Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
horses that would not run together. To attempt to make yoke-fellows of
democratic leveling and capitalistic paternalism was prophetic of rifts
and schisms that only the passions of Reconstruction days could hold in
check.
In 1865 the Republican party was no other than a war machine that had
accomplished its purpose. It was a political mongrel, without logical
cohesion, and it seemed doomed to break up as the Whig party had broken
up and the Federalist party had broken up. But fate was now on the side
of the Whigs as it had not been earlier. The democratic forces had lost
strength from the war, and democratic principles were in ill repute.
The drift to centralization, the enormous development of capitalism,
the spirit of exploitation, were prophetic of a changing temper that
was preparing to exalt the doctrine of manifest destiny which the Whig
party stood sponsor for. The middle class was in the saddle and it was
time to bring the political state under its control. The practical
problem of the moment was to transform the mongrel Republican party
into a strong cohesive instrument, and to accomplish that it was
necessary to hold the loyalty of its Democratic voters amongst the
farmers and working-classes whilst putting into effect its Whig program.
Under normal conditions the thing would have been impossible, but
the times were wrought up and blindly passionate and the politicians
skillful. The revolt of Andrew Johnson came near to bringing the party
on the rocks; but the undisciplined Jacksonians were overthrown by
the appeal to the Bloody Flag and put to flight by the nomination of
General Grant for the presidency. The rebellion of the Independent
Republicans under Horace Greeley in 1872 was brought to nothing by
the skillful use of Grant’s military prestige, and the party passed
definitely under the control of capitalism, and became such an
instrument for exploitation as Henry Clay dreamed of but could not
perfect. Under the nominal leadership of the easy-going Grant a loose
rein was given to Whiggish ambitions and the Republican party became a
political instrument worthy of the Gilded Age.
The triumph of Whiggery was possible because the spirit of the Gilded
Age was Whiggish. The picturesque embodiment of the multitude of
voters who hurrahed for Grant and the Grand Old Party was a figure
who had grown his first beard in the ebullient days before Secession.
Colonel Beriah Sellers, with his genial optimism and easy political
ethics, was an epitome of the political hopes of the Gilded Age. With
a Micawber-like faith in his country and his government, eager to
realize on his expansive dreams and looking to the national treasury to
scatter its fructifying millions in the neighborhood of his speculative
holdings, he was no other than Uncle Sam in the boisterous days
following Appomattox. The hopes that floated up out of his dreams were
the hopes of millions who cast their votes for Republican Congressmen
who in return were expected to cast their votes for huge governmental
appropriations that would insure prosperity’s reaching certain
post-office addresses. Citizens had saved the government in the
trying days that were past; it was only fair in return that government
should aid the patriotic citizen in the necessary work of developing
national resources. It was paternalism as understood by speculators and
subsidy-hunters, but was it not a part of the great American System
that was to make the country rich and self-sufficient? The American
System had been talked of for forty years; it had slowly got on its
feet in pre-war days despite the stubborn planter opposition; now
at last it had fairly come into its own. The time was ripe for the
Republican party to become a fairy godmother to the millions of Beriah
Sellerses throughout the North and West.
It is plain as a pikestaff why the spirit of Whiggery should have taken
riotous possession of the Gilded Age. With its booming industrial
cities America in 1870 was fast becoming capitalistic, and in every
capitalistic society Whiggery springs up as naturally as pigweed
in a garden. However attractive the disguises it may assume, it is
in essence the logical creed of the profit philosophy. It is the
expression in politics of the acquisitive instinct and it assumes as
the greatest good the shaping of public policy to promote private
interests. It asserts that it is a duty of the state to help its
citizens to make money, and it conceives of the political state as
a useful instrument for effective exploitation. How otherwise? The
public good cannot be served apart from business interests, for
business interests are the public good and in serving business the
state is serving society. Everybody’s eggs are in the basket and they
must not be broken. For a capitalistic society Whiggery is the only
rational politics, for it exalts the profit-motive as the sole object
of parliamentary concern. Government has only to wave its wand and
fairy gifts descend upon business like the golden sands of Pactolus.
It graciously bestows its tariffs and subsidies, and streams of wealth
flow into private wells.
But unhappily there is a fly in the Whiggish honey. In a competitive
order, government is forced to make its choices. It cannot serve
both Peter and Paul. If it gives with one hand it must take away
with the other. And so the persuasive ideal of paternalism in the
common interest degenerates in practice into legalized favoritism.
Governmental gifts go to the largest investments. Lesser interests are
sacrificed to greater interests and Whiggery comes finally to serve the
lords of the earth without whose good will the wheels of business will
not turn. To him that hath shall be given. If the few do not prosper
the many will starve, and if the many have bread who would begrudge the
few their abundance? In Whiggery is the fulfillment of the Scriptures.
Henry Clay had been a prophetic figure pointing the way America was to
travel; but he came a generation too soon. A son of the Gilded Age, he
was doomed to live in a world of Jacksonian democracy. But the spirit
of Henry Clay survived his death and his followers were everywhere in
the land. The plain citizen who wanted a slice of the rich prairie
land of Iowa or Kansas, with a railway convenient to his homestead,
had learned to look to the government for a gift, and if he got his
quarter-section and his transportation he was careless about what the
other fellow got. A little more or less could make no difference to a
country inexhaustible in resources. America belonged to the American
people and not to the government, and resources in private hands paid
taxes and increased the national wealth. In his favorite newspaper,
the _New York Tribune_, he read daily appeals for the adoption of a
patriotic national economy, by means of which an infant industrialism,
made prosperous by a protective tariff, would provide a home market for
the produce of the farmer and render the country self-sufficient. Money
would thus be put in everybody’s pocket. Protection was not robbing
Peter to pay Paul, but paying both Peter and Paul out of the augmented
wealth of the whole.
The seductive arguments that Horace Greeley disseminated amongst the
plain people, Henry Carey purveyed to more intelligent ears. The most
distinguished American economist of the time, Carey had abandoned
his earlier _laissez-faire_ position, and having convinced himself
that only through a close-knit national economy could the country
develop a well-rounded economic program, he had become the most ardent
of protectionists. During the fifties and later he was tireless in
popularizing the doctrine of a natural harmony of interests between
agriculture and manufacturing, and to a generation expanding rapidly
in both fields his able presentation made great appeal. It was but a
step from protectionism to governmental subsidies. Beriah Sellers and
Henry Clay had come to be justified by the political economists. (Note
that amongst Carey’s converts were such different idealists as Wendell
Phillips and Peter Cooper.)
IV • The Great Barbecue
Horace Greeley and Henry Carey were only straws in the wind that
during the Gilded Age was blowing the doctrine of paternalism about
the land. A Colonel Sellers was to be found at every fireside talking
the same blowsy doctrine. Infectious in their optimism, naïve in their
faith that something would be turned up for them by the government if
they made known their wants, they were hoping for dollars to be put
in their pockets by a generous administration at Washington. Congress
had rich gifts to bestow--in lands, tariffs, subsidies, favors of all
sorts; and when influential citizens made their wishes known to the
reigning statesmen, the sympathetic politicians were quick to turn
the government into the fairy godmother the voters wanted it to be.
A huge barbecue was spread to which all presumably were invited. Not
quite all, to be sure; inconspicuous persons, those who were at home
on the farm or at work in the mills and offices, were overlooked; a
good many indeed out of the total number of the American people. But
all the important persons, leading bankers and promoters and business
men, received invitations. There wasn’t room for everybody and these
were presumed to represent the whole. It was a splendid feast. If the
waiters saw to it that the choicest portions were served to favored
guests, they were not unmindful of their numerous homespun constituency
and they loudly proclaimed the fine democratic principle that what
belongs to the people should be enjoyed by the people--not with petty
bureaucratic restrictions, not as a social body, but as individuals,
each free citizen using what came to hand for his own private ends,
with no questions asked.
It was sound Gilded Age doctrine. To a frontier people what was more
democratic than a barbecue, and to a paternalistic age what was more
fitting than that the state should provide the beeves for roasting.
Let all come and help themselves. As a result the feast was Gargantuan
in its rough plenty. The abundance was what was to be expected of a
generous people. More food, to be sure, was spoiled than was eaten, and
the revelry was a bit unseemly; but it was a fine spree in the name of
the people, and the invitations had been written years before by Henry
Clay. But unfortunately what was intended to be jovially democratic was
marred by displays of plebeian temper. Suspicious commoners with better
eyes than manners discovered the favoritism of the waiters and drew
attention to the difference between their own meager helpings and the
heaped-up plates of more favored guests. It appeared indeed that there
was gross discrimination in the service; that the farmers’ pickings
from the Homestead Act were scanty in comparison with the speculators’
pickings from the railway land-grants. The _Crédit Mobilier_ scandal
and the Whisky Ring scandal and divers other scandals came near to
breaking up the feast, and the genial host--who was no other than the
hero of Appomattox--came in for some sharp criticism. But after the
more careless ones who were caught with their fingers where they didn’t
belong, had been thrust from the table, the eating and drinking went
on again till only the great carcasses were left. Then at last came
the reckoning. When the bill was sent in to the American people the
farmers discovered that they had been put off with the giblets while
the capitalists were consuming the turkey. They learned that they were
no match at a barbecue for more voracious guests, and as they went home
unsatisfied, a sullen anger burned in their hearts that was to express
itself later in fierce agrarian revolts.
What reason there was for such anger, how differently rich and poor