SPECIAL REPORT

NO. 100 | FEBRUARY 8, 2012

FIRST PRINCIPLES or the Progressives: Who was the real father of big government? Allen C. Guelzo

B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Our vision is to build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. As conservatives, we believe the values and ideas that motivated our Founding Fathers are worth conserving. As policy entrepreneurs, we believe the most effective solutions are consistent with those ideas and values.

This paper is part of the First Principles Initiative, one of 10 Transformational Initiatives making up The Heritage Foundation’s Leadership for America campaign. For more products and informa- tion related to these Initiatives or to learn more about the Leadership for American campaign, please visit heritage.org. Abraham Lincoln or the Progressives: Who was the real father of big government? Allen C. Guelzo

SR-100 About the Author

Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College and the author of several books and articles, including First Principles Essay No. 14, “Prudence, Politics, and the Proclamation.”

Photos on the Cover— Lincoln: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number LC-USZ62-7725 Wilson: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number LC-USZ62-13028

This paper, in its entirety, can be found at http://report.heritage.org/sr0100 Produced by the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002–4999 (202) 546-4400 | heritage.org Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

Executive Summary

hat our current government is the father of big government. He But Abraham Lincoln is not, nor Tbigger—both in terms of size does reveal that some of the confu- was his Administration, any model and reach—than anything that the sion is understandable as the early for what today seems so objection- Founders envisaged, none can deny. Progressives co-opted Lincoln’s able in the modern welfare state. The question of who spawned this legacy to justify their program of His unwavering commitment to Leviathan, however, remains a dis- expansive government powers over natural rights and the Constitution’s puted one. Whereas most point the American life. In so doing, they framework of limited government, finger to the Progressives, some put obscured how their philosophy of as well as the comparatively limited the blame on Abraham Lincoln and government broke with Lincoln and forces he called into the defense his administration. the Founding to which he was heir. of the nation during the Civil War, We asked Allen C. Guelzo, the Nevertheless, some conservative not only place him in philosophical Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil and libertarian thinking today has opposition to the Left, but dispel any War Era at Gettysburg College and assumed, at once and without seri- notions that he set the stage for the a noted Lincoln scholar to settle the ous reflection, that the Progressives’ expansion of government in the 20th question once and for all. appropriation of Lincoln (and the century. In this special report, Guelzo continued appropriation of Lincoln refutes the canard that Lincoln was by the American Left) was legitimate.

iii ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

I have said, very many times…that no man believed more than I in the principle of self- government; that it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to end.… I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in your hearing that I believe each indi- vidual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights—that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the rights of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times.

—Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois,” July 10, 18581

henever the name of Abraham interests. For a long time, these voic- is substituted for the truth… . He WLincoln emerges in a public es belonged either to unreconstruct- is pictured … as slipshod, slovenly, forum, there are two likely sets of ed Confederates or (once the supply and shiftless to such an appall- responses. The first set is the most of surviving Confederates began to ing degree that some of his debts predictable—a quasi-reverent hush; diminish in the early 20th century) remain still unpaid. We are told an allowance that any debating point assorted Progressives and leftists of by them of Lincoln’s passion for connected to Lincoln enjoys auto- various persuasions. funny stories, particularly for matic validity; even a few testimonies dirty ones; of a repellent poem he of admiration, awe, and the inevitable THE PROGRESSIVES’ REJECTION OF wrote, a salacious wedding bur- 4 WWLD (What would Lincoln do?). LINCOLN WAS COMPLICATED, SINCE lesque too indecent to quote. These are the responses captured first and best by Walt Whitman: SO MANY OF THEIR LEADERSHIP— At least, Tyler’s fury could be set AND PARTICULARLY THEODORE down as simple losers’ pique. The THIS dust was once the Man, ROOSEVELT AND WOODROW Progressives’ rejection of Lincoln Gentle, plain, just and resolute— WILSON—STRAINED TO DRAW was more complicated, since so under whose cautious hand, many of their leadership—and par- LINCOLN WITHIN THEIR IDEOLOGICAL Against the foulest crime in his- ticularly Theodore Roosevelt and tory known in any land or age, ORBIT AND FEED ON HIS REPUTATION. Woodrow Wilson—strained to draw Was saved the Union of These Lincoln within their ideological States.2 The embittered Confederates are orbit and feed on his reputation. But no surprise, since they never forgave in the 1920s, after the Progressive This is the Lincoln memorialized Lincoln for their loss of power and cause had been wrecked by the in over 220 statues across the coun- the destruction of race-based slav- high-handed self-righteousness of try and even overlooking Parliament ery. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, the son the President whom H. L. Mencken Square in London, the Lincoln of 1,500 of former President John Tyler and sneered at as “the Archangel books and two symphonies (by Daniel himself president of the College of Woodrow,” Progressives concluded Gregory Mason and Roy Harris), the William and Mary (from 1888 until that the image of Lincoln had all Lincoln of Mount Rushmore.3 1919), denounced Lincoln in terms along been their worst enemy and But there is another set of which would have caused even Mme. that he needed to be denounced responses, far less consequential Defarge’s knitting needles to drop rather than embraced. but also correspondingly much stitches: The Progressive Indiana Senator, more shrill for being so largely Albert Beveridge, author of a biog- ignored, and those are the responses Lincoln’s speeches, addresses, raphy of Lincoln, gradually became that denounce Lincoln as a tyran- and conversations are scarcely convinced that Lincoln had been nical dictator, a coarse vulgarian, more than a collection of soph- “strongly conservative and in firm and pliant tool of big, malevolent isms in which a flourish of words support of vested interests and the

1 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

conduct of business, unmolested as This appropriation has been the , driven almost entirely far as possible, by legislative or any source, since the 1960s, for a species by its identification of Lincoln as the kind of governmental interference” of conservative–libertarian rejection Trojan horse that compromised the all along. Edgar Lee Masters, whose of Lincoln as the “father of big gov- purity of republican government and Lincoln: The Man (1931) falls con- ernment.” Disturbed by the metas- allowed the Progressives to work siderably short of the Progressive tasis of central government power their havoc from within. After all, the poetry he wrote in the more famous under the New Deal of Franklin driving lever of the New Deal and its Spoon River Anthology, endorsed Roosevelt and the Great Society of massive expansion of government Beveridge’s biography as “so factual Lyndon Johnson, conservative critics was, according to Murray Rothbard, and dispassionate that no judicious of both neo-Progressive initiatives “strong central government, large- mind can refuse it credit” and then turned in wounded fury to the task scale public works, and cheap credit denounced Lincoln as a man whose of identifying the long-term causes spurred by government”; but Lincoln’s “acts were against liberty” and “to the of their anguish, and—influenced by Administration was also built on “high advantage of monopoly and privi- the uneasy alliance many conser- tariffs, huge subsidies to railroads, lege.” Masters’ Lincoln was “an ugly vative thinkers had struck up with public works.” Ergo, Lincoln was the duckling,” one with “lawyers and Southern agrarians—the root system forerunner of Franklin Roosevelt. bankers and traders and merchants … they identified as the primary cause Or, if not Roosevelt, Lincoln was at who hoped to get drippings from the led back to Abraham Lincoln. Thus, least a clone of his contemporary, privilege of the tariff, and the over- Lincoln was introduced for the first Otto von Bismarck, the great cen- flow of the bank,” full of “paltering” time to a conservative pillory. tralizer of the German state in 1871, and “duplicity,” who always “took the whose social welfare legislation—the side of the strong” and helped “the THERE IS AN ODD SYMMETRY TO Wohlfahrtsstaat or Sozialstaat— of railroads and manufac- THE PROGRESSIVE AND LIBERAL offered the models of national health tures…establish its supremacy.”5 insurance, old age pensions, and But if the early Progressives APPROPRIATION OF LINCOLN AND unemployment compensation adored experienced, after 1920, a measure of HIS REJECTION BY CONSERVATIVES by Progressives then as well as now. buyer’s remorse over their adoption AND LIBERTARIANS—A SYMMETRY Lincoln, concludes libertarian writer of Lincoln, the momentum of that THAT REQUIRES SOME SERIOUS David Gordon, “like his Prussian identification still continued through contemporary Otto von Bismarck … HISTORICAL TESTING. the Popular Front of the 1930s (in the sought a powerful, centralizing state.”7 form, for example, of the pro-Soviet In its most recent versions, a Abraham Lincoln Brigade for service This new denial of Lincoln blends libertarian economist and a liber- in the Spanish Civil War) and in the the traditional agrarian critique tarian presidential candidate have more recent appropriation by pres- of mass society, shaped by Melvin taken the demonization of Lincoln to ent-day liberals of the Lincoln image— Bradford and Willmoore Kendall, a new pitch. Lincoln and those who most notably by Barack Obama.6 with a voluble and streamlined admire him are “cultists,” claims

1. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. R. P. Basler et al. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. II, p. 493. 2. Walt Whitman, “This Dust Was Once the Man,” in Leaves of Grass (Philadelphia: Rees Welsh, 1882), p. 263. 3. James A. Percoco, Summers With Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p. xxix. 4. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, A Confederate Catechism: The War for Southern Self Government (privately printed, 1931), p. 36. 5. Albert Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), Vol. I, p. 236; John Braeman, “Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 25 (Summer 2004), p. 18; Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln: The Man (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931), pp. 2, 4, 10, 26, 43, 124, 129; Herbert K. Russell, Edgar Lee Masters: A Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), pp. 274–279; Frank van der Linden, “The Cause of the Civil War,” Cosmos Club Bulletin, Vol. 64 (April 2011), pp. 25–26. 6. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006). 7. Murray Rothbard, “America’s Two Just Wars—1775 and 1861,” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, ed. John V. Denson (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 128–129; David Gordon, “Harry V. Jaffa and the Indefensible Abe,”Mises Review, Vol. 7 (Summer 2001), at http://mises.org/ misesreview_detail.aspx?control=179; Thomas L. Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), pp. 298–302.

2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

economist Thomas DiLorenzo, who the template of “big government” the number of its civil or military favor “a more powerful and more was somehow the product of the employees; another characteristic highly centralized (i.e. monopolistic) Lincoln presidential years, there are might be the size of the government’s form of government that can better two other actors in the American budget, representing the fiscal power expand the welfare state, regulate constitutional framework—the feder- it can wield in terms of both taxing the economy, or adopt socialism.” al judiciary and Congress—that may and spending; yet a third might be Ron Paul, in an interview on March bear responsibility for results that the reach of the government, con- 31, 2010, disagreed with any notion are otherwise laid at Lincoln’s door. sidered as the number of agencies it that Lincoln “was one of our great- The formation of a “big government” creates and the review-and-approval est presidents.” Lincoln’s object, Paul is not always the product of oversized authority it claims to exercise over insisted, “was to prove that we had a claims to presidential power.9 education, the economy, and freedom very, very strong centralized federal of speech, movement, religion, and government … because Lincoln really The Size and Reach assembly. believed in the centralized state.”8 of Government In none of these ways can Lincoln There is an odd symmetry to the Pre- and Post-Lincoln or his Administration be shown to Progressive and liberal appropriation The complaint that Lincoln was have promoted the characteristics of Lincoln and his rejection by con- the camel’s nose of state centraliza- of a “centralized” government, or at servatives and libertarians—a sym- tion assumes that three premises are least not more “centralized” than metry that requires some serious true: the government he inherited from historical testing. The test should his predecessor, James Buchanan, or be constructed around two critical 1. That it can be shown what “cen- more “centralized” than the imme- questions: tralization” means; diate circumstances of a large-scale insurrection would require. 1. What, precisely, do we mean by 2. That Lincoln intended to initiate a “big government”? Especially, how process leading to “centralization” The Federal Budget do we measure “bigness” in gov- of the U.S. federal government; For the sake of perspective, it is ernment, what yardsticks should and worthwhile to look a decade behind reveal that “bigness” between the Civil War and then at the raw the 1860s and today, and what 3. That the Civil War (and the numbers for the federal budget under role, if any, can be identified as the Lincoln Administration) was a the Lincoln Administration. In 1848 Lincoln Administration’s role in significant aspect of that process and 1849, respectively, overall federal creating that bigness? and was perhaps even intended to expenditures amounted to $58.2 mil- be the means of furthering that lion and $57.6 million. Within those 2. What was Lincoln’s own professed process. overall numbers, the administrative concept of the role of govern- costs of the legislative, executive, and ment in American public life, and But do any of these premises judicial branches moved between $2.6 did his actions depart from that survive under detailed historical million in 1848 and $2.9 million in concept, either intentionally or scrutiny? Begin with the premise 1849, almost half of which ($1.3 mil- unintentionally? that “centralization” is a known lion) flowed through the Post Office. quantity with a set of characteristics The costs of the War and Navy All through a consideration of which are easily recognizable. One Departments were the single largest these questions, it is important to of the characteristics of an over- chunk in both budgets and moved bear in mind that “big government” mighty “centralized” federal govern- between $38.5 million in 1848 (the is not always the fruit of executive ment might be the sheer numerical last year of the Mexican War) and actions. Even if it can be shown that size of a government in terms of $27.1 million in 1849. This was

8. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), p. 13; John Hawkins, “An Interview with Ron Paul,” Right Wing News, n.d., at http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/an-interview-with-ron-paul/. 9. Julian Davis Mortenson, “Executive Power and the Discipline of History,” University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 78 (Winter 2011), p. 410.

3 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

matched, however, by revenue of $58.4 million in 1848 and $59.8 mil- Table 1 lion in 1849 for the three branches, The Federal Budget During the Civil War Era so that the federal budget actually ran a small surplus (even though War and Navy it was still paying $16.5 million Budget Departments Total Expenditures Total Revenue Year (in Millions) (in Millions) (in Millions) in outstanding debt service from earlier Administrations). Adjusted 1848 $38.5 $58.2 $58.4 for inflation, this would translate 1849 27.1 57.6 59.8 into a modern federal budget of just 1860 27.9 76.8 77.0 less than $1.5 billion, which in turn 1861 35.4 85.3 83.3 would account for less than 1 percent 1865 1,105.4 1,906.4 1,805.9 of gross domestic product (GDP).10 1871 55.3 424.3 534.2 If we move to 1860, the last year SR 100 heritage.org of peace before the Civil War, the federal budget, in raw numbers, had already been on the upswing through the 1850s, to $76.8 million (the that the Lincoln Administration had high point of $1.9 billion to a meager modern inflation-adjusted equiva- become the original governmental big $424 million. This still represents lent of $1.8 billion—an increase, in spenders; but bear in mind that there an enormous increase over the 1861 other words, of 24.1 percent over was a war in progress, and wars are federal budget of $85.3 million, but the Administrations of Presidents pricey for nations to wage. Also, the 44 percent of that budget went to ser- Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, war years were plagued by an annual- vicing the wartime debt, and another Franklin Pierce, and Buchanan, who ized inflation rate of 14.4 percent (com- 9.6 percent went to paying pensions are not usually held to blame for “big parable to the runaway inflation of the to wounded soldiers. The budget kept government.” (If, because the federal Carter Administration). If we factor for on shrinking too. By 1880, the federal budget year ended on June 30, we inflation at that rate, the 1865 federal budget was only 16.7 percent of what extend our purview to fiscal year budget would still translate into only it had been in 1865. (Debt service was 1861, the percentage of federal budget $26 billion and would still account for now down to 36 percent, but pen- increase actually rises to 31 percent.) only 1.8 percent of real GDP. This past sions were up to 21 percent as the As a percentage of GDP, the federal spring, the National Aeronautics and veterans of the Civil War aged.) budget then stood at 0.93 percent. Space Administration alone submitted If Lincoln had plans to create “big From that point, as the Civil War a budget request of $18.7 billion; the government,” none of his succes- began in earnest, the federal budget Environmental Protection Agency was sors seems to have known what they leapt to $1.3 billion in 1864–1865 (the slated to spend $10.5 billion in 2010.11 were. As Mark Neely writes, “the fiscal year in which the war ended and A much more telling mark of minimal enhancement of executive in which Lincoln was assassinated) whether Lincoln intended to create power in the Civil War had no lasting and $1.9 billion for 1865. If we were to the basis for a “centralized” govern- effect” and, in fact, was followed in chart the overall numbers, they would ment lies in the speed with which the Reconstruction years by an era in look like the figures in table 1. the federal government’s budget which “the powers of the legislative Taken purely by themselves, these reverted to its prewar dimensions branch were as great as they had ever numbers would indeed seem to suggest between 1865 and 1871, from the been.”12

10. The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1851 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1850), pp. 157–162; Louis Johnston and Samuel H. Williamson, “What Was the U.S. GDP Then?” MeasuringWorth, 2011, at www.measuringworth.com/datasets/usgdp/result.php. 11. Historical Statistics of the , Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), Vol. 2, p. 1104; press release, “NASA Announces Fiscal Year 2012 Budget,” February 14, 2011, at www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/feb/HQ_11-041_NASA_Budget.html. 12. Manton Marble, The World Almanac 1871 (New York, 1872), pp. 35–36; Mark E. Neely, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), p. 109.

4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

The Federal ■■ The Washington staff of the Rise of the State, even in a nation Civilian Workforce Interior Department also num- of 22 million people, as “a central- But maybe budget numbers are bered 33, although this did not ized apparatus” with “a radically not the best yardstick for measuring include the 28 salaried employees transformed Presidency wielding the size of government. Let us try the of the Census Bureau; the 27 staff- authoritarian power over almost number of federal civilian employees. ers of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for every aspect of Union life” is diffi- In 1851, the executive branch of the the Insane; or the customary host cult to imagine. The modern federal federal government had only 26,300 of land office agents, Indian agents, civilian workforce, including U.S. people on its payroll. The Civil War and employees of the Patent Office, Postal Service employees, amounts immediately boosted that to 36,600 especially since the land office to 2 million. This actually amounts in 1861, with another 4,000 in legisla- and Indian agents were scattered to a slightly smaller percentage of tive and judicial employees. Of these, across the country rather than the U.S. population than in 1865 however, only 2,588 were actually being situated in Washington. (approximately 0.7 percent of the headquartered in Washington, D.C.; 2010 U.S. population). On the other the rest were scattered across the face ■■ The Department of Agriculture, hand, however, the 2010 federal of the nation as postmasters, clerks, which was not yet Cabinet rank workforce enjoys the automated and Indian agents, public lands agents in 1863, got by with 29 employees, digitized assistance of computers, responsible for the administration while Attorney General Edward automobiles, and telephones, all of and sale of federally owned public Bates managed the legal affairs of which had to be provided in 1865 by land, and customs-house staff. By the government with exactly nine an army of copyists, hostlers, drivers, 1865, the total paid civilian employ- employees. and messengers.14 ment of the federal government had By 1871, the number of federal swelled to 194,997, just 0.8 percent of ■■ The Post Office and the employees had dropped back to a Union population of 22,342,231; but, Department of the Treasury 51,000, with only 5,824 employed in again, only 14,826 were actually occu- were the biggest consumers of the executive branch in Washington pied in Washington, and over 10,000 civilian services, although even itself—and this while Reconstruction of those were War Department there the numbers seem micro- of the Southern states was still employees since there was, of course, scopic once we isolate them: under way. The demobilization of a war in progress.13 33,000 postmasters and clerks the armed services was even more Overall, the federal civilian work- for the entire nation, along with dramatic. At the end of the war, there force amounted to only 0.9 percent 4,500 mail agents and contrac- were approximately 1.3 million men of the Union population. Any glance tors, and a Treasury Department in Union uniforms. By 1875, the U.S. through the Register of Officers and that managed 79 full-time staff Army had been reduced to 1,540 Agents at the midpoint of the Civil in the office of Secretary of the officers and 24,031 enlisted men, and War will show executive depart- Treasury Salmon P. Chase, 74 in its total expenditures—including the ments with staffs so minuscule as to the comptroller’s office, 2,800 maintenance of rivers and harbors by defy belief. customs agents for the whole the Corps of Engineers—amounted country, and just 150 in the office to only $42 million. The bulk of this ■■ The entire State Department of the Commissioner of Internal demobilization was, wrote William was staffed by 33 people in 1863, Revenue. G. Moody, “accomplished within including the Secretary of State, one hundred and twenty days after William Seward, and the depart- How this can be construed, as the signing of the capitulation at ment’s four security guards. Bruce Porter does in War and the Appomattox Court House. A change

13. Paul P. Van Riper and Keith A. Sutherland, “The Northern Civil Service, 1861–1865,” Civil War History, Vol. 11 (December 1965), p. 347; Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Vol. II, p. 1103. 14. Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military and Naval, in the Service of the United States on the Thirtieth September, 1863 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1864), pp. 1–2, 40–41, 57–96, 97, 122, 125, 265; Stephen Dinan, “Largest-ever Federal Payroll to Hit 2.15 Million,”The Washington Times, February 2, 2010; Robert Schlesinger, “U.S. Population, 2010: 308 Million and Growing,” U.S. News & World Report, December 31, 2009; Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994), p. 258.

5 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

greater, more rapidly made, and of which was created by congres- veterans, and there the reason for more momentous consequences than sional action in March 1865. The the expansion had little to do with the world ever before witnessed … .”15 Freedmen’s Bureau was charged increasing the scope of government with oversight of “the supervision power.17 The Reach of the and management of all abandoned A more dramatic way in which Federal Government lands”—meaning Southern farm government “reach” might have However, “big” government does properties deserted in the face of expanded under the Lincoln not necessarily rely on either the invading Union armies—and “all Administration was through the dollars it spends or the number of subjects relating to refugees and five great legislative initiatives of people it employs, especially if the freedmen from rebel states,” includ- the Civil War years—the provision dollars and people are employed in ing food relief and the “assignment of of public funding for a transconti- a plethora of agencies possessing not more than forty acres” of lands nental railroad and for “land-grant” aggressively intrusive powers. In acquired “by confiscation or sale.” colleges, the imposition of record- what areas, exactly, did the “reach” of high mercantilist tariffs to protect the Lincoln Administration expand? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ENDED American manufacturing, a central- In the 1850s, the federal gov- THE CIVIL WAR WITH EXACTLY ized Hamilton-style central banking ernment included exactly 15 for- system, and the levying of a federal mally designated civilian agencies 22 AGENCIES, SO THE “REACH” income tax. These are the initia- or bureaus (compared to 513 in OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT tives that the critics of “big” govern- 2010), including the Patent Office, EXPANDED BY ONLY SEVEN AGENCIES, ment insist laid the foundation of the Pension Office, the Lighthouse COMMISSIONS, OR BOARDS. the Progressive welfare state. As Board, the Bureau of Weights Thomas DiLorenzo writes, “national and Measures, and the Mexican banks, internal improvements, and Boundary Commission.16 The federal In practice, the bureau employed tariffs” were the means by which government ended the Civil War only six officers and 10 staffers in Lincoln would bring about “central- with exactly 22, so the “reach” of Washington and had to be reautho- ized government” and “British-style the federal government expanded rized every year. Much of its work, in mercantilism.”18 by only seven agencies, commissions, fact, had to be conducted in con- or boards. Several of these involved junction with a private agency, the 1. The Transcontinental Railroad already existing services—the Coast American Missionary Association. A second, more careful look at Survey, the National Observatory, President Andrew Johnson, who had each of these initiatives reveals much the National Currency Bureau— his own idea of what Reconstruction less in the way of governmental big- which were now elevated to bureau in the defeated South should look like, ness or mercantilist designs than status. vetoed the bureau’s reauthorization the critics imagine. In the first place, There was, in the end, only one in 1866, and even though Congress none of these initiatives, except the new agency created during the overrode his veto, the bureau was income tax legislation of 1862, result- Civil War that could have exercised finally closed down in 1872. The only ed in the creation of a government genuinely far-reaching powers: the bureau that showed anything like an oversight bureaucracy. Nor did they Freedmen’s Bureau (whose full upward trajectory of expansion was involve the use of tax revenues: The title was the Bureau of Refugees, the Pension Bureau, which man- funding that supported the build- Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), aged wartime pensions for Civil War ing of a transcontinental railroad by

15. William Godwin Moody, Land and Labor in the United States (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1883), pp. 151, 154–155, 171; Report of the Secretary of War, Being Part of the Message and Documents Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875), Vol. I, pp. 23, 34. 16.“Index,” in A Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval in the Service of the United States on the Thirtieth September, 1853 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853), pp. iii-xix; Federal Agency Directory/Louisiana State University Library, at www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html. 17. “Index,” Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1865 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1866), pp. v–xvi; “An Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees,” March 3, 1865, inThe Statutes-at-Large, Treaties and Proclamations, of the United States of America, from December 1863, to December 1865, ed. George P. Sanger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1866), pp. 507–508. 18. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), p. 78.

6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

the Union Pacific and Central Pacific apportionment under the census of intentions. To the contrary, it was railroads came in the form of bonds 1860” for the establishment of col- hailed by Indiana Congressman backed by federally owned public leges dedicated to “such branches of George Washington Julian as “the lands that came into the possession learning as are related to agriculture most important legislative act since of the federal government from the and the mechanic arts, in such man- the formation of the Government” Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican ner as the legislatures of the States and “at once an epoch in legislation War. may respectively prescribe.”19 and an enduring landmark of indus- One may object that any form trial and social progress.”20 of funding from public sources to THE HOMESTEAD ACT WAS, IN The Homestead Act was, in mod- promote private enterprise is an MODERN TERMS, THE GREATEST ern terms, the greatest privatization abuse, but by that logic, neither the scheme in American history. Yet it is U.S. Army nor Navy has any busi- PRIVATIZATION SCHEME IN based upon the same premise as the ness protecting the lives, goods, or AMERICAN HISTORY. IT CREATED NO railroad legislation and the “land- shipping of private citizens. What is NEW BUREAUCRACY OF ITS OWN, grant” colleges: that government pertinent to the question in hand is NOR DID IT REQUIRE A TAXPAYER may indeed have a role in the life of not whether the federal government citizens by encouraging and promot- BAILOUT TO PROP IT UP. has any theoretical business with ing entrepreneurship and owner- business, but whether the real hand ship. It is true that even beneficent the U.S. government had in making The Morrill Act, strictly speak- intentions can go awry, as the Fannie the transcontinental railroad hap- ing, actually devolved power from Mae and Freddie Mac debacles have pen was so large as to constitute a the federal government to the states demonstrated only too well, but at forerunner of “big” government. The by granting to the states the where- least the Homestead Act created no federal government, under the terms withal (in the form of federal land) to new bureaucracy of its own, nor did of the Pacific Railroad Act, provided create “land-grant” colleges and to it require a taxpayer bailout to prop the bonds—which is to say, the loan administer them as the state legisla- it up. guarantees—but it provided no tures saw fit without any subsequent operating funding, no management federal involvement. 3. Tariffs oversight, and no ongoing regulatory Another piece of legislation Of all the domestic policies adopt- bureaucracy. that acted in much the same way ed by the Lincoln Administration in Lincoln’s domestic agenda was during the course of the Civil 2. The Morrill and Homestead Acts the Homestead Act, which, like the War, the ones most likely to have The “land-grant” college leg- Pacific Railroad Act, proposed the increased the “reach” of “big” gov- islation—proposed by Vermont selling off of vast tracts of feder- ernment were tariffs (in other words, Congressman Justin Morrill as the ally owned land to homesteaders taxes placed on certain imported Morrill Act of 1862—functioned in at fire-sale prices—freehold title to goods at the point of import in a port the same fashion, except that in this 160 acres for the cost of a filing fee city or similar port of entry) and the case the initiative came from the and five years’ residence, or for $1.25 imposition of a graduated income tax. states rather than a private corpo- an acre after six months’ residence. It is beyond question both that ration and involved the granting But since the Homestead Act was Lincoln had always been a “Henry of 30,000 acres of federally owned a governmentally inspired means Clay-Tariff” man (referring back land to each of the loyal states “for of expanding property ownership to Lincoln’s “beau ideal of a states- each Senator and Representative rather than diminishing or taxing it, man,” ) and that the 37th in Congress to which the States this has rarely been seized upon as and 38th Congresses hiked tariff are respectively entitled by the proof of Lincoln’s “big” government rates to the highest levels they had

19.“An Act donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts,” July 2, 1862, in Statutes at Large, ed. George P. Sanger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1863), pp. 503–505; see also United States Code, Title 7, chapter 13, subsection 1, para. 301. 20. George W. Julian, “The Spoilation of the Public Lands,” North American Review, Vol. 141 (August 1885), p. 175.

7 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

ever enjoyed. Average tariff rates Tariffs, in other words, obey the Administration’s malevolent inten- stood at 15 percent in 1860, with the Laffer Curve: The higher the tariff tions than its imposition of federal maximum set at 24 percent; the rates rate, the fewer the imports and the personal income taxes, beginning under the so-called Morrill Tariff lower the amount of revenue derived with a 3 percent tax on incomes over rose by 1863 to 37.2 percent and by from the tariffs. But if the purpose of $600 in the summer of 1861. Direct 1864 to 47.06 percent (as compared the tariff is to redirect purchasers to taxation of this sort was not entirely to a minuscule 1.3 percent in 2010). domestic markets, then the lowered a novelty, although in previous ver- But far from generating the kind of revenues from tariffs are perfectly sions of internal taxation, the col- opposition that had limited tariff acceptable. lection had been a matter of state rates in the past, the Morrill Tariff This, in large measure, is pre- responsibility. and its successive revisions were cisely what happened in the wake of However, the costs of the Civil seen as a balancing act for the impact the Lincoln Administration’s tar- War quickly outstripped the projec- of the wartime new income taxes. iff policies. “The increase of duties tions of Treasury Secretary Salmon “There was no delay in the adoption on imports has had the effect to Chase, and by the beginning of 1862, of the bill,” wrote the muckraker decrease importations to a consid- Chase confessed to Lincoln that journalist Ida Tarbell. “Its worst erable extent,” reported Treasury the Treasury was running dry on enemies were for it” as a war revenue Secretary Salmon Chase, and with revenue, and financiers were prov- measure.21 them “the receipts from customs.” ing reluctant to lend. “Chase has no Far from bewailing this falling-off money and he tells me he can raise IT WAS NOT GOVERNMENT THAT in revenue, Chase considered “this no more,” Lincoln complained to PROSPERED UNDER LINCOLN’S disadvantage … more than counter- Quartermaster General Montgomery balanced by the stimulus afforded Meigs. “The bottom is out of the TARIFF REGIME, BUT THE AMERICAN to domestic industry and the conse- tub.”23 PRIVATE SECTOR. quent increased revenue from inter- The solutions were almost as nal taxes.” problematic: deliberately inflating What is less clear is whether the In effect, the Lincoln the currency, overhauling the bor- tariffs actually expanded government Administration accepted a loss of rowing mechanisms to tap into mid- overreach. Tariffs, after all, increase revenue from customs duties for the dle-class savings, and creating a new the costs of imports to importers, benefit it bestowed on domestic man- direct tax. In the end, the Lincoln whether the importers in question are ufacturing, especially at a time when Administration invested itself in all merchants or end-point consumers. dependence on imports from for- three approaches. Legislation autho- The purpose of the tariff, however, is eign nations that frankly favored the rizing the substitution of a national not to generate revenue, but to create Confederacy imperiled the repub- paper currency (known as “green- an incentive for the importer to stop lic’s survival. It was not government backs”) and the invention of small- importing and turn instead to the that prospered under Lincoln’s tariff denomination bonds was in place purchase of domestic goods and thus regime, but the American private by 1863, and a direct tax on incomes benefit domestic markets. Merchants sector.22 (through the Internal Revenue Act of and consumers are not, after all, 1862) imposed direct federal collec- machines; if the costs of importing 4. The Federal Income Tax tions through 185 collection districts are too high, they can and will flee to Nothing, however, is more likely and a Bureau of Internal Revenue domestically produced items. to stand as proof of the Lincoln and expanded internal taxation to

21. Frank William Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, 5th edition (1910; Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), pp. 138, 144; Ida Tarbell, The Tariff in Our Times (New York: Macmillan, 1911), pp. 10–11; Heather Cox Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies During the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 110–111, 123–126; Reinhard H. Luthin, “Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff,”American Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 4 (July 1944), pp. 618–619. 22. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Vol. 2, p. 888; “Finances of the United States,” in The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1864 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1865), Vol. IV, p. 375. 23. Lincoln to Meigs, January 10, 1862, in Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln, eds. Don and Virginia Fehrenbacher (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 328.

8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

include taxes on occupations, banks, progressive rates, beginning with erected either a successor to the corporations, financial transactions, 5 percent on incomes from $500 “Monster Bank” devised by Alexander and inheritances. to $1,500 per annum, rising to 10 Hamilton (and defunded by Andrew The general purpose of the percent for incomes from $1,500 Jackson) or a forerunner of the mod- income tax was to fund the war and to $5,000, 12.5 percent for incomes ern Federal Reserve Bank—or both. the operations of government, not from $5,000 to $10,000, and 15 to fund special programs or redis- percent for those over $10,000. THE NATIONAL BANKING ACT tribute income; its specific purpose, The Confederate government also CREATED A NATIONALLY UNIFORM in fact, was to take the inflationary imposed license fees for everything steam out of the newly introduced from apothecaries to wholesale CURRENCY FOR FUNDING AND “greenback” currency. For that rea- liquor dealers, and at rates usually PURCHASING IN WARTIME, AND son, the tax on personal incomes five times greater than license fees WITHOUT THAT, FEEDING, CLOTHING, laid surprisingly modest burdens on levied by Lincoln’s Administration. AND ARMING THE UNION ARMIES Northern taxpayers. The personal In any case, the Civil War taxes WOULD HAVE BEEN A NIGHTMARE OF income tax form, in fact, amount- on personal income lasted only until ed to exactly one page out of 500, their repeal in 1872, and by that time, MONSTROUS PROPORTIONS. including the index, in the federal tax in fact, all but the tariffs had disap- manual (which also covered excise peared. The income taxes that pre- The National Banking Act of taxes, all texts of the revenue legis- vail today were the creation in 1913 of 1863, however, did not actually cre- lation, regulations, forms, instruc- Woodrow Wilson’s Administration ate either a Hamilton-style “Bank of tions, circulars, court rulings—the and were intended by Wilson not to the United States” or a predecessor entire federal code—all between two fund the costs of a national emer- to the Federal Reserve (which was covers).24 gency, but to redress “an industrial actually a creation, once again, of the Even in 1865, the $32 million system which, take it on all its sides, Wilson Administration in 1913). In taken in by the Bureau of Internal holds capital in leading strings, fact, it did not create any institution Revenue in personal income taxes restricts the liberties and limits the at all. Its purpose was to eliminate was only a small part of the over- opportunities of labor, and exploits the massive commercial confusion all revenue pie, and income taxes without renewing or conserving in the U.S. economy caused by state amounted to only about 8 percent of the natural resources of the coun- legislatures’ issuance of bank char- total revenues. In 1866, the federal try.” For Lincoln, the income tax was ters to in-state banks, which in turn government took in $279 million in needed to pay bills; for Wilson, it was issued their own paper currencies. customs duties and $309 million in necessary to achieve a social vision.25 It had been Andrew Jackson’s all other forms of internal revenue, hope, and the hope of Jacksonian levied as virtually a flat tax of 3 per- 5. The National Banking Act Democrats, to limit transactions as cent on all incomes except those in One particular criticism of the much as possible to “real” money—to the highest bracket (over $10,000 per Lincoln Administration by Ron Paul specie, in gold or silver—but large- annum), where the rate nudged up to and Thomas DiLorenzo focuses on scale commercial transactions would 5 percent. the National Banking Act, which become impossibly cumbersome By contrast, the Confederate Lincoln signed into law in February on those terms (imagine the weight government, which also levied a 1863. The assumption behind these of the gold needed to buy a house; tax on incomes, established steeply criticisms has been that Lincoln imagine a business loan in gold bars).

24. George S. Boutwell, A Manual of the Direct and Excise Tax System of the United States, Including the Forms and Regulations Established by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (Boston: Little, Brown, 1863), pp. 33, 156; An American Almanac and Treasury of Facts … for the Year 1878, ed. A. R. Spofford (New York: American News, 1878), p. 198; Richard F. Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 168–169. 25. Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, pp. 116–122; Philip S. Paludan, “A People’s Contest”: The Union and the Civil War, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 121; Marble, The World Almanac 1871; Bensel, Yankee Leviathan, pp. 170–171; Taussig, Tariff History, p. 150; Woodrow Wilson, “Presidential Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1913, in Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, ed. Mario R. DiNunzio (New York: New York University Press, 2006), p. 368.

9 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

So the banks themselves issued their own notes and paper to facilitate Table 2 transactions. Personal Income Taxes, in Thousands The difficulty this posed was that, over time and distance, banks Income of Total Income Tax closed or suffered losses while their Budget $600–$10,000 Income More Than Revenue From All Sources Year per Annum $10,000 per Annum (Corporate, Financial, etc.) paper continued to circulate, creating enormous questions at every point of 1863 $172 $277 $2,741 sale about the reliability of the paper 1864 7,944 6,855 20,295 currency being offered in exchange. 1865 9,697 9,362 32,050 With over 5,000 state-chartered SR 100 heritage.org institutions (including canal com- panies), no merchant could do busi- ness without publications like Day’s New-York Bank Note List, Counterfeit issued “greenbacks” in return to cir- so. If there is any point in the 19th Detecter and Price Current, Bicknell’s culate as business demanded. century when the size of government Reporter, Counterfeit Detector, and But the Act invented no new insti- soared, it would have to be during the Philadelphia Prices Current, or the tution; it revived no Hamiltonian Administrations of Grover Cleveland Cincinnati Price Current to advise Bank of the United States, nor did it and Benjamin Harrison, who by 1891 him which banknotes were worth the create a modern central bank. The had tripled the number of federal value printed on their faces, which had chartering of the new “national” employees, to 157,400. Executive to be discounted, and which were no banks was handled through the branch employees in Washington longer anything more than paper.26 Treasury and set no limits on inter- alone quintupled between 1871 and This might have been tolerable in est rates, lending policies, or profit 1903, from 5,800 to 25,675. more peaceful, lackadaisical times, margins. What the Act did do was However, the federal workforce but not in the midst of a civil war. to create a nationally uniform cur- only grew in the same propor- The purpose of the National Banking rency for funding and purchasing tions as the white-collar clerical Act, therefore, was to standardize in wartime, and without that, feed- workforce was growing in almost the “greenbacks” issued as notes by ing, clothing, and arming the Union every other industry. In 1864, the the Treasury as a national currency. armies would have been a nightmare Massachusetts National Bank got The Act created this standard in two of monstrous proportions.27 along with exactly four employ- ways: first, by taxing the “wild-cat” ees—an accountant, a teller, a mes- banknotes issued by state banks (and Progressivism and the senger, and a cashier. Even as late as hence driving them out of circula- Birth of Big Government the 1890s, the business office of the tion) and, second, by authorizing Whether we consider it in terms massive Pepperell manufacturing national charters for any association of budget, size, or reach, Abraham company, one of the country’s top of five or more people with a capi- Lincoln’s presidency undertook no 10 manufacturing firms, employed tal reserve of $50,000 to create a permanent reconstitution of the only a treasurer and three clerks. But “national” bank. One-third of the federal government on Leviathan- by the turn of the century, organi- capital reserve was to be invested like proportions, and this was largely zational complexity had spawned in Treasury bonds, and the banks because it had never intended to do an entirely new professional class of

26. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Arch-Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution—and What It Means for Americans Today (New York: Random House, 2008), p. 73; Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1990), pp. 35–38; William H. Dillistin, Bank Note Reporters and Counterfeit Detectors, 1826–1866: With a Discourse on Wildcat Banks and Wildcat Bank Notes (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1949), p. 99; Q. David Bowers, Obsolete Paper Money Issued by Banks in the United States, 1782–1866: A Study and Appreciation for the Numismatist and Historian (Atlanta, Ga.: Whitman Publishing, 2006), p. 185. 27. Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, pp. 83–94; Paludan, “A People’s Contest,” pp. 122–126.

10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

managerial bureaucrats, and in tan- again to $731 million. Wilson, in fact, had declared free all of the slaves in dem with them, the federal govern- had hardly been inaugurated before a the rebel states but had specifically ment likewise created a white-collar special session of Congress agreed to exempted the loyal slave states of bureaucracy.28 the most sweeping tariff reductions , Kentucky, Maryland, and This was a feature not of the since the Civil War and substituted Delaware, plus a number of feder- Lincoln Administration, but of the in their place a new direct income ally occupied Southern districts Gilded Age and the emergence of tax, which by 1917 netted $180 mil- in Virginia and Louisiana. And for “integrated, multi-departmental lion—almost a quarter of all internal good reason: Lincoln’s proclamation enterprises.” Progressivism sprang taxes. And the single greatest leap in had been issued as a “war powers” from the head of this bureaucracy. federal employment occurred under proclamation, on the strength of his Its watchword was efficiency, and its Wilson’s disciple, Franklin Roosevelt, constitutional designation as com- guiding spirit was the stopwatch of in the eight years between 1932 and mander in chief, and a “war powers” Frederick Winslow Taylor. Nothing 1940, when the peacetime civilian proclamation could have no applica- maddened the Progressives more federal workforce rose from 605,000 tion to places that had never been than the slow, cumbersome, and to just under 1 million.30 at war with the United States (the stupendously inefficient workings of border states) or were no longer (the Congress and the Constitution. What NOTHING MADDENED THE occupied districts). was admired instead was a manageri- PROGRESSIVES MORE THAN Lincoln replied to Chase, asking al government sufficient to meet the Chase to consider what he was ask- new needs of the new industrial soci- THE SLOW, CUMBERSOME, AND ing Lincoln to do by extending the ety rather than the old one, which STUPENDOUSLY INEFFICIENT Proclamation to these other areas: was perfectly content with govern- WORKINGS OF CONGRESS AND ment inefficiency because, after all, THE CONSTITUTION. WHAT If I take the step must I not do so, what the Constitution’s framers had without the argument of military WAS ADMIRED INSTEAD WAS wanted from that document was not necessity, and so, without any efficiency, but liberty, and liberty was A MANAGERIAL GOVERNMENT argument, except the one that precisely what the Constitution’s SUFFICIENT TO MEET THE NEW I think the measure politically clumsy, deliberate machinery of NEEDS OF THE NEW INDUSTRIAL expedient, and morally right? checks and balances produced.29 Would I not thus give up all foot- SOCIETY RATHER THAN THE OLD ONE. No surprise then, that it was ing upon constitution or law? under the reign of Progressive Would I not thus be in the bound- Presidents, and not Lincoln, that the less field of absolutism?31 size and scope of managerial gov- Lincoln’s Defense of Limited ernment took off. Under Theodore Constitutional Government Those kinds of constitutional Roosevelt, the first of the Progressive In September 1863, Treasury scruples maddened abolitionists Presidents, the federal budget rose Secretary Chase, an ardent aboli- like Chase, who simply wanted from $559 million in 1902 to $710 tionist, wrote to urge Lincoln to tear to “do justice though the heavens million in 1908. By 1914, midway down the limitations on emancipa- fall,” but they were indicative of a through Woodrow Wilson’s first tion that Lincoln had incorporated highly cautious constitutional con- term (and before the outbreak of the into his Emancipation Proclamation servatism that characterized the First World War), it had risen yet of January 1, 1863. The Proclamation entirety of Lincoln’s career. Be “ever

28. Cindy Sondik Aron, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle-class Workers in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 5. 29. Thomas G. West and William Schambra, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics,” Heritage Foundation First Principles Essay No. 12, July 18, 2007, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/07/The-Progressive-Movement-and-the-Transformation-of-American-Politics. 30. The American Almanac, Year-book, Cyclopaedia and Atlas, 1903 (New York: American and Journal, 1902), p. 546; Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac, 1908 (Brooklyn: Eagle Publishing, 1908), p. 498; The Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1918, ed. James Langland (Chicago: Daily News Co., 1917), pp. 184, 190; The Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1916, ed. James Langland (Chicago: Daily News Co., 1915), p. 93. 31. Abraham Lincoln, “To Salmon P. Chase,” September 3, 1863, in Collected Works, Vol. VI, pp. 427–428.

11 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

true to Liberty, the Union, and the The privilege of a writ of habeas issue the writ, only federal courts Constitution—true to Liberty, not corpus may be the single most hal- have authority to issue it for both selfishly, but upon principle—not lowed principle in Anglo–American state and federal prisoners.33 for special classes of men, but for jurisprudence in that it requires any Lincoln met the writ of habeas all men, true to the union and the civil or military jurisdiction to sur- corpus almost as soon as the Civil Constitution, as the best means to render a “body” to the normal judi- War broke out. When he called advance that liberty,” he wrote in cial process of the courts. In effect, it out the state militias to defend the 1858. A decade earlier, he had even means that no one can be arrested capital (under the Militia Acts of repudiated schemes to amend the and imprisoned arbitrarily or perma- 1792 and 1795) on April 15, 1861, Constitution: nently without the imprisoning agent the militia of Pennsylvania and having to show cause in a court of Massachusetts were attacked en No slight occasion should tempt law. The writ’s origins ran all the way route by pro-secession mobs in the us to touch it. Better not take the back to Magna Carta in 1215, and its streets of Baltimore. When the first step, which may lead to a operation was recognized in Article mayor and police chief of Baltimore habit of altering it. Better, rather, 1, Section 9 of the Constitution and refused Lincoln’s appeal to open habituate ourselves to think of in the very first congressional stat- transit through the city, the U.S. it, as unalterable. It can scarcely ute, the Judiciary Act of 1789, which Army’s general-in-chief, Winfield be made better than it is. New empowers all federal courts to grant Scott, asked Lincoln for a suspension provisions, would introduce new the writ. of the writ of habeas corpus so that he difficulties, and thus create, and could quell the rioters in Baltimore increase appetite for still further BE “EVER TRUE TO LIBERTY, THE without fear that the city courts change. No sir, let it stand as it is. UNION, AND THE CONSTITUTION… would turn the rioters loose as fast as New hands have never touched it. Scott could apprehend them. NOT FOR SPECIAL CLASSES OF MEN, The men who made it, have done Lincoln authorized the suspen- their work, and have passed away. BUT FOR ALL MEN, TRUE TO THE sion on April 27, and in due course, Who shall improve, on what they UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION, AS John Merryman, a Maryland mili- 32 did? THE BEST MEANS TO ADVANCE THAT tia officer who had supervised the burning of the railroad bridges used LIBERTY.” It was Lincoln’s misfortune to by the Pennsylvania militia, was be thrust into the constitutionally arrested and jailed in Fort McHenry. anomalous situation of civil war and On the other hand, the writ has Merryman’s brother-in-law at once to be compelled to reconcile peace- never exactly been a get-out-of-jail- appealed to Chief Justice Roger B. time constitutional process with free card. The Constitution’s sole Taney to intervene, and in his capaci- the wartime demand to “preserve, reference to the writ describes how ty as presiding judge for the U.S. Fifth protect and defend” the Constitution it may be suspended. Massachusetts Circuit (which included Baltimore), from insurrection. At no point has actually suspended the writ’s opera- Taney asserted original jurisdiction that struggle attracted more vehe- tion during Shays’ Rebellion, and and issued a writ for Merryman’s ment denunciation from the Lincoln- the U.S. Senate debated its suspen- release to his court. The comman- haters than his decision, in May of sion during Aaron Burr’s conspiracy dant at Fort McHenry refused, citing 1861, to authorize a suspension of the in 1807. Moreover, although state the suspension of the writ, and Taney writ of habeas corpus. courts have the statutory power to then proceeded in ex parte Merryman

32. Abraham Lincoln, “Speech in United States House of Representatives on Internal Improvements,” June 20, 1848, and “To Anton C. Hesing, Henry Wendt, Alexander Fisher, Committee,” June 30, 1858, in Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 488, Vol. II, p. 475. 33. Rollin C. Hurd, A Treatise on the Right of Personal Liberty: and on the Writ of Habeas Corpus (Albany: W. C. Little, 1858), pp. 134–136, 149, 159; W. S. Church, A Treatise of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Including Jurisdiction, False Imprisonment, Writ of Error, Extradiction, Mandamus, Certiorari, Judgments, Etc (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1884), p. 42.

12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

to compose what is often treated as Lincoln, on the other hand, was on of them turned out to be arrests for the ultimate indictment of Lincoln’s the horns of a real procedural dilem- wartime racketeering, the imprison- high-handed and despotic overriding ma: With Congress out of session in ment of captured blockade-runners, of the Constitution.34 April and May of 1861, what exactly deserters, and the detention of suspi- But painting Lincoln as the would Americans have preferred cious Confederate citizens, not the ogre of American civil liberties on Lincoln to do about riots that were imprisonment of political dissenters. the strength of ex parte Merryman aimed at isolating the national capi- When measured against the far vast- requires us to ignore, as Taney tal? Nothing? And if he had, would er civil liberties violations levied on rigorously did, the nearly com- anyone believe that he later had any German–Americans and Japanese– plete collapse of civil authority in worthwhile defense against impeach- Americans in America’s two 20th- eastern Maryland in the spring of ment? As it happened, Lincoln took century world wars, Lincoln’s casual 1861. Lincoln’s reply, in the form the actions, and Congress, as soon as treatment of dissent and outright of his address to a special session it had assembled, began to confirm subversion appears almost careless.36 of Congress on July 4, 1861, was Lincoln’s actions retroactively.35 This was, in large measure, to insist that his presidential oath because Lincoln’s understanding of required him to see that the “laws be NO MATTER HOW HARD ONE government was, like Lincoln him- faithfully executed,” and he saw no TRIES TO CONSTRUE LINCOLN’S self—who had been born in 1809 while reason why he should make an excep- Jefferson was still President, George tion for John Merryman. SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF III was still king of England, and Taney also ignored that the descrip- HABEAS CORPUS AS A CIVIL James Madison, John Jay, George tion of habeas corpus in Article 1, LIBERTIES CRIME AGAINST THE Rogers Clark, John Adams, Paul Section 9 of the Constitution is a nega- CONSTITUTION, THERE IS VERY Revere, and Tom Paine were still tive description: “The privilege of the alive—rooted in the experience of LITTLE IN TERMS OF CIVIL LIBERTIES Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be the Revolution. There was never any suspended, unless when in Cases of ABUSES DURING THE CIVIL WAR THAT question in Lincoln’s mind that gov- Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety CAN BE LAID AT LINCOLN’S FEET. ernment existed entirely at the will may require it.” Although lodged in of the people and possessed only so Article 1, describing the powers and The irony of ex parte Merryman much sovereignty as the people, for responsibilities of Congress, this lan- is that, no matter how hard one tries their own convenience, chose to dele- guage nowhere actually specifies that to construe Lincoln’s suspension gate to it. “This country, with its insti- only Congress may do the suspending. of the writ as a civil liberties crime tutions, belongs to the people who Taney was, in other words, behaving against the Constitution, there is inhabit it.” Its “strongest bulwark” as the original model of an “activist” very little in terms of civil liberties was “the attachment of the people,” judge, using a constitutional point as abuses during the Civil War that can and “whenever they shall grow weary a shield for partisan political motives. be laid at Lincoln’s feet—unless one of the existing government, they can (He would, in fact, write to former regards any federal attempt to resist exercise their constitutional right of President Franklin Pierce in June 1861 the subversion of the Constitution as amending it, or their revolutionary that he hoped “the North, as well as the an abuse. Historian Mark E. Neely right to dismember or overthrow it.” 37 South, will see that a peaceful separa- has estimated that overall, during This did not mean that some tion, with free institutions in each sec- the four years of the Civil War, there form of government was purely an tion, is far better than the union of all were no more than 14,000 military option. Like Madison, who agreed the present states … .”) arrests by Union forces, and most that government would indeed be

34. Jonathan White, Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), pp. 12–17, 19–20; Brian McGinty, Lincoln and the Court (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 65–83. 35. Stephen C. Neff,Justice in Blue and Gray: A Legal History of the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 34–39; Neely, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation, pp. 64–66, 109, 201. 36. Mark E. Neely, The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 24–28, 60, 98, 133–137. 37. Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address First Edition and Revisions,” March 4, 1861, in Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 260.

13 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

optional only if “all men were angels,” that other to unite and cooperate to include under wrongs a number of Lincoln believed that even if “all men for defense. Hence the military fanciful injustices whose correction were just, there would still be some, department. If some men will kill, is intended less to mitigate the wrong though not so much, need of govern- or beat, or constrain others, or and more to increase the power of ment.” In a perfect world, Lincoln despoil them of property, by force, the government as their corrector. agreed, there was no reason why fraud, or noncompliance with con- They could be stretched again under “each individual” should not “take to tracts, it is a common object with non-wrongs to include “co-operative” himself the whole fruit of his labor, peaceful and just men to prevent actions that served the purposes of a without having any of it taxed away, it. Hence the criminal and civil bureaucracy rather than the people in services, corn, or money” or “take departments.40 and that the people, rather than just so much land as he can cultivate cooperating in them, were coerced with his own hands, without buying into joining. it of any one.” 38 FREE GOVERNMENT’S OVERARCHING But this is not a perfect world, and PURPOSE WAS SIMPLE: TO CREATE The Centrality men are not either just or angelic. of Natural Rights A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD—A SOCIETY For that reason, Lincoln laid down Thus, over and above the wrongs this axiom as his philosophy of IN WHICH NO ONE WAS AWARDED and non-wrongs that government is government: A STATUS THAT ENTITLED HIM TO legitimately created to address, there SPECIAL PRIVILEGES—AND SO TO is this overarching restraint: that The legitimate object of govern- government’s primary obligation in ENSURE EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY ment, is to do for a community dealing with both wrongs and non- of people, whatever they need AND NOT TO INVOLVE ITSELF IN THE wrongs is the affirmation and protec- to have done, but can not do, at LABOR AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OF tion of the natural rights with which all, or can not, so well do, for THE PEOPLE. its citizens are born prior to any themselves in their separate, and institution of government. individual capacities. In all that The problem with “most govern- the people can individually do as The non-wrongs involve issues ment”—and the reason government well for themselves, government of cooperative action on projects itself has so often been regarded as ought not to interfere.39 too large for any single individual little more than (as Augustine said) to accomplish on his own. This a latrocinium, or den of thieves—is On that basis, he reasoned, there category “embraces all which, in that it has “been based, practi- are two areas in which some form of its nature, and without wrong, cally, on the denial of the equal government is obliged to exist and requires combined action, as public rights of men.” As soon as govern- to act: “those which have relation to roads and highways, public schools, ment founds itself upon the inher- wrongs, and those which have not.” charities, pauperism, orphanage, ently superior status of one class of The wrongs, however, are limited estates of the deceased, and the humanity, everything afterward entirely to the punishment of “all machinery of government itself.” acts to the self-aggrandizement of crimes, misdemeanors, and non- But government, even in that sense, that class and the oppression of the performance of contracts,” not to acts simply as the facilitator of the others. The American Constitution, the redistribution of property or the peoples’ wishes.41 however, created a government in curtailment of natural rights: This was also a very mechanical which no class of people was awarded notion of government. The func- any automatic status. “There is no If one people will make war upon tions that Lincoln described in these permanent class of hired laborers another, it is a necessity with categories could easily be stretched amongst us,” Lincoln said in 1859.

38. Lincoln, “Fragment on Government,” July 1, 1854 (?), in Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 221. 39. Ibid., in Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 220. 40. Ibid., in Collected Works, Vol. II, pp. 220–221. 41. Lincoln, “Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,” January 27, 1838, inCollected Works, Vol. I, p. 111.

14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

“Twenty five years ago, I was a hired the world, labors for wages awhile, get a “fair share.” And to those who laborer. The hired laborer of yester- saves a surplus with which to buy did not, Lincoln suggested no deeper day, labors on his own account to day; tools or land, for himself; then intervention in the economy than and will hire others to labor for him labors on his own account another best wishes for a second try: to morrow. Advancement—improve- while, and at length hires another ment in condition—is the order of new beginner to help him.” 45 Some of you will be success- things in a society of equals.” 42 ful, and such will need but little Free government’s overarching IT WAS PRECISELY BECAUSE philosophy to take them home purpose was simple: to create a level “WE DO NOT PROPOSE ANY WAR in cheerful spirits; others will playing field—a society in which no be disappointed, and will be in UPON CAPITAL” THAT AMERICANS one was awarded a status that enti- a less happy mood. To such, let tled him to special privileges—and “WISH TO ALLOW THE HUMBLEST it be said, “Lay it not too much so to ensure equality of opportunity MAN AN EQUAL CHANCE TO GET to heart.” Let them adopt the and not to involve itself in the labor RICH WITH EVERYBODY ELSE.” maxim, “Better luck next time;” and self-improvement of the people. and then, by renewed exer- Punishing wrongs and assisting in tion, make that better luck for projects that promoted opportunity With this system, the govern- themselves.46 were the applications of that funda- ment has no interest. There is no mental tenet. “The cornerstone of wrong involved if “any continue The Fiction of a the government, so to speak, was the through life in the condition of the Right to Secession declaration that ‘all men are created hired laborer,” because that “is not As much as Lincoln personally equal,’ and are entitled to ‘life, lib- the fault of the system, but because loathed , he did not propose erty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ ” 43 of either a dependent nature which a governmental war on it. What From that starting point, Lincoln prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or occurred in the outbreak of civil war expected that the people were quite singular misfortune.” Much less is in 1861 was an impatient assault by competent on their own to cre- there any social inconvenience that the slave states on even the slightest ate a free and prosperous society. government is obligated to rectify hint that Lincoln would, as President, “We proposed to give all a chance; collectively. “It is best for all to leave urge restraint on slavery’s expansion. and we expected the weak to grow each man free to acquire property as In fact, the secession of the stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and fast as he can,” Lincoln asserted, and Southern states to form the all better, and happier together.” 44 with that, government has no license Confederate States of America was Not everyone would make from to interfere. “I don’t believe in a law an even larger assault on the sover- that “chance” the same results, but to prevent a man from getting rich; it eignty of the people, since secession results were the business of the would do more harm than good.” constituted a denial that Southerners people, not the government. “The In fact, it was precisely because would consider themselves bound just and generous, and prosper- “we do not propose any war upon cap- by the majority vote of the people in ous system, which opens the way ital” that Americans “wish to allow choosing an anti-slavery Northerner for all gives hope to all, and energy, the humblest man an equal chance like Lincoln as President. Lovers of and progress, and improvement of to get rich with everybody else.” This free and limited government should condition to all,” is the one in which was by no means a guarantee that rise up to defend the Constitution, “the prudent, penniless beginner in everyone would “get rich” or even because if it could be assaulted like

42. Lincoln, “Fragment on Government,” July 1, 1854 (?), and “Fragment on Free Labor,” in Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 222, and Vol. V, p. 462. 43. Lincoln, “Speech Delivered at the First Republican State Convention at Bloomington,” May 29, 1856, in Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln: Early Speeches, 1832–1856, ed. M. M. Miller (New York: Current Literature Publishing Co., 1907), Vol. II, p. 282. 44. Lincoln, “Fragment on Slavery,” July 1, 1854, in Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 222. 45. Lincoln, “Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” September 30, 1859, in Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 478–479, 481–482. 46. Lincoln, “Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” September 30, 1859, and “Speech at New Haven, Connecticut,” March 6, 1860, in Collected Works, Vol. II, p. 222; Vol. V, pp. 478–479, 481–482; and Vol. IV, p. 24.

15 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

this, with impunity, it would proph- of the government for whose exis- ■■ It bears no proportional resem- esy the futility and failure of free and tence we contend.” And which is blance to the scope of modern “big self-limited government everywhere. worth contending for.47 government,” and “This is a people’s contest,” Lincoln declared at the outset of THE SECESSION OF THE SOUTHERN ■■ The increase shrank back to its the war. It was not about slavery per STATES WAS AN EVEN LARGER prewar proportions with no sense se, although it was the protection of of having established a permanent slavery over which the seceders were ASSAULT ON THE SOVEREIGNTY precedent, much less a govern- willing to go to war. Nor was it about OF THE PEOPLE, SINCE SECESSION ment-knows-best philosophy. states’ rights, since what right, exact- CONSTITUTED A DENIAL THAT ly, had been violated by Lincoln’s SOUTHERNERS WOULD CONSIDER This increase was the creature election? The Constitution, after all, of an emergency and was never seen THEMSELVES BOUND BY THE contains no reversion clause. Nor by Abraham Lincoln as anything does it specify a process for break- MAJORITY VOTE OF THE PEOPLE but that. Moreover, emergencies up and secession; and by oppos- IN CHOOSING AN ANTI-SLAVERY are emergencies: “I can no more be ing secession, Lincoln was hardly NORTHERNER LIKE LINCOLN AS persuaded that the government can eradicating a check on the growth of constitutionally take no strong mea- PRESIDENT. oppressive government, since seces- sure in time of rebellion, because it sion was being practiced precisely so can be shown that the same could not that the Confederate regime could be be lawfully taken in time of peace,” free to create an oppressive govern- Conclusion wrote Lincoln in 1863, “than I can ment, built on human bondage and There is nothing obtuse about be persuaded that a particular drug inherited status. seeking long-term causes for the is not good medicine for a sick man, It was this that the various emergence of a federal government because it can be shown to not be European aristocracies applauded that has grown to such a gargan- good food for a well one.” 48 in the Confederacy. They hoped tuan size that the entire American If anything, what Lincoln dem- to see a revival of “the monar- system seems to have become a onstrates is that democratic gov- chical-aristocratic principle in relentless, interfering bureaucracy ernment, when assailed, is both the Southern states.” As Otto von rather than an of-by-and-for-the- strong enough to take the measures Bismarck told years people democracy. But the effort required for its defense and strong later, “there was something in me to hang this around Lincoln’s neck enough to lay them down again that made me instinctively sym- is both naïve and ill-informed, when the danger has passed. It is a pathize with the slaveholders, as and what is worse, it obscures the mark of confidence in our own prin- the aristocratic party, in your importance of the Lincoln image ciples, not the decay of their purity, Civil War.” Just as instinctively, for the defense and promotion of that Americans are able both to do Lincoln saw the war as “a struggle democratic government. what an emergency requires for the for maintaining in the world, that There is no doubt that the wartime survival of their republic and to put form, and substance of government, emergency of 1861 to 1865 called out those measures by when peace is whose leading object is, to elevate a significant increase in the size and restored. There will always be legiti- the condition of men—to lift artifi- scope of the federal government; what mate alarm, even in an emergency, cial weights from all shoulders—to is important to notice, however, is that: about the use of “a particular drug.” clear the paths of laudable pursuit What Lincoln’s example means is for all—to afford all, an unfettered ■■ This increase was in response that we neither allow the alarm to start, and a fair chance, in the race to a threat to the very life of the paralyze us nor become necessarily of life. … This is the leading object republic, addicted to the “drug.”

47. Lincoln, “Message to Congress in Special Session,” July 4, 1861, in Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 437; Leopold, King of the Belgians, to Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, October 25, 1861, in A. R. Tyrner-Tyrnauer, Lincoln and the Emperors (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962), pp. 65–67; Carl Schurz, “Talks with Bismarck,” McClure’s Magazine, Vol. 31 (August 1908), p. 367. 48. Lincoln, “To Erastus Corning and Others,” June 12, 1863, in Collected Works, Vol. VI, p. 266.

16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN OR THE PROGRESSIVES: WHO WAS THE REAL FATHER OF BIG GOVERNMENT?

The Progressives had a very dif- all. Progressive government would no for yours. I happen temporarily ferent notion of the “drug” of wel- longer be shackled by the inefficien- to occupy this big White House. I fare statism. In their understanding, cies of an 18th-century Constitution. am a living witness that any one the American patient had become It would, instead, be shepherded of your children may look to come so chronically sick on individual- into a new age by a leader, a duce here as my father’s child has. It is ism, liberty, and free markets, and so who “gathering, as best he can, the in order that each of you may have demented in his persistence in believ- thoughts that are completed that are through this free government ing in the priority of freedom, that perceived that have told upon the which we have enjoyed, an open the patient no longer understood how common mind; judging also of the field and a fair chance for your much the world had evolved since the work that is now at length ready to be industry, enterprise and intelli- days of the Constitution. Hence, the completed; reckoning the gathered gence; that you may all have equal “drug” was necessary as a permanent gain; perceiving the fruits of toil and privileges in the race of life, with prescription and in ever-expanding of war and combining all these into all its desirable human aspira- quantities. words of progress, into acts of recog- tions. It is for this the struggle “Our thought has been ‘Let every nition and completion.” 49 should be maintained, that we man look out for himself, let every Wilson had no hesitation about may not lose our birthright—not generation look out for itself,’” invoking Lincoln’s emergency pow- only for one, but for two or three declared Woodrow Wilson in his ers as a justification for this, largely years. The nation is worth fighting first inaugural address, “while we because Lincoln was such a useful for, to secure such an inestimable reared giant machinery which made icon and also because, for Wilson, jewel.50 it impossible that any but those who everything in American life had stood at the levers of control should become an ongoing emergency for It is the misfortune of much con- have a chance to look out for them- government to address. By contrast, servative and libertarian thinking to selves.” The time had now come for Lincoln would “attempt no compli- have seen the Progressive appropria- “sober second thought.” It was time ment to my own sagacity. I claim not tion of Lincoln and to have assumed, for “men and women and children” to to have controlled events, but confess at once and without serious reflection, be “shielded in their lives, their very plainly that events have controlled that it was legitimate—rather like vitality, from the consequences of me.” He saw himself as little more mistaking a hostage taken by terror- great industrial and social processes than the temporary occupant of an ists for one of the terrorists himself. which they can not alter, control, or executive office, struggling to hand More than a little of modern conser- singly cope with.” it—and the entire mechanism of vatism and libertarianism’s skittish- This would, of course, mean a free government—over to the next ness on the subject of Lincoln is con- tremendous expansion of govern- occupant. nected to the influence of Southern ment oversight and power in order agrarianism in the conservative to ensure an “equalization of condi- It is not merely for to-day, but for fabric, but Lincoln is not, nor was his tions.” But in Wilson’s mind, “Men all time to come that we should Administration, any model for what as communities are supreme over perpetuate for our children’s chil- today seems so objectionable in the men as individuals,” and that gave dren this great and free govern- modern welfare state. The conserva- to “communities” powers of “public ment, which we have enjoyed all tive task instead should be to liberate control” so vast that “in the strict our lives. I beg you to remember the hostage—and embrace him. analysis” there would be no limits at this, not merely for my sake, but

49. Wilson, “Presidential Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1913, in Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches, pp. 367–368; Wilson, “Congressional Government,” 1885, and “Leaders of Men,” 1889, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994), Vol. V, p. 561, and Vol. VI, p. 671. 50. Lincoln, “To Albert G. Hodges,” April 4, 1864, and “Speech to One Hundred Sixty-sixth Ohio Regiment,” August 22, 1864, in Collected Works, Vol. VII, pp. 282, 512.

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