Allen Guelzo might very well have had the current state of affairs in his country in mind when he set out to offer this rumination on Abraham Lincoln. It would be hard, if not impossible, to imagine otherwise. Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, by Allen C. Guelzo (247 pages, Knopf, 2024) [...]
Liberal education ought to be less a matter of becoming well-read than a matter of learning to read well, of acquiring arts of awareness, the interpretative or “trivial” arts. Some works, written by men who are productive masters of these arts, are exemplary for their interpretative application. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is such a text. Liberal [...]
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level [...]
The narrative of a North-South divide in American History is a powerful, yet problematic one. However, closer metaphysical inspection of both regions uncovers a series of considerable similarities and ironic connections between the Puritans of New England fully embodied in Jonathan Edwards, and the Presbyterians of the Old South fully embodied in James Thornwell. Their [...]
Abraham Lincoln never was a doctrinaire; he rose from very low estate to very high estate, and he knew the savagery which lies so close beneath the skin of man, and he knew that most men are good only out of obedience to routine and convention. Whatever the result of the convulsion whose first shocks [...]
No episode in the American past is more susceptible to such manipulation—manipulation rather than debate—than the Civil War. On the historical question permit me to be blunt and unequivocal. There can be no doubt that slavery was central to all that divided the northern and the southern states, and that slavery was ultimately responsible for [...]
It is from careful textual analysis of “The Federalist” that the basic symbols of the American political tradition, and indeed the conservative tradition, may be found. III In his analysis of the Socrates of the Apology, Willmoore Kendall was hinting strongly at the probability that the contemporary John Stuart Mill-Karl Popper school in the United [...]
Today the idea that the cultivation of manners should be an essential part of one’s education has been lost almost entirely. Proof of the demise of manners is all around us, and thus one of the main pillars of civilization is crumbling before us. On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses [...]
More than ever, America is split between populist nationalism and left-wing internationalism, with little room in either ideology for anything like Wendell Berry's vision of local patriotic devotion. Whatever we make of his ruminations, with respect to this subject it is obviously the culture which has changed over the past few years, not him. The [...]
The essence of America isn't characterized by four centuries of racial subjugation but by the 247-year-long persistent and often heroic struggle by Americans of every race and creed to live up to our highest ideals. This ideal continues to inspire countless individuals, both domestically and internationally. Juneteenth stands as a symbol of this enduring inspiration. [...]
Memorial Day originates with the Civil War as “Decoration Day.” Southern women took up the task of decorating the graves of what turns to have been hundreds and hundreds of thousands of their fallen heroes. Theirs was highly civilized work—a duty maybe more Greek and Roman than Christian. So I’ve been criticized for saying that [...]
Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham Lincoln? Of course there is, especially if the biographer in question is as deft and insightful as Jon Meacham. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (676 pages, Random House, 2022) Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham [...]
The tragedy is that the South’s tragic flaw—its defense of slavery—led to the defeat of its just demand for states’ rights and the consequent rise of the Federal Government, so that the original concept of the nation has been entirely lost. Recently, whilst staying with friends in Dickson, Tennessee, I came across an article in [...]
One of the most frustrating things about the Civil War is simply trying to understand its many causes. As long as historians exist, there will be a multitudinous cacophony of answers to this perplexing question. I’ve been wrestling with these questions for nearly a quarter of a century. Let me offer several causes. I’ve had [...]