The Fusion of Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian Thought in the Republican Party of the 1920S
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© Copyright by Dan Ballentyne 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This work is dedicated to my grandfather, Raymond E. Hough, who support and nurturing from an early age made this work possible. Also to my wife, Patricia, whose love and support got me to the finish line. ii REPUBLICANISM RECAST: THE FUSION OF HAMILTONIAN AND JEFFERSONIAN THOUGHT IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE 1920S BY Dan Ballentyne The current paradigm of dividing American political history into early and modern periods and organized based on "liberal" and "conservative" parties does not adequately explain the complexity of American politics and American political ideology. This structure has resulted of creating an artificial separation between the two periods and the reading backward of modern definitions of liberal and conservative back on the past. Doing so often results in obscuring means and ends as well as the true nature of political ideology in American history. Instead of two primary ideologies in American history, there are three: Hamiltonianism, Jeffersonianism, and Progressivism. The first two originated in the debates of the Early Republic and were the primary political division of the nineteenth century. Progressivism arose to deal with the new social problems resulting from industrialization and challenged the political and social order established resulting from the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian debate. By 1920, Progressivism had become a major force in American politics, most recently in the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson. In the light of this new political movement, that sought to use state power not to promote business, but to regulate it and provide social relief, conservative Hamiltonian Republicans increasingly began using Jeffersonian ideas and rhetoric in opposition to Progressive policy initiatives. In doing so, they began a fusion of Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian thought within the Republican Party. The fusion they created, however, was imperfect. Mainstream Republicans borrowed from Jefferson irregularly without changing their overall policy objectives. In doing so, they redefined Jeffersonian ideas of limited government to iii include traditional Republican priorities while excluding Progressive ones. Progressive Republicans used both Hamilton and Jefferson to sell their ideas. The result was ideological conflict within the party, not only between Progressives and Conservatives, but also over whether the pro-business Hamiltonian priorities or small-government Jeffersonian ones should take precedence. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………...ii INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: HAMILTONIAN AND JEFFERSONIAN IDEOLOGY......................20 CHAPTER 2: HAMILTONIAN AND JEFFERSONIAN THOUGHT PRIOR TO THE 1920S.............................................................................................................................49 CHAPTER 3: REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC POLICY IN THE 1920S........................62 CHAPTER 4: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT.........................................................112 CHAPTER 5: PROHIBITION......................................................................................164 CHAPTER 6: IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION.........................................................185 CHAPTER 7: MCNARY-HAUGENISM AND AGRICULTURE..............................208 CHAPTER 8: THE HOOVER HERESY......................................................................233 CHAPTER 9: REPUBLICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN THE 1920S............................258 CHAPTER 10: REPUBLICANS ON MILITARISM AND IMPERIALISM..............308 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................344 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................351 1 INTRODUCTION For too long political historians, political scientists, and other commentators on American politics have over simplified and over generalized the fundamental nature of American politics. They do this in two ways. First, they often interpret the division between "early" and "modern" American politics (usually centered around 1920) as a critical transition point in American history. Second, they often read backwards into past politics the modern liberal-conservative divide. The result is a picture of American politics that is inflexible, with changes dismissed as minor variations on a central theme. An example of this inflexible view of politics is the so- called “ideology flip.”1 According to this theory the political positions of the two major parties flipped at some unspecified point between the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson. Consequently, Republicans went from liberals to conservatives and Democrats vice versa. This idea is widely accepted as a basic axiom of American politics. Even determining when and how the flip took place is problematic. On economic policy or social policy, Democrats appear liberal as early as Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. On racial issues, Democrats hold to their traditional conservative policies until at least 1948 and do not manifest a full break until the 1960s. During the 1920s, it was the Republicans, not the Democrats, who championed the decade's one significant civil rights measure, the ill-fated Dyer Anti-Lynching Act. Defining Republicans as “liberal” prior to the 1920s is also problematic. Typically, this interpretation turns on the Republican embrace of federal power prior to 1920 and Republican racial policies during the Civil War and Reconstruction. This perspective ignores the fact that the general trend of the Republican use of federal power prior to 1920 advanced the 1 Examples of works that use this concept are A. James Reichley, The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties (New York: The Free Press, 1992), John Gerring, Party Ideologies in America, 1828- 1996 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), and Benajmin O. Fordham, “The Evolution of Republican and Democratic Positions on Cold War Military Spending: A Historical Puzzle,” Social Science History 31:4 (Winter 2007). 2 interests of business. The GOP did not advance the social justice goals associated with modern liberalism. Likewise, focusing on Republican efforts to end slavery at the surface level ignores the “free labor” ideology that drove those efforts, the place of emancipation in the desire to remake the South along Northern lines, Republican efforts on immigration restriction, and the anemic efforts of Republicans on behalf of African Americans after Reconstruction. The ideology flip takes the parties and people of the past out of their historical context and fits their ideas and practices into the dynamics of recent politics. A new paradigm that focuses on a fundamental shift in the nature of American politics is needed. In this new model, the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideologies that dominated nineteenth century politics coalesced in the Republican Party as the rising political movement of Progressivism began to transform the political system into that of the twentieth. Republicans in the 1920s increasingly used Jeffersonian small-government ideas and rhetoric in opposition to progressive initiatives. They did not use them against traditional Republican pro-business initiatives that derived from Hamilton’s original proposals that Jeffersonians used those very same small-governments ideas to oppose. Mainstream Republicans also increasingly adapted other parts of Jefferson’s thought to bolster traditional Republican policies. The ideology flip is also predicated on the idea that American politics is dominated by only two basic ideologies, liberalism and conservatism. This, of course, seems superficially correct based on our two-party system and the current hyper-partisan and strongly ideological state of American politics. However, this framework fails to account for the different issues and ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth party systems and how they relate to one other. Instead of two basic ideologies in American political thought, this work posits that there are three: Hamiltonianism, Jeffersonianism, and Progressivism. The first two have their origins in the early 3 days of the Republic, the latter in the late nineteenth century. From this perspective, lines of continuity can be drawn across time by looking at party philosophy and objectives, not simply the means of achieving them. For example, instead of simply looking at whether or not a party or political figure supported an expansive use of government power, it is also necessary to look at the objectives of such use of power. Shortly after the establishment of the Constitution, two political parties formed, spurred by differences over Hamilton’s economic programs and the French Revolution. These two parties, the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, developed two distinct and opposing ideologies. Federalist ideology embraced a strong, but restrained, central government that promoted business and industry. The Federalists supported banks, internal improvements, and other engines of economic growth. The Federalists sought to nurture a society of deference, stability, and order with strong pro-British leanings. Jeffersonian Republicans supported an agrarian society, based on the small farmer, small government, and a more democratic (though not fully democratic) polity. In foreign policy, they supported an expanding