate,rnantitheoretical, anticonceptual,rnand antiabstract. Remember...

become entangled in an underbrush ofrnmismatched concepts to which they,rntheir parents, and their future teachersrnwill be hard pressed to bring order.”rnThe minds damaged most by beingrndragged into this “underbrush of mismatchedrnconcepts” are those of boys.rnWhat is happening today in Americanrneducation is truly a bias crime if everrnthere was one, perpetrated with mindlessrningratitude. Who, after all,...

know about nothing but were afraid tornask. One comes actually to prefer one’srnuniverse devoid of the hoax of quality.rn(It may not occur to us that anotherrnwell-known name for such a place isrnHell.)rnUnless one were a poet, say, or arnphilosopher. They, in their primordialrnpurity of function and meaning, arc asrnrare as stars in the daytime, though...

4rnNrn* >c£-^rnGREAT TOPICS—GREAT ISSUESrnTHE MEANING OF DEATH—August 1997—BillrnKauffman on the costs of war, Michael Hill on thingsrnworth dying for, Allan Carlson on the new euthanasiarnpill, and Barry Baldwin on the case for capital punishment.rnPlus Frank Brownlow’s review Gi Alias Shakespearernby Joseph Sobran and Justin Raimondo’s reportrnon George Soros.rnNATIONAL SUICIDE—July 1997—Thomas Flemingrnon learning a lesson from...

Modern Scholarly Editions of ClassicrnWorks for Today’s ReadersrnGOVERINMENT BY JUDICIARYrnTHE TRANSFORMATION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENTrnSecond EditionrnBy Raoul BergerrnForeword by Forrest McDonaldrnIt is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States SupremernCourt—largely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution—hasrnembarked on “a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise ofrninterpretation.” Consequently,...

EDITORrnThomas FlemingrnMANAGING EDITORrnTheodore PappasrnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSrnChilton Williamson, ]r,rnASSISTANT EDITORrnMichael WashburnrnART DIRECTORrnAnna Mycek-WodeckirnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSrnHarold O.]. Brown, Katherine Dalton,rnSamuel Francis, George Garrett,rnPaul Gottfried, ].0. Tate,rnClyde WilsonrnCORRESPONDING EDITORSrnBill Kauffman, William Mills,rn]acob Neusner, Momcilo SelicrnEDITORIAL SECRETARYrnLeann DobbsrnPUBLISHERrnAllan C. CarlsonrnPUBLICATION DIRECTORrnGuy C. ReffettrnPRODUCTION SECRETARYrnAnita CandyrnCIRCULATION MANAGERrnCindy LinkrnA publication of The Rockford Institute.rnEditorial and Advertising Offices:rn934 North Mam Street, Rockford, IL...

tion, unless it suits his prosecutorial purposes.rnRaimondo refers to a passage inrnmy text where I am approached by arnKGB agent, who invites me to a series ofrnlunches. Raimondo: “These discussionsrnwere always held at the best restaurantsrn[as though 1 had chosen them!], and onrnsuch occasions Horowitz claims to havernargued against Soviet repression.” [Emphasisrnadded.] On one of...

sailles Treaty), but he did apparently repudiaternHitler in late 1936 when hernheard from an acquaintance who hadrnjust returned from Germany how thernNazi regime was treating the Jews. Rememberrnthat Lovecraft died in 1937,rnlong before the true horrors of the Nazirnregime were revealed. Incidentally, Mr.rnFrancis is diametrically wrong in sayingrnthat I maintain that “Lovecraft’s racialismrnwas largely irrelevant...

CULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnT H E CHINA LOBBY was m fullrnswing this summer, and once again thern”If We Can Sell Every Chinaman JustrnOne” crowd carried the day. By a widerrnthan expected margin, the House ofrnRepresentatives defeated a resolution revokingrnChina’s Most Favored Nation status,rnletting both the Senate and the Presidentrnoff the hook.rnAs Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Businessrnand...

doubt. He was well-liked by his studentsrnand had received glowing evaluationsrnfrom his department in his four years atrnFSC. The holder of a doctorate in comparativernliterature from Columbia, Narrettrnhad delivered guest lectures at collegesrnthroughout New England and hadrnpublished papers in academic journals.rnAs for Narrett’s colleagues in the EnglishrnDepartment, their professional activitiesrnoff campus are mostly limited to...

touchstones for Christian orthodoxy—rnare clearly incompatible with Jewish convictions.rnSome Christians and Jews havernsought to bridge this gap with a “tworncovenant” theory, arguing that the Mosaicrncovenant is the means of salvationrnfor Jews, while the “new covenant” ofrnChristianity applies to Gentiles.rnThe history of relations betweenrnChristians and Jews is a long and troubledrnone, with many excesses performedrnby Christians...

PERSPECTIVErnBad Eggsrnby Thomas FlemingrnThe rich ye shall always have with you is a truth our Savior inrnhis mercy never deelared to us. That the poor should be arnpermanent fact of human society is discouraging enough, especiallyrnfor modern Americans convinced there is no problemrnthat cannot be fixed, no sin that is without a cure. Even morernoffensive...

the do-nothing belly, they starved the entire body, includingrnthemselves. The story—and the agreement to appoint Tribunesrnof the people—^had its effect.rnThe Roman plebs was not without legitimate grievances.rnThe patricians of that era, although they did provide militaryrnand political leadership, had excluded plebeians from office onrnthe basis of a racial theory. Only patricians, they insisted, hadrnthe blood...

nothing to watch, and you can do what you hke with therncountry.”rnThere have been elite classes that were up to the job: clanrnchieftains, medieval barons, the senatorial and equestrian aristocracyrnthat did the real work of governing Rome in its greatrndays. But there are obvious drawbacks to an upper class thatrnis defined by men like Periander,...

grow up in luxury. One friend of ours solved the problem by allocatingrnonly enough money to set up his sons in business andrnleft the rest to charity. Others have sent their sons to the schoolrnof hard knocks. My father, who dropped out of college to stokerncoal on the Great Lakes, was working on a ship...

must combat the illusion that the maladies of the modernrnworld can be put right by a system of instruction. . . . There isrnalso the danger that education . . . will take upon itself the reformationrnand direction of culture, instead of keeping to itsrnplace as one of the activities through which culture realizes itself.”rn(That...

in a cautious society and caution bred timidity…. That is whyrnthere was so much that was feminine in academic life, so muchrnjealousy, so much vanity, so much petty intrigue. The facultyrnseethed with gossip. Some of our best professors were so vainrnthat it was impossible to argue with them over any opinion theyrnhad made their own.”...

mock-modesty stakes was a professor in Victorian Oxford whornonce casually remarked, “Quite the nicest emperor I know isrnGermany.”rnPerhaps, at long last, someone should give thought to thernhighly antifactual question of what it would be like to livernwithout elites. It would be a more ignorant worid, presumably,rnand perhaps dangerously so. Elites are highly self-educative, afterrnall. Bankers,...

his mother Thetis’ prophecy that he would live either a shortrnand glorious life or a long and inglorious one. He is unable tornimagine a long life of honor and respect, nor can he look forwardrnto renown after his death as a consolation. His problem atrnTroy was that his comrades, and this means of course the...

all to return home, where our true life is to be found, our truernfame. Troy is wonderful, but it is a young man’s adventure andrnnot the place for a mature head of family.rnKalypso had offered him immortality combined with agelessness:rnhe could stay with her, forever young and forever vigorous,rnenjoying the male fantasy of continuous sex...

notes in the case of Penelope that the life course of a marriedrnwoman then as now in Greece was marriage, childbearing, andrnchildrearing combined with abandonment if not desertion byrnher husband. Her reward was twofold: the proper developmentrnto adulthood of her son, and the (hoped for) return of her husband.rnAn uncertain life, and Penelope was wise...