Harry V. Jaffa | |
|---|---|
 Jaffa in 1958 | |
| Born | Harry Victor Jaffa (1918-10-07)October 7, 1918 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | January 10, 2015(2015-01-10) (aged 96)[5] Pomona, California, U.S. |
| Spouse | |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Yale University (BA) The New School (PhD) |
| Thesis | Thomism and Aristotelianism (1950) |
| Doctoral advisor | Leo Strauss |
| Influences | Walter Berns[1] |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline |
|
| Sub-discipline | Political philosophy |
| Institutions | Ohio State University Claremont McKenna College Claremont Graduate University Claremont Institute |
| Notable students | |
| Notable works | Crisis of the House Divided (1959) |
Harry Victor Jaffa (October 7, 1918 – January 10, 2015) was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor. He was aprofessor emeritus atClaremont McKenna College,Claremont Graduate University, and was a distinguished fellow of theClaremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application ofLeo Strauss's revival ofnatural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".[6]
Jaffa wrote on topics ranging fromAristotle andThomas Aquinas toAbraham Lincoln,Winston Churchill, andnatural law. He was published in theClaremont Review of Books, theReview of Politics,National Review, and theNew York Times. His most famous work,Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, written in 1959, has been described as a touchstone.[7][8] He wrote the controversial line in 1964 Republican presidential nomineeBarry Goldwater's acceptance speech that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice".[9][10]
Jaffa was a formative influence on the Americanconservative movement, challenging notable conservative thinkers, includingRussell Kirk,Richard M. Weaver, andWillmoore Kendall, on Abraham Lincoln and the founding of the United States.[11] He debatedRobert Bork on Americanconstitutionalism. He died in 2015.[12]
Jaffa was born in New York City on October 7, 1918, to Arthur Solomon Jaffa and Frances Landau Jaffa;[10] his middle name is a reference to World War I, which ended with the same year he was born. His family wasJewish.[13] He earned aBachelor of Arts degree in English literature fromYale University and aDoctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in political philosophy fromThe New School for Social Research. As a PhD student, he became interested in Abraham Lincoln after discovering a copy of theLincoln–Douglas debates in a used bookshop.
Jaffa was one ofLeo Strauss' first PhD students. His dissertation onAristotle andThomas Aquinas later became his first book,Thomism and Aristotelianism. There, he argues that the Christian beliefs of Aquinas influenced Aquinas' work on Aristotle.[14][clarification needed]Alasdair MacIntyre describes the book as "an unduly neglected minor modern classic."[15]
Jaffa taught atQueens College,City College of New York, and theUniversity of Chicago in the 1940s before receiving his doctorate.[10] He taught atOhio State University from 1951 through 1964, before moving toClaremont McKenna College.[7][10][16]
Jaffa was known for his involvement in politics in addition to his writings. He was a "Kennedy Democrat who switched parties after theBay of Pigs" in the 1960s,[17] as described by Sam Tanenhaus.[7] During the1964 presidential election, Jaffa worked for the Republican campaign ofBarry Goldwater. Jaffa wrote Goldwater's famous and controversial statement in his acceptance speech at theRepublican National Convention: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."[9][7][10]
At Claremont, Jaffa was known as a leader of the "West Coast Straussians" and the "Claremonsters". His proteges can be found at Claremont and other colleges includingHillsdale College and theUniversity of Dallas.[7] United States Supreme Court JusticeClarence Thomas has said Jaffa influenced his judicial views.[7]
Jaffa believed the American founders, includingThomas Jefferson,James Madison, andGeorge Washington established the nation on political principles traceable from Locke to Aristotle. While he believed that governments are instituted to protect rights, he acknowledged the higher ends they serve, primarily happiness. TheDeclaration of Independence said, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Jaffa pointed out that safety and happiness are the principal virtues of Aristotelian political life in hisPolitics. Jaffa also pointed toFederalist No. 43, in whichJames Madison declares that safety and happiness are the aims of all political institutions, and George Washington's first inaugural address as cementing the link between human happiness and government and therefore the ancient roots of the American founding.[18][independent source needed]
Jaffa wrote two books dealing exclusively withAbraham Lincoln. His first,Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, was written in 1959. Forty years later, he followed it withA New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Jaffa also wrote a number of essays on Lincoln for theNational Review and other journals. Before Jaffa, most conservative scholars, includingM. E. Bradford,Russell Kirk, andWillmoore Kendall believed that Lincoln's presidency represented a substantial growth in federal power and limitation onindividual rights.
Jaffa also believed that the Declaration of Independence and theUnited States Constitution share a relationship whereby the latter is intended to preserve the principles of the former. This belief has garnered criticism from legal scholars, particularlyRobert Bork.[independent source needed]
InCrisis of the House Divided, Jaffa discusses theLincoln–Douglas debates that occurred on the eve of theAmerican Civil War. During the 1850s, concern over the spread of slavery into the territories and into the free states became the primary concern of American politics.Stephen A. Douglas proposed the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which removed congressional authority over slavery's expansion into the territories and allowed the citizens of each territory to decide whether or not slavery would be legal there. In contrast, Lincoln believed that popular sovereignty was another example of tyranny of the majority. Lincoln argued that a majority could not sanction the enslavement of other men due to the Founding principle that "All men are created equal," which slavery violated. Both men squared off in a contest for Illinois' Senate seat in 1858.
In the book, Jaffa explains the philosophical underpinnings of both Lincoln and Douglas' arguments. According toCatherine H. Zuckert, Jaffa "aimed at nothing less than bringing to bear on America the methods and substance of the Straussian revival of the Socratic tradition of political philosophy." Like Strauss, Jaffa observed the tendency of modernity to degenerate moral and political philosophy, which he found in Douglas' appeal to popular sovereignty. Jaffa also believed that Lincoln challenged Douglas' argument with an Aristotelian or classical philosophical position derived from theDeclaration of Independence and its contention that "all men are created equal."[19] InThe New Yorker, Sam Tanenhaus described the book as "a touchstone in the vast Lincoln literature" and wrote that "Lincoln emerges from it as a serious moral philosopher".[7]
A New Birth of Freedom was to be the first of a projected two-volume commentary on theGettysburg Address. The first volume focuses on Lincoln's First Inaugural Address and his July 4, 1861, address to Congress. Jaffa argues that the Gettysburg Address is not a self-contained work but "a speech within a drama. It can no more be interpreted apart from the drama than, let us say, a speech by Hamlet or MacBeth can be interpreted apart from Hamlet or MacBeth. The Gettysburg Address is a speech within the tragedy of the Civil War, even as Lincoln is its tragic hero. The Civil War is itself an outcome of tragic flaws—birthmarks, so to speak—of the infant nation."[20]
Jaffa describes human equality as America's "ancient faith" and contends that the Declaration of Independence reflects the principles ofnatural law. According to Jaffa, Lincoln's task was to restore America's political faith, saving the Union from thehistoricism of the Confederacy. Jaffa considers the political philosophy ofJohn C. Calhoun the backbone of the Confederacy's new constitution and its notion of human inequality. According to him, Calhoun believed that equality was only a prescriptive attribute on the part of the states, not a natural right of human persons. By extension, Calhoun believes that human equality is derived from the relationship between equal states and not equal persons. Jaffa therefore believes that Calhoun's understanding of equality differs greatly from the American founders.[20]
Jaffa debated manyconservative andlibertarian critics of Abraham Lincoln. In the mid-1960s, he argued for Lincoln's conservative legacy in the pages ofNational Review withFrank Meyer, who maintained that Lincoln opened the door to unlimited expansion of federal power. In his book,Storm Over the Constitution (1999), he formulated a theory ofconstitutional law, incorporating theDeclaration of Independence. The theory was criticized for being overly philosophical, rather than legal, despite being presented as a legal argument. His approach was especially critical of figures such asWilliam Rehnquist andRobert Bork, who responded to Jaffa inNational Review.[independent source needed]
Jaffa also criticized the scholarship of other prominent conservatives includingRussell Kirk,Richard Weaver,M.E. Bradford, andWillmoore Kendall.[11] He debated libertarian Lincoln criticThomas DiLorenzo in 2002.[21][non-primary source needed]
Jaffa argued that formerSupreme Court nomineeRobert Bork advanced a theory of Americanconstitutionalism that was in fundamental tension with the principles of theDeclaration of Independence, and that was insufficiently conservative.[22] Jaffa argued that Bork's argument representedlegal positivism andmoral relativism akin to that expressed byJohn C. Calhoun and the Confederacy during the Civil War. According to Jaffa, Bork believed that the Constitution and the Declaration were separate documents that were never intended to inform one another. Bork argued that the Constitution said nothing aboutabortion orgay rights. Jaffa believed that the Constitution followednatural law principles, and thereforeprohibited states from protecting abortion or homosexuality. Bork replied that Jaffa's theories amounted to "the heart's desire theory of constitutional jurisprudence: Anything one does not like is in the Constitution", and that those who agreed with him "had much in common withHarry Blackmun, although neither would care to admit it."[23][independent source needed]
Jaffa was close friends withWilliam F. Buckley, publishing a number of articles on Lincoln inNational Review throughout his career. He credited Buckley with allowing him to publish when he had been blacklisted byliberal journals andneoconservative publications after a dispute withIrving Kristol. However, Jaffa disagreed with many of the writers then publishing for the magazine includingRussell Kirk andFrank Meyer. According to him, these men and other writers there rejected the principles of theDeclaration of Independence and its main contention that "all men are created equal." Jaffa spent his lifetime stressing the importance of the Declaration to conservatives and liberals alike.[24][25]
During the1964 presidential campaign, Jaffa, who was serving as a speechwriter toRepublican candidateBarry Goldwater, penned the line, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue" in his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination.[7][9] Although Goldwater claimed repeatedly that the line originated in a speech byCicero,[26][27] it appears nowhere in Cicero's works, and was in fact authored by Jaffa.[citation needed]
Jaffa died at Pomona Valley Hospital on January 10, 2015, the same day as his fellow Straussian and rivalWalter Berns.[citation needed]
Jaffa married Marjorie Butler in 1942; she died in 2010.[10] They had three children, Donald, Philip, and Karen.[28]
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