then insisted that its doctrine was not theory of the Constitution, whose Preamble had conspicuously failed to list ‘rights’ or ‘equality’ among the purposes of the new government of 1788. There were, in fact, two theories of government present in the Revolutionary War period, and liberals could claim only one of them.” Nash cited John Hallowell, American Political Science Review, vol. 58 (September 1964), 687. However, the Hallowell book review to which Nash refers makes no mention of Jeffrey Hart, who had a very interesting read on the Declaration. He said, “I regard the Declaration of Independence as just that, a declaration of independence from England, written by Englishmen in the Colonies to establish their position on a foundation that would be accepted in England. In that context, the phrase ‘all men are created equal’ means that Americans are equal to Englishmen in their capacity for self-government. When we go beyond the Prologue to the list of particulars in the indictment of George III, we have that passage about him inflicting the ‘savage Indian tribes’ upon our frontier settlements, the Indians slaughtering Americans without regard to age or sex. This, I think, ‘de-universalizes’ the ‘all men are created equal’ in capacity for self-government. The Indians were a stone-age people who had not invented the wheel and had no written language.” (E-mail exchange with author.)
Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, 194–95.
Ibid. Nash reported “the ever-argumentative” Frank Meyer’s reaction to Jaffa’s position, chiding his fixation with Lincoln’s interpretation of the founding documents. He did not refute Jaffa’s assertion, however.
See Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955), 308. The progenitors of American conservatism apparently felt compelled to push credulity, because unlike the English and Europeans, Americans did not have to revolt against the feudalism of an ancien regime to gain their freedom; rather, they only had to remove the economic shackles of monarchy. Accordingly, conservatives have simply denigrated America’s founding generation to rid them of their “liberal tradition.” They trivialize the oppressive demands that the distant monarchy placed on the nation’s forebearers, a situation that forced men (and women) who wished to be loyal to the Crown to undertake actions that were anything but conservative by breaking ties with their motherland and fighting a bitter and protracted war of liberation. This is not to say that there was nothing conservative whatsoever about this revolution. One can find strains of conservatism in even the most liberal, radical, or reactionary of actions. While no one would call Joseph Stalin a conservative, his actions in seeking to maintain his power, and that of the Communist Party in Russia, were conservative actions. In the early 1960s, legendary American historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote, “the principles of the American Revolution were essentially conservative; the leaders were thinking of preserving and securing the freedom they already enjoyed rather than, like the Russians, building something new and different.” Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, Vol. One: Prehistory to 1789 (New York: Meridian, 1994), 355. Morison’s argument is not unlike saying that Stalin was a conservative in seeking to “preserve and secure” communism. While such conservative principles may have been subscribed to by the elite, it is difficult to find them in Tom Paine’s Common Sense, which stirred both colonial leaders and followers, or in Paine’s Crisis, which rallied many during the war. Early conservative scholars like Morison claimed a conservative tradition for America based on the slimmest of philosophical and historical reeds. It is ironic that conservatives honor tradition, but when that tradition is not quite what they wish, they just rewrite it.
David McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 294.
Federalist Paper No. 14 at http://press- pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s22.html.
Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, 195.
Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in America, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1962), 69, 262. Neoconservatives have claimed Rossiter as one of their own. See Norman Podhoretz, “Neoconservatism: A eulogy,” Commentary (March 1996), 19.
This column provided a vehicle for the senator to sharpen his own thinking on the subject. Given his duties in the Senate and his active schedule as a Republican spokesperson, giving talks throughout the country, he enlisted his former campaign manager, Stephen Shadegg—who he knew shared his thinking—to write many of the columns, with the senator suggesting topics and then editing the copy. For his definition of conservatism and conservatives, see Barry Goldwater, “How Do You Stand, Sir?” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1960.
Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Majority (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, 1970), xii.
Barry M. Goldwater with Jack Casserly, Goldwater (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 121.
