Battling for Our Embattled Constitution

摘要

The unique power of the Abraham Lincoln theme is suggested by the fact that it has occasioned more titles in the world's libraries than any other name. For some time it has been one of the three most numerous-the other two being Jesus Christ and William Shakespeare. This is even more remarkable when one considers the comparative shortness of time since Lincoln's life. It also is remarkable, in this light, that Allen Guelzo, in his 1999 book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, declared that my 1959 book, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, was "incontestably the greatest Lincoln book of the century." I hasten to point out that this is not a consensus view-but, as Italian priest and philosopher Thomas Aquinas would say, what is evident to the wise is not evident to all. Whatever the rank of Crisis, it was supplemented by its sequel, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. What is unique about both books, in the context of Lincoln literature, is that I have taken Lincoln's teaching about the Declaration of Independence as Lincoln himself regarded it-as a standard, not only for Lincoln's time, but for all time. I have done this, not merely as agreeing with Lincoln, but as a matter of demonstrable philosophic truth.