Grant and The Experts

The Argument for the Administrative State Began in Earnest in the 1860s

In my research on the Grant administration for the book that will come out one of these days, I stumbled across several stories advocating for a civil service—permanent government—something we now call the administrative state. This is a snapshot on that topic.

The vast agreement on this “need” spanned across the partisan newspapers which were more/less openly honest in their partisan position—Democrat/Republican. All were infected by some form of Progressivism, and some more than others.

The New York Times, the most reliably Republican paper in NY, but not even close to the most popular (that was the [D]emocrat NY Herald), lamented that while Grant’s appointments to office had been generally decent, the government should take staffing the government out of all politician’s hands, especially taken away from Congress.

There was an element of truth to the criticism—congressmen were in fact trading influence and support to secure appointment for their friends. Not everyone appointed was the person for the job. So, the argument simply goes, we need experts who know their job and are unaffected by political whims. Sounds good, but it is also disastrous, as we now know.

In the Times op-ed in 1869, the paper asserted:

Until we have a settled Civil Service system, based upon recognized principles of justice, and governed by fixed rules of administration, we shall be subject to all the evils which we now experience. The President will continue to be crushed with applications,—overridden and overruled by members of Congress, and treated, in all respects, as the chief Superintendent of a first-class Soup-House. The Administration will be corrupt and inefficient—the country will be disgraced, and republican government will contrast unfavorably with any and with all other forms.¹

Oh, I see, the impertinence of congressional members are too overwhelming? It is true people showed up at the White House seeking job appointments, but really, so what. Maybe work on a new application process without creating a new branch of government?

Note that the process that served the United States since the Founding was “corrupt and inefficient.” This term “efficiency” will be connected to nearly every defense of creating a Civil Service and permanent government. Notice that republicanism is now the worst form of government to “all other forms” without a professional administrative state.

Consider more.

Efficiency in and of itself is not good—can we imagine an efficient way to kill mankind? I can. Is it “good” in and of itself—by its nature? No. There was never a concern for the ill uses of efficiency.

Not to be outdone of course, The Sun (NY’s other paper, not as popular as the Herald, but sold many copies as a penny press) increasingly became hostile to Grant, (and ended up as essentially just another Democrat paper in the city that already had, what 4 of them!) spent two days on the argument for experts in government.

The rationale stemmed from butt hurt editor Charles Dana who had a rather cozy relationship with Karl Marx—yes that Marx. He was also a spy for War Secretary Edwin Stanton, who was rather jealous of his best general, Ulysses Grant. Dana would send back reports unbeknownst to Grant, about what Grant was doing. He seemed to be cautiously warm in his opinion of Grant during the war. At some point, he soured on Grant, whom his paper tepidly supported in 1868.

Eventually, Dana’s Sun became a full fledged [D]emocrat newspaper and was ahead of its time calling the Rutherford B. Hayes an illegitimate president.

At any rate, in 1869, he blames Grant for demoralizing the office because he accepted a gift of a house (or something) and peddled in monetary investments (and received other gifts) to secure the financial stability of his family.² This practice, according to Dana and The Sun, made political offices a joke. He called men who seek such “evil” as being responsible for making young men want to make monetary gains for themselves. The horror!

If you are tracking this envious logic, it might suggest to you Dana got all upset he was not chosen for a government job—there is no evidence for that as far as I know, but the badly reasoned op-ed and the venom he spews leads me to wonder (he was appointed Asst. Secy of War for a spell under Lincoln).

In some way, Dana was rightly concerned for people who buy their way into public office. But he never really made that point—instead he took it as an opportunity to attack Grant. It was not like Grant was trying to hide something. Any “gift” he accepted before he became president was public, and openly discussed. So what’s the real issue here?

His real aim was revealed the day before. In that op-ed he wrote:

Hypocrites, it is well known, do the greatest possible injury to the cause of genuine piety. Quacks, in like manner, discredit the whole body of well educated physicians. And in every branch of science and art, pretenders and charlatans are the worst enemies of honest practitioners. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the profession of politics should suffer in public esteem from ignorance, the stupidity, and the unscrupulous maneuvers of men…People generally form their idea of the politicians from these unworthy assumers of the name, and lose sight of the really estimable class who bring to the public service a skill and an experience worthy of all commendation.³

There it is! Dana wanted the government to be staffed by experts. People who know certain things better than the people do—that is, the people’s representatives—are just plain better at running the government. In other words, the desire to remove from the people their consent was supported by elites by 1869.

Once again, his logic fails. So what there are quack doctors? Even with the expert docs, are there still not quacks? Does respectability for the profession somehow increase to 100% because expert docs exist? Wait, aren’t there still sucks in the profession anyway? And do those quacks diminish the choices individuals make to NOT visit the doctor? Readers of the Sun likely never asked these questions. His implication is that stupid politicians (the people’s representatives) are dragging down the respect for our government. Logically, that’s a canard. Was America getting less respect from abroad? If so, who cares? μολὼν λαβέ

He goes on to assert that the business of government is difficult—so difficult to manage that it takes people of expert knowledge to run it. And, add in the “weakness of human nature” (he does not consider humanity’s more noble efforts), and you have a need for a civil class who can “weigh” everything to make “wise decisions.” Note, this is not the role of Congress and the president to do such things—it is the job of the civil service—the permanent government.

Dana is certainly right we need smart and knowledgable people in our government to conduct its business, but notice how he disconnects that business from the people themselves. Since he spent time in Germany, it comes as no surprise he prefers the rationale for the rational State. Thank you baby historicist.

He claims that experts should offer a “sober reflection” on policy. Isn’t that the job of the Senate? Nevermind, he argues that,

For a true politician is a leader, and not a blind follower of a misguided multitude…he will know how to direct, by appeals to reason and by calm argument, the current of public opinion, and prove to his constituents what ther4e interests really demand, and not what they mistakingly thought to demand.

How elitist of you Charles. Notice the language of “statesmanship” is not used, and the more military language of “leader” is employed. Dana rejects that the people’s will, taken as a whole, has done this in the past (Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, maybe even Jackson), and can do so again. Something broke in the government allowing evil intents to bubble up to the surface. Gone are Lincoln’s wise words that public opinion can be moved just so much. Dana’s is an outright attack on the people, and a promotion of despotic rule by unelected professionals. What went wrong he does not say. However, it is a more important question to ask and resolve.

Yet, because politicians cannot learn the craft of government quickly, they too must turn over their opinions to the ruling class of civil servants. They do not have the basic and rudimentary knowledge of the past and the laws of our country to “know” what path the country should choose in its domestic and foreign relations. But knowing what path to take is the role of the statesman and his prudence. It should come as no shock Dana never mentions the word prudence in consideration of the political.

There are many concerns he raises that are not unfounded—the existence of unscrupulous politicians, the greed of office seekers that leads to the appointment of incompetent servants serve as his most correct assertions. But, how does that reality of human nature improve under a scheme of administrative government? Dana never even addresses that. How do civil servants rise above politics and human nature and not abuse their power? He has no answer. In fact, he ignores all of this.

Like most of the progressive ruling class in its infancy, he downplays the only check on the tyrannical rule of unelected professionals—the people themselves. They are the ones who are most able to protect their natural rights and judge whether the performance of the government needs to continue or be changed through the election of their representatives.

Bottom line: we see the nascent emergence of the disconnect between representative government and the people through the formation of the administrative state. We also see the beginnings of the decline of the branches responsible for the management of the government, as well as the rise of, a planned and controlled nation by a panel of experts. All this is pressed publicly not 4 years after the Civil War.

The slow decline of the United States Republic begins here. The seeds of what we are feeling today were born over 100 years ago.

1. “General Character of General Grant’s Appointment to Office,” New York Times, April 20, 1869, p. 4.

2. “Then and Now—The Earlier and the Later Presidents, The Sun, April 24, 1869, p. 2.

3. “Professional Politicians,” The Sun, April 23, 1869, p. 2.