Winning America's Second Civil War - by Jeffrey E Paul (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The founding principles of the American Revolution-that all individuals have unalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and the fruits of their labor, and that governments should exist only to protect these rights-were a singularity in human history. The nation's failure to secure the slaves' equal rights to self-ownership led to a civil war and the constitutional recognition of this vital principle. And yet, scarcely four decades later, social science faculties at the country's top colleges and universities repudiated the country's founding principles. The cause of this startling change was the education that hundreds of American college students and graduates received in German universities in the late 19th century. Germany's professoriate was dominated by state socialists who taught that individuals had no natural rights, only privileges granted to them by the government. American students absorbed these beliefs and after their return, established this country's first graduate-level programs, seeding the first generation of PhDs. Inventing the name "progressives" for themselves, their goal was to recast America's governmental and economic institutions in the image of Germany's authoritarian government and oligarchical society. Higher education was transformed with disastrous results for the humanities and social sciences. Generation after generation of students, including those who went on to teach, abandoned this country's traditional relationship of the individual to the state"--

Book Synopsis

"Paul has provided a vital piece to our understanding of modern liberalism's origins."

--Ronald J. Pestritto, Author of America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism

Today's political and cultural divisions leave many wondering how America could have arrived at its present state. This book traces the source to an unlikely historical accident.

The founding principles of the American Revolution--that all individuals have unalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and the fruits of their labor, and that governments should exist only to protect these rights--were a singularity in human history. The nation's failure to secure the slaves' equal rights to self-ownership led to a civil war and the constitutional recognition of this vital principle. And yet, scarcely four decades later, social science faculties at the country's top colleges and universities repudiated the country's founding principles.

The cause of this startling change was the education that hundreds of American college students and graduates received in German universities in the late 19^th century. Germany's professoriate was dominated by state socialists who taught that individuals had no natural rights, only privileges granted to them by the government. American students absorbed these beliefs and after their return, established this country's first graduate-level programs, seeding the first generation of PhDs. Inventing the name "progressives" for themselves, their goal was to recast America's governmental and economic institutions in the image of Germany's authoritarian government and oligarchical society. Higher education was transformed with disastrous results for the humanities and social sciences. Generation after generation of students, including those who went on to teach, abandoned this country's traditional relationship of the individual to the state.

Over the next several decades, American politics, journalism, law, and education evolved in directions inimical to the nation's founding principles, leaving the country increasingly fractured--not unlike the decades leading up to the first Civil War. This book traces those changes, offering ways to alter the trajectory of today's political and educational culture. It includes a proposal to eliminate personal and corporate income and payroll taxes and raise today's government revenues with a low (1%) universal sales tax.

Review Quotes

Paul has provided a vital piece to our understanding of modern liberalism's origins. Although both scholars and the public have discovered more about America's original Progressives' role in moving our country away from its fundamental constitutional principles, much less is known about the German-trained academics who transformed American universities in the second half of the nineteenth century. His work will be essential to all who wish to know about what has happened to our republic.

--Ronald J. Pestritto, Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College and author of America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism

Not since the Civil War has America's grand experiment in well-ordered liberty under the Constitution been under so great an attack. Now, many question whether that experiment has failed. Paul traces this war's origins to the 19^th-century takeover of academia and government institutions by a small group of men enamored by autocratic Germany. This powerful book details what this war is about and how it can be won.

--Donald T. Critchlow, Director at the ASU Center for American Institutions and author of Revolutionary Monsters

Jeffrey Paul has written a valuable history of the woke evil that is destroying our country and has rightfully located its epicenter in America's elite academic institutions.

--David Horowitz, Author of The Professors, Reforming our Universities, One-Party Classroom, and Indoctrination U

Winning America's Second Civil War is a brilliant intellectual history of the causes and consequences of American progressivism. Jeffrey E. Paul demonstrates with crystal clear prose how, why, and by whom 19th-century German philosophy was imported to America in the decades after the Civil War to overturn the Founders' liberalism. Paul's book is the perfect antidote to the anti-Americanism of today's collectivist Left and statist Right.

--C. Bradley Thompson, Author of America's Revolutionary Mind