Rating: 
Summary: Key work that clarifies the American purpose
Review: "A New Birth of Freedom" is Professor Harry V. Jaffa's promised sequel to his "Crisis of the House Divided", written in 1958 to counter the prevailing but wrong headed notions of academics about the meaning of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
In "Crisis", Professor Jaffa sets forth the basis of the argument that in 1858 served to deny Senator Douglas the Presidency in 1860 by taking from him any moral standing by focusing the nation to confront the issue of slavery.
In "Birth", we see Abraham Lincoln's philosophy arrayed against that of Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis and ultimately, John C. Calhoun. We further see that Lincoln's belief that "All men are created equal" is the heir of Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, and Aristotle whereas Calhoun's theories rest uncertainly on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and are close cousins to Kant, Hegel, and Marx and the school of historical determinism and Darwinism.
Professor Jaffa carefully explains the undergirding theory of the American experiment: that "All men are created equal" is the premise of the American Revolution and not just an empty slogan. That this should be necessary is a sad commentary on the large numbers of political scientists who find more common ground with Karl Marx than with Thomas Jefferson.
While "Birth" has a degree of redundancy with "Crisis", this can easily be overlooked as one was written over 40 years after the other.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Book, Difficult Read
Review: A brilliant book on Lincoln's political thought. Not an easy read, though. Jaffa carefully parses Lincoln's words and deeds with an analytical philosopher's thoroughness. The style is rather dense and meaty and makes for tough going at times, but the intellectual rewards are worth the effort. Jaffa's diptych (Crisis of House Divided, New Birth of Freedom) is the strongest argument yet made for Lincoln as leader.
Rating:
Summary: Lincoln's Philosophy
Review: A New Birth of Freedom is a book about Lincoln's political philosophy, which Lincoln himself said (in so many words) eminated completely from the Declaration of Independence. The book is the sequel to Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided, written over 40 years earlier. In Crisis, Jaffa takes up Douglas' arguments in the famous 1858 debates for the first half of the book and then Lincoln's in the second half. In New Birth, Jaffa backs up from the 1850's to take in a sweep of history and thought from Classic Greece to the present.If the material in New Birth is far more wide-ranging than in Crisis, the theme in New Birth is much more precise. The south lost the war, but the philosophy behind the justifications advanced by southern leaders such as Calhoun, Taney and Stephens is winning the battle of the minds. Crisis of the House Divided is like being in philosophy class, but New Birth is like being over at the professor's house later for drinks. Jaffa seems to lazily go over mountains of quotes, philosophers, and arguments, and he returns again and again to make the same points. But it's never tedious. One finds Jaffa's repetitions well-worded and essential in understanding how far we've fallen philosophically. And eventually, toward the end, one gets a sense of the book's structure. Here's the book's thesis. Most of us admire Lincoln, but most of us wouldn't agree with his political pholosophy. Lincoln really did believe that our nation was dedicated to a proposition -- a proposition that also brought forth natural rights. Mr. Jaffa demonstrates how 19th Century historicism has won out over the Founders' concept of natural rights. Just as Nietzsche bitterly accounts for how Jewish thought won out after the Israelites were defeated, A New Birth of Freedom laments the asecndency of the Confederacy's historical approach in today's political thinking. Jaffa traces natural rights from Greek and Jewish thought through Locke, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. Basically, Jaffa teaches that natural rights begin with the doctrine of the "state of nature." In this state, a person has the right to life and liberty, and to property in order to defend his right to life and liberty. People form government in order to better protect these inalienable rights. In so doing, they yield the exercise of some of their rights, but not the rights themselves, which are inalienable. The people reserve the right of revolution, which is strongly asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Legitimate government can only exist through the consent of the governed, by a unanimous compact or contract. The measures of such a government by the majority's will are deemed the will of the whole, so long as the minority's rights are not violated by the measures. All of this presupposes that all men are created equal. Jefferson found this self-evident, famously pointing out that we don't find some people born with spurs on their shins and others born with saddles on their backs. Natural rights recognizes a distinction beween God and mankind, on the one hand, and a distinction between mankind and beasts, on the other. The historical school finds all of this an accident of history. Picking up with Jaffa: "The historical school, which by the 1850s had largely displaced the natural rights school of the Founding, had also given rise to the romantic movement of the mid-nineteenth century. It too repudiated natural right, because it repudiated 'rationalism,' insisting as it did that 'the heart had its reasons which reason did not know.' Accordingly, Lincoln's Socratic reasoning was rejected, because the very idea of justification by reasoning had come to be rejected. History, not reason, decided that some should be masters and others should be slaves. This movement of Western thought, from the natural rights school to the historical shcool, culminated in the Nazi and the Communist regimes of the twentieth century." This was one of Jaffa's few specific references to how the relativism of the historical school has affected modern history. I hope that, in his next book, Mr. Jaffa will give many more examples of how our retreat from the Founders' conception of natural rights -- and the clear distinction among God, people, and beasts underling that conception -- has cost us.
Rating: 
Summary: Philosophy as History
Review: In 1958, Professor Jaffa published "Crisis of the House Divided" which remains the definitive study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. "A New Birth of Freedom", published more that 40 years later, is the promised sequel to the book, and in it Professor Jaffa explores with depth the philosophical and governmental ideas that he believes underlie Lincoln's Presidency, his approach to the issue of slavery, and the Civil War and preservation of the Union. This book is much broader in scope than Professor Jaffa's earlier book and is more engaged in the philosophical analysis of ideas than with the presentation simply of historical fact. Professor Jaffa asks at the outset what, if anything, differentiates the Southern Secession following the election of Lincoln to the Presidency from the actions of the Colonists in declaring independence from Britain in 1776. In answering this question, Professor Jaffa offers a discussion of the Jefferson-Adams election of 1800, showing how for the first time in history how a democratic society could resolve severe disagreement through the use of ballots in an election rather than through the use of bullets. Jaffa's history has, I think, these two themes: 1.The Declaration of Independence's statement that "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal" did, indeed, apply for Jefferson and his contemporaries to all people, including the then African-American slaves. 2. The Declaration of Independence itself created a perpetual union of what had been 13 separate colonies of Britian and made the United States one country rather than a confederation of separate states. Underlying these historical claims is a broader philosophical argument that is even more at the core of the book: Jaffa wants to reject arguments of cultural relativism, historicism, skepticism or other philosophical positions that argue agains the existence of objective moral principles. He finds that Jefferson correctly viewed the language of his declaration "All men are created equal" as expressing a moral truth based upon "the law of Nature and of Nature's God." Jaffa argues for a position based upon Natural Law, in the sense that moral standards are somehow truths independent of human will or of historical circumstances. His Natural Law theory, as I find it, is drawn from an uneasy confluence of the thought of Locke, Aristotle, and the Bible. The book is less of a chronological historical account than a textual analysis and commentary on the speeches and writings of thinkers and politicians in Civil War America. Professor Jaffa offers a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of Lincoln's First Inauguaral Address and of his July 4, 1861 message to Congress following the outbreak of hostilites. His approach is less on the pragmatic conduct of the government (although that is discussed as well) than on Lincoln as a thinker expressing what Jaffa sees as a commitment to Natural Law and the the inalienable nature of the Union which Lincoln strove to preserve. Lincoln's thought is compared and contrasted, in almost as great detail, with speeches by James Buchanan, Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas and John Calhoun. These individuals are shown to reject the principles of Natural Law that Professor Jaffa finds articulated in the Declaration of Independence and by Lincoln. Their though is compared rather explicitly by Professor Jaffa to academic modernism and skepticism regarding the objective character of moral principle. There are fascinating discussions of Shakespeare's histories, Aristotle, and, particularly the "Federalist" and the works of Thomas Jefferson. In contrast to many modern historians, Jaffa sees Lincoln in the Gettysburg address as reaffirming the position of Thomas Jefferson rather than as effecting a change in the nature of the American ideal. This is a difficult, thoughtful,challenging book. It is more of value for its philosophical outlook and challenge than for any addition to the store of historical knowledge. For those who want to think about the philosophical bases for our institutions, this book is highly worthwhile. It is a different sort of successor, but a worthy successor, to Professor Jaffa's study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Rating: 
Summary: A tough read for this southern American
Review: In this highly scholarly commentary by Harry Jaffa, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Roger Taney, Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, James Buchanan, and Calhoun are woven together in a wonderful tapestry. The result is a long work that demonstrates the complexity of American thought as the Civil War began. Readers of Jaffa's books on Lincoln will be amazed how anyone who truly loved liberty and freedom would follow the selfishly hypocritical way of the south. Jaffa himself has little sympathy for the viewpoint of the South, and neither should we. This book is another must read, and even contains, as a bonus, an appendix on Stephen Douglas' Harper Magazine article on Popular Sovreignty.
Rating: 
Summary: False Premises
Review: It's so easy to wrap Lincoln in the dogma of a Liberator. But, was he a liberator and a freedom fighter and a defender of the Constitution when he arrested the entire Maryland Legislature? The mayor and police chief of Baltimore? When he sent Fed troops into states that had not secceeded? Like a true politician, Lincoln said all the right things, while doing all the wrong things
Rating:
Summary: More Junk from the Feel Good folks
Review: Sorry to say I did believe this Lincoln hero-worship. Fortunately, I went to a real university wherein I was asked to
present the contrarian point of view. Following much documented
research, I presented the truth about Lincoln. He was a tyrant and a criminal. He didn't care about slaves, in fact he did not want slavery in the "new" territories because he wanted it to be exclusivey for white people. Several "Free States" had articles in their constitutions preventing slavery but also preventing "free blacks" from living in their state. California being the best example.
The ruse of the "war to end slavery" was not put forth until July 1862 and signed in January 1863. It was an executive order; yet another in a series of Lincoln's "get around" the Constitutional constraints of this country. Always follow the dollar. Support for Lincoln's war was falling. He could not justify it as a war to preserve the Union because people then knew what the US and State constitutions really said. They read more than just the preamble. Secession was always understood to be a legal and valid response to a tyrannical government. It was the same justification use to "seceede" from Great Britian. Today we seem to have those who read our US constitution like the bible, and intrepret current opinions and beliefs back upon those who were living that particular period believing that those people "felt the same way too" A real student of history would read this book and complain that the only part left out by the author was the begining phrase "Once upon a time" which is how all fairy tales begin..
Rating:
Summary: More Junk from the Feel Good folks
Review: Sorry to say I did believe this Lincoln hero-worship. Fortunately, I went to a real university wherein I was asked to
present the contrarian point of view. Following much documented
research, I presented the truth about Lincoln. He was a tyrant and a criminal. He didn't care about slaves, in fact he did not want slavery in the "new" territories because he wanted it to be exclusivey for white people. Several "Free States" had articles in their constitutions preventing slavery but also preventing "free blacks" from living in their state. California being the best example.
The ruse of the "war to end slavery" was not put forth until July 1862 and signed in January 1863. It was an executive order; yet another in a series of Lincoln's "get around" the Constitutional constraints of this country. Always follow the dollar. Support for Lincoln's war was falling. He could not justify it as a war to preserve the Union because people then knew what the US and State constitutions really said. They read more than just the preamble. Secession was always understood to be a legal and valid response to a tyrannical government. It was the same justification use to "seceede" from Great Britian. Today we seem to have those who read our US constitution like the bible, and intrepret current opinions and beliefs back upon those who were living that particular period believing that those people "felt the same way too" A real student of history would read this book and complain that the only part left out by the author was the begining phrase "Once upon a time" which is how all fairy tales begin..
Rating:
Summary: The Principles of Abraham Lincoln
Review: This book enthralled me. It is rich in ideas and examples, as befitting a book on a subject of this magnitude. It is an extended reply that Lincoln would have given if asked "What are your principles, Mr Lincoln?" I critised David Donald's biography for presenting Lincoln as too much the slick/ sly lawyer and politican - all fox and no hedgehog (to use Isaiah Berlin's metaphor). This is Lincoln the man of principle, and is an essential complement to any synoptic biography, of which Donald's is probably the best. Jaffa argues convincingly that Lincoln was 'at one' with Jefferson and the Founders. Lincoln always argued that the
Founders were ashamed of slavery and hid it away as 'a wen, or cancer' in the constitution. They looked to elimination of slavery over time, but slavery became economically essential to the Old South. Jefferson's foreboding was correct and slavery contributed to the break-up of the Union. Jafa effectively re-iterates Lincoln's criticism's of Calhoun and Stephen Douglas, and the defence of the Confederacy made by Alexander Stephens and Jefferson Davis. For me, what struck most was the emphasis on the principles of Moderation and Prudence, the 'better angels' of Lincoln's inaugaural. Or to quote Churchill "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war". It is clear that if you accept the Declaration of Independence (as Lincoln did) then the only people with the Right of Rebellion in 1861 were the slaves. Why did Lincoln not then support John Brown? Because he knew that slavery could only be ended with the whole-hearted support of the white population under a united government, not by rebellion. Moderation and Prudence demanded that he could not issue any Emancipation Proclamation, or arm black soldiers, until the Border States were safely retained in the Union. Hence he resisted the clamour from the abolitionists until he could safely move forward. Lincoln once said something like "For a tall fellow, I am pretty sure-footed". He was never more sure-footed than when he moved around these thorny issues, and the consequences of a slip were never more dangerous! Let no one think that these are dusty old issues - they inform me at the moment contemplating the future of the European Union. For the EU seems to be to be based soldily on Calhounite pinciples - it is the compact of States that Calhoun always claimed the USA to be. Calhounite principles were behind Wilsonian Liberalism that every minority had the right to its own state, or at least an autonomy with in a state. Jaffa makes me think that this is a trap for the EU and inevitably it will become a nightmare of minority vetoes, minority quotas and stagnation. What is must become is a compact of peoples - but will the large (and small states) of the EU let that happen?
Rating:
Summary: Keeper of the Lincolnian Flame
Review: This book is a scholarly work, of immense importance in the face of revisionist history. It is a detailed, difficult, read, but well worth the effort. Jaffa brings to light many important facts, but possibly most importantly he brings to the public's recognition the admitted primary cause of the war: slavery. We owe Jaffa a debt of gratitude for bringing to light Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone" speech to the citizens of Savannah, GA on March 21, 1861, in which he (Stephens) notes forthrightly: "But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution." Here we see the Vice President of the Confederacy, in his own words, acknowledging honestly what the war was all about. We owe Jaffa a debt of gratitude for his effort in producing this work.
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