Smarmy Sanchez, Part 1: Smearing Lincoln to Support Obama

Editor's Note: This is the first in an ongoing series in which NewsReal's Paul Cooper focuses on the exploits of CNN's Jon Stewart-wannabe, the clownish embarrassment Rick Sanchez.

If you can make up recent history with attributing false quotes to Rush, what is there stopping you from completely distorting how two of the most popular US Presidents of all time handled the press? Obviously nothing. CNN's Rick Sanchez has proven once again that truth and research is not needed on CNN's mid-day programming.

This week Sanchez decided the best way to defend President Obama's war with Fox News was to equate the tactic with other US Presidents. I am assuming his argument is that if other people did something similar - well than it's okay for Obama to do it. (Apparently two wrongs make a right.) Sanchez said Obama's treatment of the press was no different than Presidents Richard Nixon, Franklin Roosevelt, or even Abraham Lincoln.

The overall points that Lincoln was, for example, generally a merchantilist and assumed extra-constitutional powers powers are correct, however.

The idea that Lincoln's economic policies were somehow in opposition to what had come before isn't true. When you look back to the Founders -- Washington, Hamilton, Madison -- you can certainly find "mercantilist" ideas. Tariffs and subsidies would have worse results in a fully industrial environment than in a largely agricultural country, but Lincoln wasn't outside the American political and economic tradition on that score, whatever DiLorenzo says.

As for extra constitutional powers: Lincoln exercised them, so did Davis, so did other war presidents. Governments always excede the powers given to them in wartime. One test is that Lincoln wasn't more tyrannical than Davis was. Another is that the power of the federal government and the Presidency weren't that much greater when after Lincoln than before. In other words, he didn't leave a tyranny behind when he died.

I think you raise some interesting issues.

From almost the beginnning there was a conflict between Hamilton’s economic views and those of Jeffersonians (I am using these figures as a shorthand for what were more complex groupings). Initially, Hamilton’s wider views got relative little traction, in part because of his early death. But the conflict between the groups began to intensify in the second decade of the 19th Century. That conflict centered around three issues - money and banking, tariffs, and internal improvements. The conflict between the groups over these central economic issues continued up to the War (and beyond, of course).

So, I agree that Lincoln’s views weren’t by any means unprecedented. His policy views simply fell on one side of the divide. I don’t agree, however, that tariffs and subsidies would have worse results in a fully industrial environment than in a largely agricultural country. But I don’t think that that is the real issue.

The indisputable fact is that industrial, financial, and other commercial interests clearly favored central banking, subsidies, and and the use of the tariff beyond simply raising revenue for normal government operations.

The regime of tariffs and subsidies, in particular, that came to dominate the 19th Century was strongly favored by and manipulated by politically powerful industrialists and allied interests (and it continues today, although tariffs are less a part of the problem). The less powerful industrial and commercial interests were often harmed by these policies, as were agricultural intersts generally.

These forms of economic interventionism have led to massive misallocations of capital. One of the best 19th Century examples was the distorting effect on capital allocation of railroad subsidies, which led to enormous waste and scandal. In fact, the scandals of the Grant administration were a direct result of the absolute triumph of these interests as a result of the War (No, I don’t think that Grant was personally corrupt. I think that he simply didn’t fully realize soon enough that politicians and the rent seekers who flocked to D.C. (some of whom he thought were friends) were a completely different breed from the relatively straight-forward military men that he was accustomed to deal with.)

Lincoln exceeded his lawful powers from the beginning of the War. I don’t agree that other governments have always done so in time of war or that even if it were true that it would in any way justify Lincoln’s actions. I do agree that Davis attempted to exercise similar powers later on in the War, although I think most agree that his government tended to function like slightly organized chaos. Whether, and the extent to which, Davis exceeded his powers under the CSA’s constitution is an issue I will leave to others.

I do emphatically disagree that the power of the federal government was not substantialy larger after the War than before, and we continue to suffer from that expansion. Lincoln did leave a tyranny behind that took decades to mellow. I believe, however, that had Lincoln survived the War, the post-War federal tyranny would have been far less and would have diminished far more quickly. But without Lincoln to withstand them, the Radical Republicans were able to seize control of the government unchecked and held on to it for over a decade.

That was what I meant in talking about the different effects tariffs and subsidies have in different circumstances. When tariffs encouraged building small local factories the effect wasn't bad. When they simply poured money into massive corporations, there was less to be said for them. The case was similar with subsidies. The effect of tariffs and transport subsidies after the Civil War was different from what Clay or Lincoln -- products of rural America -- had expected.

DiLorenzo really doesn't contribute anything to the debate. He's a dogmatist, not an empiricist. He knows all the answers in advance, so he doesn't look very deeply at the evidence -- at least not at evidence and arguments that might contradict his views.

If the Confederates could have taken control of Maryland it would have meant the loss of the national capital and the war. Confronted with a situation like that, what national leader wouldn't act as Lincoln did?

The assumption some make is that secession was and orderly process that Lincoln illegally interfered with, but in fact pro-secessionist elements were trying to stampede state authorities out of the union. They were making use of time and pressure to create a panic. Any leader would try to counteract such a stampede. One who didn't would be abused more savagely than Lincoln is by many here.

I do emphatically disagree that the power of the federal government was not substantialy larger after the War than before, and we continue to suffer from that expansion.

By "after the war" I'm talking about the period after the army had been downsized and Reconstruction abandoned. Federal spending was somewhat higher after in those years than before the war. That had to do with the war debt, soldiers' pensions, and administering the territories of the West. But it was nothing like what came in the 20th century.

The great growth of the federal government came later -- after the federal income tax was imposed. If you're looking for a real break, it only came when the federal government gained the upper hand by having more money to throw around.

Lincoln did leave a tyranny behind that took decades to mellow.

Someone who had actually lived under a tyranny wouldn't talk that way.

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