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Party Ideology in America: The National Republican Chapter, 1828–1924*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

John Gerring
John Gerring
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Extract

Conventional wisdom states that where ideas and values have mattered in American political life they have usually been the product of a single, overarching political culture. The United States, it is argued, has had political conflict but not ideological conflict. Perhaps nowhere is this premise more noticeable than in the study of political parties. According to Du-verger, “[T]he two parties are rival teams, one occupying office, the other seeking to dislodge it. It is a struggle between the ins and the outs, which never becomes fanatical, and creates no deep cleavage in the country.” Everett Carll Ladd writes, “[T]he need to seek support within an overarching ideological consensus, has historically imposed certain characteristics on the major American parties – social group inclusiveness, accommodationism, a ‘non-ideological’ stance vis-a-vis their principal opponents (which, after all, accept the same ideology).”

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Studies in American Political Development , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Spring 1997 , pp. 44 - 108
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1. Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (New York: Wiley, 1951/1959), 418Google Scholar.

2. Ladd, Everett Carll, “Like Waiting for Godot: The Uselessness of ‘Realignment’ for Understanding Change in Contemporary American Politics,” in Is America Different?, ed. Shafer, Byron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 30Google Scholar.

3. Quoted in Sundquist, James L., Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1983), 326Google Scholar. See also Brady, David W., Critical Elections and Congressional Policy Making (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

4. It would be impossible to comprehensively account for all references to the “non-programmatic” or “consensual” nature of American party politics. The following compendium is intended simply to demonstrate the strength and persistence of this view, which extends in some primitive form from the early nineteenth century to the present day: de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, vols. 1, 2, ed.Reeves, Henry (New York: Vintage, 1960)Google Scholar; Wilson, Woodrow, Congressional Government (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1885/1956)Google ScholarPubMed; Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth (New York: Macmillan, 1890)Google Scholar; Merriam, Charles E., The American Party System (New York: Macmillan, 1922)Google Scholar; Holcombe, Arthur N., The Political Parties of To-day (New York: Harper & Bros., 1924), 122, 384Google Scholar; Sait, Edward McChesney, American Parties and Elections (New York: Century, 1927)Google Scholar; Herring, Pendleton, The Politics of Democracy: American Parties in Action (New York: W.W. Norton, 1940/1965)Google Scholar; Schattschneider, E.E., Party Government (New York: Rinehart, 1942)Google Scholar; Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1955)Google Scholar; Hofstadter, Richard, “Political Parties,” in The Comparative Approach to American History, ed. Woodward, C. Vann (New York: Basic Books, 1968)Google Scholar; Lowi, Theodore, “Party, Policy, and Constitution in America,” in The American Party Systems, 2d ed., ed. Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 238–76Google Scholar; Foner, Eric, “Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?,” History Workshop 17 (Spring 1984), 57–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Silbey, Joel H., The American Political Nation, 1838–1893 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Pomper, Gerald, Passioins and Interests: Political Party Concepts of American Democracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992)Google Scholar.

To be sure, not everyone agrees. I have already noted the reservations of realignment theorists. Some historians would also probably demur; but here it would seem that the demurral consists of noting a period in which party conflict was, for a change, ideological. Studies of party delegates in the contemporary era also generally conclude, on an apparent note of “conflict,” that the delegates for each party hold stronger and more extreme views on most subjects than the voters they are chosen to represent. See, e.g., McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review 58 (06 1964), 361–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, Hoffmann, Paul J., and O'Hara, Rosemary, “Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Party Leaders and Followers,” American Political Science Review (06 1960)Google Scholar. These exceptions noted, it seems fair to conclude that the significance of ideology in American party politics has usually been minimized.

5. For a listing of texts, as well as a more extensive methodological discussion, see John Gerring, American Party Ideologies, 1828–1992 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

6. Since the primary focus of foreign policymaking has generally been the presidency, and since foreign policy has usually been considered to be a primary element of the American political tradition, such an exclusion might appear to severely limit the relevance of this study. Several countervailing points need to be kept in mind. Foreign policy has rarely played a significant role in American electoral politics, the evidentiary basis of this study. Foreign policy issues have entered debate at infrequent intervals – generally under conditions of open or imminent military conflict – after which politics has resumed its normal pace and usual domestic preoccupations. Usually, there have been strong partisan and ideological components to such debates. However, party views on foreign policy did not line up neatly with the historical development of party views on domestic policy matters; which is to say, foreign policy ideologies changed at different times and (often) for different reasons than domestic policy ideologies. For reasons of inconsequence and lack of fit, therefore, foreign policy provides a somewhat misleading guide to the public political identities of the American parties, and is best analyzed separately.

7. This thesis draws upon ideas broached by several generations of historians and political scientists, to whom I am greatly indebted. References to these writers' works are found throughout the following pages. However, the breadth of the thesis prohibits the offering of a standard “literature review” contrasting mv argument with the arguments of others. There are simply too many arguments to review in any comprehensible way, for each differs in different ways with the arguments made herein.

8. Junius Tracts, ed. Colton, Calvin (New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1844), 103–6Google Scholar. The revered voice of Daniel Webster claimed, “Labor is one of the great elements of the prosperity of our country – not menial servile, or slave Labor, but manly, independent and intelligent Labor – that which accumulates property, maintains workships, and helps to sustain the great Fabric of Government” (speech, 10/24/1848, in New York Tribune, 10/26/1848). In that same election William Seward, the great Whig (and later Republican) leader from New York, stated, “There are two antagonistical elements of society in America – Freedom and Slavery…. Freedom insists on the emancipation and elevation of Labor. Slavery on its debasement and bondage” (speech, 10/26/1848, in New York Tribune, 11/1/1848). The same logic that contrasted the free North with the enslaved South was extended to explain the essential difference between economic relationships in the New World and the Old. “In our case, the value of capital and the price of labor are not forced and fictitious, but they are the prerogative of freedom. In the case of Europe, the laborers are not a party in arranging the price of their task. They have no choice. It is forced” (Junius Tracts, 46).

9. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 10/6/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, ed. Hedges, Charles (New York: United States Book Company, 1892), 169Google Scholar.

10. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/1 /1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic: Speeches and Addresses by Calvin Coolidge (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926), 75–76Google Scholar.

11. In any case, the success of labor organization was tied to the success of a protectionist trade policy. “The power of your labor organizations to secure increased wages is greatest,” claimed Harrison, “when there is a large demand for the product you are making at fair prices” (speech, 9/27/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 150).

12. “The Republican party,” explained the 1884 party platform, “having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and a desire that all men may be truly free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad” (1884 platform, in National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, ed. Johnson, Donald Bruce [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958], 73)Google Scholar. The specific reference here is to the “importation of contract labor,” namely, the Chinese.

13. Blaine, James G., speech, 7/15/1884, in History of U. S. Political Parties, vol. 2, ed. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, (New York: Chelsea House, 1973), 1464Google Scholar.

14. Benjamin Harrison, speech, 9/19/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 133. See also the 1888 party platform in Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 82; Huston, James L., “A Political Response to Industrialism: The Republican Embrace of Protectionist Labor Doctrines,” Journal of American History 70 (06 1983), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Foner, Eric, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (London: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar. Foner fails to note, however, that the free-labor doctrine characterized Whig and Republican ideology before and after the Civil War epoch.

16. “[T]he law of life is work,” declared Theodore Roosevelt in the midst of McKinley's reelection bid, “and… work in itself, so far from being any hardship, is a great blessing…. The idler, rich or poor, is at best a useless, and generally a noxious, member of the community…. Woe to the man who seeks or trains up his children to seek idleness instead of the chance to do good work” (Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 09/3/1900, in New York Times, 9/4/1900)Google Scholar.

17. “Wants make work, and work makes profit,” read the popular Junius Tracts. “This is the advantage of civilization over the natural state. It multiples wants, sharpens invention, promotes industry, and thereby creates wealth” (Junius Tracts, 42). “The mandate of God to his creature man is, Work! Wherever labor is rising… we observe both the physical and moral healthfulness which it diffuses all around. It is good for man and woman to work, and neither can find the greatest comfort and happiness attainable in the human state, without employment…. [I]dleness is the curse of the human state, and diligent occupation, in a lawful and useful calling, the consummation of its blessedness” (Junius Tracts, 105).

18. Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 15.

19. McKinley, William, McKinley on Labor: The Public Utterances in Behalf of tlie Workingmen of the United States (Republican party election pamphlet, 1896), 2Google Scholar.

20. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 09/19/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 133Google Scholar.

21. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 09/15/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 123Google Scholar.

22. Huston, “A Political Response to Industrialism,” 54.

23. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 10/3/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 158Google Scholar.

24. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 10/4/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 161Google Scholar.

25. Campaign Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Executive Committee (Washington, D.C.: Union Republican Congressional Executive Committee, 1872), 3, 6. The same line cropped up repeatedly in Republican rhetoric. Garfield declared, “[I]t is our glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than his foreign competitor” (speech, 7/12/1880, in History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, ed. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, [New York: Chelsea House, 1971]Google Scholar, 1536). Coolidge, in the midst of 1920s prosperity, was moved to proclaim, “We have here in the United States not only the best paid workers in the world, but the best paid workers that ever lived in this world” (speech, 9/1 /1924, in Coolidge, Foundations oj the Rejmblic, 78).

26. Taft, for example, was popularly known as the “injunction judge,” for his rulings (while a federal court judge) upholding the right of contract. The preemptive judicial weapon of the injunction was perhaps the most significant obstacle to unionization in the early twentieth century.

27. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/30/1884, in Blaine, Political Discussions: Legislative, Diplomatic, and Popular, 1856–1886 (Norwich, Conn.: Henry Bill, 1887), 461Google Scholar.

28. Taft, William H., speech, 9/8/1908, in William H. Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks: Speeches Delivered between August, 1908, and February, 1909 (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1910), 53Google Scholar.

29. Taft, William H., speech, 1/10/1908, in Labor and Capital, Their Common Interest, Their Necessary Controversies, Their Lawful Acts, and the Legal Remedies for Their Abuses (campaign pamphlet, 1908), 2, 4, 7Google Scholar.

30. Junius Tracts, 103. For further examples, see the fifth national platform of the party, which declares, “… the Republican party recognizes the dutv of so shaping legislation as to secure full protection and the amplest field for capital, and for labor—the creator of capital—the largest opportunities and a just share of the mutual profits of these two great servants of civilization” (1872 party platform in Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956). For a later example, one might observe Harding's acceptance speech, in which he delcared, “… I want the employers in industry to understand the aspirations, the convictions, the yearnings of the millions of American wage-earners, and I want the wage-earners to understand the problems, the anxieties, the obligations of management and capital, and all of them must understand their relationship to the people and their obligation to the Republic” (speech, 7/22/1920, in Harding, Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, Republican Candidate for President, from His Acceptance of the Nomination to October 1, 1920 [Republican National Committee, 1920], 26).

31. 1872 Republican platform in Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 47.

32. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 10/6/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 167Google Scholar.

33. Taft, William H., speech, 08/29/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 46Google Scholar.

34. McKinley, William, speech, 09/5/1896, in New York Times, 9/6/1896Google Scholar.

35. Taft, William H., speech, 08/29/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 50Google Scholar. “No one pretends to deny the inequalities which are manifest in modern industrial life,” declared Harding, several decades later (speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 26).

36. While the concept of mercantilism has often been applied to the Whig party, it is rarely associated with the Republican party.

37. The foregoing definition is drawn from Appleby, Joyce, Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), chap. 1Google Scholar; Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 3–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCraw, Thomas K., “Mercantilism and the Market: Antecedents of American Industrial Policy,” in The Politics of Industrial Policy, ed. Barfield, Claude E. and Schambra, William A. (Washington, D. C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1986)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, “Ideas and Economic Development,” in Paths of American Thought, ed. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr and White, Morton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963)Google Scholar; and Viner, Jacob, “Mercantilist Thought,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 4, ed. Sills, David L. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 435–42Google Scholar. Although the mercantilist roots of American economic policy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been widely noted, the partisan nature of economic policy debates in that century are rarely acknowledged. See, e.g., Crowley, John E., The Privileges of Independence: Neomercantilism and the American Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; McCraw, “Mercantilism and the Market”; Schlesinger, “Ideas and Economic Development.” The mercantilist roots of National Republican economic policy can be seen at many points. The Junius Tracts emphasize, for example, the critical role of gold and silver reserves, and the balance of trade, in party calculations. “In the absence of a suitable Tariff, specie is withdrawn from the country” (Junius Tracts, 27). “[T]o enact such regulations for the government of our foreign trade, as will counteract and prevent this everlasting excess of imports over exports, and turn the tide of foreign commerce in our favor” (Junius Tracts, 39).

38. Junius Tracts, 19.

39. Clayton, John M., speech, 6/15/1844, in New York Tribune, 06/18/1844Google Scholar. “Private enterprise,” “private sector,” “free enterprise,” and various other terms implying a separation of governmental and economic spheres did not become common features of Republican rhetoric until the 1920s. When, in 1924, Coolidge declared “[t]hat tax is theoretically best which interferes least with business” and “that system is best which gives the individual the largest freedom of action, and the largest opportunity for honorable accomplishment,” this was a fundamentally new ideological tack (speech, 8/14/1924, in Coolidge, Calvin, Address of Acceptance, August 14, 1924 [Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924], 13, 15)Google Scholar.

40. Schlesinger, “Ideas and Economic Development,” 109.

41. Viner writes, “Mercantilism was a doctrine of extensive state regulation of economic activity in the interest of the national economy.… It accepted as axiomatic that if individuals were in their economic behavior left free from tight regulation, the consequences for the community would be disastrous” (“Mercantilist Thought,” 439).

42. Thus, Schlesinger continues, “Early corporations were set up by specific legislative enactment and, in the main, to provide social overhead for quasi-public purposes” (“Ideas and Economic Development,” 112).

43. Schlesinger, “Ideas and Economic Development,” 112.

44. McKinley, William, acceptance letter, 9/9/1900, in Boston Sunday Globe, 09/9/1900Google Scholar.

45. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 9/7/1900, in New York Times, 09/8/1900Google Scholar.

46. Taft, William H., speech, 09/8/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 41, 55Google Scholar.

47. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 10/11/1924, in New York Times, 10/12/1924Google Scholar.

48. Root, after noting Bryan's attacks against the growing influence of trusts, responded, “Yes, the great industrial enterprises which are opening the whole world to American markets [a list of exploits follows] have grown beyond precedence” (Root, Ehihu, speech, 10/24/1900, in New York Times, 10/25/1900)Google Scholar. Those few that were really “monopolies” should, of course, be suppressed, but “[m]ost of them have no element of monopoly whatever” (ibid.). A sense of Whig-Republicans enthusiasm for the marketplace, and for the productivity of aggregated capital, can be seen in the following passage from the Junius Tracts: “By vested capital is commonly understood money put to use for what is called interest or income. The most common forms of vested capital, are bonds, mortgages, negotiable notes, silent partnerships in business firms, stocks in banks, insurances offices, turnpike and railroads, canals,… and any undertaking that is beyond the ordinary means of individuals, and which requires the combined and aggregate capital of numerous persons having money to put to use…. [T]hey are well adapted to a democratic state of society, by bringing down the powers of government, distributing them among the people, and vesting them in the hands of all persons who can raise twenty, or fifty, or a hundred dollars…. There are many important objects indispensable to the interests of the country, which can not be accomplished, except by the power of associated capital” (Junius Tracts, 99, 102).

49. Dobson, John M., Politics in the Gilded Age: A New Perspective on Reform (New York: Praeger, 1972)Google Scholar; Nugent, Walter T. K., “Money, Politics, and Society: The Currency Question,” in The Gilded Age, rev. and enlarged ed., ed. Morgan, H. Wayne (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

50. Keller, Morton, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 193Google Scholar. For discussion of the tariff issue in other polities, see Rogowski, Ronald, Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

51. Viner, Jacob, “Power vs. Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” World Politics 1 (1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. Industrial policies applied not only to the economy at large, but also to particular industries, such as railroads and carrying ships, which were targeted – much as today's “industrial policy” advocates recommend – for special governmental support. See, e.g., Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 09/3/1892 in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1517Google Scholar; Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 07/31/1916, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2306Google Scholar.

53. Republican party platform, 1856, in Johnson, , National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 28Google Scholar.

54. Republican party platform, 1856, in Johnson, , National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 28Google Scholar. For examples of federal aid for railroad construction, see Keller, Morton, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the campaign trail in 1908, Taft courted a Virginia audience with the following partisan boast: “The Republican Party has improved the waterways, is building the Panama Canal,… has started the movement for the reclamation of swamp lands,… and is taking man) other steps that are for the development of the South” (speech, 8/21/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 11).

55. Quoted in Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 33.

56. Seward, William H., speech. 9/22/1848, in New York Tribune, 09/25/1848Google Scholar. To the common Democratic objection that industrial methods of production benefited the rich rather than the poor, the funius Tracts responded: “It is the labor of the country that is first and chiefly benefited by the investment of capital, or the setting up of business, that employs labor…. Investments in a large manufacturing establishment, existing in the shape of stocks, are not usually made so much for speculation, as for a reasonable and steady income…. To oppose manufactures, is therefore to oppose every man who depends on handy-craft for a livelihood -it is to oppose the march of civilization…. It has been said, that agriculture is our natural calling, and that our best national policy is to foster that chiefly. But what is agriculture good for, beyond the natural wants of the producer, without a market?… It is the multiplicity of industrial pursuits, that creates a market for the products of each” {Junius Tracts, 41–42). The marriage of capital and labor was achieved with the dowry provided by industrial production.

57. See Jones, Stanley L., The Presidential Election of 1896 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1964)Google Scholar; Nugent, “Money, Politics, and Society: The Currency Question.”

58. Junius Tracts, 18.

59. Of the American banking system, the Junius Tracts declared, “We had great resources, but wanted means to develope them, and thus to augment our wealth…. With the exuberance of our resources and enterprise, it [a national bank] affords the means of multiplying wealth in a manifold degree. Instead of one dollar to trade with, we have several, and they are all good, being convertible into specie on demand” (Junius Tracts, 21).

60. “Address of the National Republican Convention,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 561.

61. The government, declared Roscoe Conkling in 1880, “has the right to charter National banks, if it sees proper” (speech, 10/9/1880, in Republican Campaign Trad, no. 8 [Chicago: Illinois Republican State Central Committee, 1880], 2).

62. The following is based, in part, on Nugent, , “Money, Politics, and Society: The Currency Question,” and Unger, Irwon, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1964)Google Scholar, although I draw somewhat different conclusions about the long-term significance of the issue.

63. Webster, Daniel, speech, 8/19/1840, in A. B. Norton, The Great Revolution of 1840. Reminiscences of the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign (Mount Vernon: A. B. Norton & Co., 1888), 227Google Scholar. Along identical lines, the Junius Tracts advised that currency was “as blood to the animal economy. Disturb it, or vitiate it, or impair it, or tie up its veins, or overcharge it, or drain it,… or in any way treat it rudely and unskillfully, the effect is precisely the same on the health and wealth of the nation, as is produced by a like treatment of the vital current, functions, and organs of the human body” (Junius Tracts, 24).

64. The Republican platform in 1880 crowed its accomplishments in having achieved an entirely gold-backed currency; the Democratic platform offered, instead, to create a bimetallic currency, thus foreshadowing the issues of 1896. The reasons for this devotion to a monetary orthodoxy are not difficult to locate. While the Democratic party was riven by splits between the inflationist demands of the South and West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Republican party maintained a much greater share of its total vote from the Northeast, where creditors outnumbered debtors. It is true that western Republicans often voted with Democrats in Congress to support soft money alternatives (Nugent, “Money, Politics, and Society: The Currency Question,” 124); however, this obstreperous bunch were generally contained by the Republican stalwarts who controlled the party's congressional delegation and who controlled national conventions – assuring that the presidential party would always be “safe1” on currency and monetary questions. Monetary and currency lines became much more clearly drawn after 1896, when the Democrats committed themselves to an obviously inflationary set of policies for the first time.

65. Taft, William H., speech, 01/10/1908, in Taft, Labor and Capital, 5Google Scholar.

66. Seward, William H., speech, 9/22/1848, in New York Tribune, 09/25/1848Google Scholar.

67. Taft, William H., speech, 08/2/1912, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2204–5Google Scholar. This general picture of National Republican ambivalence with respect to social policy has been challenged in recent years by the rediscovery of an extensive program of soldiers' pensions set in place during Reconstruction and enduring through the first decades of the next century (Skocpol, c f. Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992)Google Scholar. How can we square this program with National Republican penury on other distributive policies? There were several unique features of the Civil War soliders' pension program that militate against considering it a program of “social welfare” and that explain Republican enthusiasm for the scheme. First, governmental pensions, despite their prodigious expense (at least by the standards of the late nineteenth century), imposed no direct cost on industry. The program was almost entirely funded by excise taxes (which, themselves, were conceived of as measures to enhance the growth of American industry). Second, soldiers' pensions were not redistributive. They were framed by Republican politicians throughout the period as rewards for services rendered to the nation and to the State. The “Grand Armv of the Republic,” which had reestablished the legitimacy and reach of the central state apparatus, was being recompensed for its sacrifices. National Republicans remained uniformly uninterested in the theme of equality – whether phrased as “equal opportunity” or “equal distribution.” It was only at the end of the 1920s that this latter goal entered Republican campaign discourse.

68. Taft, William H., speech, 08/2/1912, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2204–5Google Scholar.

69. Junius Tracts, 21.

70. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/27/1884, in Blaine, Political Discussions, 454Google Scholar.

71. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/18/1884, in Blaine, Political Discussions, 445Google Scholar.

72. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/1/1884, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1471Google Scholar.

73. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/1/1884, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1472Google Scholar.

74. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 09/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 111Google Scholar.

75. Roosevelt, Theodore, acceptance letter, 9/12/1904, in Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, April 7, 1904, to May 9, 1905, vol. 3 (New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1910), 72Google Scholar.

76. Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance latter, 09/3/1892, in Schlesinger, History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1524Google Scholar.

77. This was not the position of the Republican-dominated federal court system through most of this period, but such “strict constructionist” arguments are notable for their absence in the public rhetoric of parry leaders.

78. Lieber, Francis, speech, 04/11/1863, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1184Google Scholar.

79. Lieber, Francis, speech, 04/11/1863, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1183Google Scholar.

80. See, e.g., Arieli, Yehoushua, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81. McKinley, William, speech, 9/26/1896, in New York Times, 09/27/1896Google Scholar.

82. Occasionally the European term “State” entered Whig Republican discourse (Roosevelt, cf. Theodore, speech, 9/15/1900, in New York Times, 9/17/1900)Google Scholar, but the preferred term was “Government.”

83. Garfield, James A., speech, 06/16/1880, in Garfield, The Life and Work ofJamesA. Garfield, ed. Ridpath, John Clark (Cincinnati, Ohio: Jones Brothers & Company, [n. d.]), 449Google Scholar.

84. Harding, Warren G., speech, 1/10/1920, in Harding, Rededieating America: Life and Recent Speeches of Warren G. Harding, ed. Schortemeier, Frederick E. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1920), 107Google Scholar.

85. William H. Taft, speech, 8/21/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 4. Thus, in the face of continued foreign provocation on the eve of American entrv into World War One, Hughes stated, “American government has seemed to mean naught but impotence and unavailing words” (speech, 10/25/1916, in New York Times, 10/26/1916).

86. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 02/22/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 11Google Scholar.

87. See “High and Low Tariffs, and Their Effects” (1876), in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee (Washington, D.C.: Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1877), 1.

88. Clay, Henry, speech, 4/13/1844, in New York Tribune, 06/29/1844Google Scholar.

89. Webster, Daniel, speech, 5/5/1844, in New York Tribune, 05/6/1844Google Scholar.

90. The colored man, declared one campaign handbook, “owes every thing - liberty, security and enfranchisement to the Republican party” (Campaign Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Executive Committee, 5). Similarly, toward the Indians, “Kindness, consideration and justice” were to be shown to “the most benighted and unfortunate inhabitants of the Republic” (ibid., 6). The immigrant, too, would, “feel the protecting care of the government of the United States” (ibid., 7). And of the former rebels – “notwithstanding their persistent hostility and treasonable practices” – had been, “clothed, fed and protected” (ibid.,6). They should, the pamphlet counselled, “take hold of the National Government, and regard it as their best friend and protector” (ibid., 6).

91. Clay, Henry, speech, 6/4/1840, in Clay, The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 9 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 419Google Scholar. It is perhaps clear that Clay is not advocating debt-relief as a policy but simply asserting the government's right to intervene in such matters.

92. Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 9/3/1892, in Schlesinger, History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1529Google Scholar. “We believe in the law of service,” spoke Coolidge several decades thereafter, “which teaches us that we can improve ourselves only by helping others” (speech, 8/14/1924, in Coolidge, Address of Acceptance, 7).

93. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 9/3/1900, in New York Times, 09/4/1900Google Scholar.

94. Bryan, William Jennings, speech, 9/3/1900, in New York Times, 09/4/1900Google Scholar.

95. Of the vice presidential nominee in 1844 (Theodore Frelinghuysen), the Whig plat-form claimed, “[A]s a private man, his head, his hand, and his heart have been given without stint to the cause of morals, education, philanthropy, and religion” (1844 Whig platform in National Party Platforms, 1840—1956, ed. Donald Bruce Johnson [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958], 9). Of Grant, another party orator said, “Clothed with authority he has striven to protect the weak against the cruelties of the strong” (Henry Wilson, speech, 2/24/1872, in Campaign Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Executive Committee, 7). He further harangued his audience to work for “the elevation and protection of the poor and the lowly, the black men of the South and the poor white men of the whole country” (ibid. 8).

96. Republican platform, 1884, in Johnson, , National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 72Google Scholar.

97. Raymond, Henry J., speech, 10/27/1852, in New York Tribune, 10/29/1852Google Scholar.

98. See, e.g. Bensel, Richard Franklin, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

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100. “Address of the National Republican Convention 1832,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 563.

101. Virtually no exceptions could be found to this pattern.

102. Root, Ehihu, speech, 10/24/1900, in New York Tunes, 10/25/1900Google Scholar.

103. Dunlavy, Colleen A., “Political Structure, State Policy, and Industrial Change: Early Railroad Policy in the United States and Prussia,” in Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, ed. Steinmo, Sven et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

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107. Republican platform, 1904, in Johnson, , National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 137Google Scholar. “Unity of action and concentration of power should be our watch-word and rallying cry,” said Johnson, , campaigning for Lincoln, in 1864 (acceptance letter, 7/2/1864, in The Papers of Andrew Johnson, vols. 7 [Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1986], 11)Google Scholar.

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109. In fact, opposition to further democratization occasionally expressed openly (Taft, William H., speech, 8/2/1912, in , Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2208)Google Scholar.

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112. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 27Google Scholar.

113. Harding, Warren G., speech, 1/10/1920, in Harding, Rededicating America, 111Google Scholar; Warren G. Harding, speech, 2/23/1920, ibid., 182.

114. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 10/15/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 150Google Scholar.

115. Harding, Warren G. speech, 8/19/1920, in Harding, Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 64Google Scholar.

116. Webster, Daniel, speech, 7/11/1832, in Webster, Daniel, The Papers of Daniel Webster: Speeches and Formal Writings, vol. 1: 1800–1833 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986), 566Google Scholar.

117. Clay, Henry, speech, 4/13/1844, in New York Tribune, 6/29/1844Google Scholar.

118. “Address to the People of Virginia,” 1/17/1828, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 465Google Scholar.

119. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 108Google Scholar.

120. Taft, William H., speech, 8/2/1912, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2219Google Scholar.

121. “Address to the People of Virginia,” 1/17/1828, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 466Google Scholar. This point was echoed several decades later in a campaign speech given by James Garfield. His constituents, he claimed, “have not always approved my judgment, nor the wisdom of my public acts. But they have sustained me because they knew I was earnestly following my convictions of duty, and because they did not want a representative to be the mere echo of the public voice, but an intelligent and independent judge of public questions” (speech, 9/19/1874, in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee [Washington, D.C.: Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1880], 13).

122. See, e.g., Hughes, Charles Evans, 10/9/1916, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2329–30Google Scholar.

123. Roosevelt, Theodore, acceptance letter, 9/12/1904, in Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses, 94Google Scholar.

124. See Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper & Bros, 1942/1950)Google Scholar; Seward, William H., speech, 10/21/1856 in The Works of William H. Seward, vol. 4 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1884), 277Google Scholar.

125. Taft elaborates what amounts to a textbook statement of retrospective voting theory: “[Y]ou ordinarily test the question whom you shall select by what they have done in the past, and if there be a party in power that has specifically met with efficiency and success the problems to be solved, the conclusion you will come to is that that party ought to be continued, rather than that another party should be put in power, whose policy you may be uncertain about …” (Taft, William H., 8/29/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 37)Google Scholar. The implications here is that it is rather difficult for the voters to involve themselves in the day-to-day running of government or even to provide potential leaders with a comprehensive program for action once elected. “Uncle Joe” Cannon, Republican stalwart and, for several years, the House of Representative's dictatorial Speaker, is supposed to have remarked “the best kind of government is where one party rules while the other watches.”

126. Less-known are the previous canvassing efforts by William arrison (1840) and Stephen Douglas (1860). However, these proved to be isolated examples of candidate activism, lessons in what not to do for later nominees. All Democrats following after the Great Commoner took to the stump.

127. Coolidge lectured his listeners on the eve of the 1924 election: “The immediate and pressing obligation for tomorrow is that each one of us who is qualified shall vote.… If the individual fails to discharge that obligation,” insisted Coolidge in schoolmarmish fashion, “the whole nation will suffer a loss from that neglect” (speech, 11/3/1924, in New York Times, 11/4/1924).

128. Taft, William H., speech, 8/29/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 41Google Scholar.

129. Roosevelt, Theodore, acceptance letter, 9/12/1904, in Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses, 48Google Scholar.

130. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 21Google Scholar.

131. Harding, Warren G., speech, 8/18/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 61Google Scholar.

132. Harding, Warren G., speech, 8/18/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 64Google Scholar.

133. Stewart, Charles, “Lessons from the Post-Civil War Era,” in The Politics of Divided Government, ed. Cox, Gary W. and Kernell, Samuel (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), 206Google Scholar.

134. Stewart, “Lessons from the Post-Civil War Era,” 214. This persistent advantage in the upper chamber was not entirely accidental, Steward has argued, because it was to some extent the product of the recent admission of western states, by Republican administrations and Congresses. These low population areas contributed little to either party's representation in the House but significantly bolstered Republican presence in the Senate, thus “ensuring the exis- tence of a Republican enclave in the federal government that would be constitutionally capable of vetoing Democratic proposals when the Democrats captured the presidency and the House” (ibid., 215).

135. “Address of the National Republican Convention,” 1832, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 563Google Scholar. See also Webster, Daniel, speech, 7/11/1832, in The Papers of Daniel Webster, 528Google Scholar.

136. Taft, William H., speech, 8/6/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 3, 5Google Scholar.

137. Republican platform, 1904, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2006Google Scholar.

138. Roosevelt briefly attended law school at Columbia. Taft was a judge throughout most of his professional life. Hughes was a Supreme Court justice at the time of his nomination. Harding underwent a brief legal education.

139. The “military men” alluded to are William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, John Fremont, and U.S. Grant.

140. Harding, Warren G., speech, 1/10/1920, in Harding, Rededicating America, 104Google Scholar. Harding also referred to “the torch of constitutionalism” (speech, 7/22/1920, in ibid., 21).

141. Botts, J.M., speech, 4/12/1844, in New York Tribune, 4/13/1844Google Scholar.

142. Webster, Daniel, speech, 10/12/1832, in The Papers of Daniel Webster, 531–69Google Scholar.

143. McKinley, William, speech, 9/12/1896, in New York Times, 9/13/1896Google Scholar.

144. Taft, William H., speech, 7/28/1908, in Republican Campaign Textbook, 1904 (Milwaukee: Press of the Evening Wisconsin Company, 1904), 18Google Scholar. “The Republican party,” the 1920 platform assured its readers, “will resist all attempts to overthrow the foundations of the government or to weaken the force of its controlling principles and ideals, whether these attempts be made in the form of international policy or domestic agitation” (Republican platform, 1920, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2403)Google Scholar. “Our Constitution has raised certain barriers against too hasty change,” Coolidge emphasized. “Stability of government is a very important asset,… [yet a] deliberate and determined effort is being made to break down the guarantees of our fundamental law” (speech, 9/6/1924, in Coolidge, , Foundations of the Republic, 96)Google Scholar. The Constitution was to guarantee not only governmental stability but also civil liberty and private property (ibid.).

145. Garfield, James A., speech, 3/17/1880, in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1880, 3Google Scholar.

146. Garfield, James A., speech, 3/17/1880, in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1880, 3Google Scholar. While a later generation of National Republicans would be concerned primarily with “crime” and with the strengthening of the criminal justice system, National Republicans were concerned with the broader issue of “law.” Except for a brief period in the 1920s when the federal enforcement of the Volstead Act became a major political issue, ordinary street crime remained in the background of national politics.

147. The only election years showing significant traces of these themes in the modern Republican period occur in the late 1960s – a time when “law and order” had an obvious appeal to the conservative party. Such themes were, however, restricted to the issue of “crime,” which had been recently discovered by Nixon. Party nominees did not leap to draw general conclusions about the disintegration of society and the need for a more energetic exertion of federal power in the interests of preserving social order.

148. “Address to the People of Maryland,” 11/6/1828, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 481Google Scholar.

149. Webster, Daniel, speech, 5/2/1844, in New York Tribune, 5/4/1844Google Scholar. Of Jackson's veto of the rechartering of the U.S. Bank, Webster had this to say: “We are entering on experiments, with the government and the Constitution of the country, hitherto untried, and of fearful and appalling aspect. This message calls us to the contemplation of a future which little resembles the past. Its principles are at war with all that public opinion has sustained, and all which the experience of the government has sanctioned. It denies first principles; it contradicts truths, heretofore received as indisputable” (speech, 7/11/1832, in The Papers of Daniel Webster, 528).

150. Blaine, James G., acceptance letter, 7/15/1884, in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1465Google Scholar.

151. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/11/1884, in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1474Google Scholar.

152. McKinley, William, speech, 9/5/1896, in New York Times, 9/6/1896Google Scholar.

153. McKinley, William, speech, 9/1/1896, in New York Times, 9 '2/1896Google Scholar.

154. Taft, William H., speech, 8/21/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 29Google Scholar.

155. Taft, William H., speech, 8/2/1912, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2209–10Google Scholar.

156. Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 9/28/1916, in Speeches of Hon. Charles Evans Hughes and Hon. Nathan L. Miller and Platform, Saratoga Springs, New York (Republican State Convention, 1916), 3Google Scholar.

157. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 10/24/1924, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2554Google Scholar; speech, 11/3/1924, in New York Times, 11/4/1924.

158. McKinley, William, speech, 9/12/1896, in New York Times, 9/13/1896Google Scholar.

159. Taft falls back upon the familiar Republican refrain of maintaining governmental powers. “The authority of the courts must be upheld,” concluded Taft, “[if] they are not, we might as well go out of the governing business” (Taft, William H., speech, 10/28/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 215–16)Google Scholar.

160. See, e.g., Nordhoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (New York: Schocken Books, 1965)Google Scholar.

161. Taft, William H., speech, 1/10/1908, in Taft, Labor and Capital, Their Common Interest …, 8Google Scholar.

162. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 29Google Scholar.

163. Taft, William H., speech, 8/12/1912, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2208Google Scholar.

164. Roosevelt, Theodore, acceptance letter, 9/12/1904, in Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses, 94Google Scholar.

165. This paraphrases the title of Gitlin's work on the interaction between the media and social protest during the 1960s (Gitlin, Todd, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left [Berkeley: University of California, 1980])Google Scholar.

166. Clay's, Henry declaration of 1828 – that the Union was “competent to suppress all … domestic insurrections” – foreshadowed the party's response to the Civil War (speech, 8/26/1828, in Evening Post [New York], 9/9/1828)Google Scholar.

167. This was a reference to the violent Rhode Island of the 1840s, which sought, unsuccessfully, to revise the state constitution in a more democratic direction. With respect to the Dorr Rebellion, the funius Tracts declared, “It has all along been but too apparent, that this new ‘Democracy’ was not overcharged with respect, either for Constitutional or Statute law, or any law whatever, that might happen to come in its way. But the outbreak in Rhode Island unmasked the party, … and evinced how much more they are swayed by passion … than by law. … The peace and welfare of our country, and the stability of our Government and its institutions, demand, that we should know who will sustain them, or who will consent to overturn them in an unpripirious hour”(Junius Tracts, 89).

168. Clay, Henry, speech, 4/13/1844, in New York Tribune, 6/29/1844Google Scholar.

169. One might also consider the significance of vigilantism in nineteenth-century America. According to one historian's estimation, more than 190 vigilante organizations populated the United States between 1861 and 1890 – groups that were dedicated to combating such diverse problems as horse thievery, toll turnpikes, the price of commodities, and the competition of Negro labor (Keller, Morton, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977], 487)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The 1912 platform favored the condemnation and punishment of lynchings on the basis not of its immorality, or cruel effects, but rather because it was a form of “lawlessness,” which, along with all other forms, should be suppressed (Republican platform, 1912, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2185)Google Scholar.

170. Garfield, James A., speech, 3/17/1880, in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1880, 4Google Scholar.

171. McKinley, William, speech, 8/26/1896, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1863Google Scholar.

172. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 25Google Scholar.

173. Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance latter, 9/3/1892, in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parlies, vol. 2, 1530Google Scholar.

174. “The People a Nation,” in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1877, 1.

175. See 'The People a Nation,” in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 1877, 8. The significance of anarchy within National Republican thought can be glimpsed as well in the realm of foreign affairs. “Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn,” McKinley warned, “the Commission believes that the government of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy, which would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention of other powers, and the eventual division of the islands among them” (McKinley, William, acceptance letter, 8/9/1900, in Boston Sunday Globe, 9/9/1900)Google Scholar. Whether fighting Indians, the Mexican government, or various colonial powers, National Republicans tended to emphasize the superior capacity of the American government to provide order among indigenous people who were assumed to be incapable of doing so themselves. “[T]he most miserable failure which a Government can inflict upon the people,” thought Coolidge, several decades later, “is a lack of order and security. Unless a Government be strong enough to maintain public confidence in the observance of the orderly processes of law, we not only have no economic development but an immediate cessation of all enterprise and a substantial destruction of all values” (speech, 10/24/1924, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2554)Google Scholar.

176. See, e.g., Keller, Affairs of Slate, 558.

177. The anti-individualistic – indeed, openly hierarchical – nature of Republican “Mugwumpery” (referring generally to Republican reformers in the late nineteenth century) is nicely brought out in Ellis, Richard J., American Political Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 110–14Google Scholar.

178. Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 9/3/1892, in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1516–30Google Scholar.

179. Blaine, James G., speech, 10/27/1884, in Blaine, Discussions, 453Google Scholar.

180. “Self-government” as applied to an individual might be translated in a contemporary context as “individual autonomy.”

181. Blaine, James G., speech, 9/5/1864, in Blaine, Discussions, 50Google Scholar.

182. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 9/3/1900, in New York Times, 9/4/1900Google Scholar.

183. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 9/3/1900, in Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life, 306Google Scholar.

184. Taft, William H., speech, 8/21/1908, in Taft, Political Issues and Outlooks, 27Google Scholar.

185. Republican platform, 1908, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2110 (emphasis added)Google Scholar.

186. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 105Google Scholar.

187. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 106Google Scholar.

188. See, e.g., Taft, William H., speech, 1/10/1908, in Taft, Labor and Capital, Their Common Interest…, 8Google Scholar; Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 105Google Scholar.

189. “The People a Nation,” in Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Committee, 3.

190. Webster, Daniel, speech, 10/5/1840, in A.B. Norton, The Great Revolution of 1840, 339Google Scholar.

191. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 9/21/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 110Google Scholar.

192. McKinley, William, speech, 10/13/1900, in New York Times, 10/14/1900Google Scholar.

193. Harding, Warren G., speech, 2/25/1920, in Rededicating America, 205Google Scholar.

194. “Address to the People of Virginia,” 1/17/1828, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 1, 474Google Scholar.

195. Harding, Warren G., speech, 8/4/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 46Google Scholar.

196. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senattrr Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 36Google Scholar.

197. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 27Google Scholar. The 1920 Republican platform echoes the same refrain: 'The Republican party … reaffirms its unyielding devotion to the Constitution of the United States, and to the guaranties of civil, political and religious liberty therein contained. It will resist all attempts to overthrow the foundations of the government or to weaken the force of its controlling principles and ideals, whether these attempts be made in the form of international policy or domestic agitation” ( 1920 Republican platform, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2403)Google Scholar.

198. Blaine, James G., acceptance letter, 7/15/1884, in Schlesinger, , History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1468Google Scholar.

199. Harding, Warren G., speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 27Google Scholar. “If any man seeks the advantages of American citizenship,” Harding said earlier in 1920, “let him assume the duties of that citizenship” (speech. 1/10/1920, in Harding, Rededicating America, 106).

200. Roosevelt, Theodore, acceptance letter, 9/12/1904, in Presidential Addresses, 52Google Scholar.

201. Harding, Warren G., speech, 01/10/1920, in Rededicating America, 105Google Scholar.

202. Johnson, Andrew, speech, 10/4/1864, in The Papers of Andrew Johnson, vol. 7, 226Google Scholar.

203. Johnson, Andrew, speech, 07/19/1864, in The Papers of Andrew Johnson, vol. 7, 42Google Scholar.

204. “[O]ne of the most important things in the relationship of men, ” Harding reminded his audience, “is the keeping of contracts. We must perform our legal obligations with great fidelity, and we must always hold our moral obligations as inviolable” (speech, 9/11/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 151).

205. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 09/21/1924 in Coolidge, Foundations of the RepublicGoogle Scholar; and speech, 5/30/1924, in ibid., 21–22.

206. Coolidge, Calvin, 08/14/1924, in Address of Acceptance, August 14, 1924, 3Google Scholar.

207. Speaking of the British Conservative party, O'Gorman writes: “Men had basic social rights – to the unhindered possession of their goods and labour, to order, justice and security – but their political rights depended upon the constitution of the state as it existed. … The will of the people … was not the origin of political rights. Men were obliged to obey legitimate (i.e. prescriptive) and legal authority so long as the state did not itself threaten its own legitimacy” (O'Gorman, Frank, British Conservatism: Conservative Thought from Burke to Thatcher [London: Longman, 1986], 14)Google Scholar.

208. Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 02/22/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 11Google Scholar.

209. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 05/30/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 22Google Scholar. However, the more usual approach to these questions was simply to contrast “order” and “chaos.” “There can be no peace save through composed differences, and the submission of the individual to the will and weal of the many. Any other plan means anarchy and its rule of force,” said Harding – a truly surprising statement, even for Harding (speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 25).

210. Although I build self-consciously on the work of other historians in the following account, my description of National Republicanism differs in substance and temporal range from the standard ethnocultural account. See Jensen, Richard, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–1896 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Kelley, Robert, The Cultural Pattern in American Politics: The First Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979)Google Scholar;Kleppner, Paul, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics 1850–1900 (New York: The Free Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Kleppner, Paul, The Third Electoral System. 1853–92: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1979)Google Scholar; Silbey, Joel H., The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics before the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

211. 1888 Republican platform, in Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 82–83.

212. “The Republican Party: The Workingman's Friend,” in Campaign Documents Issued by the Union Republican Congressional Executive Committee, 1872.

213. Kleppner, Paul, “Partisanship and Ethnoreligious Conflict: The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892,” in The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, ed. , Kleppner et al. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 134Google Scholar.

214. Howe, Daniel Walker, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 9Google Scholar. National Republicans were sensitive to those Democrats who accused them of committing the sin of greed. Somewhat guiltily (one imagines), party leaders appealed to the higher principle of patriotism. The nation was the higher good that would justify materialistic activities carried on in the marketplace.

215. McKinley, William, speech, 9/1/1896, in New York Times, 09/2/1896Google Scholar.

216. Grant, , inaugural address, 3/4/1873, in Richardson, James D., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Literature, 1897), 4175Google Scholar.

217. Whigs cultivated a much stronger antislavery image than their Democratic opponents throughout the North during the 1840s. During the Jacksonian period, Silbey wrote, “Whatever support for intervention [in matters pertaining to slavery] there was came from the Whigs” (ibid., 85). See also Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 17; and Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 189–90.

218. Quoted in Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 189. According to Foner, “Many western Whig-Republican leaders, including … Abraham Lincoln, learned their anti-slavery convictions as well as their staunch Unionism from Clay” (ibid., 190).

219. Junius Tracts, 66.

220. Schurz, Carl, speech, 9/19/1868, in Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1913), 419Google Scholar.

221. Benjamin Harrison, speech, 10/6/1888, in Harrison, Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 164. The moralistic side of Whig ideology is emphasized by Howe (The Political Culture of the American Whigs). For the early Republican party, see Gienapp, William, The Origins of the Republican Party 1852–56 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 430Google Scholar. For Mugwump and Progressive Republicans, see Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955)Google Scholar.

222. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 10/6/1900, in New York Times, 10/7/1900Google Scholar.

223. 1888 Republican platform, in Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 80. The 1892 platform commended “the able, patriotic and thoroughly American administration” of President Harrison (Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, 95). Harrison claimed, on a similar note, that “the policies of the administration have … been distinctively and progressively American and Republican policies” (Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 09/3/1892, in Schlesinger, History of U.S. Political Parties, vol. 2, 1516)Google Scholar. “[I] t has always been a source of profound gratification to me,” said Benjamin Harrison, “that, in peace and war, a high spirit of patriotism and devotion to our country has always pervaded and dominated the party” (speech, 10/4/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 160).

224. Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 10/25/1916, in New York Times, 10/26/1916Google Scholar. Worried, as ever, about the debilitating effects of unrestrained marketplace practices, Tory Republicans responded, “It is love of country, not love of dollars, that will make America great” (Hughes, Charles Evans, statement, 10/29/1916, in New York Times, 10/30/1916)Google Scholar.

225. Harding, Warren G., speech, 09/11/1919, in Harding, Rededicating America, 94Google Scholar. See also ibid., 113. The foregoing quotation recalls William McAdoo's evaluation of the president's speech-making capabilities: “His speeches leave the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea. Sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst until it died of servitude and overwork” (quoted in Harris, Leon, The Fine Art of Political Wit [New York: E.P. Dutton, 1966], 228)Google Scholar.

226. Roosevelt, Theodore, speech, 10/4/1900, in New York Times, 10/5/1900Google Scholar.

227. See McKinley, William, speech, 10/1/1896, in New York Times, 10/2/1896Google Scholar; and Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 9/19/1916, in Hughes, Charles Evans, No Surrender to Force!: The Compulsory Railway Wage Law. From the Speeches of Charles E. Hughes at Springfield, IL, September 19, and Dayton, OH, September 25, 1916 (Republican Campaign Committee, 1916), 7Google Scholar.

228. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 09/1/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 81Google Scholar.

229. Garfield, James A., speech, 06/16/1880, in The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, ed. Ridpath, John Clark (Cincinnati, Ohio: Jones Brothers & Company, [n.d.]), 449–50Google Scholar.

230. Taft, his successor, while not having served in the military himself at least had the distinction of having been president of the Philippines Commission (the acting authority in what was then effectively a U.S. colony) and Roosevelt's secretary of war.

231. This fear could occasionally be found during the 1828 and 1832 elections, in response to the figure of General Jackson, but quickly died out as Whigs gained power and established themselves as the primary proponents of military men and military values.

232. The superiority of American citizenship over European, and especially over the less civilized territories of the world, was a favored theme. Coolidge, for example, declared that the holder of American citizenship was a “peer of kings” (speech, 5/30/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 23). “This country,” thought McKinley, “differs in many and essential respects from other countries” (speech, 9/1/1891, in McKinley, William, Life and Speeches of William McKinley [New York: J.S. Ogilvie Publishing, 1896], 159)Google Scholar.

233. Logan, John A., letter of acceptance, 7/21/1884, in Proceedings of the Eighth Republican National Convention, 1884 (Republican National Committee, 1884) 195Google Scholar.

234. Junius Tracts, 37.

235. Junius Tracts, 48.

236. Junius Tracts, 39. Protectionism would “preserve the American market for American producers and … maintain the American scale of wages” (Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 09/11/1888, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 2, 1692)Google Scholar. The war of independence was invoked with every tariff dispute, with Tory Republicans fighting for “the preservation of our commercial independence” (Harrison, Benjamin, speech, 10/13/1888, in Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, 174)Google Scholar. Harding argued along similar lines for a reforestation program that would “leave us independent of the resources or the activities of the remainder of the world” (speech, 8/18/1920, in Harding, Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 54).

237. Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 07/31/1916, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vols. 3, 2299Google Scholar.

238. Silbey, The American Political Nation, 1838–1893, 89.

239. Harrison, Benjamin, acceptance letter, 09/11/1888, in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–;1968, vol. 2, 1693–94Google Scholar.

240. McKinley, William, speech, 08/26/1896, in Schlesinger, , History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968 vol. 2, 1869–70)Google Scholar.

241. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 08/14/1924, in Coolidge, Address of Acceptance, August 14, 1924, 5Google Scholar.

242. Coolidge, Calvin, speech, 09/6/1924, in Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 100Google Scholar.

243. Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 10/25/1916, in New York Times, 10/26/1916. “I believe,” said Harding, “that every man who dons the garb of American citizenship and walks in the light of American opportunity, must become American in heart and soul” (speech, 7/22/1920, in Speeches of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, 33)Google Scholar.

244. Hughes, Charles Evans, speech, 11/4/1916, in New York Times, 11/5/1916Google Scholar.

245. McKinley, McKinley on Labor. His Public Utterances in Behalf of the Worhingmen of the United States (n.d.), 8.

246. O'Gorman, British Conservatism, 6.

247. Published originally in The Utica Morning Herald (Utica, N.Y.); quoted in Skowronek, Stephen, The Politics Presidents Make: leadership from John Adams to George Bush (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 202Google Scholar.

248. See, e.g., Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs; Neely, Mark E. Jr, The Last Best Hope on Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

249. Connections between the Republican and Whig parties were particularly noticeable during the 1888 campaign, led by Benjamin Harrison – the grandson of William H. Harrison (the first successful Whig candidate for the presidency). Republicans, notes Jensen, “emphasized the symbols of continuity with the Whig tradition,” including “Tippecanoe” clubs, which were formed across the country to support Harrison's campaign. In an address to the Indianapolis club, Harrison boasted that the current Republican party defended the “principles which were dear to you as Whigs … chief among these … a reverent devotion to the Constitution and the flag, and a firm faith in the benefits of a protective tariff” (Jensen, Winning of the Midwest, 15).

250. Even within Congress, it is worth noting that the Progressives remained a distinctminority within the Republican caucus, incapable of thwarting party leadership without the aid of allies in the Democratic party.

251. Cooper, John Milton, The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 113Google Scholar. The Square Deal, according to this historian, “contained more show than substance” (ibid., 77). “[T]he measurable domestic legislative achivements of the Square Deal were few; outside of his conservative measures, which he effected by executive orders, there were only the Elkins Act (1903); the Hepburn, Pure Food and Drugs, Meat Inspection, and Employers' Liability acts (1906); the 1907 act prohibiting corporation contributions to campaign funds; and the 1908 law limiting trainmen's hours. Despite his prosecutions, trusts were more numerous and powerful at the end than at the beginning of his term” (Paola E. Coletta, “Election of 1908,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections 1789–1968, vol. 3, 2054. See also William H. Harbaugh, “The Republican Party, 1893–1932,” in Schlesinger, History of U.S. Political Parties.

252. In foreign policy TR was distinguished from his confreres by his great enthusiasm for joining the European war.

253. A recent biographer writes, “Not only did [Roosevelt] approve of and seek to uphold the existing distribution of power and privileges in society, but he began with the aristocratic assumptions of one who believed he was or ought to be part of the ‘governing class’” (Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 33). The underlying conservatism of most Republican Progressives is nicely illustrated in a letter written in 1910 by Henry Stimson – soon to be appointed secretary of war in the Taft administration – to TR. “To me,” writes Stimson, “it seems vitally important that the Republican party which contains, generally speaking, the richer and more intelligent citizens of the country, should take the lead in reform and not drift into a reactionary position. If instead, the leadership should fall into the hands of either an independent party, or a party composed like the Democrats, largely of foreign elements and the classes which will immediately benefit from the reform, and if the solid business Republicans should drift into new obstruction, I fear the necessary changes could hardly be accomplished without much excitement and possible violence” (quoted in Rae, Nocol C., The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republi-cans from 1952 to the Present [New York: Oxford, 1989], 20)Google Scholar. With respect to the monopoly issue, Cooper concludes, Roosevelt “stood closer to the Old Guard than to the progressives” (Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 83). McKinley, Roosevelt's own notes indicate, was likely to have instituted much the same sort of reforms (the issue of conservation excepted) had he lived through the progressive era (ibid., 77).

254. Junius Tracts, 25.