Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development 9780691188270, 0691057036, 0691057044, 2001036335

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SHAPED BY WAR AND T R A D E

PRINCETON HISTORICAL,

STUDIES IN AMERICAN

POLITICS:

INTERNATIONAL, AND COMPARATIVE

PERSPECTIVES

SERIES EDITORS

Ira Katznelson, M a r t i n Shefter, Theda Skocpol A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book

SHAPED BY WAR AND TRADE

I N T E R N A T I O N A L ON

A M E R I C A N

I N F L U E N C E S

P O L I T I C A L

D E V E L O P M E N T

Ira Katznelson and Martin Shefter, Editors

PRINCETON

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

PRINCETON

AND OXFORD

Copyright O 2002 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 W i l l i a m Street, Princeton, N e w Jersey 08540 I n the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire O X 2 0 1 S Y A l l Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shaped by war and trade : international influences on A m e r i c a n political development / editors Ira Katznelson and Martin Shefter. p. c m . — (Princeton studies in A m e r i c a n politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. I S B N 0-691-05703-6 (alk. paper) -

I S B N 0-691-05704-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. United States — Politics and government. Foreign relations — History. relations — History. 1943-

2. United States —

3. United States — Foreign economic

I . Katznelson, Ira.

I I . Shefter, Martin,

I I I . Series.

JK31 .S48 2002 320.973 —dc21

2001036335

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication D a t a is available T h i s book has been composed in Electra Printed on acid-free paper. oo www.pup.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of A m e r i c a 10

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Political development is shaped by war and trade. — Peter Gourevitch, "The Second Image Reversed"

Contents Acknowledgments

ix

Contributors

xi

P A R T I: I N T R O D U C T I O N

1

One Rewriting the Epic of America Ira

3

Katznelson

Two International Engagement and American Democracy: A Comparative Perspective

24

Aristide R. Zolberg PART II: A M E R I C A I N T H E A N T E B E L L U M W O R L D

55

Three International Commitments and American Political Institutions i n the Nineteenth Century Robert O.

57

Keohane

Four Flexible Capacity: T h e M i l i t a r y and Early American Statebuilding Ira

82

Katznelson

PART III: WAR A N D T R A D E

111

Five War, Trade, and U.S. Party Politics Martin

113

Shefter

Six Patriotic Partnerships: W h y Great Wars Nourished American Civic Voluntarism Theda Skocpol, Ziad Munson,

134 Andrew Karch

7

and Bayliss

Seven Trade and Representation: H o w D i m i n i s h i n g Geographic Concentration Augments Protectionist Pressures i n the U.S. House of Representatives Ronald

Rogowski

Camp

181

vili

CONTENTS

Eight International Forces and Domestic Politics: Trade Policy and Institution B u i l d i n g i n the United States Judith

211

Goldstein

P A R T I V : A M E R I C A S I N C E 1940

237

Nine American Antistatism and the Founding o f the C o l d War State

239

Aaron L . Friedberg Ten L i m i t e d Wars and the Attenuation of the State: Soldiers, Money, and Political C o m m u n i c a t i o n i n W o r l d War I I , Korea, and V i e t n a m Bartholomew

H.

Sparrow

Eleven Reinventing the American State: Political Dynamics i n the Post-Cold War Era Peter A.

267

301

Gourevitch

P A R T V: C O N C L U S I O N

331

Twelve International Influences on American Political Development Martin Index

333

Shefter 359

Acknowledgments

T H E L I N E A G E O F this book can be traced to a programmatic statement by Eric Foner, M a r t i n Shefter, Theda Skocpol, Stephen Skowronek, and David Vogel. I n a m e m o r a n d u m entitled "The International System and the De­ velopment of American Institutions," they urged scholars to study the rela­ tionship between America s changing location i n the international economy and state system and the development of its political institutions. I n re­ sponse to this call, the editors o f the Princeton Studies i n American Politics (Ira Katznelson, M a r t i n Shefter, and Theda Skocpol) convened a group o f scholars working i n the fields of American political development and inter­ national relations to discuss a volume devoted to their interaction. Funds for an exploratory meeting i n Cambridge, Massachusetts, were generously pro­ vided by the Committee on States and Social Structures o f the Russell Sage Foundation. T h e participants i n that session —the contributors to this volume as well as Joanne Gowa, Jon Ikenberry, and David Vogel —wrote memoranda, ex­ changed ideas, and blocked out plans for the book. Draft papers were mer­ cilessly discussed at a second session, w h i c h met at Harvard's Center for International Affairs. Substantially revised versions o f these papers became the chapters of Shaped by War and Trade. As editors, we are grateful for the unusually collégial process that made this volume possible. Special thanks go to key figures at Princeton Univer­ sity Press: Walter Lippincott, who encouraged us from the start; M a l c o l m Litchfield, who oversaw an enormously helpful review process; and C h u c k Myers, who superintended the final stages of moving our ideas into book form. We are also indebted to two anonymous reviewers, whose u n c o m m o n care and tough-minded suggestions greatly improved this book.

Contributors

Bayliss C a m p is a P h . D . candidate i n Sociology at Harvard University. Aaron L . Friedberg is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the author o f The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895- J 905, and In the Shadow of the Garri­ son State: Americas Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy. Judith Goldstein is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author o f Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy; and the coeditor o f Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (with Robert Keohane), and Legalization and World Politics (with Miles Kahler, Robert Keohane, and Anne-Marie Slaughter). Peter A. Gourevitch is Professor at and Founding Dean (1986-96) of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California at San Diego. He is the author o f Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises, and Paris and the Provinces. He co-edited Unions and Economic Crises: Britain, West Ger­ many, and Sweden. He served as co-editor o f the journal international Orga­ nization from 1996 to 2001. Andrew Karch is a P h . D . candidate i n Government at Harvard University. Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Co­ l u m b i a University. His books include Black Men, White Cities; City Trenches; Schooling for All (with Margaret Weir); Marxism and the City; Liberalism's Crooked Circle; and Working-Class Formation (edited w i t h Aris­ tide Zolberg). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as President o f the Social Science History Association i n 1998. Robert O . Keohane is James B. D u k e Professor of Political Science, D u k e University. He is the author of After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, and International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory; and the co-author of Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (with Joseph S. Nye Jr.), and Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (with Gary K i n g and Sidney Verba). Between 1974 and 1980 he was editor of the journal International Organization. He is a Fellow of the American Acad-

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emy of Arts and Sciences. Keohane was President of the International Studies Association, 1988-89, and of the American Political Science Asso­ ciation, 1999-2000. Z i a d Munson is a Ph.D. candidate i n Sociology at Harvard University. Ronald Rogowski is Professor of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles. He is the author of Commerce and Coalitions, and Rational Legitimacy. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Rogowski was V i c e President of the American Political Science Association i n 1994. Martin Shefter is Professor of Government at Cornell University. He is the author of Political Crisis/Fiscal Crisis: The Collapse and Revival of New York City; Politics by Other Means: The Declining Importance of Elections in America (with Benjamin Ginsberg); and Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. He edited Capital of the American Century: The National and International Influence of New York City. Shefter served as President of the History and Politics section of the American Political Sci­ ence Association i n 1996-97. T h e d a Skocpol is V i c t o r S. Thomas Professor of Government and Soci­ ology at Harvard University and Director of its Center for American Politi­ cal Studies. Her books include States and Social Revolutions: A Compara­ tive Analysis of France, Russia, and China; Bringing the State Back In (with Peter Evans and D i e t r i c h Rueschemeyer); Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States; and Civic Engage­ ment in American Democracy (with Morris Fiorina). Skocpol is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; was President of the Social Science History Association i n 1996; and w i l l be President of the American Political Science Association i n 2003. Bartholomew H . Sparrow is Associate Professor of Government at the U n i ­ versity of Texas at Austin. He is the author of From the Outside In: World War II and the American State, and Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution. He is co-editor of Politics, Discourse, and American Society: New Agendas. Aristide R. Zolberg is University-in-Exile Professor of Political Science i n the Graduate Faculty of the N e w School University. His most recent books are Working-Class Formation, co-edited w i t h Ira Katznelson, and Escape from Violence, co-authored w i t h Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo.

One Rewriting the Epic of America IRA

KATZNELSON

"Is T H E TRADITIONAL distinction between international relations and domes­ tic politics dead?" Peter Gourevitch inquired at the start o f his seminal 1978 article, "The Second Image Reversed." His diagnosis — "perhaps" — was mo­ tivated by the observation that while "we all understand that international politics and domestic structures affect each other," the terms of trade across the domestic and international relations divide had been uneven: "reason­ ing from international system to domestic structure" had been downplayed. Gourevitch's review o f the literature demonstrated that long-standing efforts by international relations scholars to trace the domestic roots o f foreign pol­ icy to the interplay o f group interests, class dynamics, or national goals had not been matched by scholarship analyzing how domestic "structure itself derives from the exigencies o f the international system." 1

2

Gourevitch counseled scholars to t u r n their attention to the international system as a cause as well as a consequence o f domestic politics. He also cautioned that this reversal of the causal arrow must recognize that interna­ tional forces exert pressures rather than determine outcomes. "The interna­ tional system, be i t i n an economic or politico-military form, is underdeterm i n i n g . T h e environment may exert strong pulls but short of actual occupation, some leeway i n the response to that environment remains." A decade later, Robert Putnam turned to two-level games to transcend the question as to "whether domestic politics really determine international relations, or the reverse." Contrary to Gourevitch, he judged that there is "a theoretical sophistication on the international-to-domestic causal connec­ t i o n far greater than is characteristic o f comparable studies o n the domesticto-international half o f the loop." He cited the important scholarship by Gourevitch, as well as James A l t , Peter Evans, and Peter Katzenstein, that had appeared since the publication of "The Second Image Reversed." 3

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Today, the p e n d u l u m seems to have shifted once again. M o m e n t u m has moved to the large and growing body of work by scholars of international relations that has broken w i t h the model o f the state as a unitary rational actor to ask w h e n and how domestic factors account for the choices states make i n foreign policy. Arguably, this is where the cutting edge o f I R schol­ arship presently is located. Several students of international relations have

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been investigating the domestic roots of international geopolitical and eco­ nomic affairs, seeking to open up the category of "state" by examining the cacophony o f national politics. IR scholars working on subjects as diverse as crisis bargaining, the sources and outcomes o f wars, the democratic peace thesis, and trade policy have been exploring how the international behavior of states is influenced by their domestic institutions, decisions, and policies. Notwithstanding the significant implications of these theory-driven re­ search programs i n the subfields o f comparative politics and international relations for comprehending distinctive features i n American political devel­ opment, high walls continue to separate studies by Americanists o f the U.S. politics at home from their studies of "foreign" affairs. Outside of IR, the rare exceptions tend to be found i n comparative studies that include the U n i t e d States as one of their cases. Conspicuously absent are investigations by Americanists either o f international sources of domestic politics or the mutual constitution of international relations and domestic affairs. Thus, more than two decades since Gourevitch called for a new research perspec­ tive stressing the former, the degree and character of influence exercised by international factors on American political development remains remarka­ bly unprobed, and too tight a restriction o f attention to domestic factors continues to produce conclusions biased by an artificially limited universe of variables. 6

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I Convinced that this division between American politics and international relations is terribly constraining, the contributors to this exploratory volume emphasize the impact international factors have on domestic politics, sug­ gest analytical strategies that borrow from work underway elsewhere, and display examples of scholarship that overcomes traditional barriers and divi­ sions. T h o u g h estimable, Putnam's goal to move immediately and directly to two-level models that encompass influence flowing i n both directions seems premature, given the rudimentary state o f current knowledge and research. T h o u g h some subjects, like the analysis of international bargain­ ing, require simultaneous and interactive treatment, the present situation i n the m a i n warrants greater modesty. Thus, as a heuristic exercise, Shaped by War and Trade primarily ap­ praises the ways and extent to w h i c h international forces shape domestic outcomes. Seeking to complement the growing body of scholarship on the domestic sources o f geopolitics and international economic policies, we focus on how American political development has been influenced by the country's position i n the global military and economic orders. T h e volume brings together scholars working i n international relations, comparative poli-

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tics, and American political development who wish not simply to confirm the importance o f neglected subjects but also to demonstrate some produc­ tive directions that might be taken to move beyond the image o f a world consisting o f self-contained states. This book, thus, is more than an effort to collect between a set of covers essays that attempt to understand interna­ tional influences on American political history. We a i m to show how work l i n k i n g American politics to the international economy and state system can be fruitful w h e n guided by a set o f broadly c o m m o n theoretical and sub­ stantive concerns. M o r e particularly, we are searching for terms o f partnership w i t h students of war and trade who have been paying attention to politics inside the United States because they seek to address two questions: why a country adopts policies a realist w o u l d regard as less than optimal, and how a coun­ try's institutions, parties, coalitions, ideology, and other key features o f its political life shape its choices i n the international arena. 10

Briefly consider three recent examples o f this genre. Seeking to compre­ hend why some wealthy countries become great powers while others do not, Fareed Zakaria s From Wealth to Power examines the lag i n America's pro­ pensity to throw its weight around as an assertive international actor. F r o m the end o f the C i v i l War to 1896, the U n i t e d States abstained from activity that realists w o u l d have expected it to undertake and for w h i c h it possessed ample material resources. Zakaria's analysis is state-centered and institu­ tional. America's "national power," he argues, "lay dormant beneath a weak state, one that was decentralized, diffuse, and divided." T h e international ambitions both o f presidents and secretaries o f state, he argues, were foiled by the combination o f a tiny national bureaucracy, a state structure frag­ mented by federalism, and the power o f Congress to deny the executive branch sufficient funding to pursue its goals. O n l y w i t h the modernization of the American state and the birth o f the modern presidency at century's end could foreign policy activism develop effectively. 11

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H e l e n M i l n e r takes up many of Zakaria's themes b u t seeks to elevate t h e m to the level o f systematic, portable theory. Starting from the position "that domestic politics and international relations are inextricably interre­ lated," her Interests, Institutions, and Information is grounded i n the various bureaucratic, marxist, psychological, game-theoretic, and liberal (demo­ cratic peace) traditions that "have tried to explain state actions i n foreign policy as a result of internal variables." Its m a i n contribution is the develop­ ment o f a strategic causal theory assessing the influence of domestic on international affairs. M i l n e r focuses on bargaining i n specific institutional settings by actors w i t h distinctive preferences and divergent information. L i n k i n g the domestic and international domains i n her story are elite actors (individuals, groups, legislators) who participate i n both settings (that is, i n both games) concurrently. T h e probability that states w i l l coordinate, as well

KATZNELSON

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as the terms of their coordination, varies i n time and place, she argues, depending on the play of this two-tiered game and on the effects of such factors as the balance o f capacities between legislatures and executives and the distribution of imperfect information. Her "central argument is that co­ operation among nations is affected less by fears o f other countries' relative gains or cheating than it is by the domestic distributional consequences of cooperative endeavors." Both to test and to show the power o f the model, M i l n e r develops a number of cases w i t h i n w h i c h the U n i t e d States played a central role i n the making o f the postwar world, including Bretton Woods and the International Trade Organization, the never ratified Anglo-Ameri­ can O i l Agreement of 1944, and the 1992 N o r t h American Free Trade Agreement, ratified only after m u c h controversy i n 1993. 13

John O w e n studies ten diplomatic crises spanning an even longer period, from the Jay Treaty of 1794 to the Spanish-American War of 1898, i n order to identify the domestic mechanisms that reduce the chance that liberal states w i l l make war on one another and increase the likelihood that they w i l l take up arms against illiberal adversaries. Liberal Peace, Liberal War uses fine-grained case studies of the interplay of elite and public opinion, Congress, and the presidency i n order to move beyond treatments o f states as unitary, rational actors. T h e centerpiece of this effort is his serious treat­ m e n t o f liberalism as a body o f ideas, as a worldview, and as a set o f institu­ tions. O w e n underscores the significance, both w i t h i n and outside the American state, of the ways i n w h i c h liberal elites characterize other states. T h e international behavior o f the U n i t e d States i n the nineteenth century, he argues, may be inexplicable i n purely realist terms, but is m u c h more intelligible w h e n one takes account o f the interplay of actors, institutions, and ideas on the domestic scene. These studies embody the trend o f boundary crossing we wish to emulate, although we w i l l be m o v i n g mainly i n the other causal direction. They operationalize state-society linkages institutionally. M i l n e r is attracted by the deductive reasoning, explicit models, and systematic analysis of rational choice institutionalism. Zakaria is drawn to historical institutionalism, per­ suaded that relations among variables are transformed by their particular configuration i n time and space. O w e n focuses on distinctive American institutions and ideologies as complements to rational-actor and historicalinstitutionalist analysis. This volume is principally, though not exclusively, oriented to the second and third of these programs, the ones most closely identified w i t h the m a i n themes of American Political Development ( A P D ) as a field. T h e essays collected here probe how the international situation o f the U n i t e d States has molded the character o f the American state and the ideas and institutions underpinning its liberalism. These essays echo Gourevitch's plea to transpose the causal direction o f inquiry i n order to better understand the issues A P D has pressed to the fore. Like Zakaria,

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M i l n e r , and O w e n , the scholars who contributed to this volume treat the state not as a unitary macrostructure that is simply either weak or strong but as a multidimensional conceptual variable.

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II T h e neglect of international factors is pronounced i n the subfield of A P D . Even outstanding works that deal w i t h such manifestly international sub­ jects as the role o f tariffs i n American industrialization overlook these con­ cerns. M o r e than a small irony is at work. I n a programmatic essay that played a large role i n the emergence o f A P D , Theda Skocpol urged her colleagues to produce "solidly grounded and analytically sharp understand­ ings o f the causal regularities that underlie the histories of states, social structures, and transnational relations i n the modern w o r l d . " T h e first part of her agenda helped push forward the then still-nascent work of A P D by promoting studies that overcame the conventional separation o f American from comparative politics. By contrast, her call for attention to the interna­ tional dimension, like Gourevitch's proposal a half-dozen years earlier, has gone largely unheeded. 15

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Students of statemaking i n Europe, b u i l d i n g on the landmark scholarship of M a x Weber and Otto Hintze, have been attentive to the constitutive impact of the global economy and of international geopolitics i n shaping domestic politics and institutions. Charles Tilly's work explaining the emer­ gence and character of states i n early modern Europe, for example, has stressed how the preparation for and conduct of war affects the development of regime types, tax systems, fiscal policy, armed forces, patterns o f bargain­ ing between groups and classes, the m i x of repression and rights, and the configuration of political institutions. Hendryk Spruyt has drawn attention to the ways trade patterns transformed the probabilities o f success for such competing forms o f rule i n Renaissance Europe as city states and trading leagues. Thomas E r t m a n has accounted for variations i n state infrastruc­ tures and political regimes i n early modern Europe by the way geomilitary competition entwined w i t h the organization o f local government. T h e macroanalytical tradition i n historical sociology also has focused on the i m ­ pact o f other cross-border processes, including the flows o f people and ideas. By contrast, A P D scholars have been attuned almost exclusively to internal processes and developments, such as electoral realignments, sectionalism, the changing balance w i t h i n the federal system, and the extension o f wel­ fare state activity. 18

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Thus, despite its resonant and relevant intellectual lineage, A P D has con­ tinued to pay nearly exclusive attention to domestic institutions and policies. Its most influential journal, Studies in American Political Development, now

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approaching nearly two full decades of publication, has published hardly any articles exploring the influence of international factors on domestic pro­ cesses and behavior. W i t h the exception of one article on immigration pol­ icy, a second on the ideas composing Charles Beard's approach to foreign policy, and a third on the role o f the C o u n c i l on Foreign Relations, Studies has assayed American political development i n a wholly internalist manner. Moreover, none of this subfield's landmark books, including Stephen Skowronek's Building a New American State, Richard Bensel's Yankee Le­ viathan, and Theda Skocpol's Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, has made international subjects integral to its analysis, even though each prominently discusses the military, the preeminent hinge institution between domestic politics and international relations. U n l i k e IR's recent theory-oriented ef­ forts to understand these linkages, A P D largely remains bereft of such guides. T h e loss to intellectual vibrancy has been considerable. We have missed many opportunities to see how propositions that sprang from the increasingly robust alliance between international relations and comparative politics h o l d up when tested against the history o f American politics or to use an American focus to bring together studies o f international strategy and political economy. 20

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Ill These ambitions are not new. T h e range o f such issues and the promise o f such a venture were charted, i f not attended to, quite some time ago. I n 1931, the noted amateur historian, James Truslow Adams, published a widely read book, The Epic of American T h e following year, the presiden­ tial address to the American Historical Association by Berkeley historian Herbert Bolton advocated "a broader treatment of American history, to sup­ plement the purely nationalistic presentation to w h i c h we are accustomed." C a l l i n g his own address "The Epic o f Greater America," Bolton strongly advocated a research program to situate the U n i t e d States, and the Americas more generally, i n global perspective. He argued that the price o f scholarly provincialism had been high: "the study of thirteen English colonies and the U n i t e d States i n isolation has obscured many of the larger factors i n their development." As a remedy, he proposed shifts i n scale and content. Familiar aspects o f American history, he submitted, should be rethought and conceptualized as international subjects. Treating, for example, Britain's settlement o f thirty (not just thirteen) colonies i n N o r t h America, from Guiana to Hudson Bay, w i t h i n the larger context of the geopolitical and economic rivalries among Europe's leading powers, and taking slavery i n the United States into ac­ count as part o f a worldwide pattern, Bolton sought to show how the myopia 24

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inherent i n the traditional country-centered approach to history might be overcome by conceiving "domestic" variables as conjointly domestic and international. Research conducted on this broadened basis and from this reoriented perspective, he believed, w o u l d encourage new comparisons and make it possible to enlarge the character o f causal accounts by historians and social scientists. Boitons lecture is more than a period piece. C o n f i n i n g his examples mainly to the p r e - C i v i l War experiences o f settlement and expansion, he stressed the international jostling for territory i n the N e w W o r l d among Spain, Portugal, H o l l a n d , France, England, Sweden, and Denmark, thus casting the contest for N o r t h America i n far broader terms than the conven­ tional way dates and locations are treated. Bolton underscored the interpenetration o f sovereignty, space, boundaries, administration, empire, cen­ ter-periphery relations, trade, production, war, demography, and culture. Further, he invited attention to fresh comparisons between the westward movements of M e x i c o , Canada, and the United States i n N o r t h America and Brazil's drive to the Andes. He highlighted contingent ties joining lan­ guage, identity, nation, and state. He urged that the A m e r i c a n Revolution be understood as having lasted nearly a half-century, arguing that i n a wider context it is clear that A m e r i c a n sovereignty was not secured u n t i l the 1820s, after a long period o f menace to the north, west, and south. He recalled how the white-Indian story was always simultaneously a tale o f rela­ tions w i t h foreign states, since Indian country was the outpost o f four differ­ ent empires. He made conflict between the United States and Canada and on the Spanish and M e x i c a n borderlands central to the antebellum period's key "domestic" stories o f Statebuilding and economic development. He re­ stored the themes o f coercion and strong stateness to the m a k i n g of the early American republic. A n d he showed how European capital and immigration, interacting w i t h boundless natural resources and commercialization, con­ tributed toward shaping what more recently has been called the market revolution. Alas, Bolton's bracing call to overcome the artificiality of the line separat­ ing domestic and international subjects mainly fell o n deaf ears. T h e costs i n unrealized prospects for studies i n American political development con­ tinue to be paid. H e rightly had observed that we cannot write credible American history without a supranational dimension any more than we can write credible European history w i t h o u t one. Here, too, frontiers and pro­ cesses have had shifting boundaries, and the internal and external opera­ tions o f power have been shaped, limited, and determined by mutual inter­ action. F r o m the initial moments o f European settlement to the p o s t - C o l d War epoch, America's story has been shaped by its location and participa­ tion i n an array o f global relations and processes, i n c l u d i n g the country's origins at the nexus o f competing empires, its early struggles to secure and 25

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extend sovereignty against m u l t i p l e adversaries, recurrent wars (hot and cold), cross-national elements o f its expansion westward, cross-border move­ ments o f capital and labor (both free and slave), the significance of trade (not least as a source of government revenue), and the geopolitical and economic global leadership roles the U n i t e d States has assumed i n this century, especially since the Second W o r l d War.

IV M i g h t the epic o f America be rewritten i n the spirit of Bolton by incorporat­ ing war and trade as key generative features of American political develop­ ment? W i t h respect to w h i c h hallmark issues studied by A P D w o u l d atten­ t i o n to an international dimension be significant, and how should the character and extent of such international effects be studied and under­ stood? Obviously, efforts to specify the key elements of the domestic explana n d u m and the international explanans as a contribution to A P D must be central aspects o f this enterprise. W h a t do international explanations o f do­ mestic affairs consist of? H o w important are international, as compared to more confined, factors i n explanations of outcomes i n the American experi­ ence? W h a t are the mechanisms that l i n k international relations, broadly conceived, to domestic institutional and political affairs? How, exactly, do these causes shape these results? These questions cannot be answered i f we do not know what an international explanation is. W h a t , i n short, does i t mean to say that international influences fashion American political devel­ opment? How, i n sum, do systematic considerations of international influ­ ences—especially war and trade — m o l d and constrain American political development? 27

Let's return to Gourevitch s foundational paper. He observed that apart from invasion and occupation, the aspects of the international system that most affect domestic politics and policy are "the distribution o f power among states, or the international state system; and the distribution of eco­ n o m i c activity and wealth, or the international economy." I t is the task of analysis, he counseled, to explore the magnitude of influence exerted by these aspects o f international affairs on domestic politics. Q u i c k l y noting that the phrase " ' I m p a c t on domestic politics' could include a variety o f effects: specific events, specific decisions, a policy, regime type, and coali­ tion pattern," he decided to focus, for reasons of parsimony, on the latter two. He asked, specifically, how choices between regime types —such as constitutional versus authoritarian, liberal versus totalitarian, and presiden­ tial versus parliamentary — are shaped by war and trade and how these exter­ nal influences help determine the character and social base o f political co­ alitions. By reviewing extant literatures, he demonstrated that others had 28

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begun to ask these questions, and that they could be answered i n quite satisfactory ways. M u c h as Gourevitch proposes, the essays i n this volume explore the i m ­ pact that war and trade have had on the political regime and o n political coalitions i n the U n i t e d States. Regimes and coalitions, however, take dis­ tinctive shapes i n this liberal and democratic setting. A P D scholars long have emphasized how the question o f "regime" i n the U n i t e d States is best apprehended as a set o f puzzles about the contours and particularities of the country's liberal state. Since the founding, the m a i n A m e r i c a n regime issues have been concerned less w i t h the existence of a liberal constitutional re­ gime than w i t h its scope and character. Likewise, the subject o f political coalitions is closely tied to distinctively A m e r i c a n situations, characterized, among other factors, by federalism, the separation of powers, and a pro­ found history o f sectionalism, especially North/South. I t is not enough, i n short, to identify regimes and coalitions as broad spheres o f dependent vari­ ables; they need to be specified more precisely as objects o f analysis. A good starting point for these efforts is }. P. NettPs approach to the modern state developed i n his 1968 article "The State as a Conceptual Variable," where he sought to offer "a means of integrating the concept o f state into the current primacy o f social science concerns and analytical methods." This v o l u m e s attempt to assign a central role to transnational factors and processes i n the development of the country's distinctive regime can be pushed forward, we believe, by revisiting Nettl's article and, espe­ cially, by attending to his analytical agenda's unrealized or neglected dimen­ sions. His conceptual "brushstroke configuration" of the state proved more influential than m i g h t have been expected, given the degree of silence he then addressed. B u t Nettl's m a i n analytical move, the effort to parse the state into four distinctive dimensions, each of w h i c h he proposed to treat as a separate variable before probing their interrelationships, was not heeded by scholars, who conflated these dimensions into a single c o n t i n u u m , along w h i c h states were ranked from weak to strong based on measures o f auton­ omy and capacity. This way of reading Netti (and it is the dominant one) contributes little to our understanding o f the distinguishing features o f the American regime, except to show that it is relatively weak and permeable to societal influences. By contrast, this book suggests returning to the full m u l ­ tidimensional complexity o f Nettl's theoretical scheme as a means o f spec­ ifying a regime-focused object of analysis. As we soon w i l l discover, one dividend this approach yields is an ability to transcend simplistic depictions of the A m e r i c a n national state as extremely weak. 29

30

"The State as a Conceptual Variable" made two provocative moves. Ex­ plicitly distinguishing its approach from prebehavioral treatments of the state i n the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Netti proposed institutional and behavioral measures for degrees o f "stateness." He hoped

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thereby to consolidate the gains political science had achieved i n dealing w i t h concepts as variables. I n this way, he guarded against any return to metaphysical treatments o f the state i n the Hegelian tradition, and he made it possible to treat stateness as a concatenation of processes, sites, and out­ comes, each of w h i c h possesses qualities of variation and contingency. A n y given state at any specific historical m o m e n t thus is conceptualized configurationally. Netti identified the central analytical dimensions o f the state that interrelate contingently and distinctively i n space and time. W h i l e resisting any general theory of state formation, he also refused to decompose the state into numerous variables treated i n isolation from one another. To overcome both "the all too general notion of state" and the tendency to slice and dice political analysis into distinctive variables as i f they were unrelated to each other, Netti arranged the concept of state into a l i m i t e d number of distinct, b u t not hermetically sealed, domains of stateness, each ranging from weak to strong. T h e i r combined features and relationships o f these domains characterize particular historical states. Netti proposed four such dimensions. I n the first, he treats the state as a "summating concept." T h i s aspect of stateness connotes "the institutional­ ization of power," incorporating the state's claim to sovereignty over people and territory and its superordination over less inclusive and less coercive associations. Netti notes that this understanding of the "state" is akin to other abstract and inclusive concepts, such as "nation" and "society." Not­ withstanding the generality of the concept, the integrative abilities and sov­ ereignty of states, he insists, vary i n particular historical settings and always are shaped and contested w i t h i n them. A second component of stateness — its "inside" component—is institu­ tional. T h e state is associated w i t h a public sector characterized by a com­ plex ensemble o f authorities, organizations, and rules distinguishable from "private" domains. T h e state produces regulations and develops policies that transact w i t h the economy, civil society, and other states. This aspect o f the state varies i n terms o f its organizational complexity, its autonomy, and the scope o f its regulative capacity. Netti notes that the "autonomy of the state vis-à-vis other associations or collectivities becomes an empirical question for each individual case," and it is from here that there are potential " i n ­ roads on external autonomy involved i n international systems and pressures for political unification." 31

T h e state also is a cultural construct. T h i s "cultural disposition to allot recognition to the conceptual existence of a state" is a reflection of histori­ cal traditions signaling the "existence, primacy, autonomy, and sovereignty of a state"; intellectual traditions based on the role that the prevailing politi­ cal ideas and theory assign to the state; and cultural and cognitive processes that provide the mechanisms by w h i c h individuals incorporate, generalize, and ascribe a role and status to the state. Stateness, from this perspective, is

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not only macrostructural or institutional; it possesses, crucially, a set o f m i crofoundations. Finally, there is the state's "outside" face. T h e modern sovereign state, N e t t i avers, is the "basic, irreducible u n i t " of international relations. W i t h i n the global arena, the state is akin "to the individual person i n society." Even where a state is otherwise weak, i n this dimension its autonomy usually is unquestioned. Here, Netti took up the banner o f realism, locating the state as a unitary, rational, strategic actor i n a global system o f states. " I n this international context the concept of the state," he noted, " i n addition to being a u n i t also generates the almost exclusive and acceptable locus of resource m o b i l i z a t i o n , " because i n this sphere the state is considered to be acting for society. I n this treatment, Netti comes close to asserting an invari­ ant structural truism. W h i l e doing so, however, he draws attention to the hinge role played by the state as "the gatekeeper between intrasocial and extrasocial flows o f action." I n the international arena, states may vary i n their degree o f strength according to their place and integration i n the global system o f power, parallel to the variations i n "stateness" along the other dimensions he identifies. 32

33

One way to treat the international dimension as causal is to work from a neorealist model and project the likely impact o f the place o f the state w i t h i n the global system on its domestic regime and political coalitions. Another way o f doing this is to broaden the notion o f international determi­ nants to include a wider array o f factors than Nettl's realism easily can accommodate. Each essay i n this volume makes one or the other o f these choices, either deducing the likely impact of international factors from lean, largely rationalist models of international geopolitics and political economy or assessing international factors more thickly, w i t h more taste for variation and historical particularity. But all the essays treat outcomes to stateness i n the manner o f Nettl's multidimensional approach to sovereignty, institu­ tions, and political culture. I n other words, N e t t i invites us to approach the state as a complex con­ struct. H e provides guidelines for establishing analytic equivalence between instances i n spite o f substantial variation, introduces a normative dimension into positive theory, and refuses to choose between domestic and interna­ tional approaches to stateness. Moreover, his distinctions and categories, and the relations among t h e m , can help us construct a complex dependent variable. W i t h i n Nettl's summating dimension, we can distinguish the de­ gree o f effective domestic control over land and population; overarching constitutional arrangements; membership rules governing citizenship, i m ­ migration, and political participation; and the competitive place o f the state vis-à-vis the macrostructures and integrating ideas offered by the economy and civil society. For institutions, we can bear i n m i n d their formal qualities, i n c l u d i n g federalism, separation of powers, and rights-based rules of the

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game; informal and semiformal instantiations, such as sectionalism, parties, opinion, interest groups, and coalitions; and policy content w i t h respect to regulation and redistribution. For the culture o f stateness, we can take up a wide variety of ideas, symbols, and representations. A n d for international participation, we can distinguish between aspects o f participation i n the global economy and i n geopolitical engagement, dealing with them i n our inquiries as independent variables. Indeed, by treating each of Nettl's sites of stateness as variables, it becomes possible to begin to ask with some preci­ sion how international influences have affected and molded outcomes at his other three levels of stateness. Brought to Bolton's unrealized agenda, Nettl's matrix thus can help make the international dimension a constitutive part of analyses o f American po­ litical development. It redresses the division of labor that leads scholars of international relations to focus mainly on Nettl's dimensions o f sovereignty and international power and students o f American political development to analyze his more institutional and cultural domains. A marriage between Bolton and Netti, as it were, can enrich our historical and empirical under­ standings of the American state, permitting us to transcend simple portraits of a nineteenth-century state of great modesty only partially strengthened by episodes of twentieth-century Statebuilding, most notably i n the Progressive Era and the N e w Deal. Conceiving the state as a configuration of Nettl's dimensions can improve understandings o f American institutions by placing t h e m i n a comparative and historical frame. Nettl's model also helps us to make sense o f two other entwined themes that have been at the substantive core of the A P D field from the start: the status o f the U n i t e d States as a liberal regime and the related subject o f American exceptionalism. For both, the pivotal text has been Louis Hartz 's vexing The Liberal Tradition in America, w h i c h claims that the most impor­ tant underlying force i n American history has been its unchallenged politi­ cal liberalism. This, Hartz argues, is explained by the absence o f feudalism on American soil. Lacking an adversary, the contractual, individualist, and constitutional liberalism fashioned by John Locke gained free sway i n the United States and was able to snuff out pre- or antiliberal impulses of di­ verse kinds. Hartz argued that all significant features o f the American re­ gime are contained w i t h i n the boundaries of this exceptional history and situation. Hartz's non-narrative version of American exceptionalism has been robus­ tly criticized for refusing to credit the significance o f multiple ideologies or changes to the regime. Hartz's contention about "the moral unanimity" o f American liberal society certainly overstates the uncontested quality of America's "nationalist articulation of Locke," and fails sufficiently to recog­ nize the depth o f conflict over the deep illiberalism o f race. Despite flaws, there remains a great deal of power to Hartz's analysis, especially i f we 34

35

36

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follow David Greenstone and regard liberalism as a "boundary condition" embodying norms o f speech and action i n American politics. A boundary condition, Greenstone observes, is "a set o f relatively permanent features o f a particular context that affect causal relationships w i t h i n i t " even as it re­ mains subject to dispute. As just such a boundary condition, liberalism s grammar o f rules — its bundle o f institutions and norms — was never settled once and for all. Liberalism has been consistently dominant i n America, but not unchanging or unchallenged. Hartz's account o f the ascendancy o f liberalism i n the U n i t e d States i n ­ cludes a comparative dimension (the U n i t e d States versus Europe) and a strong causal dimension (a country without a feudal past lacked the fissures of class generated by struggles against feudalism). But, like the larger A P D tradition, The Liberal Tradition in America contains no international dimen­ sion. N o r is there r o o m for periodization i n an account that downplays the moments w h e n debate about liberalism's rules has been most vigorous. Once we introduce conflicts over liberalism's grammar at key moments of indeterminacy into the story o f American political development, we can see that there is not a genuine contradiction between the c l a i m that the U n i t e d States is the West's most durably liberal regime and the view from the inside that stresses conflict i n constitutional jurisprudence, the politics o f social movements, electoral mobilizations, and recurring discord about language and culture. N o n e o f these sites o f conflict, instability, and crisis ever is detachable from international contexts and causes i n time and i n space. Thus, only by fully restoring American political history to its international context can we come to know what is distinctive about it. 37

V This volume's inquiry into how war and trade shaped American sovereignty, domestic institutions, and the political culture o f stateness necessarily is open and exploratory, given the current state o f knowledge and research. There is no single approach or answer to the puzzle o f the importance o f international affairs. But despite the particular and often preliminary charac­ ter o f the chapters below, there are recurring broad moves at work, at times i n the same paper. T h e essays consider international influences i n two m a i n ways: as specific pressures and restraints that help to constitute particular historical situations and as relatively constant causes operating i n broadly similar ways across time because of systemic pressures i m m a n e n t i n the logic o f geopolitics and the global political economy. T h e first approach treats international causes as shaping outcomes at spe­ cific historical junctures but recognizes that the resulting pattern may be reproduced subsequently without the continuing presence o f the formative

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causes. Approached this way, the subject of international influences inter­ sects key issues i n periodization. A t relatively indeterminate moments, whether caused by "shocks" like depression and war or by endogenous pro­ cesses, new configurations of sovereignty, institutions, and political culture may be fashioned. T h e second approach is composed of probabilistic understandings about how a given cause is likely to shape outcomes, irrespective of the particular m o m e n t or event. Thus, some authors approach the task of assaying the effects of international engagement by starting with a set o f expectations about how armed conflict (and preparation for it) and cross-border com­ merce m i g h t influence outcomes i n each of NettPs domestic domains, with­ out anticipating that these factors w o u l d be equally influential i n each di­ mension. I t w o u l d be reasonable, for example, to hypothesize that sovereignty w o u l d be heightened by military pressure but undermined by trade; that participation i n international relations w o u l d be advanced by military pressure and often by trade; that institutions o f executive power w o u l d be enhanced by war and corporatism by trade; that the regulative and redistributive activities of the state w o u l d expand under the impact both of trade and military pressure; and, that a sense o f stateness w o u l d become more pronounced as military pressures increase but w o u l d diminish w i t h the interdependence o f trade. Each o f these propositions is underpinned by immense literatures, but few have been investigated systematically for their effects on American political development. Aristide Zolberg closes the introductory section of Shaped by War and Trade, while opening the book's substantive treatment o f international influ­ ences on American political development by providing a synoptic and com­ parative view of "International Engagement and American Democracy." A t the heart of his chapter lies a reformulation o f Tocqueville s assertion that American distinctiveness lies i n the absence of neighbors: "the singularity of the U n i t e d States arose from that fact that it did not yet exist as an actor during the global wars o f the early modern era, w h i c h shaped the structure of the major European states, and that it participated only marginally i n the global war o f 1792-1815, w h i c h further stimulated the development o f state structures among the European belligerents. This allows for a developmen­ tal pattern that diverged sharply from the European n o r m . " Zolberg develops this insight by surveying more than two centuries of U.S. engagement i n global geopolitics and i n the process accomplishes two vital tasks. First, he reminds us that international influences are not inde­ pendent of specific circumstances. Second, he demonstrates that the man­ ner i n w h i c h factors hold sway is the result not only of such "objective" features as the location of the country i n geopolitical space but also o f deci­ sions taken w i t h i n its domestic institutions about how to act and maneuver i n such space.

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T h e book then divides into three m a i n sections. T h e first reviews America i n the antebellum period, presenting two views w h i c h probe the impact o f international pressures on domestic Statebuilding i n a period usually stylized too simply as one i n w h i c h the A m e r i c a n state was weak. Robert Keohane s "International C o m m i t m e n t s and American Political Institutions i n the Nineteenth Century" argues that it is necessary to do more than contrast the relative capacities o f the antebellum and postbellum A m e r i c a n national state as a foreign policy actor. Surveying five treaty commitments under­ taken by the United States before the C i v i l War and one following it, he seeks to explain how "the American state was dynamically responsive to pressures to increase its capacity to fulfill commitments" and cautions that to stereotype " i t as a 'weak state' for the entire antebellum period obscures the dynamics o f Statebuilding." I n carrying out this project, he also seeks to remedy what he believes to be the weakest part o f Nettl's analysis, its treat­ ment of the international dimension o f stateness. M y own essay, "Flexible Capacity: T h e M i l i t a r y and Early A m e r i c a n Statebuilding," is the second i n the section and complements Keohane's by reevaluating the distinctive status of public authority before the C i v i l War and by underscoring how a liberal regime w i t h a federal system came to terms w i t h security requirements by b u i l d i n g a military peculiar to and characteristic of the U n i t e d States, an "expansible" one, i n John Calhoun's term, geared to flexibly expand d u r i n g times of stress and war and rapidly contract i n peacetime. Read together, these two chapters recast not only N e t t i but Hartz, because they emphasize the ways that the country's distinc­ tive political order responded to the particular security challenges that it faced. T h e second section o f the book, "War and Trade," is oriented less to a single period than to institutionalist accounts o f international-domestic link­ ages i n specific domains. M a r t i n Shefter's "War, Trade, and U.S. Party Poli­ tics" distinguishes among changes i n the party system caused by three major international forces. H e notes that mass immigration has influenced the balance o f power and the structure of cleavages i n the party system but devotes the b u l k of his chapter to an analysis of how international eco­ nomics and geopolitics have had a differential impact o n different segments of the electorate, thus "generating cleavages that the nation's parties have represented"; and how the reshaping of domestic institutions d u r i n g times of international stress has changed interactions between the state and the party system. I n "Patriotic Partnerships," Theda Skocpol, Z i a d M u n s o n , Andrew Karch, and Bayliss C a m p take note o f the dramatic impact large-scale wars have had o n the landscape o f organized voluntarism i n the U n i t e d States. Focus­ ing on organizations w i t h large memberships, they map the ways the C i v i l War and W o r l d War I proved highly favorable to civic development and to

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the growth of associational partnerships w i t h government. T h e i r analysis proceeds to explain why wars had such a vitalizing effect and why specific wars produced different results w i t h respect to the pattern of organizational formation. Wars, they observe, affect voluntary organization by their patterns of mobilization, the manner i n w h i c h the line between friends and enemies is defined and redefined, and by the character and impact of victory and defeat. By incorporating war so directly into a treatment of civicness — long thought to be a distinctive hallmark of America's liberal regime — these au­ thors demonstrate, by contrast, the limits of exclusively internalist treatments of social capital. Ronald Rogowski and Judith Goldstein t u r n to trade. Both pose a similar puzzle: W h y has American trade policy been less protectionist than m i g h t have been expected, given both the distribution of preferences and power of, i n the House of Representatives, an institution based on small districts likely to amplify parochial interests? Rather than being content w i t h the stipulation that open trade regimes are i n the interest of the U n i t e d States, these two authors work their way through the problem o f resistance to this putatively national interest. Rogowskis "Trade and Representation" argues both deductively and empirically that domestic political outcomes w i t h re­ spect to international trade are greatly influenced by the geographic con­ centration of particular kinds of economic activity. T h e more key activities cluster, he argues, fewer districts w i l l dominate and the less likely are the restrictive efforts of these districts to prevail. By contrast, when economic concentration diminishes — and this is the direction i n w h i c h the country's economy has been tending since the 1920s —protectionist pressures tend to increase. This analysis lends urgency to Judith Goldstein's institutionalist account. Drawing on formal theory concerned w i t h the problem of reneging, her chapter, "International Forces and Domestic Politics: Trade Policy and Insti­ tution B u i l d i n g i n the U n i t e d States," argues that politicians favoring liberal trade can deploy international solutions to constrain domestic institutions, i n order, i n t u r n , to b i n d their potentially protectionist constituencies. T h i s chapter identifies two mechanisms of international influence: (1) interna­ tional engagement changes group preferences, and (2) "international poli­ tics alters the 'tool k i t ' o f options available to leaders for making policy." T h e t h i r d section investigates American stateness from the Second W o r l d War through the C o l d War to the p o s t - C o l d War period. Aaron Friedberg's "American Antistatism and the Founding of the C o l d War State" seeks to understand how America's historical preference for a lack o f engagement i n international politics collided w i t h hot and cold warfare i n the 1940s and 1950s to produce "pressures for the construction o f a powerful central state." Surveying policy w i t h respect to manpower, armaments, and strategy, among other subjects, he argues that key outcomes stressing private-public

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partnerships and flexibility can only be understood i n the context o f strong international pressures engaging antistate cultural preferences, themselves the products o f past international situations. Bartholomew Sparrow's " L i m i t e d Wars and the Attenuation o f the State" pushes further along these lines. H e traces "the apparent paradox of the enhancement of state capacity . . . coincident w i t h a weakening of the at­ tachment that Americans have to their government" by examining limited war, taxation, and political communications and builds a complex model of international influence on postwar America, as favoring both the extension of state capacity and resistance to it. Further, he proposes a modification o f Nettl's approach to stateness by downplaying state autonomy and underscor­ ing the importance o f social ties and governmental legitimacy. Peter Gourevitch s "Reinventing the American State: Political Dynamics i n the Post-Cold War Era" highlights an underattended feature o f his 1978 essay. As he notes, international factors w i l l affect national behavior i n a liberal democracy w h e n they shape the preferences of domestic actors, who, apart from cases o f extreme duress, must decide whether, and how, to re­ spond to international pressures. Arguing m u c h as Shefter does i n his chap­ ter on parties, Gourevitch stresses that international forces appear i n domes­ tic politics by generating cleavages and influencing the development o f the national state s institutions. W h a t is most striking i n these respects, he main­ tains, is that the configuration of institutions, policies, and preferences that at midcentury had produced the N e w D e a l / C o l d War policy system have now broken "into component pieces, each floating autonomously, like elec­ trons i n a chemical soup . . . available for new forms of linkage and attach­ ment into new compounds." Shaped by War and Trade concludes with M a r t i n Shefter s survey o f its arguments concerning how international factors have been constitutive o f the political regime i n the U n i t e d States. Like the volume as a whole, his "International Influences on American Political Development" uses histori­ cal evidence and analysis to take up Herbert Bolton's call to rewrite the epic of America.

Notes 1. Examples he cited i n c l u d e Richard H . Snyder, H . W . Bruck, and B u r t i n Sapin,

Foreign Policy Decision-Making

(New York: Free Press, 1962); Gabriel Kolko, The

Politics of War ( N e w York: R a n d o m House, 1968); and Stephen D . Krasner, Defend­

ing the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 2. Peter G o u r e v i t c h , " T h e Second Image Reversed: T h e International Sources o f

Domestic Politics," International Organization 32 ( A u t u m n 1978): 8 8 1 , 882. His

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"perhaps" was more optimistic than G a b r i e l A l m o n d s assertion earlier i n the decade that "Political Science has tended to neglect serious e m p i r i c a l study o f the interrela­ tions between national politics and international politics." G a b r i e l A . A l m o n d , "Na­

tional Politics and International Politics," i n The Search for World Order: Studies by Students and Colleagues of Quincy Wright, ed. Albert Lepawsky, Edward H . B u c h a r i g , and H a r o l d D . Lasswell ( N e w York: Appleton-Crofts, 1971). I n a later review, A l m o n d took note o f the g r o w i n g body o f work crossing this divide. G a b r i e l A. A l m o n d , "Review Article: T h e International-National C o n n e c t i o n , " British Jour­ nal of Political Science 19 ( A p r i l 1989). A n i m p o r t a n t t a n d e m effort to Gourevitch's

was Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States (Madison: University o f Wisconsin Press, 1978), w h i c h stressed comparative historical analysis o f international-domestic linkages. For an ear­ lier statement a n n o u n c i n g the end o f the separation o f domestic politics and interna­ tional relations, see E m i l e Lederer, "Domestic Policy and Foreign Relations," i n War in Our Time, ed. Hans Speier and Alfred Kahler ( N e w York: N o r t o n , 1939). 3. G o u r e v i t c h , "Second Image," 900. 4. Robert D . P u t n a m , " D i p l o m a c y and Domestic Politics: T h e L o g i c o f T w o Level Games," International Organization 42 ( S u m m e r 1988): 427, 433. A slightly earlier call for an interdependent research program l o o k i n g at links between the two level game o f international and domestic politics is Stephan Haggard and Beth A . S i m m o n s , "Theories o f International Regimes," International Organization 41 ( S u m ­ mer 1987). 5. James E . A l t , "Crude Politics: O i l and the Political E c o n o m y o f U n e m p l o y ­

m e n t i n Britain and Norway, 1970-1985," British Journal of Political Science 17 ( A p r i l 1987), 1 4 9 - 9 9 ; Peter B . Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Mul­

tinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Peter J. Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Eu­ rope (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1985); and Peter G o u r e v i t c h , Politics in Hard

Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1986). O n the other side o f the c o i n , for the same period one m i g h t record as key examples, Aristide Z o l b e r g , "Origins o f the M o d e r n W o r l d System: A M i s s i n g L i n k , " World Politics 33 (January 1981); Aristide Z o l b e r g , "Beyond the Na­ tion-State: Comparative Politics i n G l o b a l Perspective," i n Beyond Progress and

De­

velopment, ed. J. Berting, W . Blockmans, and U . Rosenthal (Rotterdam: Erasmus Universiteit, 1986); and Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and

Coalitions

(Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989). 6. See James D . Fearon, "Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Theories o f Inter­

national Relations," Annual Review of Political Science 1 (1998): 289-313. 7. See, for example, Susan Peterson, Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domes­ tic Politics of International Conflict ( A n n Arbor: University o f M i c h i g a n Press, 1996);

Richard N . Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1993); Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and D a v i d L a l -

man, War and Reason: Domestic and International imperatives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1991); H e l e n V . M i l ­ ner,

Resisting

Protectionism

(Princeton:

Princeton

University Press, 1998);

and

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Sharyn O'Halloran, Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy (Ann Arbor: Univer­ sity o f M i c h i g a n Press, 1994). W h i l e stressing the domestic sources o f international processes and decisions, these works stop short o f the c l a i m that all politics u l t i ­ mately are domestic i n nature. T h e latter position is characteristic o f the British sociological institutionalist theorists o f I R surveyed i n John K u r t Jacobsen, "Are A l l Politics Domestic? Perspectives o n the Integration o f Comparative Politics and Inter­ national Relations Theories," Comparative Politics 29 (October 1996). 8. A l t h o u g h some international relations specialists have been crossing the IRA m e r i c a n p o l i t i c a l development

divide i n the direction charted by G o u r e v i t c h ,

Americanists have failed to make the reciprocal move. For examples, see Robert O . Keohane, "Associationist A m e r i c a n Development,

1776-1860: E c o n o m i c G r o w t h

and Political Disintegration," i n The Antinomies of Interdependence, ed. John Ruggie ( N e w York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1983); and Robert O . Keohane and H e l e n V .

M i l n e r , eds., Internationalization

and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996). 9. A significant instance is Margaret L e v i , Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1997). 10. For this distinction, see Fearon, "Domestic Politics."

11. Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of Americas World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998); H e l e n M i l n e r , Interests,

Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press, 1997); John W . O w e n I V , Liberal

Peace,

Liberal

War: American Politics and International Security (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1997).

12. Zakaria, Wealth, 11. 13. M i l n e r , Interests, 3, 9. 14. T h i s , t h o u g h , is a tendency i n Zakaria's work.

15. Richard Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization,

1877-

1900 ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 2000). 16. T h e r e are exceptions, to be sure, to this general rule. O n the i m p a c t o f war,

for example, see Bartholomew H . Sparrow, From the Outside In: World War II and the American State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); and D a n i e l Kryder,

Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State during World War II (New York: C a m ­ bridge University Press, 2000). 17. T h e d a Skocpol, " B r i n g i n g the State Back I n : Strategies o f Analysis i n C u r r e n t Research," i n Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter Evans, D i e t r i c h Rueschemeyer, and T h e d a Skocpol ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1985), 28.

18. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 9 9 0 - J 990 (Oxford: Basil B l a c k w e l l , 1990); H e n d r i k Spruyt, The Sovereign State and

its Competitors

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); T h o m a s E r t m a n , Birth of the

Le­

viathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modem Europe (Cam­ bridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1997). Also see B r i a n M . D o w n i n g , The

Military

Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Mod­ ern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 19. Aristide R. Z o l b e r g , "International M i g r a t i o n Policies i n a C h a n g i n g W o r l d

System," i n Human Migration: Patterns and Policies, ed. W i l l i a m H . M c N e i l l and R u t h S. Adams ( B l o o m i n g t o n : University o f Indiana Press, 1978); D i e t r i c h Ruesche-

KATZNELSON

22

meyer and Theda Skocpol, eds., States, Social Knowledge, and the Origins of Modern Social Policies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 20. Peter H . Schuck, " T h e Politics o f Rapid Legal Change: I m m i g r a t i o n Policy i n

the 1980s," Studies in American Political Development 6 (Spring 1992): 37-92; C l y d e W . Barrow, " T h e Diversionary Thesis and the Dialectic o f I m p e r i a l i s m , "

Studies in American Political Development 11 (Fall 1997): 2 4 8 - 9 1 ; and Inderjeet Parmar, " ' M o b i l i z i n g A m e r i c a for Internationalist Foreign Policy/ " Studies in Ameri­ can Political Development 13 (Fall 1999): 3 3 7 - 7 3 .

21. Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of Na­ tional Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Richard Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of State Authority in America, 1859-1877

(Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1990); and T h e d a

Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 22. A useful overview o f the field w i t h respect to these matters can be f o u n d i n the special issue International Organization at Fifty: Exploration and u

Contestation

i n the Study o f W o r l d Politics," International Organization 52 ( A u t u m n 1998). For an attempt to integrate across subfields using rational choice theory, see that issue's article by H e l e n M i l n e r , "Rationalizing Politics: T h e E m e r g i n g Synthesis o f Interna­ t i o n a l , A m e r i c a n , and Comparative Politics," 7 5 9 - 8 6 . 23. James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (Boston: L i t t l e B r o w n , 1931). 24. Herbert E . B o l t o n , " T h e E p i c o f Greater A m e r i c a , " American Historical

Re­

view 38 ( A p r i l 1933): 448. 25. B o l t o n , " E p i c , " 454.

26. Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); M e l v y n Stokes and Stephen Conway, eds., The

Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions,

1800-

1860 (Charlottesville: University o f V i r g i n i a Press, 1996). 27. Here, deliberately, I a m repeating Fearon's language almost verbatim, w i t h only an inversion o f the words "international" and

"domestic"

W h a t exactly is a domestic-political explanation o f foreign policy? W h a t things have to be present for us to call an explanation o f some foreign policy choice a domestic-political explanation? T h e question turns out to be surprisingly tricky, b u t it deserves an answer. Consider the two l i n k e d research questions that ani­ mate m u c h o f this literature. First, how i m p o r t a n t is domestic politics, relative to systemic or structural factors, i n the explanation o f states' foreign policies? A n d second, how, exactly, does domestic politics shape foreign policy? Neither question can be answered i f we don't k n o w what a domestic-political explana­ t i o n is. (Fearon, "Domestic Politics," 291) 28. G o u r e v i t c h , "Second Image," 8 8 2 - 8 3 . 29. J. P. N e t t i , " T h e State as a C o n c e p t u a l

Variable," World Politics 20 (July

1968). M u c h i n f l u e n t i a l work i n comparative history, sociology, and p o l i t i c a l science has stood o n his shoulders. Examples i n c l u d e the SSRC volumes o n The Formation

of National States in Western Europe and Bringing the State Back In, as well as leading state-centered scholarship

i n A m e r i c a n p o l i t i c a l development,

Skowronek, State; Bensel, Leviathan; and Skocpol, Protecting.

including

REWRITING

THE EPIC

OF AMERICA

23

30. N e t t l s elusive and opaque exposition and his explicit decision to p u t the inter­ national aspects o f his f o r m u l a t i o n to the side make i t challenging to draw o n his work. Still, more than three decades later, his suggestive article provides a useful guide to l i n k i n g institutional and behavioral scholarship o n the state. 31. N e t t i , "State," 565. 32. I b i d . , 566. 33. I b i d . , . 5 6 3 - 6 4 . 34. Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace, & W o r l d , 1955).

35. Hartz, Liberal Tradition, 1 0 - 1 1 . 36. See Rogers M . S m i t h , "Beyond Tocqueville, M y r d a l , and Hartz: T h e M u l t i p l e

Traditions i n America," American Political Science Review 87 (September 1993); and Rogers M . Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New

Haven: Yale University Press), 1997.

37. J. David Greenstone, The Lincoln Persuasion: Remaking American Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 42, 45.

Two International Engagement and American Democracy: A Comparative Perspective ARISTIDE

R.

ZOLBERG

Introduction Lastingly inspired by Tocqueville's insightful comparison of the American regime w i t h its European counterparts, explanations o f the precocious emergence o f liberal democracy i n the United States are overwhelmingly "internalist," focusing on the contributions o f culture, social structure, and economic conditions to the shaping of political regime. M u c h less noted, however, is that Tocqueville begins his systematic summary enumeration o f the factors that contribute to liberal democracy w i t h an element o f Amer­ ica's "particular and accidental situation" that, i n contrast w i t h all the others, pertains to the international sphere: 1

T h e Americans do not have any neighbors, and consequently no great wars, no financial

crisis, and neither ravages nor conquest to fear; they need neither heavy

taxes, nor a numerous army, nor great generals; and they have almost n o t h i n g to fear from a scourge more terrifying for republics than all those together, m i l i t a r y glory.

2

N o conquest to fear, no great generals, no military glory? Even Tocqueville's French readers m i g h t have been aware that this was egregiously inac­ curate: only a decade and a half before his visit, the fledgling American capital was destroyed by a British expeditionary force, and i n 1828 the Americans chose as their president Andrew Jackson, a "great general" of that very war, who was i n the course o f elaborating a populist regime committed to a boldly expansionist policy at the expense o f its Indian and Spanish neighbors. As w i t h his statements regarding equality of conditions, Tocque­ ville blithely sweeps aside historical details that might stand i n the way o f a brilliant generalization. It has been suggested that he mistakenly took as face value American professions that the new republic rejected war as an instrument o f policy thereby contributing to the creation o f the "American war m y t h . " I n the light o f Tocqueville's overall skeptical persona, it is more likely that he went along knowingly, to support arguments that fit his gen­ eral theory regarding structural differences between regime types and his 3

INTERNATIONAL

ENGAGEMENT

25

ambivalent assessment o f dawning democracy. However, for the t i m e being I shall set aside the issue o f what Tocqueville believed, i n order to elucidate his theoretical argument. As always, Tocqueville's proposition is implicitly comparative, and al­ though he speaks o f "Europe," he has i n m i n d , first and foremost, France. As he w o u l d subsequently elaborate i n his other masterwork, The Ancien Régime and the Revolution, Tocqueville viewed the French state as a dan­ gerous monstrosity, bred i n the cockpit o f warring European monarchs and emerging from its recent revolutionary struggles at home and abroad w i t h an even greater capacity for destroying society. Because they were ineluctably trapped w i t h i n an international system o f states o f their own making, France and the other European countries faced simultaneously the tempta­ tions o f engaging i n conquest and the need to protect themselves against other predators m u c h like themselves. Whether designed as an offensive machine or a defensive one, the state steadily expanded and became more centralized. I n contrast, the United States was isolated and, as o f 1830, relatively safe; hence, its governing institutions were not afflicted by acromegaly. This reasoning was hardly original. Indeed, the effect of war on politics and society was a central concern to E n l i g h t e n m e n t thinkers generally, as indicated, for example, by Rousseau's 1758 pronouncement, made i n the course of a critique o f the abbé de Saint-Pierre's Project for Perpetual Peace: " I t is not necessary to have thought long about the means o f perfecting any government to perceive the difficulties and obstacles that arise less from its constitution than from its foreign policy — to the extent that we are forced to give over to our defense most of the attention that should be devoted to enforcing the law and to think more about being i n a state o f readiness to resist others than about perfecting the government itself." Rousseau was Tocqueville's most abhorred "dreamer," but this insight was based on his practical experience o f the relationship between domestic and international politics as secretary to the French ambassador to Venice d u r i n g the War of the Austrian Succession, and there are indications that he planned to write a sequel to the Social Contract that w o u l d focus o n international relations. T h a t Tocqueville shared this view of war is hardly surprising, given France's history; but o f special relevance here is that the A m e r i c a n Founders did so as well, and that it profoundly affected their political choices. 4

5

I n t e r n a t i o n a l S i t u a t i o n , Strategic S t a n c e , a n d R e g i m e It is surely no happenstance that the weighty role of war i n state —and regime — formation was rediscovered by American sociologists and political scientists i n the 1970s, at a t i m e w h e n the United States was involved i n the

ZOLBERG

26

most divisive external conflict i n its history, the reverberations of w h i c h oc­ casioned widespread upheavals and an institutional crisis at the highest level of government. Incorporation of the strategic factor into the m a i n body of social theory was facilitated also by the precisely contemporaneous revival o f the work o f Otto Hintze, who attempted to integrate Ranke's assertion o f the "primacy of external policy" into Weber's theoretical framework. T h e no­ tion that the European state was forged i n battle, and that war fostered the expansion of state activity i n all spheres of social action, accounting for the growth of both "infrastructural" and "despotic" power, is now widely ac­ cepted by social scientists. Together w i t h the contemporaneous emergence of "dependency" and its derivative world-systems analysis as critiques o f modernization theory, and some attempts to l i n k international political economy and comparative politics, this idea has helped to give the macroanalytic social sciences generally a more "externalist" orientation. 6

7

8

9

However, initially Hintze's theoretical subtleties got lost i n translation. Beyond arguing that the imperatives of war transformed feudal Europe into a congeries o f more extensive and more centralized states, Hintze also em­ phasized that the concomitant need for increased revenue fostered the insti­ tutionalization o f representative "estates" (Ständestaat) and thereby the be­ ginnings o f constitutional rule (rechtstaat). I n other writings, he suggested that variation i n strategic situations —for the same state over time or be­ tween states — m i g h t foster different patterns of international activity, and thereby different regime forms. T h e idea of treating a state's situation i n relation to the external world as a sort of variable leading to differentiation was part o f the intellectual heritage of nineteenth-century social theorists. Notably, Herbert Spencer incorporated into his framework the classical dis­ tinction between Athens and Sparta, the one a "commercial" state and the other a "military" state, respectively disposed toward liberalism (coupled w i t h imperialism and slavery) and despotism — and used it to explain the contrast between the developmental paths of England and the Netherlands, on the one hand, and France, on the other. 10

11

This initial seminal but rough-hewn proposition equating "war" w i t h "ab­ solutism" is now being steadily refined. For example, recent research sug­ gests that there is a considerable difference between the impact o f "global" and more l i m i t e d "interstate" wars, w i t h only the former having a perma­ nent "ratcheting" effect o n state growth. I n a similar vein, historically ex­ tensive involvement i n land war tended to produce the more extreme ver­ sions of absolutism: more demanding states that engaged i n extensive extraction of fiscal and h u m a n resources sought greater centralization at the expense o f local autonomy, and — H i n t z e to the contrary notwithstanding — developed executive dominance at the expense of representative institu­ tions. Moreover, states vary considerably i n their approach to harnessing the capacity to meet these objectives. This variation can itself be ac12

13

14

INTERNATIONAL

ENGAGEMENT

27

counted for largely by a combination of cultural and structural factors shaped by previous experiences — i n short, it is "path-dependent." However, greater allowance needs to be made for "agency" as well: although at any given t i m e states face different strategic challenges and opportunities, the givens of the situation usually leave some room for a choice of objectives — as indicated, for example, by the huge volume of historical literature de­ voted to the questions o f whether W o r l d War I and the C o l d War were necessary. I n short, one m i g h t t h i n k o f the situational strategic variable as a contin­ u u m on w h i c h states m i g h t be located at any given time ("time" being shorthand for a particular configuration of the international strategic system under specific technological conditions), but this variable must be consid­ ered i n tandem w i t h another one, ranging from "disengagement" to "en­ gagement," w h i c h captures a state's perception o f and response to a given situation. Thus, the situation identified as "isolation" — from powerful and threatening states w i t h the technological and organizational capacity to i n ­ flict h a r m — located at the negative end of the first c o n t i n u u m , m i g h t easily be coupled w i t h a stance o f "strategic disengagement," located at the nega­ tive end o f the second. I t should be noted that "disengagement" is not to be equated w i t h "pacifism," i n the sense of an absolute rejection o f the use of force as an instrument of policy. Although the negative values of the two variables have received m u c h less theoretical attention than the positive ones, one m i g h t surmise that a combination o f the two negatives w o u l d be conducive to a low degree of state centralization and a balance of statesociety relationships weighted toward society — i n short, that it w o u l d allow for the formation of a m i n i m a l l y predatory state. I n the early modern period, however, by virtue of the predatory character of the actors constituting the European system o f states, no state approxi­ mated the ideal-typical "isolation" situation; and since those that adopted a "disengagement" stance or simply failed to develop the capacity for muster­ ing adequate strategic power were steadily eliminated, the survivors clus­ tered around the "statist" pole. I n this perspective, Britain constitutes an intermediate case, whose ambig­ uous standing can be seen i n its categorization as the ideal-typical "weak state" from a French perspective but as a "strong state" from an American one. T h e example o f Britain also demonstrates why "a state's relation to its neighbors" is a m u c h more heuristic concept than a mere consideration o f geographical givens. As the battle of Agincourt reminds us, d u r i n g its pro­ tracted formative period as a state England was not an island; it only be­ came one w h e n sixteenth-century rulers decided to relinquish their prede­ cessors' territorial ambitions o n the Continent. T h i s enabled the crown to forego the development of a standing army, and the absence o f an army i n t u r n constituted the critical condition i n a sequence that reduced the likeli15

ZOLBERG

28

hood of an absolutist outcome later on, when later rulers sought to emulate their C o n t i n e n t a l betters. However, Britain remained very m u c h engaged i n the European system of states, and participated i n every one of the global wars that erupted from the late fifteenth century onward. Confronted w i t h Spanish, and subsequently French, strategic might on sea as well as land, the British state achieved a high degree o f executive control and centraliza­ tion. T h e crown's adamant c o m m i t m e n t to the creation of a united king­ dom out o f the ethnically diverse countries that shared the N o r t h Sea's two islands is attributable i n large part to perennial strategic concerns. Britain's engagement i n the global war of 1688-1713 had a "ratcheting" effect, re­ flected i n a d o u b l i n g o f state expenditures as a proportion of G N P , and this process was reenacted i n more acute form a century later. 16

17

For a "disengaged state" to emerge on the C o n t i n e n t we must await the emergence of the post-Congress of V i e n n a Concert of Europe, a configura­ t i o n o f the international system that provided limited room for "neutral" states. T h e survival of the latter was assured not solely by their own defen­ sive capacity but also by the c o m m i t m e n t o f powerful neighbors whose i n ­ terests this served. Two states benefited from such arrangements i n the m i d ­ dle t h i r d of the nineteenth century, Switzerland and Belgium, and it is noteworthy that both deviated from the standard centralized state pattern, albeit i n somewhat different ways. A l t h o u g h both were surrounded by pow­ erful and threatening neighbors, both shunned large standing armies, and both emerged as "consociational democracies." But after its midcentury civil war, Switzerland reconstructed itself as a very loose confederation of formally equal cantons, while independent B e l g i u m ( 1 8 3 0 - ) retained the Napo­ leonic system it inherited from the period o f French annexation ( 1 7 9 5 1814). Nevertheless, the m u c h greater weight o f municipal politics i n Bel­ g i u m as compared to France indicated a considerable degree o f de facto déconcentration of power, thereby providing support for the hypothesis that disengagement functioned as a distinct variable. I t is also noteworthy that its "disengagement" at the European level did not prevent B e l g i u m from emerging as an imperial power i n Africa — although unlike France, E n ­ gland, and the Netherlands, it did not engage i n extensive military cam­ paigns to achieve this result. B e l g i u m also demonstrates that "relations to neighbors" is a more relevant factor than geographical location, as its situa­ tion was drastically altered when Germany violated its neutrality i n 1914. 18

T h e Tocqueville Hypothesis Restated This context helps us to understand how Tocqueville came to perceive the "absence o f neighbors" as a singular feature o f the American situation. His point is obviously not to be taken literally, since at the time o f writing

INTERNATIONAL

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Britain controlled what are now the Canadian provinces o f Quebec ( w h i c h Tocqueville visited) and Ontario; the Spanish Empire ruled territories to the south and west; and m u c h o f the continent was inhabited by Indians, w h o m the U n i t e d States was i n the course o f systematically dispossessing by the force o f arms, as Tocqueville himself pointed out i n the final chapter o f volume 1. Moreover, by the time the United States emerged as a state, the Atlantic Ocean was no longer an unbridgeable strategic divide: throughout the eighteenth century N o r t h America was an arena for both direct and indirect confrontations among the leading world powers, whose navies were capable of ferrying large expeditionary forces to fight transatlantic wars. T h e conflict k n o w n i n Europe as "the War o f the Austrian Succession" and i n America as the "French and Indian Wars" resulted i n the expulsion o f France from N o r t h America. America's subsequent seven-year-long war of national liberation unfolded amidst m o u n t i n g global tensions that erupted not long afterward into a quarter-century-long world war between the two superpowers, i n the course o f w h i c h the U n i t e d States itself was invaded and its new capital destroyed. Disputes w i t h Britain flared up perennially throughout the 1830s and 1840s, and during that same period the harness­ ing o f strategic might was a sine qua n o n for the pursuit o f U.S. policy regarding Texas. Thus, w i t h respect to both variables sketched out i n the previous section, half a century after independence the U n i t e d States was located at some distance from the negative pole. Actual and potential strategic necessity was i n fact successfully invoked i n the wake o f American independence as justi­ fication for constructing a m u c h stronger national government than one might expect on the basis of strict isolation and disengagement, i n sharp contrast w i t h what was provided for under the Articles o f Confederation. Given these qualifications, Tocqueville s seminal observation might be reformulated as follows: The singularity of the United States arose from the fact that it did not yet exist as an actor during the global wars of the early modem era, which shaped the structure of the major European states, and that it participated only marginally in the global war of 1792-1815, which further stimulated the development of state structures among the European belligerents. This allowed for a developmental pattern that diverged sharply from the European norm, perhaps even a regime that constituted something other than a "state" in the contemporaneous European usage} 9

A l t h o u g h Tocqueville presents America's strategic disengagement as a providential cause, this was no mere geopolitical given, but rather the result of a policy choice facilitated by the country's geopolitical situation. However, unlike the small European neutrals fostered by the Concert o f Europe, by virtue o f its continental size and economic promise the U n i t e d States had the potential for ascending to the status o f a great power, as Tocqueville

ZOLBERG

30

anticipated. This was i n fact realized at the dawn o f the twentieth century. T h e United States emerged as a major actor when the next global war erupted, and, after the collapse of what Polanyi termed "nineteenth century civilization," undertook to reconstruct and lead the international system. Escaping the dictates of "path dependency," w i t h i n a few decades the disen­ gaged country without any neighbors propelled itself to global hegemony. 20

Historically, the global leadership role had been assumed by countries structually prepared for the task by virtue of their state-centered political institutions. But since the U n i t e d States deviated sharply from these prece­ dents, the demands of its new role could be expected to induce consider­ able institutional stress, centering on tensions between the executive and the representative components of its system. C o m p o u n d i n g the process was the fact that whereas previous great powers achieved that status before the age o f liberal democracy, and by and large managed to insulate their exter­ nally oriented decision-making apparatus from the pressures of accountabil­ ity, the U n i t e d States rose to global leadership well after such accountability was institutionalized. We should therefore expect to observe recurrent crises over the exercise o f raison d état i n the sphere o f strategic and foreign policy throughout the twentieth century. J

T h e Founding Baseline A l t h o u g h the revolutionary generation was determined to remain at arm's length from European conflicts and profoundly mistrusted military institu­ tions, this is not to say that they abhorred the use of force as an instrument of national policy. Indeed, when neutrality and embargoes on trade failed, they paradoxically resorted to war itself to achieve their "disengagement" objective. Although the A m e r i c a n outlook d u r i n g this early period was hardly homogeneous, it was shaped by contemporary experiences and might be characterized as a "limited-war mentality," guided by "the tenets o f the traditional European jus ad bellum, w h i c h argued for patience and for­ bearance before sovereigns resorted to force of arms" —a concept w h i c h Europe itself appeared to be i n the course o f relinquishing. T h e American regime was shaped by a double set o f considerations. O n the one hand, its architects adhered to the republican orthodoxy that m o n archs lay at the heart o f war, and hence that popular control of the war power w o u l d contribute to a pacific future. B u t on the other hand, the difficulties the C o n t i n e n t a l Congress encountered i n asserting its authority and raising troops and the collapse o f efforts to strengthen its powers i n the wake o f L o r d Cornwallis s surrender at Yorktown figured prominently i n arguments advanced on behalf o f a stronger and more centralized national government w i t h an enhanced military capability, vociferously voiced by 21

22

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Washington and other experienced officers. T h e latter considerations were fully spelled out i n the very first Federalist Papers. * I n no. 3, John Jay points out that a united America w o u l d be less likely to give foreign powers legiti­ mate grounds for waging war than w o u l d a set o f disparate states, and then goes on to demonstrate i n no. 4 that under the proposed plan the United States w o u l d also be able to defend itself more effectively against aggressive rivals. He concludes by arguing i n no. 5 that the alternative, a multiplicity of American states, w o u l d be a source of perennial conflict. H a m i l t o n elabo­ rates this further i n nos. 6 - 9 , invoking Montesquieu on behalf of federalism as a mechanism for "reconciling the advantages o f monarchy" — that is, greater capacity to m a i n t a i n external security — "with those o f republica­ nism." I n no. 11 he restates the argument on behalf o f a strong national government i n relation to the creation o f a navy, and i n nos. 2 2 - 2 9 returns to the necessity o f an "energetic" constitution to resolve what we w o u l d today term the "prisoner's d i l e m m a " experienced by the confederated states during the war o f independence w i t h regard to the mustering o f an army. Finally, i f the national government is to provide for the c o m m o n defense, he argues, it must have general powers of taxation (no. 30). 23

2

25

These conflicting considerations also pervaded the contemporaneous de­ bate over the actual organization o f the country's armed forces. A t the end of the war, faced w i t h the prevailing strong feeling that standing armies i n peace time were incompatible w i t h republicanism, Washington agreed that a large force was dangerous but maintained that a small one was indispens­ able to the national security and urged i n particular the establishment of a permanent garrison at West Point under the control of Congress (rather than o f N e w York). I n fact, most o f the m e n under arms were quickly dis­ banded, and as of the summer o f 1787, Secretary of War Knox reported that there were only about 500 m e n i n service. However, i n A p r i l 1790 Congress added four more companies o f infantry, bringing the total authorized strength to 1,216. Given the external situation the United States faced around the time o f the founding, it might have been constructed as a Swiss-type confederation, as advocated by the anti-Federalists. T h e Articles o f Confederation, i n fact, attempted to establish just such a u n i o n . T h e Federalists ultimately w o n the day, but since republican principles prevailed, the central government re­ mained l i m i t e d . Although the growing ideological character of the Euro­ pean war sharpened the confrontation between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans i n the realm of foreign policy, the two camps nevertheless shared a concern to keep the young nation out of the global war, and succeded i n doing so, against heavy odds, for twenty years. Set forth i n Washington's Farewell Address, w h i c h was elaborated into a foundational myth, the basic m o t i f of early U.S. foreign policy was prudential isolation: "The new, weak United States should take advantage of its physical distance 26

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from Europe and steer clear o f the rivalries w h i c h be set that continent." Isolation was desirable not only because American independence m i g h t be threatened by more powerful outsiders "but because of the possible domes­ tic effects o f too ambitious a foreign policy. . . . T h e American polity was founded u p o n a finely balanced set of institutional mechanisms. I f any of those institutions — particularly the executive branch — were substantially to gain i n power by comparison w i t h the others, the founding compromises w o u l d be placed i n jeopardy." 27

28

Seymour M a r t i n Lipset has suggested that, i n addition, "The 'neutralism' of early A m e r i c a n foreign policy, like that o f many contemporary new states, was o f extreme importance i n reducing some of the internal tensions w h i c h m i g h t serve to break down a weak authority structure." However, while "neutralism" may well have had that effect, this does not explain why it was adopted, since neither then nor today do political leaders always choose that w h i c h is functionally appropriate. Indeed, i n the very first years after the ratification o f the new Constitution, interpénétration did take place between domestic and external issues: "Despite Washington's best efforts to insulate and protect the United States from being buffeted by the conflict raging i n Europe, he and his successors, down through Madison at least, were unsuc­ cessful. Indeed, the A m e r i c a n republic was almost inexorably drawn into the vortex o f the European storm, and this mortally threatened its very exis­ tence." 29

30

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, British and Irish democrats came to be viewed as disloyal "Jacobins," and i n the face of severe repres­ sion, many fled to the United States, where their arrival precipitated a politi­ cal crisis. F r o m the perspective o f the Republican opposition, they were hailed as victims o f political persecution — that is, refugees deserving o f asy­ l u m — but from that o f the r u l i n g Federalists, whose domestic conservatism was complemented by rapprochement w i t h Britain, they were dangerous subversives. Contrary to the myth that the United States has always wel­ comed the oppressed, the Federalists responded by enacting the notorious A l i e n and Sedition Acts, w h i c h barred the door to European advocates o f democracy and intimidated their American friends. But enactment o f these controversial laws i n t u r n helped mobilize support on behalf o f the Republi­ cans, and their repeal constituted one of Jefferson's highest priorities after he came to power i n 1800. 31

Nevertheless, by and large disengagement did prevail. A very important consideration was the firm belief, w h i c h the American republicans shared w i t h most E n l i g h t e n m e n t thinkers — as witnessed by the quote from Rous­ seau — that standing armies constituted a permanent threat to representative institutions. Referring to the A m e r i c a n stance d u r i n g this period, Samuel H u n t i n g t o n has observed that "liberalism does not understand and is hostile to military institutions and the military function." It w o u l d be more accu-

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rate to suggest that it is precisely because liberalism does understand m i l i ­ tary institutions and the military function that i t is suspicious o f t h e m . T h e hostility o f the Founders to standing armies, shared also by Tocqueville, arose from their interpretation o f European experiences i n the age o f abso­ lutism, and the validity o f their analysis w i t h regard to the development o f representative institutions i n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been confirmed by recent historical studies, as noted earlier. I t w o u l d be further confirmed by the development of Germany, where, i n the course of consolidation (1850-70), the forces of liberalism were defeated i n a fateful struggle for control over military institutions, resulting i n the institutional­ ization o f a modernized absolutism. 32

33

I n practice, the founders o f the American state sought to deal w i t h the problem o f civil-military relations by virtually eliminating the military alto­ gether. Besides the navy, only small forces were required, primarily to fight Indians. T h e solution was to divide power: "The national government i f it monopolized military power w o u l d be a threat to the states; the President i f he had sole control over the armed forces w o u l d be a threat to the C o n ­ gress. Consequently, the Framers identified civilian control w i t h the frag­ mentation of authority over the military." Defense was to be founded mainly on militia forces, w i t h control shared between the federal govern­ m e n t and the states; and the division of power between executive and legis­ lative was applied to the small national military establishment as well. 34

H u n t i n g t o n has further suggested that at the time o f the founding, "Na­ tional security was a simple given fact —the starting point o f political anal­ ysis — not the end result o f conscious policy. . . . American awareness o f the role o f power i n foreign politics was dulled by the absence o f external threats." But the reasoned arguments regarding national security i n the Federalist Papers suggest that the architects of the American state were any­ thing but d u l l w i t h respect to the matter i n question. Rather, it was because they were very m u c h aware of "the role of power i n foreign politics" that they insisted on congressional control over military and foreign policy. A d ­ dressing himself to those who deplore that the proposed constitution fails to prohibit the creation o f a standing army i n time o f peace, H a m i l t o n argues i n Federalist no. 24 that such a prohibition w o u l d be improper; although the United States is separated from Europe by an ocean, "there are various considerations that warn us against an excess o f confidence or security," notably the colonial ambitions of Britain and Spain. O n these grounds, as well as for purposes o f quelling domestic insurrection, it w o u l d be advisable to m a i n t a i n a small military establishment even i n time o f peace. He then goes on to point out that opposition to a standing army usually focuses on the danger o f reinforcing the executive, and that the constitutional proposal overcomes this by vesting control i n the popularly elected legislature, w i t h the additional guarantee o f a two-year l i m i t on appropriations for support of 35

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an army. H a m i l t o n returns to this again i n no. 26, where he explains the circumstances under w h i c h the prohibition on standing armies originated i n England and stresses once again that the key issue was not the existence of an army but parliamentary control o f it. We must therefore conclude that far from being a quixotic creation, the American state reflected the views o f astute practitioners o f realpolitik, aware that the ambitious new republic w o u l d inevitably be embroiled i n international rivalries and must therefore be endowed w i t h the capacity of mustering external might. Aware of equally realistic objections to the domes­ tic political consequences of acquiring such capacity, they devised an inge­ nious compromise. 37

T h e resulting arrangements were more like those of the mighty British E m p i r e than o f Montesquieu's hypothetical republics. As H u n t i n g t o n cor­ rectly points out, by and large the Founders followed the English model: the president inherited the powers o f the king, and was made commander i n chief o f the armed forces, while Congress inherited the powers o f Parlia­ ment. However, the power to make war was granted exclusively to Congress, thus shifting the balance i n favor o f the legislature. T h e importance of this move went well beyond the U n i t e d States, because i n so doing, the Consti­ tution makers "established a significant precedent i n the evolution of repre­ sentative government." 38

Toward Greater Engagement Over the next half-century, the American state bypassed "transient oppor­ tunities for self-limitation" and became firmly committed to "parochial i m ­ perialism"—hailed as "Manifest Destiny." Confrontations w i t h Indians who resisted encroachments by white settlers pointed up the advantages of an effective standing army as the enforcer o f treaties exacted by the A m e r i ­ cans and transformed what had been an object of suspicion into a popular symbol of national greatness. Concurrently, confrontations w i t h the Euro­ pean powers brought about a decisive reinterpretation of the reigning strate­ gic doctrine i n accordance w i t h the famous Roman adage Si vis pacerá, para bellum ( " I f you want peace, prepare for war"). Consequently, by the time Tocqueville and Beaumont landed, the American stance had shifted decisively toward greater engagement, and i n relation to the external world the A m e r i c a n state had harnessed sufficient capacity to become an actor to be reckoned w i t h . However, circumstances made it possible to achieve this w i t h m i n i m a l predatory pressure, so that i n relation to American society the American state still ranked well below the European n o r m w i t h regard to infrastructural and despotic power. This disjunction between the internal 39

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and external faces o f the state remained the hallmark of the American re­ gime throughout the long nineteenth century. Early i n the first Washington administration, the Indians o f the Northwest inflicted repeated defeats on American soldiers, drawn mostly from poorly trained militias. T h e c u l m i n a t i n g incident, the annihilation o f a detach­ ment under the c o m m a n d of A r t h u r St. Clair, territorial governor of the Northwest, i n November 1791, "gave the Federalists the opportunity to over­ haul the War Department and to create the regular standing army that many o f t h e m wanted." This policy shift was quickly legitimized by the victory o f the reorganized professional army under General Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers ( i n present-day O h i o ) i n 1794, w h i c h led to the cession of m u c h o f the O h i o territory to the U n i t e d States and to the evacuation by Britain o f its last posts on American territory. I n the same vein, i n 1811 the Indian confederacy organized by Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet was smashed by a mixed force o f a thousand American army troops and Ken­ tucky frontiersmen headed by the governor o f the Indiana Territory, General W i l l i a m Henry Harrison. 40

41

Under the treaties w i t h the defeated Indians, the federal government took on the obligation to protect them. A l t h o u g h , i n the mid-1820s, President M o n r o e duly sent federal troops to protect the Cherokee land from intru­ sion, they were subsequently withdrawn by Andrew Jackson, who also re­ fused to enforce C h i e f Justice Marshall's r u l i n g on behalf o f the Cherokees against the state o f Georgia (1828). T h e military thus came to be envisioned as a one-sided instrument of white imperialism; and although the republi­ can doctrine of war emphasized constraints imposed by the traditional jus in bello (laws of war), these checks were deliberately ignored i n dealing w i t h "uncivilized" peoples. I n 1838, for example, federal forces were deployed to herd fifteen thousand Cherokee families into detention camps prior to their deportation to Oklahoma. Despite their determination to stay out o f the global war that had first erupted i n 1792, the Americans declared war on Great Britain i n 1812, a decision w h i c h reflected a shift i n their doctrinal stance and brought about a significant regime change. T h e decision to wield force i n support of Amer­ ican policy was slow i n coming, and American opinion was divided and confused. Desperate for advantage d u r i n g the Napoleonic wars, after the breakdown o f the Peace o f Amiens (1803) both the English and the French assaulted neutral merchant shipping, i n c l u d i n g American vessels, w h i c h not only transported the country's own imports and exports but also engaged i n a thriving carrying trade on behalf o f the belligerents. However, Secretary o f the Treasury Gallatin opposed expanding the navy, because he questioned the contribution o f foreign commerce to the country's development, think­ ing that it made more sense to promote manufacture. Bereft of adequate means of defense, i n 1807 the U n i t e d States enacted an embargo, whereby 42

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American ships were prohibited from traveling to foreign ports, and foreign ships from gathering any cargo i n the U n i t e d States. Designed to bring the French and the English to reason, the embargo prompted instead domestic economic hardship, political discontent, and an increase i n smuggling. 43

T h e embargo, vociferously opposed by the Federalist camp, called for enforcement by state militias and was challenged as an abuse of congressio­ nal powers. However, i n 1808 the authority of the national government was upheld by a Federalist judge i n a U.S. district court i n Massachusetts. Nevertheless, the embargo was repealed fourteen months after its inception. T h i s h u m i l i a t i n g retreat by the A m e r i c a n government i n t u r n created a profound crisis of confidence. 44

Even the r u l i n g Republican camp was sharply divided. Where all agreed, i n keeping w i t h traditional doctrine, that war posed extreme dangers for the young republic, because it w o u l d raise taxes, increase executive preroga­ tives, and stimulate the passion for glory and distinction, some concluded that war should therefore be shunned altogether, whereas others — notably John Q u i n c y Adams and Henry Clay, a leader of the "War Hawks" — inter­ preted the conflict w i t h Britain as a trial of American virtue, a test o f the republican citizens capacity for disinterested support o f the c o m m o n good, the more welcome as the Republic was sinking into decay and corruption. By 1810 this crystallized into the n o t i o n that the Republic must absorb the shock o f violent conflict to prove its worth. Thus, although the policy debate was prompted by a modification o f external circumstances that moved the United States away from the "isolated" pole, the shift toward greater engagement was but one alternative. 45

Matters came to a head i n 1811 w h e n the British blockaded the port o f N e w York and stepped up their impressment o f American seamen, while reputedly backing Tecumseh s resistance to American settlement. As war fever mounted, the embargo was renewed. Even as diplomatic negotiations were beginning to bear fruit, on June 1, 1812, President Madison called u p o n Congress for an immediate declaration o f war. O n the sixteenth, L o n ­ d o n made a major concession, but two days later, unaware of this develop­ ment, Congress delared war on Great Britain. G i v e n an A m e r i c a n force of only seven thousand troops, w i t h hardly any experienced officers, the decision to go to war required a rapid enhance­ m e n t o f capacity. A l t h o u g h conscription was considered, i n the end it was not resorted to. I n 1814, however, Congress took the unprecedented step o f authorizing the enlistment o f young m e n aged eighteen to twenty-one with­ out permission o f their parent or master, a move w h i c h , i n the context o f the times, must be read as an unprecedented assertion of state authority. Determined not to allow the war to inferiere w i t h his economic policy, Gallatin undertook to meet ordinary expenditures from existing taxes, while paying for the war by special loans. But w h e n the costs of the war exceeded 46

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revenue, the Republicans refused to raise taxes, and the country's financial institutions, largely controlled by Federalists, refused to lend the administra­ tion any money. Consequently, i n 1813 the government issued huge sums i n Treasury certificates, a move that shortly brought it to the edge o f bankruptcy. However, the war's successful outcome saved the day and vindicated the national leadership's doctrinal shift. Gallatin praised the war for strengthen­ ing nationalist sentiment, and hence consolidating the republic, and sug­ gested that it "has laid the foundation of permanent taxes and military estab­ lishment, w h i c h [previously] the Republicans had deemed unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions o f the country." T h i s is also the judg­ ment o f later historians: the war "overcame Republican parsimony and fear of standing forces" and contributed to establish the A m e r i c a n "war m y t h " that security is necessary for the continuance o f peace. 47

48

Moreover, although the precipitous invasion o f Canada by an inadequate American force immediately after the proclamation o f war and the govern­ ment-approved foray into Texas by a few hundred A m e r i c a n volunteers i n aid o f revolts against Spanish authority were both abysmal failures, they reflected intimations o f "Manifest Destiny." These were further encour­ aged by Andrew Jackson's victory at N e w Orleans i n 1815, w h i c h "riveted imaginations o n the southwest and aroused further interest i n the Floridas, and even Texas." 49

50

I n the wake o f the V i e n n a settlement, Europe and the Atlantic world settled down to a century o f peace, i n the course of w h i c h the dynamics o f state development were largely internal, w i t h the singular exception o f Ger­ many, as already noted. Under these circumstances, the A m e r i c a n state's potential capacity for mustering external power remained largely untapped. M e a n w h i l e , as Tocqueville suggested, the A m e r i c a n economic pie grew ef­ fortlessly i n comparison w i t h Europe's, thanks to the abundance of land and natural resources, fertilized by a large flow o f British venture capital i n the middle third o f the nineteenth century, and a supply o f labor growing rap­ idly through very h i g h rate of natural reproduction and a steady stream of immigrants. Hence, although the U n i t e d States economy m i g h t be cate­ gorized as "backward" i n the Gerschenkron sense, this backwardness did not stimulate the same type of active state intervention as i n central or eastern Europe. T h e unusual combination o f economic and strategic circum­ stances, involving a m i x o f interconnected internal and external factors, goes a long way toward explaining the development o f a powerful capitalist econ­ omy without a strong state, and why liberal ideas — w h i c h i n Britain itself were not incompatible w i t h a m o d i c u m o f "collectivism" — gave rise, w h e n transplanted into A m e r i c a n soil, to an ideology of extreme laissez-faire. 51

G i v e n this pattern of development, w h e n the protracted sectional conflict escalated, the national government was bereft o f statist elements that m i g h t

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have the w i l l or the capacity to play a mediating role between the adver­ saries. T h e one national institution that m i g h t have played such a roll was the army, headed for two decades by W i n f i e l d Scott, another "great gen­ eral," who after leading American forces into central M e x i c o i n 1847 was nominated for the presidency five years later, again belying Tocqueville's facile generalization. However, Scott urged the government to accept the separation o f N o r t h and South as an accomplished fact, and the secretary of war was himself a southerner, who unhesitatingly used his national position to aid his section. By default, responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the state fell to N e w York senator W i l l i a m Henry Seward, Lincoln's desig­ nated secretary o f state. He proposed to launch a war against Spain and France over Santo D o m i n g o and M e x i c o as a way o f reuniting the nation, but his proposal was rejected by L i n c o l n , and he could do n o t h i n g to pre­ vent the absorption of regional federal services and resources into the C o n ­ federacy. 52

53

I n the course o f the war, both the U n i o n and the Confederacy m o b i l i z e d huge bodies o f manpower to fight what is generally acknowledged as the first industrialized war, and faced the concomitant challenge of funding t h e m . As i n the war of 1812, the U n i o n government sought to avoid painful direct extraction by suspending the domestic gold standard and conferring legal-tender status on paper greenbacks. However, this move was now cou­ pled w i t h the creation of a national bank that superseded locally chartered banks o f issue, and the bank i n t u r n permanently placed a large part o f the national debt w i t h finance capitalists. T h e net effect was the creation of a dependent financial class tied to the success of the central state's extraction and its fiscal policy more generally. As against this, the Confederacy had no option but to engage i n extensive direct mobilization of resources, ad­ umbrating a twentieth-century "garrison state" approach (see below). This contrast prevailed w i t h regard to manpower as well. To begin w i t h , the U n i o n had a m u c h larger eligible population base; the South was not only smaller, but a large part o f its population consisted o f black slaves. A t h o u g h the U n i o n eventually established a draft, there were many exemptions and it was possible to buy one's way out of service; i n the South, mobilization was m u c h more strict and thorough. I n the course o f the war both sections became more "statist," but the South did so to a higher degree than the N o r t h . However, this transforma­ tion was wiped out w i t h the Confederacy itself; and by way o f its financial policy, the U n i o n i n effect mortgaged radical Republican efforts to trans­ form the South, w h i c h were antithetical to the interests of finance capital­ ists. A l t h o u g h leading members o f the new Republican Party, notably W i l ­ l i a m Seward, argued that the wartime state apparatus should be maintained and enlisted i n the service o f capitalist development, the new structures were i n effect dismantled. T h e failure of Reconstruction left the U n i t e d

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States as "really two nations joined together by force of arms" and effectively ended further significant central state explansion for the remainder o f the nineteenth century. D u r i n g the Progressive Era, the administrative capacity of the national state was considerably broadened, but the resulting apparatus continued to be characterized by a double decentralization, separation of powers and federalism, and the capture o f key spheres o f policy making by the organized interests concerned. 54

55

A s c e n t to G l o b a l Power I n contrast w i t h the formative path o f other great powers, the rise o f the U n i t e d States to that status occurred w i t h a m i n i m u m of strategic effort, largely as a by-product o f continental expansion and economic growth. A t the t u r n o f the twentieth century, however, the inward-looking liberal de­ mocracy transformed itself quite abruptly into a far-flung empire, w i t h out­ right colonial possessions i n the Pacific, as well as i n the Caribbean, its own mare nostrum, where it also established a de facto protectorate over a conge­ ries of small independent states. Concurrently, the U n i t e d States also at­ tained a clearly dominant position i n relation to M e x i c o . Bartholomew Sparrow has suggested that this t u r n i n g point entailed "strategic adjust­ ment," a lasting change i n the ends and means o f military force whereby the U n i t e d States extended its foreign policy beyond a traditional conserva­ tism to foster more proactively global conditions that served its interests. W i t h i n the theoretical framework guiding the present analysis, this consti­ tuted a further shift toward the engagement pole. 57

However, the effects of this widening grasp were hardly visible from the heartland. America s ascent created little or no domestic strain, beyond oc­ casional misgivings on the part of "conscience" intellectuals and minority politicians. This is because its unusual modalities did not require the central government to engage i n extraordinary extractive efforts. I n the new Athens, the major instrument o f empire was the navy, w h i c h was developed into one of the mightiest i n the world. As evidenced i n the Netherlands and Britain, naval power did not pose the same problems for liberal states as did land forces. I n contrast w i t h armies as constituted at that time, a navy was a capital-intensive enterprise, consisting of a small but highly skilled labor force operating very expensive equipment and did not necessitate elaborate governmental arrangements. Moreover, while armies were of little use out­ side of war, navies had peacetime functions as well, for they were essential to the policing o f commercial sealanes. A n d unlike armies, they provided little threat to the governments they served. T h e navy developed its own professional infantry, the Marines, who were designed to operate only abroad and who came to incarnate more than any other institution the 57

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myth of American empire. Consequently, naval imperialism is perfectly compatible w i t h the liberal commercial state; with but m i n o r exceptions, i t m i g h t even be considered a sine qua non for its successful emergence and maintenance. Overall, the importance of ships i n the American strategic position "impelled the military to forge steadier, more continuous peace­ time relationships w i t h private industry" — an early version o f the "militaryindustrial complex," or o f what Aaron Friedberg has termed the "contract state." 58

G i v e n the known effects o f W o r l d War I on the European belligerents, it m i g h t be expected to have resulted i n a significant reinforcement o f the state i n America as well. I t did not, and the fact that it did not poses interest­ ing theoretical questions. Part of the explanation is that the conflict was m u c h more l i m i t e d for the United States than for most European countries, because it became involved only very late i n the game. B u t this was itself the result o f a policy choice; and once the decision was made to go to war, there were further choices to be made regarding the elaboration o f strategic capability. 59

I n keeping w i t h its established traditions, the United States initially i n ­ clined toward neutrality; there was no consensus on the causes of the war or on the rights and wrongs committed by the two sides. T h e business c o m m u ­ nity generally inclined toward neutrality, as it meant they w o u l d be able to expand their markets abroad, w h i c h they indeed quickly began to do. T h e political class also favored neutrality, because it feared the potentially divi­ sive effects o f the conflict on domestic politics: Americans o f G e r m a n an­ cestry constituted the second largest ethnic group i n the nation, and one w h i c h had preserved a distinct identity i n m u c h o f the country, w i t h the aid of supporting institutions (churches and bilingual parochial schools, and even some public schools i n the Midwest). Moreoever, Americans o f Irish descent, particularly prominent i n the large urban political machines along the East Coast, were also opposed to U.S. involvement on the side o f Brit­ ain. T h e Socialist Party, w h i c h mobilized an all-time high level o f electoral support i n the 1912 presidential election and gained a large following w i t h i n the ranks o f organized labor as well — about one-third o f the A m e r i ­ can Federation o f Labor membership — held fast to the antiwar position o f the Second International, w h i c h its European counterparts relinquished w h e n the war got under way. I n accordance w i t h established American doctrine, Woodrow W i l s o n be­ lieved neutrality was not incompatible w i t h defensive preparedness, but he experienced severe difficulties i n securing even a limited form o f military conscription and getting American industry to organize itself voluntarily for war production. Moreover, despite his concern with defense, W i l s o n h i m ­ self shared i n the traditional liberal distaste for military professionalism; re­ portedly, he threatened to dismiss the entire A r m y General Staff i n 1915,

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after reports that they were preparing a plan o f action i n the event o f war w i t h Germany. B u t neutrality was difficult to m a i n t a i n . As the war wore on, Great Britain grew increasingly dependent on A m e r i c a n supplies. Germany c o u l d not al­ low its enemies to be supported i n this manner by a neutral and therefore waged submarine warfare against A m e r i c a n shipping, knowing that this w o u l d i n t u r n probably bring the United States into the war. T h i s was a risk the G e r m a n leaders were w i l l i n g to take, because they believed internal divisions w i t h i n the U n i t e d States and the structural factors that worked against strong government leadership w o u l d make A m e r i c a n involvement ineffective. I n the event, this proved a fatal miscalculation. Albeit reelected on a platform of neutrality i n 1916, i n 1917 Woodrow W i l s o n undertook to lead the United States i n a crusade to "make the world safe for democracy," an objective that reflected the strategic adjustment noted earlier: "By assert­ ing its rights not only to protect its own interests but to change the basic international structures that had presumably placed those interests under threat i n the first place, the United States was seeking a new role for itself i n international affairs, a role m u c h closer to that o f the sympathetic revolu­ tionary state it had so often tried to be i n nineteenth-century international politics." 60

61

To acquire the capacity to p u l l this off, the United States had to transform itself into a military-industrial state. I n the absence o f presidential authority to exercise institutional leverage from above, achievement o f this objective required the creation o f a national consensus i n support o f the undertaking, so as to provide pressure from below. Ultimately, an industrial system was created for the purpose o f waging war and placed under the c o m m a n d o f a national administration w i t h unprecedented powers, w h i c h , by the end o f the conflict, "exercised extraordinary control over A m e r i c a n industrial life." 62

However, i n the absence o f a professional governmental bureaucracy, the key institution was a cadre o f volunteer managers from the upper ranks o f the industrial, banking, and financial sectors. A parallel approach was ap­ plied to the sphere of propaganda, recruiting journalists, publicists, and aca­ demics. Ultimately, however, the volunteer system failed, and i n 1917 cen­ tralized administrative control was established by way o f the powerful War Industries Board and related agencies. Concomitantly, o n the financial side, the War Revenue A c t o f 1917 authorized a graduated income tax and raised other taxes; i n effect, most o f the cost o f the war was to be borne by corpora­ tions and those w i t h large incomes. B u t costs skyrocketed, and most of the war ended up being charged to future generations by way of government borrowing. By fostering an enormous expansion o f the A m e r i c a n economy, both ab­ solutely and relative to other industrial countries, W o r l d War I had the ef­ fect o f propelling the United States to the vanguard o f the international

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economy; and as a result of the crusade launched by Woodrow W i l s o n , the country found itself cast i n the leading political role as well. T h i s combina­ tion replicated the position that Britain occupied a century earlier, albeit now on a more global scale. U n l i k e Britain, however, the United States did not assume the mantle of leadership i n either sphere but instead withdrew from the fray. Most obviously, Wilson's failure to obtain support w i t h i n the U n i t e d States itself for membership i n the League of Nations contributed to keeping the world i n an unstable state for another generation, leading inex­ orably to another and more destructive world war. I n Europe, the war had a "ratcheting effect" on state development. Deci­ sion making was centralized, and i n order to harness material and h u m a n resources, governments everywhere expanded their activities and exercised greater control over various sectors o f society. But i n the United States this occurred only to a l i m i t e d extent, w i t h the federal income tax as the war s major institutional legacy. Afterward, "The speed w i t h w h i c h Congress dis­ mantled the [governmental industrial] machine at the wars end, to the point of leaving Washington office workers to find money for their passage home w h e n federal funds were abruptly cut off, suggests that national man­ agement was basically viewed as something temporary, even dangerous." I t was to be "normalcy" w i t h a vengeance, punctuated by attempts to roll back history altogether. 63

64

Like earlier leading powers, the United States sought to buttress its posi­ tion and reduce the transaction costs o f coalition by endowing its camp w i t h an aura o f legitimacy. T h e experience of previous global wars suggests that this process tends to foster an interpénétration of internal and external con­ flicts, w i t h a long-term shift from the religious alignments o f the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the ideological ones of the end of the eigh­ teenth. I n 1917 the United States undertook to make the world safe for democracy; but when events i n Russia confirmed their recent experience w i t h M e x i c o , the A m e r i c a n leadership came to identify revolution, rather than traditional autocracy, as the major threat to democracy. Major ele­ ments of the reactionary wave included the persecution of political radicals, the imposition on A m e r i c a n society of the moralistic norms of traditional Protestantism (through Prohibition), and the enactment of immigration laws that sought to reestablish America's "Anglo-Saxon" character by stem­ m i n g the tide from southern and eastern Europe, as well as Asia. T h e Amer­ ican Socialist movement, w h i c h maintained its antiwar stance even after 1917, was especially vulnerable to charges o f unpatriotic behavior, and never recovered from the blow. 65

Yet withdrawal from the world was impossible, because the United States had become the world's banker, and conversely, its own economy was inex­ orably affected by conditions abroad. I t is now widely recognized that the reluctance of the United States to take over the British leadership role i n

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the global financial market aggravated the Great Depression, w h i c h i n t u r n contributed to the collapse of liberal regimes i n m u c h o f Europe. By the time o f Hoover's election i n 1928, the inability to devise a solution to the economic problems caused by international debts and reparations acted as a major constraint on the ability of the new administration to deal w i t h do­ mestic issues. Karl Polanyi's observation that i n the interwar period every single internal crisis w i t h i n Europe was either triggered or exacerbated by some external economic problem is thus applicable to the U n i t e d States as well, as Peter Gourevitch has demonstrated. 66

67

Observing ongoing developments i n Germany and Japan, Harold Lasswell suggested as early as 1937 that mid-twentieth-century war required an unprecedented degree of material, organizational, and h u m a n mobilization on the part of the belligerents, and that the resulting dynamics w o u l d b r i n g about a new type o f political regime, the "garrison state." I t is noteworthy that Lasswell's "developmental m o d e l " bridged the theoretical gap between the analysis o f domestic and international politics institutionalized i n the course of political science's development as a profession. I n short, he fore­ saw a vast enhancement o f both infrastructural and despotic power — nota­ bly, a severe restriction o f civil liberties and political dissent; the rise o f populist warlord-politicians; a shift o f the decision-making center from busi­ ness and political elites to "specialists on violence" and i n the m o l d i n g of minds (i.e., propaganda, by way o f mass media); and the elaboration o f central planning. 68

T h e political-leader-as-warlord role indeed prevailed on both sides o f the conflict: W o r l d War I I was fought by Hitler, Mussolini, and H i r o - H i t o against Stalin, C h u r c h i l l , Roosevelt, C h i a n g Kai-shek, and de Gaulle. Lasswell's developmental model proved largely valid for Germany, Japan, and the Soviet U n i o n . I t had only l i m i t e d applicability to Great Britain and the United States; but A m e r i c a n engagement, c o m i n g on top of the N e w Deal, i n the course o f w h i c h politics had already begun to undergo a profound nationalization, did foster a vast expansion o f the national government, both i n absolute size and i n relation to that state and local levels. T h e presidency too swelled: its i n c u m b e n t came to personify the country as no m a n had ever done before. I n keeping w i t h Lasswell's analysis, the national govern­ ment also developed an unprecedented apparatus o f internal propaganda designed to manufacture consent and consensus and engaged i n egregious violations o f civil rights i n the name o f national security, notably the forced relocation and incarceration o f nearly the entire West Coast population o f Japanese descent. I n the aftermath o f W o r l d War I , private industry had withdrawn almost entirely from the military sector, so that on the eve o f the new conflict, "the United States had almost no capacity for the manufacture o f arms" beyond what was available i n a small string o f government arsenals. W h e n the 69

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time came to rearm, President Roosevelt followed the advice o f Henry Stimson: " i f you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, i n a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the pro­ cess or business won't work." By and large, this was indeed how things worked out. I t should be noted, however, that this reliance on the private sector does not completely invalidate the Lasswellian model, w h i c h is con­ cerned mainly w i t h political transformation. Indeed, as has been well docu­ mented, the Nazis adopted a very similar approach to arms production and never developed a plan. T h e leading instance o f governmental production and full-scale planning was, o f course, the Soviet U n i o n , but this develop­ m e n t was not attributable mainly to the advent o f the "garrison state." 70

T h e N a t i o n a l S e c u r i t y State a n d the I m p e r i a l P r e s i d e n c y I n the years following the second W o r l d War, as i n those following the first, there were traditional forces — including political progressives as well as con­ servatives—that feared the consequences of America's imperial role and sought to p u l l back. But these were m u c h weaker than before, and w i t h the onset o f the C o l d War the conservatives rallied around the flag, as did most of the progressives. Those who did not were driven from the political scene altogether as disloyal. However, the imperial transformation did not affect the components o f the political process most grounded i n American society, that is, parties and interest groups. T h e paradoxical result was an enor­ mously reinforced "imperial presidency" severely constrained i n its actions by "interest group liberalism." This combination constituted an institu­ tional oxymoron whose contradictions provided a major theme of debates w i t h i n American political science after W o r l d War I I . Although the transfor­ mations induced by engagement i n the C o l d War fell far short o f the "garri­ son state" anticipated by Lasswell, some o f its elements are clearly recogniz­ able i n the A m e r i c a n state o f that era and highly disturbing when evaluated from the perspective o f liberal norms. 71

72

Because the imperial presidency was engendered by America's new global role, successive presidents were driven to assume the awesome re­ sponsibilities o f "leader o f the free world," regardless of party, ideological orientation, or personal inclination. F r o m this vantage point, residual insti­ tutions that were the product of a domestically oriented political develop­ m e n t often appeared as impediments to the fulfillment of urgent obliga­ tions. T h e resulting situation has been aptly summarized as follows: T h e war had given the U n i t e d States such an overabundance o f economic and m i l i t a r y power that no lasting postwar settlement was possible w i t h o u t the active participation and support o f the U.S.A. T h e great m i d c e n t u r y conflict created i n

W a s h i n g t o n a governmental m a c h i n e whose members grasped this fact, and were

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prepared to go beyond p u b l i c o p i n i o n i n order to find the means t h r o u g h w h i c h a system o f economic and p o l i t i c a l stability c o u l d be established i n at least most o f the w o r l d . B u t the p u b l i c never understood the international underpinnings o f its o w n economic miracle, and failed to be touched by the magic w a n d o f i m p e r i a l delight w h i c h w o u l d have made i t enthusiastic about the establishment o f the pax

Americana.™ Once again, the external situation should not be considered as a deter­ minative "given" i n relation to these developments; interpretations of the postwar world by the Washington establishment and the actions that flowed from t h e m played an important part i n shaping global realities as well. Since this proposition now appears obvious and unexceptionable, it is note­ worthy that it was not widely accepted at the time, and that the denial itself had awesome consequences. As George Kennan observed w i t h respect to the Korean War, for example, "the idea that i n doing things disagreeable to our interests the Russians m i g h t be reacting to features o f our own behav­ ior—was one to w h i c h the m i n d o f official Washington w o u l d always be strangely resistant. O u r adversaries, i n the ingrained American way o f look­ ing at things, had always to be demonic, monstrous, incalculable, and i n ­ scrutable. I t was unthinkable that we, by admitting that they sometimes reacted to what we did, should confess to a share i n the responsibility for their behavior." 74

A full elucidation o f this point w o u l d require a thorough discussion o f the origins of the C o l d War, w h i c h remains one of the most complex histo­ riographie puzzles o f the twentieth century. For present purposes, it suffices to sketch the m a i n components o f the nascent American orientation. Iron­ ically, the reigning outlooks o f the leadership groups of the two emerging superpowers were almost the opposite o f what a naive social scientist m i g h t expect on the basis o f "ideology," for it was the Americans who were the more consistently "materialist" of the two. F r o m the Soviet vantage point, recent experiences demonstrated the primacy o f strategic power, determined by geopolitics; by contrast, American political leaders were persuaded, on the basis o f analyses developed by the financial community, w i t h the aid of the prestigious N e w York C o u n c i l on Foreign Relations, the destabilization of Europe and the outbreak o f W o r l d War I I were largely attributable to international economic conditions. Accordingly, it was imperative for the United States to take the lead i n creating global planning and stabilization structures that w o u l d prevent a recurrence of depression and war. W h i l e committed to military preparedness, w i t h the U n i t e d States benefiting from a monopoly of atomic weapons and producing almost half the world's goods, "American officials keenly appreciated the leverage that U.S. eco­ nomic power afforded t h e m , and the lack o f any immediate military threat to U.S. security encouraged a reliance upon economic power as the princi75

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pal instrument of diplomacy." A n economic approach, w h i c h was i n keep­ ing w i t h the argument set forth by Polanyi i n 1944, was more compatible w i t h conventional liberal preferences than a strategic one, and also suited the interests o f the business community. T h e determinacy of economic con­ ditions came to be reflected as well i n the core hypotheses of postwar com­ parative politics and political sociology. One o f the major developments o f the postwar period, still awaiting full analysis, was the rallying of organized labor to this orientation as well. Labor modified its domestic strategies and objectives accordingly, and thereby rendered itself dependent on the estab­ lishment and maintenance of American global hegemony. 76

77

78

T h e American approach was expressed i n the institutionalization o f the "Bretton Woods" system and also underlay the Marshall Plan. Predicated on the notion that "Communist political penetration of war-disrupted societies posed greater danger to Western security than did C o m m u n i s t military ag­ gression," the Marshall Plan was designed i n part as a substitute for the rearmament of Western Europe and a permanent U.S. military presence there. Although the formation of N A T O w o u l d appear to contradict this economistic stance, it should be remembered that the major impetus for N A T O came from the Europeans themselves. Some i n Congress advocated a security alliance w i t h Western Europe as early as 1947, and i n that same year the Greek civil war prompted the enunciation of the T r u m a n Doctrine; but there was hardly a consensus i n Washington on the subject. T h e first step toward the formation o f what emerged as N A T O was an explicit mutual defense agreement between France and England i n M a r c h 1947 (Treaty of D u n k i r k ) , ostensibly directed against Germany, but i n reality preparatory to French acceptance o f a G e r m a n revival as the sine qua n o n o f an effective anti-Soviet policy. N A T O was i n part the price the U n i t e d States had to pay to France for G e r m a n reconstruction and rearmament. I n M a r c h 1948 the alliance was extended to include the three Benelux countries as well, and together the five then sought a guarantee from the United States. Gal­ vanized by the Prague coup o f the previous February, official Washington was now ready to acquiesce. 79

80

T h e coup also prompted the drafting of the famous " N S C 68," i n w h i c h the recently created National Security C o u n c i l called for a worldwide counteroffensive against the Soviet bloc. Although this marked the onset o f a new and m u c h more proactive orientation, the fiscal conservatism of the T r u m a n administration foreclosed increased expenditures on military bud­ gets, and most of America's eggs thus remained i n the economic basket. T h e Korean War was the true watershed; interpreted as an unprovoked and sinister communist aggression, as Kennan charged, it appeared to refute the central concept o f economic containment and left no choice but an urgent and bold implementation o f the N S C doctrine. This was a distinct "strategic adjustment," w h i c h constituted a fateful

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turning point i n American political development as well. Roosevelt's undis­ puted authority as commander i n chief i n W o r l d War I I "gave Americans i n the postwar years an exalted conception o f presidential power." Moreover, "War had accustomed those i n charge o f foreign policy to a complacent faith i n the superior intelligence and disinterestedness o f the executive branch" i n contrast w i t h Congress, w h i c h remained mired i n "politics." After Roosevelt's death, Congress attempted to rectify the balance, but Harry T r u m a n , although he himself emerged from the ranks o f the Senate, con­ tributed decisively to shift the balance permanently to the presidential side through his leadership role during the Korean conflict. 81

T h e key theorist of presidential power was Dean Acheson. Both the presi­ dent and his secretary o f state saw the invasion o f South Korea by the N o r t h Korean A r m y as a crucial challenge to the postwar structure promoted by Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan. T h e i r first resort was to the U n i t e d Nations; and on June 25, after obtaining Security C o u n c i l action, T r u m a n consulted his foreign policy and defense officials and decided to c o m m i t American air and sea forces. N o t u n t i l two days later did he meet w i t h congressional leaders from both parties. He received their support, but when he announced the decision publicly, he cited the action as his authoriza­ tion, not the assent of Congress. However, over the next several days, con­ gressional concern over the form o f the decision grew, and pressure mounted to have the president request a joint resolution approving his ac­ tions, w i t h full assurance that he w o u l d get it. But on July 3, Dean Acheson "recommended that T r u m a n not ask for a resolution but instead rely on his constitutional powers as President and C o m m a n d e r i n C h i e f ; the State Department cited many instances i n w h i c h presidents had sent American forces into combat on their own initiative, and T r u m a n , "impressed by the appearance o f precedent and concerned not to squander the power o f his office, accepted his Secretary of State's recommendation." A l t h o u g h i n i ­ tially excluded, Congress subsequently confirmed and i n effect ratified the intervention by voting military appropriations and extending the draft. 82

" [ T ] h e capture by the Presidency o f the most vital of national decisions, the decision to go to war," has been identified by Arthur Schlesinger as the key process i n the rise of the "national security state," w h i c h i n t u r n stimu­ lated broad transformational effects. Truman's crucial contribution estab­ lishes that the process cannot be attributed simply to one political party, to conservative ideology, or to the effects o f one president's neurotic person­ ality, as w o u l d be suggested later on w i t h regard to Richard N i x o n . Rather, it is the result of a transformation of America's role i n world affairs, at a time w h e n the nature of that world itself was drastically changing. Concurrently, the question of "loyalty" moved to the fore i n political debates, spilling well beyond external policy to the very core o f domestic concerns i n every sphere, from labor unions to universities. A l t h o u g h the second episode o f 83

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the twentieth century's protracted global war had involved a struggle against counterrevolutionary Germany, the crusade against revolution remained a d o m i n a n t theme of A m e r i c a n foreign policy and injected issues of national security into domestic debates over the extension of democracy to the social sphere. T h e crusade against revolution abroad thereby provided additional legitimacy for the repression o f socialism i n America. Beyond the injustice to the individuals involved, the elimination o f the American left from the political arena and the i n t i m i d a t i o n of "liberals" had a lasting effect on American political culture and further l i m i t e d the likely scope o f the A m e r i ­ can welfare state. T h e process proved to be self-reinforcing: the Korean outcome estab­ lished a "path dependency" that rendered the Indochina War, Watergate, and Irangate more likely. A full examination o f this process i n all its ram­ ifications, w h i c h extend well beyond political institutions into the economic and cultural spheres, still remains to be carried out. M e a n w h i l e , however, the general validity o f the proposition set forth here concerning the impact of global leadership on the transformation o f basic A m e r i c a n political struc­ tures has been confirmed by ongoing developments. As Theodore Draper pointed out i n the bicentennial year o f the Constitution, the activities o f "Reagan's Junta" were not merely an accident b u t a renewed manifestation of "the A m e r i c a n p r o b l e m o f being a superpower and a democracy." 84

Conclusion America's predicament i n the twentieth century is unprecedented, and one of the ironies o f the age is that it arose precisely at the m o m e n t w h e n the European states' decline to the status of m i n o r powers freed t h e m from the imperatives of engagement-driven statism and allowed for greater respon­ siveness to societal considerations. T h e assumption by the U n i t e d States of the mantle o f global strategic and economic leadership five decades ago fostered a deep tension between the dictates o f national security and the operations o f the liberal democratic regime. However, two sharply contend­ ing definitions o f the p r o b l e m have emerged. F r o m one perspective, re­ flected here, assumption of the superpower role has corrupted liberal de­ mocracy by generating an obsessive concern w i t h national security. T h i s led to the suppression o f dissent from the left, w h i c h entailed a further weaken­ ing o f the already weak voice of the A m e r i c a n working class i n the postwar period, as well as to the emergence o f an "imperial presidency" that tends to escape accountability. B u t from another perspective, it is liberal democracy that loomed as the p r o b l e m , hampering the A m e r i c a n state from meeting its vital responsibilities as the guarantor o f global freedom. T h e latter perspective is at the root o f the neoconservative intellectual

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movement. W i t h i n American political science, for example, at the very time the "pluralist" school was establishing its hegemony i n the 1950s, Samuel H u n t i n g t o n drew the conclusion that "The requisite for military security is a shift i n basic A m e r i c a n values from liberalism to conservatism." This view was widely propagated after V i e t n a m . I n the early 1980s, it approached he­ gemony as neoconservatives w i t h i n the academy and elsewhere successfully advocated "realistic" foreign and defense policies to meet a "clear and pre­ sent danger." T h e y further insisted that their execution required a funda­ mental reordering o f American priorities. 85

86

Reversing the question, those committed to democratic liberalism must ask what international objectives are appropriate for a democracy that is cast i n the role o f a great power. Rousseau argued that those w h o are preoc­ cupied w i t h security and defense regard government as merely an object threatened by others. This passive view is compounded by the presentation of these concerns as a matter o f necessity ("we are forced to give over to our defense. . . " ) . I n reality, however, governments are also subjects i n the inter­ national system, and their international activities deflect from "the attention that should be devoted to enforcing the law" and "perfecting the govern­ ment itself." T h e very activities o f states contribute to the determination o f the security problems they face. I t follows that the question o f what foreign and defense policies are appropriate for a liberal democracy is an ineluct­ able one for citizens and for normative theorists. A t no time since the col­ lapse of the "century o f peace" has the m o m e n t been more opportune to restore it to our agenda.

Notes T h e ideas o f this paper were initially developed w i t h i n the framework o f the Project o n G l o b a l Leadership and U.S. D e m o c r a c y organized at the N e w School for Social Research w i t h support from the M a c A r t h u r Foundation (Spring 1989) and at a ses­ sion o f the Conference G r o u p o n Political E c o n o m y organized by Richard Vallely at the annual m e e t i n g o f the A m e r i c a n Political Science Association (August 1989). I have also benefited from comments by participants i n earlier sessions o f the work­ shop o n International Influences o n A m e r i c a n Politics. Specific suggestions by A l ­ berta

Sparaglia,

Robert

Latham,

Bartholomew

Sparrow,

and

Triadafilos T r i a d -

afilopoulos have been most h e l p f u l . I n the intervening period since I began work o n this subject, D a n i e l H . D e u d n e y covered some o f the same g r o u n d from a somewhat different perspective i n " T h e P h i l a d e l p h i a n System: Sovereignty, A r m s C o n t r o l , and Balance o f Power i n the A m e r i c a n States-Union, circa 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 6 1 / '

International

Organization 49, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 1 9 1 - 2 2 8 . I a m grateful to John Ikenberry for b r i n g i n g Deudney's w o r k to m y attention. 1. T h e most i n f l u e n t i a l interpretation is that o f Louis Hartz. See his The Founding

of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South

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Africa, Canada, and Australia ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace & W o r l d , 1964), 69-122. See also Samuel N . H u n t i n g t o n , "Political M o d e r n i z a t i o n : A m e r i c a vs. Europe,"

World Politics 18, no. 2 (1966). 2 Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie

en Amérique, (Paris: G a l l i m a r d , 1961),

1:290 ( m y translation).

3. Reginald C . Stuart, War and American Thought from the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Kent, O h i o : K e n t State University Press, 1982), 188.

4. Grace G . Roosevelt, Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age. With full transla­ tions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "État de guerre" and of his "Extrait" and "Jugement" of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Projet de paix perpétuelle (Philadelphia: Temple Univer­ sity Press, 1990), 200. 5. Roosevelt, Reading Rousseau,

1 1 - 1 2 . However, there is also a

considerable

body o f w r i t i n g by K a n t i n the same tradition. 6. T h e single most i m p o r t a n t text was Tilly's "Reflections o n the History o f E u r o ­

pean State-Making," i n Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in West­ ern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). A l t h o u g h the v o l u m e also contains a lengthy essay o n the subject by Samuel Finer, this had nowhere the same impact. 7. T h e seminal work is " T h e F o r m a t i o n o f States and C o n s t i t u t i o n a l Develop­

ment: A Study i n History and Politics," i n The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, ed. Felix G i l b e r t ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 1 5 7 - 7 7 . 8. See, for example, Aristide R. Z o l b e r g , "Strategic Interactions and the Forma­ t i o n o f M o d e r n States: France and E n g l a n d , " i n The State in Global Perspective, ed. A l i Kazancigil ( L o n d o n : G o w e r / U N E S C O , 1986), 7 2 - 1 0 6 (originally published i n

International Social Science Journal, 1980); M i c h a e l M a n n , The Sources of Social Power, 2 vols. (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1986, 1993); Margaret L e v i , Of Rulers and Revenue (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1988); Karen A . Rasier and W i l l i a m R. T h o m p s o n , "War M a k i n g and State M a k i n g : G o v e r n m e n t a l

Expenditures, Tax Revenues, and Global Wars," American Political Science Review 75 (1985): 4 9 1 - 5 0 7 . 9. I have attempted a p r e l i m i n a r y synthesis for political analysis i n Aristide R. Z o l b e r g , "Beyond the Nation-State: Comparative Politics i n G l o b a l Perspective," i n

Beyond Progress and Development, ed. Jan Berting, W i m Blockmans, and U . Rose­ n t h a l (Aldershot, U . K . : Avebury/Gower, 1987), 4 2 - 6 9 . 10. O t t o H i n t z e , " M i l i t a r y Organization and the Organization o f the State," i n The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, ed. Felix G i l b e r t ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1975), 1 7 8 - 2 1 5 . 11. For an elaboration o f this point, see Z o l b e r g , "Strategic Interactions." A semi­ nal w o r k i n the classical tradition is E d w a r d W h i t i n g Fox, History in

Geographic

Perspective: The Other France ( N e w York: N o r t o n , 1971). A n interesting application to international relations theory is Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State ( N e w York: Basic Books, 1986). 12. Karen A . Rasier and W i l l i a m R. T h o m p s o n , "War M a k i n g and State M a k i n g : G o v e r n m e n t a l Expenditures, Tax Revenues, and G l o b a l Wars," American

Political

Science Review 75 (1985): 4 9 1 - 5 0 7 . 13. As noted, i n " T h e F o r m a t i o n o f States." H i n t z e argues that the need to secure resources for war c o n t r i b u t e d to the formation o f a representative estates system.

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However, i t is evident that the destruction o f these institutions d u r i n g the absolutist period was also attributable to the needs o f war. I n " M i l i t a r y O r g a n i z a t i o n " he seeks to resolve this p r o b l e m by suggesting that the fiscal pressures i n d u c e d by war nev­ ertheless set the stage for the reemergence o f constitutional government i n a subse­ quent period. For a more systematic and satisfying recent account, see B r i a n D o w n ­

ing, The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modem Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 14. See, for example, A a r o n L . Friedberg, " W h y D i d n ' t the U n i t e d States Become a Garrison State?" International Security 16, no. 4 (Spring 1992): 1 0 9 - 4 2 . 15. For a F r e n c h perspective, see Bertrand Badie and Pierre B i r n b a u m , The Soci­ ology of the State (Chicago: University o f C h i c a g o Press, 1983); for an A m e r i c a n

one, Samuel P. H u n t i n g t o n , Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). 16. Rasier and T h o m p s o n , "War M a k i n g and State M a k i n g , " 495, n . 4. 17. I b i d . , 5 0 1 .

18. Aristide R. Zolberg, "Belgium," i n Crises of Development in Western Europe and the United States, ed. R a y m o n d G r e w (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 9 9 - 1 3 8 . 19. D e u d n e y (193) suggests that Tocqueville (as w e l l as Hegel) "doubted

the

A m e r i c a n U n i o n was a state" i n the contemporaneous European sense o f the t e r m , w h i c h presumed a greater degree o f hierarchy. A l t h o u g h he seeks to resolve the categoric p r o b l e m by c o i n i n g the t e r m "real-state" for the European variety, the literature o n the sociology o f the state offers less awkward solutions that emphasize variation i n structural properties. See the seminal article by J. P. N e t t i , " T h e State as a C o n c e p t u a l Variable," World Politics 20, no. 4 (1968): 5 5 9 - 9 2 ; and M i c h a e l M a n n , " T h e A u t o n o m o u s Power o f the State: Its O r i g i n s , Mechanisms and Results,"

Archives Européennes de Sociologie 25 (1984): 185-213. 20. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957 [1944]). 2 1 . For general historical background, I a m relying o n Bernard Bailyn, Robert D a l l e k , D a v i d B r i o n Davis, D a v i d Herbert D o n a l d , John L . T h o m a s , and G o r d o n S.

Wood, The Great Republic: A History of the American People, 4 t h ed. (Lexington, Mass.: D . C . H e a t h , 1992).

22. Reginald C . Stuart, War and American Thought from the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Kent, O h i o : K e n t State University Press, 1982). A l t h o u g h Stuart correctly asserts that by 1793, "a new age o f ideological war had arrived for E u r o ­ peans" (5), he neglects to indicate that adherence to jus ad bellum was i n effect reinstated by the powers i n 1815 and prevailed for another century. 23. T h i s section is largely based o n Stuart, War and American Thought, 3 3 - 6 5 . 24. Alexander H a m i l t o n , James M a d i s o n , and John Jay, The Federalist Papers ( N e w York: M e n t o r Books, 1961 [1788]).

25. Federalist Papers, 73. 26. Francis Paul Prucha, The Sword of the Republic: The United States Army on the Frontier, 1783-1846 (Toronto: M a c m i l l a n , 1969), 6. 27. R i c h a r d U l l m a n , " T h e 'Foreign W o r l d ' and Ourselves," Foreign Policy 7, no. 2

(1976): 100; Lawrence S. Kaplan, Entangling Alliances with None: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson (Kent, O h i o : K e n t State University Press, 1987).

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28. U l l m a n , "'Foreign W o r l d ' and Ourselves," 102. 29. Seymour M a r t i n Lipset, The First New Nation ( N e w York: N o r t o n , 1979), 66.

30. James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 70.

31. James M o r t o n Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1956). 32. Samuel N . H u n t i n g t o n , The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard U n i ­ versity Press, 1957), 144.

33. Hajo H o l b o r n , A History of Modern Germany, 1840-1945 (New York: Knopf, 1969), 1 3 9 - 6 2 ; G o r d o n A . C r a i g , Germany 1866-1945 ( N e w York: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1978).

34. H u n t i n g t o n , The Soldier and the State, 168. 35. I b i d . , 145.

36. Federalist Papers, 160. 37. O n c e again, m y interpretation parallels that o f Deudney.

38. H u n t i n g t o n , The Soldier and the State, 178. 39. George Liska, Career of Empire: American and Imperial Expansion over Land and Sea (Baltimore: Johns H o p k i n s University Press, 1978), 338. 40. T h e n o t i o n o f " i n t e r n a l " and "external" faces is from J. P. N e t t i , " T h e State as a C o n c e p t u a l Variable," World Politics 20, no. 4 (1968): 5 5 9 - 9 2 .

4 1 . Bailyn et a l , The Great Republic, 321. 42. Stuart, Wczr and American Thought, 141. 43. T h i s historical account is largely based o n Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn:

War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U n i ­ versity Press, 1987). A l t h o u g h I a m l i m i t i n g myself to the theme o f engagement, Watts sees the war as fostering a transition from republican traditions toward m o d e r n liberal capitalism, i n v o l v i n g the consolidation o f the market economy and society, liberal p o l i t i c a l structure and ideology, and a bourgeois culture o f self-controlled individualism. 44. Richard B . M o r r i s , ed., Encyclopedia of American History ( N e w York: Harper & Row, 1976), 164. 45. T h i s is the sense i n w h i c h Watts writes o f "the Republic reborn."

46. Watts, The Republic Reborn, 291. 47. C i t e d i n Watts, The Republic Reborn, 317. 48. Reginald C . Stuart, Wczr and American Thought from the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Kent, O h i o : K e n t State University Press, 1982), 147.

49. Stuart, Wczr and American Thought, 112. 50. I b i d . , 149.

51. Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). 52. M y discussion o f the C i v i l W a r is based o n Richard F r a n k l i n Bensel, Yankee

Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877 (Cam­ bridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1990). 53. For Seward's proposal, see Bensel, Yankee Leviathan,

12, n . 18.

54. I b i d . , 14, 425. 55. M o r t o n Keller, Affairs of State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977);

INTERNATIONAL

ENGAGEMENT

53

Stephen Skowronek, Building the New American State (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e U n i versity Press, 1982). 56.

B a r t h o l o m e w H . Sparrow, "Strategie Adjustment and the A m e r i c a n Navy:

T h e 1890s, the Press, and the 1990s" (Paper presented at the Workshop o n Strategic Adjustment, Joint Center for International and Security Studies, Monterey, Calif., February 1 0 - 1 1 , 1995). 57.

T h e latter p o i n t was brought to m y attention by B a r t h o l o m e w Sparrow.

58.

Friedberg, "Garrison State," 137.

59. Barry Karl, The Uneasy State: The United States from 19IS to 1945 (Chicago: University o f C h i c a g o Press, 1983), 3 4 - 4 9 .

60. Harry Howe Ransom, Can American Democracy Survive the Cold War? (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1963), 15.

6 1 . Karl, The Uneasy State, 38. 62.

I b i d . , 39.

63.

Rasier and T h o m p s o n , "War M a k i n g and State M a k i n g . "

64. Karl, The Uneasy State, 46. 65. Lloyd Gardner, A Convenant with Power: America and World Order from Wilson to Reagan ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1984). 66.

Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, J 9 2 9 - 1 9 3 9 (Berkeley: U n i -

versity o f California Press, 1973), 2 9 1 - 3 0 8 . 67.

Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 2 2 8 - 2 9 ; Peter A . G o u r e v i t c h , Politics in

Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca: Corn e l l University Press, 1986). 68.

H a r o l d D . Lasswell, "Sino-Japáñese Crisis: T h e Garrison State versus the C i -

v i l i a n State," China Quarterly I I (Fall 1937): 6 4 3 - 4 9 . A more fully developed version appeared as " T h e Garrison State," American Journal of Sociology 46, no. 4 (1941): 4 5 5 - 6 8 . 69.

Friedberg, "Garrison State," 137.

70.

I b i d . , 138.

7 1 . A r t h u r Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: H o u g h t o n

Mifflin,

1973); T h e o d o r e L o w i , The End of Liberalism, 2 n d ed. ( N e w York: N o r t o n , 1979). 72.

M y emphasis o n the p o l i t i c a l sphere proper differs considerably from A a r o n

Friedberg s concerns. W h i l e agreeing w i t h his c o n t e n t i o n that what emerged i n the U n i t e d States i n the course o f the C o l d W a r is more aptly termed a "contract state," and that this was superior to the Soviet approach, I believe that engagement i n the C o l d W a r generated significant and, i n m y view, undesirable and unnecessary p o l i t i cal

changes, and that these to a significant degree c o u l d be dismantled, i f not

reversed.

73. Bradley F. Smith, The Wars Long Shadow: The Second World War and Its Aftermath ( N e w York: S i m o n & Schuster, 1986), 1 6 6 - 6 7 . 74.

George F. K e n n a n , Memoirs 1925-1950 (Boston: L i t t l e , B r o w n , 1967), 498.

75. See, for example, Friedberg, "Garrison State," 118, 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 .

76. Robert A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 19451950 ( N e w York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1985), 2. 77.

T h e n o t i o n that economic development was a necessary and perhaps suffi-

cient c o n d i t i o n for democracy was set forth by Seymour M a r t i n Lipset, notably i n

54

ZOLBERG

"Some Social Requirements

o f Democracy: E c o n o m i c D e v e l o p m e n t and Political

Legitimacy/' American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (1959): 69-105 (reprinted i n his Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963).). A n o t h e r i n f l u e n t i a l work was Walter W . Rostow, The Stages of Growth: A Non-Communist

Manifesto

(Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e

Economic

University Press,

1960). 78. I owe this p o i n t to Ira Katznelson, w h o is carrying o n further research along these lines i n his work o n postwar liberalism.

79. Pollard, Economic Security, 223. 80. A n t o n W . DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers: The Enduring

Balance

( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 138.

81. Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, 123. 82. I b i d . , 1 3 2 - 3 3 . 83. I cannot do justice to this vast subject here. For an overall view, see

the

appropriate chronological section i n Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Repression in

Modern America, from 1870 to the Present (Cambridge, Mass.: Shenkman, 1978). I m p o r t a n t works o n the early C o l d W a r period i n c l u d e E d w a r d Shils, The Torment of

Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policies (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1956); V i c t o r S. Navasky, Naming Names ( N e w York:

Penguin,

1981); E l l e n Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: St. M a r t i n s Press, Bedford Books, 1994). 84. T h e o d o r e

Draper, " T h e Fall o f an A m e r i c a n Junta," New

York Review of

Books, October 22, 1987, 4 5 - 5 8 .

85. H u n t i n g t o n , The Soldier and the State, 457. 86. N o r m a n Podhoretz,

The

Present Danger

( N e w York: S i m o n & Schuster,

1980); Samuel N . H u n t i n g t o n , American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).

Three International Commitments and American Political Institutions in the Nineteenth Century ROBERT

O.

KEOHANE

I N HIS I N T R O D U C T I O N to this volume, Ira Katznelson laments that i n the literature on A m e r i c a n political development the role o f international influ­ ences "remains remarkably unprobed." To a student o f international rela­ tions, such inattention to international factors seems like the scholarly equivalent o f W a l l Street sharks leaving "money o n the table" i n their bar­ gaining. Students o f international relations have been acutely aware for twenty years o f how Kenneth Waltz's "second image" — the role o f the state and society i n shaping foreign policy — c o u l d be "reversed." This volume seeks to develop and deepen our understanding o f the impact on American political development o f the structure o f world politics and international events. 1

T h e concern o f this volume is w i t h the state, and Katznelson's introduc­ tion focuses o n J. P. Nettl's discussion o f the state as a "conceptual variable." For a student o f international and transnational relations, however, Nettl's treatment of the state i n its external relations is anachronistic. Referring to sovereignty, he declares that "for almost all intents and purposes, the state acts for the society internationally and internal affairs relating to foreign affairs are a state prerogative." T h a t statement was not true for most states even w h e n N e t t i wrote i t . I t is even less true now. Transnational relations are extensive, meaning that nonstate actors — firms, nongovernmental orga­ nizations, networks o f individuals and groups — operate extensively across state borders. N e t t i invokes the concept o f an ideal-typical sovereign state. No such state exists, and few states even approximate this ideal type. N e t t i sees the state as a "gatekeeper" between the insulated compart­ ments o f domestic and foreign affairs. I t is more appropriate now —and has been for several decades —to view the state as an organization seeking to manage complex interdependence rather than serving as a "gatekeeper." T h e modern state seeks to affect the terms o f its engagement w i t h world markets and the economic, social, and political networks i n w h i c h it is enmeshed, rather than simply to control flows through channels controlled by "gates." These channels have l o n g since been submerged by the sheer 2

3

4

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KE O HAN E

volume of goods, people, money and, most o f all, ideas that they were origi­ nally intended to constrain. Indeed, twenty-four-hour markets and the huge availability of information i n cyberspace transcend the image of flows across borders. Individuals have continual access to global markets and the World­ wide Web, and it is increasingly difficult to say where i n physical space those markets, and the web, exist. M a n y have come to recognize this profound change i n world politics. But all too often, we stereotype the past i n the terms that we reject for the present. We "invent the past" by inserting into it our construction of the modern state: NehTs gatekeeper, standing guard between the ordered inter­ nal life of the society and the disorder outside. T h e period between 1648 and 1948, or later, is seen as the "Westphalian Era" i n world politics, i n w h i c h sovereignty really meant that states possessed internal supremacy and external independence. This chapter explores whether the U n i t e d States i n the nineteenth cen­ tury was an effective "gatekeeper," i n NettTs phrase. I undertake this explo­ ration through a particular "lens," that of American foreign policy commit­ ments. Frequently d u r i n g its early history, and occasionally later i n the nineteenth century, the United States undertook to make treaty commit­ ments that upset some of its own citizens. W h e n these commitments were challenged, political struggles ensued that help to reveal the strengths and weaknesses o f the national state — whose leaders had either made the com­ mitments themselves or had reputational incentives to seek to fulfill them. I explore some o f these episodes as a window through w h i c h we can see the American state, i f not more clearly, at least from a new angle. 5

6

I n international politics, no world government exists to enunciate b i n d i n g rules, adjudicate their application, or enforce them on recalcitrant states. State sovereignty means that states can renege on their commitments, since no more inclusive government exercises enforcement powers over them. One dimension of this problem, discussed briefly i n the second section o f the chapter, is deliberate breach: government's decision not to fulfill states treaty commitments. T h e principal focus o f this chapter, however, is com­ mitment incapacity: the inability o f the institutions of weak states — such as the antebellum U n i t e d States —to i m p l e m e n t actions necessary to fulfill treaty commitments. D u r i n g the first decades of its history, the central government o f the United States, although responsible for carrying out its foreign obligations, was quite weak not only w i t h respect to its potential enemies but also toward its own population, who considered themselves citizens o f their respective states as m u c h as citizens of the nation as a whole. T h e government was not always able to obtain sufficient obedience to implement its international obligations. T h a t is, the institutions of the antebellum state often suffered from c o m m i t m e n t incapacity.

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POLITICAL

INSTITUTIONS

59

T h e contrast between the antebellum and postbellum American states is dramatic. By the 1880s, the U n i t e d States was capable o f serving as a "gate­ keeper," for better or worse, between domestic and transnational society. This institutional change did not prevent the U n i t e d States from reneging on its international commitments — as we shall see, it flagrantly reneged o n immigration treaties w i t h C h i n a . Nonetheless, after the C i v i l War the United States had the capacity to m a i n t a i n its international commitments, even i f it did not always choose to do so. T h e difference between the antebellum and postbellum state reflected, o f course, the impact o f the American C i v i l War. This chapter treats the i m ­ pact o f the C i v i l War as exogenous to the story being told here; that is, the war had a major effect on how international commitments were treated but is not itself explained by the previous behavior of the U n i t e d States toward its international commitments. Hence m u c h o f the massive difference i n institutional capacity between the antebellum and postbellum eras cannot be explained by international relations. D u r i n g the antebellum period itself, the U n i t e d States experienced sub­ stantial institutional change. Between the Treaty of Peace w i t h Great Britain i n 1783 and the onset of the C i v i l War i n 1861, the U n i t e d States acquired greater effective internal sovereignty, that is, the ability to control events w i t h i n its own borders and on its frontiers. Gradually, the problem o f com­ m i t m e n t incapacity became less important, and incidents i n w h i c h the United States c o u l d not fulfill its commitments, less dangerous and less frequent. Even though many institutional changes were exogenous, result­ ing from economic and demographic growth, some of t h e m were endo­ genous to the c o m m i t m e n t problem. T h a t is, the American state sometimes responded to its inability to fulfill commitments by constructing institutions that could do so more effectively. F r o m the formation o f the Constitution onward, A m e r i c a n nationalists sought to strengthen American political insti­ tutions i n order to strengthen the state's ability to conduct foreign relations. I n the first section of the chapter, I describe five episodes before the C i v i l War i n w h i c h institutions of the U.S. state were unable, at least for a t i m e , to i m p l e m e n t international commitments that the U n i t e d States had under­ taken. I am deliberately selecting cases o f weakness, since I am engaging here i n descriptive inference. T h a t is, I am describing weakness (as re­ vealed by these episodes), not seeking to explain variation i n it. M y purpose is to show that U.S. institutions were sufficiently weak d u r i n g this period o f time that they were, o n important issues, sometimes unable to ensure that international commitments were fulfilled. T h e y faced different types o f re­ sistance: from agents o f foreign powers, from the states of the Confederation and labor o f the U n i o n , and from other agencies o f the national govern­ ment. B u t i n each of the cases selected, national institutions were weak. Since I have selected cases i n w h i c h national political institutions failed, 7

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to some extent at least, i n i m p l e m e n t i n g their desired policies, it w o u l d be unwarranted to infer that the U.S. state was weak i n general. D u r i n g the antebellum period the territory of the country vastly expanded, to encom­ pass the "manifest destiny" about w h i c h John Q u i n c y Adams so eloquently spoke. I n the course of this expansion, the U n i t e d States fought an unde­ clared war against Spain, held Great Britain to a standoff i n the War of 1812, defeated a number o f Indian nations, secured Oregon and Washing­ ton i n an exercise of brinkmanship w i t h Great Britain, and conquered a huge portion of M e x i c o , i n c l u d i n g what is now Texas and California and areas i n between. Some of these activities entailed deliberate violations o f treaty commitments. Aggressive expansion, not weakness, is the overall theme of American history between 1787 and 1860. I n the second section I t u r n to the postbellum period. T h e U n i t e d States had fewer international commitments after 1865 than it had d u r i n g the first half o f the century, so there is less material to work w i t h . However, the longr u n n i n g controversies of the 1870s and 1880s over Chinese i m m i g r a t i o n provide an instructive comparison w i t h earlier episodes. As i n the Indian cases, a dominant majority sought to renege on international treaties that protected a weak minority: Indian tribes before the mid-1830s, Chinese i m ­ migrants between 1868 and 1889. I n the later period, however, U.S. na­ tional institutions, especially the federal courts, were able to make their decisions stick even w h e n opposed by powerful local and state political forces. T h e second section of the chapter illustrates this difference by de­ scribing political and legal actions surrounding Chinese i m m i g r a t i o n i n the postbellum period. M y emphasis on "American political institutions" is deliberate. I have never been sympathetic w i t h the concept of "state strength," and I certainly do not endorse it here. "The state" is a complex of institutions, w i t h varying capacities and limitations. T h e ability to achieve purposes is not well i n ­ dexed by the size of a bureaucracy or the reliance of state organizations on directives as opposed to markets. Such ability varies considerably across is­ sue areas w i t h i n a state, as well as across states. Hence I avoid stereotyping the U n i t e d States as a "weak state" d u r i n g the entire antebellum period, and I discuss "state institutions" rather than "the state" — not least because those institutions were often i n conflict w i t h one another. 8

C o m m i t m e n t I n c a p a c i t y before the C i v i l W a r Before the C i v i l War, the U n i t e d States faced many challenges to its ability to fulfill its commitments: from various states, from foreign emissaries, and from individuals and groups. I n resisting these challenges, the federal gov­ ernment itself was not always united. W h e n the challengers succeeded —

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notably i n relations between settlers and Indian tribes —the federal execu­ tive often adjusted its practices, or even connived at the violation o f commit­ ments. Even w h e n the challengers failed, as did the French revolutionary emissary, C i t i z e n Genet and the states w h o resisted debt repayment, the exitent and duration o f their challenges indicate how precarious the author­ ity o f the federal government was, at least i n the first decade after the Treaty of Peace. B u t ultimately, challenges not supported by the federal govern­ ment did fail. I consider five sets o f challenges here, beginning w i t h those to fulfillment o f the 1783 Treaty o f Peace w i t h Great Britain. I then consider attempts by French revolutionaries to use the United States as a base i n their war w i t h Britain; Federalist policies toward Indian nations before the War o f 1812; Jacksonian policies toward the eastern Indians during *the 1830s; and finally, raids against Canada, from United States territory, during the 1830s. I n concluding the discussion o f each situation, I ask three ques­ tions: (1) W h i c h political institutions, i f any, were unable to i m p l e m e n t their decisions i n timely fashion? (2) W h a t forces blocked such i m p l e m e n ­ tation? and (3) Were subsequent institutional actions taken to make such implementation feasible i n the future?

The Treaty of Peace and the

Constitution

The Treaty of Peace w i t h Great Britain i n 1783 "was peculiar i n that only one o f its two signatories possessed the attributes o f sovereignty. America could b i n d Britain, but Britain could not b i n d America. T h e American party to the treaty was Congress, and Congress had only a l i m i t e d power delegated by the thirteen sovereign states. I t had no obligation to b i n d t h e m , and not one of t h e m incurred a single legal obligation under the Treaty o f Paris." This constitutional anomaly led to trouble immediately. Several states, particularly i n the South, refused to honor the treaty's provisions for the safe return o f Loyalists and payment o f debts to British merchants. " I f we are to pay the debts due the British merchants," someone remarked, "what have we been fighting for all this while?" Congress only had the authority to "earnestly r e c o m m e n d " to the states to restore the estates o f Loyalists w h o had not borne arms against the United States; it had no authority to imple­ ment article 4 o f the treaty, w h i c h provided that creditors should "meet w i t h no lawful i m p e d i m e n t to the recovery of the full value i n sterling money o f all bona fide debts heretofore contracted." These provisions left m u c h room for accusations o f disloyalty and treason against Loyalists, w h o were left w i t h feeble means o f redress. 9

10

11

12

N o n c o m p l i a n c e by the U n i t e d States gave the British a justification for refusing to return several frontier forts and for discriminating severely

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against American trade. I n 1786 John Jay, who was trying to manage A m e r i ­ can foreign relations, secretly informed Congress that violations o f the treaty by various states had preceded British violations, arguing that the United States needed a strong central government to enforce compliance, w h i c h w o u l d then put the U n i t e d States i n a position to demand British compli­ ance i n return. Congress and the weak Confederation executive tried to secure fulfillment, declaring i n 1786 that the states had no right to pass acts "interpreting, explaining or construing a national treaty," but responses by the states to this admonition were quite mixed. 13

Alexander H a m i l t o n , i n Federalist paper number 22, emphasized that the new Constitution was essential i f the U n i t e d States was to be able to fulfill its commitments and therefore to conduct effective foreign relations: " N o nation acquainted with the nature o f our political association w o u l d be un­ wise enough to enter into stipulations w i t h the U n i t e d States, by w h i c h they conceded privileges o f any importance to them, while they were apprised that the engagements on the part of the U n i o n might at any point be vio­ lated by its members. . . . T h e treaties o f the United States, to have any force at a l l , must be considered as part o f the law o f the land." Consistent w i t h Hamilton's argument, article 6 o f the Constitution contains the "Su­ premacy Clause," providing that the Constitution, laws of the U n i t e d States, and treaties "shall be the supreme Law o f the L a n d , and the Judges i n every State shall be b o u n d thereby, any T h i n g i n the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." 14

Because the Constitution was ratified, and the Supremacy Clause en­ forced by the federal courts, the United States was eventually able to keep its commitments, although the process took quite a while. " N o t u n t i l the Constitution of 1787 was adopted, the national courts established, and the Virginia supreme court overruled by the new Supreme C o u r t o f the U n i t e d States, were the British merchants to have the victory i n Virginia that had come to t h e m i n other states before the end o f the Confederation." O n l y w i t h the decision o f the Supreme C o u r t i n Ware v. Hylton (1796) did it become established law i n the U n i t e d States that British debtors could re­ ceive judgments i n courts throughout the country. Even then, British sub­ jects did not always find justice i n state courts. T h e Jay Treaty o f 1794 provided for arbitration by a joint British-American arbitral tribunal. W h e n that tribunal dissolved i n acrimony, the Convention of 1802 both reasserted the treaty rights of British subjects i n American courts and provided that the United States pay Britain an indemnity o f six hundred thousand pounds sterling, w h i c h was then distributed by a British commission. "The federal court i n Virginia heard and decided cases for the recovery o f pre-Revolutionary debts u n t i l well into the nineteenth century." 15

16

Despite the foot-dragging, the Constitution did enable the United States to conduct foreign affairs more effectively. I n the Jay Treaty of 1794, ratified i n 1795, Great Britain agreed to evacuate the frontier forts on American

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territory, marking what one could call the beginning of the era o f effective territorial sovereignty for the United States. I n this episode, therefore, the answers to our three key questions are as follows: 1. T h e executive o f the Confederation was unable to i m p l e m e n t the provisions o f the Treaty o f Peace. 2. Its attempts to do so were thwarted by the states, particularly i n the

South,

under pressure from debtors and others w h o stood to gain by reneging o n the treaty's c o m m i t m e n t s . 3. Partly as a result o f (1) and (2), fundamental institutional change occurred, i n order to assure the supremacy o f U n i t e d States actions over those o f the i n d i vidual states. T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n established institutions that increased the capacity o f the national government to keep its promises.

Revolutionary

France and the U . S . State, 1793

W h e n the onset o f war between Great Britain and France became known i n the United States i n A p r i l 1793, President George Washington issued a proclamation o f neutrality, although such neutrality was not meant to renounce the treaties of 1778 between the United States and France. Secretary o f State Thomas Jefferson assumed the responsibility o f pursuing a policy o f neutrality without violating commitments o f the Treaty o f Alliance or the Treaty o f A m i t y and C o m m e r c e w i t h France. Articles 17 and 22 of the Treaty o f A m i t y and C o m m e r c e provided that French ships o f war could take prizes from Britain into American ports, but not vice versa; and that "foreign privateers" could not fit out their ships i n A m e r i c a n ports. T h e French emissary to the United States, E d m o n d Charles G e n ê t (or C i t i z e n Genêt, as he is usually called), took advantage of the treaty and widespread pro-French sentiment to establish himself as an alternative center o f authority i n the United States, m o b i l i z i n g adherents to his cause. H e claimed the right to establish prize courts w i t h i n the United States and even set about outfitting warships and privateers i n A m e r i c a n ports. O n this privilege the treaty was silent, b u t Jefferson and the cabinet sought to deny it, using the language o f obligation and neutrality to bolster their defense o f A m e r i c a n territorial sovereignty, w h i c h Jefferson accused C i t i z e n G e n ê t o f violating. 17

18

Despite Jefferson's clear statement of policy and his warnings, G e n ê t continued to agitate and incite American citizens to military action. H e bragged to his Ministry of Foreign Affairs that " I excite the Canadians to free themselves from the yoke o f England, I arm the Kentuckians, and I prepare by sea an expedition w h i c h w i l l support their descent on N e w Orleans." I n deed, he incited military action by adventurers, to capture N e w Orleans from Spain, and establish Louisiana as an independent state. 19

20

I n July o f 1793 C i t i z e n G e n ê t arranged for a fighting ship, the

Little

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Democrat, to put to sea from Philadelphia, i n direct defiance of orders from the U n i t e d States government. Emphasizing neutral duties as well as rights, Jefferson, i n close consultation w i t h the cabinet, denied Genet's claim to the right to arm ships i n A m e r i c a n ports, arguing that the treaty provision denying enemies o f France the right to outfit ships i n American ports, "leaves the question as to France open, & free to be decided according to circumstances." But American neutrality meant that "since we are b o u n d by treaty to refuse [the right to arm ships] to the one party [Britain], and are free to refuse it to that other [France], we are bound by the laws o f neutrality to refuse it to that other." D o c u m e n t i n g Genet's repeated violations o f U n i t e d States sovereignty, Jefferson successfully demanded his dismissal, i n a memorable and unanswerable diplomatic communication. 21

By demonstrating i n devastating fashion Genet's violation of American sovereignty, Jefferson was eventually able to vindicate the United States promise o f neutrality (subject to provisions of the treaties w i t h France). Although Jefferson was personally favorably disposed toward France, Britain's minister to the United States, George H a m m o n d , declared that he had "every reason to be satisfied w i t h the conduct o f the federal government." Genet's successor, Fauchet, i n M a r c h 1794 revoked the military commissions bestowed by G e n ê t and forbade Frenchmen to violate United States neutrality. 22

23

By strict construction of the treaties — reserving only those special rights to France specifically required by the treaties—Washington's cabinet managed, i n 1793, to avoid war w i t h either Britain or France, as well as to maintain America's international obligations. O n l y after Jefferson's departure from office at the end o f that year did U.S. policy veer more sharply toward Britain's side, and only then could France persuasively argue that the United States had reneged on its obligations under the treaties. Despite this impressive diplomatic success, what is most notable for our purposes is the inability o f the U.S. government, i n 1793, to prevent the emissary o f a foreign power from raising troops, arming ships, and encouraging treasonous action — w i t h i n the territorial boundaries o f the United States. Genet's activities were perhaps the greatest threat to the exercise o f United States sovereignty w i t h i n its territorial boundaries i n the history o f the republic. H a d they been allowed to continue, the United States could not have kept its c o m m i t m e n t to be neutral i n the Anglo-French conflict and w o u l d almost surely have been drawn into the war, w h i c h might have led to civil war as well. 24

25

I n this case the answers to our three key questions are as follows: 1. T h e executive o f the U n i t e d States was unable to prevent G e n ê t from raising troops and a r m i n g ships w i t h i n its territories and o n l y w i t h great effort forced h i m to desist. 2. T i m e l y i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f executive orders was prevented by a l i m i t e d capacity o f the U n i t e d States for intelligence, a weak army, and widespread

sympathy

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for the F r e n c h cause w i t h i n the U.S. p o p u l a t i o n , i n c l u d i n g m u c h o f its leader­ ship (indeed, especially i n factions loyal to T h o m a s

Jefferson

and James

Madison). 3. I n s t i t u t i o n a l change was delayed by c o n t i n u i n g internal conflict, t h r o u g h the W a r o f 1812 ( d u r i n g w h i c h some states i n N e w E n g l a n d threatened to secede). T h e end o f the Napoleone Wars i n 1815 took the pressure off U n i t e d States m i l i t a r y and police institutions, w h i c h remained weak u n t i l the C i v i l War.

Early Federalist Indian

Policy

Under the Articles o f Confederation, the initial policy o f Congress (adopted i n October 1783) was to regard the Indian tribes as conquered adversaries, since most o f t h e m had fought on the British side d u r i n g the conflict: the Indians were to pay reparations i n the form of land cessions for their de­ predations d u r i n g the war. Unfortunately for the architects o f this policy, the Indians had not really been defeated i n the West and had no intention o f accepting punishment for fighting on the British side. Yet the confederal government tried to i m p l e m e n t this policy o f dictation, and southern states, such as Georgia and N o r t h Carolina, went even further w i t h it, seeking to confiscate Indian lands. Although several treaties w i t h Indian groups were concluded, the Indian signatories were typically either unrepresentative or acted under duress. T h e result was war, not peace. W h e n moderate treaties were negotiated, as they were at Hopewell i n 1785-86 w i t h the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, state governments protested and sought to u n ­ dermine them, and settlers violated t h e m egregiously. 26

A t this time, the southern Indians were allied w i t h Spain and the N o r t h ­ western Indians w i t h Britain, w h i c h remained i n control o f the forts. Since neither the confederal government nor the states had the military power to subdue the Indians, by 1786 the U n i t e d States faced war and chaos o n its frontiers. Between 1783 and 1787, sovereignty was i n abeyance: "Nowhere along the seaboard or the backcountry on either side o f the O h i o River was there a clear-cut center o f authority, white or red," and by 1786 "the U n i t e d States attempt to treat Indian affairs as a domestic problem and the Indians themselves as unwelcome guests o n their own land was a total failure. T h a t failure was compounded by the collapse of the treaty system through w h i c h Indian relations were customarily handled." T h e strategy devised by federalist leaders to deal w i t h this situation con­ tained both internal and external components. Domestically, it was neces­ sary for the national government to assert its control over Indian affairs. A t the Constitutional Convention o f 1787, James Madison adduced as an ex­ ample o f encroachments by the states o n federal authority that some had entered into treaties w i t h the Indians or made war against t h e m . I n the Constitution, the federal government was provided w i t h plenary powers for 27

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dealing w i t h Indian tribes, as C h i e f Justice John Marshall later noted. T h e Constitution, he said, "confers on Congress the powers of war and peace; o f making treaties, and o f regulating commerce w i t h foreign nations, and among the several states, and w i t h the Indian tribes. These powers compre­ h e n d all that is required for the regulation of our intercourse w i t h the I n ­ dians. T h e y are not l i m i t e d by any restricts o n their free actions; the shackles imposed o n this power, i n the confederation, are discarded." 28

T h e U n i t e d States needed to prevent the formation i n the South and Northwest of powerful Indian coalitions allied w i t h Spain and Britain, re­ spectively, yet the policy of conquest was likely to bring such coalitions about. Hence, the new government changed tactics. T h e United States be­ gan once again to pursue Britain's policy o f treating the Indian tribes as foreign nations rather than as members o f the domestic polity. T h e United States abandoned the attempt at conquest i n favor of a system o f compen­ sated treaty cessions, the first of w h i c h was negotiated at Fort Harmar i n January 1789. This strategy was required by Indian independence and m i l i ­ tary power, but it was also consistent w i t h domestic imperatives, since use of the treaty power — w h i c h required that the Indians be regarded as sovereign nations —was the most feasible way for the national government to regain control of Indian affairs from the southern states. As Secretary o f War Knox reported i n 1789: "The independent nations and tribes of Indians ought to be considered as foreign nations, not as the subjects o f any particular State. Each individual State, indeed, w i l l retain the right of pre-emption o f all land w i t h i n its limits, w h i c h w i l l not be abridged, but the general sover­ eignty must possess the right o f making all treaties, on the execution or violation o f w h i c h depend peace or war." 29

Thus, Knox proposed what Dorothy Jones has characterized as a "layering of sovereign powers." T h e Indians were independent foreign nations and they could not be deprived of their soil w i t h o u t their consent; states were to have preemption rights, but only the United States could acquire Indian territory, by treaty. T h i s legal structure, however, fit uneasily w i t h the crucial demographic fact of the day: the continued flow to the frontier of landseeking white settlers, who had little respect for Indian rights. T h e only way to reconcile Indian sovereignty w i t h expansion o f settlements was to obtain the Indians' "consent" to cession, or, failing that, to seize land by war. Knox was trying to adapt traditional colonial policy to contemporary purposes, but w i t h o u t possessing the imperial British authority to restrict settlement. 30

U n t i l the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency i n 1828, United States policy toward Native Americans was accompanied by protestations o f respect for Indians' rights to the soil and for the principle of cession only by consent. Beginning i n 1790, a series of trade and intercourse acts had been enacted, to control trade w i t h the Indians, invalidate all Indian cessions except those made through a p u b l i c treaty w i t h the United States, and p u n -

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ish crimes c o m m i t t e d by whites against Indians i n Indian country. These acts, according to Francis Paul Prucha, "sought to provide an answer to the charge that the treaties w i t h the Indians, w h i c h guaranteed their rights to the territory behind the boundary lines, were not respected by the U n i t e d States." T h e federal government sought to m a i n t a i n the boundary lines and protect the Indians' rights; u n t i l the Jacksonian period, it is striking how conscientious many federal officials were about m a i n t a i n i n g "scrupulous regard for treaty obligations." Illegal settlers were frequently removed from Indian lands. Yet the policy was ineffective. T h e federal authorities never had more than a handful o f troops available to police an extended frontier, and the civil authorities w i t h i n the states generally supported the frontiers­ m e n , who regarded Indians as enemies to be exterminated, and traders, who pursued commerce by fair means or foul. Indeed, court action was some­ times initiated against military officers who attempted to enforce the laws, making these officers liable for substantial financial punishment. Some­ times, especially after Jackson's election, top officials o f the federal govern­ ment deliberately encouraged or forced land cessions, despite treaty guaran­ tees. As the Indians became militarily weaker, the incentive o f the U n i t e d States government to control settler and state depredations fell. 31

W i t h respect to Indian policy i n the early federal period, therefore the answers to our three questions are as follows: 1. Federal government officials, from U.S. attorneys u p to the president himself, were often unable to i m p l e m e n t the provisions o f treaties made w i t h the I n d i a n tribes, despite the Supremacy Clause. 2. Resistance came from the settlers o n the frontier, using decentralized,

demo­

cratic institutions, over w h i c h they had preponderant influence. 3. T h e treaty powers conferred by the C o n s t i t u t i o n had an i m p a c t after 1789, b u t w h e n federal actions were ineffective further measures to strengthen the federal government's ability to enforce I n d i a n treaties were thwarted by popular senti­ m e n t , especially o n the frontier.

The Eastern Indians and Justice Marshall's

Court

I n 1828 and 1829, the state of Georgia enacted laws that distributed Indian lands to several counties and declared that after June 1, 1830, Georgia law w o u l d be supreme w i t h i n the Cherokee territory. T h e Cherokee N a t i o n filed suit i n the Supreme C o u r t for an i n j u n c t i o n to stop Georgia from executing its Indian laws, calling on the federal government to defend the Indians' treaty rights to self-government and possession o f the soil. However, C h i e f Justice Marshall, i n his o p i n i o n of M a r c h 18, 1831, declared that although the Cherokees had "unquestionable" rights to the land they occu­ pied, the C o u r t did not have jurisdiction over the case, because the Indians

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were "domestic dependent nations" and therefore not entitled to sue as a foreign nation. Encouraged by the substantive position on Indian rights of several jus­ tices, the Cherokees and their political and legal allies pursued another case, well suited both to a court judgment and to discrediting Jacksons policy i n the eyes of the public. This time the appeal came from judgments i n state courts against two missionaries, friendly to the Indians, w h o m Geor­ gia had arrested for c o n t i n u i n g to live i n the Cherokee territory after De­ cember 1830, without a license from the state. I n Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall declared Georgia's extension of its law over the Indians unconstitu­ tional. T h e Cherokee N a t i o n had not given up its sovereignty i n treaties w i t h the United States: the only l i m i t a t i o n on its sovereignty was that i t could not m a i n t a i n political relations w i t h nations other than the United States. State law must yield, because it was i n conflict both with federal law, w h i c h sought to preserve the national character o f the tribes, and w i t h valid treaties between the United States and the Cherokee N a t i o n . 32

33

However, Georgia's intransigence and the weakness of federal law enfor­ cement made it impossible i n 1832 to enforce the Court's order that the state release the missionaries. President Andrew Jackson was never even called u p o n to enforce the decision: as he wrote to a friend, "The decision of the supreme court has fell [sic] still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate." Enforcement was impossible because the political battle was being w o n by the forces favoring the removal o f all eastern Indians to reservations be­ yond the Mississippi River. Andrew Jackson expressed a widespread senti­ m e n t w h e n he declared i n his message to Congress i n December 1830, "What good m a n w o u l d prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded w i t h cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished w i t h all the improvements w h i c h art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled w i t h all the blessings o f liberty, civilization, and religion?" T h e Jackson administration regarded treaties not as moral obligations but as matters o f expediency. As expressed by Governor George C . G i l m e r of Georgia, "Treaties were expedients by w h i c h ignorant, intractable, and sav­ age people were induced without bloodshed to yield up what civilized peo­ ples had a right to possess by virtue of that c o m m a n d of the Creator deliv­ ered to m a n upon his formation —be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue i t . " 34

To the House committee reporting the 1830 Indian Removal B i l l , the practice o f extinguishing Indian title by payments o f money was "but the substitute w h i c h humanity and expediency have imposed, i n place o f the sword, i n arriving at the actual enjoyment of property claimed by the right o f discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority allowed to the claims of civilized communities over those o f savage tribes." 35

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T h e C i v i l i z e d Tribes were supported at first by religious groups and by Jackson's political opponents, the National Republicans o f Henry Clay. T h e i r protests relied on appeals to justice and the sanctity o f treaties. For instance, Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen o f N e w Jersey, i n a Senate speech i n 1830, emphasized the administration's violation of its treaty obligations: Every administration of this Government, from President Washington's, have, with like solemnities and stipulations, held treaties with the Cherokees; treaties, too, by almost all of which we obtained further acquisitions of their territory. Yes, sir, whenever we approached them in the language of friendship and kindness, we touched the chord that won their confidence; and now, when they have nothing left with which to satisfy our cravings, we propose to annul every treaty — to gain­ say our word —and by violence and perfidy drive the Indian from his home. 36

These protests were insufficient to block passage o f a Removal B i l l i n 1830, but the struggle continued, w i t h the Indian appeals to the courts as a focal point. Indeed, the Whigs took up the antiremoval cause i n the presi­ dential campaign o f that year. However, they dropped the issue after Clay's defeat for the presidency and Jackson's proclamation against nullification i n December 1832. Suddenly, Clay's nationalists were allied w i t h the Jacksonians against John C . C a l h o u n o f South Carolina, whose state both groups sought to isolate. A t this point, it became important not to antagonize Geor­ gia, and "the Cherokees and the missionaries had become an embarrass­ ment." T h e Cherokee Nation's treaty status was no longer politically en­ meshed w i t h the W h i g interest: the missionaries accepted pardons, and the Cherokees were persuaded not to renew their struggle i n the Supreme Court. Indian removal gradually became accepted policy, implemented even by the Whigs w h e n they finally captured the presidency i n 1841. T h e result was the resettlement o f the Five C i v i l i z e d Tribes i n Indian Territory, the movement of many other tribes westward w i t h less specific assurances o f permanent tenure, and the emergence o f a so-called "Permanent Indian Frontier," w h i c h was vaguely defined but remained more or less intact u n t i l after the end of the war w i t h M e x i c o i n 1848. 37

38

39

W i t h respect to this case the answers to our three key questions are as follows: 1. The federal courts were unable to implement their decisions with respect to the Cherokees. 2. Implementation of court decisions was blocked by the Jackson administration, with the support of a majority of voters. 3. In view of strong political support for Indian removal, institutional changes to strengthen the Supreme Court's authority were not forthcoming. T h e Cherokee case is not a clear case o f c o m m i t m e n t incapacity by the executive, since President Jackson's government c o u l d have fulfilled the

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agreements w i t h the Cherokees, but preferred to collude with Georgia i n reneging on those agreements and removing the Cherokees from their an­ cestral lands. However, the Cherokee case does illustrate the weakness o f the federal courts, w h i c h found that their decisions fell "still born." T h e courts were incapable o f ensuring that U n i t e d States commitments to the Indian nations were fulfilled.

Raids against

Canada

T h r o u g h o u t m u c h of the nineteenth century many Americans desired to acquire Canada for the U n i o n , and American armies invaded Canada dur­ ing both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Even after peace came i n 1815 (after the signing of the Treaty of G h e n t i n December 1814), and the boundary was delimited, some Americans still sought to annex Can­ ada. I n 1837 a rebellion i n Upper Canada attracted support from certain Americans, who used a ship called the Caroline to ferry weapons across the Niagara River to the rebels. O n December 29, 1837, British troops crossed into American territory and burned the Caroline, creating outrage i n the U n i t e d States. President Van Buren, however, acted with restraint toward Britain and denounced American citizens who aided the rebels " i n perfect disregard o f their own obligations and of the obligations of the Government to foreign nations." Britain and the U n i t e d States agreed to arbitrate the dispute. 40

41

Three years later, one Alexander M c L e o d went to N e w York State on a business trip, apparently boasted about his part i n the b u r n i n g of the Car­ oline, and was arrested for arson and murder. T h e British minister i n Wash­ ington protested, calling for McLeod's release and demanding that the U n i t e d States recognize that "the destruction of the steamboat 'Caroline' was a public act of persons i n Her Majesty's Service, obeying the order of their superior authorities. T h a t act, therefore, according to the 'usages o f nations,' can only be the subject of discussion between the two National Governments." T h e new W h i g administration, first o f Harrison, then Tyler, was i n an awkward position, since public and congressional o p i n i o n held that M c L e o d should be tried i n court. Moreover, the case was i n state rather than federal court. Secretary o f State Webster accepted the British view and took the issue to the Supreme C o u r t o f the state o f N e w York on a writ o f habeas corpus, seeking McLeod's release; however, the N e w York Supreme C o u r t refused. T h e British minister commented, with a combination o f anx­ iety and bemusement, to Palmerston, secretary of state for foreign affairs: 42

T h e decision o f the Supreme C o u r t o f N e w York, as it now stands, has placed the G o v e r n m e n t o f the U n i t e d States i n the most extraordinary and embarrassing posi-

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t i o n i n w h i c h a N a t i o n a l government probably ever f o u n d itself. T h e

Federal

G o v e r n m e n t has formally placed u p o n record, has officially c o m m u n i c a t e d to H e r Majesty's G o v e r n m e n t , and has published to the w o r l d , its admission o f the p r i n c i ­ ple o f international law insisted u p o n by Great B r i t a i n . B u t the same G o v e r n m e n t n o w finds itself overruled by an inferior power w i t h i n one o f its o w n States, and is made liable to be forced i n t o a war w i t h Great B r i t a i n i n order to support a c l a i m w h i c h i t has b e g u n by solemnly disavowing.

43

War was averted, since the British remained firm b u t patient; the A m e r i ­ can administration sought peace; and, i n a stroke o f good fortune for the administration, i n October 1841 a jury acquitted M c L e o d .

44

T h i s episode illustrates the dangers that the decentralization of the U n i t e d States posed for its foreign relations. T h e U n i t e d States was i n viola­ tion o f international law not due to the actions of the federal government but rather to those o f armed bands o f citizens and the officers and courts of the state o f N e w York. Indeed, after M c L e o d s acquittal Webster arranged for Congress to enact a law "providing for the discharge, or the removal from state to federal courts, o f anyone accused o f an unlawful act proved to have been c o m m i t t e d under the orders of a foreign sovereign." Here is another example, less portentous than the enactment o f the Constitution but nevertheless, relevant to our argument, of institutional change i n the U n i t e d States prompted by international conflict. 45

W i t h respect to this incident, the answers to our three questions are as follows: 1. T h e executive branch o f the U n i t e d States was unable for some t i m e , and at the risk o f war, to f u l f i l l treaty c o m m i t m e n t s . 2. I t was b l o c k e d by the courts o f the state o f N e w York, reflecting popular sentiment. 3. Subsequent institutional changes d i d strengthen the role o f the federal govern­ m e n t i n such situations.

T h r o u g h o u t the antebellum period, state governments often hindered the conduct of U.S. foreign relations, making it difficult for the U n i t e d States to keep its treaty commitments. Sometimes, most notably i n 1787-89, a coali­ tion c o u l d be m o b i l i z e d to enhance the institutional capacity o f the na­ tional government. Often, however, popular pressure or state recalcitrance blocked efforts to m a i n t a i n treaty commitments.

C o m m i t m e n t C a p a c i t y after the C i v i l W a r : T h e Chinese Immigration Cases T h e U.S. state was vastly strengthened by the C i v i l War, as we can see by examining the protracted conflict over Chinese i m m i g r a t i o n , and how it was

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handled by Congress, the president, and the federal courts. T h e key point is not the conclusion of the story — eventual reneging by the United States — but the maintenance o f treaty restraints for a substantial period o f time. T h e United States concluded the Burlingame Treaty i n 1868, providing for free immigration and most-favored-nation ( M F N ) treatment for Chinese nationals. This treaty imposed obligations on U.S. cities and states, as well as on the federal government, that were perceived by many Americans as burdensome. Both the Burlingame Treaty and its successor treaty, negoti­ ated i n 1880, were soon contested i n city halls and legislatures o n the West Coast and i n Congress. U n t i l 1889, however, Chinese rights under the treaties were successfully protected by federal courts. O n l y w h e n Congress explicity overrode the treaty o f 1880 did the Supreme C o u r t acquiesce. T h e history o f U.S. policy toward Chinese immigration is not one o f commit­ m e n t i n capacity but o f eventual deliberate reneging on treaty obligations. T h e first Chinese arrived i n California i n 1849, w i t h the G o l d Rush, and laws discriminating against t h e m were enacted beginning i n 1852. San Francisco and the state o f California passed legislation preventing Chinese from testifying against white people i n court and enacted a discriminatory capitation tax against t h e m . Although no treaty commitments protected Chinese subjects i n the United States u n t i l 1868, the California Supreme C o u r t overturned the capitation tax (Lin Sing v. Washburn [1862]) on the grounds that it encroached on the federal prerogative of regulating interna­ tional commerce, established i n the Passenger cases of 1849. T h e court reasoned that discriminating against Chinese had the effect of discriminat­ ing against foreign commerce, an area reserved to federal jurisdiction. 46

After the C i v i l War, Chinese laborers were brought to the United States i n large numbers to b u i l d the transcontinental railways; and i n 1868 the U n i t e d States and C h i n a negotiated the Burlingame Treaty. A t this time Chinese subjects i n the United States also gained constitutional protection against discrimination i n the Fourteenth A m e n d m e n t , w h i c h guaranteed equal protection o f the laws, and statutory protection i n the C i v i l Rights A c t of 1870, w h i c h provided that Chinese could testify i n court and forbade discriminatory "penalties, taxes, license, and exactions of every k i n d . " Hence, after 1868 and especially after 1870, the Chinese and citizens sup­ porting t h e m could appeal to federal law against discriminatory statutes en­ acted by the city o f San Francisco and the state of California. T h e Chinese and their supporters invoked the Burlingame Treaty and its revision (the Ansell Treaty o f 1880) i n their attempts to persuade the federal courts to overturn these discriminatory statutes. 47

Such attempts were often successful: federal courts enforced the provisions of the Burlingame Treaty on local and state legislative bodies. For example, i n a case involving regulation of San Francisco laundries, In re Quong Woo, Supreme C o u r t Justice Stephen Field (sitting as circuit judge) invoked the

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Burlingame Treaty to show that Q u o n g Woo, a Chinese subject, had the right, because o f China's most-favored-nation ( M F N ) status, to operate a laundry i n the U n i t e d States. A n d i n 1880, after the California legislature passed a law forbidding any corporation to employ Chinese, the U.S. circuit court held this law invalid, because it violated the Burlingame Treaty as well as the Four­ teenth A m e n d m e n t to the U n i t e d States Constitution. I n the 1880s, the federal courts i n California, and particularly two judges —Ogden Hoffman o f the U.S. District C o u r t for N o r t h e r n California and Lorenzo Sawyer o f the U.S. C i r c u i t C o u r t for California — actively pro­ tected the rights o f Chinese. Most of the cases involved requests by Chinese persons for writs o f habeas corpus after having been detained or arrested by U.S. authorities, particularly the San Francisco collector o f port; between 1882 and 1891 over seven thousand such "Chinese Admiralty" cases were filed, 8 5 - 9 0 percent o f w h i c h were apparently successful. Judges Hoffman and Sawyer did not simply accept the determination o f the collector o f port about the status of Chinese persons: "Despite pressure from federal officials, the press, and the public, Hoffman and Sawyer believed that their judicial duty required t h e m to interpret the successive Chinese exclusion acts i n light of the 1868 and 1880 treaties w i t h C h i n a . " I n In re Chin Ah On (1883), Hoffman held that a Chinese laborer who lived i n California i n 1880 but left before passage o f the 1882 act was permitted to return w i t h o u t a certificate, on the grounds that the act had only sought to bar new i m m i ­ gration. A n d article 2 o f the 1880 treaty provided that Chinese laborers i n the U n i t e d States w h e n the treaty was signed could leave and return freely. H o n o r required that the U n i t e d States keep its obligations: to deny C h i n A h O h the right to land, Hoffman believed, "would be to attribute to the legis­ lative branch o f government a want of good faith and a disregard o f solemn national engagements w h i c h , unless upon grounds w h i c h leave the court no alternatives, it w o u l d be indecent to impute to i t . " I n Chew Heong v. United States (1884), Justice Field (as circuit judge) decided over the dissents of three others (the Supreme C o u r t judge prevailed even w h e n i n a minority) that Chinese laborers who had left before certificates were available could be denied reentry because they did not have certificates; but on appeal this decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, w h i c h argued that i n view o f the importance of the sanctity o f treaties, if, "by any reasonable construction," the later statute could be interpreted as consistent w i t h a treaty, the treaty must stand. 48

49

50

Hence, for a significant period of time, the treaties had an impact, despite strong political opposition, because o f the actions o f federal courts. Short o f clear congressional mandates to the contrary, the federal courts helped to protect Chinese from arbitrary actions by local, state and federal officials seeking to discriminate against them. U n l i k e efforts by the federal courts to protect the Indians i n the 1830s, these court orders were operationally effec-

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tive. T h e ability of the federal courts to override state policy, as well as the administrative actions o f agents of the national government, was now as­ sured. T h e contrast w i t h the antebellum period is quite marked. Unfortunately for the Chinese judicial capacity to protect t h e m was not enough. Political sentiment progressively intensified against t h e m , and the Forty-fifth Congress (1877-79) responded to it. T h e Committee on Educa­ tion and Labor i n the House and the Committee on Foreign Relations i n the Senate urged renegotiation of the Burlingame Treaty. I n 1879 Congress passed the Fifteen Passenger B i l l , w h i c h provided that no vessel should bring more than fifteen Chinese to the U n i t e d States at a time. T h e mostly Democratic supporters o f this measure acknowledged that it w o u l d consti­ tute abrogation of articles 5 and 6 of the Burlingame Treaty, w h i c h guaran­ teed free migration and travel and residence privileges, but the chairman of the C o m m i t t e e on Education and Labor (Willis of Kentucky) made clear i n his report his understanding that subsequent laws "control any contravening treaty." A m o n g the opponents, Senator Hoar (R, Mass.) declared that the b i l l was a breach of faith and violated principle. 51

President Hayes vetoed the measure o n M a r c h 1, 1879. He did not ques­ tion the legal right of the U n i t e d States to abrogate a treaty but held that abrogation o f articles 5 and 6 o f the Burlingame Treaty w o u l d constitute a denunciation of the whole treaty, and that Congress cannot unilaterally amend a treaty. D e n u n c i a t i o n of the treaty w o u l d be likely to lead to recip­ rocal Chinese action that could be harmful to American missionaries i n C h i n a and to U.S. commercial interests; renegotiation w o u l d be a wiser course. Treaty denunciation, said Hayes, is constitutionally permitted but "justifiable only u p o n some reason both of the highest justice and the high­ est necessity." To avoid congressional passage of abrogation legislation over a presiden­ tial veto, President Hayes then asked Congress to authorize a special com­ mission to negotiate a revised treaty, w h i c h w o u l d give the U n i t e d States the right to l i m i t i m m i g r a t i o n from C h i n a . T h e American commissioners, led by the president o f the University of M i c h i g a n , James B. Angeli, proposed that the U n i t e d States be permitted to entirely p r o h i b i t i m m i g r a t i o n o f C h i ­ nese laborers, but the Chinese did not accept this provision: article 1 of the Treaty o f 1880 provided instead that "the U n i t e d States may regulate, l i m i t , or suspend such c o m i n g or residence, but may not absolutely p r o h i b i t i t . " Furthermore, "the l i m i t a t i o n or suspension shall be reasonable." Article 2 reaffirmed M F N treatment for Chinese subjects going to the U n i t e d States and laborers already there, and article 3 made clear the responsibility of the United States to "exert all its powers" to protect Chinese from i l l treatment i n the U n i t e d States. T h e Angeli Treaty was agreed to readily by the Senate and replaced the Burlingame Treaty. 52

53

Taking advantage of the leeway offered by the 1880 treaty, Congress

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passed a measure i n 1882 that w o u l d have l i m i t e d Chinese immigrants to fifteen per vessel, prohibited immigration o f Chinese laborers for twenty years, and imposed a passport and registration system on Chinese i n Amer­ ica. President Chester A. Arthur vetoed this act on the grounds that a twenty-year p r o h i b i t i o n was inconsistent w i t h article 1 o f the Angeli Treaty (a twenty-year p r o h i b i t i o n o f entry was equivalent, he argued, to absolute prohibition) and violated U.S. assurances given during negotiation o f that treaty. Secondarily, he argued that the passport-registration system served no good purpose and violated assurances that Chinese i n the United States w o u l d be given M F N treatment. After A r t h u r s veto was sustained, a new b i l l was passed, w h i c h l i m i t e d exclusion to ten years and abandoned the registration system. I n 1884 Congress tightened up the requirements for the establishment by a Chinese person o f prior residency i n the United States: thereafter, possession of a certificate was the only permissible evi­ dence by w h i c h a laborer could establish the right o f reentry. 54

55

56

57

Under c o n t i n u i n g pressure to restrict Chinese immigration, the United States and C h i n a negotiated during 1887-88 a new treaty that prohibited entry o f Chinese laborers for twenty years, except for returning laborers w i t h relatives or property o f one thousand dollars or more i n the United States. I n secret session the Senate added provisions nullifying the certificates i n the hands o f Chinese laborers currently outside the U n i t e d States. T h e C h i ­ nese minister, perhaps not understanding that these changes w o u l d exclude twenty thousand Chinese laborers, accepted t h e m and sent t h e m to Peking; and Congress passed a b i l l to i m p l e m e n t its measures w h e n finally ratified. 58

W h e n newspaper reports appeared indicating that C h i n a w o u l d not ratify the treaty^ Congress passed the Scott Act, banning all Chinese laborers from reentry. I t was approved by the president on October 1, 1888, and went into effect immediately. Returning Chinese who had been o n the high seas w h e n it was enacted were refused reentry to the U n i t e d States. Cleveland justified this act o n the grounds that the U n i t e d States had had every reason to expect C h i n a to ratify the treaty as amended and that "an emergency had arisen" as a result o f its failure to do so: " I can not but regard the expressed demand on the part o f C h i n a for a re-examination and renewed discussion of the topic so completely covered by m u t u a l treaty stipulations as an indefi­ nite postponement and practical abandonment o f the objects we have i n view, to w h i c h the Government o f C h i n a may justly be considered as pledged." 59

60

T h e Scott A c t was a plain violation o f the 1880 treaty, canceling perhaps 20,000 certificates. T h e issue went to the Supreme C o u r t i n 1889. T h e year before, the C o u r t had prepared the ground by r u l i n g that " A treaty is placed on the same footing, and made o f like obligation, w i t h an act o f legisla­ tion. . . . W h e n the two relate to the same subject, the courts w i l l always endeavor to construe t h e m so as to give effect to both, i f that can be done

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without violating the language o f either; but i f the two are inconsistent, the one last i n date w i l l control the other, provided always the stipulation o f the treaty o n the subject is self-executing." Now, i n Chae Chan Ping v. United States (Chinese Exclusion Cases, 1889), the C o u r t used that precedent to rule that the Scott Act was constitu­ tional. A Chinese national who had resided i n the United States from 1875 to 1887 and had left w i t h a certificate i n hand could be denied reentry, notwithstanding the Burlingame and Angeli Treaties and the legislation o f 1882 and 1884. A l t h o u g h this act of Congress was a clear violation of the two treaties, the Supreme C o u r t ruled that " i t is not o n that account invalid or to be restricted i n its enforcement. T h e treaties were of no greater legal obligation than the act o f Congress," and " i n either case the last expression of the sovereign w i l l must control." Indeed, according to the Court, "the power of exclusion of foreigners being an incident of sovereignty, . . . the interests o f the country require it cannot be granted away or restrained o n behalf o f any one." 61

62

T h e rest o f the story is anticlimactic. I n 1892 Congress debated the Geary Act, w h i c h i n its original version w o u l d have prohibited all Chinese i m m i ­ gration, not just of laborers. T h e final version, as amended by the Senate Foreign Relations C o m m i t t e e , extended the Scott Act for ten years and pro­ vided that Chinese laborers i n the United States must register and h o l d internal passports, under penalty o f being deported. This act was a clear violation of article 2 of the 1880 treaty, w h i c h provided Chinese laborers "all the rights, privileges, immunities and exemptions w h i c h are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation." I n providing for i m ­ prisonment and subsequent deportation o f Chinese found unlawfully resid­ ing i n the United States, the Geary A c t declared that the burden o f proof w o u l d be o n the Chinese person arrested, and that no bail should be al­ lowed to Chinese i n habeas corpus proceedings. Before President Harrison signed the b i l l , the Chinese minister protested that it was a violation o f the treaty o f 1880. B u t i n 1893 the Supreme C o u r t ruled (with three dissents) that the Geary law was constitutional. 63

Conclusion "Stateness" varies w i t h respect to international and transnational relations, just as it does along other dimensions. T h e American state has not always been an effective gatekeeper toward the outside world. I n its early history, the executive branch was often hamstrung by administrative incapacity, lack of political support, and even — for example, on the frontier — a military too weak to control recalcitrant members of civil society. T h e federal courts

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were also weak. As the Cherokee cases indicate, the courts c o u l d not count on i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f their orders by the Executive. A strong state roughly corresponding to NettFs gatekeeper was con­ structed, i n the U n i t e d States, by the nationalism of the C i v i l War and doctrines such as those enunciated by the Supreme C o u r t i n the Chinese immigration cases. T h e U n i t e d States was never a perfectly effective gate­ keeper, but between 1889 and the 1960s analysts could be pardoned for imagining it as such. C o m p l e x interdependence and globalization have once more called this state capacity into question. I n Europe now, it is quite obvious that sovereignty has been utterly transformed: individual states are subject to European law and have effectively lost the ability either to control immigration or to print money — two of the classic attributes o f sovereignty. T h e y have armies, but their military establishments are so integrated into N A T O , and so dependent on logistics provided by the U n i t e d States, that they can hardly be considered autonomous fighting forces. Matters have not gone nearly so far for the U n i t e d States, but it has become manifest that the U n i t e d States cannot prevent illegal drugs and illegal immigrants from flow­ ing over its borders. It is unlikely that the U n i t e d States w i l l return soon to the condition o f weakness that characterized its state d u r i n g its first fifty years. But new de­ velopments may be i n store. I n the era of the Internet, what Joseph S. Nye has called "soft power" is increasingly important. States may need not only hierarchical administrative capacity, but also the ability to operate i n inter­ national institutions and i n transnational and transgovernmental networks. W i t h o u t prejudging the nature o f such developments, it is nevertheless worthwhile to note, as we enter the new M i l l e n n i u m , that the American state has been transformed before.The next major changes i n American state capacity are likely to be more affected by global forces than the trans­ formation of the mid-nineteenth century. 64

Notes 1. Peter A . G o u r e v i t c h , ' T h e Second Image Reversed: T h e International Sources

of Domestic Politics," International Organization 32 (1978): 8 8 1 - 9 1 2 . For an at­ t e m p t to apply Gourevitch's insight to the U n i t e d States, see Robert O . "Associative A m e r i c a n D e v e l o p m e n t ,

Keohane,

1776-1860: E c o n o m i c G r o w t h and Political

Disintegration," i n The Antinomies of interdependence: National Welfare and the In­ ternational Division of Labor, ed. John Gerard Ruggie (New York: C o l u m b i a Univer­ sity Press, 1983), 8 3 - 8 4 . 2. J. P. N e t t i , " T h e State as a C o n c e p t u a l Variable," World Politics 20 (July 1968): 564.

3. Robert O . Keohane and Joseph S. N y e , eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).

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4. T h e r e is a huge literature o n this subject. For an early statement, see Robert O .

Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr., eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). 5. For a recently updated discussion, see Robert O . Keohane and Joseph S. N y e

Jr., Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, 3rd ed. (New York: Addison-Wesley L o n g m a n , 2001 [1977]). 6. For a classical discussion o f sovereignty and the state i n "international society,"

see Hedley B u l l , The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1977). For a recent discussion o f gaps between the fiction

and the reality o f "Westphalian sovereignty," see Stephen D . Krasner, Sover­

eignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 7. Gary K i n g , Robert O . Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry:

Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 2.

8. See Helen V. M i l n e r , Resisting Protectionism: Global industries and the Politics of International Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), especially 2 7 4 89.

9. A . L . Burt, The United States, Great Britain and British North America: From the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace after the War of 1812 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1961), 97.

10. Lawrence S. Kaplan, Colonies into Nation: American Diplomacy, 1763-1801 (New

York: M a c m i l l a n , 1972), 154.

11. Treaty o f Peace between Great B r i t a i n and the U n i t e d States, 1783, articles 4 and 5. 12. Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution ( B l o o m ington: Indiana University Press, 1957 [1935]), 235. See also James H . Kettner, The

Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870 (Chapel H i l l : University o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1978), 184; Richard W . V a n Alstyne, Empire and Independence: The

International History of the American Revolution (New York: Wiley, 1965), 221. For detailed lists o f complaints o n b o t h sides, see the correspondence between the Brit­ ish minister i n the U n i t e d States, George H a m m o n d , and Secretary o f State T h o m a s

Jefferson between 1791 and 1793. American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1: 1 8 8 213.

13. American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1: 165. 14. Alexander H a m i l t o n , The Federalist, no. 22 (1787). The Federalist Papers, ed. E d w a r d M e a d e Earle ( N e w York: M o d e r n Library, 1937), 131, 137.

15. M e r r i l l Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789 ( N e w York: Knopf, 1950), 2 6 5 - 6 8 , quotations o n 2 8 1 . 16. The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles F. Hobson, (Chapel H i l l : University of N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1987), 5: 2 6 0 - 6 3 , quotation o n 263.

17. Alexander D e C o n d e , Entangling

Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy under

George Washington ( D u r h a m , N . C . : D u k e University Press, 1958), 88; Samuel Flagg

Bemis, Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (New York: M a c m i l l a n , 1924), 140. See also Robert W . Tucker and D a v i d C . Hendrickson, Empire of Lib­

erty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and Gerald A. Combs, The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1970).

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18. Jefferson's reply to C i t i z e n G e n ê t , June 5, 1793, i n The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Ford Leiscester Ford ( N e w York: Putnam's, 1895), 6: 2 8 2 - 8 3 . I t also

appears i n American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1: 150. 19. G e n ê t to M i n i s t r y o f Foreign Affairs, June 19, 1793, i n D u m a s M a l o n e , Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston: L i t t l e , B r o w n , 1962), 104. 20. M a l o n e , Jefferson, 1 0 4 - 9 . 2 1 . Jefferson to the U.S. M i n i s t e r to France, G o u v e r n e u r M o r r i s , August 16, 1793, i n Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 6: 380. T h i s message was read paragraph by paragraph to the cabinet; see M a l o n e , Jefferson, 126. A c c o r d i n g to Samuel Flagg Bemis, H a m i l t o n took the lead w i t h i n the cabinet i n arguing that the treaty d i d not provide i m p l i c i t privileges to France to sell their prizes i n A m e r i c a t h r o u g h consular courts or to fit out privateers i n A m e r i c a n waters. Bemis, "Thomas Jefferson," i n The Ameri-

can Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, ed. Bemis (New York: Knopf, 1927), 2: 80. G e n ê t , a y o u n g m a n at the t i m e , never actually returned to France; fearing persecution, he took u p residence i n the U n i t e d States for the rest o f his l o n g life. 22. T u c k e r and H e n d r i c k s o n , Empire of Liberty, 55. M a l o n e shows that although Jefferson's private views remained quite Francophile, his actions as secretary o f state were disciplined i n his defense o f A m e r i c a n neutrality. John Q u i n c y Adams later remarked that " M r . Jefferson's papers o n that controversy present the most perfect m o d e l o f d i p l o m a t i c discussion and expostulation o f m o d e r n times," and British foreign secretary George C a n n i n g declared i n 1823 that " i f I wished for a guide i n a system o f neutrality, I should take that laid d o w n by A m e r i c a i n the days o f the presidency o f W a s h i n g t o n and the secretaryship

o f Jefferson,

i n 1793." M a l o n e ,

Jefferson, 128, 80. M a l o n e also argues that Jefferson was never overruled i n the cabinet i n 1793; his frustrations came from the tensions between his private views and the obligations o f office, rather than from p o l i t i c a l defeats i n the cabinet. W h e n he left office, he was not disillusioned w i t h the drift o f policy: " I n the realm o f foreign affairs Washington saw eye to eye w i t h his Secretary o f State at the end o f the latter's service" ( I b i d . , 149). 23. I b i d . , 108. 24. Jefferson's d e m a n d for Genet's dismissal had partisan as w e l l as national m o tivations. G e n ê t had threatened to appeal to the p u b l i c against President Washingt o n , w h i c h Jefferson k n e w w o u l d lead to a reaction against his o w n faction. W r i t i n g to M a d i s o n i n early August 1793, he remarked, " H e w i l l sink the r e p u b l i c a n interest i f they do not abandon h i m . " I b i d . , 121. 25. Some historians dissent from this favorable evaluation. Lawrence S. Kaplan declares that "the Jeffersonians

deluded themselves i n believing they c o u l d have

b o t h neutrality and the alliance," since France w o u l d object to any such arrangem e n t that d i d not defend freedom o f the seas. Kaplan, Entangling

Alliances

with

None (Kent, O h i o : K e n t State University Press, 1987), 90. B u t for over eight months i n 1793, Jefferson managed to reconcile neutrality and the alliance, forcing the ignom i n i o u s recall o f C i t i z e n G e n ê t for his egregious behavior, w h i c h gave the U n i t e d States m o r e cause t h a n France to c o m p l a i n o f treaty violations. I t was British spoliations i n late 1793, not F r e n c h interference i n A m e r i c a n politics, that brought the next crisis. T u c k e r and H e n d r i c k s o n (Empire of Liberty)

give Jefferson very little

credit for the cleverness o f his policy, v i e w i n g h i m p r i n c i p a l l y as a reformer and moralist and c o m p a r i n g his diplomacy unfavorably w i t h that o f H a m i l t o n .

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26. Reginald Horsman, Expansion and American Indian Policy, 1783-1812 (East Lansing: M i c h i g a n State University Press, 1967), 3 - 3 1 . I n 1789 Secretary o f W a r K n o x criticized the "disgraceful violations" o f the H o p e w e l l Treaty w i t h the Cherokees. I b i d . , 52, 56.

27. Dorothy V. Jones, License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America (Chicago: University o f Chicago, 1982), 1 5 5 - 5 6 . 28. Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515 (1832), cited i n Francis Paul Prucha, Ameri­

can Indian Policy in the Formative Years, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 4 3 - 4 4 . 29. Report, "Relating to the Southern Indians," July 6 - 7 , 1989, i n American State

Papers, Indian Affairs, 1:13, cited i n Jones, License, 166. See also Horsman, Expan­ sion, 57. 30. O n layered sovereignty, see Jones, License, 168. See Horsman, Expansion, for Knox's criticism o f the p o l i c y o f conquest (71) and the provisions o f the Treaty o f G r e e n v i l l e (102).

31. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 48, 8 3 - 8 4 ; Horsman, Expansion,

158-60.

T h e quotation about scrupulous regard for treaty obligations is from Prucha, Ameri­ can Indian Policy, 157, referring to U.S. p o l i c y immediately after the W a r o f 1812. 32. Joseph Burke, " T h e Cherokee Cases: A Study i n Law, Politics and M o r a l i t y , " Stanford Law Review 21 (February 1969): 5 0 0 - 3 1 , especially 5 1 3 - 1 5 .

33. Burke, Cherokee Cases, 523. 34. Robert V . R i m i n i , Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 ( N e w York: Harper & Row, 1981). 35. B o t h quotes are from Prucha, American Indian Policy, 242.

36. Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy ( L i n c o l n : University o f Nebraska Press, 1990), 7 1 .

37. Burke, Cherokee Cases, 530. 38. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. (1831); Worcester v. Georgia 6 Pet. (1832); excerpted i n Prucha, Documents, 5 8 - 6 2 . For a good discussion, see Ronald N . Satz,

American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era ( L i n c o l n : University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 3 9 - 6 3 . 39. T h e so-called "Five C i v i l i z e d Tribes" were the Cherokees, Chickasaws, C h o c taws, Creeks, and Seminóles. 40. Proclamation by President M a r t i n V a n B u r e n , N o v e m b e r 2 1 , 1838, 25th C o n g . , 3rd sess., 1 8 3 8 - 3 9 , H . D o c . 1. 4 1 . Great B r i t a i n apologized i n 1842 for its violation o f U n i t e d States neutrality. H u g h L . Keenleyside, Canada and the United States ( N e w York: Knopf, 1952), 9 1 . 42. D i p l o m a t i c N o t e o f the British M i n i s t e r (Fox) to the U n i t e d States, D e c e m b e r 13, 1840, P u b l i c Record Office, Foreign Office, N o r t h A m e r i c a n File, ("Papers Re­ lating to the Arrest o f M r . M c L e o d , 1 8 4 0 - 4 1 " ) . 43. Fox to Palmerston, July 28, 1841, P u b l i c Record Office, Foreign Office, N o r t h A m e r i c a n F i l e , 414 ("Papers Relating to the Arrest o f M r . M c L e o d , 1 8 4 0 - 4 1 " ) . 44. D u r i n g the trial, Governor Seward o f N e w York "confidentially i n f o r m e d the Secretary o f State that M c L e o d (despite his boasts) was k n o w n to have a good a l i b i , and that i n the remote contingency o f a c o n v i c t i o n he w o u l d be pardoned." Samuel Flagg Bemis, A Diplomatic 260-61.

History of the United States ( N e w York: H o l t , 1942),

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45. I b i d . 46. Charles J. M c C l a i n and Laurene W u M c C l a i n , " T h e Chinese C o n t r i b u t i o n

to the Development of American Law/' i n Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943, ed. Sucheng C h a n (Philadephia: T e m p l e U n i ­ versity Press, 1991), 7 - 8 . 47. I b i d . , 8 (citing section 16 o f this act). 48. I b i d . , 16; M a r y Roberts C o o l i d g e , Chinese Immigration

( N e w York: H o l t ,

1909), 1 2 4 - 2 5 . O t h e r c a s e s - f o r instance, Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan (1876) and Yick Wo v. Hopkins ( 1886) — invoked the Fourteenth A m e n d m e n t to protect Chinese against discrimination. 49. C h r i s t i a n G . Fritz, " D u e Process, Treaty Rights, and Chinese Exclusion, 1 8 8 2 - 1 8 9 1 , " i n C h a n , Entry Denied, 29, 4 6 - 4 9 ; L u c y E . Salyer, "Laws Harsh as Tigers: E n f o r c e m e n t o f the Chinese E x c l u s i o n Laws, 1891-1924," i n C h a n , Entry

Denied, 58. 50. Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U.S. 436, 5 Sup. C t . 255, 26 L . E d . 770 (1884), cited i n South African Airways v. Dole, 817 F. 2d 119 ( D . C . Cir. 1987), 1 2 5 26. Fritz, " D u e Process," 35, c i t i n g Justice Hoffman's o p i n i o n , 18 F. 506 ( D . C a l , 1883). 51. M a r y Roberts C o o l i d g e , Chinese Immigration ( N e w York: H o l t , 1909), 1 3 3 -

36; Congressional Record, House, January 28, 1879, 793. 52. Congressional Record, House, M a r c h 1, 1879, 2276. 53. James B . A n g e l i , " T h e D i p l o m a t i c Relations between the U n i t e d States and

C h i n a , " Journal of Social Science 17 (May 1883): 2 4 - 3 6 ; Coolidge, Chinese Immi­ gration, 1 5 2 - 6 1 . 54. For the text, see Congressional Record, House, 1882, 2227. 55. Congressional Record, Senate, A p r i l 4, 1882, 2 5 5 1 - 5 2 ; see also statement op­ posed to measure by Senator Platt (R, C o n n . ) , i n c l u d i n g explanation o f negotiations by commissioners to C h i n a , Congressional Record, Senate, M a r c h 8, 1882, 1702-5. 56. President A r t h u r signed this measure into law o n M a y 6, 1882. See C o o l i d g e ,

Chinese Immigration, 178; George F. Howe, Chester A. Arthur: A Quarter Century of Machine

Politics ( N e w York: D o d d , M e a d , 1934), 168; T i e n - l u L i , Congressional

Policy of Chinese Immigration ( N e w York: A r n o Press, 1978 [1916]). 57. Fritz, " D u e Process," 40; C o o l i d g e , Chinese Immigration, 185.

58. Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, 195; L i , Congressional Policy, 58. 59. Fritz, " D u e Process," 48; C o o l i d g e , Chinese Immigration,

194-200.

60. Foreign Relations of the United States 1888, 1: 358. 6 1 . Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190, 194 (1888). Q u o t e d i n Louis H e n k i n , Foreign Affairs and the Constitution (Mineóla, N . Y : Foundation Press, 1972), 163.

62. The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U S 581; quotations at 600, 609. 63. Foreign Relations of the United States 1892, 107-8; Tsui to Blaine, M a y 5, 1892, Foreign Relations of the United States 1892, 149; Coolidge, Chinese Immigra­ tion, 223. 64. Joseph S. Nye Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power ( N e w York: Basic Books, 1990).

Four Flexible Capacity: The Military and Early American Statebuilding IRA

KATZNELSON

It may surprise Americans, w h o traditionally have regarded themselves as a peaceable and u n m i l i t a r y people, to learn that the range o f warfare i n their national experience has been quite w i d e , and the incidence quite frequent.

—American Military History, A r m y Historical Series.

I N M O D E R N sovereign states, the military is the most important buckle fas­ tening international to domestic affairs. As effects and causes of interna­ tional relations, as key symbols and guardians of national sovereignty, and as crucial links joining a state's international role to civil society and the econ­ omy, armies and navies are basic instruments of political development. N o t surprisingly, the military plays an important role i n some of the best historical-institutionalist scholarship on the United States. Reform of the army is one of three cases i n Stephen Skowronek's Building a New Ameri­ can State. T h e military is viewed as an agent of sectional control i n Richard Bensel's Yankee Leviathan. Pensions for C i v i l War veterans are shown as shaping a protomodern welfare state i n Theda Skocpol's Protecting Soldiers and Mothers. Bartholomew Sparrow's From Outside In chronicles the mas­ sive importance of military mobilization for state formation d u r i n g the Sec­ ond W o r l d War. Focusing on the same conflict, Daniel Kryder's Divided Arsenal probes the role o f the military i n both reinforcing and changing the Jim C r o w stereotype. Each of these scholars treats the military as a key institution. 1

Such studies tend to target particular times and situations. Each takes the military into account as an aspect of particular historical processes and puz­ zles, but none inserts the history and organization o f America's armed forces into a more systematic and more general understanding o f the role the military itself has played over a long period o f time i n shaping the country's political history. A n d none considers the armed forces as a hinge institution

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transmitting international influences to American political development. I n consequence, students o f A P D still lack adequate accounts o f the place of the military i n Statebuilding. There is, o f course, a significant literature i n comparative politics and historical sociology, i n c l u d i n g recent major work by Brian D o w n i n g and Charles T i l l y , that focuses on just these themes, primarily i n Europe. This body of scholarship has concentrated on mobilization and extraction under the impact o f a given state's place and ambitions i n the international system, focusing both on the formation of a world o f modern states before West­ phalia and on the project o f Statebuilding after a modern international order of states was fashioned i n the seventeenth century. T h e U n i t e d States, how­ ever, remains largely unintegrated into this literature, i n part, I surmise, because its military experience is not easily assimilated into the concepts and categories this body of work uses to measure state capacity. 2

There also is a massive, and burgeoning, body o f scholarship o n A m e r i ­ can military history written for audiences interested i n war generally, i n specific wars, or i n the institutional history and deployment of the armed forces o f the U n i t e d States. Alas, this specialized knowledge delineates very few ties between its subjects and the larger A m e r i c a n context i n w h i c h the military has been embedded. 3

T h e very isolation and incompleteness o f these intellectual conversations suggests a considerable opportunity. Thanks to Skowronek, Bensel, Skocpol, Sparrow, and Kryder, among others, we possess a generous preliminary set of ideas about how to incorporate the military as a constitutive element o f American Statebuilding; thanks to the Europeanists, we have a rich set o f hypotheses w h i c h c o u l d be tested on the A m e r i c a n data; and thanks to the hard work o f military historians, we possess ample materials w i t h w h i c h to launch more systematic work. T h i s paper on the military and Statebuilding i n the U n i t e d States before the C i v i l War raises historical and conceptual issues pointing toward the integration o f the military and war (essentially nonliberal forces and closely tied to international relations) into the story (essentially liberal and domes­ tic) o f A m e r i c a n political development. I am keen, i n particular, to under­ stand how a focus on international influences via the lens of military m i g h t help us reconsider the distinctive status of p u b l i c authority i n America, question the quite c o m m o n portrait o f the antebellum state as an under­ developed and insubstantial entity lacking strength or endowments, and, more broadly, indicate how the early A m e r i c a n military experience chal­ lenges prevalent ideas about war and states i n the comparative-historical literature on Western state formation. Above a l l , I want to probe how the world's most liberal state engaged w i t h the predatory arena of international and military affairs. This essay pivots on an evocative but elusive paragraph that opens Ste-

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phen Skowronek's account of "The Early American State" and on key fea­ tures o f John Brewer's treatment of the English state between 1688 and 1873. Characterizing the early A m e r i c a n state as a "great anomaly," Skowronek wrote: 4

A n analysis o f A m e r i c a n state b u i l d i n g a r o u n d the t u r n o f the century requires a closer look at the early A m e r i c a n state. T h i s state was not a directive force i n social affairs, nor was i t an ideal reified i n A m e r i c a n culture. To Tocqueville, Hegel, and M a r x , it appeared as pure instrumentality, an innocuous reflection o f the society i t served. Yet, this organization o f coercive power was no less indispens­ able for its unobtrusive character. T h e early A m e r i c a n state m a i n t a i n e d an inte­ grated legal order o n a c o n t i n e n t a l scale; it fought wars, expropriated Indians, secured new territories, carried o n relations w i t h other states, and aided economic development. Despite the absence o f a sense o f the state, the state was essential to social order and social development i n nineteenth-century A m e r i c a .

5

He then added: "The early American state can be described m u c h as one w o u l d describe any other state." Listing organizational orientations and ca­ pacities, procedural routines, and intellectual talents as the dimensions for such an assessment, he famously went o n to argue that lawyers and profes­ sional politicians directed the "courts and parties [that] formed the bulwark of the early A m e r i c a n state." This was the secret, he maintained, for its paradox o f being capable but evanescent. 6

Focusing on the military reveals, to the contrary, that the early American state cannot be described " m u c h as one w o u l d describe any other." T h e regime's particularities as a liberal state based o n popular sovereignty, con­ sent, and representation demand an approach to state formation that makes constitutive these distinctly liberal features o f the polity. Attention to the country's English parentage is particularly instructive for this reason. Impor­ tant scholarship on the English state and empire directs attention to ques­ tions that m i g h t elude us i f we were to simply compare the U n i t e d States to the nations of continental Europe. T h e founding o f the United States was not simply a rupture w i t h the past. Marked by powerful continuities w i t h the colonial era, the United States was the product of a very British revolution. I n key respects, both regimes were liberal. T h e basis of legitimation had shifted i n Britain over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from an absolute and divine monarchical right to rule to the notion o f a sovereign people bearing rights and enforcing standards o f conduct on the monarch via representation i n parliament. Under these changing conditions, the settler empire i n N o r t h America was ruled more by consent than by imposition. T h e American periphery was joined to the British center i n a delicately balanced equilib­ r i u m , and after the Revolution, as a country w i t h growing continental ambi­ tions, the United States faced a comparable challenge. 7

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F r o m this perspective, the English state bequeathed a liberal legacy to the American. I n England, the state slowly had devolved into a representative, though not democratic, constitutional monarchy. As a result o f doctrinal developments, institutional change, and public pressures, stateness no longer was the preserve o f small elites who c o u l d determine outcomes by closed internal bargaining. Instruments o f representation (elections, opin­ ion, political parties, quasi-autonomous legislative decision making) became centerpieces o f governance. Colonial America was characterized by a more radical version o f this political order. Slavery aside (and, arguably, because of slavery), its society was marked by a flatter hierarchy, fewer rigidities, wider property holding, a more democratic public sphere, and faster demo­ graphic, territorial, and economic expansion than the mother country. A l l these differences, o f course, were accentuated by a revolution that jettisoned monarchical rule and by a constitution that created a national state defined by federalism and the separation of powers. 10

T h e English state i n the century before American independence shows how a putatively "weak" state i n fact can be very capable. England did not develop a "strong" state by continental measures, yet it became the globe's preeminent power, notwithstanding the loss o f its A m e r i c a n colonies. To make this achievement possible, a distinct form o f Statebuilding had to oc­ cur, one that led to enhanced fiscal stability and capacity, augmented bor­ rowing capabilities, and an effective military. This dualism of stateness and political liberalism is suggestive for students of A m e r i c a n political development. Assessing this hybrid, Brewer argued that the two were linked causally. Strong resistance, i n the name o f liberty, to a hyperstrong state on an u n l i m i t e d absolutist model proved central to England's institutional transformations. "The war against the state helped to shape the changing contours o f government: l i m i t e d its scope, restricted its ambit, and through parliamentary scrutiny, rendered its institutions both more public and accountable." T h i s success paradoxically produced a more effective state. "Public scrutiny reduced peculation, parliamentary consent lent greater legitimacy to government action. L i m i t e d i n scope, the state's powers were nevertheless exercised w i t h telling effect." Based on this c o m b i n a t i o n of restriction and effectiveness, Brewer con­ vincingly concluded that the antinomy of weak and strong states is highly misleading. "Too often," he observed, "strength is equated w i t h size. B u t a large state apparatus is no necessary indication of a government's ability to perform such tasks as the collection of revenue or the maintenance o f pub­ lic order." Under some circumstances, quite the opposite can be the case, he stresses, because big bureaucracies can become top-heavy, inefficiently filled w i t h patronage workers w h o do little. 11

12

13

T h e traditional statist literature, his work reminds us, has failed to distin­ guish between what a state is entitled to do and what it actually can accom-

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plish. B u i l d i n g on M i c h a e l Mann's distinction between despotic and infrastructural power, he underscored how the former may be less effective than the latter: better to govern w i t h fingers than thumbs. A liberal state pos­ sesses advantages i n solving problems o f coordination and b u i l d i n g extensive capacities, because it is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and better able to harness the pluralism o f civil society by h i t c h i n g "stateness" to com­ peting political coalitions. Thus, liberal states can enter the world arena assertively and confidently. Reciprocally, as open and engaged states, they are also susceptible to international influences. Hence, I consider the United States i n its first six decades of indepen­ dence as an assertive, expansive, and permeable liberal state. A t the core of this evaluation lie convictions about the institutional character o f liberalism. T h o u g h liberalism was first fashioned to place limits on what sovereign states could do, it presumed their existence; liberalism was statist from the start. Like all states, liberal ones rest on a bedrock of coercion. Like all states, liberal states rely on organized force to protect (and sometimes en­ large) their borders and police their populations. U n l i k e other states, how­ ever, they compose mixed regimes. T h e i r central innovation is representa­ tion (which literally means to present again, thus making to "present an absent"), geared both to tame the executive and bring civil society inside an u n c o m m o n l y permeable polity. Consequently, liberalism is more than a doctrine. It is an institutional design c o m b i n i n g indivisible sovereignty and force w i t h representation and rights. M o r e than a set of ideas, political liber­ alism defines the character of policy contests and provides representative means to resolve t h e m . By taking decisions based on the preferences o f their members, representative bodies shape and l i m i t the exercise of sovereignty and decide key policy questions concerned w i t h how the state w i l l be linked to society, to the economy, and to an international arena composed o f a system o f interstate relations, but not independently or autonomously of the pressures exerted by war and trade. 14

15

16

Reconsidering Administrative Capacity a n d C e n t r a l State A u t h o r i t y Issues o f force and inclusion (of people and territory) underpin each o f these zones o f transaction. For this reason, the military provides a privileged vantage from w h i c h to probe the character, ambitions, and limits o f the United States as a liberal state. A major obstacle to this research program is the powerful view equating political liberalism and state weakness. Both the American military and the state w i t h i n w h i c h it was embedded have been underestimated badly, widely portrayed as weak, amateur, decentralized, negligible. T h e decades before the C i v i l War c o m m o n l y are understood to

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be the premodern period of American Statebuilding, the era before "na­ tional administrative capacities" or "central state authority" — to note the key phrases i n Skowronek's and Bensel's subtitles — had developed and the United States had not yet achieved the full ensemble o f institutions and capacities thought to be hallmarks o f modern states. A fresh look at early American Statebuilding through the prism of military spending, deployment, and activity, especially i n the period after the country's sovereignty and inde­ pendence from Europe were, after m u c h uncertainty, secured i n the War of 1812, but before its unity was reconfirmed i n the C i v i l War, calls into ques­ tion the conceptual apparatus and familiar empirical claims made about antebellum state formation. M o r e particularly, the pattern o f American Statebuilding calls into question the portrait, so closely identified w i t h the scholarship o f Skowronek, of "early America as a state o f courts and parties" and the utilization o f centralization as the m a i n indicator for state strength, as i n the work o f Bensel. 17

18

Skowronek's Building a New American State effectively launched Ameri­ can political development as a subfield and revived interest i n public ad­ ministration by inserting administrative developments and an assessment of state capacity into an exciting emergent literature on Statebuilding i n com­ parative political sociology and political science. B u i l d i n g on work by Tilly, Skocpol, and other comparative historical social scientists, as well as by such learned students o f American bureaucracy as Woodrow W i l s o n and Leonard W h i t e , Skowronek restored a focus on the state to American political studies. His starting point was 1877, after the substantive reunification o f the country on racist terms. His focus was the expansion o f national public authority and ability, especially i n the military, the civil service, and the apparatus o f economic regulation. T h e prior decades he treated as constitut­ ing a prehistory to modern Statebuilding, a time when, as an organizational entity, the state lacked a concentration o f authority at the center, centraliza­ tion o f authority w i t h i n the national government, a specialization o f tasks, or "the penetration of institutional controls from the governmental center throughout the territory." T h e U n i t e d States, he claims, had renounced these abilities at its founding. This portrait, implicitly drawing on Weber's standard for modern bureaucracies, explicitly measured America's liberal state against a model drawn from France or Prussia, o f concentrated sover­ eignty and capacity as key aspects o f modern stateness. O n such a standard, antebellum America falls short; after all, its procedural routines and its key intellectuals and elites were lodged i n the court system and i n the political parties, not i n the executive side o f the state. 19

20

21

This also is the tack Skowronek took i n characterizing the military before post-Reconstruction reforms. F r o m this perspective, the antebellum military is weak, like the state as a whole. Listen as he contrasts the demobilization of the U n i o n army, from some one m i l l i o n armed soldiers i n 1865 to a mere

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twenty-seven thousand by 1874, to French and German mobilization during this same period: " W h e n the Germans marched into Paris i n 1870, America was firmly committed to a thorough demilitarization. Once again, interna­ tional m a i n currents i n institutional development ran directly counter to the m a i n currents i n American political development. As the Prussian revolu­ tion i n military organization swept Europe, the American army was being swept back into obscurity as an Indian patrol." Note both the foil and the deprecation, made possible only by forgetting the state building tasks suc­ cessfully concluded by the antebellum military. Reform, from Skowronek's perspective, did not b u i l d on this legacy but contradicted it as a result of functional necessity. "There was, however," he observed, "no going back. It soon became apparent that industrial America could not afford the military innocence of the bucolic age." 22

I n effect, he embraced the perspective o f Emory U p t o n , the late nine­ teenth century's leading military reformer, theoretician, and professor at West Point, who argued i n 1875, on his return from Europe, that America's armed forces did not measure up to the advanced, professional, centralized Prussian m o d e l . By application of this standard for effectiveness and effi­ ciency, the U n i t e d States was a laggard. Its "tiny band of regulars," Skowronek insists, were fed at the trough " o f pork barrel contracts and de­ velopment projects its Washington staff could distribute to congressional constituencies." Its militia structure, moreover, was composed merely o f "voluntary social clubs organized by various ethnic and status groups, subsi­ dized by the federal government, and fused w i t h state and local party poli­ tics through ties o f patronage." I n brief, the military, appraised by Upton's criteria, simply was an aspect of the party-dominated politics of distribution. This, we soon shall see, is a very partial portrait at best. Bucolic the U n i t e d States may have been, i n the sense o f "agrarian"; bucolic as i n "peaceful," hardly. Likewise, it is the "European" standard of a strong, centralized state, ca­ pable o f autonomous action vis-à-vis the economy and civil society as well as i n the international system, that Bensel applies i n Yankee Leviathan, where he argues, contra Skowronek, that the key period of "the origins o f central state authority" came during, not after, the period of the C i v i l War and Reconstruction. Bensel made advances on w h i c h it is important to build: he deployed a more systematic categorization o f the dimensions o f public rule, leaving more room for variation, and focused more on sectionalism, C o n ­ gress, and policymaking. But he too treated the p r e - C i v i l War state, includ­ ing its military, as falling short of modern standards of public administra­ t i o n . Before the war, America's "extremely weak ante-bellum state" was merely "nascent"; it lacked "a 'statist' sensibility, an identity and interest apart from any class or partisan interest." 23

24

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26

Historians, likewise, when they think about the Statebuilding dimension

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at all, tend to take for granted the underdeveloped qualities o f the U.S. State before the C i v i l War. T h e best recent synthesis of the antebellum period, is called, emblematically, The Market Revolution yet it makes only episodic and unsystematic references to the American state and public policy, almost as i f these questions were beside the point or political developments were driven by an inexorable and inclusive project of economic modernization. 27

W h y quarrel? We know that no market revolution is possible w i t h o u t a statist framework to provide stability and security through protection, regula­ tion, and law. Markets never free-float. We know, too, that the core ele­ ments o f "stateness" include a c l a i m to indivisible sovereignty over people and territory; an ensemble o f institutions — understood both as rules and as organizations — differentiated from the persons who rule, the populations over w h i c h they rule, and the other m a i n macrostructures o f civil society and the economy; and a normative dimension claiming that this or that k i n d o f regime is good and just. Further, sovereign states deploy their claims, institutional abilities, and normative assertions to police, penetrate, and regulate society and the economy and to defend or extend the territories and populations they control against the asseverations o f other putative sovereigns. 28

By these markers, the early American state hardly can be dismissed as "weak," insignificant, or merely incipient. Its normative orientation, set i n global context, was profoundly revolutionary: liberal, republican, and demo­ cratic (albeit only for a slice o f the populace). Its success i n claiming, pro­ tecting, and extending sovereignty was unprecedented i n scope. It defined a new k i n d o f citizenship. I t invented a federal system; convened effective representation via Congress; brought into being a system o f mass political parties at a time o f l i m i t e d communications; managed u n c o m m o n problems of center and periphery created by the scale of the country; established a physical and legal framework for economic development, rapid urbaniza­ tion, and population growth; and coordinated vastly different sectional civili­ zations and political economies. To be sure, viewed from a comparative perspective, the central bureau­ cracy of the U n i t e d States was small and limited. I n 1840, the country employed approxiately twenty-thousand civilians, fourteen thousand of w h o m worked for the post office. There were only one thousand federal employees i n Washington, a town M o r t o n Keller describes as "slovenly, i n ­ dolent, half-finished . . . the physical embodiment of the American distaste for centralized government." Yet the behavior and achievements o f Amer­ ica s state belie the conventional story o f restriction. T h e United States may have had a state of l i m i t e d size and centralization, but this state was flexible, effective, and efficient. Inventing novel forms, it secured the major goals of statebuilders w i t h an advantageous ratio o f achievement to cost. I n this light, the accounts given, among others, by Skowronek and Bensel are not 29

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so m u c h wrong as insufficient. T h e A m e r i c a n state was integrated and gov­ erned, not just by courts and parties, but by various sanctioned armed forces (as well as key complementary instruments o f publicly organized c o m m u n i ­ cation and commerce, especially the far-flung network o f post offices, turn­ pikes, and canals). N o r did the United States enter the world o f interna­ tional relations only i n the twentieth century; i t was embedded i n the international scene from the beginning, and it possessed a military adapted to promote the country's territorial extension, trade, and security. Like the state itself, it was a military not quite like any other. 30

Consider Alabama. N o t one of the original thirteen states, its growing white settlement on the western edge of the cotton frontier justified admis­ sion to the U n i o n i n 1819. Early i n 1812, Tecumseh, a Shawnee who led the Indians o f the Northwest, retreated to Canada w i t h some thirty-five h u n ­ dred o f his m e n to fight alongside the British, who commissioned h i m as a brigadier general. T h a t year, he traveled south, inspiring the Creeks i n the Alabama territory to attack Americans on the Florida border. I n M a r c h and A p r i l 1814, Andrew Jackson, then a general i n the state militia of neighbor­ ing Tennessee, decisively defeated the Creek at the Battle o f Horseshoe Bend, fighting w h i c h entailed the willful k i l l i n g of w o m e n and children, as well as male combatants. T h e Creek conveyed most of their lands to the United States, opening some twenty m i l l i o n acres for settlement, and moved further into Alabama's interior, where their relations w i t h white settlers con­ tinued to be punctuated by episodes o f violence. Alongside the Cherokee, Chicksaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, the Creek came to number among the "Five C i v i l i z e d Tribes" o f the South, w h i c h had largely given up a nomadic life for agricultural settlement. I n 1830, frustrated at the slow pace o f Indian removal westward from Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ala­ bama, Congress passed the Removal Act, w h i c h funded the negotiation o f treaties o f expulsion. D u r i n g Jackson's presidency, virtually all the region's Indians were expelled to the new Indian Territory created i n what later became Oklahoma by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. Alabama's Creeks were moved forcibly i n 1836. By 1840, eighty thousand Indians had been relocated. This history o f war between sovereign countries and of conflict between settlers and natives and the deployment of force under federal auspices was inscribed i n the land's contours. F r o m the second decade o f the century to the onset of the C i v i l War, fiffy-seven forts were established i n Alabama. Some were temporary. Fort Crawford i n Escambia County, for example, a square w i t h two blockhouses at diagonal corners, located a mile from today's town of Brewton, was b u i l t i n 1817 across a stream on a rising h i l l to protect white settlers from pillaging Indians. One hundred regulars o f the seventh U.S. Infantry garrisoned the fort i n 1818. Once the local Indian population had been moved on, the fort was maintained at full strength only u n t i l 1819 31

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and was abandoned two years later. Some garrisons were tiny. Early i n 1818, during an Indian uprising, a stockade had been erected o n the o l d Federal Road, fifteen miles west o f Greenville i n Butler County, around the home of Captain James Suffold. N o w the site of Pine Flat it was named Fort Bibb i n honor o f the territorial governor, W i l l i a m Wyatt Bibb and provided a temporary safe haven for the very small number o f local settlers i n times o f strife. Some, like Fort Clairborne, b u i l t i n 1813, d u r i n g the Creek War, on the Alabama River i n M o n r o e County, were supply bases; others, like Fort Ingersoll o f Russell County, Fort Coffee i n Bullock County, and Fort Eufala i n Barbour County, constructed i n 1836 to enforce the evacuation of the Creek, were integral to situational strategies. Others, like Fort Jackson —a name it acquired only after the War of 1812 — twelve miles north of M o n ­ tgomery had a longer lineage: from it Andrew Jackson, after his victory over the Creek at Horseshoe Bend, had fought his campaign against the British and the Spanish, c u l m i n a t i n g i n the Battle o f N e w Orleans. Fort aux A l i bamos, later Fort Toulouse, was originally b u i l t i n 1717 by the French, i n the heart o f the Creek Confederacy and at the invitation o f the Creek, to protect trade routes and check the influence o f the British. I t was turned over to Britain i n 1763 at the end o f the French and Indian War and fell into disuse by 1776 , only the moats and cannon still remaining by the time Jackson rebuilt it i n 1813. T h e forts full reconstruction was completed by the militia from the Carolinas d u r i n g the later stages of the War o f 1812. A t the close o f the war, the fort was garrisoned by regular army regiments. Jackson Town, a small settlement, was b u i l t i n its shadow, only to be aban­ doned, along w i t h the fort, by the end of 1817, i n favor of the settlement downriver, the new town of Montgomery. Thus we see that the military i n Alabama, i n c l u d i n g both its national and state components, was small, flexible, and capable o f achieving the greatest task o f statebuilders: defining, expanding, and securing boundaries. I n this respect, it represented a distinctive, but quite typical, microcosm of the m i l i ­ tary i n the U n i t e d States more generally, and it demonstrated a truism o f Statebuilding: organized coercion and protection are at the core o f modern sovereignty. This was no less true of the U n i t e d States i n its early decades than of Europe. Leaving to one side the vexing meaning o f membership i n state militias (while noting that i n 1816 more than 748,000 American m e n were enrolled i n militias, w h i c h ranged from ethnic — m a i n l y Irish — associations and social clubs to well-drilled fighting forces, and i n 1827 over 1,150,000, at times w h e n the total population of the country numbered just 8,659,000 and 11,909,000, respectively), expenditures o n the military dwarfed all other outlays i n the country's national budget, accounting for at least 72 per cent o f the total each year and sometimes and up to 94 per cent o f federal spending each year but one between 1808 and 1848. F r o m 1848 through 34

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F I G . 4 . 1 . Total U.S. Expenditures, 1800-1860. N o t e that for 1843 the federal govern­ m e n t reported expenditures only for January 1-June 30. To compensate, the reported

number is doubled. Source: The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowl­ edge (various years); Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (various years).

the outbreak of the C i v i l War i n 1861, as the national government took on enhanced responsibilities for internal improvements and civilian federal ex­ penditures increased dramatically, the military maintained about half the total share o f federal spending (see figures 4.1-4.3). These monies, of course, were not l i m i t e d to land-based forces. As a great trading country, the United States developed an effective navy to guard its sea lanes and secure its shipping. F r o m 1798 to 1848, naval spending either outpaced or approx­ imately equaled all civilian federal spending combined. T h e country's military, i n short, developed considerable capacity i n the antebellum era, serving a state without fixed territory, settled neighbors, or, most o f the time, large nearby land armies. To the west, it faced indigenous peoples and uncertain borderlands; to the south, a mix o f slave societies, M e x i c o (whose capital it came to occupy), and the Americas; to the north, a Tory offshoot; and to the east, a vast European ocean vital to American commerce. Each o f these relations was fraught w i t h danger and oppor­ tunity; each required military decision and force; each demanded effective 35

F I G . 4.2. M i l i t a r y , Naval, and C i v i l Expenditures, 1800-1860. N o t e that for 1843 the federal government reported expenditures only for January 1-June 30. To c o m p e n ­ sate, the reported n u m b e r is doubled. Source: The American Almanac and Repository

of Useful Knowledge (various years); Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (various years). 80 r

FlG. 4.3. M i l i t a r y , Naval, and C i v i l Expenditures as Percentage o f Federal Budget,

1800-1860. Source: The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge (various years); Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (various years).

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ties between the state and the economy and civil society; each had vast implications for the contours of state the country w o u l d adopt. Further, the U n i t e d States was the only Western country to internalize a slave regime; thus i t possessed a distinctive racial civilization partially integrated into a liberal political and market capitalist order. T h i s set of relations, too, not least i n cotton-rich and slaveholding Alabama, was mediated by the military.

A m e r i c a ' s M i l i t a r y : C h a l l e n g e s of L i b e r a l i s m a n d Security, C e n t e r a n d Periphery 36

O n c e the Treaty o f Paris was signed i n September 1783, George Washing­ ton, facing mutinies, quickly demobilized the military, keeping only some six h u n d r e d troops i n arms. W h e n Congress charged a committee, chaired by Alexander H a m i l t o n , to study the contours of a postwar army under the Articles of Confederation, Washington recommended a multitiered system: (1) a capable navy to protect commerce; (2) state militia service for all m e n between eighteen and fifty; (3) a volunteer militia under national control; and (4) a regular army "to awe the Indians, protect our Trade, prevent the encroachment o f our Neighbors of Canada and the Floridas, and guard us at least from surprises; also for security o f our magazines." He thought these goals c o u l d be accomplished w i t h a small force of some 2,630 officers and m e n , composing one artillery and four infantry regiments. T h o u g h H a m ­ ilton's committee endorsed a similar plan, the post-independence Congress failed to agree o n this or alternative designs. Sectional rivalry, institutional jealousy from the states, and widespread fear o f the tyrannical capacities o f standing armies blocked adoption. Yet even under the articles, the nucleus of a small but flexible national frontier force was created. A t the close o f its session i n June 1784, Congress disbanded the established infantry regiments and the extant battalion of artillery (leaving only some eighty m e n to guard military stores at Fort Pitt and West Point) but created a new force of seven hundred soldiers, really the first regular national army, recruited by assess­ m e n t from state militias. Its task was to deal w i t h Indians allied w i t h Britain i n upstate N e w York and the Upper O h i o (the British had failed to evacuate their frontier posts, as they had promised i n the treaty recognizing American independence). T h o u g h delayed, Washington's broad design did come to characterize the basic features o f the antebellum military by the close of the War of 1812 (with the exception o f a volunteer federal militia). T h e key enabling changes were constitutional and administrative. T h e C o n v e n t i o n i n 1787 significantly strengthened the fiscal, commercial, and military potential o f the national state by providing the regime w i t h a capacity independent o f the constituent states to raise taxes; by creating an executive branch capable

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of acting w i t h o u t regular reference to the states; by n a m i n g the president the commander i n chief, charged w i t h deploying peacetime military force and shaping wartime military operations; by making the civil and military administration o f the armed forces accountable to the president; by desig­ nating the power to raise armies, create a navy, and declare war to be cen­ tral government prerogatives; and by giving the federal government the ca­ pacity to place troops from state militias under the c o m m a n d o f the United States "to execute the Laws o f the U n i o n , suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." I n practice, however, only a puny national military was fash­ ioned, one well short o f Washington's, and especially H a m i l t o n 's, prefer­ ences. Four months into Washington's first term, Congress created the De­ partment o f War b u t not a navy, and the army itself, still n u m b e r i n g only eight hundred, was primarily stationed i n forts along the O h i o River. This tiny force had virtually no field organization or supply infrastructure. O n l y w i t h the large-scale mobilization o f troops for the War o f 1812 did military administration alter very significantly. Yet well before the outbreak of war, elements of Washington's and H a m ­ ilton's design had taken hold, i n response to four challenges, both domestic and international, that the new republic had to confront. T h e first was inter­ nal disorder, beginning w i t h civil unrest i n Massachusetts i n 1786. Under conditions of commercial depression, agrarian crowds began to harass law­ yers, disturb court proceedings, and endanger the federal government's arse­ nal i n Springfield. Congress, having resisted Washington's plan, was suffi­ ciently concerned to call o n the region's states to muster a force of some thirteen hundred soldiers. Before the force was deployed, an attack o n the arsenal, led by D a n i e l Shays, was resisted successfully by m i l i t i a m e n . None­ theless, Shay's rebellion prodded the first postwar reinforcement o f the fed­ eral military and helped goad the Constitutional Convention to enhance the military powers o f the new central government. I n 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion i n western Pennsylvania was suppressed by the deployment o f a large militia force by President Washington under the authority of the basic militia law of 1792, w h i c h had specified the enrollment i n state militias of "every able-bodied white male citizen" aged eighteen to forty-five. M i l i t a r y control o f domestic disorder became a recurrent theme of the antebellum era, i n such incidents as the tax rebellion led by John Fries i n 1799; the Burr Conspiracy and embargo troubles before the War of 1812; the slave rebellions, the nullification crisis, and the Chesapeake and O h i o Canal Riots i n the early 1830s; and the D o r r Rebellion of 1842; and i n govern­ mental responses, i n c l u d i n g enforcement o f the fugitive slave laws, and m i l ­ itary intervention to pacify Kansas i n the 1850s. 37

T h e second goad to development o f a capable military was the problem of security at the fringes o f the country. Supported and armed by the British, the Indians o f the Northwest fiercely opposed white incursion. T h e i r resis-

96

KATZNELSON

tance proved powerful ( i n the Kentucky Territory alone more than fifteen hundred settlers were either captured or killed d u r i n g the Confederacy). A m i l i t i a force drawn from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia was deployed against the M i a m i Indians i n tandem w i t h a small regular army contingent but failed utterly i n its effort to dislodge them. A second expedition of 1,400 troops, half federal regulars and half militia, were decimated by a brilliant attack that killed 637 and left 263 wounded. T h e western tribes only suc­ c u m b e d i n 1795, ceding their O h i o lands by treaty. T h e y did so only after military defeats inflicted by a m u c h larger expeditionary force o f some 3,000 under federal c o m m a n d that had proceeded systematically, stopping to b u i l d effective forts along the line of its m a r c h . For the next fifteen years, Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, coordinated a tribal confederacy i n the Northwest to confront white settlement. I n 1811, W i l l i a m Henry Har­ rison, governor o f the Indian Territory, arranged a partnership o f some 650 local militia w i t h 350 regular troops placed under his c o m m a n d by the secretary o f war and mounted a decisive strike against the confederacy, suc­ cessfully fighting a bloody battle (39 A m e r i c a n battle deaths, 151 injuries, and 29 subsequent deaths, w i t h roughly equal Indian losses) at Tippecanoe Creek. Indian fighting, o f course, remained a central military task through­ out the nineteenth century. 38

T h e third set o f military challenges the new nation faced was related to the wars after the French Revolution i n Europe. Prior to the negotiation of the Jay Treaty i n 1794, Britain had seized more than three hundred A m e r i ­ can merchant ships. T h e n the French began capturing American vessels and incarcerating their crews, opening a period of "quasi-war" that peaked i n 1798 and 1799. These developments sparked America's decision to create an effective naval fleet under the aegis of a separate Navy Department, harbor defenses, and a marine corps (as an adjunct to the navy at sea and to the army on land). Further, the army was reorganized to complement its Indian fighting w i t h border defense capabilities. I t did so by substituting a traditional regimental organization for the legion type of design suitable for frontier forays, by shifting infantry companies to significant forts at the coun­ try's borders, especially to the north, and by placing garrisons at major sea­ ports. I n 1803, a second round of conflict between the French and British led both powers to attack American commerce. T h e United States first re­ sponded by withdrawing its shipping from the Atlantic and then by prohibit­ ing foreign trade. I n 1812, Congress declared war on the British (the Sen­ ate failing by only two votes to declare war on France as well). To prepare for war, the country ratcheted up its military capacity. I n January 1812, five months before the start o f the War o f 1812, Congress supplemented a rela­ tively modest military expansion d u r i n g Jefferson's presidency and the early part o f Madison's by adding thirteen regiments o f some 26,000 m e n to the federal army, w h i c h brought the authorized strength of the army to 35,600 39

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97

(only 5,000 o f w h o m had been recruited and trained by June), and by em­ powering the mobilization o f 50,000 militia members into the federal ser­ vice. I n addition to this great expansion o f the army, Congress modernized the system of supply by creating a Quartermaster's Department w i t h i n the military to replace a civilian agent system, enlarging the Corps of Engi­ neers, reorganizing West Point, and developing an Ordnance Department responsible for the quality of weaponry and a m m u n i t i o n . T h e fourth military challenge the United States faced was the more spe­ cific threat to A m e r i c a n sovereignty posed by the War o f 1812. T h i s menace was concretized i n Britain's conquest and sacking o f Washington, D . C . , i n c l u d i n g the W h i t e House and the Capitol, after its troops had been freed up by the defeat o f Napoleon at Waterloo. D u r i n g its ultimately successful war w i t h the world's leading power, the United States not only put nearly 40,000 federal regulars under arms but mobilized some 450,000 members of state militias, o f w h o m half served at the front. T h e federal troops proved more reliable. I n the aftermath o f the war, the army was further profession­ alized i n the officer corps and reorganized to improve communications and c o m m a n d . Incompetents were laid off, and a peacetime strength o f 10,000 regulars, still very modest by European standards i n the age of Napoleonic warfare, was authorized, a level roughly maintained for the first half-decade of peace. M o r e important, w h e n 4,000 of these troops were demobilized i n 1820, John C a l h o u n , who had become Secretary of War i n December 1817, pioneered the concept of the "expansible military": i n normal periods, small and deployed i n garrisons on the frontier, yet capable o f rapid growth if the United States were to become involved i n an international war. T h i s adaptable military w o u l d disperse into individual companies at many iso­ lated, often temporary, forts. B u t at times o f such large-scale conflict as the major Indian wars or the M e x i c a n War, the companies were consolidated into brigades and divisions. Overarching both types of tactical deployment was a decentralized administrative structure. Geographical departments were grouped into large territorial divisions (at the outbreak o f the C i v i l War there were six: East, West, Texas, N e w M e x i c o , U t a h , and Pacific), whose commanders reported directly to the secretary o f war and to the c o m m a n d ­ ing general i n Washington. F r o m the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the C i v i l War, i n short, the military served as an instrument to control domestic insurgency, secure the frontier, protect shipping lanes, and provide a framework for the coexistence of free and slave civilizations. A m e r i c a n soldiers and sailors enforced the compromises of 1820 and 1850, pushed westward (often ahead of settlers) to survey and b u i l d roads, guard post offices, and exile Indians, shielded sea lanes at a t i m e o f a massive expansion i n trade, and successfully fought a major war w i t h M e x i c o , thus dramatically extending the country's reach. ( D u r i n g the occupation of M e x i c o City, the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo

KATZNELSON

98

c CD E •o

S M c

CD O CD

E 2

50,000 47,500 45,000 42,500 40,000 37,500 35,000 32,500 30,000 27,500 25,000 22,500 20,000 17,500 15,000 12,500 10,000 7,500 5,000 2,500 0

-

-

-

-

h" • " O O c o c

I ^ O o

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I M I CO T- h - O C O C O O C M c j c o c o i - T - i - T - C M c o c o c o c o o o o o c o c o c o

I « c c

I I I t N o ^ o o

I I I I I I I . O C O C j ' ^ i - ^ o o o c o

I D ' c

I I I I O ) C ^ - m o c o

FlG. 4.4. U n i f o r m e d Personnel, U.S. A r m y , Navy, M a r i n e Corps,

I I I \ | l L O c o

I I I I I I I O C O L O c o

1801- 1861.

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. was negotiated, w h i c h recognized the Rio Grande as the border for Texas and ceded what became the states of California, Arizona, N e w Mexico, U t a h , and Nevada, as well as portions of W y o m i n g and Colorado, to the United States). A t the onset of the M e x i c a n War, the army consisted o f fewer than 9,000 troops, b u t these numbers more than quintupled d u r i n g its course. F r o m the founding u n t i l the early 1850s, troop levels i n the army and navy c o m b i n e d usually hovered between 10,000 and 20,000 m e n under arms. T h i s steady-state military was capable of dealing with domestic distur­ bances, fighting Indians, and m a i n t a i n i n g open sea lanes. Twice i n the ante­ b e l l u m period, the size o f the army increased fivefold i n a very short period: at the outset o f the War of 1812 and of the M e x i c a n War. This mobilization to fight wars against traditional states with regular armies was both rapid and effective, b u t so was the swift demobilization w h i c h followed these confla­ grations. There was virtually no "ratchet effect" (see figure 4.4). 40

T h e country's lean, very mobile, "expansible" military produced a re­ markable, and relatively low-cost, extension to the country's sovereign capac­ ity and international reach. B u t it was more than war between countries that "made" the modern A m e r i c a n state. I n addition, western development and its associated projects o f territorial government, its land agencies, land of­ fices, and military garrisons, its post office and route expansion, drove a salient between Mexico and Canada. There was a tight fit between the 41

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99

military and westward settlement activity. I f we treat revenue generated by federal land sales as a reasonable measure of settlement activity, it is not surprising that moments o f major increase coincide w i t h the most vigorous periods o f Indian removal (see figures 4.5 and 4.6). T h e braiding o f military activity and westward settlement served, i n Rich­ ard White's phrase, "as the kindergarten o f the American state." This evoc­ ative expression, however, captures only part o f the accomplishment and character o f the epoch's expansion. By the time of the C i v i l War, the U n i t e d States had become a transcontinental republic and had begun the project o f connecting and integrating the coasts by rail. W h e n President James K. Polk presented to Congress the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo ending the M e x i ­ can War, he observed that the territories ceded by M e x i c o , "New Mexico and Upper California . . . constitute o f themselves a country large enough for a great empire"; and so it was, composed half o f states, half of territo­ ries. A t peace w i t h Britain, the only naval power capable o f challenging it on the seas, the U n i t e d States also became a great oceanic power, trading from the ports of N e w York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Savannah, N e w Or­ leans, and Boston, and also from the ports on the Mississippi and the Pacific Coast. W i t h a U.S. naval squadron patrolling the Pacific since 1822, the "Pacific frontage o f the U n i t e d States" came to be linked by the 1850s " i n some cases quite routinely, w i t h Mazatlan, Callao, and Valparaiso, w i t h N e w Baranof (Sitka) and Kamchatka, Canton, Tahiti, Australia, and N e w Zealand, and pivotal to all these, the Hawaiian Islands." A commercial treaty was signed w i t h C h i n a i n 1844 and a decade later C o m m a n d e r Mat­ thew Perry's calibrated show of force helped open diplomatic and trade rela­ tions w i t h previously closed Japan. 42

43

44

This striking tale o f accomplishment, to w h i c h military development was integral, is, i n part, the story of how the new republic — highly conscious o f itself as a revolutionary government based on popular sovereignty and con­ sent between equal (white male) citizens — grappled with the problem o f institutionalized coercion. I n this setting, Tilly's treatment of states as, by definition, repositories of coercion cannot simply be taken as a truism; as Peter Manicas has stressed i n his interesting book War and Democracy, i n the U n i t e d States ideological purpose had a radically new role to play i n military affairs. U n l i k e the ancient republics, "[where] no one who had to fight a war was excluded from the [direct] decision to go to war," American citizens were b o u n d by the decisions o f representative institutions; but u n ­ like the subjects of absolutist regimes, they had to be mobilized ideologi­ cally by political leaders and parties for war and military projects, or else these w o u l d not be realized. I n grappling w i t h issues o f coercion, the United States had to define and redefine what it meant by citizenship; how it saw relations among the constituent states; how it viewed the balance between its northern and southern civilizations; how it treated the boundary

FlG. 4.5. Post Offices and Postal Route M i l e a g e i n States and Territories, 1800-1860.

Source: The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge (various years).

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F I G . 4.6. U.S. Revenue Generated by L a n d Sales, 1800-1860. Note that for 1843 the federal government reported expenditures only for January 1-June 30. To c o m p e n ­ sate, the reported n u m b e r is doubled. Source: The American Almanac and Repository

of Useful Knowledge (various years).

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CAPACITY

101

between the savage and the civilized; and how i t placed itself i n the wider Europe-centered international system. Before the C i v i l War there was a profound irony at work. By the position­ ing o f its troops, the U n i t e d States defined US boundaries; literally, it was a state whose shape and limits were marked by military garrisons. Compared to the European countries w i t h w h i c h i t had the most dealings, the number of its m e n under arms was small and its expenditures relatively slight. None­ theless, it was the military that crucially defined the key contours of Amer­ ica's regime i n space and i n a m b i t i o n and served, against the European grain, as an instrument to extend the heterogeneity o f the population. T h e American people came to be shaped not only by diverse voluntary flows from Europe and involuntary diverse flows from Africa but by the French i n Louisiana, Hispanics i n the Southwest, M o r m o n s i n their enclave, over one hundred native nations, and a vast array o f peoples i n California, and de­ fined a national project that did not require a singular people or nationality. 45

46

T h e military was an instrument and a marker for this multifaceted re­ gime. America's army was organized i n a manner that was at once central­ ized, by authority i n Washington, yet decentralized, both by territorial orga­ nization of the regular forces and by the flexible instrument o f state militias. I n crises large and small, the bounds o f state and national forces proved permeable, as their relations came to be characterized by m u l t i p l e forms o f collaboration and risk taking. So, too, did the line dividing public and pri­ vate coercion: m e n over eighteen were expected to be armed ( i n accord w i t h the Constitution's Second A m e n d m e n t ) and come to their militia ser­ vice w i t h their own rifles and guns; settlers as well as soldiers policed roads and riverways. Likewise, the line of demarcation between Indian affairs and foreign policy was blurred, as there was a m u t u a l constitution of these domains throughout the antebellum period. A t some locations, the territory of the country to be patrolled by the army was fixed and clear; i n others, deeply ambiguous and often entwined w i t h other sovereignties and quasisovereignties. T h e nation's small military was constantly i n m o t i o n , its forts often fixed only for short periods, its navy always o n the move, searching for pressure points and keen to deter interference w i t h the country's consider­ able commercial and geopolitical ambitions. 47

48

This military not only solved its own multidimensional challenges but also provided answers to the country's great normative question of how to make sovereignty and popular rule compatible. I t also helped to solve the practical problem of how to rule over a great variety o f people and a vast expanse o f territory w i t h o u t compromising the country's unity or sovereignty. As Manicas acutely observes, America democratized war by simulta­ neously w i d e n i n g the scope o f military inclusion far beyond the trained and disciplined personnel who served i n continental Europe and by l i n k i n g

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public consent, given through representative liberal assemblies (state legisla­ tures and Congress) to military tasks. Citizens and their representatives had to sanction missions for troops and agree to appropriate tax schedules and fiscal obligations. As a result, ideology —liberal, democratic, imperial, racist, republican —became critical to m o b i l i z a t i o n and risk taking. A minority o f citizens (white males) were located inside the polity as voters, hence gov­ erned but not ruled, each juridically equal to the other. I n this context, novel solutions had to be found to the problem of maintaining military subordination to civilian authority and liberal institutions w i t h o u t sacrificing military discipline and effectiveness, as well as to the problem o f authorizing internal diversity between cultures, regions, classes, religons, even civiliza­ tions, inside American boundaries while sustaining a genuine u n i o n , inte­ grated by c o m m o n military institutions and authority. Further, the military defined the contours of peoplehood. Groups excluded from actual or virtual (as i n the indirect representation of w o m e n through assumptions o f patri­ archal responsibility) military service, most notably slaves but also, i n most places, free blacks, did not c o m m a n d the full status of citizens. America's flexible military, i n short, did more than extend and protect state sover­ eignty; it made, and reflected, that sovereignty, a type of soverignty compati­ ble w i t h a racially bounded, culturally heterogeneous, and class-strained lib­ eral democracy. 49

As Jack Greene notes, w h e n discussing what he calls the "constitutional development i n the extended polities of the British Empire and the U n i t e d States," the post-Revolutionary American regime faced virtually the same c o n u n d r u m w i t h respect to sovereignty and governance that the British E m ­ pire had failed to resolve i n its long period o f rule i n N o r t h America: the problem o f how to balance the center and the periphery. I n both cases, political authorities had to contend w i t h far-flung and diverse populations, civil societies, and economies and thus had to develop formulas of govern­ ance that could balance the unity and authority of the center w i t h appropri­ ate decentralization. I n defining the central issues o f early American stateb u i l d i n g this way, Greene forces a revision o f the standard accounts o f statehood, w h i c h conflate centralization w i t h capacity. T h e problem o f inte­ grating a state w i t h the territory and reach o f an empire was especially formidable i n the U n i t e d States, because of the dissimilarity between the colonies and states, the pervasive distrust o f centralized power, the insecure sense o f national identity as compared to local and regional singularity, a history o f separate state capacities, and the absence o f successful models. I n the face o f these challenges, America's military and its projects of protecting borders, extending territory, and guarding commerce tapped and reinforced those aspects o f America's ideological kitbag and culture w h i c h were shared by whites across their regional and civilizational divide: a c o m m o n opposi­ tion to "savages" o f color and to the European powers, a widespread fear o f

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disorder, and a de facto knowledge o f federalism and decentralization gained under British rule. T h e one problem the expansible military c o u l d not solve, of course, was that of slavery and its implications. Rather, before the C i v i l War, it was overwhelmed by sectional conflict —but not w i t h o u t first providing models, albeit on a comparatively modest scale, for the swift mobilization o f m e n under arms prepared for combat. Indeed, the very features o f flexibility, m o b i l i z a t i o n , and the i m b r i c a t i o n of public and pri­ vate capacity w h i c h had produced America's u n c o m m o n antebellum m i l i ­ tary also generated capacity for the globe's first total war. 50

S t u d y i n g L i b e r a l Stateness By way o f a conclusion, it m i g h t be useful to distinguish m y réévaluation o f the antebellum state from a recent important effort to reconsider "the theme o f political declension" r u n n i n g through the view that the national state was "a midget institution i n a giant land." Surveying the best new scholarship by his fellow historians while seeking to draw more attention to the effects o f national state institutions and policies, Richard John per­ suasively argues that the early republic has been "often misunderstood." 51

I t has, for example, become customary for scholars to contend that the central government sank into relative insignificance f o l l o w i n g the defeat o f the Federalists i n the election o f 1800; that the polity between

1800 and 1828 is adequately

charactrized as a 'state o f courts and parties'; and that the rise o f the Jacksonian party i n the election o f 1828 was a p r o d u c t o f more f u n d a m e n t a l changes originat­ ing i n the wider society outside o f the political realm. E a c h o f these assertions is challenged by the recent scholarship this essay surveys.

52

John pushes back against the view that sees A m e r i c a n Statebuilding as negligible before the C i v i l War. T h e literature he surveys stresses Federalist and Jacksonian efforts to create military and civilian bureaucracies, expand territory, produce goods on a mass scale for military purposes, and put i n place a vast network o f post offices and roads. T h r o u g h institutional innova­ tion and public policy, and by providing security for the internal mobility o f white citizens, John argues, a strong early A m e r i c a n state "bound together i n a national c o m m u n i t y millions o f Americans, most o f w h o m w o u l d never meet i n person." 53

W h y differ? John treats "governmental institutions as agents of change" by choosing to "dwell less o n institutional origins than o n institutional ef­ fects." There are important gains to be had here, not least putting to rest simpleminded antinomies contrasting state and society: A m e r i c a n society, John shows, was shaped by state policies, bureaus, and regulations. B u t we also lose something through this orientation. A decision to focus on effects 54

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KATZNELSON

rather than origins cuts off considerations of stateness both from interna­ tional influences, i n c l u d i n g war and trade, and from the dynamics of politi­ cal representation, political liberalism's central regime feature. A second decision John takes is to accept, i n effect, the criteria for state strength found i n the literature on European state formation, that is, to focus o n centralized administrative capacity. His disputes w i t h scholars who regard the early American state as insignificant are more empirical than conceptual. John simply tells a different story, while using the same instru­ ments to identify state capacity. I n consequence, he makes it difficult to get at the heart o f the matter, the distinctive character of the country's liberal state. John concludes his review essay w i t h a call for more research: " A m o n g topics worth exploring are public finance, taxation, and the admin­ istrative workings of state, city, and local government."' T h e military, sur­ prisingly, is conspicuously absent. 5

56

A revised research program beckons, one that places the military at the center o f accounts o f the American liberal state. It w o u l d begin, first, w i t h an understanding that state and empire i n antebellum America were guided primarily by how Congress used the military. Congress represented the states, managed sectionalism, appropriated funds, fashioned laws, and served as the locus for party politics and the rule setter for civil society rather more than the bureaucracies studied by Leonard W h i t e for the antebellum period or by Skowronek and Bensel for the p o s t - C i v i l War epoch. Second, ties between putatively domestic and international politics w o u l d be understood not merely as an interesting new subject o f inquiry but as centrally constitutive o f the American regime itself, given its swath o f terri­ tory, its penchant for expansion, and its special security and trading chal­ lenges. Studies o f American Statebuilding have suffered grievously by ignor­ ing the international dimension. T h i r d , it w o u l d appreciate how Tocqueville's discussion of slavery and Indian affairs, usually saluted as brilliant b u t off-center, suggests pivotal driv­ ing motivations that complement the usual geopolitical and global eco­ nomic pressures — shaping the small, flexible, effective American state and its military. I n addition to the protection o f its security and commerce, the early American state had two m a i n purposes: the management of a sectionally heterogeneous polity and the extension of its sovereignty and nor­ mative reach. I f war and trade helped to make the American state, as T i l l y and Spruyt, among others, argue that they helped to make European states, they did so w i t h i n this particular context. T h r o u g h its military, American liberalism and illiberalism were entwined, as i n a braid. 57

Fourth, this new research program w o u l d acknowledge that the U n i t e d States, by creating a liberal state o f light mobilization but effective sover­ eignty and protection for commerce, became the archetype for a new, postabsolutist pattern o f state formation. T h e k i n d o f state pioneered i n the

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105

a n t e b e l l u m period, and later remade more than once under divergent con­ ditions, continues to confer on A m e r i c a n Statebuilding its exemplary quali­ ties. These,

arguably, are

becoming

increasingly

important

as

regimes

t h r o u g h o u t the w o r l d are confronted w i t h challenges o f diversity, member­ ship, and

layered sovereignty akin to those the

U n i t e d States faced i n its

early decades.

Notes M y thoughts for this paper began to take shape at the N e w School. T h e r e , Aristide Z o l b e r g first got m e interested i n this subject and more generally i n learning to cross the i n t e r n a t i o n a l - d o m e s t i c divide; Robert L a t h a m deepened m y sense o f the i m p o r ­ tant l i n k between the history o f m i l i t a r i s m and liberal regimes; Charles T i l l y , n o w m y colleague at C o l u m b i a , kept p u s h i n g for an engagement between the Europeoriented literature o n state f o r m a t i o n and new work i n A m e r i c a n p o l i t i c a l develop­ ment; and R i c h a r d Bensel showed h o w it m i g h t be done. A t C o l u m b i a , I owe keen thanks to John Lapinski, n o w at Yale, whose research assistance underpins the fiscal aspects o f the discussion below, and to H e l e n M i l n e r and Robert Shapiro for their t h o u g h t f u l comments o n an earlier draft. Likewise, I a m i n debt to Margaret L e v i for her encouraging critical reading and to the discussion l e d off by Charles Stewart I I I at the M I T Conference o n A m e r i c a n Politics i n M a y 2000. 1. Stephen Skowronek, Building

a New American State: The Expansion

of Na­

tional Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1982); R i c h a r d F r a n k l i n Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Au­ thority in America,

1859-1877

( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1990);

T h e d a Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Pol­ icy in the United States ( C a m b r i d g e : Harvard University Press, 1992); B a r t h o l o m e w Sparrow, From Outside In: World War II and the American State (Princeton: Prince­ ton University Press, 1996); D a n i e l Kryder, Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State during World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 2. B r i a n M . D o w n i n g , The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Charles T i l l y , Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 9 9 0 - 1 9 9 0 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). 3. See note 37 for significant examples. 4. Skowronek, Building; John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English

State, 1688-1783 ( N e w York: Knopf, 1988).

5. Skowronek, Building,

19.

6. I b i d . , 19, 29, 3 1 - 3 4 . 7. Jack P. Greene, " T h e A m e r i c a n R e v o l u t i o n , " American Historical

Review 105

(February 2000): 93. 8. E d m u n d M o r g a n , Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in En­ gland and America ( N e w York: N o r t o n , 1988). 9. Jack P. Greene, Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Ex-

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KATZNELSON

tended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607-1788 (Athens: U n i ­ versity o f Georgia Press, 1986). 10. For t h o r o u g h overviews, see G o r d o n S. W o o d , The Creation of the American Republic,

1776-1787 ( C h a p e l H i l l : University o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1969); and

Stanley Elkins and E r i c M c K i t r i c k , The Age of Federalism: The Early American Re­ public, 1788-1800 ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1993).

11. Brewer, Sinews, xix, ix. 12. I b i d . , xix. 13. O n e crucial element that Brewer, M o r g a n , and Greene do not consider ade­ quately is the role o f race, slavery, and region i n the British E m p i r e and the U n i t e d States. These " l i b e r a l " states were also (either at h o m e or abroad) slave states, as deeply illiberal as they come. T h e status o f this dualism poses an i m p o r t a n t question: H o w can the c o m b i n a t i o n o f liberalism and racialized limits to citizenship best be understood? Are these distinct or entwined traditions? A focus o n the m i l i t a r y can help us t h i n k about this issue, because race and the color l i n e were so central to the country's ideological notions o f "manifest destiny" and to its debates about the exten­ sion o f territories and their admission as states to the U n i o n . For discussions, see

Rogers Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America:

An interpretation of American Political Thought since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace & W o r l d , 1955); Reginald H o r s m a n , Race and Manifest

Destiny:

The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Thomas R. Hietela, Manifest Destiny: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1985); and M i c h a e l F. H o l t ,

The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1999).

14. M i c h a e l M a n n , The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1986). 15. W i m Blockmans, "Representation

(since the T h i r t e e n t h C e n t u r y ) , " i n The

New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 7, c. 1415-c. 1500, ed. Christopher A l l m a n d (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press), 32.

16. Harvey Mansfield, Jr., Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modem Execu­ tive Power ( N e w York: Free Press, 1989). 17. I n a provocative paper revisionist for its t i m e , Herbert B o l t o n seeking "to sup­ p l e m e n t the purely nationalistic presentation to w h i c h we are accustomed," dated the A m e r i c a n Revolution as spanning the period from 1776 to 1816, w h e n the sep­ aration from Europe was

finally

established, and insisted that the Revolution be

placed i n the larger geopolitical setting o f European history and warmaking. Herbert E . B o l t o n , " T h e E p i c o f Greater A m e r i c a , " American Historical Review 38 ( A p r i l 1933). 18. Skowronek, Building, 24. To be sure, he notes that " T h e early A m e r i c a n state m a i n t a i n e d an integrated legal order o n a c o n t i n e n t a l scale; it fought wars, expropri­ ated Indians, secured new territories, carried o n relations w i t h other states, and aided economic development" b u t goes o n to downplay its executive or administrative abilities and to virtually ignore its m i l i t a r y history. 19. J. P. N e t t i , " T h e State as a C o n c e p t u a l Variable," World Politics, 20 (July 1968); Charles T i l l y , "Reflections o n the History o f European State-Making," and

FLEXIBLE

107

CAPACITY

"Western State-Making and Theories o f Political T r a n s f o r m a t i o n / ' i n The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles T i l l y (Princeton: Princeton U n i ­ versity Press, 1975); T h e d a Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. N e w York: C a m ­ bridge University Press, 1979; T h e d a Skocpol, " B r i n g i n g the State Back I n : Strate­ gies o f Analysis i n C u r r e n t Research/' and Peter B. Evans, D i e t r i c h Rueschemeyer, and T h e d a Skocpol, " O n the Road toward a M o r e Adequate Understanding o f the State/'

both

in

Bringing

the

State

Bake

In,

ed.

Peter

B . Evans,

Dietrich

Rueschemeyer, and T h e d a Skocpol (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1985); W o o d r o w W i l s o n , " T h e Study o f A d m i n i s t r a t i o n , " Political Science Quarterly 2 (June

1887); Leonard W h i t e , The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (New York: M a c m i l l a n , 1948); Leonard W h i t e , The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative His­ tory, 1801-1829

( N e w York: M a c m i l l a n , 1951); and L e o n a r d W h i t e , The Jackso-

nians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829-1861 (New York: M a c m i l l a n , 1954). 20. Skowronek draws here o n J. Rogers H o l l i n g s w o r t h , " T h e U n i t e d States," i n

Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United States, ed. Raymond Grew, i n the last v o l u m e o f the SSRC C o m m i t t e e o n Comparative Politics series Studies i n Political D e v e l o p m e n t (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). M y quarrel, o f course, is not w i t h comparison b u t w i t h the particular standard

o f comparison

applied. 2 1 . A b o u t Congress, Skowronek is largely and inexplicably silent. I thank John Lapinski for this observation.

22. Skowronek, Building. 87. 23. Upton's key texts were Armies of Asia and Europe ( N e w York: A p p l e t o n , 1878);

and The Military Policy of the United States (Washington, D . C . : Government Print­ i n g Office, 1904). 24. Skowronek, Building, 8 9 - 9 2 , 86. 25. I n this, b o t h Bensel and Skowronek were elaborating o n the portrait o f the weak, m i n i m a l state f o u n d i n Hartz, Liberal

Tradition, and Samuel P. H u n t i n g t o n ,

Political Order in Changing Societies ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).

26. Bensel, Yankee Leviathan, 2 - 3 . 27. Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 28. T h e classic statement o f this position is by Karl Polanyi, The Great Transfor­

mation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (New York Rinehart, 1944). 29. T h e estimates are cited i n Joel H . Silbey, The American Political

Nation,

1838-1893 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 181. H e also quotes M o r t o n

Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 9 8 - 9 9 . See also the excellent study by James Ster­ l i n g Young, The Washington Community: 1800-1828 ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace, & W o r l d , 1966).

30. See Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995); L . Ray G u n n , The

Decline of Authority: Public Economic Policy and Political Development in New York, 1800-1860 (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1988); L o u i s Bernard S c h m i d t , "Internal C o m m e r c e and the D e v e l o p m e n t o f the A m e r i c a n E c o n o m y before 1860," Journal of Political Economy 47 (December 1939); D i a n e L i n d s t r o m , " A m e r i c a n E c o n o m i c G r o w t h before 1840: N e w Evidence and N e w D i r e c t i o n s , " Journal of Economic

His-

108

KATZNELSON

tory 39 ( M a r c h 1979); and Stephen D . M i n i c u c c i , " F i n d i n g the cement o f Interest: Internal Improvements and A m e r i c a n N a t i o n - B u i l d i n g , 1790-1860," P h . D . diss. Massachusetts Institute o f Technology, 1998). 31. T h e U n i t e d States had c o n c l u d e d a treaty w i t h the Creek Confederacy i n 1790, essentially an agreement not to attack each other. For a history o f Indian-white relations i n the Northwest, see R i c h a r d W h i t e , The Middle Ground: Indians,

Em­

pires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 32. For a treatment o f this history, see Francis Paul Prucha, The Sword of the

Republic: The United States Army on the Frontier, 1783-1846 (New York: Mac­ m i l l a n , 1969). 33. T h e discussion o f forts i n Alabama is drawn from the invaluable i n f o r m a t i o n

i n Robert B. Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trad­ ing Posts of the United States (New York: M a c m i l l a n , 1988). 34. T h i s i n f o r m a t i o n is drawn from The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge (Boston: Charles Bowen and N e w York: C o l l i n s & Hannay [and later by G . and C . & H . C a r v i l l ] , 1 8 3 0 - 6 1 ) . T h e Almanac, cross-checked for specific

years w i t h Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (in the early years often called Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury), is the m a i n source used for the figures w h i c h follow, w i t h the exception o f figure 4, whose source is Histori­

cal Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, vol. 2 (Washington, D . C . : Department of Commerce,

1976). Useful discussions o f militias can be f o u n d i n

Lawrence Delbert Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812 ( C h a p e l H i l l : University o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1982);

and John K . M a h o n , History of the Militia and the National Guard (New York: M a c m i l l a n , 1983). 35. T h e search for a naval p o l i c y proved vexing. Considerations can be f o u n d i n L i n d a M a l o n e y , " T h e W a r o f 1812: W h a t Role for Sea Power?" and G . Terry Sharrer, " T h e Search for a Naval Policy, 1783-1812," both i n In Peace and

War:

Interpretations of American Naval History, 1775-1978, ed. Kenneth J. Hagan (Westport, C o n n . : G r e e n w o o d Press, 1978). 36. T h e historical discussion i n this section draws from American Military History, A r m y Historical Series (Washington, D . C . : Center o f M i l i t a r y History, U.S. A r m y ,

1989); Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 17751865 ( L o n d o n : Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968); W i l l i a m A d d l e m a n Ganoe, The History of the United States Army " N e w York: D . A p p l e t o n Century, 1942 [1924]); D o n a l d R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict

(Urbana: University o f Illinois

Press, 1989); James A . H u s t o n , The Sinews of War: Army Logistics 1775-1953 (Wash­ i n g t o n , D . C . : Office o f the C h i e f o f M i l i t a r y History, U . S. A r m y , 1966); M a r v i n A .

Kriedberg and M e r t o n G . Henry, History of Military Mobilization

in the United

States Army, 1775-1945 (Washington, D . C . : D e p a r t m e n t o f the A r m y , 1955); A l l a n

R. M i l l e t t and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States ( N e w York: Free Press, 1984); R a y m o n d G . O ' C o n n o r , ed., American

Defense Policy in Perspective: From Colonial Times to the Present (New York: John W i l e y , 1965); John M c A u l e y Palmer, America in Arms: The Experience of the United States with Military Organization ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 1941); Russell

F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (London: B. T . Batsford, 1969); and

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Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy ( N e w York: M a c m i l l a n , 1973). 37.

For a useful c h r o n i c l e , see Robert W . Coakely, The Role of Federal

Military

Forces in Domestic Disorders (Washington, D . C . : Center o f M i l i t a r y History, U . S. A r m y , 1988). 38. T h e Indians were made more vulnerable by the Jay Treaty o f 1794, i n w h i c h the British agreed to finally evacuate their frontier posts. 39. T h e Embargo A c t o f 1807 proscribed trade w i t h all countries; the Non-Inter­ course A c t o f 1809 restricted the p r o h i b i t i o n to B r i t a i n and France; Macon's B i l l No.2

o f 1910 lifted the restrictions b u t provided that i f either B r i t a i n or France

repealed its restrictions and the other did not, the provisions o f the 1809 A c t w o u l d be restored. 40.

For discussions, see K . Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846-1848 ( N e w York:

M a c m i l l a n , 1974); and John S.D. Eisenhower, So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848 ( N e w York: R a n d o m House, 1989); and D a v i d M . Pletcher, The

Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia: Univer­ sity o f M i s s o u r i Press, 1973). 4 1 . T i l l y , i n Coercion, famously pursued the t h e m e that wars made states just as states made war.

42. Richard L . W h i t e , "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own': A History of the American West ( N o r m a n : University o f O k l a h o m a Press, 1991), 58. I a m i n ­ debted to G u y B a l d w i n not o n l y for this reference b u t for p o i n t i n g to the intersection of models o f a m i n i m a l bureaucratic A m e r i c a n state that nonetheless, experienced unprecedented territorial growth. I n his "Territorial A c q u i s i t i o n and C e n t r a l State Expansion i n N i n e t e e n t h - C e n t u r y A m e r i c a : A Research Proposal" o f (1994), Bald­ w i n notes that " F r o m the 1830s o n , the A m e r i c a n state m a i n t a i n e d a substantially larger frontier m i l i t a r y presence, directing it against Indians, b u t also Mexicans, M o r ­ mons, and Confederates.

T h e presence

fluctuated,

b u t showed a l o n g t e r m rise

t h r o u g h the 1870s as different phases o f c o n t i n e n t a l expansion produced threats o f conflict" (13).

43. Cited i n D . W . M e i n i g , The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, vol 2, Continental America, 1800-1867 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

44. M e i n i g , Shaping, 164. 45. Peter T . Manicas, War and Democracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 126, 137, 148. O n the role o f parties, see Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1965); John A l d r i c h , Why Parties? The Ori­

gin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (Chicago: University o f C h i ­ cago Press, 1995); and Joel Silbey, The American Political Nation, 1838-1893

(Stan­

ford: Stanford University Press, 1991). 46.

I do not m e a n to i m p l y that a n t e b e l l u m state was a "garrison state" i n Las-

swell's sense, that is, state organized by specialists i n violence. H a r o l d D . Lasswell, " T h e Garrison State," American Journal of Sociology 46 (January 1941). 47.

See R i c h a r d Hofstadter, "Reflections o n V i o l e n c e i n the U n i t e d States," i n

American Violence: A Documentary History, ed. Richard Hofstadter and M i c h a e l Wallace ( N e w York: Knopf, 1970). 48.

For a relevant discussion, see Janice T h o m p s o n , Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sov-

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ereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modem Europe (Prince­ t o n : Princeton University Press, 1994). 49. Between 1812 and the C i v i l War, as the obligatory m i l i t i a declined i n favor o f a regular army and units o f volunteers, the various schisms i n civil society became quite apparent and later exploded i n draft resistance d u r i n g the C i v i l War, most visibly i n the Draft Riots o f 1863. For a useful overview o f military-society relations i n the era, see Margaret L e v i , Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism ( N e w York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5 8 - 6 6 .

50. Greene, Peripheries and Center, 157-72. 51. R i c h a r d R. John, " G o v e r n m e n t a l Institutions as Agents o f Change: Rethink­ i n g A m e r i c a n Political D e v e l o p m e n t i n the Early Republic, 1787-1835," Studies in American Political Development 11, no. 2 (1997), 359; John M . M u r r i n , " A Roof w i t h o u t Walls: T h e D i l e m m a o f A m e r i c a n N a t i o n a l Identity," i n Beyond Confedera­

tion: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity, ed. Richard Beem a n , Stephen Botein, and E d w a r d C . Carter I I (Chapel H i l l : University o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1987), 425; cited i n John, " G o v e r n m e n t a l Institutions," 360. 52. John, " G o v e r n m e n t a l Institutions," 349. 53. I b i d . , 373. 54. I b i d . , 368. 55. I b i d . , 378. 56. To be sure, he does briefly refer to the achievements o f the m i l i t a r y i n the m a i n body o f his text ( i b i d . , 3 7 0 - 7 1 ) . 57. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America ( N e w York: Harper & Row, 1966), 3 1 1 - 4 0 7 .

Five War, Trade, and U.S. Party Politics MARTIN

SHEFTER

W A R AND T R A D E have fundamentally shaped and reshaped the American national state since its founding. T h e changing position o f the U n i t e d States i n the international political and economic orders has influenced the entire "ensemble of institutions" i n the U n i t e d States, as J. P. Netti puts it. Devel­ opments abroad have shaped institutions on both the input and the output side of the American political system. This chapter considers some major influences that international developments have had upon U.S. party politics. There are at least three major ways i n w h i c h international forces have affected American party politics since the nation's struggle for indepen­ dence. First, international migration flows have regularly refashioned the nation's population, helping to make and remake the identities, loyalties, and antipathies o f Americans. I n their quest for support, party politicians have cultivated such sentiments. Second, international economic and m i l i ­ tary challenges have presented differing opportunities and threats to differ­ ent segments o f the population, generating cleavages that the nation's par­ ties have represented. T h i r d , throughout its history there has been considerable interaction between the character o f the U.S. state and the structure o f American party politics. I n responding to international chal­ lenges, national leaders often have altered the structure of, and the relation­ ship among, U.S. government institutions, w i t h important consequences for its political parties. This chapter examines how these three international influences have shaped U.S. party politics since the late eighteenth century. 1

2

3

T h e G r e a t Powers a n d the O r i g i n s of A m e r i c a n Politics D u r i n g the early history of European migrations to N o r t h America, interna­ tional affairs were central i n shaping the basic character o f American gov­ ernment and politics. T h e initial European settlements i n what was to become the U n i t e d States of America were colonies o f a foreign power — largely, o f England. A n d politics i n Britain's thirteen American colonies

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were profoundly influenced by competition between the home country and its chief foreign rival, that is, by conflicts between England and France. T h e Seven Years' War between the leading powers of the eighteenth cen­ tury was fought i n the A m e r i c a n theater as the French and Indian Wars. Britain's t r i u m p h i n 1765 led to the expulsion of France from the Atlantic coast o f N o r t h America. T h i s victory, i n t u r n , eliminated the major benefit that many inhabitants of the thirteen colonies saw i n English rule: G o d ­ fearing American Protestants no longer needed England to protect t h e m from the French Papists. 4

To cover the costs of the French and Indian Wars, England levied a number of taxes that Americans found burdensome. These imposts led many colonists to insist that there should be "no taxation without represen­ tation," w h i c h became the rallying cry o f those Americans who sought to sever ties w i t h England. A n important contribution to the success of the American War of Independence was the military support the colonists re­ ceived from France. T h e rulers of France calculated that by helping to dismember the British E m p i r e , they could weaken their major rival. After the Americans (with French assistance) w o n their War o f Indepen­ dence, politics i n the newly formed U n i t e d States continued to be very m u c h affected by struggles between the major European powers. T h e first party system pitted Federalists against Democratic-Republicans. Federalists wished to strengthen ties between the A m e r i c a n economy and the British market; hence they backed the treaty w i t h Britain negotiated by President Washington's envoy, John Jay. Jeffersonian Republicans sympathized w i t h the French Revolution and opposed Jay's treaty, believing that Americans involved i n the commercial economy w o u l d benefit by selling their prod­ ucts i n a wider market than Britain alone. 5

Jefferson's following also included forces known as " O l d Republicans." Most O l d Republicans were spokesmen for subsistence farmers, who op­ posed the economic policies advocated by Alexander H a m i l t o n —U.S. secre­ tary o f the treasury and leader o f the Federalists — w h i c h aimed at commer­ cializing the U.S. economy. Since the number o f Americans whose interests were served by the Federalist effort to increase ties between the A m e r i c a n and British economies was smaller than the number operating entirely out­ side the international economy, the Jeffersonians were able to defeat the Federalists by constructing the world's first political party linked to a mass electorate. T h e t r i u m p h o f the Democratic-Republicans over the Federal­ ists led to a period o f no-party politics, the so-called "Era of G o o d Feelings." Virginia planter-politicians — most notably, Thomas Jefferson, James M a d ­ ison, and James M o n r o e — were its dominant figures. 6

7

I n sum, the emergence o f America's first national political movement, the American Revolution's "Party o f Patriots," and the subsequent development of political parties to contest elections i n the new nation, were greatly

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shaped by interactions between Americans, on the one side, and the world's great powers, on the other.

B r i t i s h H e g e m o n y a n d A m e r i c a ' s "Party P e r i o d " T h e "long eighteenth century" ended w i t h Britain's defeat o f Napoleon i n 1815 and the rise o f British hegemony over the industrializing world econ­ omy. T h e ensuing transformation o f the international state system and the world economy was the context w i t h i n w h i c h major changes occurred i n American party politics. T h e hegemonic position that Great Britain occupied i n the nineteenthcentury world economy was a boon to those Americans who produced and shipped the raw materials required by British industry and the food con­ sumed by British workers. I t also benefited Americans w h o transported, sold, or purchased the low-cost manufactured products of British industries. T h e leading sector o f Great Britain's economy d u r i n g the nineteenth cen­ tury was textile manufacturing. I n the century's middle decades, Britain pur­ chased almost half the world's raw cotton for its textile mills. T h e world's chief production zone for cotton was the U.S. South, and southern planters sold m u c h of their crop to British manufacturers. A major reason that N e w York C i t y emerged as America's economic capi­ tal was its dominance of the trade between southern cotton growers and British manufacturers. A t the beginning o f each growing season, N e w York merchants w o u l d advance loans to southern planters, enabling t h e m to sur­ vive u n t i l their cotton was harvested. T h e merchants who provided this credit shipped cotton to Britain through the port o f N e w York, and southern planters, i n t u r n , used m u c h o f their profits to purchase British goods impor­ ted through N e w York. This alliance between N e w York and the South, based on trade w i t h Great Britain, became central to the Democrats d u r i n g the era extending roughly from 1828 to 1896, w h e n mass-based, patronageoriented political party organizations dominated government and politics i n the U n i t e d States. D u r i n g this era the nation was governed by a "state of courts and parties," as political scientist Stephen Skowronek has termed i t . Historian Richard L . M c C o r m i c k calls these years the "party period" i n American political history. M a r t i n Van Buren, a leading N e w York politician i n the 1820s, forged a coalition b e h i n d the presidential candidacy o f Andrew Jackson among Americans who traded w i t h Great Britain. I n addition to southerners and New Yorkers, another element of the Jacksonian coalition were midwestern farmers. M a n y o f the crops these farmers produced were ultimately con­ sumed by British industrial workers, and a central policy of the Jacksonians — suppression o f the A m e r i c a n Indians — was a key concern o f farmers 8

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on the frontier of Euro-American settlement. T h e task o f Indian removal was eased by the withdrawal o f France and Spain from the alliances they had cultivated w i t h A m e r i c a n Indian tribes, as Aristide Zolberg notes i n his chapter above. T h e coalition that elected Andrew Jackson to the U.S. presidency was institutionalized as the Democratic Party. T h e Democrats of the second American party system strongly opposed protective tariffs. T h e y also were committed to the westward expansion o f both slave agriculture and freehold farming —policies that presupposed the international order of free trade and balance-of-power politics over w h i c h Great Britain presided as the world's hegemonic power. I f the industrial hegemony of Great Britain benefited many Americans, it posed a threat to others, the ones who made products that were undersold by British industry. Britain's manufacturers generally could beat the compe­ tition, so long as the contest was conducted on a level playing field, and for this reason, the British strongly advocated free trade. For the same reason, some A m e r i c a n politicians were able to mobilize support among U.S. man­ ufacturers, their employees, and their suppliers by advocating protective tar­ iffs. T h e tariff became a central W h i g and Republican campaign appeal during the second and t h i r d A m e r i c a n party systems, extending from the 1820s to the 1890s. 11

Tariffs raised enormous revenues, w h i c h the Whigs proposed to spend on an ambitious program o f "internal improvements." I n the "American sys­ t e m " advocated by Henry Clay, tariff revenues were used to subsidize the construction o f transportation projects that facilitated domestic commerce and manufacturing. T h e Republicans, who succeeded the Whigs, also advo­ cated using tariff revenues to finance p u b l i c works, and after the C i v i l War, the G O P sought to dispose o f the remainder o f the politically embarrassing "treasury surplus" that the tariff generated by enacting America's first na­ tional social welfare program: pensions for veterans of the U n i o n army, the widows of " o l d soldiers," and native-born northerners who claimed to be U n i o n veterans or their widows. D u r i n g the second and third A m e r i c a n party systems, the Whigs and Republicans were spokesmen for U.S. manufacturing interests. T h e y sought to create an industrial working class possessing the skills and discipline that w o u l d enable U.S. manufacturers to compete w i t h their British rivals. This was the economic foundation of the W h i g and Republican cultural program (temperance, public education, nativism). There is no need to settle here the issue of economic base versus ideological superstructure, that is, to de­ termine whether cultural politics i n nineteenth-century America reflected economic struggles that, i n some sense, were more fundamental. Suffice it to say that there was an international economic dimension to the cultural conflicts emphasized by scholars associated w i t h the "new political history." 12

13

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Conflicts between those Americans who benefited from British interna­ tional hegemony and those who feared being undersold by British industry provided the economic and social foundation for the U.S. system o f compet­ itive party politics. I f Britain's economic hegemony created the central cleavage i n the Amer­ ican party system, its military primacy influenced the basic structure o f the nation's political parties. T h e era o f Britain's military hegemony — w h i c h extended from its defeat o f Napoleonic France i n 1815 to Germany's chal­ lenge to Britain's dominance as the century ended — coincided almost pre­ cisely w i t h the "party period" o f American political history. D u r i n g the last three-quarters o f the nineteenth century, America's key political institution was a system o f patronage-fueled party organizations that mobilized an ex­ tensive electoral base. 14

T h a t the U.S. party period coincided w i t h Britain's international military hegemony was no mere coincidence: British military primacy made it possi­ ble for America's party organizations to dominate all governmental institu­ tions i n the U n i t e d States. Patronage-oriented political parties so dominated American public life from the Jacksonian through the Progressive Eras that they even were able to intrude into the domain of the military. Parties mo­ bilized not only popular support but also troops for America's nineteenthcentury wars. Politicians organized volunteer regiments through the same communications networks upon w h i c h they relied to reach voters. For ex­ ample, d u r i n g the M e x i c a n War, Congressman Jefferson Davis relied upon the Democratic Party i n his district to fill the ranks of the regiment he founded, the First Mississippi Rifles. M o r e generally, the same party organi­ zations that mobilized the world's most extensive mass electorate i n the nineteenth century also helped to recruit soldiers i n the Western world's bloodiest military conflict between 1815 and 1914, the American C i v i l War. 15

I n addition to m o b i l i z i n g soldiers to the military rank and file, parties influenced appointments to military commands. Such appointments re­ warded public figures for m o b i l i z i n g troops, providing t h e m w i t h incentives to organize military units. (E.g., the commanding officer o f the First Missis­ sippi Rifles was Congressman Jefferson Davis, who had founded the regi­ ment.) D u r i n g the M e x i c a n War, the Democrats were so unhappy that both officers h o l d i n g the highest rank (major general) i n the army were Whigs that they attempted to revive the rank o f lieutenant general — the only pre­ vious lieutenant general i n the U.S. A r m y had been George Washington — and to appoint a prominent Democrat (Senator Thomas Hart Benton) to this rank. This illustrates Samuel Huntington's point that u n t i l the late nine­ teenth century military officership was not viewed as a distinct profession i n the U n i t e d States. 16

D u r i n g the C i v i l War, many politicians who mobilized troops were given major military commands. A m o n g those appointed as generals i n the U n i o n

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army were Speaker of the House Nathaniel Banks, Massachusetts state sena­ tor Benjamin Butler, Congressmen John M c C l e r n a n d and John A. Logan from Illinois, and N e w York politicians John D i x and Daniel Sickles. I n what may have been the most significant N o r t h e r n military offensive o f the war, the campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, the commander of the U n i o n forces, Ulysses S. Grant, found it necessary to devote almost as m u c h attention to contending w i t h his n o m i n a l subordi­ nate, John M c C l e r n a n d , as to countering the moves of his Confederate adversaries. Even after Grant's triumphs at Vicksburg and Chattanooga led Congress to revive the rank of lieutenant general (so that Grant could be appointed as the army's highest-ranking officer), the influence of political generals made it difficult for the new general i n chief to control the armies nominally under his c o m m a n d . As James McPherson notes, " O n the pe­ riphery of the m a i n theaters stood three northern armies commanded by political generals whose influence prevented even Grant from getting r i d o f them: Benjamin Butler . . . Franz Sigel . . . and Nathaniel Banks." 17

18

Because it was i n Great Britain's interest to prevent other European states from extending their sway i n the Western hemisphere, the United States did not have to rely o n political generals such as these to defend itself from the world's great powers. As Paul Kennedy observes, the United States i n the nineteenth century was protected by "the cordon sanitaire w h i c h the Royal Navy (rather than the M o n r o e Doctrine) imposed to separate the O l d W o r l d from the New." Because the United States was thus protected by Britain, the world's hegemonic military power, political parties i n the United States were able, d u r i n g the Party Period, to dominate not only civil but military institutions. T h e 1860s witnessed the most dramatic, but not the only, instance o f a noteworthy feature of early-nineteenth-century U.S. party politics: regional minorities defeated i n national politics threatening to secede from the U n i o n . T h e threat o f secession was plausible, because the immediate neigh­ bors of the United States were not major military powers likely to gobble up the territory that seceded. I n addition, as Aristide Zolberg observes, states considering secession could anticipate that Britain would prevent the Euro­ pean powers from seizing them. Southern advocates o f extending slavery were not the first defeated minor­ ity i n U.S. politics to speak o f leaving the U n i o n : N e w England threatened to secede over the 1803 Louisiana Purchase ( m u c h o f w h i c h would be devoted to slave agriculture) as well as over the declaration of war against Britain i n 1812. A n d the southern states carried out their vow to secede i n 1860, i n part because southerners anticipated that they would get the sup­ port o f Great Britain i n their war of independence. They thought that the British w o u l d have little choice but to back the Confederate states, because Britain required access to southern cotton i n order to retain its international standing. 19

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B u i l d i n g a N e w A m e r i c a n State T h e structure o f the international economy and state system changed signif­ icantly at the t u r n o f the twentieth century. A m e r i c a n productivity came to exceed Britain's i n the 1890s, and manufacturers i n continental Europe also began to present serious competition to their rivals across the English Chan­ nel. T h e international economic regime associated w i t h British economic hegemony experienced strains: European tariffs started rising. A n d the pat­ tern o f politics that had emerged i n the United States at least partly i n response to British hegemony also faced serious challenges. 20

W h e n U.S. producers had not been able to compete w i t h British indus­ tries, national officials affiliated w i t h the Whigs and Republicans had w o n support among A m e r i c a n manufacturers and industrial workers by enacting high tariffs to exclude foreign goods from the home market. As A m e r i c a n industry became the most productive i n the world, many U.S. manufac­ turers sought to sell their output abroad as well as at home. B u t w i t h rising European tariffs, A m e r i c a n producers faced greater restrictions i n foreign markets. A t the turn o f the century, U.S. presidents — Republicans as well as D e m ­ ocrats—sought to adjust A m e r i c a n commercial policy so as to increase ex­ ports. As David Lake argues, "the foreign policy executive" took the lead i n "reconceptualizing the tariff' as an instrument for p r o m o t i n g A m e r i c a n ex­ ports. Both Republican and Democratic presidents sought to mobilize pop­ ular support for a commercial strategy that relied on negotiating w i t h for­ eign nations to open markets. T h e tariff declined as a central focus o f contention i n A m e r i c a n politics. A t the same time, the Progressive move­ ment (which was not especially concerned w i t h questions of international trade) launched its challenge to the party organizations that had been con­ structed i n the nineteenth century to engage i n battles over the tariff. T h e t u r n of the century witnessed major changes not only i n the world economy but also i n the international state system. As George Modelski observes, of the state system of 1900: "Bismarck's empire, fueled by G e r m a n nationalism put into question the stability of the European balance. . . . By 1900 it had become clear to many that Pax Britannica was well past its 21

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prime. These developments produced W o r l d War I , into w h i c h the United States was drawn by G e r m a n submarine attacks o n U.S. merchant ships, just as England's violations o f the neutrality of American merchantmen had drawn the United States into the previous global war i n 1812. Whereas political parties had played a key role i n America's nineteenth-century wars, during W o r l d War I the Progressive Woodrow W i l s o n undertook to separate Amer­ ica's institutions o f political and military mobilization. T h e Progressive ideal was to strengthen bureaucratic institutions at the expense of parties, but 24

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the bureaucratization of the war effort i n 1917-18 was incomplete. It is politically feasible for government agencies to operate i n accord w i t h the principles o f "imperative coordination/ as M a x Weber terms it, only i f there is broad support among politically influential forces for the policy being enforced. Absent such support, President W i l s o n administered the war effort through various nonbureaucratic alternatives to traditional party organiza­ tions. 7

25

To secure the backing of business and other elements o f American society whose cooperation was necessary to fight a total war, the W i l s o n administra­ tion established government agencies r u n by prominent leaders o f the pri­ vate sector. T h e most important of these agencies was the War Industries Board, staffed by business executives and chaired by a major W a l l Street figure, Bernard Baruch. Another example was the Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, who had gained considerable prominence by r u n n i n g the Belgian relief effort early i n the war. 26

A second feature of the mobilization for W o r l d War I was a great reliance upon mass media campaigns. T h e Committee on Public Information (CPI) produced songs (such as "Over There") and films (such as "The Beast o f Berlin") intended to convince citizens that all "100 percent Americans" supported the A l l i e d cause. But the CPFs reliance upon public relations was not unique. For example, absent any consensus that the war was unavoid­ able, civilian food rationing could not be considered. Instead, Herbert Hoover's Food Administration sought through the new techniques of public relations to persuade Americans to observe "meatless" Fridays and "wheatless" Wednesdays. T h e way troops were m o b i l i z e d illustrates how incompletely government functions that formerly had been administered through party organizations were bureaucratized d u r i n g W o r l d War I . W h e n the U n i t e d States entered the war, politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, adhering to earlier prac­ tices, sought to mobilize their followings as volunteer troops. T R proposed raising an army division (eventually an army corps), w h i c h w o u l d have re­ quired p r o m o t i n g C o l o n e l Roosevelt and his associate Brigadier General Leonard Wood to positions as major generals. But the U.S. A r m y and President W i l s o n w o u l d not countenance this. T h e army was becoming increasingly professionalized at the turn o f the century and no longer w o u l d accept the appointment of political generals. A n d President W i l s o n , who sought to mobilize the entire nation for total war, did not want the conflict to be regarded as a partisan venture.

27

Woodrow W i l s o n , the Progressive, established a set of government agen­ cies (i.e., Selective Service Boards) to accomplish a task (military recruit­ ment) that formerly had largely been achieved through party organizations. But the Selective Service system was not a centralized bureaucracy w i t h field offices that implemented the policies and priorities of national officials.

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Rather, draft boards were "little groups of neighbors/' whose members drew on their local standing to reinforce their legal mandate. Unable to rely so­ lely upon its own authority, the administration i n Washington was com­ pelled to accept whatever social discrimination was practiced by local draft boards. Nonetheless, i n the eyes o f Progressives, a virtue of the new system of military mobilization was that it bypassed the militia, whose roots were "firmly planted . . . i n the party organization of the States," as the New York Times put i t . 28

T h e increase i n the power of the American state d u r i n g W o r l d War I , as a result o f conscription, personal income taxation, taxes on the "excess profits" o f corporations, and the mobilization of the economy for industrial warfare raised two questions after the hostilities ceased. W i t h the return o f peace, how m u c h o f its new power should Washington retain? A n d what sorts o f policies w o u l d the government pursue? As for the first question, the United States experienced a "general postwar reaction against active government." Wartime policies brought government into the lives o f ordinary Americans so intrusively that it reduced popular support for Progressivism. I n 1912 candidates identified w i t h the Progressive cause (Woodrow W i l s o n and Theodore Roosevelt) had w o n 75 percent of the vote, but following the war —that is, i n the 1920s —the voters brought i n three successive conservative G O P presidents and also "regular Republican" majorities i n both houses o f Congress. 29

A dramatic development overseas, the Russian Revolution, presented an answer to the second question that many Americans found unacceptable. Respectable citizens sought to ensure that C o m m u n i s m w o u l d not t r i u m p h i n the United States. T h e postwar "red scare" smashed any radical tenden­ cies i n the American labor movement. 30

W o r l d War I greatly strengthened firms capable o f operating i n global markets. After the war, politicians affiliated w i t h this economic sector (known as "internationalists") fought vigorously against the policies of the "isolationists." F r o m roughly 1918 to 1932, isolationists usually prevailed, k i l l i n g U.S. entry into the League o f Nations and enacting restrictive trade legislation that escalated the U.S. stock market crash into the worldwide Great Depression o f the 1930s. 31

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U . S . I n t e r n a t i o n a l H e g e m o n y a n d the I m p e r i a l P r e s i d e n c y T h e middle t h i r d of the twentieth century witnessed enormous changes i n the international political and economic orders: the U n i t e d States suc­ ceeded Great Britain as the world's hegemonic power. Germany's efforts to dominate Europe, w h i c h precipitated two world wars, were defeated i n the 1940s by the U n i t e d States, the United K i n g d o m , and the Soviet U n i o n . 35

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After w i n n i n g W o r l d War I I , the United States and the Soviet U n i o n became the world's dominant military powers. Each superpower led an alli­ ance that confronted its rival i n a C o l d War extending over more than forty years. T h e two blocs were economic, as well as military, alliances. T h e U n i t e d States largely ran the institutions (e.g., the W o r l d Bank, G A T T , and I M F ) that managed the capitalist world economy. D u r i n g the era of U.S. international hegemony after the Second W o r l d War, the president became the central figure i n American government and politics. Richard Neustadt asserted at the time that there was a simple rela­ tionship between these developments: as the international crises confronting presidents became increasingly severe, presidents became more powerful relative to other actors i n American politics. 36

But, as Stephen Skowronek has argued, there was nothing automatic about the relationship between America's changing position i n the interna­ tional system and the growth of presidential power. International crises were not simply presented to presidents by foreign powers. T h e United States played a key role i n shaping the international system that generated the crises presidents were expected to manage. A n d forces outside the Amer­ ican political system did not provide presidents w i t h the means o f dealing w i t h these problems. Presidents fashioned the tools they used to manage international challenges. As Skowronek puts it, presidents needed to "make" the politics they played. 37

T h e ways i n w h i c h the W h i t e House operated internationally very m u c h influenced the president's political standing. U.S. international successes from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s had major consequences for American politics and government. Presidents were not unaware of these conse­ quences, and domestic considerations almost certainly affected their con­ duct abroad. I n promoting the international political and economic policies associated w i t h the Pax Americana, postwar presidents served the interests and w o n the support o f several important domestic political forces. T h e owners, man­ agers, and employees o f American firms that were able to prevail over for­ eign firms i n both domestic and world markets benefited greatly from an open international trading system. C o m m e r c i a l interests that shipped or sold American goods abroad and imported foreign goods into the U.S. mar­ ket also profited from the free trade regime promoted by postwar presidents, as did financial institutions that financed this trade or invested overseas. A n d those Americans (many o f t h e m southerners) who made careers i n the U.S. armed forces or sold weapons and supplies to the U.S. military also directly gained from American hegemony. D u r i n g the two decades following W o r l d War I I , presidents o f both parties promoted policies these interests favored. Indeed, a bipartisan accord extended beyond simply the military, foreign, and trade policies associated w i t h the Pax Americana. To avoid dividing the

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nation i n the face o f foreign foes, postwar presidents sought to strike com­ promises on domestic disputes that might threaten national harmony. T h a t both Democratic and Republican presidents sought to serve interna­ tionally oriented interests encouraged these powerful interests to support, i n t u r n , efforts by presidents to assert their authority relative to other public officials and political institutions. Following W o r l d War I I , the forces o f internationalism persuaded Congress to increase the powers of, and central­ ize control over, the U.S. national security state — creating the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Atomic Energy Commis­ sion, and the National Science Foundation. 38

39

Beginning w i t h F D R , presidents relied increasingly on administrative mechanisms to assert their leadership. W o r l d War I I manifested and rein­ forced this tendency. To mobilize the American economy for war, Franklin Roosevelt, like Woodrow W i l s o n before h i m , established numerous agen­ cies, staffed by dollar-a-year executives on loan from business. I n particular, when war broke out i n Europe, F D R created a War Resources Board ( W R B ) , r u n by various industrial magnates. B u t organized labor and other liberal forces i n the N e w Deal coalition objected to endowing business w i t h so m u c h power. Roosevelt responded to these concerns by replacing the W R B w i t h the Office o f Production Management ( O P M ) , co-chaired by the president of General Motors and FDR's closest ally i n the labor movement, Sidney H i l l m a n . 40

41

But Roosevelt himself was not completely comfortable w i t h such a dele­ gation of power. D u r i n g his first two terms, the executive branch had ac­ quired considerably greater administrative capacity than i t had possessed on the eve o f W o r l d War I . T h r o u g h various new executive agencies, the W h i t e House obtained information about American industry that it had not previ­ ously commanded, and the Executive Reorganization A c t o f 1939 created an "institutionalized presidency" to manipulate these new levers o f power. Thus, i n W o r l d War I I the president himself was able to play a major role i n m o b i l i z i n g the nation for war. Whereas W o r l d War I had destroyed Progressivism, the Second W o r l d War helped to institutionalize the N e w Deal. Political forces to the right and left o f the N e w Deal were discredited by international developments d u r i n g the 1940s. As W o r l d War I I became America's most popular war, liberals were able to charge that the isolationism of the a n t i - N e w Deal Right prior to Pearl Harbor indicated insufficient c o m m i t m e n t to the fight against fascism. A n d the C o l d War enabled McCarthyites to charge leftists w i t h being "soft on C o m m u n i s m . " 42

As E d w i n Amenta and Theda Skocpol brilliantly argue, W o r l d War I I helped to institutionalize the N e w Deal by redefining its welfare aspirations. T h e major social policy o f FDR's first two administrations had been provid­ ing jobs to the unemployed, largely on public construction projects. People 43

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for w h o m such jobs were unsuitable (e.g., the elderly, widows) were to be provided w i t h a uniform package of social benefits. T h e economic b o o m following W o r l d War I I greatly reduced the appeal of public works jobs. A n d d u r i n g the postwar decades, the various segments of the unemployed came to be treated very differently. T h e federal govern­ m e n t itself provided direct and relatively generous benefits to those u n e m ­ ployed persons who universally were regarded as worthy: retired workers, widows, crippled veterans. Public assistance for people who had inadequate incomes for other reasons was administered and partly financed by state governments, so that benefits varied considerably among the states, reflect­ ing local views o f the worthiness o f different segments o f the poor. Locally oriented political forces were able to prevail on these matters for two reasons. First, although the N e w Deal modified, it did not completely remake, U.S. party politics. Certainly, it did not create the "more responsi­ ble two-party system" that liberal academics advocated at the t i m e . Rather than establishing a centralized party organization committed to a national program, F D R and his successors mobilized electoral support through America's patronage-oriented "traditional party organizations," as well as through local elites and other local institutions (e.g., trade associations, la­ bor federations). Elected officials, who relied upon such institutions for support, had to pay heed to local views concerning who deserved reasonably generous benefits and who should receive m i n i m a l public support. 44

45

A second reason why the character of N e w Deal social policies varied considerably across the nation was that the N e w Deal regime did not create a centralized national state to administer its social programs. Most social policies of the N e w Deal —such as U n e m p l o y m e n t Insurance, A i d to De­ pendent C h i l d r e n , public housing —were administered through state and local governments. I n administering national policies, these institutions i n ­ terpreted t h e m i n ways that accorded w i t h the concerns of locally dominant political forces. T h e most dramatic example o f the N e w Deal's capitulation to such local forces was its refusal to "interfere" i n the southern racial order. To retain support among southern white voters and the officials they elected (most southern blacks were disfranchised at the time), F D R scrupulously avoided challenging the southern caste system. 46

International Sources of "Divided Government," 1968-92 International military, political, and economic developments played a signif­ icant role i n u n d e r m i n i n g the political coalition that had dominated presi­ dential elections d u r i n g the first two decades of the C o l d War. JFK and LBJ interpreted the doctrine o f containing C o m m u n i s m to require U.S. inter­ vention i n V i e t n a m , and this drove many liberals — notably, younger m i d -

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die-class liberals — away from the Democratic Party. O n the other hand, some voting blocs that formerly had been strongly Democratic (e.g., south­ ern whites, northern Catholics) now supported G O P presidents w h o were more i n c l i n e d to make use o f U.S. military power abroad. Conflicts over V i e t n a m seriously disrupted the Democratic Party. I n the aftermath o f the party's divisive 1968 national convention, antiwar D e m o ­ crats secured "reforms" that weakened the party's traditional "power brokers" and boosted the influence o f liberal activists. This, i n turn, helped the G O P secure a "lock" o n the electoral college, controlling the presidency for twenty o f the twenty-four years between 1968 and 1992. D u r i n g this quarter-century, the Democrats experienced deep divisions not only over military issues but also over race —a question that also had international dimensions. W o r l d War I I created jobs i n war industries that encouraged millions o f southern blacks to move to the N o r t h , where they could vote. To w i n their support, northern Democrats began to advocate black civil rights, a cause that F D R had pointedly avoided. T h e C o l d War provided the Democrats w i t h other reasons to aid blacks. Racial apartheid i n the South embarrassed the United States i n its competition for the "hearts and minds" o f T h i r d W o r l d peoples. This helps explain why Presidents T r u ­ man, Kennedy, and Johnson opposed racial discrimination, driving many southern whites from the Democratic Party. 47

Republican dominance o f the presidency was further bolstered i n the 1980s by international economic forces. President Reagan's 1981 tax cuts, i n conjunction w i t h his defense b u i l d u p , caused the A m e r i c a n national budget deficit to balloon, placing upward pressure on U.S. real (i.e., inflation-ad­ justed) interest rates. I n conjunction w i t h Reagan's pro-business stance, this encouraged foreigners to invest i n U.S. Treasury securities. T h e flood of foreign capital into the U n i t e d States reduced domestic interest rates by approximately five percentage points at the m i d p o i n t of the Reagan presi­ dency, c o n t r i b u t i n g to the expansion of the U.S. economy and the reelec­ tion o f Republican presidents i n 1984 and 1988. Foreigners needed to acquire dollars to purchase A m e r i c a n securities. Hence, the rise i n foreign investment increased the international exchange value o f the dollar (it rose by almost 67 per cent) d u r i n g the early 1980s. H i g h dollars reduced the cost to Americans of imported goods, helping to increase the U.S. trade deficit from $12 b i l l i o n i n 1980 to $136 b i l l i o n i n 1985. T h e availability to A m e r i c a n consumers of inexpensive, high-quality i m ­ ported goods contributed to the sense of well-being among the GOP's m i d ­ dle-class constituents. Imports also imposed discipline on organized labor. U n i o n leaders hesitated to insist that U.S. firms accept costly changes i n wages and work rules, lest these firms transfer jobs abroad. T h i s restraint was welcomed by the A m e r i c a n business community, further encouraging Presi­ dents Reagan and Bush to promote foreign trade. 48

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126

T h e Reagan administration took steps to ensure that the flood o f goods into America from Japan, the nation having the largest trade surplus w i t h the United States, w o u l d help finance the U.S. budget deficit. I n the mid-1980s, it negotiated the yen-dollar agreement, enabling Japan's banks to invest i n high-yielding U.S. Treasury securities the profits that Japanese firms made selling their products i n the American market. I n effect, the U.S. budget i n the 1980s was partly financed by a "Toyota tax," equal to the interest payments on U.S. Treasury securities sold to Japa­ nese investors. Future generations w i l l have to pay this tax, but the burden of this mode o f public finance was borne most immediately and heavily by American workers left unemployed by a system that benefited members o f the Reagan-Bush constituency as consumers and taxpayers. 51

T h e weakening of organized labor i n the 1980s greatly increased the i n ­ fluence of liberal activists — feminists, environmentalists, Naderites — w i t h i n the Democratic coalition. F r o m the 1940s through the 1970s, organized labor had regularly fought w i t h liberal activists over issues and candi­ dates. ( A F L president George Meany's support of the war i n V i e t n a m was especially galling to liberal peace activists.) But i n the face of Reaganite assaults, unions have sought to reach accommodations w i t h other liberal forces, i n the hope that labor w i l l be supported by liberals on the issues it regards as most critical. For example, organized labor had opposed the Clean A i r Act i n 1978 but supported its renewal i n 1990. A n d , i n a tacit exchange, environmentalists i n recent years have joined labor i n seeking to impose restrictions on foreign trade. A l l members o f the liberal coalition opposed the Reagan-Bush fiscal poli­ cies o f tax cuts and budget deficits. Large deficits l i m i t e d funds for discretion­ ary federal programs, thus reducing the flow o f resources to the public agen­ cies and nonprofit organizations that design and administer social programs. I n these ways, Reaganite economic policies, w h i c h had international di­ mensions, threatened the livelihood of members of the liberal coalition: unionized labor, the clients of social programs, employees i n the public and nonprofit sectors, and the racial minorities that are heavily served by or employed i n these sectors. T h a t is, the conservative Republican crusade against big government attacked the livelihood of groups at the core o f the liberal coalition. T h i s explains the bitterness o f the conservative offensive and of the liberal counteroffensive against contemporary conservatism. These attacks and counterattacks have produced an era of acrimony i n U.S. politics. 52

53

"Globalization" I n 1991, the Soviet U n i o n collapsed, and the C o l d War passed into history. But America's t r i u m p h i n the C o l d War did not reduce the intensity o f party conflict i n U.S. domestic politics. To the contrary, partisan divisions i n C o n -

U.S.

PARTY

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gress deepened i n the 1990s. President C l i n t o n often failed to seek com­ promises w i t h his opponents, and a number o f his initiatives were not sup­ ported by a single Republican i n either the House or Senate. At the same time, new modes o f political combat —for example, a re­ liance u p o n scandals and character assassination — became routine i n the United States. T h i s mode of political warfare was initiated by the D e m o ­ crats, w h o used it to drive Richard N i x o n from the presidency i n the Water­ gate affair. Subsequently, Democrats sought to discredit a number of Repub­ lican appointees w i t h charges o f financial or sexual misconduct. Republicans picked up this tactic i n the late 1980s, driving from office Democratic Speaker o f the House Jim W r i g h t and House Democratic w h i p Tony Coehlo. 54

After B i l l C l i n t o n entered the W h i t e House, the G O P further escalated this mode o f political warfare. Republicans charged C l i n t o n himself, a halfdozen members o f his cabinet, and top W h i t e House aides w i t h criminal misbehavior, securing the appointment o f seven independent counsels to investigate these allegations. Following the Republican capture o f the House i n November 1994, the Democrats retaliated by filing seventy-five charges o f ethical misconduct against G O P Speaker N e w t G i n g r i c h . I n short, efforts to h u m i l i a t e one's opponents and drive t h e m from public life became a regular feature o f American politics i n the 1990s. 55

This recent intensification o f political warfare i n the United States has an international dimension. As Peter Gourevitch notes below, the 1990s saw a fragmentation o f the consensus that had been forged after W o r l d War I I w i t h regard to America s role i n the international political and economic orders. D u r i n g the C o l d War, opposition to the institutional order of the West (i.e., N A T O , G A T T , I M F ) was regarded as politically unacceptable on both the right and the left. B u t beginning i n the 1990s, this consensus faced serious challenge w i t h i n both the Republican and Democratic Parties. I n the G O P , "neo-isolationists," such as Pat Buchanan, denounce specific international economic institutions and the entire "new world order" that they c l a i m is being fashioned by the forces of internationalism. Another p o s t - C o l d War perspective that can be found among Republicans is "uni­ lateralism," as Gourevitch terms it. Unilateralists argue that the United States should deploy military force on its o w n initiative, without seeking the prior approval o f the United Nations or any other international authority. Unilateralists have been a significant force i n the G O P since the presidency of Ronald Reagan. T h i s helps explain why more and more southerners, many o f w h o m have ties to the military, have become Republicans since 1980. 56

Democrats also have manifested a variety of views o n international issues over the past decade. President C l i n t o n sought to strengthen the institutions that promote international trade, but a majority o f Democrats i n Congress sought to k i l l N A F T A , to deny the president "fast track" authority i n trade

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negotiations, and to w i t h h o l d permanent, n o r m a l trade relations ( P N T R ) from C h i n a . T h e most fierce opposition to free trade policies came from organized labor, but other liberal forces — Naderites, environmentalists — joined the fray, arguing that free trade hurts U.S. firms, w h i c h are subject to stricter consumer, environmental, and labor standards than those i n force i n the developing nations. T h e y fear, therefore, that increases i n foreign trade w i l l heighten opposition to their proposals among American producers and employers. 57

H u m a n rights advocates are another liberal interest that has moved away from policies supported by Democrats d u r i n g the C o l d War. T h e C o l d War had encouraged the United States to establish friendly relations w i t h the dictators r u l i n g many T h i r d W o r l d nations, on order to keep these countries out o f the Soviet orbit. Thus, d u r i n g the C o l d War, the United States sup­ ported a number of regimes that scarcely were paragons of liberal democ­ racy. A m e r i c a n presidents, both Democratic and Republican, provided rulers such as Ferdinand Marcos and Anastazio Somoza w i t h aid, so that their countries w o u l d not "go C o m m u n i s t . " I n the 1970s, liberals sought to discredit the realpolitik o f Henry Kissinger and held that the United States should avoid ties to regimes that violate h u m a n rights, a stance they m a i n ­ tain to the present day. 58

T h e end o f the C o l d War greatly altered the relationship between U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy. W h e n presidents considered the very survival of the U n i t e d States to be at stake, their actions largely accorded w i t h the precepts of Realism i n international relations. For example, FDR's concern about the Axis threat to the United States led h i m to denounce Mussolini for joining Hitler's 1940 invasion of France, even though it oc­ curred on the eve o f an election i n w h i c h his party hoped to w i n ItalianA m e r i c a n votes. A n d President Reagan provided generous aid to Israel, although he could expect to w i n very few Jewish votes, because he regarded Israel as one of America's "strategic assets" i n the C o l d War: Israel's govern­ m e n t helped the United States fight Soviet-backed regimes i n Angola, Iraq, and Nicaragua, enabling Reagan to circumvent his opponents i n Congress. T h e collapse o f the USSR and the end o f serious threats to U.S. national security enabled commercial and ethnic interests to exercise unprecedented influence over U.S. foreign policy. Regarding commercial interests, Samuel H u n t i n g t o n noted i n 1997 that President C l i n t o n "may . . . spend more time p r o m o t i n g A m e r i c a n sales abroad than doing anything else i n foreign affairs." 59

60

61

62

As for ethnic politics, recent immigrants have increasingly come to regard themselves less as refugees than as members o f a transnational diaspora. As such, they seek U.S. aid i n furthering the interests of their people as a whole and its homeland. I t is true that refugees from the Soviet bloc exercised a measure of influence over U.S. foreign policy d u r i n g the C o l d War, sup63

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porting hard-line anti-Communist positions. B u t i n recent years, domestic political pressures have gained i n importance relative to national strategic calculations. As U.S. foreign policy has come to be more oriented toward the concerns of commercial interests and ethnic diasporas, firms and governments that share these concerns have increasingly sought to influence U.S. behavior i n the international arena. I n 1996, for example, various overseas Chinese business interests w i t h ties to the government o f C h i n a (e.g., the Riady group) made very large contributions to U.S. election campaigns. A Riady aide was appointed to a major fund-raising post at the Democratic National C o m m i t t e e and channeled contributions from foreign citizens and govern­ ments to A m e r i c a n candidates who favored increasing U.S. trade w i t h C h i n a . A l o n g w i t h campaign contributions from domestic firms seeking for­ eign contracts, this helped President C l i n t o n and the Democrats to raise roughly as m u c h as their Republican opponents i n 1996 —overcoming the financial advantage the G O P . long enjoyed as the "party of business" i n American politics. T h e C l i n t o n administration justified its preoccupation w i t h foreign trade w i t h the ideology of "globalism." I t argued that, w i t h the growth of interna­ tional trade, a precondition for creating jobs at home was increasing A m e r i ­ can sales abroad and that the government's prime responsibility, since the collapse o f the Soviet threat, had become helping U.S. firms to compete overseas. To be sure, d u r i n g the C o l d War, a number o f nongovernmental forces and many foreign regimes had sought to shape U.S. foreign policy. Some coalitions of private interests and foreign governments (e.g., the " C h i n a lobby" of the 1940s) had considerable success. B u t there were important differences between these earlier efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy and those made i n the decade following the collapse o f the Soviet bloc. F r o m the 1940s through the 1960s, A m e r i c a n foreign policy was shaped by powerful elites and by concerns about national security that have no counterparts today. Forces seeking to alter U.S. behavior i n the middle de­ cades o f the twentieth century needed to show how the policies they advo­ cated w o u l d meet threats to U.S. security posed by the Axis powers and then by the Soviet U n i o n . T h e y also found it necessary to contend w i t h such imposing figures as Henry Stimson, George C . Marshall, Robert M c N a mara, and Henry Kissinger. Interests seeking to shape U.S. foreign policy i n recent years have faced a m u c h less daunting task and have been able to work through many channels, such as the Department of C o m m e r c e , one or another congressional committee, and various Democratic or Republican party organs. 64

It is difficult to anticipate precisely how these influences w i l l alter U.S. foreign policy i n years to come. B u t one t h i n g is certain: now, as i n the past,

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changing institutions and alignments w i t h i n the domestic U.S. party system can only be understood i n the context of changes i n the international politi­ cal and economic orders.

Notes 1. M a r t i n Shefter, Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experi­ ence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 2. See M a r t i n Shefter, "International Influences o n A m e r i c a n Politics," chap. 16 i n New

Perspectives on American Politics, ed. Lawrence D o d d and C a l v i n Jillson

(Washington, D . C . : C Q Press, 1994). 3. T h e i m p a c t o n A m e r i c a n party politics o f international m i g r a t i o n has been subject to more extensive analysis than the influence o f other aspects o f the interna­ tional system. See, for example, Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and

Nation

in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Therefore, this chapter w i l l focus less o n m i g r a t i o n than o n warfare and international trade. 4. See Walter D e a n B u r n h a m , " C r i t i c a l Realignment: D e a d or Alive?" i n The

End of Realignment: Interpreting American Electoral Eras, ed. Byron Shafer ( M a d ­ ison: University o f W i s c o n s i n Press, 1991), 1 1 2 - 1 5 .

5. Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820 (Baltimore: Johns H o p k i n s University Press, 1987). 6. John H . A l d r i c h , Why

Parties? (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1995),

chap. 3. 7. Richard P. M c C o r m i c k , The Presidential Game ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

8. M a r t i n Shefter, ed. Capital of the American Century: The National and Inter­ national Influence of New York City ( N e w York: Russell Sage, 1993), chap. 1.

9. Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of Na­ tional Administrative Capacities, 1879-1920 ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1982), chap. 1.

10. Richard L . M c C o r m i c k , The Party Period and Public Policy (New York: Ox­ ford University Press, 1986).

11. See Charles Kindleberger, World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), chap. 8.

12. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of So­ cial Policy in the United States. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), chap. 2. 13. Paul Kleppner, Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (Chapel H i l l : University o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1979). 14. Joel Silbey, The American Political Nation,

1838-1893

(Stanford:

Stanford

University Press, 1991). 15. I a m indebted to Joel Silbey and Richard Jensen for discussions o f the role that U.S. p o l i t i c a l parties played i n m i l i t a r y m o b i l i z a t i o n and

appointments.

16. Samuel P. H u n t i n g t o n , The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard U n i ­ versity Press, 1957).

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17. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative ( N e w York: V i n t a g e Books, 1987), vol. 2, chaps. 4 - 5 . 18. James MacPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom ( N e w York: O x f o r d University

Press, 1988), 328.

19. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), 178

20. Aaron Friedberg, Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).

21. David Lake, Power, Protection, and Free Trade: International Sources of U.S. Commercial Strategy, 1887-1939. (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1988).

22. John C o l e m a n , Party Decline in America: Policy and Politics in the Fiscal State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), chap. 1. 23. George M o d e l s k i , " T h e L o n g Cycle o f G l o b a l Politics and the N a t i o n State,"

Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (1978): 2 1 4 - 3 8 . 24. Shefter, Political Parties and the State, chap. 3. 25. D a v i d Kennedy, " R a l l y i n g Americans for War, 1917-1918," i n The

Home

Front and War in the Twentieth Century, ed. James T i t u s (Colorado Springs: U.S. A i r Force Academy, 1984).

26. Robert Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I (Baltimore: Johns H o p k i n s University Press, 1973). 27. James Abrahamson, America Arms for a New Century ( N e w York: Free Press, 1968).

28. Quoted i n Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 150. 29. M o r t o n Keller, Regulating a New Society: Public Policy and Social Change in America, 1900-1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 209. 30. D a v i d M o n t g o m e r y , The Fall of the House of Labor ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1987), chap. 8. 3 1 . Peter G o u r e v i t c h , Politics in Hard Times (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1986), chap. 4.

32. Joan Hoff W i l s o n , American Business and Foreign Policy 1920-1933 (Lex­ ington: University Press o f Kentucky, 1971). 33. Jeffrey Frieden, "Sectoral C o n f l i c t and U.S. Foreign E c o n o m i c Policy," Inter­ national Organization 42 ( W i n t e r 1988): 5 9 - 9 0 . 34. Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression (Berkeley: University o f C a l i ­ fornia Press, 1986). 35. E r i c Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991 ( N e w York: V i n t a g e , 1994). 36. Richard Neustadt, " T h e President at M i d - C e n t u r y , " Law and

Contemporary

Problems 21 ( A u t u m n 1956): 6 0 8 - 4 5 . 37. Stephen Skowronek claims that i t is a m o d e r n conceit to believe that the problems that have confronted recent presidents are m u c h more complex than those faced by their predecessors. I w o u l d argue that a l t h o u g h the challenges facing pre­ vious presidents may indeed have been akin to those confronting their successors, as Skowronek claims, the institutions w i t h w h i c h presidents have had to contend i n recent decades have enjoyed greater a u t o n o m y than those confronting their prede­ cessors. I n this sense, the burdens borne by presidents d u r i n g the second h a l f o f the twentieth century may, i n fact, have been more onerous than those faced by the W h i t e House d u r i n g the party period.

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38. Samuel P. H u n t i n g t o n , "Congressional Responses to the T w e n t i e t h Century," i n The Congress and Americas Future, ed. D a v i d T r u m a n (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973). 39. N e l s o n Polsby, "Political C h a n g e and the Character o f the

Contemporary

Congress," i n The New American Political System, ed. A n t h o n y K i n g (Washington, D . C . : A E I , 1990), 30. 40. Sidney M i l k i s , The President and the Parties ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1993).

4 1 . Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War ( N e w York: Alfred A . Knopf, 1995), chap. 8. 42. M i c h a e l J. Lacey and M a r y O . Furner, The State and Social Investigation in Britain and the United States ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1993). 43. E d w i n A m e n t a and T h e d a Skocpol, "Redefining the N e w D e a l : W o r l d War I I

and Social Provision," chap. 2 i n The Politics of Social Policy in the United States, ed. Margaret Weir, et al., (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 44. A m e r i c a n Political Science Association C o m m i t t e e o n Political Parties, "To­ ward a M o r e Responsible Two-Party System." American Political Science Review 44, suppl. (September 1950).

45. David Mayhew, Placing Parties in American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 46. James Q . W i l s o n , " N e w Politics, N e w Elites, O l d Publics," chap. 10 i n The New Politics of Public Policy, ed. M a r c L a n d y and M a r t i n L e v i n (Baltimore: Johns H o p k i n s U n i v Press, 1995). 47. M a r y D u d z i a k , Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 48. I n the mid-1980s, foreign investors annually purchased more than $30 b i l l i o n o f U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. I n a l l , foreigners fifth

financed

as m u c h as one-

o f the enormous A m e r i c a n budget deficits o f the 1980s. I . M . Destler

and

Randall H e n n i n g , Dollar Politics (Washington, D . C . : Institute for International Eco­ nomics, 1989), 29. 49. Stephen M a r r i s , Deficits and the Dollar (Washington, D . C . : Institute for Inter­ national Economics, 1987), 44. 50. Jeffry Frieden, " E c o n o m i c Integration and the Politics o f M o n e t a r y Policy i n the U n i t e d States," i n Internationalization

and Domestic Politics, ed. Robert Keo­

hane and H e l e n M i l n e r ( N e w York: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1995), 1 0 8 - 1 3 6 .

51. Benjamin Ginsberg and M a r t i n Shefter, Politics by Other Means: Politicians, Prosecutors, and the Press from Watergate to Whitewater (New York: W . W . Norton, 1999), chap. 4. 52. Paul Peterson, " T h e Rise and Fall o f Special Interest Politics," Political

Sci­

ence Quarterly 105 (1991): 539-56. 53. A n o t h e r source o f intense recent conflicts i n U.S. politics has been the emer­ gence o f divisive "social issues." International influences did not directly produce these disputes, b u t recent trade policies have buttressed the influence o f the m i d d l e class, w h i c h dominates organizations concerned

w i t h these issues. See James Q .

W i l s o n , Political Organizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 4.

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54. Margaret Weir, ed., The Social Divide: Political Parties and the Future of Activ­ ist Government (Washington, D . C . : Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 8 - 1 0 , 52. 55. B e n j a m i n Ginsberg and M a r t i n Shefter, " T h e Politics o f Ethics Probes/' Jour­ nal of Law Ó Politics 11 ( S u m m e r 1995): 4 3 3 - 4 4 ; Richard Posner, An Affair of State:

The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). 56. T h e positions o f the parties o n racial issues i n recent years have reinforced R e p u b l i c a n voting by southern whites, w h i l e 90 percent o f African-American voters i n all regions o f the country vote D e m o c r a t i c . 57. Environmentalists and Naderites also fear that international authorities m i g h t strike d o w n as barriers to trade various regulations that they advocate. See D a v i d Vogel, Trading Up ( C a m b r i d g e : Harvard University Press, 1995). 58. K a t h r y n Sikkink, " T h e Power o f P r i n c i p l e d Ideas," I n Ideas and Foreign Pol­ icy, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane (Ithaca: C o r n e l l University Press, 1993). 59. I t has been argued, however, that U.S. policy regarding Eastern Europe i n the 1940s was shaped not o n l y by strategic concerns b u t also by the quest for PolishA m e r i c a n votes. 60. James Schlesinger, "Fragmentation and H u b r i s , " National Interest, Fall 1997, 6. 6 1 . To be sure, the American-Israel P u b l i c Affairs C o m m i t t e e ( A I P A C ) contrib­ utes to candidates friendly to Israel, b u t President Reagan's Mideast policy was shaped more by strategic considerations than by the quest for such support.

See

Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (Chicago: University o f C h i c a g o Press, 1993), chap. 5. 62. Samuel P. H u n t i n g t o n , " T h e Erosion o f A m e r i c a n N a t i o n a l Interests," Foreign Affairs, September/October 63. G a b r i e l

Sheffer,

1997, 3 7 - 3 8 .

"Ethno-National

Diasporas

and

Security,"

Survival

36

(Spring 1994): 6 0 - 7 9 . 64. Opponents o f the V i e t n a m W a r d i d , o f course, u l t i m a t e l y manage to prevail over the U.S. foreign p o l i c y elite, b u t o n l y by o v e r t u r n i n g the regime that had d o m i ­ nated A m e r i c a n government and politics at the height o f the C o l d War.

Six Patriotic Partnerships: W h y Great Wars Nourished American Civic Voluntarism THEDA

SKOCPOL,

AND BAYLISS

ZIAD MUNSON, ANDREW

KARCH,

CAMP

N A T I O N A L L Y T E L E V I S E D disasters at home and abroad have made the Red Cross a familiar embodiment o f humane voluntarism. I f contemporary Americans were asked about the history o f this respected civic association, some m i g h t recall the founding role of nurse Clara Barton, that iconic sym­ bol o f feminine caring. B u t few w o u l d realize the debt owed by the Red Cross to official collaborations w i t h the U.S. government during America s greatest wars. T h e A m e r i c a n Red Cross was founded i n 1881 as an aftereffect o f gargan­ tuan voluntary relief efforts m o u n t e d d u r i n g the C i v i l War. N o t just Clara Barton, but many other w o m e n and m e n who had been involved i n efforts o f the U n i t e d States Sanitary Commission to care for wounded U n i o n soldiers and succor both soldiers and civilians, agitated for years to persuade the U.S. Congress to charter this American w i n g o f an international movement. There­ after, the A m e r i c a n Red Cross grew haltingly — u n t i l W o r l d War I , w h e n it entered into a full-fledged partnership w i t h the U.S. federal government and was able to spread a national network of more than thirty-five hundred chap­ ters and suddenly recruit more than twenty m i l l i o n members. As figure 6.1 displays, gains i n chapter infrastructure brought by W o r l d War I proved permanent, even though Red Cross membership did not spike again u n t i l another period of official partnership during W o r l d War I I . T h e place of wars i n the Red Cross saga is unique i n some ways, yet hardly exceptional i n the annals of U.S. voluntary associations. As we show and seek to explain i n this chapter, b i g wars have been surprisingly good for American civic voluntarism. T h e C i v i l War and the twentieth-century world wars spurred the creation o f new associations and buoyed the fortunes o f preexisting groups w i l l i n g and able to join victorious wartime mobilizations. Each great conflict has also reshaped the associational universe, h u r t i n g some groups and discouraging some kinds o f participants, even as most groups and vast numbers o f Americans experienced new bursts o f civic engagement. 1

2

3

PATRIOTIC 45

£

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PARTNERSHIPS V\torldWar II

World Wa r i

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