Harry V. Jaffa
Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Social media Miscellaneous Other Harry Victor Jaffa (October 7, 1918 – January 10, 2015) was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor.
Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".
[6] Jaffa wrote on topics ranging from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and natural law.
[7][8] He wrote the controversial line in 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater's acceptance speech that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice".
Jaffa wrote Goldwater's famous and controversial statement in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
[7] Jaffa believed the American founders, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington established the nation on political principles traceable from Locke to Aristotle.
Before Jaffa, most conservative scholars, including M. E. Bradford, Russell Kirk, and Willmoore Kendall believed that Lincoln's presidency represented a substantial growth in federal power and limitation on individual rights.
[independent source needed] In Crisis of the House Divided, Jaffa discusses the Lincoln–Douglas debates that occurred on the eve of the American Civil War.
According to Catherine H. Zuckert, Jaffa "aimed at nothing less than bringing to bear on America the methods and substance of the Straussian revival of the Socratic tradition of political philosophy."
Like Strauss, Jaffa observed the tendency of modernity to degenerate moral and political philosophy, which he found in Douglas' appeal to popular sovereignty.
Jaffa also believed that Lincoln challenged Douglas' argument with an Aristotelian or classical philosophical position derived from the Declaration of Independence and its contention that "all men are created equal.
"[19] Jaffa describes human equality as America's "ancient faith" and contends that the Declaration of Independence reflects the principles of natural law.
Jaffa considers the political philosophy of John C. Calhoun the backbone of the Confederacy's new constitution and its notion of human inequality.
[independent source needed] Jaffa also criticized the scholarship of other prominent conservatives including Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, M.E.
[20][non-primary source needed] Jaffa argued that former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork advanced a theory of American constitutionalism that was in fundamental tension with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that was insufficiently conservative.
[21] Jaffa argued that Bork's argument represented legal positivism and moral relativism akin to that expressed by John C. Calhoun and the Confederacy during the Civil War.
"[22][independent source needed] Jaffa was close friends with William F. Buckley, publishing a number of articles on Lincoln in National Review throughout his career.
