Letters - Letter to the Editor

"Horror at Hillsdale" (by John J. Miller, Dec. 6) is the most informative article to come out of the recent scandal surrounding George Roche's retirement from the college (where I am a senior). Although I do not wish to comment on the gruesome details of Dr. Roche's conduct, I would like to note that this "model for how higher education should work" still stands without him. What happened is sad, but it is no reason to dismiss Hillsdale College, as many newspapers did in the wake of the scandal. Reporters have mocked Hillsdale's limited dormitory-visitation policy, refusal to supply birth control at the college-sponsored health center, and the hypocrisy of its president. It cannot be forgotten, however, that before Dr. Roche arrived in this sleepy town, the college was nothing. He removed poor faculty, attracted donors, and made Hillsdale independent of the greedy hand of government. He built up this school and filled it with people committed to the college. Hillsdale can move beyond this scandal, and I would like to thank NATIONAL REVIEW for recognizing this.

Sharon Sullivan

Hillsdale, Mich.

John J. Miller's article about my alma mater leaves me with two questions: (1) How does listing the gruesome details about a personal tragedy make NR different from "If it bleeds, it leads" tabloids? (2) How does publishing this article help the conservative movement, which, I have always assumed, is the purpose of your enterprise?

Eric Leutheuser

Hillsdale, Mich.

The DEclaration as foundation

I am more grateful than I can easily say for Michael Potemra's favorable review of my Storm Over the Constitution ("Born on the 4th of July," Nov. 22). I would have been even more grateful if he had given your readers a better idea of the substance of my argument. He writes:

No matter whether the Declaration is a binding expression of our country's law, it is without doubt the highest expression of its mind.

My intention in writing the book was to prove, by unbreakable logic, that the Declaration of Independence was a necessary foundation for a jurisprudence of original intent, which conservatives generally admit to be the only ground upon which liberal judicial activism can be challenged and defeated. Here, however, is what original intent is held to mean, by no less an authority than Chief Justice Rehnquist. If, he says, a democratic society

adopts a constitution and incorporates in that constitution safeguards for individual liberty, these safeguards do indeed take on a generalized moral rightness or goodness. They assume a general social acceptance neither because of any intrinsic worth nor because of any unique origins in someone's idea of natural justice but instead simply because they have been incorporated in a constitution by the people.

We see here the intransigent relativism that declares individual liberty does not have "any intrinsic worth." The Constitution of 1787 did indeed incorporate safeguards for individual liberty. It also incorporated safeguards for slavery. From these premises the safeguards of individual liberty and the safeguards of slavery-which were adopted by the same people at the same time-took on the identical "moral rightness or goodness." This is the conception of original intent that the antebellum South learned from John C. Calhoun. It is the reason that liberals reject original intent. It is the reason that conservatives are losing the battle over the Constitution.

I have shown, contra Rehnquist and his followers, that, as did those who framed and ratified the original Constitution, one must distinguish its principles from its compromises. Once this is done, the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment takes on an entirely different meaning. It is one that would negate nearly all of the activist liberal opinions now current. But our conservative jurists would rather go down to defeat with moral relativism than concede any truth to the moral realism of "the laws of nature and of nature's God."

Harry V. Jaffa

Claremont, Calif.