I think Professor Havers’ suggestion that we might take Lincoln bashing too far is quite timely. Historical-mindedness is vital to cogent criticism of our managerial democracy, and awareness of the brutal and decivilizing actions taken under Lincoln’s authority should be kept alive. But re-fighting the Civil War in crummy right-wing webzines that no one reads is neither wise nor helpful. Nor can the world be organized solely by reference to “Lincoln idolaters” on the one hand and “people who agree with Tom DiLorenzo” on the other. I’ve read Professor DiLorenzo’s work with benefit. I see his point about Lincoln as dictator and paradigm-setter. But his demolition of Havers was disappointing, and did not address the matters Havers raised.

What Grant is doing is not defending every action Lincoln took to end the attempted
Southern secession. He is simply pointing out the problem of treating Lincoln’s
use of presidential power as a nationalist dealing with secessionists as a necessary
precondition for later military crusades to spread global democracy.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of Lincoln’s actions, many of the most fervent Wilsonians
and later supporters of FDR were the proud descendants of Confederate veterans. These
democratic crusaders, who swarmed all over the American South, found no inconsistency
between flying Confederate flags and invading foreign countries in the name of
democracy. By contrast, some of our most defiant isolationists, like William Jennings
Bryant and LaFollette, were admirers of Lincoln. There is no straight line between
admiring or hating Lincoln and taking a predetermined position in American foreign
policy, up until about the second half of the twentieth century. Grant is right that
DiLorenzo,Wills and Jaffa all share the same timebound view of the person they hate
or love.

I suppose that I employed the paleo-term because paleoconservatives and libertarians generally agree on portraying Lincoln as a prophet of democratic imperialism

In both your article and this post, you’ve made this remark, yet the only quotations you have offered have been from DiLorenzo.  How about offering some quotes from paleoconservatives?  Or, failing that, how about dropping the generalization?

To Mr Richert:
DiLorenzo is not the only paleo to critique Lincoln as a global democrat.  I’d recommend for reading:  Willmoore Kendall & George Carey, “Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition”; Mel Bradford’s “A Better Guide Than Reason”; Richard Gamble’s essay on Lincoln and Babbitt (in the journal Humanitas 2002).  That’s a good start.

Willmoore Kendall, George Carey, and Richard Gamble are paleos?  Bradford’s A Better Guide Than Reason presents Lincoln as a global democrat?

I’m afraid you’re overreaching, Dr. Havers.

Bradford certainly agrees with Jaffa that Lincoln legitimized the spread of democracy at home and abroad, yes.  He simply disagrees on the benefits of this program, like DiLorenzo.
If these guys aren’t paleos, then who is?  More specifically, who are the paleos that resist the dark side of Lincoln-bashing?

By the way, I don’t mean my remark as a slight against Professors Carey and Gamble, who are both fine men.  It’s simply that neither identifies himself as a paleo, despite having had 20 years of paleo history to do so.

As for Willmoore Kendall, the problem is the reverse: Since he died 20 years before paleoconservatism emerged on the scene, he can’t really be considered a paleo.  (Nor, for that matter, is there much reason to believe that he would have considered himself such if he had lived another 20 years.)

If these guys aren’t paleos, then who is?

Set up straw men much?

More specifically, who are the paleos that resist the dark side of Lincoln-bashing?

Oh, look--another!  Seriously--you write an article in which you discuss what you call “the dark side of Lincoln-bashing,” which you attribute to “paleos” without quoting from anyone identified as such. Then, when asked for such quotations, you demand that the person who is simply requesting that you make your argument show that paleos have resisted something that you haven’t proved is a problem in the first place.

And for what?  Well, according to the first paragraph of your article: “This dispute is no mere academic matter, since those who control the Lincoln legacy also manufacture the grist for any number of ideological mills.”

So the point is to “control the Lincoln legacy.” Not to set the record straight; not to arrive at a better understanding of American history; but to control a potent symbol, presumably to make it easier to be “successful” like the neoconservatives in imposing policies.

Between this and Marcus’s declaration that conservatives shouldn’t talk about Margaret Sanger’s eugenicist views because it’s not politically helpful to do so, the casual reader of this website might be forgiven for thinking that some of the writers are simply engaged in ideological reconstruction of history for political motives.

True, that’s partly how the neocons achieved their “success,” so those who wish to emulate them could, I suppose, do worse.

If memory serves, Mel Bradford accused Lincoln of relocating the constitutional basis American government from the Constitution itself to the equalitarian language of the Declaration, all the time ignoring the historical meaning and purpose of both documents. This is not the same as saying he “legitimized the spread of democracy at home and abroad.” Professor Havers is able to understand that Lincoln did not have global democracy in mind when he spoke of a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Bradford, I think, understood this as well.

Evan McLaren is exactly right.  Bradford also understood that Lincoln’s rhetorical shift is what allowed progressive proponents of global democracy, decades after Lincoln’s assassination, to use his image profitably as a symbol of their aspirations.

To recognize that, however, is simply to explain the history of global democrats’ adoption of Lincoln; it doesn’t mean that Bradford is arguing that Lincoln believed what the later progressives believed.  (Any more than, say, the claim of creationists that Hitler admired Darwin means that Darwin was a Nazi.)

To my fellow contributors:
On the question of Willmoore Kendall as a “paleo,” it really doesn’t matter that this term had not been coined before he died in 1967.  Kendall defended what have become core paleo-positions:  believing in the primacy of the Constitution, doubting the wisdom of reconstructing the world as an egalitarian New Jerusalem, and understanding American Christianity as a beneficial influence on the Founding.  As for Mel Bradford, his portrayal of Lincoln as a “political gnostic” who desired endless revolutions at home and abroad is identical to the position of Jaffa.  Once again, the difference is that Bradford deplored this legacy of Lincoln while Jaffa favored it.  I admire Kendall and Bradford too, but I think that they too quickly accepted the progressivist view of Lincoln as a social revolutionary.
It has always been my intention to set the record straight.  If that means that the neocons lose control of Lincoln’s legacy, then so be it (and why would that be a bad thing?!)

On the question of Willmoore Kendall as a “paleo,” it really doesn’t matter that this term had not been coined before he died in 1967.  Kendall defended what have become core paleo-positions . . .

Or perhaps we might say:

On the question of St. Augustine as a “Lutheran,” it really doesn’t matter that this term had not been coined before he died in 430.  Augustine defended what have become core Lutheran positions. . .

As for this:

It has always been my intention to set the record straight.  If that means that the neocons lose control of Lincoln’s legacy, then so be it (and why would that be a bad thing?!)

That’s not the same as your original statement, which relegated the historical record to “a mere academic matter,” putting the focus instead on the “control of the Lincoln legacy.” I’m glad to see you backing off of that rhetorically, but your continued refusal even to consider that Evan McLaren and Dan Larison might be right about Bradford’s intent (and your continued insistence that silence implies consent) indicates that this is no more than a rhetorical shift.

If Kendall is not a paleo, then is he a pre-paleo? Incidentally, there were “Protestants” in the Middle Ages before this term was coined too.

If by “pre-paleo,” you mean a precursor of paleoconservatism, then the answer is clearly no.  Kendall’s admiration for Rousseau and his adoption of Strauss’s critique of historicism, among many other things, separate him from the paleocons.

The critique of historicism, in fact, is central.  While perhaps only Paul Gottfried and Claes Ryn have been willing to embrace the term historicism, many (most?) paleos regard historical consciousness as a (the?) defining element of paleoconservatism.  Kendall’s critique of historicism, like Strauss’s, is not merely of historical determinism but extends to historical consciousness.

For paleos, the recognition that history and tradition are normative--that we know the universal only through the particular--is essential.  Kendall would never have been comfortable with this “incarnational” aspect of paleoconservatism, nor with paleo critiques of Rousseau, which have their roots in this historical consciousness. 

That’s why I wrote above that “Nor, for that matter, is there much reason to believe that he would have considered himself such if he had lived another 20 years.”

Perhaps in the case of Kendall, the question to ask is this: Did he embrace Jaffa’s interpretation of Lincoln (even if he criticized Lincoln for it) because of his general sympathy to Strauss?  Jaffa’s interpretation, after all, is about as “anti-historicist” as you can get.

Richert:  “For paleos, the recognition that history and tradition are normative--that we know the universal only through the particular--is essential.”

Great phrasing.  You should add this to the paleo entry at Wikipedia.

To Mr Richert:
Willmoore Kendall admired Strauss, but he was not a Straussian!  As an admirer of Eric Voegelin’s study of history (see Kendall & Carey, Basic Symbols), he could hardly be opposed to historical thinking.  If anything, Kendall despaired that his fellow Americans were not learning their history well enough.  But he was opposed to a version of historicism which denies the existence of moral absolutes.  This position is not unique to Straussians.

At least the two articles by Havers and the responses have been about something worth discussing, which increasingly is not the case with articles here, focusing as they do on ephemeral politics rather than the ideas that underlie contemporary issues. Readers of this site should be worrying that it is being steered toward becoming a type of ‘paleo-friendly’ version of National Review Online. After all, that would mean that articles here could become ‘internet hits,’ being linked to many times and sent all around the globe, getting a multitude of hits. Then the Editor could boast of his success – creating yet another boy-band of putative conservative thought.

And finding a way to try to silence, or at least tar with a feather, those who discern in Lincoln perhaps the single most important figure fits perfectly into that pattern because Lincoln is, as many admirers since his death have proclaimed, the martyred messiah of liberal American democracy, at home and abroad. Yes, I see the Lincoln myth, which merely is a handy (thanks to his death) tool of the Puritan/Yankee WASP myth, as being self-righteously imperialistic: ask Plains Indians about Sherman. Before that myth could be taken around the globe, it had to erect an increasingly centralized State from Atlantic to Pacific.

What Havers seems determined to ignore is that while what Lincoln did and said did not absolutely have to lead to the now single USA (as opposed to the pre-Lincoln ‘these United States’) being in Iraq, his legacy, the precedents he set in order to achieve what he willed, cannot be contained in ways desired by anyone; Lincoln’s actions and words have lives of their own, and all ideas have inherent consequences, moving inexorably toward their telos. Yes, the faults were readily present in the very founding – in ways that the Anglophile Protestant Havers likely would refuse to comprehend – but Lincoln’s Presidency was the Crossing of the Rubicon for the American experiment, moving it away from any possibility of remaining a true Republic and making certain it would become the new version of the British Empire.

Whatever Lincoln fancied he was doing is irrelevant, unless somehow good intentions can never pave the road to Hell. What is a given is that had the Confederate states won their independence, their example would have both been precedent scaring the CSA government into line away from becoming oppressive of the states that created it as their agent and the example urging the states remaining in the northern Union to demand that the Federal government serve them, rather than they being forced to serve it.

I think Paul Gottfried’s response is the most interesting. I have said for some time that the primary division is not between putative Right and Left, even when Neocons are rightly recognized as Left. The primary division is between those who accept and endorse the cultures (inherently Liberal I assert) that were forged out of the two English reformations and those who – for specifically theological reasons or for ethno-cultural reasons or for pro-Agrarian reasons – reject what is most easily identified as WASP culture. That WASP culture in America, which specifically was the marriage of New England Puritan becoming-Social-Gospel with anti-Trinitarian Quaker, was bound to reproduce the patterns its father had spawned in the Old World. One of those patterns is examples from conquered peoples becoming major leaders in the spread of that WASP Empire around the globe. Gottfried takes the absurd position that Woodrow Wilson and similar ‘patriotic Americans’ from the South, proves ‘Lincoln-bashing’ false. That is the same pattern of pointing to the hyper-imperialistic Northern Ireland Protestants as proof that they are responsible for the many sins of the English Empire, or that Gauls in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were responsible for the Roman Empire.

Perhaps the quickest way to understand how wrongheaded is Gottfried’s assessment is to ask whether Wilson, who was most certainly a self-righteous imperialist wanting to grace the entire world with American-style WASP culture, idealized and idolized Lincoln or Jefferson Davis. Wilson, raised to be a loyal American, was a devotee of Lincoln, as Jaffa knows. To Wilson, Southern was merely a geography of American. Wilson acted not in the historic Southern tradition but in the New England Puritan tradition, mixing its ‘conservative’ part (imperialistic warring) with its ‘liberal’ part (Social Gospel welfare crowned with Jesus talk and inter-denominational, increasingly a-doctrinal cultural Protestantism) perfectly. Wilson, aping his Ulster kin in their servile place in the British Empire, was very much Lincoln Part II. And while Edward Carson is utterly reprehensible in many ways, it is a denial of reality to blame him rather than Cromwell. The Edward Carsons and Woodrow Wilsons merely accepted the historical and political circumstances and (often violent) prejudices into which they were educated and acted to promote the very philosophies of their heroes, some of which philosophies were stated and others inherent.

Yes, as long as Southerners, with Confederate soldier ancestors, are ‘god Americans’ and thrilled to be under the Federal government Lincoln’s actions made inevitable, they will support various imperial activities. Ditto for Catholics and Orthodox and Jews who likewise get on the Lincoln and/or cultural-WASP roads.

Willmoore Kendall admired Strauss, but he was not a Straussian!

And Dr. Havers is back to setting up straw men.  I did not say that Kendall was a Straussian.  But by setting up his straw man, Dr. Havers avoided directly addressing my direct response to his characterization of Kendall as “pre-paleo.”

To Mr Cantrell:
The point of my two pieces was not to deny that Lincoln’s presidency had radical consequences for the US regime.  (Paleos and neos certainly tend to agree that the office of the presidency certainly changed after Abe.) My point was simply that global democracy-building was not one of these side-effects.  Being an “Anglophile Protestant,” I must now return to my local Orangeman parade.

To Mr Richert:
I avoided your response to my “pre-paleo” crack because I assume that paleos see themselves as true conservatives whose ancestors used to control the Right, rather than just a trivial reaction to the neocons. But if you want to portray your favorite paleos as a brand new conservative movement, be my guest.

To Mr. Havers:

If you fancy that the actions and words of Lincoln and his associates cannot be seen as inherently producing the later developing truly global American imperialism, then you are as blind as those who deny that Cromwell’s actions and words (restricted as they were to slaughtering Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, and Celts in the British Isles) had inherent consequences that played out in dead bodies all over the globe long after Cromwell was roasting in Hell.

I avoided your response to my “pre-paleo” crack because I assume that paleos see themselves as true conservatives whose ancestors used to control the Right, rather than just a trivial reaction to the neocons. But if you want to portray your favorite paleos as a brand new conservative movement, be my guest.

No need to get testy.  The problem is one of, well, history, which is why I made the (admittedly over the top) edit of your remark about Kendall to make it apply to Augustine and Lutheranism.

Paleoconservatism has deep roots, yes, but it is a new (and, I would argue, particularly American) phenomenon.  There are paleos who want to go around, willy-nilly, slapping the paleo label on everyone from Calvin Coolidge to Aristotle.  But it’s an historical error to do so.

I would think that you would appreciate that, since it’s essentially the same argument you’re making about Lincoln.  While global democrats of the progressive era often regarded Lincoln as one of them, they would have been wrong to slap that label on him.

It’s just as wrong to slap the paleo label on Kendall.  And, in the latter’s case, it’s complicated even more by the fact that Kendall is not even widely regarded as a paleo hero, for reasons I’ve discussed.

“Incidentally, there were “Protestants” in the Middle Ages before this term was coined too.”

In the sense that there were critics or opponents of papal authority, I suppose you could say this if you want to inflate the term “Protestant” beyond recognition, but there weren’t actually proto-Lutherans in the guise of Lollards and Hussites or at any time before that.  Lollards were really just Lollards, not proto-Protestants.  The Evangelical Church in Germany believed itself to be a restorer of apostolic simplicity, but that doesn’t mean that there were actually “Protestants” throughout the intervening periods, despite the efforts of some Protestant historiography to adopt every heretic and church reformer as their predecessors.  Savonarola, for instance, was not a Protestant avant la lettre, even though he has often been seen (I think wrongly) by Reformed historians as a forerunner of the Reformation.  Likewise, Kendall was not a paleoconservative, and I would add on a different note that his accommodation with majoritarianism is something that definitely sets him at odds with us.  His concerns were, on the whole, not the same as ours, and as Scott has said there are significant differences in the assumptions that he makes that set him apart from paleos.

To Daniel:
So, Wycliffe was not a Protestant?  (Perhaps Adam Smith was not a libertarian either, since the term had not yet existed in his time.)
As for Kendall’s majoritarianism, what’s so anti-paleo about this?  WK made it clear through all his published writings on the subject that majority rule did not mean direct democracy so much as a process of reasonable deliberation in Congress which slows down the likelihood of revolutionary change.  Sounds conservative to me (even if this doesn’t always happen). And Kendall’s respect for Rousseau shouldn’t scare paleos:  Rousseau opposed direct democracy too if that meant imposing General Wills where none existed (much like Richert’s organic communities model). Rousseau sounds like Burke in his essay on Poland’s politics for this very reason.

No, Wycliffe was not a Protestant.  To say that he was is to mix anachronism and precursorism together.

Wait, then do you consider Jan Hus a Protestant ?

Yo Danny!
Wycliffe’s Protestant credentials are well-known ("the Morning Star of the Reformation,").  Ever heard of the Lollards (they were proto-protestant).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe
Go Wiki!

At the risk of stirring up a hornets’ nest (just for fun!) Perhaps the “Best” Catholic thinkers (as represented on this site, no doubt) would not even consider “Protestant” a valid category! (Protestants, are after all, defined by their “protest” against Rome or, ideally, centralized religious authority of any stripe).  I believe the argument Daniel may be attempting to articulate is akin to one I heard once that argues that the true followers of Jesus aren’t “Christians”. Christian is just a (spurious) term that was created by the powers-that-be years after Christ..

No, I must have never heard of Lollards, even though I mentioned them earlier in this thread. 

Technically, what Dr. Havers said was correct in a very limited way: between 1517 and 1529 (date of the Protestation of Speyer), there were people who could rightly be called Protestants who were not identified with the Protestation, because it hadn’t happened yet.  To push the category back earlier than the time of the Reformers doesn’t really make a lot of sense.  This isn’t to deny that the Reformers were part of an earlier medieval tradition of Church reform, nor would I want to deny that they borrowed from medieval sources and were deeply influenced by traditional patristic and scholastic modes of inquiry.  But Luther’s (or Calvin’s or Zwingli’s) education does not make earlier members of the tradition to which he belonged part of the confession or religious movement that he and others like him inaugurated. 

To use a different example, there were subordinationists before Areios from whom he derived some of his ideas, but that doesn’t mean that subordinationists in the 3rd century were Arians.  This is retrojection, pure and simple, and it is actually the very thing that Dr. Havers claims (I think wrongly) that we are doing with Lincoln.