一九五○年代的臺灣自由民主運動由外省知識份子主導，外拒大陸共產極權統治，內抗島內國民黨威權體制。這場運動固然以《自由中國》為核心，而同樣主張反共、提倡民主的《民主評論》也扮演了相當角色。它的創辦人――新儒家徐復觀，與自由主義陣營亦敵亦友，是當年民主運動重要的參與者與觀察者。本文從徐復觀的視角出發，引用文集、日記、信件、回憶錄等史料，透過思想史的脈絡化分析和敘事筆法，試圖重建白色恐怖時期的歷史現場。由徐復觀與自由派領袖的交往中可以看出：胡適在政治上瞻顧徘徊，殷海光充滿自我衝突，雷震則富有包容性與行動力；這些性格特色決定了他們在民主運動中扮演的不同角色。文中也藉由徐復觀與《自由中國》作者群歷次論戰，說明新儒家與自由主義者的思想歧異。在政治經濟議題上，有「左翼自由主義」與「古典自由主義」的不同；在哲學立場上，則有「理想主義」與「經驗主義」的扞格；而雙方對「自由」的理解、對「政治與道德的關係」的看法，更是針鋒相對。放在華人思想史的脈絡來看，這些討論上承五四時期論戰，下啟臺灣黨外民主運動，也預示了一九九○年代大陸新左派與自由主義者的爭議。這些議題的不斷重複，代表著二十世紀華人困境的持續。

Xu Fuguan (1904-1082) was a Confucian democrat active in the political and cultural scenes on Taiwan during the period of White Terror. His friendship and debates with liberals of Free China shed much light on the intellectual dimension of Taiwan’s democracy movement in the 1950s. Through the approach of contextualization and narrative history, this article tries to capture the milieu of that era, revealing the personalities of leading liberal intellectuals and their different roles in the democratization enterprise as seen from Xu’s eyes. It also illustrates the economical, political, philosophical and moral polemics between new Confucians and liberals from Xu’s perspective. Those debates were reminiscent of the controversies of the May Fourth Movement while anticipating the contentions between liberals and the New Left in China in the 1990s. Such repetitions suggest that the predicaments confronting Chinese societies persisted throughout the 20th century.