Sept. 16, 2026

403: Internal Improvements - Enter Lincoln

Show Notes
Transcript

For obvious reasons, Abraham Lincoln's presidency is best remembered for his emancipation of America's slaves, determination to preserve the Union in the face of Southern secession, and leadership in the American Civil War. But an often-overlooked aspect of his administration was its promotion of the United States Government as an active, positive actor in such matters as infrastructure improvement and economic affairs. In this conclusion to the series, Marshall leads our discussion of how the first four years of Lincoln’s presidency in the 1860s were among the most consequential in U.S. history for civic infrastructure and economic reform, rivaling the achievements of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s.

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Mr. Clay burned with a zeal for its advancement,

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prosperity, and glory. Because he saw in such

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the advancement, prosperity, and glory of human

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liberty, human right, and human nature, he desired

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the prosperity of his countrymen, partly because

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they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show

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the world that freemen could be prosperous. Abraham

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Lincoln, Eulogy on Henry Clay, 6 July 1852. For

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obvious reasons, Abraham Lincoln's presidency

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is best remembered for his emancipation of America's

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slaves, his determination to preserve the Union

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during the Civil War, and his leadership during

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that war. And this makes sense given the importance

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of those events in American history. But they

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overshadow many other things that he did during

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his four years in office. He stabilized the financial

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system and the currency system. He did major

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improvements in land ownership in the United

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States, the expansion of the United States westward,

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supported railroads, and also did much to create

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an improved system of advanced education in the

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country. And we're going to discuss all of those

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things in this episode of the United States of

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Amnesia. Welcome to the United States of Amnesia,

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the podcast that reminds us of what we have forgotten.

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History doesn't just tell us where we've been,

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it shapes how we understand the present. Yet

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the past is never as simple as we remember it.

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Over time, history becomes filtered through politics,

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ideology, and popular myth until the original

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story can be hard to recognize. History may not

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repeat itself, per se, but it often rhymes, as

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Mark Twain once remarked. Join Marshall Newman,

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Mike Mendenhall, and Blake Hinckley as we explore

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history, politics, religion, and the connections

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between them. By understanding the past more

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clearly, we can better understand the present

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and prepare for history's next ride. In this

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conclusion to our series on internal improvements,

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Marshall leads our discussion of how the first

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four years of Lincoln's presidency in the 1860s

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were among the most consequential in U .S. history

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for civic infrastructure and economic reform,

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rivaling the achievements of Franklin Roosevelt's

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New Deal in the 1930s and Lyndon Johnson's Great

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Society of the 1960s. So roughly 36 years after

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Adams, John Quincy Adams, Lincoln was elected

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president. During the interval, much had changed

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in terms of how one nominated and elected a president.

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Party conventions had come into vogue. Previously,

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any large government body, state or federal,

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could nominate anyone for office. Andrew Jackson

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had been nominated by the state legislature of

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Tennessee in 1825, three years before the election

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of... 1828, so it didn't even have to fall within

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an election year. Parties were more important,

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and instead of the four people who ran for president

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in 1824, all members of the same party, there

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were generally two main parties with candidates,

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unless one of them collapsed due to factualism,

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and this is precisely what happened in 1860.

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It is not clear if Lincoln ever met or spoke

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to either Adams or Clay. His Secretary of State

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was a protege of John Quincy Adams. When Adams

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collapsed on the floor of the House of Representatives

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in 1848 while denouncing awards to participants

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in the Mexican -American War, he was carried

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out by four fellow congressmen to an antechamber

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belonging to the Speaker of the House. One of

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these colleagues was Lincoln. As he lay dying,

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Adams asked that his colleague Henry Clay be

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brought over from the Senate for a few last words.

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It's not clear if Lincoln was present when Clay

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arrived at the deathbed of Adams, but he was,

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as we would say today, a real fanboy for Clay.

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In his early days, any mention of Clay was sufficient

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to gain Lincoln's attention. One of the factors

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that attracted Lincoln to his enormously unstable

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wife, Mary Todd, was that she knew Clay and periodically

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was a guest in Clay's home in Louisville. The

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1860 election that brought Congressman Lincoln,

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a follower of Clay, to the White House, William

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Seward as Secretary of State, eventually, though

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not at first, one of Lincoln's closest advisors,

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there's clearly an inclination by them to revisit

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some of the programs promoted by Clay and Adams.

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Jackson's Democratic Party was split. two or

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three ways in 1860, depending on how one wished

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to count. And this, to a certain extent, was

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by the design of secession -minded Southerners.

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Suffice it to say, this assured Lincoln's victory,

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even though his Republican Party wasn't on the

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ballot in most of the Southern states, and with

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it, the Civil War. So you're suggesting that

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the secession -minded Southerners actually wanted

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Lincoln to be? Yes. In a way. Yes. Yes. Because

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it would put them over the top. It would put

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them over the top and it would actually encourage

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people. Secession. I mean, you had your firebrands.

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You had your Yanceys. You had your Rets down

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in South Carolina who were adamant. The fire

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eaters. Yes, the fire eaters who were adamant

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for secession. And South Carolina was the source

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for a lot of the secessionist thinking at the

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time. But there were also moderates who. You

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know, they didn't want slavery trifled with,

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but they weren't they they were not always eager

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to, like, leave the union. These guys basically

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saw a whole lot more possibilities of a sort

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of southern slave owning nation state, which

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could continue to do things that were kind of

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made up of. what the Democratic Party represented

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during the period before the war, going in and

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expanding down into Mexico, taking Mexico, taking

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parts of Latin America, taking parts of South

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America, and including them in their sort of

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vast slaveholding enterprise. Now, you said these

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were the moderates. That doesn't sound very moderate

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to me. No, this was not the moderates. Okay.

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These were the fire eaters. These were the fire

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eaters, okay. The fire eaters are the ones who

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wanted this sort of vast— Yes. They wanted to

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restore the— national slave trade, etc. So this

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is kind of like Jackson's Democratic Party on

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steroids here, and kind of crazy. Now, what about

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the moderates? What were the moderates thinking?

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The moderates were always looking for some sort

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of compromise, but they would stop short of having

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a party like the Republicans that had taken a

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strong stance against slavery. So they were more

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focused on keeping the union together at any

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cost? Except anything that didn't... hinder them

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owning slaves or maintaining slaves. But when

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you have the election of somebody like Lincoln,

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Lincoln is there. Lincoln's a moderate within

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his party. He basically is opposed to the expansion

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of slavery in the territories. This is a line

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that even the moderates didn't want crossed here.

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They wanted to continue to have slavery. able

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to expand to other places so that they could

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maintain their sort of dominance of federal institutions

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such as the Senate and Congress. So they saw

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what's now New Mexico, Arizona. Yes. Those were

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areas where they saw the expansion of slavery.

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Yes. And even further south. And then down into

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Mexico, Cuba, and so on and so forth. Yes. All

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of these were things that, you know, this again

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gets into this sort of tendency that we saw.

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in the period, which is called the Age of Jackson,

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for expansion, the appetite for territorial expansion

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and going and invading, something that is not

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necessarily permitted within the Constitution.

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Lincoln coming in means internal improvements.

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While they weren't necessarily the focus of the

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campaign, which was more or less focused on slavery,

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the Republican platform included a number of

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measures that would be familiar to supporters

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of Adams and Clay. And this is for the 1860 election.

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For the 1860 election. No one campaigned on this,

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but it was there. And so these... On the Internal

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Improvement Society. On the Internal Improvement

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Society. So they included tariffs, which was

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to assist every branch of the economy so that

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it could... eventually compete with Europe. These

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were protective tariffs. Protective tariffs,

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yes. The distribution of federal land to promote

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agriculture and also the settlement of the West,

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which was a big aspect of Clay's sense of promoting

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this for greater security for the U .S. Western

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lands. Legislation to promote equal rights for

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immigrants. promotion of maritime trade to create

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new ports and new harbors, we get into infrastructure

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again, and the construction of a transcontinental

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railroad. So all of these, if you look at them,

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some of them are actually one -for -ones in terms

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of Clay's American system, Adams' internal improvements.

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Some of them, such as this matter of railroads,

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this is something where... They're responding

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to technology. Railroads were not significant

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in the 1820s. They certainly were in the 1850s

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and 1860s and really were in the 1870s. Initially,

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Lincoln's administration, though, needed to do

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something else, and this was economic matters

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to prevent the collapse of the banking system.

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They also needed to finance the Civil War. So

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as we saw before in 1812, the War of 1812, the

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government had a hard time financing that war,

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and that is what led to the recreation of...

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the second bank of the United States. We discussed

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in the previous episodes. Yes. The first bank

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of the United States said that charter had lapsed

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because of opposition to it, because of supposed

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corruption and too much federal power and so

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on and so forth. War of 1812, the United States

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went bankrupt. People decided maybe we should

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have a bank after all. They very quickly chartered

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the second bank. They hated it for the same reasons.

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After 20 years, it lost its charter. It was pretty

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much snuffed out by the beginning of the 1840s,

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and there was no second bank in the United States,

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and then there was no bank after that. Until

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now. Well, until, well, I shouldn't say a bank

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again, but until these reforms took place to

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address the problem in a different way. The reforms,

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the situation, I should say, is even worse. And

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the need for reform is even more urgent than

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we saw previously. Because you're fighting the

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Civil War. Well, first of all, we have the collapse

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of the banking system in 1857. Well, yes. We

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talked about that last time as well. So that's

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within the 20 -year cycle where we're seeing.

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you know, the economy collapse. Right. So to

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timeline this for people that aren't as familiar

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with it. So the panic of 1857 was, yes, in 1857.

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Yes. That created a depression that lasted at

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least three years, which takes you up to 1860.

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And what's happening in 1860? Well, the first

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state to secede is South Carolina. And I think

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that was in December of 1860. Yes. Lincoln has

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been elected in November. but will not be sworn

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in until March. Until March. And so now you have

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a series of secessions are going on, both before

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and after Lincoln is sworn in. And it ends up

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with the Civil War breaking out in April of 1861.

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Now, Buchanan gets a lot of guff, and he should,

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for doing absolutely nothing to halt this. He

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says, it's illegal, but I have no power to prevent

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it. Right. It's illegal to secede, and it's also

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illegal for the United States government to prevent

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anyone from seceding. However, Buchanan... is

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incompetent in so many ways. We should not gloss

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over other aspects because his incompetence in

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financial matters actually plays a significant

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role in what's going to happen next. So in the

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wake of the 1857 panic and falling revenue, the

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Buchanan administration had borrowed money piecemeal

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from the larger New York and Philadelphia banks.

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Now, Unlike a lot of state banks, New York had

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stringent regulation on its banking system, which

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prevented a lot of the crises that happened willy

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-nilly out west where there was absolutely nothing.

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Its state banks are much better regulated than

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those in other states. They're much better regulated,

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and I'm under the impression that... Pennsylvania

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banks were better too. And Western banks weren't

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very well regulated. No, they weren't. If at

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all. If at all. Yeah. So, but the interest rates

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that the Buchanan administration managed to get

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the money from ranged from 12 to 36%. 36%. You

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know, that is not, it is not doing you any good.

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And you see, this was... kind of something that

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a large bank like the Bank of the United States

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kind of prevented you from having to do. You

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could borrow large amounts of money at a well

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-regulated rate of interest, generally below

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12 and certainly below 36 percent. So regulating

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the banking system, like we said, has become

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a state and not a federal function. And so this

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led to sort of a patchwork of good by the standards

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of the time. awful regulation at the state level.

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And as we saw last time, capitalization for these

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banks who issued bank notes was of dubious value,

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was irregular at best in the nation as a whole.

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And there was easy money, easy credit. That's

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what led to the panic of 1857. There was an overexpansion

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of railroads, too much money loaned out. That

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led to a lot of inflation. paper money becoming

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more and more worthless yes and i believe it

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was i think you mentioned it last time there

00:14:12.490 --> 00:14:14.889
were 7 000 different current paper currencies

00:14:14.889 --> 00:14:17.610
in circulation in the united states because of

00:14:17.610 --> 00:14:21.269
the uh each bank printing its own yes Now, here's

00:14:21.269 --> 00:14:24.450
another little tidbit about what was also kind

00:14:24.450 --> 00:14:27.169
of driving these banking collapses. So prior

00:14:27.169 --> 00:14:30.590
to the Civil War, the notoriously under -regulated

00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:33.990
banks in the Northwest region, which would have

00:14:33.990 --> 00:14:37.490
been places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan.

00:14:37.909 --> 00:14:40.269
Not the Pacific Northwest of today. No, not the

00:14:40.269 --> 00:14:41.590
Pacific Northwest. The West was the Midwest,

00:14:41.750 --> 00:14:43.610
and the Northwest was the northern part of the

00:14:43.610 --> 00:14:46.389
Midwest at that time. So what they had invested

00:14:46.389 --> 00:14:49.470
in was state bonds issued by southern states.

00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:53.200
So when the South seceded, these bonds became

00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:56.899
worthless, and the currency issued by these banks

00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:00.820
collapsed. Without money, trade collapse, and

00:15:00.820 --> 00:15:05.059
business stagnated by the fall of 1861, an economic

00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:07.779
crisis loomed as the region's farmers lacked

00:15:07.779 --> 00:15:10.379
the means to market their crops, and they had

00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:13.360
no means to have access to a functioning currency.

00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.690
So this is what happens when you kind of... leave

00:15:17.690 --> 00:15:19.610
these things up so we already had a depression

00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:21.590
going on and now we had a war on top of that

00:15:21.590 --> 00:15:23.809
plus with no good way of funding that war yes

00:15:23.809 --> 00:15:27.149
exactly so this is this is kind of this i'm just

00:15:27.149 --> 00:15:29.710
going to say this we look at things like getting

00:15:29.710 --> 00:15:32.830
troops around but i i would say we also need

00:15:32.830 --> 00:15:35.309
to look at the civil war from an economic perspective

00:15:35.309 --> 00:15:41.049
and just how important finances were um So if

00:15:41.049 --> 00:15:43.429
things were not bad enough, and they were pretty

00:15:43.429 --> 00:15:46.750
bad, Lincoln inherited treasury with a deficit

00:15:46.750 --> 00:15:51.429
of $65 million. The Civil War, once the government

00:15:51.429 --> 00:15:54.049
came to grips with it, when Lincoln became president,

00:15:54.110 --> 00:15:59.330
would cost $3 ,500 ,000 per day. Financing the

00:15:59.330 --> 00:16:03.309
war became the first priority in terms of reforming

00:16:03.309 --> 00:16:04.710
the federal government. So let's convert those

00:16:04.710 --> 00:16:08.509
figures into... 2026 money the 65 million dollar

00:16:08.509 --> 00:16:11.509
debt was a deficit deficit that we had in the

00:16:11.509 --> 00:16:13.570
in the treasury was at the treasury was equal

00:16:13.570 --> 00:16:16.649
to would be equal to 2 .6 billion with a b dollars

00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:20.470
today and the uh 3 .5 million dollars a day being

00:16:20.470 --> 00:16:23.490
spent on waging the civil war in the war in 1860

00:16:23.490 --> 00:16:27.529
that would be 141 million dollars a day in 2026

00:16:27.529 --> 00:16:30.340
dollars That's an awful lot of money. Yes. Yeah.

00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.940
And it's really bad if you're coming in, your

00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:37.799
nation's collapsing, and your economy and your

00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:42.580
revenue is just in the toilet, so to speak. So

00:16:42.580 --> 00:16:47.379
let's just look at some of these things. And

00:16:47.379 --> 00:16:51.179
again, the reason you're having this happen as

00:16:51.179 --> 00:16:53.899
bad as it is, is there's no central bank because

00:16:53.899 --> 00:16:57.360
central banks are corrupt. Supposedly. Supposedly.

00:16:57.440 --> 00:16:59.139
And probably they were to some extent. Yeah.

00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:01.320
I mean, you're not going to have large amounts

00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:03.179
of money exchanging hands without corruption.

00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:06.339
Let's just accept that as the nature of human

00:17:06.339 --> 00:17:10.690
beings here. As we've mentioned, we had 7 ,000

00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:12.269
different types of currency. I don't think we

00:17:12.269 --> 00:17:14.549
can mention this too much because when I first

00:17:14.549 --> 00:17:17.230
found this, this was to me an incredible statistic.

00:17:17.930 --> 00:17:22.690
And this did not really facilitate trade within

00:17:22.690 --> 00:17:27.089
the country as a whole, between states, because

00:17:27.089 --> 00:17:30.869
money that could be worth something because it

00:17:30.869 --> 00:17:34.789
was issued by a bank in one state could be totally

00:17:34.789 --> 00:17:39.509
discounted. meaning it would have value below

00:17:39.509 --> 00:17:43.210
its listed. If any value at all. If any value

00:17:43.210 --> 00:17:46.789
at all. I mean, so, you know, there's a lot of

00:17:46.789 --> 00:17:50.029
things going on. You know, you did have gold

00:17:50.029 --> 00:17:54.509
and silver that could assist, but with transactions.

00:17:54.609 --> 00:17:57.529
Gold and silver coins. Yes. Specie. Specie. Yes.

00:17:57.630 --> 00:18:00.450
But that's not necessarily the most, you know,

00:18:00.450 --> 00:18:04.220
who carries around a huge... wagon load of gold

00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:07.299
in order to finance, shall we say, a railroad

00:18:07.299 --> 00:18:09.400
or something like that. All right. When you say

00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:12.380
there were 7 ,000 types of currency, these are

00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:14.819
bank notes, right? Bank notes. Paper currency.

00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:17.420
Paper currency. It's like an IOU from a bank.

00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:20.460
The bank will promise to pay you in specie. Okay.

00:18:20.579 --> 00:18:22.519
And essentially, that's what it is. That's the

00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:25.420
way of thinking of it. Yeah. I can take that

00:18:25.420 --> 00:18:27.680
to the bank that issued it and get my money out

00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:33.049
in terms of gold and silver. Theoretically. Folks,

00:18:33.089 --> 00:18:36.849
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00:18:36.849 --> 00:18:39.890
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00:18:39.890 --> 00:18:43.529
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00:18:43.529 --> 00:18:46.490
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00:18:46.490 --> 00:18:49.230
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00:18:49.230 --> 00:18:52.250
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00:18:52.250 --> 00:18:55.150
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00:18:55.150 --> 00:18:58.970
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00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:05.599
Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, though,

00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:08.339
had to come up with some creative ways and had

00:19:08.339 --> 00:19:10.859
to constantly be meeting with the lending banks

00:19:10.859 --> 00:19:14.920
in New York City for loans or promises to purchase

00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:18.220
bonds. And who is he? That was Salmon P. Chase.

00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:20.700
Salmon P. Chase. Yes. He was one of Lincoln's

00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:23.619
rivals for the nomination. He was from Ohio.

00:19:24.529 --> 00:19:29.410
He was governor of Ohio. He would also end up

00:19:29.410 --> 00:19:32.609
becoming on the Supreme Court. Lincoln deliberately

00:19:32.609 --> 00:19:36.069
put together a cabinet of rivals. Yes. I mean,

00:19:36.069 --> 00:19:37.789
this was something that Adams had tried to do

00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:40.509
when he was elected. Lincoln was successful at

00:19:40.509 --> 00:19:43.529
it. Was that his term, cabinet of rivals? That's

00:19:43.529 --> 00:19:46.289
more or less a term that Doris Kearns Goodwin

00:19:46.289 --> 00:19:49.809
came up with for her book on this that kind of

00:19:49.809 --> 00:19:52.250
like talked about Lincoln's political wisdom

00:19:52.250 --> 00:19:55.190
in doing this. This was fairly effective because

00:19:55.190 --> 00:19:58.210
it certainly ensured unity. But he described

00:19:58.210 --> 00:20:00.809
it that way, too, not in those exact terms. No,

00:20:00.809 --> 00:20:03.349
no. But Lincoln did this on purpose. This was

00:20:03.349 --> 00:20:06.210
very purposeful. It was very purposeful. I don't

00:20:06.210 --> 00:20:09.130
think he used the term team of rivals. No. Well,

00:20:09.190 --> 00:20:10.930
one thing I've learned in life is that to get

00:20:10.930 --> 00:20:12.789
your way, it helps to be inclusive and get people

00:20:12.789 --> 00:20:14.630
into what's going on instead of excluding them.

00:20:14.869 --> 00:20:17.430
Ah, yes. That's a whole other thing that we need

00:20:17.430 --> 00:20:18.549
to get into right now. That is a whole other

00:20:18.549 --> 00:20:20.109
thing. I'm just going to tell you, and this is

00:20:20.109 --> 00:20:21.990
a passion project of mine, and I'm just going

00:20:21.990 --> 00:20:27.430
to say this. All of the most successful presidencies

00:20:27.430 --> 00:20:31.269
took this approach to staffing their cabinets,

00:20:31.349 --> 00:20:34.250
and we'll leave it at that. But anyway, Lincoln,

00:20:34.490 --> 00:20:38.470
his cabinet, and the Republican Congress developed

00:20:38.470 --> 00:20:43.789
ways to increase financing through tariffs. Tariffs

00:20:43.789 --> 00:20:46.130
were a dirty word down south, but guess what?

00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:49.309
No one's there to oppose this, so they can go

00:20:49.309 --> 00:20:51.509
and proceed with this. And this is a theme we're

00:20:51.509 --> 00:20:54.109
going to see a lot of. So the Union never accepted

00:20:54.109 --> 00:20:57.230
that the southern states left the Union. By definition,

00:20:57.329 --> 00:20:59.589
the Confederacy did not exist as far as the United

00:20:59.589 --> 00:21:02.029
States government was concerned. And so officially,

00:21:02.210 --> 00:21:05.289
all those states remained in the Union during

00:21:05.289 --> 00:21:07.769
the Civil War. Yes, but they were in a state

00:21:07.769 --> 00:21:09.529
of rebellion. They were in a state of rebellion,

00:21:09.630 --> 00:21:11.549
and they had no one there representing them.

00:21:11.819 --> 00:21:13.460
No. My understanding is they would actually,

00:21:13.539 --> 00:21:15.400
you know, do a roll call vote and they would

00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:17.259
call the states and someone would say not present

00:21:17.259 --> 00:21:19.099
because those people weren't present. They were

00:21:19.099 --> 00:21:20.880
in rebellion. Didn't they resign their positions

00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:23.119
though? I think they did. Yeah, but there's no,

00:21:23.259 --> 00:21:25.519
but they're calling the states. Right. So the

00:21:25.519 --> 00:21:27.660
state hasn't sent a representative. I mean, it

00:21:27.660 --> 00:21:29.299
would be like the governor or they would have

00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:31.799
an election or something to replace them. But

00:21:31.799 --> 00:21:34.160
since that did not happen. Yeah. My understanding

00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:35.599
is if you go back and look at the voting rolls,

00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:39.000
Alabama is not present. Okay. Someone said not

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:40.460
present for them because they weren't there to

00:21:40.460 --> 00:21:43.099
vote on the. Act of 1862 because they were in

00:21:43.099 --> 00:21:46.920
rebellion. So that was a legal fiction, but an

00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:48.700
important one that the Union maintained all through

00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:50.900
the war. Along with the tariffs, there is also

00:21:50.900 --> 00:21:53.460
expanding the sale of bonds. Now, bonds before

00:21:53.460 --> 00:21:59.299
this were very much an elite market. But what

00:21:59.299 --> 00:22:03.759
Chase did was Chase also marketed bonds, government

00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:07.200
bonds, to ordinary citizens. thereby expanding

00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:11.619
the base of funding and customers for these bonds

00:22:11.619 --> 00:22:16.299
here. So this broadened the scope, and there

00:22:16.299 --> 00:22:20.099
was also increased taxes. Now, all of these measures

00:22:20.099 --> 00:22:22.740
combined enabled the government to put its finances

00:22:22.740 --> 00:22:26.759
in a more stable foundation. So kudos to Lincoln

00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:29.940
and his administration for getting things done.

00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.299
taken care of. But again, we cannot emphasize

00:22:33.299 --> 00:22:35.160
this too much. This would not have been possible

00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:37.519
if the South hadn't succeeded and members of

00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:41.180
Congress had not resigned. So like I said, this

00:22:41.180 --> 00:22:43.039
is going to set the pattern for all sorts of

00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:45.680
reforms that had been frustrated over the last

00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:48.880
several decades. And I'm just going to say this.

00:22:49.220 --> 00:22:52.900
In the future, successful large -scale reform

00:22:52.900 --> 00:22:55.740
programs would have to have something, some similar

00:22:55.740 --> 00:23:00.589
dynamic where reform could not take place without

00:23:00.589 --> 00:23:02.789
the South being accommodated as it was under

00:23:02.789 --> 00:23:05.609
Roosevelt, or made inconsequential as it was

00:23:05.609 --> 00:23:09.190
for a time under Lyndon Johnson. So this whole

00:23:09.190 --> 00:23:13.809
business about opposing things that are productive

00:23:13.809 --> 00:23:17.390
is something that continues to be in the DNA

00:23:17.390 --> 00:23:22.410
of Southern legislatures and Southern... minds

00:23:22.410 --> 00:23:24.910
and hearts to this day, I would contend. Right.

00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:26.130
When they came back into the union, they could

00:23:26.130 --> 00:23:28.329
start having an effect on that again after they

00:23:28.329 --> 00:23:30.250
returned after the civil war. And eventually

00:23:30.250 --> 00:23:32.869
they managed to like undo a lot of things that

00:23:32.869 --> 00:23:37.289
were done. Now, are we going to discuss greenbacks?

00:23:37.829 --> 00:23:40.150
I'm going to, I'm going to actually get, that

00:23:40.150 --> 00:23:42.769
is, that is a great lead in because that's exactly

00:23:42.769 --> 00:23:46.170
where we're going with this. Chase. Secretary

00:23:46.170 --> 00:23:48.890
of the Treasury looked at the currency situation

00:23:48.890 --> 00:23:51.589
and felt the solution to the currency issue was

00:23:51.589 --> 00:23:54.809
a passage of a national system of currency. This

00:23:54.809 --> 00:23:58.569
led to the passage in July 1861, so this is four

00:23:58.569 --> 00:24:03.230
months after Lincoln takes over, that there would

00:24:03.230 --> 00:24:08.529
be the creation of on -demand notes, and then

00:24:08.529 --> 00:24:13.509
subsequently... In February of 1862, greenbacks.

00:24:13.890 --> 00:24:16.970
And this established a national currency that

00:24:16.970 --> 00:24:19.109
was not backed by gold and silver holdings and

00:24:19.109 --> 00:24:22.009
unlike currency issued by state banks as well.

00:24:22.529 --> 00:24:25.809
So my understanding, the big innovation here,

00:24:26.069 --> 00:24:28.630
what were the on -demand notes before I say this?

00:24:28.650 --> 00:24:31.430
The on -demand notes were something that was

00:24:31.430 --> 00:24:34.369
created to fill a gap within the currency situation.

00:24:34.910 --> 00:24:37.640
Yeah, so let's... define what these on -demand

00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.259
notes were created in 1861. They were essentially

00:24:41.259 --> 00:24:44.359
government IOUs that could be exchanged for gold

00:24:44.359 --> 00:24:47.259
coin on -demand, hence the term on -demand or

00:24:47.259 --> 00:24:51.940
demand notes, at assistant U .S. treasurer locations

00:24:51.940 --> 00:24:54.619
in big cities in the East, primarily Boston,

00:24:54.740 --> 00:24:57.740
New York, Philadelphia, places like that. And

00:24:57.740 --> 00:25:01.440
they were replaced in 1862 by legal tender United

00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:03.980
States notes, which became known as greenbacks.

00:25:04.420 --> 00:25:07.410
And we're going to talk about those now. Yes.

00:25:07.430 --> 00:25:10.650
Now, these established a national currency that

00:25:10.650 --> 00:25:12.730
was not necessarily backed by gold and silver

00:25:12.730 --> 00:25:15.589
holdings. And unlike the currency issued by the

00:25:15.589 --> 00:25:17.690
state banks, not all forms of federally issued

00:25:17.690 --> 00:25:20.950
notes, such as the greenbacks, could be redeemed

00:25:20.950 --> 00:25:25.109
by precious metals. Gold was still the only way

00:25:25.109 --> 00:25:27.690
to pay off federal debt payments or customs duties.

00:25:28.049 --> 00:25:32.609
So the government's kind of getting an advantage

00:25:32.609 --> 00:25:36.640
here in terms of... in terms of getting specie

00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:41.140
into its coffers here. But it's not necessarily

00:25:41.140 --> 00:25:47.240
paying its debts with gold and silver. It's using

00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:51.000
greenbacks or on -demand notes to pay for some

00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:53.680
of its debts here. My understanding of the big

00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:55.740
innovation here with the greenbacks, as they

00:25:55.740 --> 00:25:59.480
were called, was that for the first time... paper

00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:02.460
money was specifically defined by law as legal

00:26:02.460 --> 00:26:05.779
tender. Yes. If you had a $1 bill, it was worth

00:26:05.779 --> 00:26:08.279
$1. It didn't matter whether it was backed up

00:26:08.279 --> 00:26:10.240
by silver or gold or not. And you had to accept

00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:13.420
it as having a value of $1. If you were paid

00:26:13.420 --> 00:26:15.180
in it, that's what legal tender means. You must

00:26:15.180 --> 00:26:17.480
accept it if it's offered to you. And so what

00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:19.359
that did was, remember we said, I think last

00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:21.519
episode about paper money is, when you think

00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:23.220
about it, it's inherently valueless. It's a fiction.

00:26:23.339 --> 00:26:25.740
And like Blake, you said, we push the I believe

00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:28.059
button that this actually has value. Well, in

00:26:28.059 --> 00:26:30.339
a way, that's a little bit off because it does

00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:31.740
have value because the United States government

00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:36.259
says it does in law. Right. Right. And it doesn't

00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:38.720
say it's only got value to the extent that it

00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:40.279
can be redeemed for gold or silver or something

00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:42.599
like that. The paper itself has an intrinsic

00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:46.339
value. And that's the big innovation in the creation

00:26:46.339 --> 00:26:49.799
of the greenback. Now, I will say this. The value

00:26:49.799 --> 00:26:53.799
of the paper money. fluctuated throughout the

00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.920
war. Sure. And it depended on the fortunes of

00:26:56.920 --> 00:27:00.460
the union cause. A defeat could cause exchange

00:27:00.460 --> 00:27:05.180
rates to decline, while victories would ensure

00:27:05.180 --> 00:27:08.259
stability for the currency. And of course, you

00:27:08.259 --> 00:27:09.920
have issues of inflation and things like that.

00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:11.920
Yes. Always affects money. So sure, the actual

00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:15.359
value could, in that sense, could change. But

00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:17.319
having a national currency... But the issue,

00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:18.960
I want to make clear, though, the issue wasn't

00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:21.660
that the dollar value changed. It was still worth

00:27:21.660 --> 00:27:24.599
$1. Yes. That piece of paper was worth $1. What

00:27:24.599 --> 00:27:26.119
you're talking about is something slightly different,

00:27:26.140 --> 00:27:27.920
which is, okay, then how much is a dollar worth?

00:27:28.099 --> 00:27:30.440
Yes. That's subject to exchange rate internationally,

00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:32.759
and internally it's subject to inflation and

00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:34.680
deflation. So that's the way to think about it.

00:27:34.700 --> 00:27:37.779
But the dollar is still a dollar. Yes. Just to

00:27:37.779 --> 00:27:40.160
think about this, having this national currency...

00:27:41.420 --> 00:27:43.240
regardless of, you know, there might be some

00:27:43.240 --> 00:27:46.779
criticism by orthodox economists. This is a step

00:27:46.779 --> 00:27:50.579
ahead, and it did a great deal to ensure the

00:27:50.579 --> 00:27:53.740
successful prosecution of the war and to ensure

00:27:53.740 --> 00:27:56.099
the growth of the U .S. economy after the war.

00:27:56.660 --> 00:27:58.680
which is something always to keep in mind as

00:27:58.680 --> 00:28:00.859
to, yes, these things are having an immediate

00:28:00.859 --> 00:28:03.599
effect on the ability to wage war, but what does

00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:06.460
this do for the United States in terms of turning

00:28:06.460 --> 00:28:09.339
it into a global economic power after these things

00:28:09.339 --> 00:28:14.779
are initiated? So I think this, we can say, was

00:28:14.779 --> 00:28:18.259
definitely a positive result. This would have

00:28:18.259 --> 00:28:23.410
been, though, heresy for a lot of people. of

00:28:23.410 --> 00:28:28.170
the kind of Jacksonian persuasion who, who, who

00:28:28.170 --> 00:28:31.329
would regard this as like fake money. You know,

00:28:31.390 --> 00:28:33.829
they, they, they would, they would view this

00:28:33.829 --> 00:28:36.430
as like, you know, the devil's own here. So let's,

00:28:36.430 --> 00:28:38.250
let's go. Can we discuss that for a second? Sure.

00:28:38.329 --> 00:28:40.650
I have a pie chart in front of me. Yes. Which

00:28:40.650 --> 00:28:43.609
from the internet. So push the, I believe button

00:28:43.609 --> 00:28:45.049
on the internet, the, I believe button, just

00:28:45.049 --> 00:28:46.410
like we're doing. Let's assume it's somewhere

00:28:46.410 --> 00:28:49.329
near correct. And according to it, Bonds and

00:28:49.329 --> 00:28:53.170
loans funded about 60, almost two -thirds of

00:28:53.170 --> 00:28:56.630
the Union war effort, bonds and loans. Another

00:28:56.630 --> 00:29:01.410
21 % or so, almost 21%, was taxes and tariffs.

00:29:01.829 --> 00:29:04.890
And the greenbacks, they actually funded just

00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:07.069
by printing this money and saying it's worth

00:29:07.069 --> 00:29:09.410
a dollar or two dollars or whatever it was, right?

00:29:09.650 --> 00:29:12.769
That was about 13 .5 % of how the Union funded.

00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:15.960
So it wasn't a majority, but it sure was a lot

00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:18.279
of money nonetheless. You could pay soldiers

00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:21.880
with it. Yes. You could pay for food for the

00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:24.759
army from vendors and things, right? Buy fuel

00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:27.079
for the ships and the train, whatever you needed.

00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:30.740
Using this money because it had intrinsic value.

00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:34.339
I think one thing we should also consider, though,

00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:36.619
is compare that to the Confederates. Yes, let's

00:29:36.619 --> 00:29:38.079
compare this to the Confederates, because they're

00:29:38.079 --> 00:29:41.299
approaching things from a more orthodox standpoint.

00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:43.059
Well, these are the people that didn't want to

00:29:43.059 --> 00:29:44.940
do any of these things. Yes, they opposed the

00:29:44.940 --> 00:29:46.819
bank. They opposed doing these things. They left

00:29:46.819 --> 00:29:48.779
the Union. They're trying to run their own country

00:29:48.779 --> 00:29:50.599
down there without doing any of these things.

00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:53.339
How did it go for them? The answer, in short,

00:29:53.420 --> 00:29:57.349
is not well. Do you have a similar pie chart?

00:29:57.630 --> 00:29:59.430
I have some percentages here. Okay, that's good.

00:29:59.529 --> 00:30:01.049
Again, we'll trust the internet on this one,

00:30:01.109 --> 00:30:04.150
but it's probably close. Over 60 % of the Confederate

00:30:04.150 --> 00:30:07.369
budget for funding their war, their part of the

00:30:07.369 --> 00:30:11.329
war, was unbacked currency, fiat currency, they

00:30:11.329 --> 00:30:14.690
call it. In other words, it's just a piece of

00:30:14.690 --> 00:30:17.730
paper printed, right? The way their money worked

00:30:17.730 --> 00:30:22.109
was, apparently, it wasn't legal tender in the

00:30:22.109 --> 00:30:23.619
sense that the United States that the United

00:30:23.619 --> 00:30:27.839
States had come up with in 1862. It was a promissory

00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:31.940
note which said on it, two years after the Confederacy

00:30:31.940 --> 00:30:34.319
concludes a peace treaty with the United States,

00:30:34.539 --> 00:30:37.559
thereby gaining its independence, two years after

00:30:37.559 --> 00:30:41.460
that, you can then bring this bill in and trade

00:30:41.460 --> 00:30:44.819
it in for gold and silver, specie, you know,

00:30:44.819 --> 00:30:48.079
real money. Real money. Okay? Now, what's that

00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:49.839
contingent on? Well, you have to win the war,

00:30:50.019 --> 00:30:53.119
which was by no means certain, right? And then

00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:55.720
once you win the war, there has to be gold and

00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:58.660
silver backing it. So pretty quickly, this money

00:30:58.660 --> 00:31:01.039
became worthless. And the Confederacy suffered

00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:05.559
from hyperinflation. According to this, the Confederacy

00:31:05.559 --> 00:31:11.640
printed $1 .5 billion in these paper bills. $1

00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:17.630
.5 billion in 1865, now in U .S. money. So this

00:31:17.630 --> 00:31:19.190
is Confederate money, so it's an apples and oranges

00:31:19.190 --> 00:31:20.869
comparison. But just to give you a ballpark idea,

00:31:21.369 --> 00:31:26.250
$1 .5 billion would now be $30 .73 billion. So

00:31:26.250 --> 00:31:29.789
that's a lot of money they printed out without

00:31:29.789 --> 00:31:33.609
it being backed by anything. Taxation only amounted

00:31:33.609 --> 00:31:37.049
to about 7 % of the budget. In the South. In

00:31:37.049 --> 00:31:40.430
the South. Because the Confederacy were people

00:31:40.430 --> 00:31:42.359
who were against having a... powerful central

00:31:42.359 --> 00:31:43.819
government, right? That's part of the reason

00:31:43.819 --> 00:31:45.319
they seceded. They didn't want to make the Confederate

00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:47.660
government too powerful over them either. That

00:31:47.660 --> 00:31:49.539
mentality continued. So you didn't want them

00:31:49.539 --> 00:31:52.039
taxing you very much. So they didn't tax them

00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:54.019
very much and they didn't really enforce the

00:31:54.019 --> 00:31:56.400
taxes very well. But that was about 7 % of the

00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:59.119
budget. The planters in the South, they resisted

00:31:59.119 --> 00:32:01.819
being directly taxed. And so because of that,

00:32:01.859 --> 00:32:03.160
the government didn't really have any reliable

00:32:03.160 --> 00:32:06.559
cash flow down there. And in terms of bonds and

00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:08.480
loans, that was less than a third of the budget.

00:32:08.700 --> 00:32:10.920
And they backed it with cotton. They couldn't

00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:12.380
back it with gold or something, really. They

00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:15.720
backed it with cotton. And once the Union started

00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:19.099
blocking cotton exports, then those bonds became

00:32:19.099 --> 00:32:20.660
worthless because they were backed by something

00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:22.400
that the Confederacy could not export anymore.

00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:25.200
Because the Union blockaded all the southern

00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:27.259
ports during the war. That is correct, yes. The

00:32:27.259 --> 00:32:29.099
Anaconda Plan, it was called. Part of the Union's

00:32:29.099 --> 00:32:30.880
strategy was to strangle the South to death by

00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:32.579
destroying their economy by not letting them

00:32:32.579 --> 00:32:35.579
export cotton. And they took New Orleans right

00:32:35.579 --> 00:32:37.579
quick, right at the beginning of the war. New

00:32:37.579 --> 00:32:40.700
Orleans was gone. And Charleston, too. And they

00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:42.960
gradually captured every port. I think Charleston

00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:44.500
was the one port they never captured, actually.

00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:47.140
But they did run embargo ships. But they were

00:32:47.140 --> 00:32:49.660
blockading the port. Yeah. But they captured

00:32:49.660 --> 00:32:51.299
every other major southern port and a lot of

00:32:51.299 --> 00:32:53.319
the minor ones, too. Anyway, that's a different

00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:56.700
story. And like Virginia Beach and Norfolk went

00:32:56.700 --> 00:33:01.140
pretty soon, too. Yeah. And so because the funding

00:33:01.140 --> 00:33:02.660
was so terrible, they ended up to make things

00:33:02.660 --> 00:33:06.450
even worse for them. Southern farmers stopped

00:33:06.450 --> 00:33:08.150
selling food to the Confederate Army because

00:33:08.150 --> 00:33:09.650
the money was worthless. They were trying to

00:33:09.650 --> 00:33:12.130
pay them with these useless paper bills. So in

00:33:12.130 --> 00:33:14.349
response, Richmond, the government in Richmond,

00:33:14.470 --> 00:33:17.390
allowed the military to simply seize food and

00:33:17.390 --> 00:33:21.049
horses. Why not? And slaves. Why not? By force

00:33:21.049 --> 00:33:24.009
in exchange for the money, which was worthless.

00:33:25.069 --> 00:33:27.369
And so that destroyed their domestic agriculture

00:33:27.369 --> 00:33:30.269
production and created food shortages in the

00:33:30.269 --> 00:33:32.509
South. And of course, you had inflation, you

00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:33.910
had food shortages. I mean, everything's going.

00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:38.059
Going to heck on them, right? And also, just

00:33:38.059 --> 00:33:39.599
a little side note here, Confederate money was

00:33:39.599 --> 00:33:43.200
really easy to counterfeit. They didn't have

00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:45.900
the right kind of printing presses or ink or

00:33:45.900 --> 00:33:48.980
anything or specialized paper to reduce counterfeiting.

00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:51.640
So printers in the North just printed a whole

00:33:51.640 --> 00:33:54.039
bunch of Confederate bills and then sent them

00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:55.299
south and just started distributing them all

00:33:55.299 --> 00:33:58.220
over the place, which of course... made the inflation

00:33:58.220 --> 00:34:00.940
even worse and helped destroy the southern economy.

00:34:01.259 --> 00:34:04.099
So, some figures here. A barrel of flour in Richmond

00:34:04.099 --> 00:34:10.099
was $7 in 1861, and by 1865 it was $1 ,000. A

00:34:10.099 --> 00:34:15.039
pair of shoes went from $5 to $200. By 1864,

00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:17.800
a Confederate soldier's monthly wage of $11 could

00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:20.820
not buy a loaf of bread. And there were bread

00:34:20.820 --> 00:34:24.610
riots in Richmond and things like that. This

00:34:24.610 --> 00:34:26.869
is what happens when you try to fight a civil

00:34:26.869 --> 00:34:29.250
war following the policies the South favored

00:34:29.250 --> 00:34:33.230
before the Civil War. Yes. And when the South

00:34:33.230 --> 00:34:35.010
isn't there to tell you to follow these policies

00:34:35.010 --> 00:34:37.489
and you're trying to fight it in the North, you

00:34:37.489 --> 00:34:39.070
wind up with policies that are much more effective

00:34:39.070 --> 00:34:41.750
in terms of fighting the Civil War. Because you

00:34:41.750 --> 00:34:44.329
don't have this phobia about a strong central

00:34:44.329 --> 00:34:46.250
government. You need a strong central government

00:34:46.250 --> 00:34:49.110
if you're fighting for a war of national survival.

00:34:49.670 --> 00:34:52.010
Yes. So I just thought that was an interesting

00:34:52.010 --> 00:34:54.349
comparison. So you can see how the two. The two

00:34:54.349 --> 00:34:56.570
ways of governing, the two ways of running a

00:34:56.570 --> 00:34:58.989
financial system in practice, how they played

00:34:58.989 --> 00:35:01.070
out during a national crisis. Well, the one thing

00:35:01.070 --> 00:35:03.590
you said, which was I didn't know, was that the

00:35:03.590 --> 00:35:07.750
Confederate notes said two years after a successful

00:35:07.750 --> 00:35:10.409
treaty with the North, you could present these.

00:35:11.469 --> 00:35:14.789
That's quite a catch -22 there. Well, I kind

00:35:14.789 --> 00:35:18.329
of think it requires much more faith in the outcome

00:35:18.329 --> 00:35:22.070
of the war than a lot of people might be willing

00:35:22.070 --> 00:35:25.090
to commit to. Well, you know God was on their

00:35:25.090 --> 00:35:27.210
side. Yeah, God was on their side, of course.

00:35:27.710 --> 00:35:32.110
By 1865, the hyperinflation in the Confederacy

00:35:32.110 --> 00:35:35.210
had reached 9 ,000%. Oh, my goodness. That's

00:35:35.210 --> 00:35:38.809
like Berlin in the 20s. A lot of that just had

00:35:38.809 --> 00:35:39.929
to do with the fact that the Confederacy just

00:35:39.929 --> 00:35:43.469
relied on printing this fiat currency, this unbacked

00:35:43.469 --> 00:35:46.090
paper money, whereas the Union went down a whole

00:35:46.090 --> 00:35:47.889
different path. It had the bonds, the loans,

00:35:48.010 --> 00:35:50.329
the triad, they called it, the financial tripod,

00:35:50.710 --> 00:35:52.289
they called it, as Marshall described earlier.

00:35:52.429 --> 00:35:54.969
Yes. Let's get back to Lincoln's initiatives

00:35:54.969 --> 00:35:59.030
on currency and finance. Just to summarize, this

00:35:59.030 --> 00:36:02.329
is not the national bank that Adams, Clay, and

00:36:02.329 --> 00:36:05.630
the Whig Party championed in opposition to Jackson.

00:36:06.829 --> 00:36:10.690
But these measures staked out a larger role for

00:36:10.690 --> 00:36:13.070
the federal government in the economy than had

00:36:13.070 --> 00:36:15.449
previously been acceptable two years previous.

00:36:16.750 --> 00:36:19.110
While the currency reform measures place the

00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:21.869
United States economy on a sounder basis than

00:36:21.869 --> 00:36:24.090
the banknotes issued by state banks, banking

00:36:24.090 --> 00:36:28.210
will continue to be problematic due to the underregulation

00:36:28.210 --> 00:36:31.309
until the passage of the Glass -Steagall Act

00:36:31.309 --> 00:36:37.750
in 1933. So we have depressions in 1873, 1893,

00:36:38.329 --> 00:36:44.309
1908, and then finally 1929. Despite the success,

00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:49.179
We'll just say this to look ahead. Glass -Steagall

00:36:49.179 --> 00:36:52.659
was weakened under both Reagan and Clinton, leading

00:36:52.659 --> 00:37:00.000
to collapses in 1987 and the 2008 economic crisis.

00:37:00.539 --> 00:37:04.019
So the tariffs, which were always a hot -button

00:37:04.019 --> 00:37:07.489
issue in the South, that were imposed to... provide

00:37:07.489 --> 00:37:09.510
revenue in the fight were useful in terms of

00:37:09.510 --> 00:37:12.389
promoting the development of industry and manufacturing

00:37:12.389 --> 00:37:15.750
they were not just a source of revenue but you

00:37:15.750 --> 00:37:19.070
know the united states becomes an economic powerhouse

00:37:19.070 --> 00:37:22.010
and is precisely because these tariffs are imposed

00:37:22.010 --> 00:37:27.719
uh for revenue and i mean what's what's Interesting

00:37:27.719 --> 00:37:31.579
or not is that this was an idea that Hamilton

00:37:31.579 --> 00:37:36.219
proposed as early as 1791 in his treatise on

00:37:36.219 --> 00:37:39.960
manufacturing and that Adams had insisted on

00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:43.940
on both their respective programs. So the 1861

00:37:43.940 --> 00:37:48.579
Morrell Tariff Act protected iron, steel, and

00:37:48.579 --> 00:37:51.480
textile industries in the United States. which

00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:55.400
expanded to meet the wartime requirements. The

00:37:55.400 --> 00:37:57.599
need to meet the wartime requirements increased

00:37:57.599 --> 00:38:00.679
the developments of mines, factories, and railroads,

00:38:00.820 --> 00:38:03.519
which continued to increase the economy following

00:38:03.519 --> 00:38:06.239
the Civil War. I remember that the South had

00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:09.179
opposed protective tariffs. They had agreed that

00:38:09.179 --> 00:38:11.159
you have to have tariffs to fund the government.

00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:13.000
They'd agreed with that part of it. But only

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:15.579
low ones. Only low ones, only to fund the government,

00:38:15.599 --> 00:38:17.920
not to protect northern industry, because they

00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:20.250
did not want to protect northern industry. They

00:38:20.250 --> 00:38:22.829
wanted to import cheap goods from the United

00:38:22.829 --> 00:38:25.449
Kingdom in exchange for the cotton they were

00:38:25.449 --> 00:38:28.590
exporting. They didn't see those of any general

00:38:28.590 --> 00:38:30.989
national interest in helping northern industry

00:38:30.989 --> 00:38:33.449
out. Well, you see, this is when you make states'

00:38:33.550 --> 00:38:37.210
rights a priority. You kind of—national concerns

00:38:37.210 --> 00:38:42.550
kind of lose their importance. And, you know,

00:38:42.590 --> 00:38:44.670
we can say what we will about Adams and Clay.

00:38:44.829 --> 00:38:50.250
They were nationalists first and not— necessarily

00:38:50.250 --> 00:38:51.949
representatives of their state, but they were

00:38:51.949 --> 00:38:55.190
looking for the greatest good and figuring kind

00:38:55.190 --> 00:38:57.650
of in a sort of trickle -down thing that if the

00:38:57.650 --> 00:39:01.030
nation's prospering, then Massachusetts or Kentucky

00:39:01.030 --> 00:39:04.860
is going to prosper as well. So one thing I would

00:39:04.860 --> 00:39:07.539
want to bring in here, this might be beating

00:39:07.539 --> 00:39:11.679
a dead horse, but British historian Mark William

00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:15.099
Patton has argued that this and other tariff

00:39:15.099 --> 00:39:17.719
measures which expanded the U .S. economy would

00:39:17.719 --> 00:39:20.679
have been possible had the South not opted to

00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:23.860
secede following Lincoln's victory. So these

00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:25.960
things would not have been possible to be implemented

00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:42.889
here. Let's turn our attention away from finances

00:39:42.889 --> 00:39:46.170
to kind of some of the internal improvements

00:39:46.170 --> 00:39:50.079
that were championed by Adams and Clay's complementary

00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:53.059
American system, they envisioned the federal

00:39:53.059 --> 00:39:55.460
government funding a network of roads, canals,

00:39:55.460 --> 00:39:58.000
and harbors to promote commerce and to increase

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:01.579
access to eastern markets. This is in the 1820s.

00:40:01.699 --> 00:40:05.179
Now, technology had advanced since the 1820s,

00:40:05.179 --> 00:40:07.519
so instead of spending money on a national network

00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:11.840
of roads or canals, Lincoln signed the 1862 Pacific

00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:14.539
Railroad Act, which was designed to increase

00:40:14.539 --> 00:40:17.400
the contact between the eastern and western United

00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:20.309
States. United States. It's highly unlikely that

00:40:20.309 --> 00:40:22.349
had the Southern members of Congress been present

00:40:22.349 --> 00:40:25.190
and had not left to form the Confederacy, this

00:40:25.190 --> 00:40:27.969
bill would have passed. It is highly likely that

00:40:27.969 --> 00:40:31.530
any bill intended to expand rail coverage in

00:40:31.530 --> 00:40:33.530
the United States by the federal government would

00:40:33.530 --> 00:40:36.110
have been thought legal because funding of railroads

00:40:36.110 --> 00:40:38.250
had not been included in the original language

00:40:38.250 --> 00:40:42.489
of the Constitution, which had been approved

00:40:42.489 --> 00:40:45.130
prior to the invention of railroads. Yeah, and

00:40:45.130 --> 00:40:47.440
it's interesting when you look at Again, going

00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:49.820
back to what happened during the Civil War. The

00:40:49.820 --> 00:40:52.480
Civil War was in many ways the first modern industrial

00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:56.039
war. The North was able to bring to bear its

00:40:56.039 --> 00:40:58.840
industry and its railroad transportation infrastructure

00:40:58.840 --> 00:41:01.199
to do things that the South just could not do

00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:05.699
in fighting the war, and very effectively. I

00:41:05.699 --> 00:41:07.559
don't know exactly how it happened in the context

00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:09.199
of what we're talking about with all the Southern

00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:12.059
obstructionism towards infrastructure prior to

00:41:12.059 --> 00:41:15.119
the Civil War, but I do know. And maybe this

00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:17.460
was done on a state level and by private companies

00:41:17.460 --> 00:41:19.039
alone or something. But I do know that the North

00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:21.860
wound up in 1861 when the Civil War started with

00:41:21.860 --> 00:41:23.719
a much more developed transportation infrastructure,

00:41:24.059 --> 00:41:26.440
especially in railroads, that they were able

00:41:26.440 --> 00:41:28.440
to use during the war. And they were able to

00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:30.019
enhance that, too, because the Union Army actually

00:41:30.019 --> 00:41:31.360
had something called the United States Military

00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:36.039
Railroad, which was guys in uniform. who were

00:41:36.039 --> 00:41:38.280
railroad engineers and workers who knew, you

00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:39.739
know, skilled laborers who knew how to build

00:41:39.739 --> 00:41:41.800
railroads and improve railroads and repair railroad

00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:43.300
bridges and that kind of thing. So it was a very

00:41:43.300 --> 00:41:46.119
effective and powerful thing. The South had nothing

00:41:46.119 --> 00:41:48.699
like that. And so they had a much harder time

00:41:48.699 --> 00:41:50.380
moving things around. Their railroad infrastructure

00:41:50.380 --> 00:41:53.059
was designed to move stuff down to the nearest

00:41:53.059 --> 00:41:54.900
ports so they could ship the cotton overseas.

00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:57.079
It wasn't designed really to move things around

00:41:57.079 --> 00:41:59.320
within the South. And when they were cut off

00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:02.920
from the northern railroad infrastructure by

00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:07.780
seceding, They wound up having a very difficult

00:42:07.780 --> 00:42:09.920
time moving armies around and things like that,

00:42:09.960 --> 00:42:14.320
whereas the Union could do that much more easily.

00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:19.599
And so it's kind of ironic, I guess, that in

00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:22.139
all the obstructionism and all the insistence

00:42:22.139 --> 00:42:23.639
on focusing just on getting things down to the

00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:25.219
river and using the river to ship the cotton

00:42:25.219 --> 00:42:27.579
down to the port to get the cotton exported,

00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:30.260
by insisting on that and that alone, then when

00:42:30.260 --> 00:42:31.760
they finally had to fight a civil war against

00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:33.780
the North, they didn't have the infrastructure

00:42:33.780 --> 00:42:37.039
to do it with. It's another example of how not

00:42:37.039 --> 00:42:39.900
following the policies that Adams and Clay wanted

00:42:39.900 --> 00:42:42.280
them to follow, they actually wound up shooting

00:42:42.280 --> 00:42:44.059
themselves in the foot because it wound up hurting

00:42:44.059 --> 00:42:46.579
them when they actually tried to fight for independence

00:42:46.579 --> 00:42:48.719
from the United States. It shows the effectiveness

00:42:48.719 --> 00:42:54.019
of this mentality about less centralization,

00:42:54.119 --> 00:42:56.880
which I think is kind of what they're aiming

00:42:56.880 --> 00:43:00.460
for. Yeah, and also I think that, you know, most

00:43:00.460 --> 00:43:03.480
military leaders and politicians misjudged what

00:43:03.480 --> 00:43:04.960
the war was going to be at the time. This is

00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:06.019
a whole different thing, and I don't want to

00:43:06.019 --> 00:43:07.980
open a whole can of worms, but to put it very

00:43:07.980 --> 00:43:10.119
quickly, you know, they were trying to fight

00:43:10.119 --> 00:43:12.019
a Napoleonic -style war. You know, there'd be

00:43:12.019 --> 00:43:13.719
one big battle that would decide everything.

00:43:13.880 --> 00:43:15.460
That was the goal for the first half of the Civil

00:43:15.460 --> 00:43:17.019
War. But it turned out that modern industrial

00:43:17.019 --> 00:43:20.059
economies are much too resilient for that. And

00:43:20.059 --> 00:43:21.960
so what people were learning and what Grant,

00:43:22.119 --> 00:43:24.760
you know, Grant, Williams comes to Sherman, Phil

00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:26.940
Sheridan, guys like that, and the union side

00:43:26.940 --> 00:43:29.449
figured out, was that this war needs to be fought

00:43:29.449 --> 00:43:31.070
differently. It's not about winning one big battle.

00:43:31.130 --> 00:43:32.829
It's about winning, it's about grinding the other

00:43:32.829 --> 00:43:34.550
side down, using your industrial capability,

00:43:34.670 --> 00:43:36.170
your spear, your manpower, your transportation,

00:43:36.409 --> 00:43:39.510
etc. And that's how they actually wound up beating

00:43:39.510 --> 00:43:41.269
the South eventually. That's what wound up being

00:43:41.269 --> 00:43:44.449
effective. But, you know, that's just like some

00:43:44.449 --> 00:43:47.030
background on the fact that because it was going

00:43:47.030 --> 00:43:48.889
to be the first industrial war, which a lot of

00:43:48.889 --> 00:43:50.510
people didn't realize until about halfway through

00:43:50.510 --> 00:43:53.150
it, having that infrastructure... Turned out

00:43:53.150 --> 00:43:54.929
to have a big impact on how things came out.

00:43:55.010 --> 00:43:57.969
And developing that infrastructure as well. Yes.

00:43:58.210 --> 00:44:00.889
Well, and I will say Shelby Foote at one point

00:44:00.889 --> 00:44:04.090
said the North effectively fought the war with

00:44:04.090 --> 00:44:06.530
one hand tied behind its back because it didn't

00:44:06.530 --> 00:44:10.590
unleash everything. It could have prosecuted

00:44:10.590 --> 00:44:14.139
the war many, many more years if necessary. And

00:44:14.139 --> 00:44:17.559
the South was on its knees. Could not. Could

00:44:17.559 --> 00:44:21.699
not. It lacked the resilience that some of these

00:44:21.699 --> 00:44:24.860
approaches gave the North in fighting the Civil

00:44:24.860 --> 00:44:27.380
War. The South had very good Napoleonic -style

00:44:27.380 --> 00:44:29.860
generals. And so that's what kept them going

00:44:29.860 --> 00:44:31.800
for the first half of the war, right? If you're

00:44:31.800 --> 00:44:34.000
fighting a Napoleonic -style war and you have

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:35.539
a Napoleonic -style general who's good at it,

00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:37.940
you're going to be successful. When the other

00:44:37.940 --> 00:44:39.519
general realizes that that kind of warfare is

00:44:39.519 --> 00:44:41.199
obsolete and starts using a different thing against

00:44:41.199 --> 00:44:42.860
you that you have no weapon to fight back with,

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:45.019
which is what happened when Grant was fighting

00:44:45.019 --> 00:44:47.300
Lee in the second half of the war, or the last

00:44:47.300 --> 00:44:49.860
year of the war, the side is going to prevail

00:44:49.860 --> 00:44:51.800
that had the industrial might. And that's how

00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:55.860
that all played out. Just looking ahead here,

00:44:56.019 --> 00:44:58.480
I would say that it's difficult to account for

00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:01.340
the impact that the eventual linking of the east

00:45:01.340 --> 00:45:06.159
and west coast by rail had on... the future prosperity

00:45:06.159 --> 00:45:09.099
of the United States. I mean, it's immense. And

00:45:09.099 --> 00:45:11.179
I would challenge anybody to be able to come

00:45:11.179 --> 00:45:14.159
up with anything to calculate that. So the final

00:45:14.159 --> 00:45:16.280
spike, the golden spike, was finally driven in

00:45:16.280 --> 00:45:21.639
1868. Okay, so after the Civil War. But the legislation

00:45:21.639 --> 00:45:24.019
to allow that to happen was during the Civil

00:45:24.019 --> 00:45:27.460
War. Yes. Though, once it's complete, it plays

00:45:27.460 --> 00:45:29.679
a significant role in the movement of agricultural

00:45:29.679 --> 00:45:33.920
products from the East and the West. It also

00:45:33.920 --> 00:45:38.960
promotes mining in the West, be able to move

00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:41.940
things like iron ore and various other types

00:45:41.940 --> 00:45:45.960
of metals out to the West. vast and all -encompassing

00:45:45.960 --> 00:45:49.500
might be the best way to define the impact of

00:45:49.500 --> 00:45:52.000
the expansion of the railroads that the legislation

00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.219
that lincoln's administration saw through quick

00:45:55.219 --> 00:45:57.780
quick fact check by the way yeah the golden spike

00:45:57.780 --> 00:46:02.000
ceremony took place on may 10th 1869 oh 69 69

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:04.960
okay one year off oops for our sharp -eared listeners

00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:06.780
out there who are pounding on their computer

00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:08.539
their phones saying that was wrong denouncing

00:46:08.539 --> 00:46:13.610
us okay we've got it 1869 regardless The railroads

00:46:13.610 --> 00:46:17.909
were not something that Adams and Clay in any

00:46:17.909 --> 00:46:21.329
way envisioned implementing. But this is because

00:46:21.329 --> 00:46:24.510
there was no, the technology wasn't there to

00:46:24.510 --> 00:46:28.070
inspire them along these lines. The locomotive

00:46:28.070 --> 00:46:30.610
had been invented by then, but it was, you know.

00:46:30.789 --> 00:46:33.030
It was a toy. It was a toy at the time. It had

00:46:33.030 --> 00:46:34.570
potential. People were starting to see the potential

00:46:34.570 --> 00:46:36.230
by the 1830s, but it was going to take a while

00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:38.969
to build that all out. But I would argue that.

00:46:39.230 --> 00:46:41.650
This whole approach to funding the railroads

00:46:41.650 --> 00:46:45.389
is consistent with this notion of funding infrastructure,

00:46:45.750 --> 00:46:47.409
and particularly transportation infrastructure,

00:46:47.789 --> 00:46:50.510
to facilitate economic growth. Right. Originally,

00:46:50.510 --> 00:46:52.710
the thinking was canals. Yeah. But then railroads

00:46:52.710 --> 00:46:54.829
were better. Yeah. So then it switched over to

00:46:54.829 --> 00:46:56.449
railroads. But it's really the same thing. You're

00:46:56.449 --> 00:46:58.110
just trying to move goods around more cheaply

00:46:58.110 --> 00:47:22.349
and more efficiently and more quickly. So as

00:47:22.349 --> 00:47:24.909
we mentioned in our first episode, Henry Clay

00:47:24.909 --> 00:47:28.750
viewed the expansion west as critical to the

00:47:28.750 --> 00:47:30.670
security and prosperity of the United States.

00:47:31.010 --> 00:47:33.650
The acquisition of federal land continued to

00:47:33.650 --> 00:47:37.889
be an issue throughout the 1820s to 50s. Jackson

00:47:37.889 --> 00:47:40.329
and Van Buren had made the acquisition of such

00:47:40.329 --> 00:47:43.849
lands difficult by insisting on payment for federal

00:47:43.849 --> 00:47:47.730
land with scarce gold and silver, and not in

00:47:47.730 --> 00:47:50.449
any one of the many forms of unreliable state

00:47:50.449 --> 00:47:52.929
banknotes that many people had. Plus there was

00:47:52.929 --> 00:47:55.329
inflation. There's inflation. They had reasons

00:47:55.329 --> 00:47:57.150
for insisting on gold and silver, but the problems

00:47:57.150 --> 00:47:59.449
were also of their own making. Yes. They have

00:47:59.449 --> 00:48:01.989
their own making and it's... Made it difficult

00:48:01.989 --> 00:48:03.989
to buy the land. It made it difficult to buy

00:48:03.989 --> 00:48:06.889
the land. It made settlement difficult. So we're

00:48:06.889 --> 00:48:10.750
kind of like making things harder on people who

00:48:10.750 --> 00:48:16.369
are merely attempting to become more self -sufficient.

00:48:17.030 --> 00:48:20.280
One of the reasons that... people had opposed

00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:22.539
the extension of slavery into the territories

00:48:22.539 --> 00:48:25.480
was not moral. Instead, there were concerns that

00:48:25.480 --> 00:48:27.840
the southern slaveholders had and were acquiring

00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:30.900
vast areas of territory, making it difficult

00:48:30.900 --> 00:48:33.780
for the small farmer to medium farmer to acquire

00:48:33.780 --> 00:48:37.199
good farming land. Southern states rejected any

00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:40.840
limits on slavery. in the territories as they

00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:44.320
hoped the creation of more slave states uh would

00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:47.260
limit the power of non -slave states and that

00:48:47.260 --> 00:48:50.179
worked both ways because um the free soilers

00:48:50.179 --> 00:48:52.300
as they recall yes like you're saying they were

00:48:52.300 --> 00:48:55.239
not very concerned about slaves being set free

00:48:55.239 --> 00:48:57.119
that wasn't what they wanted free soil for they

00:48:57.119 --> 00:48:59.800
really didn't care about the slaves but they

00:48:59.800 --> 00:49:03.139
didn't want southern political power to expand

00:49:03.139 --> 00:49:05.579
they they felt that the south had a disproportionate

00:49:05.579 --> 00:49:07.590
amount of political power in the United States

00:49:07.590 --> 00:49:10.610
compared to its population and economy and size

00:49:10.610 --> 00:49:13.010
and everything else. Certainly economy. And they

00:49:13.010 --> 00:49:15.829
wanted to make sure that they could undermine

00:49:15.829 --> 00:49:18.489
that disproportionate political power. And they

00:49:18.489 --> 00:49:19.949
thought that they would not be able to undermine

00:49:19.949 --> 00:49:23.730
it if slavery was allowed to expand because you'd

00:49:23.730 --> 00:49:25.670
wind up with more slave states. Well, they were

00:49:25.670 --> 00:49:30.389
also competing against slave owners for the land,

00:49:30.389 --> 00:49:35.130
but also for the output. Yeah. So there were

00:49:35.130 --> 00:49:36.889
two things going on is the point I'm trying to

00:49:36.889 --> 00:49:39.289
make, right? One is that. The other one also,

00:49:39.329 --> 00:49:41.849
though, is the relative political power in Congress,

00:49:42.309 --> 00:49:44.369
right? Right. Well, that was what resulted in

00:49:44.369 --> 00:49:47.789
the Compromise of 1820 and again in 1850. So

00:49:47.789 --> 00:49:50.610
both things were going on, but neither one was

00:49:50.610 --> 00:49:53.650
about abolition. Correct. There were abolitionists,

00:49:53.670 --> 00:49:55.309
but that wasn't what was driving those thoughts.

00:49:57.409 --> 00:50:00.880
With the Southern states... out of the Congress

00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:04.179
and no longer sending representatives there,

00:50:04.280 --> 00:50:06.739
it suddenly became very possible to prevent the

00:50:06.739 --> 00:50:09.800
spread of slavery into federal territories because

00:50:09.800 --> 00:50:12.300
there aren't that many spokesmen in favor of

00:50:12.300 --> 00:50:15.000
slavery currently operating inside Congress.

00:50:16.250 --> 00:50:19.829
So under the provisions of the 1862 Homestead

00:50:19.829 --> 00:50:22.570
Act, citizens, generally the head of household

00:50:22.570 --> 00:50:26.909
over 21, could acquire up to 160 acres of land,

00:50:27.130 --> 00:50:29.769
generally west of the Mississippi, for free as

00:50:29.769 --> 00:50:32.130
long as it came under cultivation. They had to

00:50:32.130 --> 00:50:34.210
work it for five years, I think, was the requirement?

00:50:34.429 --> 00:50:36.769
Yes. And for those who are metrically inclined

00:50:36.769 --> 00:50:39.090
out there listening to us, what's 160 acres?

00:50:39.130 --> 00:50:43.900
That is 64 and three -quarter hectares. Persons

00:50:43.900 --> 00:50:46.280
taking up arms against the United States were

00:50:46.280 --> 00:50:50.019
not eligible for this offer. Funny how that works.

00:50:50.639 --> 00:50:52.940
Though this certainly did promote the idea of

00:50:52.940 --> 00:50:55.500
the yeoman farmer, which was definitely part

00:50:55.500 --> 00:50:59.940
of the Jacksonian idea, it also expanded the

00:50:59.940 --> 00:51:01.699
economic potential of the United States because

00:51:01.699 --> 00:51:04.500
it opened up vast quantities of land to cultivation

00:51:04.500 --> 00:51:09.639
and economic exploitation. It also brought these

00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:11.820
citizens into conflict with the indigenous people

00:51:11.820 --> 00:51:14.000
living there and who suddenly found themselves

00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:16.099
struggling to support their families, the indigenous

00:51:16.099 --> 00:51:19.519
people, a consequence not really appreciated

00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:23.440
at the time or really considered to be an important

00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:28.340
matter. No, I mean, the Indians reviewed like

00:51:28.340 --> 00:51:30.159
some kind of an infestation that you had to get

00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:32.320
rid of. I mean, it sounds harsh to say that,

00:51:32.360 --> 00:51:33.679
but that's how people thought about it a lot

00:51:33.679 --> 00:51:35.599
of cases back then. They were in the way. They

00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:37.630
had to be removed. Grant said that they were

00:51:37.630 --> 00:51:40.389
a people whose time had come and gone. Yeah.

00:51:40.690 --> 00:51:45.369
That was how he referred to Native Americans.

00:51:45.809 --> 00:51:50.010
Now, as part of this, since now we're allowing

00:51:50.010 --> 00:51:53.989
all these people to go out west, what the government

00:51:53.989 --> 00:51:58.690
wanted to do, and I mean, this is vastly, vastly

00:51:58.690 --> 00:52:03.789
more intrusive into the life of people than would

00:52:03.789 --> 00:52:06.699
have been thought possible before 1850. They

00:52:06.699 --> 00:52:08.820
wanted to keep these farmers that are buying

00:52:08.820 --> 00:52:10.599
land out there abreast of the latest scientific

00:52:10.599 --> 00:52:12.760
developments so they will continue to prosper.

00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:15.159
So this leads to the creation of the Department

00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:19.920
of Agriculture, which is created to help newly

00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:22.019
landed farmers with the knowledge to make their

00:52:22.019 --> 00:52:25.239
160 acres as productive as possible. And Lincoln

00:52:25.239 --> 00:52:26.900
had a special fondness for the Department of

00:52:26.900 --> 00:52:30.320
Agriculture. Yes. Yes, he did. Lincoln called

00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:32.519
the Department of Agriculture the People's Department.

00:52:32.860 --> 00:52:37.420
Now, why was Lincoln so personally invested in

00:52:37.420 --> 00:52:40.559
the agricultural program? So that phrase, when

00:52:40.559 --> 00:52:42.719
he called it the People's Department, he used

00:52:42.719 --> 00:52:46.079
that to a message in Congress in December 1864.

00:52:46.860 --> 00:52:49.000
And that was about two and a half years after

00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:52.159
the legislation to create the agency was signed.

00:52:52.679 --> 00:52:56.880
But in his view... the agency directly served

00:52:56.880 --> 00:52:59.340
the vast majority of Americans who at the time

00:52:59.340 --> 00:53:03.159
worked on farms and lived on farms. And so he

00:53:03.159 --> 00:53:04.340
just felt that the Department of Agriculture

00:53:04.340 --> 00:53:10.820
was a new U .S. department which would really

00:53:10.820 --> 00:53:14.239
directly serve just a large percentage of Americans.

00:53:14.679 --> 00:53:17.800
And he liked that idea. And so that's why he

00:53:17.800 --> 00:53:18.739
called it the People's Department. He thought

00:53:18.739 --> 00:53:20.139
it really was something that served the people

00:53:20.139 --> 00:53:24.699
as opposed to the rich or something like that.

00:53:24.969 --> 00:53:27.090
I will just add that the Homestead Act was a

00:53:27.090 --> 00:53:31.889
brilliant mechanism for settling the West, getting

00:53:31.889 --> 00:53:34.349
people out there and getting them set up. Freeland,

00:53:34.570 --> 00:53:37.030
for a lot of these... As long as you worked it.

00:53:37.329 --> 00:53:39.030
Right, right. And as long as you weren't a Native

00:53:39.030 --> 00:53:41.210
American, it was great. Especially for... Or

00:53:41.210 --> 00:53:44.230
taking up rebellious acts against the government.

00:53:44.789 --> 00:53:47.449
Especially for second, third sons that weren't

00:53:47.449 --> 00:53:50.150
going to inherit their property. This is a means

00:53:50.150 --> 00:53:52.909
for them to be self -sufficient. Well, the prairie,

00:53:53.050 --> 00:53:56.420
you know... Having access to this, this actually,

00:53:56.940 --> 00:53:59.860
and making and facilitating this, this is one

00:53:59.860 --> 00:54:03.119
of these things that kind of is unique to America.

00:54:03.579 --> 00:54:09.119
And it kind of shows why our social development

00:54:09.119 --> 00:54:11.760
is different from, say, what's going on in Europe

00:54:11.760 --> 00:54:15.320
at the time. Europe, you do not have all this

00:54:15.320 --> 00:54:18.840
excess land for people to go to and to work.

00:54:20.190 --> 00:54:23.210
hard times happen and so for the longest time

00:54:23.210 --> 00:54:26.550
when we had this access when hard times did happen

00:54:26.550 --> 00:54:29.090
people would say okay i'm just going to go off

00:54:29.090 --> 00:54:32.230
in homestead you know my factory's gone out of

00:54:32.230 --> 00:54:34.610
business or the bank has collapsed it's like

00:54:34.610 --> 00:54:38.690
i can go west and and start anew so when you

00:54:38.690 --> 00:54:40.409
when you think about it in like you know sociological

00:54:40.409 --> 00:54:42.650
kind of terms it's kind of a it's kind of a a

00:54:42.650 --> 00:54:45.050
pressure valve you can release yes hard you have

00:54:45.050 --> 00:54:46.630
a hard economic time somewhere there's always

00:54:46.630 --> 00:54:49.320
opportunity over there go there Make your life

00:54:49.320 --> 00:54:51.880
over there. And it fits into the American sense

00:54:51.880 --> 00:54:55.539
of individualism and entrepreneurialism and all

00:54:55.539 --> 00:54:56.940
those things Americans like to think of themselves

00:54:56.940 --> 00:55:00.380
as. The self -made man and all that, right? What

00:55:00.380 --> 00:55:03.000
doesn't develop is you do not have the development,

00:55:03.099 --> 00:55:06.159
say, of like extreme left -wing political parties

00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:10.599
who advocate socialist solutions to things. We

00:55:10.599 --> 00:55:15.099
do get that, but not to the same extent and not

00:55:15.099 --> 00:55:17.599
to the same influence. Not even remotely the

00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:21.900
same. No, no. So this is an important consideration

00:55:21.900 --> 00:55:25.420
in terms of development of the American nation.

00:55:38.519 --> 00:55:43.260
Let's look at one other thing that is. also in

00:55:43.260 --> 00:55:45.780
line with kind of the reforms that Adams and

00:55:45.780 --> 00:55:49.940
Clay were talking about back in the 1820s. So

00:55:49.940 --> 00:55:52.940
Adams had wanted a national university, and by

00:55:52.940 --> 00:55:55.480
national university, something sort of like Cambridge

00:55:55.480 --> 00:55:58.039
or Oxford, which is a whole network of colleges

00:55:58.039 --> 00:56:02.400
for education. And this would have been kind

00:56:02.400 --> 00:56:04.260
of a concept he would have been familiar with

00:56:04.260 --> 00:56:07.199
due to his European travels, because this is

00:56:07.199 --> 00:56:10.130
how things worked over in Europe. But what we

00:56:10.130 --> 00:56:12.469
got instead was something which I think is better.

00:56:12.789 --> 00:56:17.570
And this is the Morrell Act of 1862, where 57

00:56:17.570 --> 00:56:20.409
universities are being set up throughout the

00:56:20.409 --> 00:56:24.260
United States instead of just one. This act created

00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:26.619
a funding system that permitted states, primarily

00:56:26.619 --> 00:56:29.719
in the West, to modernize their already weak

00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:32.559
higher education systems. The states were given

00:56:32.559 --> 00:56:37.159
30 ,000 acres of federal land for each of its

00:56:37.159 --> 00:56:39.480
senators and representatives. This land could

00:56:39.480 --> 00:56:42.380
be sold to fund additional educational facilities

00:56:42.380 --> 00:56:44.500
in their respective states. And you'll hear the

00:56:44.500 --> 00:56:47.320
term for these as land grant universities. And

00:56:47.320 --> 00:56:48.980
this is the land that's being granted. Which

00:56:48.980 --> 00:56:50.599
is kind of confusing because it sounds like the

00:56:50.599 --> 00:56:52.219
federal government is giving you land to build.

00:56:52.269 --> 00:56:54.690
a university that's what i thought yeah and that's

00:56:54.690 --> 00:56:56.469
what it sounds like yeah that turns out it's

00:56:56.469 --> 00:56:59.349
not that that's not what it was the federal government

00:56:59.349 --> 00:57:02.570
was giving the state like you said 30 ,000 acres

00:57:02.570 --> 00:57:06.190
per senator and per congressman yes to sell yes

00:57:06.190 --> 00:57:10.130
to raise funds to build a university with or

00:57:10.130 --> 00:57:13.969
universities right so that that's what land grant

00:57:13.969 --> 00:57:19.889
means and it it it created a new type of university

00:57:20.519 --> 00:57:24.460
Yes. And the type of university that we're talking

00:57:24.460 --> 00:57:27.840
about is not a liberal arts university, per se.

00:57:28.179 --> 00:57:31.159
Previously, colleges, universities had pretty

00:57:31.159 --> 00:57:33.480
much been what we call liberal arts institutions.

00:57:33.739 --> 00:57:36.920
You studied the classics. You studied ancient

00:57:36.920 --> 00:57:39.360
Greek. You studied Latin. You studied philosophy.

00:57:39.840 --> 00:57:41.880
Or they would be seminaries. You studied religion.

00:57:42.119 --> 00:57:44.719
Yes. Yeah. Those types of things. And usually,

00:57:44.820 --> 00:57:49.179
you know, it was for urban men. young men. Of

00:57:49.179 --> 00:57:51.179
good family. Of good family, kind of a finishing

00:57:51.179 --> 00:57:52.760
school for them and things like that, right?

00:57:53.039 --> 00:57:55.480
Now, I'd be the last person to come out against

00:57:55.480 --> 00:57:57.380
a liberal arts education. I think it's more important

00:57:57.380 --> 00:57:59.840
than a lot of people think it is nowadays. That

00:57:59.840 --> 00:58:01.900
being said, it was hard to learn anything really

00:58:01.900 --> 00:58:05.260
useful for the farm, you know, at one of these

00:58:05.260 --> 00:58:07.179
universities. You'd have to spend a lot of money

00:58:07.179 --> 00:58:08.500
you didn't have to get an education that didn't

00:58:08.500 --> 00:58:10.559
really help you much, at least vocationally,

00:58:10.579 --> 00:58:12.800
in terms of what you had to do in your everyday

00:58:12.800 --> 00:58:17.519
life and in your rural state. So the kind of

00:58:17.519 --> 00:58:21.960
focus that the Act specified these institutions

00:58:21.960 --> 00:58:27.199
adhere to was the teaching of practical agriculture,

00:58:27.639 --> 00:58:31.400
science, military science, and engineering without

00:58:31.400 --> 00:58:34.260
including other scientific or classical studies.

00:58:34.360 --> 00:58:37.000
So traditional educational facilities, like Mike

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:40.199
said, tended to focus on a more liberal arts

00:58:40.199 --> 00:58:44.940
curriculum. This made the focus more on scientific

00:58:44.940 --> 00:58:50.440
matters, more practical matters, but at a much

00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:53.699
higher level than students would be allowed to

00:58:53.699 --> 00:58:58.539
achieve otherwise. And it did a number of important

00:58:58.539 --> 00:59:01.659
things that revolutionized the American educational

00:59:01.659 --> 00:59:05.199
system, right? Because the system of state colleges

00:59:05.199 --> 00:59:08.039
and universities, which we have so many of nowadays,

00:59:08.340 --> 00:59:11.429
arose from this. Because for the first time,

00:59:11.449 --> 00:59:14.110
the states had money with which, you know, dedicated

00:59:14.110 --> 00:59:16.530
money with which to build systems like that.

00:59:16.550 --> 00:59:18.230
And they had to build, they had to use the money

00:59:18.230 --> 00:59:20.150
for schools too. They had to use it for schools.

00:59:20.269 --> 00:59:24.230
And it was the first time that a person, not

00:59:24.230 --> 00:59:27.780
a wealthy, you know, urban man. Because it was

00:59:27.780 --> 00:59:29.000
mostly men at the time. There weren't very many

00:59:29.000 --> 00:59:31.380
women admitted to colleges in the state. Colleges

00:59:31.380 --> 00:59:33.400
are not co -educational at this point. Oberlin

00:59:33.400 --> 00:59:35.880
was. Yeah, Oberlin. That was a real outlier.

00:59:35.980 --> 00:59:38.579
Yeah. Oberlin also, it admitted people regardless

00:59:38.579 --> 00:59:42.400
of race or... Also unusual at the time. But so

00:59:42.400 --> 00:59:45.199
you wind up with a state college and university

00:59:45.199 --> 00:59:48.179
system coming out of this. You wind up with a

00:59:48.179 --> 00:59:50.480
college -university system that served kind of

00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:52.840
the more common everyday people, not just the

00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:55.539
rich ones. And it was a college which gave them

00:59:55.539 --> 00:59:59.530
advanced education. in practical things in terms

00:59:59.530 --> 01:00:01.469
of science engineering what we would call it

01:00:01.469 --> 01:00:04.030
stem today right yeah it's technology engineering

01:00:04.030 --> 01:00:06.809
and mathematics it gave you practical education

01:00:06.809 --> 01:00:08.389
those kind of things that you could go back and

01:00:08.389 --> 01:00:12.269
apply to the farm or railroad you know whatever

01:00:12.269 --> 01:00:14.250
it whatever mining whatever it is that you did

01:00:14.250 --> 01:00:16.949
out out in the west so that was all very important

01:00:16.949 --> 01:00:19.230
a lot of the universities which today have names

01:00:19.230 --> 01:00:23.789
like a and m Oh, definitely. Or A &T. A &M is

01:00:23.789 --> 01:00:25.809
agricultural and mechanical. A &T is agricultural

01:00:25.809 --> 01:00:29.769
and technical or technological. A lot of places

01:00:29.769 --> 01:00:31.909
that are tech, they call them tech for short

01:00:31.909 --> 01:00:36.769
now, those kind of places, have their ancestry

01:00:36.769 --> 01:00:39.869
in this. Also, a lot of the ones that have state

01:00:39.869 --> 01:00:42.329
in their name. Oklahoma State used to be Oklahoma

01:00:42.329 --> 01:00:45.409
A &M, and it was a land -grant university. So

01:00:45.409 --> 01:00:48.309
when you look at university names nowadays, You

01:00:48.309 --> 01:00:50.469
can see a lot of the heritage of this in just

01:00:50.469 --> 01:00:52.849
what they're named now. So after the Civil War

01:00:52.849 --> 01:00:58.369
was over, were the southern states able to avail

01:00:58.369 --> 01:01:01.869
themselves of this program later? Well, let's

01:01:01.869 --> 01:01:04.489
talk about— Eventually they were. Because I'm

01:01:04.489 --> 01:01:06.989
thinking Virginia Tech was one of these. Yes.

01:01:06.989 --> 01:01:10.679
Sure. But it must have happened after the Civil

01:01:10.679 --> 01:01:12.780
War. Yes, it definitely did. Because the South

01:01:12.780 --> 01:01:15.179
is going to be the area of the country that would

01:01:15.179 --> 01:01:18.420
be least impacted by any of these reforms and

01:01:18.420 --> 01:01:21.079
will continue to language as an economically

01:01:21.079 --> 01:01:24.159
underdeveloped section of the country until World

01:01:24.159 --> 01:01:28.099
War II. So they would get some of the impact

01:01:28.099 --> 01:01:33.699
of the reforms, but they're still... They're

01:01:33.699 --> 01:01:38.559
out of step with how things are going. And the

01:01:38.559 --> 01:01:43.559
way that they overcame this was Roosevelt lifted

01:01:43.559 --> 01:01:46.079
up the area by funding wartime industries, which

01:01:46.079 --> 01:01:49.400
would raise the standard of living. But during

01:01:49.400 --> 01:01:54.019
this period, the South was very much behind where

01:01:54.019 --> 01:01:57.510
the rest of the nation was. Of course, Roosevelt,

01:01:57.849 --> 01:01:59.849
while he's doing this, is constantly having to

01:01:59.849 --> 01:02:02.429
battle Southerners who are not necessarily cognizant

01:02:02.429 --> 01:02:06.230
of their own best interests. They still have

01:02:06.230 --> 01:02:08.829
this gripe about the federal government doing

01:02:08.829 --> 01:02:13.110
things because sometimes this violates racial

01:02:13.110 --> 01:02:19.530
politics down in the area there. You know, FDR

01:02:19.530 --> 01:02:23.719
would have... been forced, FDR was forced often

01:02:23.719 --> 01:02:28.219
to compromise in order to help the region that's

01:02:28.219 --> 01:02:32.500
biting him on a lot of these reforms. And that's

01:02:32.500 --> 01:02:36.420
probably something that we could talk about later

01:02:36.420 --> 01:02:43.239
on here. So the legacy of this, the initiative

01:02:43.239 --> 01:02:45.920
to have the land -grant universities, which was

01:02:45.920 --> 01:02:50.150
passed under the Morrill Act. Yes. Of 1860. Morrill

01:02:50.150 --> 01:02:53.010
was also the guy who sponsored the legislation

01:02:53.010 --> 01:02:56.570
on currency, too. Yeah, so that was Justin Smith

01:02:56.570 --> 01:03:01.630
Morrill, M -O -R -R -I -L -L. He served 43 consecutive

01:03:01.630 --> 01:03:04.369
years in Congress. He was a congressman from

01:03:04.369 --> 01:03:09.409
Vermont. And very influential in two very different

01:03:09.409 --> 01:03:12.289
aspects of the reforms that we're seeing initiated

01:03:12.289 --> 01:03:16.679
under Lincoln. You know, both currency. and land

01:03:16.679 --> 01:03:19.340
grant and what i think is is an interesting uh

01:03:19.340 --> 01:03:23.139
couple of uh extra things to add on that happened

01:03:23.139 --> 01:03:27.260
later uh one is that um the uh what are called

01:03:27.260 --> 01:03:28.960
the historically black colleges and universities

01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:33.340
the hbcus a lot of them trace their origin to

01:03:33.340 --> 01:03:38.800
a later moral act and uh basically what the it

01:03:38.800 --> 01:03:41.340
was an 1890 act and what it pretty much told

01:03:41.340 --> 01:03:46.369
the states to do is is that black students to

01:03:46.369 --> 01:03:49.090
your schools, which wasn't necessarily a popular

01:03:49.090 --> 01:03:51.869
idea. Heaven forbid. Heaven forbid. Or if you

01:03:51.869 --> 01:03:54.210
didn't do that, then you had to create a land

01:03:54.210 --> 01:03:56.989
-grant campus for the black students. So in the

01:03:56.989 --> 01:03:58.849
1890s, it was very much this separate but equal

01:03:58.849 --> 01:04:01.389
idea, Plessy versus Ferguson, 1896, separate

01:04:01.389 --> 01:04:03.469
but equal, kind of a separate but equal idea.

01:04:03.730 --> 01:04:06.190
So that's where a lot of the HBCUs were formed,

01:04:06.210 --> 01:04:09.800
was based on that. And, of course, now they've

01:04:09.800 --> 01:04:11.199
built up their own traditions, haven't they?

01:04:11.320 --> 01:04:13.480
It was separate but equal at the time, and it

01:04:13.480 --> 01:04:15.260
was kind of a way of giving you your own campus

01:04:15.260 --> 01:04:17.179
without really mixing with everybody. But now

01:04:17.179 --> 01:04:19.780
they've established themselves as their own traditions

01:04:19.780 --> 01:04:21.800
and culture and things. So that's where a lot

01:04:21.800 --> 01:04:24.159
of the HBCUs come from, is from the Morrill Act.

01:04:24.260 --> 01:04:26.480
So it's an addition onto the land grant. And

01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:27.800
another interesting thing, too, is, you know,

01:04:27.820 --> 01:04:30.030
you'll hear... people in rural areas talk about

01:04:30.030 --> 01:04:32.230
the extension agent or an extension program,

01:04:32.469 --> 01:04:34.489
right? Which is, what are they talking about?

01:04:34.550 --> 01:04:36.130
If you're not a farmer, maybe you don't know.

01:04:36.230 --> 01:04:38.809
But that came later, but 1914. But again, that

01:04:38.809 --> 01:04:43.190
came through the land grant university and college

01:04:43.190 --> 01:04:46.289
system. Yes. The idea was you were extending

01:04:46.289 --> 01:04:50.519
its operations out into the community. So things

01:04:50.519 --> 01:04:53.659
like crop rotation or veterinary medicine, civil

01:04:53.659 --> 01:04:56.940
engineering, metallurgy, whatever, whatever you

01:04:56.940 --> 01:05:00.420
might need to know in agricultural economy, you

01:05:00.420 --> 01:05:05.840
would send faculty out to provide community training.

01:05:06.670 --> 01:05:10.030
you know seminars whatever classes uh advice

01:05:10.030 --> 01:05:11.710
they come to your farm and give you advice and

01:05:11.710 --> 01:05:13.809
things that's what extension extension program

01:05:13.809 --> 01:05:15.710
was an extension agent was someone who came and

01:05:15.710 --> 01:05:18.530
did that that also grew out of the uh the land

01:05:18.530 --> 01:05:23.849
grant uh system much later you know and eventually

01:05:23.849 --> 01:05:26.869
those people weren't all professors yeah there

01:05:26.869 --> 01:05:29.949
were actual people who were employed just to

01:05:29.949 --> 01:05:32.610
do that yes now that was 50 years later that

01:05:32.610 --> 01:05:34.070
was created but i'm just saying that you know

01:05:34.070 --> 01:05:36.579
there's things you see today Which came out of

01:05:36.579 --> 01:05:37.780
this, which is kind of one of the points you

01:05:37.780 --> 01:05:39.679
want to make. Yeah. A lot of things came out

01:05:39.679 --> 01:05:41.719
of the Lincoln administration that are unsung

01:05:41.719 --> 01:05:43.780
now, but really had a big impact on the future.

01:05:43.780 --> 01:05:46.000
Well, even Morrill himself. I mean, you know,

01:05:46.019 --> 01:05:49.960
he's responsible for some major legislation and

01:05:49.960 --> 01:05:52.619
nobody knows who he is today. And I mean, one

01:05:52.619 --> 01:05:55.079
of my persistent gripes with American history,

01:05:55.179 --> 01:05:56.900
I mean, I'm guilty of it as much as anybody,

01:05:56.940 --> 01:06:01.380
but Congress is where this stuff happens. And

01:06:01.380 --> 01:06:05.559
the people that actually. frame the legislation

01:06:05.559 --> 01:06:09.199
and fulfill the priorities, they're generally

01:06:09.199 --> 01:06:14.960
not as highly regarded as someone who's sitting

01:06:14.960 --> 01:06:16.840
in the White House there, but they may be more

01:06:16.840 --> 01:06:19.820
influential at various times in American history.

01:06:20.079 --> 01:06:21.820
Sure. I mean, the power of the presidency relative

01:06:21.820 --> 01:06:23.699
to Congress has waxed and waned over the years.

01:06:23.760 --> 01:06:27.119
Yes. So you definitely have periods where it's

01:06:27.119 --> 01:06:29.460
the senior people in Congress and senators who

01:06:29.460 --> 01:06:32.750
are really, really making the policy. and really

01:06:32.750 --> 01:06:34.409
driving the country in the direction it's going,

01:06:34.550 --> 01:06:36.230
not the president. Then other times the president

01:06:36.230 --> 01:06:39.110
is dominant. The president might give broad outlines,

01:06:39.269 --> 01:06:41.269
but he's not going to be the one who's going

01:06:41.269 --> 01:06:43.210
to write the legislation. That is going to be

01:06:43.210 --> 01:06:46.550
a process of deliberation within Congress. It

01:06:46.550 --> 01:06:49.610
doesn't happen by fiat, but a lot of people tend

01:06:49.610 --> 01:06:52.789
to not have good appreciation for that. Wasn't

01:06:52.789 --> 01:06:55.690
it the Whigs that wanted a strong Congress? Yes.

01:06:55.710 --> 01:06:58.340
Do I remember that correctly? Yeah. Yes, they

01:06:58.340 --> 01:07:01.199
did. We talked about that. Marshall was talking

01:07:01.199 --> 01:07:02.440
about how that would work. How would that work

01:07:02.440 --> 01:07:06.780
exactly? I mean, like you can do laws through

01:07:06.780 --> 01:07:08.820
Congress. Well, that's what I mean. You know,

01:07:08.860 --> 01:07:11.019
you could do like you'd have to do like really

01:07:11.019 --> 01:07:15.119
extensive oversight. where basically people are

01:07:15.119 --> 01:07:17.079
coming in and reporting to the various committees

01:07:17.079 --> 01:07:20.440
about what they're doing, and Congress basically

01:07:20.440 --> 01:07:22.880
saying, thou shalt do this. And you'd really

01:07:22.880 --> 01:07:24.880
have to hold tight onto the money, too. You'd

01:07:24.880 --> 01:07:26.340
really have to exercise the power of the purse

01:07:26.340 --> 01:07:28.579
to force policy to go the way you want it by

01:07:28.579 --> 01:07:30.980
only spending on things you wanted and not spending

01:07:30.980 --> 01:07:33.170
on things you didn't want. You'd have to be very

01:07:33.170 --> 01:07:36.429
careful about that. Yeah, and I just don't see

01:07:36.429 --> 01:07:40.210
how that happens. That sounds kind of like a

01:07:40.210 --> 01:07:44.110
very inefficient means of doing things. And yeah,

01:07:44.230 --> 01:07:48.730
we should have a lot more tension between the

01:07:48.730 --> 01:07:51.849
executive and Congress than we have today, but

01:07:51.849 --> 01:07:54.250
we don't need to have Congress micromanaging

01:07:54.250 --> 01:07:57.380
things. on a day -to -day basis have you done

01:07:57.380 --> 01:07:59.940
this have you done that you know show us proof

01:07:59.940 --> 01:08:02.039
that kind of stuff that level of oversight would

01:08:02.039 --> 01:08:03.820
just be almost impossible to get anything done

01:08:03.820 --> 01:08:08.599
because heads of heads of of of departments would

01:08:08.599 --> 01:08:11.460
be constantly just engaged in not running their

01:08:11.460 --> 01:08:13.659
department but responding to requests from congress

01:08:13.659 --> 01:08:16.800
there so but you could have congress enacting

01:08:16.800 --> 01:08:19.880
a piece of legislation which is a policy this

01:08:19.880 --> 01:08:24.250
is a policy yes and and Same with the Homestead

01:08:24.250 --> 01:08:48.250
Act. That is a policy. Let's just think about

01:08:48.250 --> 01:08:51.550
things, look at what we've learned over the course.

01:08:52.119 --> 01:08:56.279
of this series on internal improvements. Now,

01:08:56.359 --> 01:08:59.539
I'm kind of a little bit biased about this, but

01:08:59.539 --> 01:09:03.199
I'm going to say I honestly think that we ought

01:09:03.199 --> 01:09:05.659
to give John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay a bit

01:09:05.659 --> 01:09:09.420
more credit than they... than they receive. Yes,

01:09:09.479 --> 01:09:12.739
in their own time, they are not able to get their

01:09:12.739 --> 01:09:16.279
programs implemented in any way, shape, or form.

01:09:16.460 --> 01:09:18.560
They are ineffectual. They are ineffectual, but

01:09:18.560 --> 01:09:21.479
they're visionaries. They had a vision for the

01:09:21.479 --> 01:09:25.859
United States that is kind of consistent with

01:09:25.859 --> 01:09:28.560
even longer -lasting traditions coming from Alexander

01:09:28.560 --> 01:09:32.319
Hamilton, which ultimately, when it was implemented,

01:09:33.239 --> 01:09:35.779
by someone like Lincoln, who was definitely an

01:09:35.779 --> 01:09:39.300
adherent of their belief system. Lincoln was

01:09:39.300 --> 01:09:41.720
actually able to implement this during the Civil

01:09:41.720 --> 01:09:44.960
War when he did not face opposition from a hostile

01:09:44.960 --> 01:09:48.680
South. And what is the result? The United States

01:09:48.680 --> 01:09:51.949
becomes an economic world power. All of these

01:09:51.949 --> 01:09:55.609
things, all of these things that happen are about

01:09:55.609 --> 01:09:58.689
investing within the nation as a whole and making

01:09:58.689 --> 01:10:01.189
the nation a better place and a more efficient

01:10:01.189 --> 01:10:04.109
place. And what do we end up with? We end up

01:10:04.109 --> 01:10:08.010
with the United States becoming a leading economic

01:10:08.010 --> 01:10:11.949
power. And by 1914, the United States is a leading

01:10:11.949 --> 01:10:14.510
creditor nation. in the world i was going to

01:10:14.510 --> 01:10:17.989
say by about 1900 when you look at what the europeans

01:10:17.989 --> 01:10:19.729
were talking about in terms of their their future

01:10:19.729 --> 01:10:22.430
enemies and their future you know wars that might

01:10:22.430 --> 01:10:23.890
have to be fought or whatever their national

01:10:23.890 --> 01:10:27.100
security system situation in the future a lot

01:10:27.100 --> 01:10:28.340
of them were very scared of the United States

01:10:28.340 --> 01:10:30.579
by 1900. Yes. Because they could see the economic

01:10:30.579 --> 01:10:32.319
growth going on and they could see it not ending

01:10:32.319 --> 01:10:34.979
anytime soon. Well, this is the Gilded Age. Sorry.

01:10:35.079 --> 01:10:37.560
Yeah. Very interesting what a country can do

01:10:37.560 --> 01:10:39.500
when it invests in its people. Yeah. And what

01:10:39.500 --> 01:10:42.079
a government's capable of when it invests in

01:10:42.079 --> 01:10:43.520
its people. When it invests in its people. And

01:10:43.520 --> 01:10:46.340
we're not talking about investing in, like, you

01:10:46.340 --> 01:10:48.579
know, just the bond market or trying to maintain,

01:10:48.680 --> 01:10:52.399
like, the titans of industry. I mean, titans

01:10:52.399 --> 01:10:54.319
of industry made themselves. The government did

01:10:54.319 --> 01:10:58.819
not make... andrew carnegie you know andrew carnegie

01:10:58.819 --> 01:11:01.340
rockefeller yeah they did it themselves they

01:11:01.340 --> 01:11:03.399
did not need they did not need to go begging

01:11:03.399 --> 01:11:06.279
to congress to say please give me a favorable

01:11:06.279 --> 01:11:10.619
tax system so that i could build standard oil

01:11:10.619 --> 01:11:14.539
or u .s steel here they they just did it under

01:11:14.539 --> 01:11:16.579
the conditions that they had. The people that

01:11:16.579 --> 01:11:18.960
actually did benefit from this, the people that

01:11:18.960 --> 01:11:21.800
were helped by this, were ordinary Americans

01:11:21.800 --> 01:11:25.340
throughout the country. They're the ones who

01:11:25.340 --> 01:11:27.920
have greater access to a stable currency, which

01:11:27.920 --> 01:11:30.500
is always important. They're the ones who have

01:11:30.500 --> 01:11:34.420
access to greater access to land and property.

01:11:35.100 --> 01:11:37.779
You know, wealth creation. Education. Education.

01:11:37.840 --> 01:11:40.779
Also wealth creation. Both of those are wealth

01:11:40.779 --> 01:11:43.199
creation aspects. Transportation. Transportation

01:11:43.199 --> 01:11:47.359
to bring goods. We have more of a national economy

01:11:47.359 --> 01:11:49.319
than a bunch of state economies, which I would

01:11:49.319 --> 01:11:53.220
contend is what existed in the United States

01:11:53.220 --> 01:11:57.039
before the Civil War. So I would give them credit,

01:11:57.079 --> 01:11:58.640
but I would also give Lincoln credit because

01:11:58.640 --> 01:12:02.260
this is all about what Lincoln was able to do,

01:12:02.319 --> 01:12:04.819
not in spite of the Civil War, but because of

01:12:04.819 --> 01:12:08.659
the Civil War, because he had a freer hand than

01:12:08.659 --> 01:12:11.600
a lot of his predecessors had. And again, I'm

01:12:11.600 --> 01:12:14.039
going to say this. I think it's interesting to

01:12:14.039 --> 01:12:16.960
have a comparison between what the Union was

01:12:16.960 --> 01:12:19.520
able to do in the Civil War. what the Confederacy

01:12:19.520 --> 01:12:22.560
was not able to do in the Civil War. Even after

01:12:22.560 --> 01:12:24.939
the Civil War. Even after the Civil War, too.

01:12:25.100 --> 01:12:26.619
But, I mean, in the Civil War, right, financially

01:12:26.619 --> 01:12:29.779
and militarily and any other way, the Confederate

01:12:29.779 --> 01:12:32.960
experiment and what to do was a failure. And

01:12:32.960 --> 01:12:35.720
the Union way of going about it worked much,

01:12:35.800 --> 01:12:39.979
much, much better. So, in a way, all the Jacksonians,

01:12:40.020 --> 01:12:41.800
you know, all the people in the South, they kept

01:12:41.800 --> 01:12:44.319
opposing all these things that Clay and Adams

01:12:44.319 --> 01:12:47.479
wanted to do. um as the british would say they

01:12:47.479 --> 01:12:49.539
kind of scored an own goal yeah they made things

01:12:49.539 --> 01:12:51.600
worse for themselves in the long run they became

01:12:51.600 --> 01:12:55.140
poorer um they they were not able to to fight

01:12:55.140 --> 01:12:57.060
a war for the independence of this country they

01:12:57.060 --> 01:12:58.579
wanted to create successfully because they were

01:12:58.579 --> 01:13:01.220
overwhelmed by the north which had the transportation

01:13:01.220 --> 01:13:04.039
and the industry and all that and the people

01:13:04.039 --> 01:13:07.079
and and more people um you know so i mean it

01:13:07.079 --> 01:13:10.579
um And then what saves them, what gets them out

01:13:10.579 --> 01:13:13.880
of this, is intervention by the federal government

01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:18.420
in World War II because Roosevelt made a conscious

01:13:18.420 --> 01:13:23.100
decision to – part of this is to promote the

01:13:23.100 --> 01:13:25.859
interest in the war, but it's also to kind of

01:13:25.859 --> 01:13:29.579
grow parts of the country that are underdeveloped.

01:13:29.579 --> 01:13:32.880
And that was to ensure that war production industries

01:13:32.880 --> 01:13:36.840
were spread out on a more even basis. Throughout

01:13:36.840 --> 01:13:38.520
the country as a whole here, there were defense

01:13:38.520 --> 01:13:41.340
plants in places that had never seen a factory

01:13:41.340 --> 01:13:44.920
before. Now, this all had a dark side, like the

01:13:44.920 --> 01:13:47.680
acquisition of land came at the expense of the

01:13:47.680 --> 01:13:49.760
Native Americans who were badly mistreated and

01:13:49.760 --> 01:13:51.840
all that. So there was a dark side to all this,

01:13:51.920 --> 01:13:53.859
including the land grant universities, because

01:13:53.859 --> 01:13:56.060
a lot of the land that was granted was taken

01:13:56.060 --> 01:13:58.180
away from Native Americans and given to the states

01:13:58.180 --> 01:14:00.560
to use to build the university. So we do have

01:14:00.560 --> 01:14:04.819
to acknowledge that there is a dark side to all

01:14:04.819 --> 01:14:07.939
this. uh in in in that sense it's not totally

01:14:07.939 --> 01:14:10.260
positive and a lot of it was not geared at all

01:14:10.260 --> 01:14:12.779
toward abolishing slavery or anything a lot of

01:14:12.779 --> 01:14:15.060
it was you know that the free soil people were

01:14:15.060 --> 01:14:17.539
were geared toward just preventing the the power

01:14:17.539 --> 01:14:21.060
of the south from from or slave owning and and

01:14:21.060 --> 01:14:25.020
preventing the uh slave owners from establishing

01:14:25.020 --> 01:14:27.079
big plantations with which the young you know

01:14:27.079 --> 01:14:29.119
the small family farm could not compete and that

01:14:29.119 --> 01:14:32.390
type of thing so you know let's not We can't

01:14:32.390 --> 01:14:34.430
pin a medal on ourselves in terms of a lot of

01:14:34.430 --> 01:14:36.729
the opposition to slavery that we've been talking

01:14:36.729 --> 01:14:38.189
about in this either, because it wasn't based

01:14:38.189 --> 01:14:42.500
on any kind of moral sense of, you know. the

01:14:42.500 --> 01:14:45.579
terrible practice of owning other people. So

01:14:45.579 --> 01:14:47.439
let's acknowledge that. But that's not really

01:14:47.439 --> 01:14:49.039
the point of what we're talking about here in

01:14:49.039 --> 01:14:50.260
this series. The point of what we're talking

01:14:50.260 --> 01:14:52.260
about in the series is what worked better for

01:14:52.260 --> 01:14:54.659
the United States in terms of developing it for

01:14:54.659 --> 01:14:59.060
its future. And our listeners can write in to

01:14:59.060 --> 01:15:01.180
us and tell us what they think, but it just seems

01:15:01.180 --> 01:15:03.800
to me like the Clay, Adams, and later Lincoln

01:15:03.800 --> 01:15:06.239
approach. Maybe Clay and Adams didn't get very

01:15:06.239 --> 01:15:08.340
far, but they had the idea first, and then Lincoln

01:15:08.340 --> 01:15:10.199
was actually able to do some things that lasted.

01:15:11.119 --> 01:15:13.680
Has an undeniable significant positive impact

01:15:13.680 --> 01:15:15.979
on the development of the United States. And

01:15:15.979 --> 01:15:18.340
just think about this for one moment. Lincoln

01:15:18.340 --> 01:15:21.119
only served one term, effectively. More or less.

01:15:22.140 --> 01:15:25.659
One term plus a month. I mean, that's about it.

01:15:25.739 --> 01:15:29.539
Just think if he had had another full term. Yes.

01:15:29.760 --> 01:15:33.520
It is interesting to think about. Yes. And whether

01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:36.100
or not there would be other, I mean, the priority

01:15:36.100 --> 01:15:39.239
would have been reconstruction. Right. But there

01:15:39.239 --> 01:15:42.180
would probably be other opportunities for legislation

01:15:42.180 --> 01:15:46.810
that you wouldn't necessarily find. under somebody

01:15:46.810 --> 01:15:49.949
like Andrew Johnson, who was a Democrat in name

01:15:49.949 --> 01:15:53.329
only. I mean, in fact, not in name. Reconstruction

01:15:53.329 --> 01:15:54.930
ultimately failed. Well, I was going to say,

01:15:54.949 --> 01:15:56.850
maybe it would have been more successful had

01:15:56.850 --> 01:15:58.789
Lincoln lived. Yes, that's what I was going to

01:15:58.789 --> 01:16:01.390
say. Because it was an utter failure. Right,

01:16:01.430 --> 01:16:04.810
because he wasn't around. That really hurt Reconstruction.

01:16:05.029 --> 01:16:08.619
And eventually it was abandoned. And the whole

01:16:08.619 --> 01:16:10.840
cause of civil rights was postponed another 90

01:16:10.840 --> 01:16:14.600
to 100 years after that. The last president to

01:16:14.600 --> 01:16:18.340
actually advocate for civil rights was Garfield,

01:16:18.399 --> 01:16:21.239
and he was shot after nine months. But that's

01:16:21.239 --> 01:16:23.119
civil rights. That really isn't the focus of

01:16:23.119 --> 01:16:25.600
what we're talking about here. But it is interesting

01:16:25.600 --> 01:16:27.460
to think, like you're saying. you know, Blake,

01:16:27.560 --> 01:16:30.340
about Lincoln. Had he lived, how about the other

01:16:30.340 --> 01:16:32.340
things, too, that he could have furthered? How

01:16:32.340 --> 01:16:33.859
much more could he have done in terms of education?

01:16:33.880 --> 01:16:37.340
In terms of this just general framework for development.

01:16:37.520 --> 01:16:39.020
Of what we're talking about in this series. Well,

01:16:39.020 --> 01:16:41.659
Lincoln was replaced by Andrew Johnson, I believe.

01:16:41.739 --> 01:16:44.819
Yes. Who was very sympathetic to the South. Yes.

01:16:44.819 --> 01:16:48.220
And to the institution that prior existed in

01:16:48.220 --> 01:16:50.479
slavery. He wanted to ensure that the United

01:16:50.479 --> 01:16:53.140
States would remain a white man's country. His

01:16:53.140 --> 01:16:56.390
own words. Yeah, he opposed secession. So I'm

01:16:56.390 --> 01:16:59.909
going to say he was detrimental to Reconstruction,

01:16:59.909 --> 01:17:02.890
to say the least. He's on the bottom. Yes. He

01:17:02.890 --> 01:17:06.550
is not as far down as, say, Buchanan is, but

01:17:06.550 --> 01:17:09.909
he's like usually chasing at his heels in the

01:17:09.909 --> 01:17:13.149
presidential rating system that academics do

01:17:13.149 --> 01:17:16.050
periodically. So I guess in the future, when

01:17:16.050 --> 01:17:17.670
we think about Abraham Lincoln, we can think

01:17:17.670 --> 01:17:20.220
about... the freeing of the slaves. We can think

01:17:20.220 --> 01:17:22.279
about the Civil War and the Union victory in

01:17:22.279 --> 01:17:24.100
the Civil War and all he did for that. But maybe

01:17:24.100 --> 01:17:25.819
now we should also spare a thought for all the

01:17:25.819 --> 01:17:28.899
other things he did, the visions that he had

01:17:28.899 --> 01:17:30.920
for the future of the United States, which really

01:17:30.920 --> 01:17:33.899
did give us a lot of what we have today in terms

01:17:33.899 --> 01:17:36.300
of education, infrastructure, and things like

01:17:36.300 --> 01:17:41.760
that. Exactly. That's it for this episode of

01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:44.680
the United States of Amnesia. Thank you for listening.

01:17:45.130 --> 01:17:47.350
We hope you learned something and we hope you

01:17:47.350 --> 01:17:49.489
discovered new ways of looking at things you

01:17:49.489 --> 01:17:52.350
had already heard or thought about or perhaps

01:17:52.350 --> 01:17:55.090
hadn't heard about. If you enjoyed it, that's

01:17:55.090 --> 01:17:58.529
great. If we made you mad, that's okay too. Either

01:17:58.529 --> 01:18:03.489
way, email us at usa .amnesia at gmail .com and

01:18:03.489 --> 01:18:05.970
let us know what you think. Also, let us know

01:18:05.970 --> 01:18:08.050
about anything you think we missed or got wrong.

01:18:08.229 --> 01:18:11.229
We'd like to know about that too. And of course,

01:18:11.270 --> 01:18:13.729
please like and subscribe and let your friends

01:18:13.729 --> 01:18:16.710
and neighbors know about us. We also have a website.

01:18:16.810 --> 01:18:23.789
It's www .usofamnesia .com. For Marshall, Mike,

01:18:23.970 --> 01:18:26.670
and myself, Blake Henke. Till next time.

403: Internal Improvements - Enter Lincoln

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