The Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax

The Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax

The financing of the Civil War was as crucial to the shaping of American history as the Emancipation Proclamation and the defeat of the Confederacy. Not only did the Lincoln government establish a national banking system, they invented many things to deepen and broaden the government’s involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans—the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act, the Morrill Act (endowing land-grant colleges for the middle class), help for farmers, a government role in immigration, a new system of taxes including, for the first time, income taxes.

Lincoln and his fellow Republicans created a new notion of what government could do—larger, more proactive, more responsible for the national welfare. Lincoln and his allies had been fighting for this agenda for years, and until the war had been on the losing side. In the case of Lincoln personally, and for many of the original GOP leaders, belief in government arose from personal experience. Lincoln wanted the government to promote opportunity for others like himself—that is, for pioneers, poor settlers, remote western farmers. So the party backed legislation to support transportation, education, credit facilities, and so forth.

Today’s guest is Roger Lowenstein, author of Ways and Means: Lincoln, His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War. Lincoln and his cabinet created a new notion of what government could be—larger, more proactive, more responsible for the national welfare.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jaksot(1076)

Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right

Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right

Science progresses through breakthrough discoveries, but behind many of the field's greatest advancements lies a darker history of scientific dysfunction—hostile competition, information hoarding, and...

17 Maalis 47min

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

In 1976, nine French wine judges did the unthinkable: they blindly selected two California wines over France's most elite vintages in what became known as the Judgment of Paris. This shocking upset se...

12 Maalis 36min

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

Throughout the 16th century, one man stood between the Ottoman Empire and European domination, yet his name has been largely forgotten. Gabriele Tadino was an Italian military engineer whose genius tr...

10 Maalis 43min

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

America's Founding Fathers feared a standing army would inevitably threaten civilian governance. Yet 250 years later, the U.S. military remains a strange outlier among nearly every nation that has eve...

5 Maalis 51min

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists famously described the First Amendment as building a "wall of separation between church and State." This line has been the gold standard for thos...

3 Maalis 52min

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

There’s an argument to be made that every technology advance in communication – from cave paintings to fake AI movie trailers – is at its root an attempt to tell stories. Our first night-fires created...

26 Helmi 58min

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries c...

24 Helmi 44min

The Chemistry of Conquest: Behind the USSR’s State-Sponsored (and Steroid-Powered) Olympic Glory

The Chemistry of Conquest: Behind the USSR’s State-Sponsored (and Steroid-Powered) Olympic Glory

Since the era of Joseph Stalin, Moscow’s rulers have sent Russian athletes into the Summer and Winter Olympics with one command: you must win. These competitors operated under a "win-at-all-costs" doc...

19 Helmi 1h 3min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
sita
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
kaksi-aitia
i-dont-like-mondays
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
uutiscast
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
kolme-kaannekohtaa
mamma-mia
rss-murhan-anatomia
rss-nikotellen
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
meidan-pitais-puhua
rss-haudattu
naakkavalta
loukussa
rss-palmujen-varjoissa