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VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 2, SPRING 2017 A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship Yuval Christopher Levin: Caldwell: Why e Democracy? Globalization Swindle Allen C. Guelzo: Matthew J. Defending Franck: Reconstruction Patriotism Is Not Enough Ralph eodore Lerner: Dalrymple: e White Trash Enlightenment & in America Hillbilly Elegy John David P. Derbyshire: Goldman: Weapons Walter of Math McDougall Destruction Gets Religion Dana Gioia: Joseph Seamus Epstein: Heaney’s Evelyn Aeneid Waugh A Publication of the Claremont Institute PRICE: $6.95 IN CANADA: $8.95 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Book Review by Matthew J. Franck Friends and Enemies Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments that Redefined American Conservatism, by Steven F. Hayward. Encounter Books, 296 pages, $25.99 n his new book, steven hayward that they “redefined American conservatism,” more, in a standout chapter on “The Ad- sketches the larger-than-life careers, as the subtitle claims? That’s hard to say, ministrative State and the End of Constitu- Iachievements, and quarrels of Harry V. when the competition includes Russell Kirk, tional Government” (excerpted in the Winter Jaffa and Walter Berns, two early students of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Michael 2016/17 CRB), Hayward shows how the stu- Leo Strauss, who were more than just gifted, Novak, William F. Buckley, Jr., Richard John dents of Jaffa, Berns, and others have expand- prolific scholars of the American Founding Neuhaus, Irving Kristol, and Norman Pod- ed their teachers’ arguments to grapple with and teachers of political philosophy. Lovers horetz—to name just a handful of intellec- modern America’s soft despotism. of country as well as of the truth—patriots tual figures, never mind the movement’s most who knew that Patriotism Is Not Enough, as noteworthy statesmen. eo strauss, who left germany in the title has it (the phrase comes from Jaffa)— Yet Hayward, a visiting scholar at U.C. 1932 and came to the United States Jaffa and Berns also took their talents into the Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Stud- Lfive years later, did not say much in public square as commentators on, and com- ies and the author of the superb two-volume print about his adopted country, but his stu- batants in, American political life. Friends study The Age of Reagan (2001-09), makes a dents (and their students) have had plenty to when they were young, bitterly divided in lat- good case that Jaffa and Berns—along with say, much of it truly groundbreaking. In the er years, but with that antipathy beginning (it others in the “Straussian” orbit over the past 1950s, when Jaffa and Berns were getting seems) to cool at the end, Jaffa and Berns died half century—deserve credit for reviving seri- started, the founders and Lincoln were out on the same day, January 10, 2015—remind- ous study, in and out of the academy, of the of fashion among political scientists and his- ing many people of the deaths on July 4, 1826, political thought of the American Founders torians alike—obsolete at best in a “progres- of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who and of Abraham Lincoln. By doing so, these sive” age, retrograde at worst. The Constitu- similarly began as friends, became adversaries, scholars made American conservatism more tion was a ramshackle Newtonian machine, and finally reconciled. distinctively American by giving pride of place Woodrow Wilson had insisted, unsuited for a Will readers who knew little or nothing to the U.S. Constitution and its grounding streamlined Darwinian age. And it was made about these two men come away persuaded in the Declaration of Independence. What’s by anti-democratic oligarchs to boot, added Claremont Review of Books w Spring 2017 Page 28 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Charles Beard, J. Allen Smith, and Vernon younger Straussians with the passage of time, ing; he was defending [their] original meaning” Parrington. For its part, the Declaration pro- and to some extent the disputes have died out (emphasis in the original). In other words, in claimed “truths” that no serious person in our altogether. But for the older generation repre- Hayward’s account, Jaffa eventually came relativist age could credit, Carl Becker assert- sented in Hayward’s book by Jaffa and Berns, to a richer, better understanding of Lincoln. ed. And according to James G. Randall, Av- the bitterness lingered because much was at That’s a subtle treatment that takes Jaffa’s ery Craven, Allan Nevins, and Richard Hof- stake personally as well as intellectually and thinking seriously. stadter, the Great Emancipator, who was just politically. And though he treads kindly and By contrast, when he takes up a shift over as much a racist as his opponents, had blun- gingerly, Hayward cannot really avoid con- time in Walter Berns’s thought, Hayward dered into America’s bloodiest war because ceding that Harry Jaffa was very good at pick- reaches for the purely psychological-political his reckless ambition and opportunism made ing fights, personalizing them, and persisting explanation instead of considering, as with him unwilling to compromise on what should in them. Jaffa, the possibility that Berns got better at have been a minor policy dispute over slavery his chosen craft, in this case, constitutional in the territories. ayward is well placed to write interpretation. Berns’s earliest professional Into this obtuse, sclerotic consensus this book, having known Jaffa and publication had been a journal article on the charged Strauss’s students. While Berns, HBerns very well—Jaffa was his grad- notorious 1927 eugenic sterilization case, Martin Diamond, Herbert Storing, and oth- uate school mentor, Berns his colleague at Buck v. Bell, in which he embraced the idea of ers excavated the original understanding of the American Enterprise Institute for many substantive due process, which he later came the Constitution and the contributions to years—and his high regard for both of them to reject. “When asked later about his flirta- political thought of The Federalist and the is evident throughout. But Hayward was tion” with that idea, Hayward writes, “Berns Anti-Federalists, Jaffa revolutionized Lin- “more closely associated with Jaffa,” as he ad- said, ‘I changed my mind.’” Hayward then of- coln scholarship with his magisterial Cri- mits, than with Berns or anyone else he treats fers his “theory” that “the judicial predations sis of the House Divided (1959), a book that in the book, so it is not surprising that Berns of the Warren Court era” prompted Berns to every student of Lincoln’s words and deeds vanishes for stretches at a time while Jaffa is change course. Call it a “prudential judgment,” has had to reckon with ever since. These con- never absent for long. Hayward scruples to call it fear of the “Frankenstein’s monster” of tributions did much, too, to straighten out the “living Constitution”—call it anything, the nascent conservative movement’s under- apparently, but a considered conclusion about standing of America, which had been am- Hayward has laid out the meaning of the Constitution by a scholar bivalent toward the founders and, certainly, who improved his understanding over a life- toward Lincoln. Together, Strauss and his some of the most time of study. students also broke the stranglehold of the essential questions “behavioral revolution” on American political n fact, berns did more than simply science, restoring the connections between concerning what it is say, “I changed my mind.” In an essay the life of action and the life of the mind, and to be an American Ititled “Preserving a Living Constitution,” putting justice and statesmanship once again first published in 1993 and reprinted in his at the center of the study of politics. Any- and a conservative. last volume of collected essays, Democracy one lucky enough to study with a talented and the Constitution (2006), Berns discussed teacher of the Straussian school—and I had his 1953 article on Buck v. Bell and suggested five of them, none of them discussed in this be as fair as he can to the former and other that he had succumbed then to “the tempta- book—knows the heady experience of grap- erstwhile friends of Jaffa’s, but he comes down tion to go beyond the text of the Constitution.” pling with the wisdom of great books and the pretty decisively on his teacher’s side in the in- This, he said, “appears to be irresistible. It may actions of great men, and the lure of studying tellectual disputes he describes. Although he even be inevitable.” But, he argued, “the idea politics in the light they cast. makes vital questions of political philosophy that judges are entitled to rest their decisions accessible and engaging to a general reader- on the principles of ‘natural justice’—or any ut beginning in the late 1970s, as ship, Hayward is too close to Jaffa to take a of its modern synonyms—is incompatible anyone knows who has had a ringside sufficiently detached view of his work, and not with the Framers’ idea of a written constitu- Bseat at “Straussian fight club” (Hay- close enough to Berns and the others to take a tion.” Whether we accept this view or reject ward’s arch phrase), internecine warfare sufficiently sympathetic view of theirs. Thus it, Berns had more than fears and calcula- broke out among the first-generation Strauss- Jaffa’s views are favored by default, while tions about a runaway judiciary. He had ar- ians, and the hostilities rippled outward to Berns’s are most highly praised when they guments—formidable ones. their students, with battalions divided into most resemble Jaffa’s. Patriotism Is Not Enough is sprinkled with “West Coast Straussians”—so named because Consider, for example, the way Hayward other passing comments about Berns that will Jaffa taught at Claremont McKenna College describes Jaffa’s thought on Lincoln as go- puzzle anyone familiar with his work.

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