Harold (and all :)--

I mention the political position of these scholars only
because so many people who adopt the positions against which
we have been arguing assume that anyone who holds am academic
position at a University and produces academic scholarship of
necessity must be a flag-burning, America-hating "liberal." 
That is, of course, a grotesque caricature, but it does seem
to me to be an implicit assumption shared by some of the
participants in this conversation.  

Herman Belz is one of the finest scholars it has ever been my
privilege to know and to learn from, and is a man of deep
integrity and intellectual substance.  He has written widely
on constitutional matters of all sorts, but the work for which
he is best known is on Abraham Lincoln.

All best,
Kevin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:48:27 -0500
>From: Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: Lincoln  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Kevin and All,
>
>    I didn't know that Herman Belz was a conservative.  Harry
Jaffa, of 
>course, was long the leader of the West Coast Straussian
movement, centered 
>at Claremont McKenna College.  Jaffa is a very able scholar
with a 
>commanding mastery of the Western intellectual tradition. 
Jaffa's 
>masterwork, now I think out of print, is a deep study of
Lincoln's reshaping 
>of American republican thought.
>    Seeing Jaffa and his many students at the Claremont
Colleges, where I 
>lived and sometime worked in the 1970s and 80s, it was clear
that a 
>conservative intellectual movement was taking form.  One
thing the 'right' 
>and the 'left' didn't disagree on was Lincoln's principled
nature.  We 
>debated precisely what those principles might be but not
whether they 
>existed.
>
>Harold S. Forsythe
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 1:26 PM
>Subject: Re: Lincoln
>
>
>> There are numerous good, acedmically solid books on Lincoln.
>> Neither of the ones mentioned below, however, can be described
>> as "definitive."
>>
>> If you want to read good, academically respected, solidly and
>> responsibly argued analyses of Lincoln's political and
>> constitutional thought, written by rock solid contemporary
>> conservatives, I'd recommend the work of Herman Belz and Harry
>> Jaffa.  No one can accuse Belz or Jaffa of being leftist.
>> Neither of them has any patience for the notion that Lincoln
>> was unprincipled, let alone a traitor to the Constitution.
>>
>> I should note that I based my earlier defense of Lincoln's
>> constitutionalism largely on Belz' scholarship.
>>
>> All best,
>> Kevin
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>>>Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:50:06 -0600
>>>From: John Philip Adams <[log in to unmask]>
>>>Subject: Re: Lincoln
>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>Try these books
>>>The definitive Lincoln texts are twofold:
>>>Ward Hill Lamon's original biography of Lincoln and the
>>>Albert Taylor Bledsoe Treatise.
>>>
>>>John Philip Adams
>>>Texas
>> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
>> Department of History
>> James Madison University
>>
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see
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>
>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
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Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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