Status Updates From War on the American Republi...

A new movement was afoot that was liberal, and spoke the language of ethnic diversity, class warfare, and internationalism.

"Bureaucrats, like headless nails, once pounded in were impossible to extract." Many became corporate shills instead of public servants. By the 1920s, progressivism was dead as a political party and movement. The greatest casualty was republican government and the rule of law. Culturally, expert oversight made people dependent, uncertain of themselves, and less responsible.

Ch 2 on Progressivism concludes with Laying a Wreath on Uplift. Many believed WWI had been for corporate interests. In 1920 Americans voted for Harding's "return to normalcy" and a business-friendly era. The war resulted in a new cynicism of progressivism's bureaucracy, which became a different sort of political spoils system for an educated elite who became entrenched.

Three Progressive Presidents are described next in Ch 2: Roosevelt, Taft & Wilson. Examples are used to show how businesses were subject to increased administrative rules & regulations. A central income tax and central bank were established, further asserting the polity over the economy. Examples from the FTC, ICC and WWI are included. Federal spending increased tenfold and bureaucrats doubled from 1916 to 1918.

At the state level, expert professors from universities were tapped to endorse progressive policies and make rules, in exchange for prestige and high salaries.

A science of administration arose, that implemented rules by experts. The old separation of powers was rejected. The legislative policy-determining function was combined with the executive policy-executing power. This first rolled out in the early 1900s, eventually across 400 cities nationwide.

Ch 2 continues with The New Political Science. Progressives rejected the older republican citizenship based on natural law & rights. The state became the source of individual liberty; other sources were deemed "dangerous and ahistorical". A new positive conception of liberty by government provided for each individual's physical and mental cultivation (far beyond mere protection of life, liberty & property).

Due process rights and liberty suffered as deference was yielded to experts.

births, vaccinations, diet, clothing, housing, marriages & (inter-)breeding (eugenics), sexual acts, diseases, medical care and deaths. "The family was no longer ... viewed as a contract or a private entity within domains of kin, neighborhood, and church, but as part of a web of social institutions with evolving standards directed by a growing body of experts."

Slack continued Ch 2 describing the new conception of health and the family. Activities of bare life were shaped and ruled by experts because their vocation and training made them value-free and public spirited, and progressives did not think citizens should control their own health decisions. Department of health bureaucrats & medical officials registered or regulated womb, to tomb...

Ch 2 continues Slack's description of Progressivism with The Collapse of Faith. A new ascetic and politics emerged amid disaffection with trusts and tycoons, deplorable working conditions, inner city and immigrant tenement squalor, and democracy as vote calculations and patronage by party hacks. Society and evolution could be controlled by social science and education, and ministering and uplifting the collective.

Oops! My apologies: progress updates and notes for Chapter 1 were incorrectly labeled as Chapter 2. I will correct that when posting them again with a final book review.

...3 factors: progressive social science rise and Anglo-Protestant crusaders; the tide of economic immigrants with no notion of republican government, civics & values; economic inequality while the majority tried to control the trusts above and immigrants below. SCOTUS in 1898 captured the dilemma: deciding railroads' title to the fair market value of property being used for the convenience of the public & consumers

Finally in Ch 2, Slack identifies 5 challenges to republicanism and 3 factors foreshadowing change, both giving rise to progressivism. Challenges: party corruption and patronage & the spoils system; large corporations and trusts & monopolies and unsafe labor conditions; sanitation and health esp in large cities; balancing policing of crime & punishment while protecting due process rights to life, liberty and property

750,000 deaths in a Civil War and amendments 13-15 finally settled slavery and citizenship of free and enslaved blacks per Slack in Ch 2. Plessy v Ferguson (SCOTUS 1896) was the consensus: equal accommodations and freedom to travel, which could be denied by private companies and sanctioned segregation. Federal suits & courts established essential privileges while States established most civil rights.

Ch 2 continues with The Citizenry since a republic "requires clarity about who is a citizen and who else may be admitted". The early consensus was that Americans should be European, Protestant, and industrious. Rights of others (and incentives like homesteading) were established by state law, which varied. The main difference of interests during the Constitutional Convention was slavery; none viewed it positively.

Ch 2 continues by summarizing civil society and private associations in the formative republic. Mandates and coercion were very low, and persuasion and free association high. A free people were encouraged to believe in a monotheistic God. Each family, private association, district, town, county and state government and corporation was voluntary and regulated by law. Many examples from various domains are given.

Ch 2 describes the traditions & values of family and moral virtue critical to maintaining the nascent free republic and its choices. Political rule and self-governance require education in the noble & ignoble, honorable & shameful. As well as in classics & sciences since gov't admin constantly threatens tyranny, and citizens must know when their rights are violated. Marriage was secured by civil law esp. contracts.

Ch 2 frames the republican form of government that emerged through 19th century issues such as conferring statehood on new territories, raising an army for defense during the War of 1812, the question of national character and citizenship in the face of immigration, suffrage, property protections, and the social compact of the governed, and economic policy in international trade, tariffs and domestic industry.

Ch 2 describes the state and form of republican citizenship from the late 16th century thru the late 19th in America. The Revolution was born out of a 100-year dispute over rights and legal protections afforded colonists outside the realm of England. Sovereignty was formed in the people, and with their natural rights imbued by God. Early state constitutions experimented with structures to secure those.

... Intro. continued... Method: seven chapters each describing an era of political thought & order including each's view of the good life, handling of crises, and the era's changes in peoples' mores and institutions.

In the Intro., Slack elaborates on his purpose and method, framing each in historical events. Purpose: a brief genealogy of American political thought from Americanism aka republicanism to progressivism to liberalism to kleptocratic despotism. Then a defense of republicanism by describing a New Right that's forming. Method: ...

In the Forword, Slack describes many issues facing our Republic and frames the author's purposes: a new kind of history that divides the regime into eras and connects each to changes in institutions and mores. It's also a critical history of the New Right. Lastly it explores the oligarchic and caesarist titans that devour humanity as republics devolve when citizen virtue, self-governance & institutions dissappear.

The Forword describes the many issues facing our Republic. It frames the author's purposes: a new kind of history that divides the regime into eras and connects each to changes in institutions and mores. It's also a critical history of the New Right. Lastly it explores the oligarchic and caesarist titans that devour humanity as republics devolve when citizen virtue, self-governance & institutions are gone.