Harry Jaffa and the War Between the States

In his interpretation of Southern goals at the outset of the War Between the States, Harry Jaffa places great emphasis on a speech delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in March 1861. In this speech, according to Jaffa, Stephens maintained that science supported the doctrine that blacks were an inferior race. I don’t think he understands the speech correctly, but I don’t propose to address that question now. In the course of his discussion, he advances a bold claim: “Clearly, he [Stephens] had already been influenced by Darwin’s Origin of Species, published in 1859.”

Darwin did not discuss human evolution in the Origin of Species. At the book’s close, he suggests that “light will be shed” on human origins; but his views of this subject became generally known only with the publication of The Descent of Man in 1871. The Origin mentions blacks only a handful of times in passing, always innocuously.

I suppose it is possible that Stephens read and digested the Origin within slightly more than one year of its publication; immediately grasped the application of Darwin’s theory to human beings; at once anticipated the use later nineteenth-century writers made of the theory to support doctrines of racial conflict—perhaps he deduced this from the book’s subtitle, “the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”—and, in one culminating insight, saw that all of this could be used to advance the Confederate cause. But I do wish Jaffa would explain his use of “clearly.”

Jaffa’s discussion of Abraham Lincoln offers another valuable example of a Straussian philosopher in action. During his debate with Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln made several remarks that show that he shared the anti-black views common in his time. Jaffa dissents; he thinks that the statements were carefully qualified and, if analyzed, do not commit Lincoln to belief in black inferiority. Once more, I do not propose to argue with his interpretation; those interested may consult his detailed discussion in Crisis of the House Divided. What I wish to examine is an argument Jaffa offers in support of this interpretation: 

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates Lincoln would state many times that he was not and never had been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, or of permitting them to marry with white people. As I pointed out in Crisis he never said that he never would be in favor of such things.

Now this is quite remarkable! Lincoln advances a certain proposition. But his adherence to it is not complete: rather it is carefully qualified. How do we know this? Because Lincoln did not say that he would continue to believe the proposition in the future. So far as I am aware, Jaffa has never said that he will always maintain in the future the admiration for Lincoln he has often expressed. Obviously, then, he may not genuinely admire Lincoln: his praise for him in a major book and numerous articles has always been carefully qualified. In like manner, Jaffa has not really suggested that Lincoln did not defend racist views: he did nothing but suggest he now holds this interpretation of Lincoln. Old habits die hard, and error is difficult to avoid. An appendix to one of Jaffa’s own articles is entitled “Are These Truths Now, Or Have They Ever Been, Self-Evident”; and I fear the context makes apparent that he uses the expression in the outmoded manner.

But enough of the future tense: let us return to the present. In a criticism of Willmoore Kendall, Jaffa sharply disagreed with Kendall’s contention that Lincoln’s principle of equality has led to twentieth-century leftist egalitarianism. Quite the contrary, Jaffa claims that Lincoln was a strong defender of private property and the free market.

But during Lincoln’s administration, weren’t there continual acts of interference with the market by government? Inflated currency, increased taxes, the introduction of an income tax, and a vast expansion of the government come to mind. Jaffa argues that many of these measures were for use only in the war emergency. Moreover, Lincoln himself had little interest in governmentally-directed “national improvements.” His prime concern was the war, and he left the economy largely to Congress. Lincoln “did little, if anything, to expand the power of the federal government per se.”

But how does Jaffa get from this thesis to the contention that Lincoln was a great defender of the free market? A supporter of the market usually connotes someone whose policies support it, rather than one who has some excuse for anti-market programs. But, as we have had more than one occasion to see, Jaffa has a language all his own.

Jaffa lavishes compliments on the free market, although I do not know whether he rates himself so stalwart a supporter of it as Lincoln. But because his language at times deviates from standard usage, I think it worthwhile to ask how free a market he actually favors.

That he has in mind a quite limited version of market freedom emerges from his reply to a claim advanced by M. E. Bradford. Jaffa finds “extraordinary” Bradford’s assertion that the policy of equality of opportunity, which Jaffa endorses, cannot be distinguished from the equality of results he attacks. In reply, Jaffa contrasts a handicap race, aimed ideally to secure an equal finish for all contestants, with an open race:

The purpose of the [open] race is to find out who is the fastest, and this can be done only if the start of the race if fair. . . . Only an open race is a true race — that is, only a race in which every runner has a chance to compete, can reveal who it is who can run the fastest. And a true race is one in which everyone starts from the same line at the same time, and runs the same distance. . . . it is precisely when everyone starts together in a fair race that they do not end together.

Jaffa clearly opposes equal distribution of income, but one wonders how he wishes to ensure a “fair start.” Some people begin their careers with many more advantages than others: large inheritances, easy access to the best schools, etc. In a free market, people do not start with equal opportunity: would Jaffa support changes in this situation to ensure a more equal start? If he does, how far would he go? Does he favor, for example, the abolition or drastic curtailment of inheritance? Even more important, if he now opposes such measures, does he do so because it would be difficult to gain general consent for them, or does he oppose them in principle?

It is possible that Jaffa intends only the removal of state-imposed discrimination by “equality of opportunity.” If so, his use of the slogan would be entirely consistent with support for the market. But I am strongly inclined to doubt that he wishes to adopt this limited construction. “Fair start” insinuates much more.

So far as I am aware, he has never spelled out in detail the economic policies he supports. But in his introduction to the reissue of Crisis in 1982, he refers to the “great Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.” The 1964 Act is not restricted to governmentally-imposed segregation but forbids discrimination in private employment and housing as well. But, in fairness to Jaffa, he has recently changed his view. He now believes that “the abuses of the anti-discrimination laws are so intimately connected with misconceptions in the laws themselves that any benefits from them will always be far outweighed by the harm they do.” Even in his new position, though, he does not support freedom of contract as a moral right. Quite the contrary, his argument is purely prudential; the “real interests” of businessmen will end discrimination more effectively than bureaucratic schemes that mandate group rights.

Harry Jaffa used Orwellian double-think to support his attack on the South, and Mel Bradford ably defended the cause of liberty against him.