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Making Statism
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Freedom and Federalism
By Felix Morely
H. Regnery Company
1959
Morley traces the evolution of the United States from a federated
Republic
towards a unitary democracy in which the "will of the people" is
expressed
through a central government. He discusses the dangers presented by
centralization, particularly towards minorities.
Chapter 6 -- "Democracy and Empire"
Centralization of power is of course the essential pre-requisite of
any
dictatorship. When a governmental system already centralizes power
as did that
of Czarist Russia, it is not necessary to go through democratic
preliminaries in
order to establish tyranny. Successful revolutionists need only
adapt existing
institutions to their particular purpose, as Lenin did. In his
words,
'bureaucrats . . work today, obeying the capitalists; they will work
even letter
tomorrow, obeying the armed proletariat.'
But when governmental institutions hamper centralization, as they
must in a
federal republic from its very nature, then it is clearly necessary
to reform
those institutions before dictatorship can be established. And if
those
institutions are well designed, and have popular esteem, then a
political tour
de force becomes necessary. Somehow or other people must be made to
believe that
their traditional governmental machinery is out of date, incompetent
to cope
with new problems, a block to "Manifest Destiny," or perhaps
manipulated for
evil by unscrupulous men who distort the operation to the general
disadvantage.
This accusation of distortion has always been the first attack of
those who
would reform our government, and unquestionably it has often been a
justified
attack. Unfortunately, those who denounce "entrenched minorities" in
their zeal
often give the impression that a minority is objectionable as such,
whether it
be composed of slave-owners or of Philadelphia Quakers. Thus deeply
sincere
reformers have helped to spread the wholly un-American belief that a
minority is
disreputable just because it is a minority, regardless of whether
its concern is
to protect "the interests" or to defend conscientious objectors. In
this manner,
reformist zeal has been of incalculable assistance to the concept of
a
dictatorial general will.
The initial objective of the reformer is not so much to centralize
power as to
prevent the abuse of power where already centralized. Yet the most
admirable
reformers all but invariably argue that there "oughta be a law." To
prevent
abuse of power, superior power should be concentrated in some
government agency
-- an argument which strangely assumes that men become more moral
when they
serve the unmoral instrumentality of the state. This absurdity is
compounded,
but also made more difficult to discern, by calling the
concentration of power
"democratic." The average reformer, however, does not usually invoke
the word
with the intention of making the bureaucracy all-powerful. He merely
equates the
general will with his own particular opinion. But the easiest way to
make the
particularist viewpoint dominant is to call upon the power of
government,
especially centralized government, in its behalf.
In the case of war, which is the perfect device for replacing
federalism with
centralization, the motive of the centralizers is not always
innocent. There is
good reason to think that Hitler wanted war, or at least was willing
to risk it,
precisely because the condition of war furthered his expressed
objective of
centralizing all power in the Nazi Party with himself as Fuehrer.
It is evident that power is most easily centralized by war, or by
the
expectation of war. And it is further evident that to obtain this
centralization
of power in a political federation, the national government must
prevail on
people to surrender their individual and State rights, on the plea
of national
necessity. Since there will always be a minority of the skeptics,
perhaps even
fortified by actual sympathizers with the real or alleged enemy, the
theory that
the majority will should prevail becomes imperative in times of
emergency. That
is the theory of democracy, and that is the essential reason for the
anomaly
whereby the greater the centralized regimentation, the more feverish
the claim
of the regimenters that this is true democracy. To quote Lenin
again: "Communism
alone is capable of giving a really complete democracy."
It is at least a curious coincidence that every war in which the
United States
has been engaged was both immediately preceded by a political
flowering of
democratic theory and immediately productive of centralization. That
applies
even to the War of 1812, which was really a continuation and
affirmation of the
Revolution against Great Britain. Even so, the opposition to it was
strongest
among the very undemocratic Federalists and as a direct result of
what they
called "Mr. Madison's war" we got a national debt, a national bank,
a high
protective tariff and certainly a great impetus for the strongly
centralizing
Supreme Court decisions of Chief Justice Marshall.
Desire to extend the area of slavery was unquestionably a factor in
the Mexican
War. There were, of course, other, and weighty, considerations in
all these
cases. Nevertheless, we must note the coincidence that faith in
democracy surged
up in the Jacksonian era, and that war with Mexico followed soon
after.
Centralization was of course encouraged, by government of the
conquered areas as
dependent territories pending their development into Statehood.
This centralization was in turn a factor in bringing the Civil War,
also
forwarded by the democratic belief that because the majority deemed
slavery an
intolerable practice, it thereby became a duty of the central
government to
abolish it. And while the Civil War did not seem to do more than
shake the
federal structure severely, this political earthquake did greatly
increase the
subordination of the individual States to Washington, not only those
ruled for
years as conquered provinces, but all of them. Bureaucracy was
greatly expanded
to handle the problems of the emancipated slaves-through the
Freedmen's Bureau
and other agencies.
For a generation, after the Civil War, the American people were
occupied in
winning the West and filling their continental domain. The final
conquest of the
Indian tribal organizations can scarcely merit the name of war, as
now
understood, but it did provide reason for the maintenance of a
national army and
gave the central government experience in the direct rule of
conquered and
primitive subjects.
During this peaceful generation, indeed, the dynamic forces of
imperial
expansion were gathering strength all along the line. Secretary of
State Seward
was an avowed imperialist and his annexation of the Midway Islands
paved the way
for that of Hawaii. Soon the itch for world power was being
constantly
stimulated by big-Navy advocates like Admiral Mahan, by vigorous
politicians
like Theodore Roosevelt, and by sensational journalists like William
Randolph
Hearst. None of these were above using the cliche's of democracy to
justify a
war which would place the growing strength of the nation more firmly
under the
control of Washington. "Teddy" Roosevelt, indeed, was "convinced . .
. that the
country needs a war" and "rather hoped" it would come with Great
Britain over
the Venezuela dispute. But a much less costly conflict, with
decadent Spain,
served the imperial purpose just as well.
But the outcome of the war with Spain was not quite altruistic. The
outcome was
the annexation of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines and lesser
Pacific
islands. It was the establishment of the United States as a colonial
power,
compelled to justify the suppression of the Filipinos which followed
immediately
on the liberation of the Cubans. And the deeper result was to make
Washington
for the first time classifiable as a world capital, governing
millions of people
overseas as subjects rather than as citizens. The private
enslavement of Negroes
was ended. The public control of alien populations had begun.
Only twelve years separated the suppression of the Philippine
Insurrection and
the outbreak of World War I in Europe. They were years in which the
country
moved simultaneously towards democracy and towards imperialism. The
Income Tax
Amendment provided the means whereby the central government could
finance
colonial operations, or any other undertaking deemed desirable for
the general
welfare. The Amendment for the direct election of Senators was
expected to break
down the recalcitrance of the undemocratic Upper House, which in its
old
unregenerate condition had rejected the attempted acquisition of
Santo Domingo
in Grant's Administration, and almost repudiated the annexation of
other Spanish
colonies after the war of 1898.
Simultaneously, what had traditionally been known as the
"Administration" in
Washington began to act as though it were what it is now
inaccurately but
habitually called-i.e., the "Government." A revolt was provoked in
Colombia, to
facilitate the building of the Panama Canal. The Monroe Doctrine was
interpreted
by President Theodore Roosevelt to mean that the United States
should use force
to stop any Latin-American disorders. His successor, President Taft,
applied
this policy to establish a protectorate" in Nicaragua. Woodrow
Wilson then made
the policy bi-partisan by extending the protectorate device to Santo
Domingo and
Haiti, and by ordering two punitive invasions of Mexico.
It was "to make the world safe for democracy" that the American
people were at
last pushed, prodded and precipitated, with the aid of German
aggressiveness,
into World War I. The phrase has been greatly ridiculed, but if we
use our
political terms correctly it must be said that the aim was very
largely
achieved. Political democracy is actually a form of government in
which the
executive can successfully assert that its direction is in accord
with the
general will, and World War I certainly gave enormous impetus to
that claim.
In the United States, World War I brought no written Constitutional
Amendment.
But the enlargement of centralized power, and the new national
agencies deemed
necessary to win the war, were here to stay. The machinery for
centralized
action to cope with subsequent domestic difficulties was either
already designed
or foreshadowed. We shall consider later how the New Deal made use
of this
disposition to centralize power. But one should be careful about
giving Franklin
D. Roosevelt too much credit, or discredit, for exploiting a
situation already
made ready for him. World War I had helped to make the world safe
for democracy,
and in the process had done a lot to make constitutional government
unsafe in
the United States.
On Armistice Day of 1918 Woodrow Wilson wrote out in longhand his
announcement
to the American people:
"Everything for which America fought has been accomplished." In a
sense that
also was true. Our participation in World War I took us out of the
bush league
and made us a great imperial power, a molder of world destiny. It
was for this,
historically speaking, that America fought. The trouble is that the
great
majority of Americans did not contemporaneously realize for what
they were
fighting. And one cannot say with assurance that Woodrow Wilson ever
did either.
For his was the tragedy of a man of peace, an idealistic reformer, a
scholar and
a close student of American institutions, who in this crisis could
not uphold
the traditions which he revered.
Every war in which the United States has engaged since 1815 was
waged in the
name of democracy. Each has contributed to that centralization of
power which
tends to destroy that local self-government which is what most
Americans have in
mind when they acclaim democracy. But every war has also been
followed by a
reaction, in which Americans have thought soberly about the
implications of the
drums and trumpets and have sought, almost instinctively, to restore
the upset
constitutional balance. After World War I this reaction was
immediate. It
undermined the League of Nations, for which Woodrow Wilson had
worked the more
valiantly because of his passionate desire to validate the hope that
good might
come out of the evil he had reluctantly endorsed. The reaction also
cut
expenditures by the central government severely, curtailed its
swollen
functions, and by the time of Herbert Hoover had done much to
re-establish the
federal form, modified, of course, but nevertheless true to its
original
principles of divided powers and maximum home rule.
Then, out of stricken Europe, came the depression, with all its
tremendous
stimulus to what some call democratic action and to what others can
as properly
term demagoguery. There is no iron curtain between the two.
The great depression unquestionably helped to promote World War II,
in any case
a not unnatural consequence of the injustices and stupidities
committed in the
name of democracy after World War I. And an unusually authentic
"general will"
for relief from depression hardships brought that same perennial
flowering of
democratic theory that seems to be a constant element in American
belligerency.
Consequent to World War II we certainly see a permanently increased
centralization of power and a further weakening of federal theory.
World War II was, historically speaking, a ghastly after-math of
World War I.
The Korean War, on the other hand, stands out separately, as
something which
might easily have been a prelude, and was assuredly a portent, in
regard to
World War III. There is still much about World War II, the Korean
"episode" and
lesser "brush fires," on which only partial information is
available. But the
consequences of these events in the promotion of American imperial
practice are
not at all obscure.
As with all political terms in this study, the adjective "imperial"
is not to be
taken in any invidious sense, but merely descriptively. An empire is
a far-flung
political organization, of which all the territorial parts are not
necessarily
contiguous, but are subject to a centralized administration of which
the head
was originally called an emperor, from Latin imperator. The
essential feature of
an empire, however, is not the title of its executive, but whether
the executive
rules overseas or alien territories without the freely given
sanction of their
inhabitants, as the Romans ruled Britain, as Russia now rules
Hungary, as the
French rule Algeria or as we rule Okinawa [or Guam, or the Iroquois
Confederacy]. |
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The Pragmatic Side of Principle in Pursuit of Public Policy
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