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Article: Was Lincoln a liberal?(COMMENTARY)(POLITICAL BOOKS)(Column)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- May 21, 2009
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Byline: Jeremy Lott, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In the 19th century, two principal groups stood opposed to human bondage - liberals and the more fervent, more numerous and predominantly Christian abolitionists.
We should distinguish 19th-century liberals from the current crop, as Allen C. Guelzo does in his Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction. Mr. Guelzo, a historian from Gettysburg College and a George W. Bush appointee to the National Council on the Humanities, says liberalism has come to mean ... an unpopular combination of sentimentality, hedonism and a selective conviction that problems are the fault of social systems and that solutions are the ...