A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (with New Foreword)Rowman & Littlefield, 2018 M09 1 - 620 pages When it originally appeared, A New Birth of Freedom represented a milestone in Lincoln studies, the culmination of over a half a century of study and reflection by one of America's foremost scholars of American politics. Now reissued on the centenary of Jaffa’s birth with a new foreword by the esteemed Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo, this long-awaited sequel to Jaffa’s earlier classic, Crisis of the House Divided, offers a piercing examination of the political thought of Abraham Lincoln and the themes of self-government, equality, and statesmanship on the eve of the Civil War. “Four decades ago, Harry Jaffa offered powerful insights on the Lincoln-Douglas debates in his Crisis of the House Divided. In this long-awaited sequel, he picks up the threads of that earlier study in this stimulating new interpretation of the showdown conflict between slavery and freedom in the election of 1860 and the secession crisis that followed. Every student of Lincoln needs to read and ponder this book.”— James M. McPherson, Princeton University “A masterful synthesis and analysis of the contending political philosophies on the eve of the Civil War. A magisterial work that arrives after a lifetime of scholarship and reflection—and earns our gratitude as well as our respect.”— Kirkus Reviews “The essence of Jaffa's case—meticulously laid out over nearly 500 pages—is that the Constitution is not, as Lincoln put it, a 'free love arrangement' held together by passing fancy. It is an indissoluble compact in which all men consent to be governed by majority, provided their inalienable rights are preserved.”— Bret Stephens; The Wall Street Journal |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 73
Page xxiv
... Union. Lincoln regarded this as the most profound of errors. Sovereignty was not a product of identity, but of the equality all Americans shared naturally as a gift of their Creator. As Lincoln read the Founding, the colonies were ...
... Union. Lincoln regarded this as the most profound of errors. Sovereignty was not a product of identity, but of the equality all Americans shared naturally as a gift of their Creator. As Lincoln read the Founding, the colonies were ...
Page 2
... Union against the “ingenious sophism” that “any State of the Union may, consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union or of any other State ...
... Union against the “ingenious sophism” that “any State of the Union may, consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union or of any other State ...
Page 52
... Union could never have gained their independence severally and separately. Nor could the governments of the states, after independence, have provided the security, foreign or domestic, desired by their citizens without the Union. But the ...
... Union could never have gained their independence severally and separately. Nor could the governments of the states, after independence, have provided the security, foreign or domestic, desired by their citizens without the Union. But the ...
Page 53
... Union by a state has no more constitutional standing than the coercion of a state by the Union. This relationship of mutual coercion between each state and the general government was what Jefferson envisaged in the first resolution of ...
... Union by a state has no more constitutional standing than the coercion of a state by the Union. This relationship of mutual coercion between each state and the general government was what Jefferson envisaged in the first resolution of ...
Page 70
... Union or change its republican form represented so small a threat that they might safely be tolerated. The threat was small because the people had an overwhelming interest in preserving their Union and its republican form. The enemies of ...
... Union or change its republican form represented so small a threat that they might safely be tolerated. The threat was small because the people had an overwhelming interest in preserving their Union and its republican form. The enemies of ...
Contents
1 | |
73 | |
Chapter 3 The Divided American Mind on the Eve of Conflict James Buchanan Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens Survey the Crisis | 153 |
Chapter 4 The Mind of Lincolns Inaugural and the Argument and Action of the Debate That Shaped ItI | 237 |
Chapter 5 The Mind of Lincolns Inaugural and the Argument and Action of the Debate That Shaped ItII | 285 |
Chapter 6 July 4 1861 Lincoln Tells Why the Union Must Be Preserved | 357 |
Chapter 7 Slavery Secession and State Rights The Political Teaching of John C Calhoun | 403 |
Appendix The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority Popular Sovereignty in the TerritoriesA Commentary | 473 |
Notes | 489 |
Index | 539 |
About the Author | 551 |
Other editions - View all
A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War Harry V. Jaffa Limited preview - 2000 |
A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War Harry V. Jaffa Limited preview - 2004 |
A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War Harry V. Jaffa No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Abraham Lincoln according Alexander Stephens American Revolution antislavery appeal argument Aristotle Articles Articles of Confederation assertion authority Becker become believed British Buchanan Calhoun cause citizens civil claim colonies common compact concurrent majority Confederate Congress consent constitutional right constitutionalism created equal crisis Davis debates Declaration of Independence denied despotism divine right doctrine Douglas Douglas’s Dred Scott election electoral ernment fact federal Federalist Federalist Papers Founding freedom fugitive slave Gettysburg Address God’s human idea inaugural individual institutions interest Jaffa Jefferson Jefferson Davis justice laws of nature liberty Madison majority rule man’s means ment mind moral nation natural rights nature’s Negroes opinion party popular sovereignty president principles proposition proslavery question race ratified reason republican right of revolution secede secession Senate slavery social society South Carolina Southern speech Stephens stitution Summary View Taney Taney’s territories theory tion truth tyranny Union United Virginia vote