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Reviews in American History 29.3 (2001) 368-376



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Naturally Right

Daniel J. McInerney


Harry V. Jaffa.A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000. xiv + 549 pp. Appendix, notes, and index. $35.00.

A little over four decades ago, in his study of the fierce conflicts of the 1850s, Harry V. Jaffa proposed setting quite a few records straight. Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1959) challenged popular trends in historical interpretation, explored an unfamiliar side of Abraham Lincoln, and reassessed the whole project of contemporary political science. Jaffa took on the work of James G. Randall and a host of other historical "revisionists" who had portrayed Lincoln as an ambitious and opportunistic demagogue, one more sorry player in an era filled with posturing politicians who unnecessarily stirred the pot of sectional antagonism and made the manageable problem of slavery tragically unmanageable. Jaffa countered that the then-candidate for the Senate was a person of uncommon intellectual and moral stature, a serious, disciplined thinker who remained true to a noble and eternal set of values concerning human equality that distinguished him from political opponents and guided the nation through its most profound crisis. Jaffa's study drew inspiration from the writings of Leo Strauss, both in its vigorous defense of natural rights and in its attempt to understand the pronouncements and projects of the 1850s in the context of their times. "Henceforward," Jaffa wrote in his 1981 preface to the book, "political science, properly so called, would have at its heart the study of the speeches and deeds of statesmen. Crisis of the House Divided was an attempt at a pioneer study of this new political science." 1

Prof. Jaffa has now completed the promised sequel to his 1959 work. In A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, the author maintains his Straussian analysis, advances the story of Lincoln and the nation forward in time, and scrutinizes a new body of scholarship. In the process, his philosophical and historical study becomes even more explicitly a cultural critique.

Jaffa grounds the book in a particular understanding of historical inquiry. A student of the past, he argues, must examine historical figures according to [End Page 368] their own assumptions and values rather than the standards of the present: "To understand the past, it is necessary to attempt to see it as it appeared to those who lived it" (p. 358). "Those" in the past who best illuminate the temperament of their period, judging by Jaffa's focus, are its statesmen, leaders, and prominent thinkers. To appreciate these exceptional figures, it is best to consult their actions and their words, especially the critical pronouncements that both distilled and shaped an age. And when examining these works, scholars should remain attentive to minute details as well as broad themes, to ideas left unsaid as well as those eloquently stated.

A number of philosophical propositions also guide the study. The author asserts that there are absolute truths to the universe. These truths are independent of historical circumstance, discernible to the human mind, confirmed by experience, and binding on society. These principles provide a stable, rational, and moral ground for human action, appropriate to all people, in all ages, all regions, and all cultures. On matters of governance, in particular, the firmest basis for a political order rests on a recognition and respect for the laws that govern nature and for the natural rights of humanity that derive from those laws. As Jaffa notes when discussing the Summary View of the Rights of British America, "the source of all British rights, like all American rights, whether historic, prescriptive, or ancestral, is nature" (p. 12).

With these principles in mind, Jaffa launches into a study that he identifies as a commentary on the Gettysburg Address (p. xi). But he has much more in mind than simply moving from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates to the 1863 speech. As the author states, "a...

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