Mel Bradford | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Melvin Eustace Bradford (1934-05-08)May 8, 1934[1] Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | March 3, 1993(1993-03-03) (aged 58) Midland, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | literary critic andlegal scholar |
| Alma mater | University of Oklahoma(BA,MA) Vanderbilt University(PhD) |
| Genre | non-fiction |
| Literary movement | Southern Agrarians,paleoconservatism |
| Notable works | The Reactionary Imperative |
Melvin Eustace Bradford (May 8, 1934 – March 3, 1993) was an Americanconservative author, political commentator and professor of literature at theUniversity of Dallas.
Bradford is seen as a leading figure of thepaleoconservative wing of the conservative movement. He died just as the termpaleoconservative was being coined and preferred the termtraditional conservative. In his preface toThe Reactionary Imperative, he wrote "Reaction is a necessary term in the intellectual context we inhabit in the twentieth century because merely to conserve is sometimes to perpetuate what is outrageous."
Bradford's conservatism was rooted within the heritage and traditions of theAmerican South. He studied atVanderbilt University and wrote his doctoral thesis under theSouthern Agrarian andFugitive PoetDonald Davidson[2] (whose biography Bradford was wrapping up at the time of his sudden death at age 58), and thus was admitted to the succession of this movement to recover the Southern tradition.
Bradford was first and foremost a literary scholar and a student ofrhetoric. He was known in literary circles for his work onWilliam Faulkner, where Bradford stressed the importance of the Southern setting and the primacy of community in understanding the action of Faulkner's novels and stories. He "had no truck with critical efforts to portray Faulkner as alienated from the South. To the contrary, he saw the novelist as thoroughly embedded within his native region."[2] Outside of literature he wrote extensively on the subjects of history and culture. Bradford specialized in the history of the American founding and Southern history in the United States. Bradford also advocated the constitutional theory ofstrict constructionism. "The original understanding of theConstitution, Bradford maintained, conformed much more closely to theSouthern position than toLincoln's acts of usurpation."[2]
Bradford also frequently wrote forModern Age,Chronicles magazine andSouthern Partisan magazine.
Bradford was born inFort Worth, Texas and grew up there. He studiedEnglish atUniversity of Oklahoma and completed his bachelor's and master's degrees. He then continued his education atVanderbilt University and graduated with aPh.D. He stayed in academia and taught at several institutions ofhigher education, includingUnited States Naval Academy, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, and, primarily, theUniversity of Dallas from 1967 until his death.[3]
In U.S. presidential elections Bradford campaigned forBarry Goldwater in1964,George C. Wallace in1972,Ronald Reagan in1976 and1980, andPat Buchanan in1992.[3]
He was for a time the president of thePhiladelphia Society.[4]
He died in 1993 after undergoingheart surgery.[5]
In 1980, Bradford was initially tapped by President-electRonald Reagan for chairman of theNational Endowment for the Humanities. According toDavid Gordon, "Reagan's wish to elevate him to the prestigious post did not stem solely from Bradford's academic credentials. The president and he were acquaintances, and he had worked hard in Reagan's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Influential conservatives such asRussell Kirk and Sen.Jesse Helms also knew and admired Bradford."[2] The selection met with intense objections fromneoconservative figures, centering partly on Bradford's criticisms of PresidentAbraham Lincoln. They circulated quotes of Bradford calling Lincoln "a dangerous man," and saying, "The image of Lincoln rose to be very dark" and "indeed almost sinister."[6] He was even accused of comparing Lincoln toAdolf Hitler.[2] "Bradford rejected Lincoln because he saw him as a revolutionary, intent on replacing theAmerican Republic established by theConstitution with a centralized and levelingdespotism."[2] Another issue was Bradford's support for the 1972 presidential campaign ofGeorge C. Wallace.[7] The neoconservative choice,William Bennett, was substituted for Bradford on November 13, 1981.[8] Author Keith Preston later described the successful effort to cancel Bradford's nomination as symbolic of thecosmopolitan neoconservatives descended from liberalism establishing hegemony over theRepublican Party andAmerican conservatism, displacing more traditionalist and regionalist thinkers with ideological roots in theOld Right.[9]
A letter supporting Bradford's nomination, sent to President Reagan during the controversy, was signed byJohn East,Jesse Helms,John Tower,Strom Thurmond,Orrin Hatch,Jeremiah Denton,Dan Quayle andJames McClure and eight other Republican senators. Gerhart Niemeyer,Russell Kirk,Jeffrey Hart,William Buckley,M. Stanton Evans,Andrew Lytle,Harry Jaffa ("Bradford's principal intellectual antagonist"),[2] and "dozens of others" were also named as supporters.[10]Norman Podhoretz,Irving Kristol,William Kristol,[2]Michael Joyce andWilliam Simon were among Bennett's supporters.[11]
