Capstone: The Cross-Cutting Themes, 1865–present

This is Unit Eighteen, part one, the capstone's first thread: the changing role of the federal government. Unit Seventeen closed on the causes of the Great Recession, and pointed to this unit, which draws the course's themes together. This unit teaches nothing new. It runs two threads through everything you have learned, and this part follows the first, theme six, from a government that relieved no one in eighteen ninety-three to a health care law in two thousand ten. Carry one correction through it: the federal role did not grow steadily. At the course's first cross-theme twin you will see the shape it took instead. By the end you will be able to trace theme six from the first regulators to the Progressive state. To explain the line Hoover would not cross, and how the New Deal crossed it. To trace the health insurance arc across four units. To explain why the federal role did not grow steadily. And to apply theme six's portable test to any period.

One entry on how to use this unit.

How to use this unit.

USH2 2551 How to Use This Unit

This unit teaches nothing new. It runs two threads through the course, theme six, the changing role of the federal government, and theme seven, liberalism and conservatism, in two strands of twenty entries, each citing the earlier entries that carry its claims. Where a claim was witness-sourced or disputed upstream, the entry named still carries its evidence.

Seven entries on the federal role before the New Deal: a government that relieved no one, the first regulators, four amendments, the Progressive state, a war economy, voluntarism, and one line.

Where theme six begins.

USH2 2552 A Government That Relieved No One

Theme six starts in unit five. In the depression of eighteen ninety-three unemployment neared nineteen percent, and Coxey's marchers asked for federal public works; Congress ignored them. The Sherman Act of the same unit was loosely worded and seldom enforced in its first decade.

The first federal regulators.

USH2 2553 The First Regulators

Federal regulation began in unit five: the Interstate Commerce Act of eighteen eighty-seven created a railroad commission, and the Sherman Act of eighteen ninety outlawed trusts in restraint of trade. Unit five's closing entry calls them the first federal steps toward the regulation the Progressive Era expanded.

Four amendments.

USH2 2554 Four Amendments

Unit six recorded four amendments in seven years, among them the Sixteenth, letting Congress tax incomes, and the Seventeenth, electing senators by popular vote, both ratified in nineteen thirteen, two Populist planks of unit five written into the Constitution. The Populists, that entry says, lost their elections and won their argument.

The Progressive state.

USH2 2555 The Progressive State

Unit six built the Progressive state. Theodore Roosevelt created a Department of Commerce and Labor with a Bureau of Corporations and brought more than two dozen antitrust suits, while holding that government was bound to control corporations where the need was shown. Wilson added the Federal Reserve of nineteen thirteen, giving Washington a permanent role in the currency; the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission; and the eight-hour day for railroad workers. The confusion to avoid is treating Progressive regulation as hostility to business. Roosevelt distinguished good trusts from bad and left United States Steel in place, and Wilson's New Freedom preferred competition among small businesses to federal regulation. The Progressive state policed conduct more than it replaced markets.

The war economy.

USH2 2556 A Government That Ran the Economy

In the First World War four agencies directed industry, food, transport and opinion, the War Industries Board, the Food Administration, the Railroad Administration and the Committee on Public Information, with the railroads taken over and food saved by appeal. Unit eight notes that the New Deal would reach back to this wartime precedent.

Voluntarism.

USH2 2557 Voluntarism

Herbert Hoover carried the Food Administration's method into the Depression: a voluntary deed, he argued, is infinitely more precious than money poured from the Treasury, and in nineteen thirty-one he warned that the spread of government destroys initiative and character. Unit ten records his belief that direct federal relief would destroy the character of those who received it.

The line Hoover would not cross.

USH2 2558 The Line Hoover Would Not Cross

Unit ten corrects the charge that Hoover did nothing. He called business conferences, cut taxes, organised private relief, created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation with two billion dollars and signed a public works act, and the Yawp judged the corporation radical in its use of direct government aid. What Hoover refused was direct federal relief to individuals: he opposed the relief bill of nineteen thirty-one on the balance between state and federal power. The line matters because the next president crossed it. The corporation's first loans ran upward, forty-one million of its first sixty-one million dollars to three institutions. For theme six, Hoover's presidency is the last before the federal government accepted direct relief as its task.

Six entries on the settlement: the New Deal's aims, the answer to Coxey, the permanent laws, a Republican who kept them, the Great Society, and the health insurance arc.

The New Deal's aims.

USH2 2559 Relief, Recovery, Reform

Unit eleven's New Deal crossed the line. The anchor gives its three aims, relief for the suffering, recovery for the economy, and reform, and Digital History counts fifteen major bills in the first hundred days. Direct relief, through the Federal Emergency Relief Act, was the aid Hoover had refused.

The answer to Coxey.

USH2 2560 The Answer to Coxey

The Works Progress Administration built more than two thousand five hundred hospitals and five thousand nine hundred schools, putting the unemployed to work on federal public works, the demand of Coxey's marchers in eighteen ninety-four. Unit eleven draws the link: Coxey asked, and the New Deal supplied.

The permanent settlement.

USH2 2561 The Permanent Settlement

The Second New Deal made the federal role permanent. The Social Security Act of nineteen thirty-five created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance; the Wagner Act guaranteed the right to organise; the Fair Labor Standards Act of nineteen thirty-eight created the minimum wage and the forty-hour week. The anchor judges that the laws of nineteen thirty-five still define the country today. The measure of the change is the Yawp's phrase: before the First World War a government out of sight, after the New Deal a potential ally. The settlement was incomplete. It drew the edges of federal security around occupations and regions that left many Black Americans and women outside.

A Republican who kept it.

USH2 2562 Kept by a Republican

The settlement survived a change of party: Dwight Eisenhower balanced the budget while keeping the New Deal and expanding Social Security, a Republican president extending the programme of unit eleven. Unit thirteen also records his farewell warning against a military-industrial complex, from a president who had kept defence spending high.

The Great Society.

USH2 2563 The Great Society

Lyndon Johnson extended the settlement: in nineteen sixty-five Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid, federal aid to schools and a new immigration law, and he signed health insurance for Americans over sixty-five beside Harry Truman. The anchor records poverty cut nearly in half by the time Johnson left office.

The health insurance arc.

USH2 2564 The Health Insurance Arc

One question runs across four units: whether the federal government should insure Americans' health. Truman proposed national health insurance and lost, after the American Medical Association spent some one and a half million dollars branding it socialised medicine. Johnson won Medicare and Medicaid for the old and the poor in nineteen sixty-five. Clinton's Health Security Act failed. The Affordable Care Act of two thousand ten extended access to insurance and required everyone to carry some. The confusion to avoid is reading the arc as a straight advance. It moved by refusals as much as by laws, and the law of two thousand ten adopted a formerly conservative model of subsidised private care, which is where theme seven's argument begins.

Three entries on the settlement contested and returned: a tax cut, welfare redrawn, and the rescue of two thousand eight.

The contest from nineteen eighty-one.

USH2 2565 Contested from 1981

From nineteen eighty-one the federal role was contested from the right: Reagan's tax act cut taxes by a quarter over three years, on the supply-side reasoning that lower taxes at the top would reach workers as jobs. Unit sixteen records the Yawp's finding that the New Deal and Great Society programmes survived, battered but intact.

Welfare redrawn.

USH2 2566 Welfare Redrawn

In nineteen ninety-six a Democratic president redrew the settlement: Clinton signed welfare reform, setting time limits on benefits and requiring most recipients to work, keeping his promise to end welfare as we know it. Unit sixteen says unit eleven's promise was redrawn by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress.

Crisis and rescue.

USH2 2567 Crisis and Rescue

The financial crisis of two thousand eight brought the federal government back in force: seven hundred billion dollars for troubled institutions, and almost eight hundred billion to stimulate the economy, a Republican president's rescue continued by a Democratic successor. The Yawp reports that the giveaways to bankers created shock waves of resentment.

Three entries to close theme six: the first cross-theme twin, the question of whom aid reached, and the arc stated whole.

Whether the federal role grew steadily.

USH2 2568 The Federal Role Grew Steadily

The course's first cross-theme twin is that the federal role grew steadily across these decades. It did not. It grew in bursts, each driven by a crisis, and between the bursts it was held, contested and in places redrawn. The first burst was the Progressive state and the war economy, when four agencies directed industry, food, transport and opinion. Hoover's voluntarism held the line against direct relief. The New Deal crossed it, and by nineteen thirty-eight the new role was permanent. The shape to remember is set, kept and contested. The settlement was kept by a Republican president who expanded Social Security, extended by the Great Society, contested from nineteen eighty-one, redrawn by a Democratic president in welfare reform, and returned in force in the crisis of two thousand eight. Two misreadings sit on either side. One sees a steady climb, which cannot account for the reversals of the eighties and nineties. The other sees the whole settlement undone after nineteen eighty-one, which cannot account for the Yawp's finding that the programmes survived, battered but intact.

Whom federal aid reached.

USH2 2569 Who Federal Aid Reached

A second question runs under theme six: whom federal aid reached. Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation ran upward, forty-one million of its first sixty-one million dollars to three institutions. The New Deal ran downward to the unemployed, but drew the edges of security around occupations and regions that left many Black Americans and women outside. The rescue of two thousand eight again ran first to financial institutions. The confusion to avoid is judging the federal role only by its size; ask also who received it. The Yawp's figure for two thousand nine to two thousand thirteen is that eighty-five percent of new income went to the top one percent, and the resentment fed both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

The arc of theme six.

USH2 2570 The Arc of Theme Six

Theme six can now be stated in one arc. In unit five Washington regulated little and relieved no one: the Sherman Act went seldom enforced and Coxey's marchers were ignored. Unit six built a regulatory state and an income tax. Unit eight showed a government that could run the economy in war. Unit ten's Hoover acted but refused direct relief. Unit eleven's New Deal made the federal role permanent. Unit thirteen's Eisenhower kept the settlement, unit fourteen's Great Society extended it, unit sixteen's Reagan contested it and Clinton redrew welfare, and unit seventeen's crisis brought the government back in force as health insurance finally passed. Across the whole arc the question changed shape rather than disappearing: first whether Washington should act at all, then how far, then for whom. That is the portable test the exam rewards: for any period, ask what the federal government was expected to do, who expected it, and who received its help. The federal role was set by crisis, kept across party lines, contested and partly redrawn, and never returned to the government of unit five.

Look at what you can now do. You can trace theme six from a government that relieved no one, through the first regulators and four amendments, to a Progressive state that policed conduct more than it replaced markets. You can explain the line Hoover would not cross, direct relief to individuals, and how the New Deal crossed it and made the federal role permanent. You can trace the health insurance arc: refused under Truman, won in part under Johnson, refused under Clinton, and enacted in two thousand ten on a formerly conservative model. You can explain why the federal role did not grow steadily. It grew in bursts driven by crisis, and was kept, contested and redrawn between them. And you can apply the portable test to any period: what was the federal government expected to do, who expected it, and who received its help?