On Uncommon Knowledge earlier this summer, Harry Jaffa discussed his classic 1959 book, Crisis of the House Divided. This week Jaffa returns to discuss the sequel, his 2000 volume A New Birth of Freedom.

Jaffa begins by making a critical point: Whereas the Founders had expected slavery simply to wither away, by the middle of the nineteenth century the peculiar institution had done no such thing.

Slavery was regarded as a necessary evil in 1776. By 1860 a large part of the country, North as well as South, believed that slavery was a benign institution and supported by both God and history.

Enter Lincoln.

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