A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War [Paperback]

Harry V. Jaffa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0847699536 | ISBN-13: 978-0847699537

A New Birth of Freedom is the culmination of over a half a century of study and reflection by one of America's foremost scholars of American politics, Harry V. Jaffa. This long-awaited sequel to Crisis of the House Divided, first published in 1959, continues Jaffa's piercing examination of the political thought of Abraham Lincoln and the themes of self-government, equality, and statesmanship. Whereas Crisis of the House Divided focused on the famous senate campaign debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, this volume expands and deepens Jaffa's analysis of American political thought, and gives special attention to Lincoln's refutation of the arguments of John C. Calhoun—the intellectual champion of the Confederacy. According to Jaffa, the Civil War is the characteristic event in American history—not because it represents a statistical frequency, but rather because through the conflict of that war we are able to understand what is fundamentally at stake in the American experiment in self-government.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At last Jaffa, professor emeritus of political philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, delivers the long-promised and very worthy sequel to his classic, Crisis of the House Divided (1958), which brilliantly synthesized the content and meaning of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. In his new work for the serious student of the 16th president's Jeffersonian interpretation of Constitutional law, Jaffa sees Lincoln's utterances in the debates as summarizing his political thinking from the time of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise (1854) up until his message to Congress on July 4, 1861. Starting with the July 4th address, Lincoln began to wrangle politically and intellectually with the legacy of John C. Calhoun andDmore specificallyDwith Calhoun's arguments for states' rights and secession. Calhoun had built a rhetoric separating states' rights from natural rights; he claimed that his new political science superseded the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist thinking and that of the Founding Fathers in general. In this book's penultimate chapterDa fascinating critique of Calhoun's paradigmDJaffa accomplishes what he set out to do and vindicates, in his own words, "not only Lincoln's rejection of the Southern states' rights dogma but also the intrinsic validity of the natural rights of the Declaration of Independence, encompassing the proposition that all men are created equal." This title, which features a stark and striking photo of Lincoln on its jacket, should sell on Jaffa's reputationDRowman & Littlefield is planning a substantial first printing of 10,000 copies, and the author will do promotion in California, where he lives, and in Washington, D.C. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Jaffa has again delivered a powerful contribution to Lincoln scholarship. Historians will find many riches in Jaffa's latest learned volume. (Michael Vorenberg American Historical Review )

Harry V. Jaffa takes his time. The wait is well worth it. In unpacking Lincoln's great speeches and debate orations, Jaffa shows what an astute, formidable, and brilliant interlocutor Lincoln was. (Elshtain, Jean Bethke Civil War Book Review )

On exhibit in this book is a powerful intellect. . . . Among the prominent Americans who are brilliantly illuminated here as they have rarely been are Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, and, of course, Abraham Lincoln. (Anastaplo, George )

A New Birth of Freedom more than meets the critical expectations that Professor Jaffa has invited in the years since his acclaimed study, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, reoriented scholarly investigation of Abraham Lincoln and the coming the Civil War. A work of profound historical erudition and disciplined philosophical criticism, Jaffa's new work offers an original analysis of the crisis of the Union in the perspective of the western political tradition and in the context of the constitutional principles of the American Revolution. More judiciously than any other twentieth-century scholar writing in the nationalist tradition, Jaffa meets the challenge posed by the political philosophy and constitutional constructions of John C. Calhoun and the southern secessionists. Recognizing the openness of the historical situation that existed in 1861, Jaffa provides the most searching and fair-minded analysis of Lincoln's reasons for resisting secession that I have ever read. (Belz, Herman )

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. (McPherson, James M. )

With A New Birth of Freedom Harry V. Jaffa reestablishes himself as the greatest living scholar of Lincoln's political thought and Lincoln's greatest defender, period. Jaffa's analysis of the First Inaugural is without parallel as he demonstrates once and for all the incoherence of Calhoun's arguments for the southern secession. For every citizen interested in the preservation of the American union and the principles on which it rests, Jaffa's book is a must-read. (Smith, Steven B. )

Harry V. Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom is a brilliant and incisive explication of the political ideas that were at the heart of the coming of the Civil War. Jaffa is at his very best in demolishing the currently fashionable argument that the ideal of equality was not part of the American constitutional system from its beginning. This is a work of deep learning and great relevance, both to Lincoln's time and our own. It is a worthy sequel to the author's classic study, A Crisis of the House Divided. (Gienapp, William E. )

Forty years ago, Harry Jaffa wrote the greatest book on Abraham Lincoln's politics for a generation; now, Jaffa has written the greatest book on Lincoln's politics for another generation. A New Birth of Freedom is a relentless, powerful analysis of how Abraham Lincoln claimed the high intellectual ground of right, of universality, and of prudence from the romantic and racist ideology of John Calhoun—and claims it still from the shadow of Calhoun's postmodern imitators. (Guelzo, Allen C. )

Harry Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided could rank as the 'first book' of American political science, for it showed how the whole tradition of political philosophy was brought to bear, by a gifted political man, on the gravest crisis of the American regime. For the same reason, that book stands, even today, as the best book ever written on Lincoln: it gave an account of Lincoln at the highest level, by actually taking seriously the substance of Lincoln's political thought. In A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa provides the sequel, long-awaited. It is a sublime work, advancing and deepening the first. Lincoln comes out even more clearly in this new book as a model of 'classic statesmanship,' set off against all of the moral premises that would come with modernity, as Right and Left, would back into nihilism and reject the moral tradition. In Jaffa's hand, the account of Lincoln reaches the poetic, as indeed it must, for as the author allows, 'the place of the necessity in great poetry imposed by the artist may be occupied by a providential order in history, revealed in the speeches of the tragic hero.'

(Arkes, Hadley )

Forty years after his Crisis of the House Divided, widely recognized as a classic analysis of the ideas articulated in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Harry Jaffa has brought the same combination of impressive learning, breadth of knowledge and bold argument to his study of Lincoln's ideas at the outbreak of war. He places Lincoln's thought in a rich and broad context that ranges from Plato and Aristotle, and Dante and Shakespeare to Jefferson and Calhoun. This is a distinctive and provocative contribution to the current debate about the ideology and the ideals of America's greatest president. (Parish, Peter )

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 appearance of Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War is an intellectual event of some significance. . . . The new volume will not prove a disappointment. It is a product of rigorous reasoning, reflects a profound knowledge of Lincoln and his era, and is cast in vigorous prose. And like the earlier volume, it expresses a deep moral seriousness. (Tinder, Glenn The Weekly Standard )

At last Jaffa, professor emeritus of political philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, delivers the long-promised and very worthy sequel to his classic, Crisis of the House Divided (1958), which brilliantly synthesized the content and meaning of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. (Publishers Weekly )

This dense, demanding book on political philosophy will repay many readings and is a powerful rebuttal of those who insist that passion alone drives history and that great men did not mean what they said. (Miller, Randall M. Library Journal )

In this deeply thought-out and eloquently argued book, the sequel to his acclaimed Crisis of the House Divided, Harry Jaffa brilliantly distills the political thinking of Abraham Lincoln and its potent legacy. (Charles Sermon The State )

Jaffa shows the inner unity of Lincoln's words and deeds with an intelligence and loving care never before equaled. (Kesler, Charles R. The Claremont Review Of Books )

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 )

A New Birth of Freedom was worth the wait. Jaffa has produced a tour de force: an unabashed but scholarly celebration of Lincoln, liberty, and equality; a book that achieves Jaffa's goal of understanding 'the true measure of Lincoln's greatness.' (James L. Swanson Chicago Tribune )

Jaffa's prose is elegant and learned but complex, and, like his arguments, intellectually demanding. This absorbing book requires much effort on the part of the reader, but that effort is well rewarded. (CHOICE )

No other scholar has scrutinized the main documents of early American political thought as thoroughly as Jaffa. Prof. Jaffa's valuable book is as comprehensive as an encyclopedia and as exegetical as a scholastic thesis. Whether one agrees with him entirely or not, his argument that the ideas of Jefferson and Lincoln represent an organic continuity is original and daring and deserves to be debated for years to come. (Diggins, John Patrick National Review )

This book is a scholarly effort. It is not an easy read, yet the logic Professor Jaffa offers flows clearly, orderly, and in abundance. (The Anniston Star )

Jaffa's new book has the same solid core that his earlier book possessed. (First Things )

A mighty achievement that will likely (and justly) dominate the landscape of American political thought for some time to come. (Religion & Liberty )

Harry Jaffa has crafted a captivating study of Abraham Lincoln's decision to save the Union by force in the secession crisis following his 1860 election to the presidency. The author broadly examines the intellectual, moral, and legal bases of the American founding to show how Lincoln's positions were logically derived. (Benjamine P. Tyree Book World )

Erudition, brilliance, probing analysis of texts, and the relation of ideas to others. His [Jaffa's] writing is insightful, imaginative, argumentative, and usually persuasive. This book makes an important contribution to the study of Lincoln's thought.

(James A. Rawley History )

Scholars should add A New Birth of Freedom to their must-read list. (Daniel J. McInerney Reviews In American History )

Jaffa presents an impressive analysis of Lincoln in the context of Jefferson, Madison, Calhoun, and even William Shakespeare. A New Birth of Freedom is an outstanding book. (Liberty )

A New Birth of Freedom is a master work by a true and learned master of history and philosophy. It is a must for every serious student of the founding of our nation, of Abraham Lincoln, and of the Civil War. A New Birth of Freedom should be required reading for all lawyers, judges, members of political bodies, and of the body politic, and especially those still in school. (The Civil War News )

The principal virtue of Jaffa's book is the seriousness with which it treats its main topic. (The Journal Of American History )

Jaffa's analysis of Lincoln and his rhetoric offers great insight. . . . One hopes that . . . Jaffa may enjoy a lifespan of Mosaic proportions and continue for many years to enrich our understanding of Lincoln. (Rhetoric and Public Affairs )

No mere review can do justice to this new book; suffice to say that it is a stunning work of scholarship and erudition that vindicates Lincoln against both his contemporary adversaries and those who in our own time would diminish him and the principles of the American Founding he sought to perpetuate. (Washington Times )

Continues the biography of Abraham Lincoln begun in Crisis of the House Divided.

(Chicago Tribune )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (February 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847699536
• ISBN-13: 978-0847699537
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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81 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy as History, July 17, 2001

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Hardcover)

In 1958, Professor Jaffa published "Crisis of the House Divided" which remains the definitive study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. "A New Birth of Freedom", published more that 40 years later, is the promised sequel to the book, and in it Professor Jaffa explores with depth the philosophical and governmental ideas that he believes underlie Lincoln's Presidency, his approach to the issue of slavery, and the Civil War and preservation of the Union.

This book is much broader in scope than Professor Jaffa's earlier book and is more engaged in the philosophical analysis of ideas than with the presentation simply of historical fact. Professor Jaffa asks at the outset what, if anything, differentiates the Southern Secession following the election of Lincoln to the Presidency from the actions of the Colonists in declaring independence from Britain in 1776. In answering this question, Professor Jaffa offers a discussion of the Jefferson-Adams election of 1800, showing how for the first time in history how a democratic society could resolve severe disagreement through the use of ballots in an election rather than through the use of bullets.

Jaffa's history has, I think, these two themes: 1.The Declaration of Independence's statement that "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal" did, indeed, apply for Jefferson and his contemporaries to all people, including the then African-American slaves. 2. The Declaration of Independence itself created a perpetual union of what had been 13 separate colonies of Britian and made the United States one country rather than a confederation of separate states.

Underlying these historical claims is a broader philosophical argument that is even more at the core of the book: Jaffa wants to reject arguments of cultural relativism, historicism, skepticism or other philosophical positions that argue agains the existence of objective moral principles. He finds that Jefferson correctly viewed the language of his declaration "All men are created equal" as expressing a moral truth based upon "the law of Nature and of Nature's God." Jaffa argues for a position based upon Natural Law, in the sense that moral standards are somehow truths independent of human will or of historical circumstances. His Natural Law theory, as I find it, is drawn from an uneasy confluence of the thought of Locke, Aristotle, and the Bible.

The book is less of a chronological historical account than a textual analysis and commentary on the speeches and writings of thinkers and politicians in Civil War America. Professor Jaffa offers a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of Lincoln's First Inauguaral Address and of his July 4, 1861 message to Congress following the outbreak of hostilites. His approach is less on the pragmatic conduct of the government (although that is discussed as well) than on Lincoln as a thinker expressing what Jaffa sees as a commitment to Natural Law and the the inalienable nature of the Union which Lincoln strove to preserve.

Lincoln's thought is compared and contrasted, in almost as great detail, with speeches by James Buchanan, Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas and John Calhoun. These individuals are shown to reject the principles of Natural Law that Professor Jaffa finds articulated in the Declaration of Independence and by Lincoln. Their though is compared rather explicitly by Professor Jaffa to academic modernism and skepticism regarding the objective character of moral principle.

There are fascinating discussions of Shakespeare's histories, Aristotle, and, particularly the "Federalist" and the works of Thomas Jefferson. In contrast to many modern historians, Jaffa sees Lincoln in the Gettysburg address as reaffirming the position of Thomas Jefferson rather than as effecting a change in the nature of the American ideal.

This is a difficult, thoughtful,challenging book. It is more of value for its philosophical outlook and challenge than for any addition to the store of historical knowledge. For those who want to think about the philosophical bases for our institutions, this book is highly worthwhile. It is a different sort of successor, but a worthy successor, to Professor Jaffa's study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

55 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln's Philosophy, June 4, 2003

By 

Peter Stephens "Peter Stephens" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Hardcover)

A New Birth of Freedom is a book about Lincoln's political philosophy, which Lincoln himself said (in so many words) eminated completely from the Declaration of Independence. The book is the sequel to Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided, written over 40 years earlier. In Crisis, Jaffa takes up Douglas' arguments in the famous 1858 debates for the first half of the book and then Lincoln's in the second half. In New Birth, Jaffa backs up from the 1850's to take in a sweep of history and thought from Classic Greece to the present.

If the material in New Birth is far more wide-ranging than in Crisis, the theme in New Birth is much more precise. The south lost the war, but the philosophy behind the justifications advanced by southern leaders such as Calhoun, Taney and Stephens is winning the battle of the minds.

Crisis of the House Divided is like being in philosophy class, but New Birth is like being over at the professor's house later for drinks. Jaffa seems to lazily go over mountains of quotes, philosophers, and arguments, and he returns again and again to make the same points. But it's never tedious. One finds Jaffa's repetitions well-worded and essential in understanding how far we've fallen philosophically. And eventually, toward the end, one gets a sense of the book's structure.

Here's the book's thesis. Most of us admire Lincoln, but most of us wouldn't agree with his political pholosophy. Lincoln really did believe that our nation was dedicated to a proposition -- a proposition that also brought forth natural rights. Mr. Jaffa demonstrates how 19th Century historicism has won out over the Founders' concept of natural rights. Just as Nietzsche bitterly accounts for how Jewish thought won out after the Israelites were defeated, A New Birth of Freedom laments the asecndency of the Confederacy's historical approach in today's political thinking.

Jaffa traces natural rights from Greek and Jewish thought through Locke, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. Basically, Jaffa teaches that natural rights begin with the doctrine of the "state of nature." In this state, a person has the right to life and liberty, and to property in order to defend his right to life and liberty. People form government in order to better protect these inalienable rights. In so doing, they yield the exercise of some of their rights, but not the rights themselves, which are inalienable. The people reserve the right of revolution, which is strongly asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Legitimate government can only exist through the consent of the governed, by a unanimous compact or contract. The measures of such a government by the majority's will are deemed the will of the whole, so long as the minority's rights are not violated by the measures.

All of this presupposes that all men are created equal. Jefferson found this self-evident, famously pointing out that we don't find some people born with spurs on their shins and others born with saddles on their backs. Natural rights recognizes a distinction beween God and mankind, on the one hand, and a distinction between mankind and beasts, on the other. The historical school finds all of this an accident of history. Picking up with Jaffa:

"The historical school, which by the 1850s had largely displaced the natural rights school of the Founding, had also given rise to the romantic movement of the mid-nineteenth century. It too repudiated natural right, because it repudiated 'rationalism,' insisting as it did that 'the heart had its reasons which reason did not know.' Accordingly, Lincoln's Socratic reasoning was rejected, because the very idea of justification by reasoning had come to be rejected. History, not reason, decided that some should be masters and others should be slaves. This movement of Western thought, from the natural rights school to the historical shcool, culminated in the Nazi and the Communist regimes of the twentieth century."

This was one of Jaffa's few specific references to how the relativism of the historical school has affected modern history. I hope that, in his next book, Mr. Jaffa will give many more examples of how our retreat from the Founders' conception of natural rights -- and the clear distinction among God, people, and beasts underling that conception -- has cost us.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The argument for Lincoln, March 20, 2001

By 

scott sirk (Fishers, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Hardcover)

This is a challenging book, but an outstanding and necessary book. The book states the argument that Lincoln was right intellectually as well as morally in regard to the questions of his day slavery and Union. Further that Lincoln was consistent with the political views of Jefferson and Madison. The Southern argument of Calhoun and Jefferson Davis perverted the Constituion. The key in their failure is set forth by Mr. Jaffa's statement " The right to alter or abolish government is unalienable, according to Jefferson's Declaration only because rights with which all men have been equally endowed by their Creator are unalienable. Davis, like South Carolina demand respect for the conclusion while ignoring the premises. (p.236) The author clearly states Lincoln's goals of preserve free elections, preserve the Union and set slavery on the ultimate course of extinction. Lincoln was a political genius and he was right. Lincoln admired the Declaration of Independence, the Constituion, the Union and the rule of law. He maintained the principles of the Founding Fathers while recognizing the compromises they had to make for the greater good. Slavery must die and he preferrred to see it die incrementally and under the Constituion, but if there was a rebellion then Lincoln at great cost would preserve the Union.