H’ann, I agree, the consistency is quite striking. If your ‘Calhoun or Buchanan?’ exercise doesn’t quite work, is “too softball,” as Susan puts it, it’s only because of the 19th-century grammar and syntax, and characteristic Victorian flourishes, of Calhoun’s prose, not because of any fundamental dissimilarity of purpose or intent on the part of Buchanan. The ideas and the rhetorical manoeuvres of the two men are pretty much the same.

I think it matters, though (I want to believe, need to believe…), that Buchanan is considered a bit of curiosity nowadays: a lovable (ugh. really? not feeling the love here, but anyway…) curmudgeonly grandfather of US politics who must be given a seat at the table of contemporary political commentary, by virtue of his sheer longevity (but also because, yes, and sadly, US racism and xenophobia have a “pedigree”). That Buchanan even has a soapbox is obviously deplorable, but I can’t help thinking (hoping) he is no longer thoroughly respectable, is no longer quite the thing (unlike Calhoun in his day, is what I mean). Wasn’t Buchanan recently fired from his position as commentator for MSNBC, e.g.? More grist for the mill of “anti-white” “racism” in some circles, no doubt, but Buchanan is probably only a few audience measurement points away from debasing himself on Reality TV.

(Let’s just say he’s NOT a candidate for My Daguerrotype Boyfriend.)

Wait, GayProf: what? A new book on the 19th C U.S.-Mexican borderlands? Surely you don’t think anyone who reads this blog could possibly be interested in that.

If only there was a recent book on the U.S.-Mexican border in the nineteenth century… *cough*

Why is that?

(It is difficult to find a Buchanan quotation from his book that doesn’t reference something that happened since 1848, so that’s why in the end I chose a Calhoun excerpt for this post. But still, the historical vision and interpretive imagination is remarkably consistent.)