Tag Archive for ‘credal nation’

The Enemy of the Nation

As far as I can tell, the idea that America is or should be a credal nation originated (on the right) with Harry Jaffa and his doctrine that Abraham Lincoln is the defining icon of the nation through his concept of equality. For Mr. Jaffa, the Declaration of Independence (or, more accurately, the sentence fragment from its second paragraph declaring that “all men are created equal”) is the original definition of the American creed, which Lincoln at Gettysburg was merely articulating.