From Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. at City Journal:
Liberalism claims to be more rational than custom, tradition, and common sense; but liberalism, or progressivism, relies on simpleminded principles and unthinking passion. It suffers from faults that it fails to acknowledge—the clumsiness of administering its programs, their cost, and its lack of prudence in dealing with foreign enemies (as opposed to its skill in defeating conservatives at home). Conservatives, for their part, face the difficulty of countering the impression that progress is inevitable and irreversible, and so of generally playing defense and reacting to their opponents’ initiatives. They have the faults of progressivism to work against but have enjoyed more success in electing conservatives than in reversing so-called progress. If liberals are the party of government, conservatives are the party of responsible government, their responsibility often being manfully to make the best of a bad situation. …
Democrats are the inclusive party: their drive toward equality seeks to include as equal all those presently considered unequal, those who lack security and are, in one way or another—by incapacity, lack of virtue, or bad luck—vulnerable. Republicans are the exclusive party: they believe that, while all share equality of rights, some people are better than others and deserve to be honored or rewarded for this. I call them the party of virtue, though they do not make that claim themselves. They would probably speak of “values” rather than of virtue, fearing the prudish connotation of that lovely antique word. They would also probably call themselves the party of liberty and reject the boastful claim of being more virtuous, so invidious in a democracy. But they want not any liberty but the virtuous use of liberty—liberty used to the end of supporting and honoring virtue, as opposed to lazy or licentious liberty. …Democrats say that inequality is a matter of privilege, which is luck, not virtue. They say this especially about gaining wealth, but the more sophisticated will say the same of honors gained through talent or intelligence. They reserve their indignation, however, for those wealthy in money and tend to give a pass to those rich in another sense. Those outstanding in honor or public esteem and recognition are not attacked, as their ranks would include professors (at least in the opinion of professors); Democrats do not object to the inequality of the talented, the intelligent, or the celebrated on their side. Today, those uncomfortable about being wealthy in money will be Democrats, even if they are rich; those convinced that the wealthy deserve their wealth will be Republicans, even if they are poor and perhaps even envious. To be a Democrat is to believe that government must be concerned, above all, with counteracting ill luck; to be a Republican is to believe that government should sustain, rather than punish, the virtue of citizens and incidentally help out those who, through no fault of their own, do not succeed in managing their own lives. …When today’s Republican Party formed in 1854, it was a popular party—but it was still a virtue party. Abraham Lincoln made sure of that and set an example for today, for the contemporary conservative need is to recognize the basis of conservatism in virtue and to make virtue democratically suitable to our time. Lincoln’s opposition to slavery took America back to the Declaration of Independence more than to the Constitution—as he put it, the Constitution was the “frame of silver” and the Declaration the “apple of gold”—and hence to equality, the principle that all men are created equal. …
Lincoln had more to say about promoting virtue in a democracy. In a less well-known speech of 1857 to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, he speaks to farmers, “the most numerous class,” having the most votes, he remarks—not entirely as a joke. These farmers are not stupid peasants; they are always using their minds. They know the difference between doing one’s work and doing it well, which they take pride in. They do their work thoroughly, which means with an eye to how it might be improved and become more productive. They know, therefore, that labor and education are compatible and that labor is not slavish (nor is it a punishment) but, on the contrary, makes one free. Free labor is earned freedom, freedom with virtue in the moral and intellectual as well as the physical world. It justifies the hope that the course of the world “shall be onward and upward.”This is progress as it was presented before the Progressives, to which conservatives in a democracy might repair, a progress without the mindless extension of equality, the numbing guarantee of historical inevitability, the well-meaning oppressiveness of Big Government, the sludge of bureaucracy, and the curse of demagoguery. In one of the typical beauties of his rhetoric, Lincoln warns the Wisconsin farmers that he is going to flatter them—before proceeding to do so. And Lincoln gets away with it. Virtue, to do its work, needs an agreeable presentation. Lincoln, intellectual founder of the Republican Party, the less self-knowing party, is the rare American politician who has something to say about what he is saying. …
See also this.
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