Today in History, June 16th.
Abraham Lincoln accepts Republican nomination for Senate 1858, gives his famous speech on "A House Divided"
Franklin D.Roosevelt, New Deal passed by US Congress 1935
Why, you may ask, am I citing these two Historical events together, which seem on the surface to be unrelated aside from sharing the same date as an anniversary? Different Century, different Political Parties, very different men.
Aha, gotcha'. Not so different at all. Both were Presidential "Darkhorses". Both came to the Presidency in times of existential crisis. Both became President in a time of great division. Both, in their Presidencies were forced to fight two Wars at the same time, one a "behind the lines" battle with the Financial elites centered in Wall Street, and the other a Military conflict with an aggressor enemy. And emphatically, both were conscious adherents to the Economic philosophy of US Treasury Secretary and Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton.
I highly recommend you read about all three, Lincoln, FDR, and Hamilton. It is too much for me to summarize here. I will say few things though, to give you a gestalt.
Lincoln was a Hamiltonian from the beginning. His mentor was Congressman Henry Clay from Kentucky, who was a Hamilton devotee also. Lincoln's famous stump speech from his campaigns has been immortalized in books and film. "My principles are short and sweet, like the Old Lady's Dance; A National Bank, Internal Improvements, and a high Protective Tariff".
His campaign for President was made possible by his noteriety from the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the extension of Slavery, but his actual campaign for President was based on those three principles, especially a revival of Hamilton's National Bank. He traveled the country recruiting businessmen, the Military, Engineers, and Scientists, and especially Railroad Men, to a perspective of building the TransContinental Railroad, extending that Railroad into the South, and improvements on the Ports and River Systems leading to the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. His goal was to create Jobs and prosperity, build lots of new Transportation Infrastructure, build up Productive Agriculture and end the reliance of Southern States on their one Cash Crop, Cotton. Bascically, he wanted large scale industrial and agricultural development to break the back of the Oligarchical Slavery dependent Plantation System of the South, and to finally bring the Southern States economically into the Union, which they had resisted due to their defense and reliance upon Slavery.
Lincoln could never get his National Bank adopted, but he did implement the Tariff, and built the Railroads and the Ports. He funded it by creating an ersatz Bank by printing the "Greenback", which was a form of directed credit to fund the War and the Internal Improvements, thus doing an "end around" against Wall Street and his own Treasury Secretary, Wall Street Man Samuel Chase. (whom he fired) Had Lincoln not been assassinated by Confederate Spy John Wilkes Booth, a Lincoln second term would have brought about a thoroughly different Reconstruction, as opposed to that of the disgusting pro-Confederate corrupt drunken idiot, Andrew Johnson. We would be in a diffferent world.
His campaign for President was made possible by his noteriety from the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the extension of Slavery, but his actual campaign for President was based on those three principles, especially a revival of Hamilton's National Bank. He traveled the country recruiting businessmen, the Military, Engineers, and Scientists, and especially Railroad Men, to a perspective of building the TransContinental Railroad, extending that Railroad into the South, and improvements on the Ports and River Systems leading to the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. His goal was to create Jobs and prosperity, build lots of new Transportation Infrastructure, build up Productive Agriculture and end the reliance of Southern States on their one Cash Crop, Cotton. Bascically, he wanted large scale industrial and agricultural development to break the back of the Oligarchical Slavery dependent Plantation System of the South, and to finally bring the Southern States economically into the Union, which they had resisted due to their defense and reliance upon Slavery.
Lincoln could never get his National Bank adopted, but he did implement the Tariff, and built the Railroads and the Ports. He funded it by creating an ersatz Bank by printing the "Greenback", which was a form of directed credit to fund the War and the Internal Improvements, thus doing an "end around" against Wall Street and his own Treasury Secretary, Wall Street Man Samuel Chase. (whom he fired) Had Lincoln not been assassinated by Confederate Spy John Wilkes Booth, a Lincoln second term would have brought about a thoroughly different Reconstruction, as opposed to that of the disgusting pro-Confederate corrupt drunken idiot, Andrew Johnson. We would be in a diffferent world.
Franklin Roosevelt was also a Hamiltonian, though a Democrat. He wanted to turn the Democratic Party into the Party of Lincoln, as opposed to the Party of Slavery, which it still was, and had its political power in the South, and Wall Street. FDR as a young man wrote his Harvard Thesis on Hamilton. He later borrowed from other Economists like Keynes, but remained a Hamiltonian through and through. He brought together a Farmer-Labor alliance in the Democratic Party that was designed explicitly as a counter to the out of control Robber Barons of Wall Street. He pushed through the regulation of Banks, with the Glass-Stegall Law, seperated Commerical Banking from Wall Street Speculation, busted up the Sharecropping System in the South with his Farm Subsidies, having the government in effect take it over. He defended and advanced the cause of Unions, and built up whole new industries from scratch which employed and trained Millions.(much of which occured later through the War Mobilization, but started with WPA and CCC)
He ended our dustbowl droughts in the midwest by planting millions of trees, in fact the list of things that he was able to do was long enough that I will let you read about it on your own, rather than try to cover it all here.
The bottom line is that in order to do what he did, it was dependent on him curbing and taxing Wall Street to free up and direct the Capital into the areas needed to fund the Recovery. This is why FDR ran for President as a Darkhorse. His mortal political enemy, J.P. Morgan controlled the Democratic Party from the top down, and was pushing his toady, New York Mayor Al Smith for President. FDR ran against Wall Street, not Al Smith.
He ended our dustbowl droughts in the midwest by planting millions of trees, in fact the list of things that he was able to do was long enough that I will let you read about it on your own, rather than try to cover it all here.
The bottom line is that in order to do what he did, it was dependent on him curbing and taxing Wall Street to free up and direct the Capital into the areas needed to fund the Recovery. This is why FDR ran for President as a Darkhorse. His mortal political enemy, J.P. Morgan controlled the Democratic Party from the top down, and was pushing his toady, New York Mayor Al Smith for President. FDR ran against Wall Street, not Al Smith.
Additionally, FDR had the same view of the South as Lincoln did, and was determined to bring them back into the Union in every sense. So, he did three things. He deployed his Wife Eleanor on Civil Rights. She did what he couldn't do, which was to travel extensively, be his eyes and ears, and emissary, and give FDR the freedom to work on everything else. FDR had the problem that he needed the Southern Democratic States to get the New Deal adopted, so he couldn't fight the Racists directly, and therefore had Eleanor do it. When Southern Democrats squawked about Eleanor "stirring up our Negroes" FDR had plausible deniability. "Sorry, she's my Wife, but I have no control over her", he would say. Being the true Machiavellian that he was, they were working on it together all along.
Secondly, FDR understood that the Southern States backwardness was not just their assertion of States Rights, but their poverty, illiteracy, Malnutrition, and lack of infrastructure. Their Farmers were plagued with Flooding and Drought in cycles. They had few Hospitals and Public Schools, Children were hungry because families couldn't afford lunch. They had very little electrical power, due to lack of power grids and the obscene profiteering of the Power companies causing high prices.
So, FDR took this all on, and largely conquered it by building the Tennessee Valley Authority, a system of interlocking Dams, Canals, and Waterways, that controlled flooding, irrigated land, provided huge amounts of virtually free electrical power, and inland transportation for shipping. He brought in 100's of thousands of good well paying jobs, built schools for the workers children, established a National free Lunch program, and gave away the electrical power for the easily affordable new homes for free, sticking it to the Wall Street run Power Companies. The entire project, paid for by the Federal Government, paid for itself within 10 years from User fees and Tolls. The Southeastern Section of the US was transformed from a Hillbilly settlement consumed with family feuds, into a modern economic Juggernaut. Without that project, we would not have had the wherewitthal to mobilize to win WWII.
So, FDR took this all on, and largely conquered it by building the Tennessee Valley Authority, a system of interlocking Dams, Canals, and Waterways, that controlled flooding, irrigated land, provided huge amounts of virtually free electrical power, and inland transportation for shipping. He brought in 100's of thousands of good well paying jobs, built schools for the workers children, established a National free Lunch program, and gave away the electrical power for the easily affordable new homes for free, sticking it to the Wall Street run Power Companies. The entire project, paid for by the Federal Government, paid for itself within 10 years from User fees and Tolls. The Southeastern Section of the US was transformed from a Hillbilly settlement consumed with family feuds, into a modern economic Juggernaut. Without that project, we would not have had the wherewitthal to mobilize to win WWII.
Third, but not least, he made the decision that one way to reintegrate the Southern States into the Union was to build Military Bases in the South, and encourage them to Join the US Army. Poor illiterate young men got training, education, Nutrition, and skills, wearing a USA Uniform, and this was considered a first step to liberating them from their tribal identities as residents of a State, not a Nation. He made the pragmatic decision that in order to encourage the Southern young men to rejoin the US by joining its Army, let them use the names of their Confederate Generals to help them recruit themselves. He was not motivated by any racist attitudes, but saw it as a way to outflank the opposition of Southern Democrats by thowing them a political bone. Certainly the time for renaming those bases is long past, given the racist legacy of the Confederacy. But understand that it was seen as a necessary bargain at the time to get the New Deal adopted, which if he had not done, we would not exist as a Nation.
So, a big day in History, with a lot worth remembering, much of which is more than relevant to our situation today.
