Leo Lincoln: Why the Straussians love Abe Lincoln

Ever since the New York Times published a long article explaining that most of the architects of the Bush foreign policy are "Straussians," more and more journalists have been asking the question, "What the heck is a Straussian?" A number of common principles have emerged after these writers have examined the writings of Leo Strauss, the godfather of neoconservativism.

Straussian Principle #1 is the perversion of the idea of natural rights, as understood by John Locke and the American founding fathers. The natural law tradition holds that man possesses natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that the state is always and everywhere the greatest threat to these God-given rights. To the founders, this meant that government should be "bound by the chains" of the Constitution, to paraphrase Jefferson. If men were angels, there would be no need for government, Madison wrote in defense of the Constitution. But men are not angels, Madison continued, which is why government power must always be limited.

Strauss (and his followers) rejected this view of natural rights in favor of Plato’s philosopher-king model of government: Eliminating restrictions on state power is fine as long as that power can be wielded by an elite few who can pursue their own vision of "the public good." As David Gordon has written, "Straus, while favoring what he considers to be the classical and Christian concepts of natural law, is bitterly opposed to the 17th and 18th Century conceptions of Locke and the rationalists, particularly to their . . . championing of the rights of the individual: liberty, property, etc." Far from advocating limited government, Strauss was a proponent of unlimited state power in pursuit of "nationalism" (as are his American neocon followers).

Straussian neocons tend to repeat the words "prudence and moderation" ad nauseum, to the point of absurdity. In all their critiques of my writings on Lincoln some of the most apoplectic criticisms have been over my "failure" to acknowledge Lincoln’s alleged prudence and moderation (as though waging an unnecessary war that killed 620,000 Americans was either). (Eric Root of the John Lock Foundation even went so far as to condemn me for failing to pontificate upon these Magic Straussian Words while admitting that he had not even read my book!)

These buzz words are merely deceptive euphemisms for "unlimited and unconstitutional executive branch power." Strauss himself was fond of praising British imperialism and Caesarism for their supposed "prudence and moderation," just as his contemporary followers are now using these same words to praise the Bush administration’s foreign policy (of which they are the main architects!).

This is obviously why the Straussians have labored so furiously to make Abraham Lincoln even more of a cult figure. He essentially declared himself dictator, suspended habeas corpus, mass arrested thousands of political dissenters, shut down hundreds of newspapers, ordered the murder of New York City draft protesters by federal troops, deported an outspoken Democratic Party opponent, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, censored all telegraph communication, nationalized the railroads, confiscated private property, rigged Northern elections, and waged war on civilians as well as combatants. The reason he gave for these shocking acts of tyranny was to destroy the secession movement and abolish the voluntary union of the founding fathers. Or, as he deceivingly put it, "to save the Union."

Lincoln and the Republicans wanted to replace the American republic with an empire that would rival Great Britain’s. To accomplish this they invaded the Southern states, killing one out of every four white males of military age, and pillaged, plundered, and burned their way through the South, destroying its economy.

There could be no better role model for aggressive, dictatorial, militaristic nationalism, which in fact is Straussian Principle #2. Strauss believed that human aggression could only be restrained by a powerful, nationalistic state (See Jim Lobe, "Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception," Alternet.org, May 19, 2003). He believed that such an omnipotent state can only be maintained if there is an external threat, "even if one has to be manufactured." This is why Straussians believe in perpetual war, and is another reason why they have formed a cult around "the church of Lincoln," whom they hold up as "the greatest statesman in history." Lincoln manufactured many "threats," including the truly bizarre notion that representative government would perish from the earth if the Southern states were permitted to secede peacefully. In reality, peaceful secession would have been a victory for self-government, keeping in mind that neither Lincoln nor Congress ever said that they were launching an invasion for any reason having to do with liberating the slaves.

Straussian Principle #3 is aggressive lying. In "Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception" Jim Lobe noted that Strauss believed in the necessity of "perpetual deception" of the ruled by their rulers if nationalistic objectives are to be achieved. Straussians routinely claim to possess unique understanding of the "hidden meaning" of history and historical documents, which is often directly at odds with the plain historical truth. This is all a part of their perpetual campaign to confuse the public and keep it ignorant of their political designs.

A good example of this phenomenon is the "special meaning" of the Declaration of Independence that Straussians claim to have discovered. The Declaration declared to the world that the colonists were seceding from the British Empire, but Straussians incredibly insist that it is an anti-secessionist document because Lincoln quoted the "all men are created equal" phrase in the Gettysburg Address. They repeat Lincoln’s tall tale that the Declaration made the Union "perpetual" even though the states describe themselves in the document as "free and independent."

The Declaration announces that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever governments become destructive of the peoples’ natural rights it is the duty of the people to abolish the government and replace it with a new one. That is exactly what Jefferson Davis announced he intended to do in his First Inaugural Address, yet the Straussians claim that it was Lincoln, not Davis, who was upholding this principle.

Even though the free and independent states ratified the Constitution to create the federal government as their agent, Lincoln held that there was never any such thing as state sovereignty because "the Union is older than the states." This of course is impossible, since the union of two things cannot be older than either thing that it is a union of.

Straussians tell us that Lincoln had to destroy the Constitution in order to save it, that he was a great humanitarian who nevertheless waged war on civilians, he favored equality even though he loudly denounced racial equality throughout his lifetime, and a thousand other deceptions.

Straussian Principle #4: Fake religiosity. Several of the journalists who have recently written about Strauss have noted that he was a proponent of a greater role for religion in affairs of state, a position that has endeared some Christians to the neocon movement. But Strauss’ position was that the political rulers and the intellectual elite (philosopher kings?) need not be bound by religion themselves; religion was primarily a propaganda tool to be used to get the masses to acquiesce in state intervention on behalf of aggressive nationalism. As Ron Bailey of Reason magazine has pointed out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."

Once again, Lincoln is the perfect Straussian role model. Lincoln never joined a church and was opposed by almost all the ministers of Springfield, Illinois, when he ran for president. He was infamous for his dirty jokes and even his criticisms of Scripture. There is no explicit evidence that he ever became a Christian, and some of his contemporaries even believed that he was probably an atheist. As James Ostrowski has written ("DiLorenzo vs. His Critics on the Lincoln Myth," LRC Archives), the "church of Lincoln" is "the church of a man who had no Church."

Lincoln was nevertheless brilliant in his use of religious language and images to mesmerize Northern audiences, especially the hyper-puritanical New England Yankees and their upper Midwest brethren. After launching a war that he apparently thought would last only a few months, Lincoln distanced himself more and more from responsibility for his own decisions by invoking religion. By the time of his Second Inaugural, when over a half million young American men had been killed in the war, he was to the point of absolving himself entirely from any responsibility for all the war’s death and destruction. He declared that "the war came," as though he had nothing to do with it, and said that it was all out of his hands and a matter of God’s will. He theorized that God was punishing America for the sin of slavery. This argument was nonsensical on its face, however, since it ignored the fact that some 95 percent of all the slaves that were brought to the western hemisphere ended up outside the U.S., where no such "punishment" was being executed by the Lord. Why would God punish Americans for the sin of slavery but no one else?

In his Second Inaugural Lincoln quoted at length Mathew 18:7 and Luke 17:1 in order to make the argument that both North and South were being punished for the sin of slavery. This in itself is, well, Straussian, since Lincoln claimed to know the "inner meaning" of God’s Word.

As Charles Adams writes in When in the Course of Human Events (p. 205), "Lincoln’s Jehovah complex gave the war a psychopathic Calvinistic fatalism, with God directing the whole affair and punishing both North and South for tolerating slavery." The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of young men, the killing of civilians, the massive theft of private property, and the burning of entire towns by federal soldiers would continue until God decided otherwise. "Not even the maddest of religious fanatics," Adams writes, "ever uttered words to equal Lincoln’s second inaugural address."

Lincoln’s cynical political manipulation of religion was the perfect Straussian subterfuge. It was the perfect propaganda tool for sugarcoating a bloody and imperialistic war of conquest. Little wonder that contemporary Straussian neocons think of Lincoln as "the greatest statesman in world history": He was an extreme nationalist; an enemy of constitutionally limited government and genuine natural rights; a skilled political conniver, manipulator and deceiver; and a phony religionist. Perfect.

You have claimed that slavery was the only issue of any consequence in the South's decision to secede. You further claim that a simple reading of articles of secession confirms this. I differ.

An excerpt from the Georgia Declaration of Secession follows --

The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all.
In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects.
Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.
But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success...

The amendment could have been amended.

Actually no, it couldn't have. It was to be inserted as an unamendable provision under Article V.

"Only one attempt to amend Article V was among the select group of six proposed amendments that was actually passed by Congress and defeated by the states.[Note 2] It is the so-called Corwin amendment. Without its preamble it read:

No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

Congress adopted this proposal on March 2, 1861. It is substantively, although somewhat covertly, concerned with slavery. It proposes to protect slave states from congressional interference. But it can rightly be considered an amendment to Article V because, if ratified, it would significantly and expressly have curtailed the federal amending power. Moreover, as originally adopted, Article V included an express limitation that prevented the abolition of slavery by amendment until 1808. The Corwin amendment would have renewed the limitation in perpetuity.

The Corwin amendment is ambiguous on the question whether it precludes an amendment directly abolishing slavery, or merely precludes amendments that authorize Congress to abolish slavery. The former would constitute the entrenchment, but not the self-entrenchment, of slavery; even under its stringent interpretation, the Corwin amendment did not (explicitly) bar its own repeal.

Orfield counts 14 proposed amendments that would somehow have precluded the abolition of slavery. Only the Corwin amendment passed Congress.[Note 3] Four years and one Civil War after passing the Corwin amendment, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, which was ratified by the states. Needless to say, the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment preempted the movement to ratify the Corwin amendment. However, the Corwin amendment had only been validly ratified by two states (Ohio, Maryland). Illinois attempted to ratify it, but probably did so defectively by voting to ratify it in a state constitutional convention that happened to be in session in 1861.[Note 4]

Incidentally, the Corwin amendment and the Thirteenth Amendment were the only proposed amendments ever signed by the President. James Buchanan signed the Corwin amendment two days before leaving office for Abraham Lincoln, in a desperate eleventh-hour effort to avert the Civil War. Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, but thinking he erred he notified Congress. The Senate declared the signature unnecessary and not to be a precedent. When the Twelfth Amendment was still in Congress, a Senate resolution to submit it to the President (Jefferson) was defeated. Before and after the Corwin amendment Congress realized that the President need not sign, and cannot veto, a constitutional amendment.[Note 5]"

The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Peter Suber http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/app1.htm

Question: Who'd be president today if Lincoln hadn't kept the union together? It wouldn't be Bush (ie, someone from Texas, because Texas wouldn't be part of America.

Who'd be national security advisor if Lincoln hadn't kept America together? It wouldn't be a woman born in Georgia or Alabama (or whereve Condie's from) --- and, in any event, a black woman born down there wouldn't be eligible for high office even in the confederacy)

...

It's pure speculation to try to second guess what America would be like if Lincoln had not forced the south back into the union.

Many economists agree that slavery was well on it's way into the dustbin of history at the start of the Civil War. Whether you call them slaves or "proletarians in worker's paradise," slavery is still unsustainable, as the Communists have learned.

After a few years, most likely the Confederate states could have rejoined the union after coming to an agreement on their issues. Slavery was never an issue until Lincoln tried to hitch his wagon to the abolitionist movement in order to support his failing war efforts.

If I recall my history correctly, the anti-conscription protests escalated into civil strife that killed around 1,000 people in New York City.

I have been meaning to read L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach." He wrote a what-if book based on this topic. Perhaps I should head to the library tomorrow...

Thanks for finding the link, I have read the Articles on several occasions, but I couldn't remember where to find them.

If you go on to read the rest, you find that there were three basic motives driving secession: the denial of the western territories to slavery, the refusal of the northern states to return runaway slaves, and the election of the abolition party to control of the federal government.

The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state.

The immediate cause of secession is Lincoln, the abolitionist. DiLorenzo may say that Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but Georgia saw him differently.

We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it.

The greatest issue driving secession was control of the western territories.

The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.

They understood that denying slavers the right to westward expansion -as slavers- would undercut them and eventually bring about the end of slavery in the territories where it already was in place.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends....[I assume that refers to the collapse of the Whig party]... Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery and to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. ...[That would be the rise of the Republicans]... This is the party to whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded. ...[Lincoln}...

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees it its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

They go on to complain at length that the northerners are refusing to return runaway slaves, or to punish the underground railroad that is sheltering them.

And then finally: Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; ....

...because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

They understood that having the abolition party in control of the federal government would ultimately bring about the end of their way of life, and they were probably right.

There are conflicts that are just going to be settled by arms, and this was one. The other Articles are even more explicit than this one in their defense of their peculiar institution. They were right in believing that they could no longer coexist with abolitionists. They were right in believing that they would never rest easy with abolitionists in the White House, and if they wanted to save their institution they had no choice but to secede.

The Whigs held many of the same opinions economically as did the Republicans, but they were not a threat; they may have opposed slavery but they were not sworn to end it. The Republicans were. That was all the difference.

It is one thing to argue the legalities of secession, and the constitutionality of a war to prevent secession. It is an interesting exercise. But that the war was about slavery, at least from the southern point of view, should not be in doubt, and that Lincoln was viewed in the south as the number one threat to slavery, even if Di Lorenzo doesn't see it, should likewise not be in any doubt.

There is a small irony here. For Lincoln it is about preserving the union, and he was willing to compromise on slavery to achieve it. For the south, it was about slavery, and they correctly understood that compromise or no, with Republicans in the White House, and expansion west cut off, they must secede or see their way of life overturned.

Some excerpts from the Abraham Lincoln Association --

But in his first Inaugural Address he

assured Southern whites that he had no intent to free slaves in the slave states, and he pledged to enforce the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

(Still think Lincoln was an "abolitionist"?)

From the war‘s outset, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips had insisted that the outbreak of rebellion called for the emancipation of the slaves...

President Lincoln resisted this pressure. When, in August of 1861, another political general, John C. Fremont, declared martial law in response to guerrilla warfare in Missouri, his declaration ordered the seizure of property of known rebels (and the execution by firing squad of certain rebel fighters.) Just in case anyone doubted whether Fremont‘s order included slaves, —The Pathfinder“ made it explicit: he declared these slaves to be —free men.“ Lincoln‘s response came in a confidential letter to the general (Document 1.) When Fremont refused Lincoln‘s request to withdraw the order, the President drafted an order, and eventually removed the general from the Missouri command. Criticized for his stand by abolitionists, Lincoln explained his reasoning further in a letter to a longtime political friend from Illinois, Senator Orville Browning.

(Does an "abolitionist" Commander-in-Chief fire one of his generals for setting slaves free?)

Read further in the linked article, and you will realize that Lincoln's first choice was to re-settle black people on foreign soil, not to make them American citizens.

With all due respect to Professor Suber, who should certainly be applauded on his relatively firm grasp of an obscure and little-known event of American history, his characterization of the amendment's unamendability is in error. Very few people have studied this issue in quite some time, though those who have done so in greater depth have concluded differently (he is a philosopher as opposed to a lawyer, political scientist, or historian). If you read the debates from the congressional record and documents surrounding the amendment it is clear that they intended it to be an unamendable extension of the 1808 clause using that same clause as precedent. It was effectively intended to prevent slavery from being abolished by anyone except for the states individually doing it themselves.

If greater time permits, I'll happily point you to some of the documents on this matter. Some are very obscure and hard to come by, though I do have some photocopies of my own of some of them that I could excerpt. For the immediate time being, I'm going to have to ask you to trust me on it (I wrote a thesis on compromise legislation during the secession winter and have extensively researched the congressional records from that session if it helps any to establish me as a credible source on the matter). If I get around to pulling out my old files on it over the holiday though, I'll try and locate the relevant stuff on it.

In addition, the Corwin Amendment is proof that slavery was the issue.

Not really. It evidences its presence as a major issue, but not "the" issue. If you look through the legislation of that session, you will find vehement southern opposition to several other matters both slavery related and not. One of the most contentious pieces, for example, was the Morrill tariff bill. Things were also still brewing from the debate over the Homestead bill from the previous summer. Senator Robert MT Hunter, for example, summarized his grievances with the Morrill tarriff bill in one of the longest speeches of the session. It concluded with the statement "I know that here we are too weak to resist or to defend ourselves; those who sympathize with our wrongs are too weak to help us; those who are strong enough to help us do not sympathize with our wrongs, or whatever we may suffer under it. No, sir; this bill will pass. And let it pass into the statute-book; let it pass into history, that we may know how it is that the South has been dealt with when New England and Pennsylvania held the power to deal with her interests."

Such views were characteristic of the southern grievances on practically every issue they opposed - it was not all "you're going to abolish slavery." It was rather that "you have complete control of the government and are using that control to push policies that put our region and economy at the mercy of northern interests."

It was the only major legislation passed to try to head off secession and it directly addressed the question of slavery to try to assure the South there would be no abrupt change of the status quo.

The reason it was the only legislation passed to head off secession was due to northern obstructionism in a small "radical republican" crowd that used parliamentary devices to tie up practically everything except for the bills they wanted. For all practical purposes, that amendment was the only measure they could not muster the strength to halt (though they did indeed try, and that is why it barely passed with only the slimmest of margins). If you want a glimpse of just how obnoxious and obstructionist the Charles Sumners of that session were, you don't even need to read the southern complaints against them. The statements and writings of the leveler headed members of the GOP, and even some of its more outspoken members, express equal disgust and frustration with Sumner and his following. Thomas Corwin, Charles Francis Adams, and even William Seward put much of the blame for the inability of congress to reach a compromise on Sumner. If anything, he is one of the major reasons why many states seceded before Lincoln's inauguration and why legislative attempts to keep them in the union failed.

Philosophers can be directly quoted no matter what corner of "esotericism" they "dwell in." It's done all the time. In fact, by not quoting Strauss directly one could argue that DiLorenzo is guilty of the very offense he and others accuse Strauss of, i.e., not believing the masses can comprehend rarefied philosophical minutiae.

You are missing the point of Strauss entirely. It is not a matter of quoting him but rather the fact that nobody is quite sure of exactly what he meant. When I said that he dwelled in esotericism, I was speaking literally and referencing a behavior of the most extreme form. He developed a significant ammount of what he wrote around the premise that the philosophical works of centuries past were filled with hidden meanings and did not shy away from loading his own stuff with the same to such a degree that even his own students are in rabid factional disagreement about what Straussianism is. If you desire to read something Strauss wrote, fine - some of it is online and most bookstores will have at least a couple things by him, so it is readily accessible. Now making sense of it and trying to figure out exactly what Strauss meant by it all...well that's another thing.

I think it's more likely, though, that the reason this author and a few others I've read lately haven't been quoting Strauss is because they've never read the guy.

I honestly couldn't tell you as I have not asked that question of any of them. I get the impression that DiLorenzo is familiar with at least some of Strauss and he's definately aware of perhaps the largest school of Straussians - the so-called "west coasters" - because he has been involved in an extensive academic debate with them for the last year or so. But if you desire to ask that question of him, by all means email him.

I'm no expert myself, but I've read that Strauss' chief value to conservatism is his penetrating dissection of 20th century liberalism and its statist cousins on the European continent, believing as he did that they ineluctably lead to relativism, which in turn descends into nihilism.

According to some of his advocates, yes. But even that is replete with esotericism.

Any analysis of the man's work which omits this aspect is some kind of deliberate distortion, and therefore suspect.

Again, I think you are missing the purpose of this article. It is admittedly not an esoteric deconstruction of Strauss' contribution to conservatism, but rather an editorial commentary on the adoration of Lincoln exercised by Strauss' largest contingent of students, advocates, and interpreters.

Garrison was by no means the only abolitionist to out Lincoln as a non-abolitionist. Here are some excerpts of what Lysander Spooner wrote of the war both during and after it:

"You, and others like you have done more, according to your abilities, to prevent the peaceful abolition of slavery, than any other men in the nation; for while honest men were explaining the true character of the constitution, as an instrument giving freedom to all, you were continually denying it, and doing your utmost (and far more than any avowed pro slavery man could do) to defeat their efforts. And it now appears that all this was done by you in violation of your own conviction of truth. In your pretended zeal for liberty, you have been urging on the nation to the most frightful destruction of human life; but your love of liberty has never yet induced you to declare publicly, but has permitted you constantly to deny, a truth that was sufficient for, and vital to, the speedy and peaceful accomplishment of freedom. You have, with deliberate purpose, and through a series of years, betrayed the very citadel of liberty, which you were under oath to defend. And there has been, in time country, no other treason at all comparable with this." - Open letter to Senator Charles Sumner, 1864

"The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general --- not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man --- although that was not the motive of the war --- as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle --- but only of degree --- between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree." - No Treason, 1870

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