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13 U. Puget Sound L. Rev. 379 (1989-1990)
Seven Answers for Professor Anastaplo

handle is hein.journals/sealr13 and id is 387 raw text is: Seven Answers for Professor Anastaplo Harry V. Jaffa* I. The first of Professor Anastaplo's seven questions is: What more should be said on behalf of Attorney General Meese with respect to the matters touched upon by Mr. Jaffa? In addressing this question, I am reminded irresistibly of a scene in Duck Soup. The revolution in Fredonia is at its cli- max, and the four Marx brothers are manning the guns. Shells fly overhead and crash behind them. Mrs. Teasdale enters stage right and asks: What's going on here? Groucho replies: We're defending your honor, which is more than you ever did. Similarly, Professor Anastaplo is attempting more on behalf of the former Attorney General than either Mr. Meese, or anyone in the Justice Department, or any of the conserva- tive think tanks has ever done. The short answer-indeed the sufficient answer- to Professor Anastaplo's question is noth- ing. It is Professor Anastaplo, not Mr. Meese, who couldn't care less, and who takes issue with my assertion that no one, on or off the Supreme Court, has ever expounded the theory of original intent with greater eloquence or conviction than Chief Justice Taney did in the case of Dred Scott. Professor Anastaplo finds it difficult to credit either with eloquence or conviction an argument that is patently false. But surely, an argument need not be true to be eloquently expressed. Consider Antony's speech, of unsurpassed elo- quence and equally unsurpassed hypocrisy, over the dead body of Caesar, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Antony was utterly cynical about the truth of his speech. But I am aware of no reason to think that Chief Justice Taney was saying something he did not believe to be true. * A.B., 1939, Yale University; Ph.D., 1951, The Graduate Faculty New School for Social Research; Hon. Lld., 1979, Marietta College; Hon. Lld., 1987, Riplon College; Henry Salvatori, Professor of Political Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School. Professor Jaffa assumes sole responsibility for all substantive assertions contained herein.

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