In a interview issued in 1984 by the Southern Partisan magazine, Trent Lott observed, “I think a lot of the fundamental principles that Jefferson Davis believed in are very important today to people all across the country, and they apply to the Republican Party….More and more of Jefferson Davis’ descendants, direct or indirect, are becoming involved in the Republican Party.” What Mr. Lott was doing even granting an interview to Southern Partisan at the time is beyond us: An article in the magazine that same year proclaimed “Negroes, Asians, and Orientals (is Japan the exception?); Hispanics, Latins, and Eastern Europeans; have no temperament for democracy, never had, and probably never will.” All of that was reported by Ira Stoll, now managing editor of The New York Sun, on page one of the Jewish Forward newspaper on October 13, 1995. The world seems to be taking notice of Senator Lott’s views on race at long last now, in the context of his comments last week at the 100th birthday of Strom Thurmond.

Mr. Lott gave another apology regarding the Thurmond remarks yesterday on the Sean Hannity radio show, according to a transcript posted by Matt Drudge. The senator notes in his own defense, “In my own state of Mississippi I have reached out to minorities. I have a program at Jackson State University that is actually named in my honor. I spoke at the commencement of Alcorn State University two or three years ago. I’ve made — you know, I have had numbers of African-American interns on my staff, employees, you know, I’ve appointed them to national position. I appointed an African-American woman to the National Community Service Board. A longshoreman, an African-American man, a Democrat, a union member, to the National Labor Standards Board.” Fair enough. But we’re with those who reckon that Mr. Lott’s history of foolish remarks on racial issues makes him the wrong man to be the Republican leader in the Senate.

The Republicans, after all, are the party of Lincoln, not Davis, and the party has an intellectual tradition that has nothing in common with what Mr. Lott blathered on about in the Southern Partisan. A newspaperman from an earlier generation, Charles A. Dana, quit — or was ousted from — Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune because he wanted Greeley to take a harder line in 1862 in favor of what was called Lincoln’s war and against slavery. Dana left to cov er the Civil War at the front with the rank of assistant secretary of war. He was on personal assignment as a war correspondent for one reader, President Lincoln. After the war, he put together a group to acquire The New York Sun, which he served with great distinction as an owner and the editor from 1868 until his death in 1897. The principles he illuminated — broadly inclusive, in favor of growth for all — are among the reasons a new generation reached for the flag of the newspaper he built.

One does not have to defend Mr. Lott’s latest offense to note that the party of Lincoln today has much to offer those whose ancestors Davis sought to keep as slaves. Under Mr. Lott’s leadership, Colin Powell has been confirmed as secretary of state and Rod Paige as secretary of education. Condoleezza Rice serves as national security adviser. The Republican Party has been fighting for welfare reform, for school vouchers, for marginal tax cuts, for social security reform, for aid to faith-based charities, and for an end to the estate tax. These are policies that would benefit all Americans, but that have, in many cases, notably positive implications for African Americans and other minorities. In the furor over Mr. Lott and the past, it would be a mistake for Republicans to lose sight of the great traditions in their own party — or their relevance for the future.