September 17, 2020
A COUNTRY, NOT JUST STATES:
President Lincoln's Republican Party Was the Original Party of Big Government (Peter Balakian, September 17, 2020, LitHub)
Big government began with President Lincoln's Republican Party, which in fundamental ways is the progenitor of the modern Democratic Party of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lincoln's party was not one of small, non-intrusive government, minimal taxation, traditional social mores, and white supremacy. It was the party of strong federal intervention and moral directive against the institution of slavery and Southern secession, the party of federally funded higher education, federally funded national transportation, and social welfare. The radical Republicans of Lincoln's Party with their reform zeal and moral interventionist vision would be to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Lincoln's administration gave us big government: first income tax, first national banking system, big bureaus like the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Pensions, an explosion of government contracting for the war, Pacific Railroad Act for federally funded intercontinental railroad, the Morrill Act for federally funded higher education (the land grant universities that changed America).Lincoln's administration and its legacy brought welfare to a persecuted and disadvantaged minority. It also issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing constitutional rights for every citizen, Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing suffrage, Freedman's Bureau to aid newly freed African Americans.
Geoffrey Perret's immensely readable bio of US Grant makes the case that we recall the General's administration as particularly corrupt simply because he was the first Executive to have to deal with the massively expanded state.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 17, 2020 7:37 AM