Harry V. Jaffa on Art

"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd."

"reservation of the Union was not a partisan policy."

"The art of politics is judging what circumstances permit and what they forbid. Look at the reputation of, say, John Brown and the abolitionists before the Civil War. Lincoln had very harsh things to say about John Brown in 1859. The Civil War vindicated John Brown."

"The possibilities for slavery expansion were almost endless. Douglas would have done these things, but he couldn't subscribe to the slave code. And on that basis, they seceded, and that split the Democratic Party, and that elected Abraham Lincoln."

"A parallel case was the Fugitive Slave Act. Article IV of the Constitution says that any person held to the service or laborer in any state escaping to another state shall not be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be returned to the one to whom the service or labor is due. This is the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution."

"But what happened then? The majority of the delegates to that convention wanted to nominate Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. The Democratic Party had the two-thirds rule, which they continued to have until 1936, as a matter of fact. I think only in '36 did they change it to a simple majority; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first nomination had to be two-thirds."