Lincoln

Remembering Mr. Lincoln

Featured image Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are »

Anatomy of mobs

Featured image The left in all its manifestations wrongly dismisses the right’s critique of its condemnation of the Capitol riot as “whataboutism.” William Voegeli has contributed the definitive analysis and takedown of the left’s condemnation in the City Journal essay “About ‘whataboutism.'” (Jewish World Review has reposted Bill’s column here.) Voegeli harshly makes out the bad faith of the left. Beyond the bad faith of the left, however, we need to understand »

Lincoln’s message on mob rule

Featured image Our friend Jean Yarbrough is the Gary M. Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Government at Bowdoin College and the author, most recently, of Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, 2013 winner of the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on the American presidency. If you have ever wondered what we are to make of Theodore Roosevelt, Professor Yarbrough’s book »

The eternal meaning of Independence Day

Featured image On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and »

Through Douglass’s eyes

Featured image The relationship between the former slave Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln provides deep insight into both men. Douglass’s recollection of his first meeting with Lincoln — “I shall never forget my first interview with this great man” — is a highlight of the 1892 version of Douglass’s autobiography (The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass). In the Claremont Review of Books celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in »

A word from Ken Masugi

Featured image In the adjacent post I prefaced the dedicatory speech by Frederick Douglass at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Memorial with a quote from David Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Douglass. I was prompted to post Douglass’s speech by Professor Blight’s current Washington Post column that I passed over in silence in my post. Our friend Ken Masugi is not so inclined. He comments: “Unfortunately, Blight threw away his scholarship to »

Frederick Douglass speaks

Featured image David Blight opens his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Frederick Douglass with the unveiling of The Freedmen’s Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1876. At the heart of Blight’s opening is his account and analysis of Douglass’s Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at the unveiling. In the speech, Blight writes, Douglass “had named the pain and betrayal of ages. Now he entered the celebration….He recognized how »

One More Glance at Abe

Featured image I didn’t get in on the observances here of Lincoln’s birthday earlier in the week, though Scott had the beat well covered. But perhaps one last glance back. From time to time people ask me what I regard as the best Lincoln biography, and without hesitation I still always pick Lord Charnwood’s 1917 biography (though Allan Guelzo’s various books on Lincoln are equivalent in their quality). In fact I have »

A genius for friendship

Featured image Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom »

Remembering Mr. Lincoln

Featured image Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are »

Trump versus Lincoln: A tentative second look [with comment by Paul]

Featured image If I were one of the 1500 “US adult citizens” willing to sit for the not insubstantial amount of time it must have taken respondents to fill out The Economist/YouGov November 24-November 26 poll, I would have been among the 410 or so who self-identified as Republicans and among the 437 or so who self-identified as 2016 Trump voters in response to several of the poll’s questions (if I’m reading »

Axioms and Animadversions (2)

Featured image • I recall a few years back that it was fashionable to argue that Abraham Lincoln was a closet homosexual, based on the thin tissue of his letters to Joshua Speed and other close friends, along with the fact that Lincoln sometimes shared a bed with a man (including Speed I think), especially when out on the road doing legal work and staying at the local inn. To be sure, »

The eternal meaning of Independence Day

Featured image On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and »

Remembering Mr. Lincoln

Featured image Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are »

Democratic Mobs, Then and Now

Featured image News item: Two GOP candidates assaulted in Minnesota. News item: Antifa mob overruns Portland, and Democratic mayor stands aside. (And to think, I had dinner once with Ted Wheeler a few years ago, before he was elected mayor of Portland, and thought he was a sensible human being. Another case of misleading first impressions I guess.) News item: Ricin sent to Sen. Susan Collins. News item: Democrat assaults, critically injures »

CRB: Twin peaks

Featured image This week we have previewed three stellar essays from the new (Summer) of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here). Forgive me for repeating myself: it is an invaluable magazine for those of us who love trustworthy essays on, and reviews of books about, politics, history, literature, and culture. We conclude our preview this week with a bonus, our own Steve Hayward’s review of Lewis Lehrman’s Lincoln & Churchill: Two »

The eternal meaning of Independence Day

Featured image On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and »