In the magnificent penultimate scene in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film, Amistad, John Quincy Adams (played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins) concludes his oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court with the following abnomition regarding the curse of slavery that is a central issue in the case::

“We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears, our prejudices, ourselves. Give us the courage to do what is right. And if it means civil war, then let it come. And when it does, may it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.”
“That’s all I have to say.”

Harry V. Jaffa, a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute and the author of the well-known study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (University of Chicago Press, 1959) pens this interesting blog post in which he makes the following observation about President Bush’s goal of eliminating tyranny in the world:

. . . [T]he president has . . . [declared] that it is our intention to eliminate tyranny from the world. These pronouncements show a profound ignorance, both of history and of political philosophy.
Our own government, by constitutional majorities, became possible only when sectarian religious differences were removed from the political process. The Constitution declares in Article VI that ìno religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.î Such a provision could not be found in any instrument of government in all of human history. (The Toleration Act of 1689 in England was full of religious tests.) In the aftermath of the religious wars in Europe, in which Protestants and Catholics slaughtered each other without restraint, our Founding Fathers recognized that majority rule was not possible if Protestants could thereby determine the religion of Catholics, or Catholics of Protestants, or Christians of Jews, or Jews of Christians. Government by majority rule ódemocracy in any sense ó is not possible unless sectarian religious differences are kept out of the political process. But in Iraq, in the Middle East generally, there are no political differences that are not sectarian.
According to Abraham Lincoln, ìThe principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.î By this he meant the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence. It was fidelity to these principles that led Lincoln in ìthe great secession winterî of 1860 and 1861 to refuse any compromise that permitted the extension of slavery. Compromises are possible only among those who share principles more fundamental than the interests they are asked to compromise. As a practical historical fact, when compromises are not possible war is the alternative, as it was in our Civil War. John Stuart Mill, an admirer of Lincoln, declared that ìDespotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians.î The dominant forms of political life throughout the Middle East are, with only one exception, as barbaric as those of Europe during the wars of religion. Only a despotism, as benign as we can find, and one that can begin turning people away from sectarian fanaticism, will answer our purpose. Otherwise, they will have to fight it out among themselves, as we did.