Harry V. Jaffa

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Harry V. Jaffa (born 1918) is an author, and distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute, a California think tank.

He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Yale University and a Ph.D. from The New School. Jaffa's most noted book, Crisis of the House Divided examines the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

During the 1964 presidential campaign Jaffa served as a speechwriter to Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, and is credited with suggesting that Goldwater quote in his nomination acceptance address Cicero's famous expression, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue."

[edit] Views

He is one of the most famous students of Leo Strauss and is the leader of what are often called the "West Coast Straussians," a branch of the Straussian movement.

Jaffa is a leading proponent of Abraham Lincoln as a conservative. Some of his works have been criticized for being overly flattering toward Lincoln to the detriment of historically documented fact.^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Controversies

In the mid-1960s Jaffa debated Lincoln's meaning to conservatives in National Review, with Frank Meyer, who took a critical view on abuses of civil liberties and expansion of government power. This discussion occupied several articles, and the controversy persists to this day.

He has also argued with Thomas DiLorenzo, who has written unflatteringly on Lincoln. DiLorenzo and Jaffa are often critical of each other.

In the mid-1990s Jaffa was in a debate with several conservative legal thinkers. In his book Storm over the Constitution he formulated what he called a theory of constitutional law , incorporating the Declaration of Independence, sometimes referred to as Declarationism. The theory was criticized for being overly philosophical and theological, rather than legal, despite being presented as a legal argument. His approach was critical of figures including Robert Bork and William Rehnquist; Jaffa exchanged heated words on the pages of National Review with Bork.