| What did the presidents of the American founding mean by self-government? To what extent did the worst crisis of the regime they founded, the Civil War, result from divergences from their meaning? I consider the genesis of the use of ‘self-government’ in the political thought of U.S. presidents of the founding period, comparing their use of the term with that of U.S. President Lincoln and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis. The Civil War is often regarded as another American revolution, in which the regime of the founders was replaced by a much more nationalist and statist regime. If so, would not the use of the term ‘self-government’ by the allegedly nationalist and statist Lincoln not differ from that of his predecessors?; I conclude that, contrary to many of his admirers and critics, Lincoln did not use ‘self-government’ in a manner that differed significantly from his predecessors. Davis did, but not in a manner that departed wholly from that of his predecessors.; The method I employ is threefold. First, I offer interpretations of the writings of the presidents and the comparison of presidents I have selected. I then compare the understandings of self-government of presidents within each of the two clusters—American founding and Civil War. Finally, I compare the thought of the Civil War cluster of presidents with the thought of the founding cluster of presidents. |
