Roosevelt’s Manic Start: The Chaos of the New Deal

The election of 1932 was an expression of desperate hope. Poverty and unemployment were at high levels and threatened to go even higher. The campaigns of Hoover and Roosevelt were based more on sentiment than specific policy proposals.

Roosevelt projected hope and optimism. One of the few specific actions he presented to voters was that he would support the repeal of the eighteenth amendment. Procedurally, however, the amendment was repealed by the individual states. Roosevelt’s presidential appeal on the topic was at best symbolic, but also utterly ineffectual and irrelevant.

The Democrats had lost the 1928 presidential election. They thought that one reason for the loss was that their candidate, Al Smith, was a Roman Catholic. So in 1932, they nominated Roosevelt, a Protestant. There was, in fact, some anti-Catholic sentiment in the nation at that time; it is difficult to determine, however, whether that sentiment played a major role in the out come of the 1928 election.

Voter sentiment was against Hoover, rightly or wrongly blaming him for the Great Depression.

In the end, Roosevelt won by a landslide.

The nation was eager to see what Roosevelt would do when he took office. Because the campaign had been vague on details, the public wasn’t sure which actions he would take. He’d promised to take measures dramatically and swiftly, as historian Amity Shlaes writes:

By the time of his inauguration back on March 4, everyone knew that Roosevelt would experiment with the economy. But no one knew to what extent. Now, in his first year in office, Roosevelt was showing them. He would present it all in what came to be known as the Hundred Days, that first frenzied period of legislative activity.

Roosevelt’s actions were quick and significant, but not necessarily consistent or planned. His approach was one of experimentation. He simply wanted to what would work.

Two major obstacles confronted FDR. First, the stakes were high to simply experiment: people’s livelihoods were at risk. Second, so many variables were changed and changing that discerning cause and effect was difficult or impossible.

Several of FDR’s goals were in tension with each other: He hoped to raise prices, to increase income for both companies and workers. Yet an increase in price could lead to weaker demand, reducing sales and subsequently income.

The president and the nation were, however, impatient and not willing to conduct careful analysis. They simply wanted to see action, and they hoped that action would bring improvement, even if the action was random, as Amity Shlaes explains:

The main tasks Roosevelt assigned himself were simple. The first was that there be a broad sweep of activity; Americans must know Washington was doing something. If there were contradictions between experiments and within them, well, that did not matter.

So it was, then, that measures were taken to reduce agricultural output, even as food shortages shaped the market. No serious thought was given to the decreased income to farmers.

Likewise, the New Deal would inevitably lead to increased taxation and increased national debt, sooner or later, and those phenomena would similarly slow the economy.

The New Deal, which ultimately failed to offer significant help — economic variables hadn’t improved by 1937 — was the result of sentiment rather than analysis: a chaotic flurry of activity.

Turning the Corner: How and When Slavery Began to End in the Americas

Students who know even a small amount about United States History, or American History, are aware that slavery existed. That’s not new knowledge.

What is less well known is that slavery existed in the Americas — North America, Central America, and South America — not for centuries, but for millennia: not for hundreds of years, but for thousands of years. Slavery was ubiquitous in the Americas.

This means that slavery cannot be treated merely as “a tangential part of the country’s history,” in the words of journalist Joe Heim, or as “an unfortunate blemish.” Slavery was an essential and pervasive feature of pre-Columbian cultures.

It is well documented that civilizations like the Inca, the Aztec, and the Maya were based on slavery. It is less well understood that slavery permeated the areas which are now Canada and the United States.

Given that slavery was everywhere established as a foundation of pre-Columbian societies in the Americas, the questions can be posed: How did slavery end? When did anti-slavery and abolitionist sentiments appear in the Americas?

The first permanent and enduring settlement in what would become the original thirteen states of the United States was, of course, Jamestown in Virginia, founded in 1607. Within a few years, the anti-slavery view had become so prevelant that slavery was outlawed in Rhode Island in 1652, creating for the first time in history a defined territory in the Americas in which slavery was illegal.

After hundreds and thousands of years, for the first time ever, there was a place in the Americas in which slavery was now longer perceived by society as the natural default circumstance. The inhumane institution of chattel slavery, kept in place for millennia, finally began to crumble after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the ensuing settlements in North America.

Although the first radical break with slavery began in the early 1600s, it would last many years until the last traces of it were erased from the hemisphere. The eradication of slavery proceeded in steps. First, the majority of the population in the majority of the United States got rid of slavery. But a few states clung fiercely to slavery: the result was the bloodiest military conflict in U.S. history.

Because of the magnitude of the U.S. Civil War, and the fact that the war was caused largely by slavery, Joe Heim notes that people sometimes think of slavery “primarily as a factor in the Civil War.” But slavery is much more than the major cause of this war.

Slavery is a defining characteristic of pre-Columbian indigenous civilizations in the Americas. It was omnipresent in the Western Hemisphere until settlements of Europeans established themselves on the continents.

Sadly, some of the European were enchanted by the ways of the indigenous Native Americans and adopted the practice of slavery. Ultimately, slavery had to be purged not only out of the indigenous societies, but also out of some of the Anglo-European settlers.

The institution of slavery was so persistent that it took several centuries of European presence to finally eradicate chattel slavery.

African-American Leaders during the Great Depression: The Government Is Incapable, so Citizens Take Action

During the Great Depression, the ingenuity of ordinary citizens was fueled by their challenging circumstances. The overworked phrases of “thinking outside the box” and “necessity being the mother of invention” are correctly applied to this phenomenon.

Given the government's inability to make meaningful inroads against economic hardships — in 1937, things were as bad, or worse, than they were in 1932, despite five years of FDR’s “New Deal” — everyday people had to find ways to survive.

Beyond merely surviving, they found ways to uplift and encourage their communities: ways to develop and strengthen a sense of neighborliness. As examples, historian Amity Shlaes offers two African-American leaders who understood that when the government is unable to help, common citizens could step up and achieve great things:

Even the poorest communities, including the blacks, found their own response to joblessness and hunger. In Washington, Solomon Elder Lightfoot Michaux, a radio preacher, reached millions with his “Happy Am I” aphorisms. Michaux fed the hungry and maintained apartment houses for those evicted. Another figure in the black community to respond was Father Divine on Long Island. He began to expand the Sunday banquets served at his Sayville residence. What stood out about Father Divine’s meals was that they were the opposite of apples on the corner or soup kitchen food. Father Divine’s meals were luxurious. The coffee percolated; the roasts - chickens, ducks - were plentiful; the vegetables were splendid. “We charge nothing,” Father Divine ordained. “Anyone, man, woman, or child, regardless of race, color or creed can come here naked and we will clothe them, hungry and will will feed them.”

After the Great Depression and after WW2, Lightfoot Solomon Michaux went on to host his own television show starting in 1947. (In 1948 the show went from a regional broadcast to a national one.) It is significant that an African-American was hosting a TV program at this early date in the development of regular commercial broadcasting. Elder Michaux was born in Virginia in 1885.

Father Divine is often alleged to be the source of the phrase “you’ve got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative,” which was later made into a popular song. Father Divine remains a mysterious figure: his exact birth date, birth place, and original legal name remain unclear.

The lesson from Elder Michaux and Father Divine is this: The people can’t wait for the government to fix problems, because it usually doesn’t or can’t. The people can work together, and work around the government, to make life better for their communities.

American Women Advance in the 19th Century: The 1800s as an Era of Growth for Women’s Rights in the United States

During the 1800s, the legal and social status of women in the United States improved significantly. Historians can document this development in a number of specific instances.

Women in the U.S. began voting in 1869. The first state to enact women’s suffrage was Wyoming, quickly followed by other states. By the end of the century, the majority of women in the country had a legislative guarantee for their right to vote.

Likewise, women began serving on juries during the 1800s. They served on an equal basis with men. In this development, too, Wyoming was the first state to promote the practice of having men and women serve equally on juries. After Wyoming began this custom in 1870, several other states followed suit.

By 1864, it was established legal precedent for women to testify in court: a woman’s statement was admitted into evidence on the same basis as a man’s statement. It is difficult to determine exactly when the practice began, but in 1864, Senator James Harlan, a lawyer himself, cited the practice in the Congressional Globe as well-established. (The Globe is the predecessor to the Congressional Record).

Women were elected to public office during the 1800s. Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887. Julia Addington was elected as a county superintendent of schools in Iowa in 1869. Annie White Baxter was elected as a county clerk in Missouri in 1890. In 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon was elected a state senator in Utah.

Many more examples can be named: In 1894, Colorado elected three women to its legislature — Clara Cressingham, Carrie Holly, and Francis Klock.

Lauren Eisenhuth was elected in 1892 to be the state superintendent of public instruction in North Dakota. In 1898, Permeal French was elected to be the superintendent of public instruction in Idaho.

This trend — women becoming empowered in electoral politics and empowered in the legal justice system — began in the western states, perhaps because men and women often worked as a team, creating homesteads out of undeveloped land. This trend also took root where most voters identified with the Republican Party: the Republicans, having succeeded in their primary goal of abolishing slavery, turned to women’s rights as their next major task.

By contrast, the Democratic Party, having lost the U.S. Civil War, still felt the sting of defeat, and was not energized to pursue any major political initiatives.

The list of women elected to public office in the 1800s is much longer than can be presented here.

By 1888, the mayor and all the members of the city council in Oskaloosa, Kansas, were women. In 1887, all the members of the city council in Syracuse, Kansas, were women.

Women made great advances in higher education during the nineteenth century. In 1836, women began studying at Wesleyan College; in 1837 at Oberlin College. In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from medical school at Geneva Medical College in New York, earning her M.D.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler earned her M.D. in Boston in 1864.

In 1858, Sarah Jane Woodson Early became a professor at Wilberforce College.

By 1899, it was common for women to be enrolled at universities and colleges across America.

Armed with professional degrees, women made their way into various careers. In 1869, Arabella Mansfield became the first woman admitted to the bar and granted a law license in the United States. By 1879, women who were lawyers were arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1870, Ada Kepley became the first woman to be a judge in the United States.

By the end of the century, women were regularly graduating from law school and practicing as attorneys across the United States.

The long list of other developments during the 1800s in the United States includes: Women were recognized as having full legal agency to negotiate, conclude, and sign contracts; to own and inherit property; and to keep or invest their earnings.

Although it was not until 1916 that Jeanette Rankin was elected as the first woman to serve in the United States Congress, her election was the result of the advancements made during the preceding century.

The nineteenth amendment, ratified in August 1920, guaranteed women’s right to vote, but it was by that point in time a merely symbolic act. It wasn’t needed because women had already been voting for half a century.

A Painful Struggle: America Works to Defeat Slavery

The development of the United States is one of continuously expanding freedom. From times before the nation’s beginning in 1776, the America made progress along various lines in the direction of increasing liberty.

The gravest and greatest of these steps was, of course, the elimination of slavery. The majority of Americans resisted slavery: the first slaves were imported into Brazil and other South American regions in 1510, but North America was able to hold out against slavery for more than another century.

Prior to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation, the majority of the residents in the majority of the thirteen colonies opposed slavery. Led by Roger Wiliams, Rhode Island made slavery illegal in 1652. Samuel Sewall published abolitionist writings in Massachusetts as early as 1700.

In all thirteen colonies, energetic abolitionist movements were at work prior to 1776.

Once the nation was established as independent from Britain, is was clear that the “Founders wanted to abolish slavery,” as Ben Shapiro writes:

From its founding, the United States attempted to come to grips with slavery and phase it out. The state of Vermont was the first sovereign state to abolish slavery, in 1777.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that King George III “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither.” Rebellion against England’s king was a step toward ending slavery.

Although slavery vanished from most of the original thirteen states, and from those later added to the union, it stubbornly resisted American efforts to eradicate it from some of the states, particularly those which had integrated it into agricultural economies of tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane.

Continuing the struggle against slavery, the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, including the famous and controversial “three-fifths clause.” This phrase was introduced as an anti-slavery tactic: It both created a congnitive dissonance by its disconcerting logic, and denied power to a bloc of pro-slavery states. Ben Shapiro explains:

The Constitution of the United States is frequently seen as enshrining slavery, but the so-called three-fifths clause was an attempt to do the opposite. The whole question of popular apportionment rested on whether to count slaves as full people for purposes of representation. To do so would have put the slaveholding south at a significant advantage: they would have counted slaves in their population, not allowed them to vote, then used their increased representation in order to re-enshrine slavery. As James Madison noted, the delegates from South Carolina fought for blacks to be counted as whole people so as to include them “in the rule of representation, equally with the Whites.” The three-fifths compromise was designed to curb the South’s expansionist tendencies with regard to slavery by preventing them from stacking the electoral deck. The Constitution also allowed slave importation to continue until 1808 — but Congress moved in 1807 to end it there.

By 1807, then, the U.S. was ahead of schedule in its efforts to end slavery. A small but entrenched group of leaders continued to support slavery.

The final end of slavery was possible because the nation’s economy was based, not on slavery, but on free enterprise. Not only was the industrial part of the country not dependent on slavery, but rather it actively opposed slavery.

Yet abolitionism was not confined to any one part of the United States. Before and during the war, significant abolitionist movements existed in all states. The South was not a united monolithic pro-slavery bloc.

For at least these two reasons, then, a massive amount of energy was poured into the war to end slavery: because the larger part of the economy did not rely on slavery, and because the larger part of society was opposed to slavery:

The United States fought a great and massive Civil War to free the slaves, in which over 620,000 Americans died, nearly half the total number of Americans to die in all wars combined. The economy of the United States was not built on slavery — in fact, the South’s economic power was dismal compared to that of the north, which is why the north was able to overcome the south during the Civil War.

Between 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and 1865, when the Civil War ended, America achieved its goal of ending slavery.

In South America, Brazil kept slavery long after the United States had ended it. Slavery was not abolished Brazil until 1888. Likewise, Cuba maintained slavery until 1886.

The movement to abolish slavery in the United States was part of a larger trend to expand freedom for all people. As soon as the Civil War was over, and slavery was gone, this movement went on to obtain another great goal. The abolitionist movement gave birth to the suffrage movement, with the goal of women voting. The same political party, the part of Lincoln, energized both movements. By 1869 — not 1920 as sometimes reported — women in the United States began voting regularly.

Throughout American history, the nation has worked to increase liberty, expanding suffrage to larger and larger segments of society, creating more economic opportunities, and allowing more and varied forms of expression.

The common thread which connects the points of U.S. history from the 1600s to the present is the persistent drive to expand freedom.

Some People Are Citizens, Others Are Residents: What’s the Difference?

Usually people are citizens of the country in which they live, but not always. A person can live in one country, and yet be a citizen of a different country.

A person could be an American citizen, but never have been in the United States at any point in her or his entire life. Another person might live in the U.S. for 20, 30, or 40 years, and yet not be a citizen.

A citizen has rights, privileges, duties, and obligations. Each of those words has specific meaning: Rights belong to citizens, and citizens can legally claim their rights; rights cannot be legally denied to citizens. Privileges are given to citizens, but can be taken away legally. A duty is something that you should do, but which nobody will force you to do. An obligation is some that you’re required to do, and somebody will force you to do it.

This can be made clear with examples: Freedom of the press is a right; people can print whatever they want on a piece of paper. To drive 70 miles per hour is a privilege; the government could change the speed limit to 60 miles per hour and people would have no recourse. To vote is a duty; citizens should do it, but they are not forced to do it. To pay taxes is an obligation; if people try to avoid doing it, they will be forced to do it.

Non-citizen residents do not have as many rights and privileges as citizens. Victor Davis Hansen writes:

A resident of America should be easily distinguished from a citizen by the etymologies of the respective two nouns. “Resident” derives from the Latin residere, “to sit down or settle.” It denotes the concrete fact of living in a particular place. In contrast, “citizen” entails a quality, a privilege of enjoying particular rights predicated on responsibilities — and not necessarily on location at any given time.

If a citizen of the United States happens to be in Norway on the day of a Norwegian election, the U.S. citizen does not get to vote in Norway, even though he’s there in that country, because he’s not a citizen of Norway.

Likewise, if a citizen of Norway happens to be in the United States on the day of a U.S. election, the Norwegian does not get to vote in the U.S., even though he’s right there on election day, because he’s not a citizen of the U.S.

Citizenship is not about a person’s race or religion; it’s not about a person’s gender or age. It’s about a piece of paper; it’s about the government under which you are. There are approximately 195 countries in the world. Every human being is a citizen of one of them.

Are there exceptions? Yes. A small number of people have dual citizenship, or multiple citizenships. But the governments involved place pressure on them to select one citizenship to the exclusion of others, once they reach the age of adulthood, sometime between age 18 and age 25, depending on the country. There is also a very small number of people who have no citizenship; they are usually considered criminals. Victor Davis Hanson explains:

An American resident can be a citizen or subject of any foreign nation who just happens to be living within the boundaries of the United States. US citizens, however, are entitled to constitutional protections wherever they go — to the extent possible given the constraints of their hosts. Most specifically, citizenship ensures the right to a US passport and, with it, leave and return to America whenever one wishes.

Having a citizenship doesn’t determine who you are, what you believe, or which political opinions you have. Simply because a person is a citizen of Germany or Switzerland, or of Poland or Czechia, doesn’t mean that she or he will love or hate certain people, or vote a certain way. It merely means that they are registered with a certain government.

The American Identity: A Nation Built on the Idea of Freedom

In the first few decades of the twenty-first century, the word ‘identity’ has gained a new, larger, and different role in society and in politics. This trend started already at the end of the twentieth century. Therefore it might be, in the context of American History, well and fitting to ask about “the nation’s enduring identity” in the words of Ben Shapiro.

What is it that lies at the core of the identity of the United States? Part of the answer lies in the fact that it is founded on ideas. Most, or even all, previous nation-states were founded on the concept of a dynasty: that the right to rule was the property of a family — one particular family, the royal family — and that like other property, could be handed down through inheritance. The United States is different: It is a nation based on ideas.

In other words, there is a choice in history: either a nation-state is founded on the exclusive hereditary rights of a dynastic family to rule, or it is founded on concepts.

In the case of the United States, the ideas on which the nation is founded include: liberty, freedom, equality, and the rule of law.

Liberty and freedom are slightly different, but those minutiae can be left to philosophers instead of historians. The “rule of law” is worth understanding: This concept speaks about the uniform, neutral, and equal application of laws to any citizen in a nation. The speed limit on a local road, e.g., is the same, even if the driver happens to be a congressman or a senator, even if the driver happens to be wealthy or influential. Anyone caught driving faster than the speed limit is liable to get a ticket and liable to have to pay the fine.

The United States is founded on these ideas, but it has not always implemented them perfectly. American history is a series of steps toward ever-increasing levels of freedom; that path has not always been smooth or direct.

From its earliest beginnings, the United States worked to eliminate slavery. When, e.g., Samuel Sewall published an abolitionist book in 1700, he was already preceded by a 1652 law, passed by the Rhode Island legislature, which outlawed slavery there. The law, encouraged by Roger Williams, was unevenly enforced, but nonetheless manifests the will of the people of Rhode Island.

This same Roger Williams found his motives for opposing slavery to be united with his motives for nudging America away from British rule, revealing the American spirit to be, from its very beginnings, an abolitionist spirit. A majority of the residents of the thirteen colonies opposed slavery.

Despite a strong abolitionist sentiment, it took considerable time to finally abolish slavery. It was not until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War — i.e., until some point in time between 1863 and 1865 — that slavery in the United States was finally ended.

Which leaves us with a painful and perplexing question: Why, then, did slavery persist in other nations around the world? Why did slavery persist in Cuba until 1886 and in Brazil until 1888? In Madagascar until 1896 and in Egypt until 1904? In Thailand until 1905 and in China until 1909?

The answer, in part, lies in the foundation of the United States on the idea of freedom. Other nations were founded one one group — one family — claiming the right to exercise power over everyone else in the nation.

People in various nations around the world looked at the United States and hoped to copy the American pattern — they hoped to gain the same freedoms and rights for themselves in their various nations. As historian Ben Shapiro writes:

European colonists arrived in America in order to establish a country founded on principles of liberty and religious toleration. America is guilty of many sins in its past — but the principles enshrined in the Constitution are eternal and good. The Constitution’s central natural law principles laid forth the notions of individual liberty and rights to one’s own labor — and over time, those rights would be perfected in the United States, not through centralized government, but through good people struggling to bring about change through blood and sacrifice and persuasion.

In the United States, not only was slavery ended, but the right to own property and the right to vote was extended to citizens of all races; in the world today, there are other nations which allow only some people to vote, and not others. In the United States, a person of any race can be a citizen; in other nations, only people of certain races can be citizens.

In the U.S., women as well as men can vote; in other nations in the world today, women are deprived of full suffrage and not allowed to vote as men vote.

In the U.S., a citizen’s vote is counted as equal to the vote of any other citizen, regardless of wealth. In other nations today, only the wealthy are allowed to vote.

In the words of Ben Shapiro, there is a collection of ideas which constitute “the system upon which our freedoms and prosperity is based.” In addition to the ideas mentioned above, there are ideas like popular sovereignty — the idea that the legitimacy of the government is found in the consent of the governed; a government is valid only if those who are governed by it give their consent to be so governed.

Another foundational principle in the United States is the idea of majority rule. Because the U.S. allows citizens to vote equally, regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth, it is the majority of ordinary people who can decide major questions of government.

Around the world, the U.S. has served as an example of a nation-state governed by freely-elected representatives. Political revolutionaries and political reformers in other countries have studied the U.S. carefully, and worked to replicate its success. “The truth is, America, while certainly not perfect, has long been a beacon of hope,” as Ben Shapiro notes. “America’s founding principles and documents have allowed it to become a model of freedom and democracy for the world.”

Even those nations which are harshly critical of the United States, even those which firmly oppose the United States, still copy the principles which were first articulated and put into action during the American Revolution of 1776.