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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Presidents in Crisis

My job involves teaching courses that span the whole of modern history, and thus forces me to think about many different historical periods in rapid sequence. Just last week I was busy writing a lecture on Lincoln and Bismarck, comparing their political problems and strategy, while meanwhile, I continue, when possible, my research on Roosevelt in 1940-1. Thus I am continually learning more about the last two great crises of American life--and thinking, as I instinctively do, about how they compare to the one we are passing through.

Of the two the Civil War is in many ways more similar. Republicans reacted to President Obama's election in roughly the same way that southerners reacted to Lincoln's: as an unparalleled catastrophe, a threat to everything in which they held dear, which had to be resisted by any means and at all costs. We are fortunate, of course, that in today's context that simply meant total political obstructionism, rather than secession (although the latter has been mentioned by no less a figure than the Governor of Texas, among others.) But what is striking is how overblown both portraits of the two new Presidents has been. Lincoln was most definitely not an abolitionist, much less an advocate of equality between whites and freed blacks, when he became President. He was simply a free-soiler who was determined to restrict slavery to where it existed, confident, without much real reason, that it would wither and die on its own. Well into the war, and subsequent to the emancipation proclamation in late 1862, he hoped to see the freed slaves emigrate to Africa or somewhere in the Caribbean. But white southerners claimed nearly unanimously that his election meant an immediate threat of both abolition and the mixing of the races. Believing apparently that slavery was the only way the two races could live together, they assumed that if they were no longer masters they must be slaves. In the same way, Republicans a year ago immediately declared Barack Obama, a very moderate Democrat who so far has used mainstream methods to try to save capitalism and has bragged about having done so, was immediately labeled a socialist determined to destroy the free enterprise system. Ironically, had southern Democrats in 1861 used the strategy Republicans are pursuing today, slavery would surely have lasted much longer than it did. By staying in the union they could have made even the free soil program difficult, if not impossible, to implement, since it was not universally accepted even in the North, and it is hard to see how slavery would ever have been ended by purely Constitutional means.

Lincoln also faced the same kind of division within his own party--whether one defines it as the Republican Party or the whole North and border states. Relatively few Northerners wanted a war to abolish slavery in 1861, although the ones that did, such as Charles Sumner, were vocal indeed, far more so than today's proponents of single-payer health care. Lincoln had to find some other basis to carry on the war, and he did. He defined it not as a struggle to free the slaves, but as a fight to prove that a free government could survive. "Our popular Government has often been called an experiment," he told Congress on July 4, 1861 "Two points in it our people have already settled-the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains-its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections." This remained the cornerstone of his rhetoric throughout the conflict, climaxing in the Gettysburg Address:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

Barack Obama's great difficulty so far has been his inability to find a phrase or a concept equivalent to "the Union" for Lincoln--really a shorthand for the above-stated point--or the "New Deal" for Roosevelt. He is trying simply to restore some government role in the regulation of the economy to provide minimum benefits for all, and to put something in place of the mindless anti-government rhetoric that has seized and held the initiative in American political life for the last thirty years. But he has not yet been able to do so, and meanwhile, he is constantly forced, like Lincoln in 1861-2, to make serious compromises to go forward at all. Just as Lincoln in the spring of 1861 told abolitionists who pleaded with him to please God by freeing the slaves at once, "I would like to have God, but I must have Kentucky," Obama has had (with some regret) to rule out a single-payer option for health care. His failure in the economic sphere, unfortunately, seems to be conceptual, not tactical: neither he nor his advisers seem to believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with our deregulated economic system. Lastly, Obama, like Lincoln, has staked much of his first year in office on a mirage of bipartisanship. Lincoln was a brilliant politician, but for too long he cherished the illusion that Unionist sentiment in the South--which he vastly overestimated--would bring the seceded states to their senses and end the war at relatively early date. In the same way, the Democrats have wasted many months chasing Republican support--and cooperative Republicans in the Congress are even rarer than white Unionists in the South 150 years ago.

If the the President and Congressional Democrats succeed in getting health insurance reform through Congress over the next month, then they, like the Northern armies in the west in early 1862, will have seized some momentum. But meanwhile, I wish the President would spend some time reading not only some of Lincoln's speeches, but some of Roosevelt's. Perhaps the actions he takes and the legislation he proposes have to be tentative, but his rhetoric need not be. Here is the climax of the speech he gave on health care last week.

"The United States Congress owes the American people a final, up or down vote on health care. (Applause.) It’s time to make a decision. The time for talk is over. We need to see where people stand. And we need all of you to help us win that vote. So I need you to knock on doors. Talk to your neighbors. Pick up the phone. When you hear an argument by the water cooler and somebody is saying this or that about it, say, no, no, no, no, hold on a second. And we need you to make your voices heard all the way in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

"They need to hear your voices because right now the Washington echo chamber is in full throttle. It is as deafening as it’s ever been. And as we come to that final vote, that echo chamber is telling members of Congress, wait, think about the politics -- instead of thinking about doing the right thing.

"That’s what Mitch McConnell said this weekend. His main argument was, well, this is going to be really bad for Democrats politically. Now, first of all, I generally wouldn’t take advice about what’s good for Democrats. (Laughter.) But setting aside that, that’s not the issue here. The issue here is not the politics of it.

"But that’s what people -- that’s what members of Congress are hearing right now on the cable shows and in the -- sort of the gossip columns in Washington. It’s telling Congress comprehensive reform has failed before -- remember what happened to Clinton -- it may just be too politically hard.

"Yes, it’s hard. It is hard. That’s because health care is complicated. Health care is a hard issue. It’s easily misrepresented. It’s easily misunderstood. So it’s hard for some members of Congress to make this vote. There’s no doubt about that. But you know what else is hard? What Leslie and her family are going through -- that’s hard. (Applause.) The possibility that Natoma Canfield might lose her house because she’s about to lose her health insurance -- that’s hard. (Applause.) Laura Klitzka in Green Bay having to worry about her cancer and her debt at the same time, trying to explain that to her kids -- that’s hard. (Applause.) What’s hard is what millions of families and small businesses are going through because we allow the insurance industry to run wild in this country. (Applause.)

"So let me remind everybody: Those of us in public office were not sent to Washington to do what’s easy. We weren’t sent there because of the big fancy title. We weren’t sent there to -- because of a big fancy office. We weren’t sent there just so everybody can say how wonderful we are. We were sent there to do what was hard. (Applause.) We were sent there to take on the tough issues. We were sent there to solve the big challenges. And that’s why we’re there. (Applause.)

"And at this moment -- at this moment, we are being called upon to fulfill our duty to the citizens of this nation and to future generations. (Applause.)"

Let us compare this to the conclusion of Lincoln's July 1861 message to Congress which I quoted above.

"It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the Government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the Government. No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

"As a private citizen the Executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what he has deemed his duty.

"You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws."

It did not occur to Lincoln to quote the rhetoric even of his northern political opponents (and he had many), nor to suggest that he could have more comfortably taken an easier path. He knew he had a task of enormous importance to world history, and his language always suggested this his chosen course of action was, to quote another great American document, self-evident.

And here is an almost random excerpt from FDR's rhetoric early in his Presidency, in a fireside chat delivered in the spring of 1934, when the success of his program was quite limited--if already visible--and opposition to him among Republicans and in the press was beginning to grow.

"Before I come to any of the specific measures, however, I want to leave in your minds one clear fact. The Administration and the Congress are not proceeding in any haphazard fashion in this task of government. Each of our steps has a definite relationship to every other step. The job of creating a program for the Nation's welfare is, in some respects, like the building of a ship. At different points on the coast where I often visit they build great seagoing ships. When one of these ships is under construction and the steel frames have been set in the keel, it is difficult for a person who does not know ships to tell how it will finally look when it is sailing the high seas.

"It may seem confused to some, but out of the multitude of detailed parts that go into the making of the structure, the creation of a useful instrument for man ultimately comes. It is that way with the making of a national policy. The objective of the Nation has greatly changed in three years. Before that time individual self-interest and group selfishness were paramount in public thinking. The general good was at a discount.

"Three years of hard thinking have changed the picture. More and more people, because of clearer thinking and a better understanding, are considering the whole rather than a mere part relating to one section, or to one crop, or to one industry, or to an individual private occupation. That is a tremendous gain for the principles of democracy. The overwhelming majority of people in this country know how to sift the wheat from the chaff in what they hear and what they read. They know that the process of the constructive rebuilding of America cannot be done in a day or a year, but that it is being done in spite of the few who seek to confuse them and to profit by their confusion. Americans as a whole are feeling a lot better—a lot more cheerful than for many, many years."

It has become clear to me that Roosevelt benefited from circumstances unique to himself. Unlike either Lincoln or Obama, he came into an office when literally no one could deny the extent of our national crisis and everyone welcomed his leadership. Yet this quote shows how, within a little less than a year, he had (as Lincoln took much longer to do) embraced the idea of building a radically different United States and placed all his many measures within the context of an entirely new vision. That is why, in my opinion, his achievements were both more substantial and more long-lasting than Lincoln's--who in the end did preserve the Union but could not lay the foundation for a better America based on different ideals.

We do not know what future events may once again increase the sense of crisis in the United States today, but history suggests that Barack Obama needs above all to decide exactly where he wants to take the United States and communicate his vision, in simple terms, to the American people. Or perhaps he, like Lincoln, will have to content himself with trying to prove, once again, that the government founded in 1787 can function at all.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

He is trying simply to restore some government role in the regulation of the economy to provide minimum benefits for all, and to put something in place of the mindless anti-government rhetoric that has seized and held the initiative in American political life for the last thirty years

Propaganda understatement of the year/decade.

The federal government currently controls 24.18% of the GDP. WIth the healthcare takeover it will control yet additional 16%. With the taxes various state governments collect that would be even larger share.

So if that kind of takeover is called SOME ROLE, I would really like to hear what SUPREME
ALL ENCOMPASSING ROLE of the federal government would be defined by the author.

There will be ramifications for this type of takeover and intrusion
into voter's life in november, 2010.

David Kaiser said...

Thanks, anonymous, for proving the point of the post.

Anonymous said...

Thomas Jefferson whose very motto was nil desperandum, wrote a letter to Thomas Cooper dated 7 October 1814 where he said " Truth advances & error recedes step by step only;and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step." I see much of Jefferson in President Obama. He has a profound clarity of expression and a mastery of detail. He is optimistic. He is an advocate for people's rights and he maintains a steady and respectful communication with everyone that he wants to persuade.
I feel very sorry for those who are being manilupated by the so-called Southern strategy.

Anonymous said...

Yet another hagiographic piece by Dr. Kaiser.

The rulling clique had majority in both houses for the past 13 months until the voters of Massachusetts spoke. Nevrtheless, they've not been able to pass the health care takeover.

And somehow the opposition party,
that was totally and utterly ignored by the ruling clique was deemed by Dr. Kaiser to be obstructionist. How does that work?

Is any legislator who disagrees with the president expressing their and their constituent's opinion or is that not even allowed anymore?

Anonymous said...

alohamac:

Thomas Jefferson also said the following:

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Was he talking about reconciliation?

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Was he talking about the current federal government?

Anonymous said...

For the record. Regardless of Massachusetts, the Democratic party still has a sizable majority in both the house and the senate. When Tom Jefferson spoke about the sum of good government I believe he was saying that government exists for the purpose of furfilling the will of the people. when Jefferson purchased the Louisana territory he noted that he had done what a guardian might do for his ward. If jefferson saw that 40 or 50 millions of his constitutents were without health care and the the USA was below the median stats of all 30 of the OECD nations he might well try to better the mess.

Anonymous said...

Dems move closer to passing Senate bill without actual vote
By Ian Swanson - 03/16/10 09:48 AM ET


House Democrats are marching forward with plans to move the Senate healthcare bill through their chamber without actually voting on it.


The House Rules Committee on Tuesday morning released a memo defending the so-called “deem and pass” procedure, which the memo said has a long precedent in the House and is used commonly.


Is this kind of HEROIC LEADERSHIP you are advocating and clamoring for Dr. Kaiser?

Do you understand now why the people quite easily DO NOT BELIEVE anything such followers
of the un-democratic process profess and do, while doing everything possible to subvert the will of the people, in spite of your propaganda atempts?

Is this kind of democracy you teach in your classes? That ANY means are acceptable?

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/
86985-rules-memo-outlines-dem-plan
-to-pass-healthcare-bill-without-
actual-vote

Anonymous said...

Cahill bashes state -- and national -- health care reform law

State Treasurer Timothy P.
Cahill, an independent candidate
for governor, today offered a wide-
ranging and scathing criticism of
the state’s universal health care
law, saying it is bankrupting
Massachusetts and will do the same
nationally, if a similar plan is
passed in Congress.

"If President Obama and the
Democrats repeat the mistake of
the health insurance reform here
in Massachusetts on a national
level, they will threaten to wipe
out the American economy within
four years,” Cahill said in a
press conference in his office.


Echoing criticism leveled by
Congressional Republicans in
recent weeks, Cahill said, “It is
time for the president, the
Democratic leadership, to go back
to the drawing board and come up
with a new plan that does not
threaten to bankrupt this country.”


Seems that the treasurer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has
a FIRST HAND knowledge how the
health care take over works.

Or does he prove your point too Dr. Kaiser?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/
breaking_news/2010/03
/cahill_bashes_s.html

David Nayan said...

I was very impressed by your comparisons. We tend to forget that many of the great Presidents are considered so because they were tested by difficult situations and when they were going through them, their measures were often unpopular and they themselves were not highly regarded.

The great leaders have stood for things that required above average vision to be seen and they reached beyond what others could imagine.

Lets hope that Obama is one of these because regardless of political affiliation our country needs for the President to make the right decisions... now more than ever.

unCommonSense said...

Well, at the very least you did finally admit that it was Democrats that owned, traded and refused to free the slaves. Now they champion themselves as the "social justice" league. Did your vast research on FDR reveal to you his trips to Chicago and many other cities with higher black populations to convince them to switch from voting strongly Republican to almost unanimously Democrat? He dangled that string in front of the black population and promised that it would all be better if they just voted his way. He even set aside 10-whole-percent of the CCC and WPA budgets and workforce for black folks. Eighty years have gone by, and the Democrats are still stringing black folks along. Affirmative Action (which even Clarence Thomas has said cannot be Constitutionally justified) and other programs have kept the black population's collective head just above water. They have done nothing to promote general welfare within that community.

Lincoln, the Republican, was not an abolitionist. However, in his 4 years, 1 month and 11 days in office, he managed to completely abolish the institution of slavery. Of course, we can debate "implied" slavery or racism as a form of de facto slavery, but the institution in and of itself was abolished. So basically, Lincoln (true to the free-market, deregulation, small government policies of Republicans) took a vast population that was not being paid, could not buy anything, and could not contribute to the American economy, and turned them into producers. He added to the free-markets of the American economy, which grew by about 4 million. Lincoln increased the American private labor force. Obama is trying (true to high regulation, big government policies of Democrats) to have government take over a vast chunk of the American economy.

Your claim that today's Republicans fought like 1860's Democrats is an interesting one insofar as there was a political debate, and one side was extremely heated. But to claim that Republican opposition to this health care bill is similar to anti-freedom laws more than a century and a half ago is both factually flawed and historically sketchy, to say the least. The Republicans, yet again, are championing FREEDOM, this time of the markets, specifically health care. The Democrats, yet again, are championing regulatory action, specifically government control of our health care. It's the exact same argument that it was in the 1860's, only this time it's about an industry, not a people.

You cannot hide behind your resume, and then skew facts to suit your point. Every syllabus for every class you teach has a clause about "academic integrity," correct? Where's yours?

Anonymous said...

Dr. Kaiser:

since it seems that you are rather fond and support your point of view, how come you absolutely avoid to refernce the polls that DO NOT support your personal view such as:

Health Care Reform - Rasmussen Poll - Monday, March 15, 2010:

43% Favor Health Care Plan, 53% Oppose

at:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
public_content/politics/current_
events/healthcare/september_2009
/health_care_reform


Fox News Poll - March 18, 2010:

Fox News poll released Thursday finds 55 percent oppose the reforms being considered, while 35 percent favor them.

at:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/
2010/03/18/fox-news-poll-oppose-
health-care-reform/

Anonymous said...

How about this poll Dr. Kaiser:

Obama's Approval Rating Lowest Yet, Congress' Declines

Americans' views of President
Obama are the most negative since Obama took office last year -- 46% approve and 48%
disapprove in the latest Gallup Daily three-day average. Meanwhile, Congress' 16% approval rating is just two points above its all-time low.

The poll can be seen at:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126809
/Obama-Approval-Rating-Lowest-Yet
-Congress-Declines.aspx

Anonymous said...

Yet another poll you are NOT
calling attention to Dr. Kaiser:

Obama tied with Romney in new poll
By Sean J. Miller - 03/18/10 12:35 PM ET

The latest survey from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm, shows President Obama tied or with only a slim lead over two of his potential 2012 GOP challengers.


A race between Obama and either
former Govs. Mike Huckabee (R-
Ark.) or Mitt Romney (R-Mass.)
would be a tossup if it were held
now, according to the poll.

Obama
and Romney were tied at 44 percent each, while Obama led Huckabee 46-44 percent. In the matchup with Romney, Obama lost Independent voters 45-38 percent.

Anonymous said...

The fact is there never has been a governmental system in the history of the world that has been able to keep and maintain the kind of idealistic utopia men have always dreamed of having. The ideal is noble, but no matter how zealously pursued, attainment has proven impossible. We are but people after all, like all who have gone before us; and "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" will likely fail for the same cause. Steve

Molly said...

This is the first time I have ever read the comments to this blog and I'm regretting that I did. These "comments", or a majority of them, highlight exactly what's wrong with politics in America. We don't have conversations, we don't value each other's perspectives, as different as they may be, we don't LEARN from each other! We just spit back our own ideas without even recognizing or validating the other.
It's disgusting, and frankly it's embarrassing.

David Kaiser said...

The reason, Molly, is that so many people are brought here by the fraudulent email attributed to me (see the profile, top right), and they take out their disappointment that I am not who they think I am in a comment or two. Many of the comments, however, have been very interesting.

Bozon said...

"Relatively few Northerners wanted a war to abolish slavery in 1861, although the ones that did, such as Charles Sumner, were vocal indeed, far more so than today's proponents of single-payer health care. Lincoln had to find some other basis to carry on the war, and he did. He defined it not as a struggle to free the slaves, but as a fight to prove that a free government could survive."


It is typical of democracies, it seems, that their leaders occasionally pursue courses of action not sought by their citizens, as you have pointed out above.

They clothe their decisions in reasons differing from their real ones, and different still from rationales arising from a dispassionate assessment of conditions and goals.

Even back then, many of the forces playing on the republic were powerful foreign special interests, both in the banking/industrial North, and the agricultural South.

That aspect of the situation has been far too often ignored: the adversarial role of Great Powers in the American colonies' rebellion, and in the subsequent civil war period.

The civil war is just the kind of 'topic', an ostensibly 'parochial' dispute within a nation state, eg the English civil war, which your placement in context of aristocratic transnational rivalries, in comparative European perspective, was helpful.

all the best
Gerald Meaders

Bozon said...

Tuesday April 13, 2010
One might say, I am sure someone will correct me if wrong, that the kind of fragmentation, the weaknesses, that have always dogged political systems, even city/states, but especially the more complex ones, continue in most governments and Unions one surveys.

We see expressed in headlines even today, in Europe, signs of the kind of return to more 'primitive', perhaps more natural according to some, certainly more nationalistic, feelings, about the European Union, and about Germany and Russia.

More generally, longstanding weaknesses and policies in the West, based in the first instance on the ravages of war, including the Cold War, have provided 'opportunities' for other, still weaker, but more industrious and desperate, systems to pull abreast, if not actually to pull ahead.

For those Western 'thinkers' who still, very late now, believe that such things as free trade, willy nilly technology transfer, open, (even free) higher education emanating out of the US on the web, a liberal international economic order, 'a seat at the table', promoting market states, liberal democratic institutions,that these things promote 'world' peace, rather than the next series of even larger civilizational world wars,

I would say that I doubt it, very much.

All the best,
Gerald Meaders

Bozon said...

Just another note, perhaps, on this great topic, before it passes into the archives.......

So often one confronts, in talking about political philosophical economic social historical scholarly commercial questions, one great, lurking, 'adversary' of 'post modern' man; the harrowing limitations, disciplinary limitations and otherwise,
imposed by the differentiation,
compartmentalization, specialization, professional job description if you will, fragmentation,of virtually all persons' accounts of recent developments, regardless of field.

I see no effective solution for this, at least in the 'West'; but some regimes seem better able to 'strategically' assimilate, and to act on, diverse bodies of knowledge in different fields than others.

All the best,
Gerald Meaders