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Harry V. Jaffa

168 quotes

“A parallel case was the Fugitive Slave Act. Article IV of the Constitution says that any person held to the service or laborer in any state escaping to another state shall not be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be returned to the one to whom the service or labor is due. This is the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now the Constitution doesn’t say how this right is to be enforced, but it says it shall be done. And from 1793 to 1850 it depended upon the states honoring the Act. Well, that was not working, and so this federal law was substituted which provided enforcement procedures under the auspices of the federal government.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And Lincoln said that if you believe in the Fugitive Slave Act being required by Article IV, you must also believe that the protection of the slave owner and the territories deserves federal protection; the two arguments were perfectly parallel. Douglas said it didn’t matter how the Supreme Court in the abstract decided the question of slavery in the territories; if the slave owner went to the territory, he had to get local regulations to protect his property.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And Lincoln said that by your own argument, if the local regulations are not forthcoming, you must support the federal enforcement; if you don’t, you’re taking the same position as the abolitionists, who denied any obligation to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, it’s not clear how persuasive this argument was in Illinois, but it was persuasive in Mississippi and Alabama and Florida and South Carolina, which said, 'Well, Lincoln’s right. This man Douglas is denying us our Constitutional rights'. And as a result of that, it was Lincoln’s cleverness in the debates which split the Democratic convention in 1860, and this is what in fact elected Abraham Lincoln. But it was the rebellion against Douglas, not against Lincoln, which precipitated the whole secessionist movement.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s been well said—and by many people in many circumstances—that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. These people in the Deep South were mad because they could have elected Douglas, and Douglas would have given them everything they wanted—everything that they wanted that was consistent with his election in the free states.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The possibilities for slavery expansion were almost endless. Douglas would have done these things, but he couldn't subscribe to the slave code. And on that basis, they seceded, and that split the Democratic Party, and that elected Abraham Lincoln.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was the line he took, and he did not try to settle the matter of what would be done if universal emancipation came. No intelligent politician tries to raise questions that will divide his followers. He tries to take positions that will unite his followers. And Lincoln did the best that anybody could have possibly done to unite his followers on the questions of principle, which applied directly to the great issue of public policy, which at that time was slavery in the territories. And I think my time is up.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Madison, by the way, had opposed both the bank and tariffs when Hamilton was Secretary of Treasury. He signed into law the Second Bank of the United States, and endorsed the tariff, said that it has been ratified by the people in subsequent elections, so he reversed his position on that.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What happened in 1828 is also a very curious fact. 1828 was a crucial moment in the history of the tariff, because the national debt was just being paid off, and so the income from the tariff would produce a surplus in the treasury. And at that time, there was a great fear that a surplus in the federal treasury might be used to buy the freedom of slaves.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So the slave issue really under-laid the tariff issue. But it also happened that in the committee which was scheduling the tariffs, the people in South Carolina, and I think other Southerners, moved to raise the tariffs to this abominable level on the assumption that they would be voted down on the floor of the House. And they got fooled by that. Instead of being voted down, it was voted in. They were hoist by their own petard. But in 1833 a compromise was reached. The tariffs were reduced. Jackson’s Force Bill was repealed, and so there was a peaceful resolution of that.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I myself believe in free trade and would be glad it could be implemented whenever possible. But in the actual conflict that led to the Civil War, we had two obstacles to free trade, and I ask you to think which one of them was the greater obstacle. One was the tariff, and the other was slavery.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't we hear nowadays objections on the part of the labor unions to importing goods from China, which are made with slave labor? Is the existence of slave labor not a reflection upon the idea of a free commercial society?”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now it's absolutely true, and I agree with Professor DiLorenzo, that the Republican Party could never have been successful without the support of the tariff interests involved. The Free Soil Party and the Liberty Party were anti-slavery parties, which were, you might say, pure in their principles, but they had no chance of being successful on a national basis. It was the addition of the tariff interests that gave the Republicans the ability to carry their anti-slavery program into action. And it’s in that light, I think, that you have to look at the whole question of the tariffs.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as Hamilton, the banks and internal improvements, contrary to Professor DiLorenzo, I think, and several other people have thought, that Hamilton was the greatest Secretary of the Treasury we ever had. The assumption of the debts of the states, and the funding of the debt through the bank produced an enormous prosperity in the country, and this was all done under Washington’s administration. And if you want to speak of Federalists and people supporting the Federalist economic agenda, the first one of them was George Washington.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With this, we are introduced to a unique American contribution to political science: dual federalism and dual sovereignty. The states are sovereign within the spheres of the powers that are reserved to them by the Constitution. They are not sovereign in those things that are delegated to the United States as a whole.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And if you look at the things that are denied to the states in the Constitution, for example, they are denied the right to coin money. Now, throughout history, the right to coin money has been a symbol of sovereignty. If states do not have the right to coin money, they are not sovereign in the sense that would justify secession as a state right.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yeah, I’d like to comment. In the first place, the idea that the federal government in 1860 should have offered to buy the slaves is a political absurdity. Any claim by Lincoln or his party of any jurisdiction over slavery in the states would have been regarded, and justly regarded, as completely unconstitutional, and advocating the overthrow of the Constitution.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, during the Civil War, Lincoln did endorse a program of compensated emancipation. In his 1862 message to Congress, he proposed a series of Constitutional amendments that would have authorized the Federal government to reimburse states that adopted programs of compensated emancipation. He was very anxious. This was before the Emancipation Proclamation, the final one, was issued on January 1, 1863.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But he did want to see to it that loyal slave owners were not expropriated by his emancipation policy. But he couldn't get the Congress to adopt it. He couldn't get any Representatives, and people from Kentucky, or Missouri, or the border states to vote for it, and so he failed. This is the message to Congress which ended with those wonderful words, “Gentlemen of the Congress, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth.” Well, it failed.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In other words, Lincoln's belief was that slavery could be ended peacefully through the action of the states themselves. It couldn't be done through direct intervention by the Federal government, but it could be done within the states themselves. And after all of the states north of the Mason-Dixon line had adopted plans for emancipation—slavery was lawful in every one of the 13 colonies, and the 13 states which declared their independence.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have these inalienable rights, and in the exercise of these same inalienable rights, we agree with each other to form civil governments. And Madison has an essay on sovereignty, which is a sort of simplified repetition of John Locke’s argument in the second chapter of the Second Treatise.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But once we have reached this agreement and we then elect a government and that government functions—and the election for that government is one in which there’s freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, so that it is a legitimate government—then that government commands our obedience. We have no right to reject our duty to obey because we don’t like the result of the election—provided the election is conducted fairly and Constitutional rights are observed.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can not have free government if you can not bind the people who participate in the government to accept the results of the election. It is the exercise of our inalienable right to life that enables us, and justifies us, in forming legitimate governments. When those governments are formed, we cannot reject them because we don’t like the results.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The 43rd Federalist deals definitively with this question. There was no question but that the Constitutional Convention, simply as a convention, had no authority of any kind. It did not form a government. But it said that the ratification of nine states shall then bring this new government into existence. The Congress of the Confederation transmitted the results to the country, the ratifications took place, and the government came into existence.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, in the first place, I deny that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally at any time during the Civil War. It was a civil war. There were traitors in the midst of all of the free states. The possibility of recruiting soldiers and keeping them from deserting. There was lots of desertion on both sides of the Civil War, and it just happens that there were more Confederate soldiers executed for desertion than there were Union soldiers. But there were plenty of executions on both sides.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, Lincoln, in his July 4th Special Message to the Congress, 1861, said that the people of the South were a law-abiding people, and they would not have undertaken to do what they were now doing if it hadn't been for the invention of an ingenious sophism, according to which a state could secede from the Union without the permission of the Union or of any other state.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ratification of the Constitution was an action undertaken by all of the states which joined the union and adopted the Constitution, and that was a contract between them and among them—that they would abide by the results of the elections conducted under the rules of the Constitution, and that they could not act independently of the other states with which they had jointly and severally agreed and contracted to be governed by.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No, on the contrary, the Constitution exists to protect that right. The important point is that the Constitution exists to protect individual liberty and individual property. In fact, the most important of all of the rights, really the foundation of all rights, are the rights to private property. But the right to private property is a right for each individual human being to own himself.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so, the idea of slave property contradicts the idea of private property, and the Southerners taking their stand on their property rights and their slaves were, in fact, taking their stand on a principle which was incompatible with the idea of constitutional government.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was recognized as a necessary evil at the time, and the justification for the ratification of the Constitution with slavery is that any alternative arrangement would have been more favorable to slavery than the Constitution itself. The Constitution created a government strong enough to deal with the question of slavery when it became what it did become in 1860.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the war was a terrible war, but it was a war for human freedom, and if the South had succeeded and if slavery had been extended, the United States, or part of it, might very well have been on the side of Hitler in the Second World War. We would not have been the bastion of freedom we have been in the twentieth century.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Diversity in the service of freedom might be a very good thing. Diversity in the service of slavery might be a very bad thing.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Relativism, positivism, and nihilism — modern doctrines which mock wisdom and scorn virtue — have at the dawn of the twenty-first century come to dominate.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No result of the Civil War was more fundamental than the authoritative assertion of the inclusion of human beings of any color and any ethnicity in the proposition of human equality. A consensus in favor of the colorblind Constitution is provided by the logic of reality and the logic of history.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to Abraham Lincoln, public opinion always has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate. The central idea of the American Founding—and indeed of constitutional government and the rule of law—was the equality of mankind. This thought is central to all of Lincoln's speeches and writings, from 1854 until his election as president in 1860. It is immortalized in the Gettysburg Address.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unless we as a political community can by reasoned discourse re-establish in our own minds the authority of the constitutionalism of the Founding Fathers and of Lincoln, of government devoted to securing the God-given equal rights of every individual human being, we will remain ill equipped to bring the fruits of freedom to others.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That all men are created equal does not mean that human beings are the same, or equal, in size, strength, beauty, virtue, or intelligence. There are obviously great differences in individual aptitudes and talents in sports, music, mathematics, speaking, and writing. They are also unequal in the virtues, among them courage, temperance, and justice. But as Jefferson once said, the fact that Sir Isaac Newton may be the most intelligent of living human beings does not give him any right whatever to my person or my property.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are to have a foundation upon which to continue to build a more perfect union, we must return unequivocally, as Lincoln returned, to the source of our greatness in the American Founding.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The South knew that it would never in future possess the same power relative to the North that it did in 1861. From that perspective, it was now for never or Southern independence, if slavery was to be preserved.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He didn't care whether slavery was voted up or down, he cared only for the sacred right of the people to make that decision. Why the right of the people should have been sacred, if the results of the exercise of that right were indifferent, Douglas never undertook to say.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The issue between Lincoln and Douglas was identical to the issue between Socrates and Thrasymachus in the first book of Plato's Republic. Not similar to it. Identical. It is a question of whether the people make the moral order or the moral order makes the people.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lincoln thought slavery was wrong and he did not think a vote of the people could make it right.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Secretary of State, the President, they all talk about "values". A "value" is a subjective desire, not an objective truth. George Washington said: "The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality." If you had said, "Oh, Mr. Washington, you mean in our 'values?'" Washington would have replied, "What the hell are you talking about?”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marx saw morality as the great enemy of human well-being and now the society of the future is one in which moral distinctions based upon the Judeo-Christian and Greek tradition will dissolve. Without even knowing it, we are moving into a Communist world. Without a revolution, we are moving into the world that Marx wanted.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence didn't mean radical individualism. It meant the pursuit of virtue.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have to return to the political thought of the American founders and Abraham Lincoln. Nothing is at stake but the salvation of Western civilization.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of politics is judging what circumstances permit and what they forbid. Look at the reputation of, say, John Brown and the abolitionists before the Civil War. Lincoln had very harsh things to say about John Brown in 1859. The Civil War vindicated John Brown.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remember, the ultimate object of Marxist Communism is to return to the Garden of Eden with no forbidden fruit. That’s the goal of libertarianism as well. And we’re marching rapidly in that direction. Morality is disintegrating in front of our eyes.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source