# Did Abe Lincoln start corporate America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411 "2006-01-31T21:56:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/1 "2006-01-31T21:56:58Z")
Well, down in the [pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=355822&page=4) **mswas** came along with this response at some point: > [@mswas](#): > > Heh, I would argue that Lincoln was instrumental in building the corporate state that exists today by forcing the south to remain with the union, and dissolving states rights When asked for clarification, his elaboration was: > [@mswas](#): > > It’s about supply of materials, and the way it was setup with the north and the south. The North was the manufacturing base, and the south was the raw materials base. We didn’t want to lose the southern cotton production. If the South had seceded then the cotton industry might have gone over to England and circumvented the North completely. So it was Corporate Manufacturing interests that were one of the main motivators for keeping the union as a whole. The problem is that it increased the power of the federal government and diminished the checks and balances that were states rights. This made a big honey pot in Washington where all the power was centrally controlled for the locusts that we know as lobbyists\* to concentrate largely on the one power center that is remote from the average public’s day to day perception so their influence was less obvious for years and years before mass media penetrated and we are now able to see what’s going on across vast distances. (sort of) > > One of the big problems with the diminishment of states rights is that the laws of individual states are very similar, meaning that you can’t move to another state and help guide it’s political destiny to suit your lifestyle better. A good example in modern times is Marijuana laws. Marijuana laws were forced on the states by the Federal Government and the first guy to go to jail for the Marijuana laws was a guy in Colorado who was probably oblivious to the new law having been passed, and he was just doing something he’d probably done many times in his life, yet suddenly he was a criminal for it, as decided by some bureaucrats he would never meet and never know, in Washington DC. > > Lincoln actually warned against a corporate state, and was worried about how it would tear apart the country from the inside, but that doesn’t change the fact that he made sweeping reforms that diminished states rights, and press ganged people into serving in the Union army in order to protect the northern manufacturing interests, giving corporations their own brute squad courtesy of the federal government. Then those Northern Manufacturing interests sent down their carpet baggers and bought up the plantations from the destitute plantation owners. > > \*My Dad’s a lobbyist, not all of them are locusts, just most. Now, rather than remain in the pit and get all messy, I figured this would be something perhaps to explore in GD. Especially because I’m not a big US History buff. I would argue that Lincoln was in no way forcing the successionist states to stay in the union, rather he was enforcing the part of the consitution that said just that. Nor am I aware of Lincoln dissolving any states rights, unless one considers slavery to be a state’s right. Even then, it still went through legislative and judicial review. I didn’t think corperate cronyism started until the big boom in the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah? Nay? Can we trace it all back to Honest Abe? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/2 "2006-01-31T22:15:15Z")
Actually the East India Companies started Corporate America. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/3 "2006-01-31T22:16:44Z")
I thought that the states had a right to secede from the Union before the Civil War, and that they were excercising that right. Lincoln’s stopping them from doing so would be a diminishment of state’s rights if they had the right to do so. Am I wrong in this? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/4 "2006-01-31T22:21:30Z")
There’s no question that the Civil War served to increase centrilization of the government. I don’t think it was Lincoln’s underlying goal (and if you look at the Confederate government, it got a lot more centralized as the war went on too). I think a lot of that was just inevitable. The Civil War was the first long term serious crisis the United States faced, moreso than the War of 1812 and the various financial panics. With the magnitude of such a threat, the old US system, built around state militias and financed by the collection of custom duties, didn’t work very well. A new system needed to be adopted to conduct the war So the change in circumstances led to conscription, a large standing army, a federal income tax, deficit spending, and paper currency. I’d disagree, though, that the Civil War happened because Lincoln wanted to protect cotton production for the northern manufacturing base. Lincoln fought to keep the southern states because he believed that secession was evil, and that he had a moral obligation both to God and to his country to prevent it from happening. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/5 "2006-01-31T22:27:55Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > I’d disagree, though, that the Civil War happened because Lincoln wanted to protect cotton production for the northern manufacturing base. Lincoln fought to keep the southern states because he believed that secession was evil, and that he had a moral obligation both to God and to his country to prevent it from happening. Do you believe he had any practical reasons for believing that secession was evil? I mean I believe that stealing people’s pensions is evil and a crime against God and country, but I can tell you the reasons I believe this also. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/6 "2006-01-31T22:28:01Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I thought that the states had a right to secede from the Union before the Civil War, and that they were excercising that right. Lincoln’s stopping them from doing so would be a diminishment of state’s rights if they had the right to do so. > > Am I wrong in this? It was one of those things that had never been tested. Some legislators in some of the New England states talked about it during the War of 1812, but nothing ever came of it, and in the 1830s, South Carolina, over a dispute about tariffs, tried to propose the lesser doctrine of “nullification”. which said that a state had the right to ignore federal law, but at that point, President Jackson made it clear that if South Carolina tried it, he’d gladly lead the US army into South Carolina and shoot the state legislature (and at the same time worked behind the scenes with Congress to get the tariff lowered). ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/7 "2006-01-31T22:31:22Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > It was one of those things that had never been tested. Some legislators in some of the New England states talked about it during the War of 1812, but nothing ever came of it, and in the 1830s, South Carolina, over a dispute about tariffs, tried to propose the lesser doctrine of “nullification”. which said that a state had the right to ignore federal law, but at that point, President Jackson made it clear that if South Carolina tried it, he’d gladly lead the US army into South Carolina and shoot the state legislature (and at the same time worked behind the scenes with Congress to get the tariff lowered). Nullification and Secession are very different ideas though. If you are going to participate in the game you should play by it’s rules, but secession is a choice to stop playing the game. I would see it as kind of an all or nothing scenario, where participation means that you play by the rules everyone else is playing by, but if you choose to stop playing then everyone will act accordingly. Of course if South Carolina were a sovereign nation they’d still be subject to tariffs if they wanted to deal with the other states. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/8 "2006-01-31T22:54:01Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Do you believe he had any practical reasons for believing that secession was evil? I mean I believe that stealing people’s pensions is evil and a crime against God and country, but I can tell you the reasons I believe this also. He laid out his argument against secession in his first inaugural address. He said, to summarize: 1. The United States is a national government, and no nation ever included a provision for dissolving itself. 2. Even if you believe that’s not true, and that the US is a contract between States, dissolving a contract requires mutual consent. One party to a contract may violate the terms of the contract, but no individual party can rescind a contract. 3. The Union is older than the States. Even before the United States declared independence, there was the Union, formed in 1774 by the Articles of Association. 4. Even if you accept that something like seccession, or any sort of revolution, would be neccesary as an emergency step to defend against tyranny or defend constitutional rights, there’s no need for such a step. No constitutional rights are being denied; minorities are being protected. The only thing at dispute is a matter of Constitutional interpretation, i.e. whether the authority to return escaped slaves is a national or state power, whether Congress is allowed to outlaw slavery in the territories, whether Congress must protect slavery in the territories. The Constitution is silent on those issues, and as such, they aren’t matters of Constitutional right, but political questions 5. Secession is antidemocratic and leads to anarchy. If the minority will secede rather than acquiesce to the will of the majority, as a result of a political disagreement, that creates a precident. And then, after the minority has seceded and formed a new nation, what’s to stop a minority in that new nation from seceding over another issue, and so on, all the way down the line. The only alternatives to government by majority are despotism or anarchy. 6. From a strictly practical standpoint, secession of the southern states wouldn’t solve anything. The major difference leading to the secession is whether slavery is right, and should be extended, or wrong, and shouldn’t be extended. Even if secession happens, the difference will still exist. A husband and wife can get divorced and move away from each other, but even if the south secedes, North and South are still going to be neighbors, and we’re still going to have to trade with each other and have dealings with each other. Does anybody think that this will be made easier by secession? Is it easier to negotiate treaties than to make laws? That’s his argument, but I’d really suggest you read his speech, because he gives it much better than I could. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/9 "2006-01-31T22:58:49Z")
Hmm interesting. I disagree with many of the first parts, but I totally agree with the 6th one. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/10 "2006-01-31T23:15:30Z")
Here’s the complete speech, btw. [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/lincoln1.htm](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/lincoln1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/11 "2006-01-31T23:16:12Z")
Thanks I was already in the process of reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/12 "2006-02-01T00:35:30Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Hmm interesting. I disagree with many of the first parts, but I totally agree with the 6th one. > > Erek I’d also point out that, whether you agree with Lincoln or not, I don’t see any evidence that he wasn’t sincere with his beliefs, and that that was why he opposed secession. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/13 "2006-02-01T01:12:29Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Nor am I aware of Lincoln dissolving any states rights, unless one considers slavery to be a state’s right. Even then, it still went through legislative and judicial review. I didn’t think corperate cronyism started until the big boom in the beginning of the 20th century. > > Yeah? Nay? Can we trace it all back to Honest Abe? The abolition of slavery did not go through judicial review, the judiciary doesn’t get to review constitutional amendments in any way whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/14 "2006-02-01T02:23:13Z")
Some theorize that the Civil War was essentially a coup: the newborn capitalist/ industrialist elite overthrew the planter/ aristocrat elite that dated back to Washington and Jefferson. I dunno about that but it does seem clear that the Republican party was the stronghold of those in favor of the newer system (which made the Republicans the radicals in 1860!) But I agree that Lincoln felt that in the end he was upholding democracy and the existence of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/15 "2006-02-01T03:11:00Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > The abolition of slavery did not go through judicial review, the judiciary doesn’t get to review constitutional amendments in any way whatsoever. That’s true. I meant in that any challenges to it could have gone through the judiciary system and it withstood any challenges, if there were any. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/16 "2006-02-01T04:00:57Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I thought that the states had a right to secede from the Union before the Civil War, and that they were excercising that right. . . . > > Am I wrong in this? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/17 "2006-02-01T04:06:37Z")
Lincoln did perceive – and rightly – that America’s future should be in industry, not agriculture; in cities, not the countryside. In that respect, you could say he did “start corporate America.” But he did not perceive – perhaps, did not live long enough to perceive – the downside of industrial capitalism, and the conflicting class interests it would create. Lincoln’s ideal was the Free (White) Working Man, and he did not really understand that being free in an industrial labor market might, under some circumstances, leave a free working man worse off than a slave. These matters are discussed extensively in _What Lincoln Believed,_ by Michael Lind – Doubleday, 2005 – [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385507399/sr=1-1/qid=1138766662/ref=pd\_bbs\_1/104-4680491-4360734?\_encoding=UTF8](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385507399/sr=1-1/qid=1138766662/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4680491-4360734?%5Fencoding=UTF8). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/18 "2006-02-01T04:33:54Z")
There really wasn’t a major corporate class in the 1860s - most businesses back then were small and locally owned. To the small degree that any corporate class existed in the United States, it was in three areas - the agricultural plantations of the South, the factor system that supported thos plantations, and the developing banking community of New York City - and both of these groups supported secession and opposed military action against the CSA. Real corporate power did arise a decade or so after the war, generally because of the building of big rail lines which were capital intensive projects. Once the environment had been created for railroad corporations, other corporations took over broader areas of the economy. And Lincoln was one of the early supporters of national railroads. So I guess the premise is arguably right - Lincoln did help start corporate America - but the evidence quoted in the OP in support of that premise was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/19 "2006-02-01T06:08:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Lincoln’s ideal was the Free (White) Working Man, and he did not really understand that being free in an industrial labor market might, under some circumstances, leave a free working man worse off than a slave. Well, Lincoln’s attitude was a free working man was always in better shape than a slave, because he was legally free to improve his condition. Like he said in his first State of the Union: > [@](#): > > Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of conditionto all. ---
**Author:** ![booklyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@booklyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklyn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411/20 "2006-02-01T08:25:08Z")
Were the corporations in place before the war? Then perhaps Abe helped them, but did not create the corporate America, East India Co. did in concert with all them John Smith Captitalists. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-abe-lincoln-start-corporate-america/342411.md?page=2)