“The four root stocks of Britons who formed the founding population of the U.S.A. brought four subtly different notions of liberty with them to the New World (says Fischer).”

So by his letter, it’s your second option — but by his characterization of the whopping contradictions as “subtly different”, his intended meaning ends up as the first one. His goal is to paper over the contradictions in conservatism (in particular, the attempt to introduce the notion of a society that is ideologically comfortable with slavery, as a type of “liberty”), at the price of emptying the concept “liberty” of any real meaning. He does this in the same manner and for the same reasons as the Left is doing when they substitute democracy for freedom.

“By intellectually excluding the right of property from the rest of liberty, the Left could attack and destroy this most poorly-defended aspect of liberty while still passing themselves off as friends of what would henceforth be seen as political liberty. “

Sort of like when they say: “Capitalism has nothing to do with morality” huh? Interesting.