p. 314-316 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Plato shows that tyranny and democracy are the same. What is the missing element that the founders referenced and Lincoln realized? Who was Socrates interrogator, and what did he say?

Start with the dialogue from The Republic here, then go to p. 315 and start with this paragraph and read over to end of section on p. 316 (although p. 316 is not in Google preview, and needs to be read).

Interesting how "the people" was used from Plato's time, to the time of the Declaration, through to today as meaning some group other than my group. Lincoln rejects that and includes everyone in "the people."

p. 296-297 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

H.D. Thoreau and the abolitionists shared a political philosophy with Taney--what was it, and how did it put these opposites on the same side?

p. 267-269 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

In both his first inaugural and in his Lyceum speech 23 years prior, Lincoln establishes a rule for proving whether or not a people are capable of governing themselves. What's the rule? (p. 267)

What is the theory of compact or contract theory of political obligation as espoused by Jefferson and Madison? What does it mean to say that we enter into a government by unanimous consent, and what do we consent to?

How did Calhoun contradict the above?

p. 219-220 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Absolutely astounding defense of Rev. Jacob Gruber who had spoken at a Maryland camp meeting in Hagerstown, MD on the "national sin." Gruber goes to trial and picks the ablest of lawyers who delivers a defense worthy of Lincoln himself. Who was the lawyer and what did he say?

p. 197 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Buchanan agreed with Lincoln that there is no right of succession. So what put Buchanan squarely on the side of Calhoun (who did believe in a right of succession) and the South?

p. 196 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What does it mean to say that majority rules requires unanimous consent? What is America's unanimous consent? What about our natural rights do we give up when we enter into a government? What does it mean to say "without the recognition of the laws of nature there can be no states rights consistent with human rights"?

p.183-185 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

How is no-fault divorce analogous to Southern nullification? "But a compact to form a government, like a marriage, although entered voluntarily, does not leave the contracting parties free thereafter to do as they please." What is the 'positive good' theory of slavery that Calhoun supported?

Calhoun did not believe the Union was a contract that states could enter and leave as they please, but he saw nullification and possible succession (failing nullification) as the proper route.

The marriage analogy is similar to Douglas' popular sovereignty argument that Buchanan rejected. Buchanan believed in the 'positive good' of slavery, and that if all the states did not recognize slavery as a 'positive good' then that would justify succession.

Buchannan believed the South could justify resistance on the basis of the natural law of self preservation, but he could "see no justification for resistance to slavery." p. 185. Under slavery, the positive law denied the slave the right to defend himself against the theft of his property in the fruit of his labor and the violence to his person that might be committed with impunity by his master. But the sovereign rights to life, liberty, and property are inseparable from one's being." p. 184

p.183 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What was the 1833 Tariff Law? How did South Carolina respond? What were the issues at stake? Who claimed victory and why? Contrast Calhoun/Buchannan with Jackson.

Read from the highlight here to the end of the paragraph.

pp. 170-171 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What was the issue that divided North and South as BOTH Buchannan and Lincoln saw it?

Lincoln at Cooper Institute, February 1860: "These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right."

See also "untranslatable" on p. 151.

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.

pp. 121-123 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

Connect the use of the courts in the gay marriage movement, and the natural right of revolution with this statement by Jaffa: "It cannot be emphasized too often that the doctrine of the Declaration requires a people who can appeal truthfully and sincerely to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of their intensions."

Personal note: Most political arguments are proxies. Relate Jaffa's quote here to Chambers here.

p. 117 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What was self-contradictory about James II returning the Church of England to Rome? What aspect of that contradiction led to the overthrow of James, which was decisive for the future of popular government? Also, what is the connection revealed in the American compact between private property and the common belief of "endowed by our Creator..."

pp. 114-115 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What natural right is always given up when civil society forms a government? How is private property central to the American compact? And what did Calvin Coolidge assert happened for the first time in the history of mankind at the American Founding?

p. 60 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

The election of 1800 was the first of its kind the world had ever seen. How so? How did it impact everything that came after it in American history?

Relevant Passage: Henceforth, the kinds of differences that appeared in the debates over ratification reappeared as differences over the interpretation of the Constitution and in that way contributed to the rise of parties. Jefferson speaks as follows of this world-historical event of 1800: During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.

pp. 33-34 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What are the outcomes of the Alien and Sedition Acts? What must we not "read back into" these outcomes?

Relevant Passage: These acts were followed by the resolutions of the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures in November and December of the same year, and a further resolution adopted in Kentucky in February 1799. These protests presented the already familiar argument about strict construction as a constitutional requirement of the Tenth Amendment. They also introduced, as a necessary inference from the doctrine of strict construction, a theory of civil liberty as the ground of the legitimacy of the political process. If we understand the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions as Jefferson and Madison understood them at the time, the defense of state rights and the defense of civil liberty formed part of a single argument. Looked at in the light of nearly two centuries, however, they stand at the headwaters of two divergent trends in American political and constitutional history. The defense of state rights against "numerical majoritarianism" and the "tyranny of the majority" became in time a defense of slavery and, after that, of Jim Crow. Paradoxical as it may be, in its association with "state rights," the argument against "tyranny" became the argument for "despotism," notwithstanding the fact that these two words at bottom mean the same thing. For Jefferson and Madison, however, the rights of the states, as of all legitimate civil societies, were grounded in the natural rights of individuals, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and the bills of rights of the states. The rights of the states and the condemnation of slavery were part of the same doctrine. To understand the election of 1800, we must not read back into it the opposition between state rights and civil liberties that may be said to have begun (as Lincoln saw it) in the nullification crisis of 1828 to 1833.

p. 57 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

How did the Federalists and the anti-Federalists define their differences at the Founding? How do we compare that to today?

Relevant Passage: Yet the Anti-Federalists saw the proposed Constitution as an encroachment upon the rights of the states and the people, while the Federalists saw it as a means for rectifying the weaknesses of a government radically inadequate for securing those same rights.

pp. 37-38 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

What was the contradiction of the seceding states in 1860-1861 from a Jeffersonian standpoint? What did the southern states mean by compact and what did Jefferson and Madison mean?

Relevant Passage: Jefferson appeals throughout the Kentucky Resolutions to the principles of "compact," the Constitution itself being a particular compact."' The idea of compact is at the heart of American constitutionalism. It is at the heart of the philosophical statesmanship that made the Revolution, of which the Constitution is the fruit." In the most fundamental respect, compact is an inference from the proposition "that all men are created equal." If men were by nature unequal-that is to say, if some were horn with saddles on their hacks, and others booted and spurred-then it would be naturally right for those with the boots and spurs to ride those with the saddles. It is because there is no such inequality within the human species that legitimate government arises from compact or consent. In 1860-61, the "seceding" states also referred to the Constitution as a compact. From their peculiar understanding of its meaning, they found justification, not only for slavery, but also for their withdrawal from the Union. That understanding differed fundamentally from Madison's and Jefferson's, in that it severed the connection between human equality and the requirement of consent. They might consistently, even if erroneously, have denied both equality and consent; but they could not consistently demand the benefit of being ruled only by their own consent while denying that other human beings shared in that human nature that is the original and necessary justification for the requirement of consent. It is therefore of the highest importance that we understand the term "compact" as an expression of the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence and as the essence of the philosophical and constitutional statesmanship of the Revolution. This is the sense in which Jefferson and Madison understood it in 1798-99, a very different sense from that in which it was used by South Carolina and her spokesmen in the debates surrounding nullification and secession from circa 1831 to 1861.