1. See Peterson, Merrill D., Lincoln in American Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 366–67, 396Google Scholar, for an inventory of Lincoln's international reputation.

2. Taylor, Charles, “Cross Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 159–61Google Scholar; Walzer, Michael, “The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Political Theory 18 (1990): 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Avineri, Shlomo and de-Shalit, Aver trace the debate to critical responses to John Rawls's recentering of contractarian and Kantian liberalism in his A Theory of Justice (1971)Google Scholar. See their Communitarianism and Individualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 1 — 11.

3. Walzer, “The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” 7; Kymlicka, Will, “Liberalism and Communitarianism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18 (1988): 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Anthony, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 1. 85Google Scholar; Buchanan, Allen, “Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Ethics 99 (1989): 882CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Wills, Gary, Lincoln at Gettysburg (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 145Google Scholar.

5. “Inaugural Address” in Echoes of the South (New York: E.B. Treat, 1866), 138. Many antebellum abolitionists reflected this position. Wendell Phillips, for example, proclaimed in the winter of 1861: “Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right?” in McPherson, James M., The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 33Google Scholar.

6. I rely here upon Hartz's, Louis classic analysis in The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955), chaps. 6, 7Google Scholar. For a more recent view of Southern culture as historically self-defined in terms of its “mythic ‘oppositeness’,” see Griffin, Larry J., “Why was the South a Problem to America?”, in Griffin, and Doyle, Don H., eds., The South as an American Problem (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 10–33Google Scholar.

7. “Speech at Springfield” (1858), in Williams, T. Harry, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1957), 76Google Scholar. All following page citations are from this edition unless noted.

8. “Lyceum Address (1838), in Selected Speeches, 14.

9. Lincoln's employment of Jefferson raises two important and related points, both of which lie just slightly outside the focus of this essay. One involves the question of the right to secession in the Jefferson model and the other the question of whether Lincoln “misread” or expanded upon Jefferson and the Declaration. While Jefferson's views on slavery and political equality for African-Americans bear similarities to Lincoln's – if one secludes the enormous autobiographical exception of slave ownership itself – so, too, do Jefferson's writings give great weight to states' rights, a perspective relevant to any theory of secession. Thus, it is certainly possible to imagine a scenario of secession in which a Jefferson recidivus responds in some ways similar to the way Lincoln did although the more likely narrative would place Jefferson in another role than the one Lincoln assumed. Whatever the relative weights Jefferson might have assigned the rights of equality and state sovereignty, nineteenth-century Americans, both northerners and southerners, held few doubts about where his doctrine led as Lincoln's model triumphed as an exemplar independent of his putative source. See Peterson's, Merrill D. conclusion that “the dark shadow of the War fell across the Jefferson image like a great and furious nemesis.” The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 209Google Scholar. For two differing views by admirers of Lincoln on whether Lincoln accurately read the Declaration, see: Jaffa, Harry, The Crisis of the House Divided (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959)Google Scholar; and Wills, , Lincoln at Gettysburg and his Inventing America (New York: Vintage, 1978), xii–xxivGoogle Scholar.

10. “Letter to Henry Pierce” (1859), in Selected Speeches, 114.

11. Thus, even Jaffa, who argues forcefully for Lincoln's overall orthodoxy in regard to Jefferson, admits that Lincoln “exaggerated Jefferson's non-revolutionary purpose.” Crisis of the House Divided, 322.

12. “Speech at Chicago” (1858), in Selected Speeches, 92.

13. Ibid., 93.

14. See, for example, the editorial in the Richmond Dispatch, March 5, 1861.

15. “First Inaugural Address” (1861), in Selected Speeches, 141.

16. “Special Message to Congress” (1861) in Ibid., 160. Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, insisted that states retained legal status and that the constitutional absence of a right to state secession was merely a hope on the part of the founders that it would not be utilized. “Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof” was their strategy because “it was not for them to make arrangements for its termination.…” The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, 1881 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990, reprint ed.), 145–46.

17. Ibid., 161. The Southern response was to interpret Lincoln's populism as a form of praetorianism. See, for example, Daily Delta, February 26, 1861.

18. “Lyceum Address” (1838), in Selected Speeches, 14.

19. Ibid.

20. “First Inaugural Address: (1861), ibid., 144.

21. “Speech at Peoria” (1857), ibid., p. 49.

22. “Speech at Ottawa” (1858), ibid., 102.

23. “Special Message to Congress” (1861), ibid., 162.

24. “Address at Gettysburg” (1863), ibid., 247.

25. “Second Inaugural Address” (1865), ibid., 283. Lincoln scholars are deeply divided on the implications of Lincoln's biblical arguments in the second inaugural. Diggins, John P., for example, argues that Lincoln offered a Christian vision of politics that chastened the hubris of both classical and republican political theory. The Lost Soul of American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), chap. 9Google Scholar. William S. Corlett raises the question of whether Lincoln invoked religious themes simply “as a calculated effort to blame the Civil War on God's administration instead of the Republican administration.” See “The Availability of Lincoln's Political Religion,” Political Theory 10 (1982): 522. His view is vigorously challenged by Thurow, Glen E., “Reply to Corlett,” Political Theory 10 (1982): 541–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Charles B. Strozier contends that Lincoln, despite his personal sensitivities to the ways of God, must be accorded some responsibility for employing apocalyptic language that justified “purging through violence” as a war aim. “Abraham Lincoln and the Apocalyptic at Mid-Century,” in Williams, Frank J. and Pederson, William D., eds., Abraham Lincoln: Contemporary (Campbell, CA: Savas Woodbury, 1995), 193–202Google Scholar.

26. Since the actual question of secession is often implicit, my examples must be considered largely illustrative of likely general positions and I have divided the two groups simply into “Team L and Team C” as Taylor does initially for one of his discussions: “Cross Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” 159–82. I attempt to note whenever possible, “perfectionist” liberals and different kinds of communitarians and also include writers who are not technically part of the current dispute but who contribute to the debate in general or in particular in regard to Lincoln.

27. Whether it is possible to incorporate secession into the concepts of the original position or public reason is an intriguing question, especially given Rawls's earlier maximum strategic emphasis and his willingness to acknowledge the limited right of civil disobedience. See A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 136. In Rawls's more recent formulations, to the extent to which public reason is dependent upon a particular constitutional consensus, it is at least problematic whether secession could constitute a legitimate argument. Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 212–54. Also see Buchanan, Allen, Secession (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 5–7Google Scholar, who criticizes Rawls for failing to consider secession.

28. Dahl, Robert, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 193–209Google Scholar.

29. Galston, William A., Liberal Purposes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 274CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Bellah, Robert N. et al. , Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 40Google Scholar.

31. Murray, Charles, “The Local Angle,” Reason 25 (10 1993): 40–44Google Scholar; Bradford, William, Remembering Who We Are (Athens: University of Georgia, 1985), 155Google Scholar; Kendall, Willmore, The Conservation Affirmation (Chicago: Regnery, 1963), 252Google Scholar.

32. Galston, , Liberal Purposes, 275, and “Pluralism and Social Unity,” Ethics 99 (1989), 717CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. The justification of the Constitution as a preventive against likely future secessionist efforts occurs frequently. See Cooke, Jacob E., ed., The Federalist (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), nos. 2, 5, 6–8Google Scholar.

34. “First Inaugural Address,” Selected Speeches, 141. The later is precisely Harry Beran's position, which argues that “no fault” secession is a corollary of the truly liberal view that the state can be justified only as a voluntary form of association. “A Liberal Theory of Secession,” Political Studies 32 (1984): 21–31. Also see Gautier's, David argument for no fault secession based upon what he calls individual rights of association. “Breaking Up: An Essay on Secession,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24 (1994): 357–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Taylor, Charles, Hegel and Modern Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 62–64.

36. Chicago Times, November 23, 1863.

37. Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation, 252.

38. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart, 146–47. Also see Harry Jaffa who defends Lincoln against the charge of “abstraction” in The Crisis of the House Divided, 363–86.

39. “First Inaugural Address,” Selected Speeches, 144.

40. Ibid., 143.

41. Davis, “Inaugural Address,” in Echoes of the South, 140. Compare Lincoln's inaugural on this point. While he assured the South that no precipitous action would be undertaken by him, the scenario he offered of the divided states, even without civil war, was one of open belligerency. “First Inaugural Address,” Selected Speeches, 142, 145.

42. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, 184.

43. Taylor, “Cross Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” 182.

44. “First Inaugural Addrss,” Selected Speeches, 144.

45. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, 196.

46. Ibid., 209.

47. Buchanan, Secession, 100ff. There is some evidence that the American Civil War may have been partly the result of this phenomenon. See Greenstone, J. David, The Lincoln Persuasion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar and Greenburg, Kenneth, Masters and Statesmen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985)Google Scholar. Greenstone argues that leaders of both political parties engaged in “chicken” games (165–68), and Greenburg contends that Southern responses to the 1860 election were conditioned by the “dueling code” culture of the plantation class (135–44).

48. For a contrast, see Miller, David, who accepts a limited right to secession but also argues that what he calls the “Balkan objection” is more a problem for liberals since individual consent implies that borders be set “wherever people want them to be drawn” while nations are based upon individual identity rather than individual will: “In Defence of Nationality,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 10 (1993): 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. Lasch, Christopher, “The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” in Reynolds, Charles and Norman, Ralph, eds., Community in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 174Google Scholar.

50. Taylor, , “Alternative Futures,” in Legitimacy, Identity and Alienation in Late Twentieth Century Canada (Toronto: Knopff and Morton, 1986), 221Google Scholar.

51. Chesterton, G. K., The Napoleon of Notting Hill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. This neglected work, published in 1904, states the communitarian case with vigor, and at the same time exposes the risks involved in radical communitarian devolution.

52. Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America, 111.

53. Basler, Roy P., ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 478Google Scholar. Boritt, Gabor S. contends that it was this “moral-economic” analysis that helped him win the Republican party nomination in 1860Google Scholar. Borritt, also argues that it was this achievement that also stultified further economic analysis on Lincoln's part. Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 180–81, 192–93Google Scholar.

54. Fitzhugh, George, Cannibals All (Richmond, VA: A. Morris, 1857)Google Scholar.

55. See, for example, the Liberty party resolutions (1843) in Thomas, John L., ed., Slavery Attacked (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 94–98Google Scholar.

56. Walzer, “The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” 9–10.

57. In fairness, one must also compare the reverse scenario of a successful Southern secession. See Jaffa, The Crisis of the House Divided (408) for depictions of an American version of French Algeria.

58. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, 208.

59. Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 250Google Scholar.

60. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 254.

61. For a discussion of this aspect as well as the role of American exceptionalism in American political science, see Abbott, Philip, “Redeeming American Exceptionalism/Redeeming American Political Science,” Social Science Journal 32 (1995): 219–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. See Buchanan, Allen, “Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Ethics 99 (07 1989): 85–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kymlicka, “Liberalism and Communitarianism,” 181–204; Guttman, Amy, “Communitarian Critics of Liberalism,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985): 308–22Google Scholar.

63. Ronald Dworkin, “Liberal Community,” in Avineri and de-Shalit, eds., Communitarianism and Individualism, 209.

64. Although hardly sanguine about the consequences of nationalism, Anderson, Benedict emphasizes the central role entailed in the creation of the equivalent of a biographical narrative with its frequent employment of a fratricidal incident as an commemoration that must be both remembered (that is, commemorated) as well as forgotten (that is, forgiven). Imagined Communities, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991), 199–206Google Scholar .

65. Freeman, Michael, “Nation-State and Cosmopolis,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 11 (1994): 79–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

66. See, for example, Kristeva's, Julia acknowledgement of American exceptionalism and her attempt to outline an exceptionalist French national community based upon the teachings of Montesquieu, which confronts problems of racism and ethnocentricism. Nations Without Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 1–47Google Scholar .

67 See O'Neil, John, “Should Communitarians be Nationalists?”, Journal of Applied philosophy 11 (1994): 135–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar , who argues that the state is a principal source of the “unencumbered self” not a bulwark of community and suggests its dismantling via a “restatement” of the projects of classical anarchism. Sandel, Michael himself has expressed doubts about the nation-state but ones largely based on size. “The procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self,” Political Theory 12 (1994): 81–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

68. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart, 40.

69. See, for example, Kymlicka's, discussion of the “social thesis” in Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 216–37Google Scholar ; Marilyn Friedman's attack on the communitarians' choice of exemplary communities in “Feminism and Modern Friend-ship,” in Avineri and de-Shalit, eds., Communitarianism and Individualism, 109–110; Stephen Holmes's challenge to communitarians that they specify which hierarchical practices they would endorse in “The Permanent Structure of Anti-Liberal Thought,” in Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life, 231ff.

70. See, for example, Bader, Vet, “Citizenship and Exclusion,” Political Theory 23 (05 1995): 211–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.