All it did?

[wbull1]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

 

[unionblue]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

I saw in my reading that almost immediately after the Civil War, the US Army shrank down to just 7,000 men and was facing tens of thousands (some historians quote 250,000) of Native Americans on the frontier. It wasn't even paid for three months running because Congress fiddle-faddled around with the budget and was armed with inferior weapons compared to the modern guns being sold to the tribes by greedy white men.

You really don't see an increase in size and power of the federal government in the ordinary people's lives until the Roosevelt era and the Great Depression.

Unionblue

 

[WJC]

the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

Claiming that the only effect of the Civil War was to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency is a gross misstatement and completely ignores the facts. Although Federal powers were greatly increased as part of the necessary response to the rebellion, most of the initiatives were quickly voided with peace. The one area where Federal actions continued afterward and for a time enlarged was Civil Rights. Even that effectively ended with the withdrawal of Federal forces from the south and late 19th-century Supreme Court decisions.
Anyone sincerely interested in finding the roots of dramatically increased Federal power ought to look at the Progressive Era, not the Civil War.

 

[MattL]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

Personally I think Jefferson expanded the federal power more than just about everyone with the Louisiana purchase (which he expressed he knew went against his Constitutional view of Federal power) and the dolling out of land according to his agrarian utopian view of America. It scaled up subsidizing pioneers at a massive level.

 

[WJC]

Personally I think Jefferson expanded the federal power more than just about everyone with the Louisiana purchase (which he expressed he knew went against his Constitutional view of Federal power) and the dolling out of land according to his agrarian utopian view of America. It scaled up subsidizing pioneers at a massive level.

Though often overlooked or considered laudable, Jefferson most certainly exceeded his Constitutional authority. In that respect, he can be considered the first 'Imperial President'.

 

[WJC]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

For those of us who may be interested in reading the discussion at that site can you provide a link?

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

That's not a question. That's an assertion of an opinion with a question mark appended to it.

 

[Mortari]

I saw in my reading that almost immediately after the Civil War, the US Army shrank down to just 7,000 men and was facing tens of thousands (some historians quote 250,000) of Native Americans on the frontier. It wasn't even paid for three months running because Congress fiddle-faddled around with the budget and was armed with inferior weapons compared to the modern guns being sold to the tribes by greedy white men.

You really don't see an increase in size and power of the federal government in the ordinary people's lives until the Roosevelt era and the Great Depression.

Unionblue

That's amazing how small we shrunk... Reminds me of post-WWI. By WWII our the number of servicemen in our military was smaller than Portugals, barely top 20 in the world, and US military aircraft production ranked 41st. Of course 5 years later, our army grew by about 40 times in size, and we were 1st in US military aircraft production.

 

[wbull1]

For those of us who may be interested in reading the discussion at that site can you provide a link?

Here is the link: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americ...nment-and-bring-about-the-imperial-presidency

 

[wausaubob]

Majority rule. End of slavery. National citizenship. The question posed in the OP is fake rhetoric.

 

[grace]

In all honesty, this view is pretty common in some corners of the world that I've visited. Not everyone has learned or been taught...*little shrug.

 

[diane]

A monarchial presidency was something feared from Washington on down, which is why he made a point of ignoring he was related to the Dutch royal House of Orange and declined to be called "His Excellency". Polk may have been the real 'imperial' president with his ambitious efforts, come hell or high water, to expand United States territory, no matter who he had to pick a fight with. Jefferson did it first but without using war - he just bought a whole lot of real estate from somebody who didn't own it in the first place! After the CW there was Seward's Icebox and issues with Hawaii. I think the question of monarchial presidency is more the question, as epitomized by Richard Nixon. The question, too, stands about the use of executive orders, which ramped up considerably during Lincoln's administration but has since come nearly to mean a kingly rule by the president using his pen instead of legislature. That presidential privilege was and is extremely reliant on the character of the man using it. For Lincoln, Johnson, Grant and several presidents after - they were not the man who would be king.

 

[trice]

I saw in my reading that almost immediately after the Civil War, the US Army shrank down to just 7,000 men and was facing tens of thousands (some historians quote 250,000) of Native Americans on the frontier. It wasn't even paid for three months running because Congress fiddle-faddled around with the budget and was armed with inferior weapons compared to the modern guns being sold to the tribes by greedy white men.

You really don't see an increase in size and power of the federal government in the ordinary people's lives until the Roosevelt era and the Great Depression.

Unionblue

US Army strengths for the 15 years after the Civil War:

1866 -- 57,072
1867 -- 57,194
1868 -- 51,066
1869 -- 36,953
1870 -- 37,240
1871 -- 29,115
1872 -- 28,322
1873 -- 28,812
1874 -- 28,640
1875 -- 25,513
1876 -- 28,565
1877 -- 24,140
1878 -- 26,023
1879 -- 26,601
1880 -- 26,594

 

[trice]

That's amazing how small we shrunk... Reminds me of post-WWI. By WWII our the number of servicemen in our military was smaller than Portugals, barely top 20 in the world, and US military aircraft production ranked 41st. Of course 5 years later, our army grew by about 40 times in size, and we were 1st in US military aircraft production.

When FDR entered office in 1933, the US Army was about 135,000; authorized strength was higher. President Hoover presided over the bottom of the trough, which started in the early 1920s under Harding and Coolidge. The Army was supposed to be up to 240,000 strong. Hoover also kept the Navy below authorized strength and was the first President since Jefferson to not have the keel for a single new warship laid during his term.

The Army slowly grew to about 200,000 by 1940; FDR started on building up the Navy first. The draft was implemented in September of 1940 and by Pearl Harbor the Army was more than 1,000,000 strong. Major aircraft production was underweigh by 1938, but mainly to be sold to French and British after Hitler grabbed the rest of Czechoslovakia.

While the US Army shrank greatly at the end of the Civil War, it was still larger than it was before the Civil War. On January 1, 1861 the entire US Army was about 16,000 men (roughly 14,000 of those West of the Mississippi River.

 

[gary]

This question was asked on Quora:

"Why do Americans glamorize the Civil War when all it did was increase the powers of the federal government and bring about the imperial presidency?"

Was the only effect of the Civil War to increase the size of the federal government and the power of the presidency?

Might I suggest you should look into the affects of the Sixteenth Amendment which made funds possible for the massive growth of los Federales. Woody Wilson was no friend to the American people and there's a reason why he was selected to run for the presidency.

 

[Mortari]

When FDR entered office in 1933, the US Army was about 135,000; authorized strength was higher. President Hoover presided over the bottom of the trough, which started in the early 1920s under Harding and Coolidge. The Army was supposed to be up to 240,000 strong. Hoover also kept the Navy below authorized strength and was the first President since Jefferson to not have the keel for a single new warship laid during his term.

The Army slowly grew to about 200,000 by 1940; FDR started on building up the Navy first. The draft was implemented in September of 1940 and by Pearl Harbor the Army was more than 1,000,000 strong. Major aircraft production was underweigh by 1938, but mainly to be sold to French and British after Hitler grabbed the rest of Czechoslovakia.

While the US Army shrank greatly at the end of the Civil War, it was still larger than it was before the Civil War. On January 1, 1861 the entire US Army was about 16,000 men (roughly 14,000 of those West of the Mississippi River.

Shows the difference of back then, keeping a bare bones military force and only expanding when necessary.

Interesting on Hoover and the navy. Did not know that! I know we were starting to build up some battleships/carriers at the start of the war, and had something like 2 dozen built in a 4 year span. That always astonished me as well.

FDR built up the army with WWII ongoing before Pearl Harbor (much like the US/Confederate armies/militias growing between Lincolns election and Ft Sumter), but I believe it was 330,000 servicemen give or take in total in the US armed forces before the war broke out. and 12 million in 1944. That's a growth of about 40 times withing 6 years which is pretty impressive. That was one of America's best assets, it's ability and infrastructure to get people/weapons rolling in a short period of time.

 

[trice]

Shows the difference of back then, keeping a bare bones military force and only expanding when necessary.

Interesting on Hoover and the navy. Did not know that! I know we were starting to build up some battleships/carriers at the start of the war, and had something like 2 dozen built in a 4 year span. That always astonished me as well.

FDR built up the army with WWII ongoing before Pearl Harbor (much like the US/Confederate armies/militias growing between Lincolns election and Ft Sumter), but I believe it was 330,000 servicemen give or take in total in the US armed forces before the war broke out. and 12 million in 1944. That's a growth of about 40 times withing 6 years which is pretty impressive. That was one of America's best assets, it's ability and infrastructure to get people/weapons rolling in a short period of time.

Not to go too far away from the Civil War ...

The US and Britain were in a Navy race after WWI that resulted in the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 (9 nations attending, resulted in three different treaties) limiting the size of navies. In the US particularly, this led to cutting existing orders to the bone and scrapping many ships already under construction. Hoover was a committed anti-war man after WWI and did even less than authorized by Congress. One result of all this was that the naval construction business went into severe decline, losing capacity and skilled workers to other industries in the Roaring Twenties -- then the Great Depression hit. When FDR went to restart building warships, they had to rebuild the capacity to build big warships before they actually built the new ships.

On the Army, I have the the official Army History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945. Army staff did not believe they could support an Army of above 500,000 without a draft. The Army buildup was not begun until well after the Navy rebuild because of the time-to-build difference and many Army officers and NCOs were off running the CCC program in the 1930s (such as Omar Bradley). Army forces went like this:
1932 -- 134,957
1933 -- 136,547
1934 -- 138,464
1935 -- 139,486
1936 -- 167,816
1937 -- 179,968
1938 -- 185,488
1939 -- 189,839
1940 -- 269,023
1941 -- 1,462,315
Draft started in 1940, along with other changes, accounting for jump there. Early draft was for 12 months, so first draftees should have been released in October, 1941 -- but the government pushed through an extension in August.

 

[trice]

Might I suggest you should look into the affects of the Sixteenth Amendment which made funds possible for the massive growth of los Federales. Woody Wilson was no friend to the American people and there's a reason why he was selected to run for the presidency.

Another moment to look at is the Spanish-American War experience and, in the aftermath, the Dick Act of 1902 (named after Congressman Dick, also called the Efficiency of Militia Bill). This was a reaction to the poor performance of the Militia system in reacting to the crisis. Essentially, the States traded control of their Militia for Federal funds to equip and train the new National Guard.