Charles R. Kesler

Charles R. Kesler (born 1956) is professor of Government/Political Science at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate University. He holds a Ph.D in Government from Harvard University, from which he received his AB degree in 1978. He is editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and the author of Keeping the Tablets: Readings in American Conservatism. He was Director of the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World and Claremont Institute's Publius Fellows Program.

At Claremont, he is a senior fellow of the conservative Claremont Institute, and directs their Publius Fellows Program, a summer institute. Additionally, he is the editor of the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly political magazine. He was the Director of Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College.

Kesler is known for taking his scholarship of former President Lincoln very seriously. In a review of David Herbert Donald's book Lincoln he claimed that Donald tried to make Lincoln far more pragmatic, moderate, and generally inept than he really was. He claims that Lincoln's mission to reinstate the Declaration of Independence to its rightful place as a guide to constitutional jurisprudence and the soul of the American experiment is overlooked by Donald. Kesler notes that Donald had spent considerable time under the tutelage of historian James G. Randall. Randall argued that no great difference existed between the philosophies of Lincoln and political rival Stephen Douglas. Although Mr. Donald did not go as far as his teacher he leaves much to be desired because he shows us, as Kesler concludes, "Lincoln the politician but misses Lincoln the statesman".

Kesler is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and an editor of the Claremont Review of Books. Kesler describes the purpose of the Institute as follows:

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