p. 14 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

Tocqueville's critique of his asst, Gobineau (and a fine critique of Nietsche's position), who believed in pure scientism:

No, I will not believe that this human species, which is at the head of visible creation, should become the debased flock that you tell us it is and that there is nothing more to do than to deliver it without future and without recourse to a small number of shepherds who, after all, are not better animals than we are and are often worse. You will permit me to have less confidence in you than in the bounty and justice of God.

Another way of putting this conservative foundation is this: God created man, God made man the head of all his creation, man is loved by God personally, and THEREFORE man can never be self-sovereign. Tocqueville attacks Gobineau for removing God from the picture thus allowing him to set himself up as the self-sovereign ruler of man.

Contrast this with clip below where Donahue complains that capitalism doesn't reward virtue, meaning that material rewards should follow from virtue. This is the opposite message of Christ, who foresaw not mundane rewards but earthly suffering for the virtuous. For Christ, following Him equated to virtue. There's little chance this is what Donahue meant by virtue, as evidenced by his belief that virtue should be rewarded with material gain. Tocqueville wasn't particularly Christian, but recognized the danger of material gain becoming the goal of democracy.

Friedman is brilliant in his answer to Donahue, and yet Friedman isn't as close to Tocqueville as he sounds. Donahue complains that capitalism doesn't reward virtue. Friedman rightly points out that no system or person does reward virtue, and no one should be trusted with doing so. But Tocqueville doesn't attack Gobineau just because he wants to be the entrusted ruler, but because Gobineau ignores the hierarchy of man's relationship with God. Friedman, God bless him, disregarded that hierarchy as well.

pp. 155-157 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

How did Jefferson Davis translate the meaning of the Declaration?

"...according to Davis, the equality proclaimed therein was one of communities, not individuals."

The Audacity of the State, by Douglas Farrow

This drawing is my attempt to sum up this article by Douglas Farrow.

Witness by Whittaker Chambers, from the foreward

The crisis of Communism exists to the degree in which it has failed to free the peoples that it rules from God...The crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.

pp. 108-109 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Perhaps the slogan of modern secularists (and there really is no such thing...everyone makes something most important and therefore has a religion) could be "everyone is entitled to their own opinion," and the seemingly infinite variety of opinion is why no Christian or Jew could ever be justified in quoting the Word to justify a position of public policy. How can we argue that such a position upends the a founding principle of the Declaration of Independence?

Quote:

How can we say that men's interests generate their opinions when some men, at least, decide what their interests are only after they have decided what those interests ought to be? One of the conspicuous features of the Declaration of Independence is the appeal of its Signers "to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions." Becker would have us believe that they were either deluded or insincere.

Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1791-1794). Kindle Edition.


Quote:

Can we not then ask whether some human beings differ in nature from others in such degree or kind as to make their slavery just, whether they consent to it or not?" This at bottom is the question that Carl Becker declares is meaningless, and it is this question we must be prepared to answer.

Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1811-1813). Kindle Edition.

Carl Becker declares such questions meaningless because at root, he says, are ulterior motives or interests. If Becker is correct for the majority of people, what difference does it make if a leader like Lincoln believes otherwise?

pp. 97-98 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Read Carl Becker's quote at the beginning of the chapter, and then Becker quote at bottom of p. 97. Now, what is critical for Becker? Also, see pp. 103-104 and realize what the Declaration is not.

Quote at beginning of chapter:

To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the Declaration of Independence is true or false is essentially a meaningless question. -Carl Becker

Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1231-1232). Kindle Edition.

pp. 95-97 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What is the "fundamental distinction" that must be eliminated as part of the new morality?

Quote:

What deserves particular notice in Becker's summary of Darwinism is the twofold denial, first, of any fundamental distinction between natural history and human history, and, second, of any fundamental distinction between force and right. Thus: "In a universe in which man seemed only a chance deposit on the surface of the world, and the social forces no more than a resolution of blind force, the `right' and the `fact' were indeed indistinguishable; in such a universe the rights which nature gave to man were easily thought of as measured by the power he could exert."35

Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1625-1629). Kindle Edition.

More here...

What Becker writes here constitutes as well an endorsement of Calhoun's theory of the concurrent majority, by which only those minorities that are powerful enough to obstruct the will of the majority are entitled to the veto power.

Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1631-1632). Kindle Edition.

pp. 82-83 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

How can Carl Becker argue that to ask whether natural rights is true or false is a meaningless question? And how does Jaffa answer Becker?

Relevant Passages: They were certain that from the abolitionists to the advocates of the positive good of slavery, those who asserted a ground of truth for their moral preferences were laboring under delusions. They therefore condemned, whether explicitly or implicitly, those politicians on either side of the Mason and Dixon Line who inflamed the uncompromisable moral passions of the electorate.

They were convinced that they knew, as Lincoln and his fellow citizens did not, that to ask whether slavery was right or wrong was to ask, in the words of Carl Becker, an "essentially meaningless question."

The answer is that in our time, truth has been disarmed by the opinion that reason is impotent to know what is just or unjust, right or wrong, true or false.

p. 75 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What is first necessary to be a revisionist and declare that the Civil War was unnecessary?

Relevant Passage: Revisionist historians thus approached the Civil War convinced a priori that they understood the questions facing the American people of that period better than Lincoln or any of his contemporaries. They were convinced that they knew, as Lincoln and his fellow citizens did not, that to ask whether slavery was right or wrong was to ask, in the words of Carl Becker, an "essentially meaningless question." And they concluded that to go to war over a difference of opinion that could not be settled by any rational means was essentially foolish.