Although emancipation is today the most-discussed of Lincoln's policies,
several other significant pieces of legislation were passed during
his time in office. During a time of war, the executive always plays
a stronger role than usual, and Lincoln was no exception to this
rule. His uncompromising style as commander- in-chief, coupled
with his ambitious domestic program to preserve and further the
Union, earned him the nickname of "the tycoon."
Like the Japanese shogun from which the nickname derives,
Lincoln the tycoon acted as a military leader exercising absolute
rule, with an extremely vise-like grip over his cabinet. Often
acting alone in the most crucial decisions, Lincoln vastly expanded
and extended the power of the executive. Under his banner the
federal government took several giant legislative strides forward,
moving well beyond the ever fainter objections of states' rights
advocates.
With the nation at war, Lincoln argued that certain portions
of the Constitution had
to be suspended if Union were to be preserved. Among the most
basic rights that Lincoln elected to dispense with were habeas
corpus and the freedoms of speech and press. Civilians were tried
by military courts on the mere suspicion of treason. Lincoln himself
ordered a temporary halt to the publication of several newspapers
around the country.
Additionally, the right of private property proved especially
vulnerable as the war rolled on. Two major confiscation acts provided the
military with permission to seize and retain rebel property, including
slaves. In later Union campaigns especially, the usurpation and
destruction of civilian lands and stores was common. All of these
constitutional violations were justified by Lincoln at various
times as necessary to the success of the war effort.
But these were temporary measures. And while Lincoln
repeatedly insisted that his war aims directed his wartime measures,
many of the legislative measures passed during his tenure as president have
had long term ramifications well beyond the living memory of the
war. In the early stages of the conflict, many of the most controversial
acts revolved around money. Lacking the approval of Congress,
Lincoln repeatedly spent quantities of federal funding at his own
discretion. To compensate for Lincoln's liberal spending, the first
federal income tax was instituted by Congress in 1861 to help fund
the war.
True to his Whig roots, Lincoln believed that internal
improvements and westward expansion were the keys to the nation's
success and survival. As such, Lincoln maintained his dedication
to the railroad. With the southern states seceded, the controversy
over termination points dissolved, and in July of 1862 the government approved
the construction of a transcontinental railroad from Chicago to
San Francisco. In the following two years, a series of Pacific
Railroad Acts would grant western railroad companies the option to
buy wide belts of land on either side of their tracks. By this
legislation, 131 million acres of land were granted by Congress
to railroads, and 39 million alone to the Northern Pacific railroad.
In terms of deeding territory, Lincoln's administration
was the most liberal that the nation has ever known. The most
significant measures affecting land use and occupation were passed
in 1862, when Union military fortunes were at an ebb. By decree
of the Morrill Land Grant Act, large areas were set aside in several
states for the establishment of new public colleges and universities.
More importantly, the Homestead Act allotted 160 acres to any
settler willing to farm western land for a five-year minimum.
In the next forty years, homesteaders would claim more than eighty
million acres of land in the west under this provision.
Between the Homestead, Land Grant and Pacific Railway
Acts, over ten million square miles of territory was awarded for
use, an area the size of Massachusetts. Where did all of this land
come from? The answer is the usual one. While the Civil War occupied much
of the nation's military might, frontier forces continued to move
against the natives, seizing several enormous tracts of land without
any formal treaty declaration. During Lincoln's presidency, a
significant portion of Idaho and the better portion of Nevada, admitted
as a state in 1864, were acquired in this fashion.
Today, such action appears so criminal as to preclude
rational defense. But at the time there were few detractors from
the government's manifest destiny program. Many historians tend
to view aggressive presidents like Andrew Jackson and James K.
Polk as the ultimate native oppressors. But by signing the Homestead
Act into law, Lincoln did as much as any other president to encourage
the continuing desecration and virtual destruction of several native tribes
and their homelands.
More controversial in its day was the groundbreaking Conscription
Act passed in March of 1863. This legislation, which set the precedent
for a draft during the Vietnam War, provided for the impressment
of all able men between the ages of twenty and forty-five. An
exemption was given to those able to hire a substitute or pay a
fee of three hundred dollars. Due to its spurious exemption clause,
the Conscription Act ended up encouraging all manner of bribery
and corruption, and the Union Army developed a distinctly mercenary
cast.
Furor over the Conscription Act boiled into revolt mere
months later. Uprisings flared in Illinois and Ohio, and in July
of 1863 a three-day riot broke out in New York City. A mob of
50,000 strong turned out to protest the injustice of what they
termed the "rich man's exemption." Lincoln was left with no choice
but to send in Union companies fresh from Gettysburg to control
the mayhem. When the troops were provoked into opening fire, one
thousand civilians were killed or wounded.
In addition to being unpopular, the Conscription Act was
woefully ineffective. Out of the three quarters of a million men
drafted, only 45,000 actually served. As a result, Lincoln turned
to a bounty system, where soldiers were paid as much as one thousand
dollars simply to enlist. This led to the common practice of desertion
and re-enlistment under another name. Because of the poor record- keeping
practices of the day, single soldiers often collected several bounties
without seeing a hint of action.
Money, for myriad reasons, continued to plague Lincoln's
war effort throughout. The nation had never fully recovered from
the Panic of 1857, and the depression was only to grow more severe after
the secession of the southern states. With the economy riven, several
debts were simply liquidated, never to be collected by creditors.
As wartime expenses swelled, Lincoln chose not to economize but
to tax and spend, setting a time-honored precedent for federal economic
policy.
Nevertheless, the Union was all but bankrupt by the spring
of 1862, and Lincoln turned to other measures beyond the income
tax to alleviate the pressure. Goods and manufactures were place under
heavy taxes, and tariffs rose steadily. 500 million dollars of war
bonds were issued to help boost the economy.
In February of 1863, a National Bank was re-established,
and a succeeding act provided for the issue greenbacks, paper money
not backed by the gold standard. Called soft or easy money, this
first national currency fluctuated wildly, and was thought by many
to be as dangerous as it was unconstitutional. Although greenbacks
did help finance the Union through the closing months of the war,
they later damaged economy severely, having no minor role in the
devastating Panic of 1873.
Thanks to the glory of the Civil War, Lincoln's record
as a policy-maker is often overlooked. But despite, or perhaps
because of, the heroics involved in preserving the Union, Lincoln
saddled the country with an assortment of financial and legal problems.
By expanding the power of the executive, he set an ominous precedent
for the power of the president in a time of war, upsetting the
system of checks and balances as laid out in the Constitution.
And while he is showered with deserved praise as the liberator
of the black slave, he, like other presidents before and after
him, was the undisputed oppressor of the native.
