Jaffa on Lincoln

Harry V. Jaffa discusses two books on Lincoln. An excerpt:

It is certainly true that all Lincoln's prior labors had prepared him for Gettysburg. But in the Address there is no intellectual innovation of any kind. Lincoln's political labors were manifested in great and powerful speeches and public letters that had reached nearly every literate American by 1863. The secession of the 11 Confederate states was motivated precisely by the conviction that Lincoln's election was intended to mark the beginning of the end of slavery in America. The House Divided speech had explicitly called for the "ultimate extinction" of slavery, and was one of the great motivating forces for secession. Ending the extension of slavery was to be the first step in that direction. Wills's absurdity is also manifested in the fact that the Republican Party, in the platform upon which Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, quoted verbatim the whole of the statement of principles in the Declaration of Independence—including the proposition that all men are created equal—and declared that these principles were embodied in the Constitution. The Constitution that Wills says was sprung on a gullible public at Gettysburg was openly and manifestly present in the 1860 election. No one was fooled by the Gettysburg Address, and it is only historical illiteracy and ideological perversity that could make possible the award of a Pulitzer to Garry Wills's giant swindle.