Mr. Forsythe's statement that "thinkers of a conservative bent" criticize
Lincoln surely is overbroad.  The leading conservative outlets -- National
Review, The Weekly Standard, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal,
the Washington Times, the Claremont Review of Books, and their affiliate
online publications -- all admire Lincoln and defend him against the charges
of the paleoconservatives and neo-Confederates.  (The latter of these two
groups is responsible for the recent republication of Masters' book on
Lincoln, to which reference was made in an earlier post.)  This is one of
the central internal fault lines in contemporary conservatism, but the
proportion of people on the Lincoln-critic side of the line has diminished
substantially over time, especially as the Lincoln critics have been
essentially read out of mainstream conservatism.  I think the defining
moment in this struggle was the defeat of the M. E. Bradford candidacy for
NEH chairman (wasn't it?) in 1981, and his replacement by then-Democrat
William Bennett.  Bradford's defeat was based on his criticism of Lincoln,
for which George Will and others excoriated him in print and in the halls of
Congress to such a degree that the Reagan administration withdrew his
candidacy.

Prof. K.R. Constantine Gutzman
Department of History
Western Connecticut State University

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