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As the War of 1812 with Great Britain approached during the Republican administration of James Madison, the War Hawks saw silver linings everywhere. (See part 1.) “Republicans even came to see the war as a necessary regenerative act — as a means of purging Americans of their pecuniary greed and their seemingly insatiable love of commerce and money-making,” historian Gordon S. Wood writes in Empire of Liberty. “They hoped that war with England might refresh the national character, lessen the overweening selfishness of people, and revitalize republicanism.” The money cost of war was dismissed as insignificant compared to national honor and sovereignty. Indeed, the war was called the “Second War of Independence.” Wood quotes the newspaper editors of the Richmond Enquirer: “Forget self and think of America.”
Republicans, of course, had previously warned of the dangers of war, including high taxes, debt, corruption, a big military, and centralized power. Madison himself ...
The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right by Yuval Levin (Basic Books 2014), 235 pages.
Yuval Levin’s well-written Great Debate is full of useful material, understandable explanation, and interesting reflections. It flows along smoothly and even entertainingly, unless that is a cuss word in serious circles. Levin goes through the Burke-Paine controversy in good order, with copious and apt quotations. He creates a real sense of what was at stake in this “great Anglo-American debate”: an argument that opposed justice and progress to order and conservation (as these partisans saw things). Here is a “disagreement within liberalism” that still plagues us today.
Each man was a theorist and an activist. Educated outside the Anglican Establishment, each had risen socially. They shared associates, had met, and were correspondents for a time. Arriving in London, the Irish-born Edmund Burke (1729–1797) showed great literary talent. Falling in with the Rockingham Whigs, he spent nearly three decades ...
