The Republican Party of the post-war era was dominated by “militarists of the period [who] shared with many … industrialists the belief that it was the nation’s inherent right to colonize the continent westward and southward to its geographical limits, and then push ever westward across the waters” (Brodsky, p. 228).

Grover Cleveland considered this imperialistic fantasy to be “every bit as odious as imperialism and misguided nationalism” (p. 228). He was determined that “we never get caught up in conflict with any foreign state unless attacked or otherwise provoked,” in the spirit of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. If he were alive today, Grover Cleveland would be the chief nemesis of the neocons.

03/09/2024 • Mises Daily •Thomas J. DiLorenzo

https://mises.org/mises-daily/grover-cleveland-last-good-democrat

After the War to Prevent Southern Independence and the assassination of Lincoln the federal government was said to possess a “treasury of virtue.” The Republican Party, which was the federal government, with a decades-long monopoly of power rivaled only by the Bolsheviks in Russia, made sure that the government-run schools would preach this Virtuous State Philosophy to generations of school children.

And what did the Party of Virtue do with its “treasure”? A first order of business was to commence a campaign of ethnic genocide against the Plains Indians. Initiated just three months after the end of the war, and with Generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan in charge, all of the Plains Indians — women and children included — would be either murdered or imprisoned on government reservations (“where they can be watched,” said Sherman) by 1890. The Party of Virtue even cynically recruited ex-slaves (the “Buffalo Soldiers”) to assist in its campaign of genocide against another colored race.

The Party of Virtue also broke up the union, which it had supposedly just “saved,” by disenfranchising all the adult white male southerners and denying them congressional representation unless the southern states ratified the 14th Amendment. At the same time, every last adult male ex slave was registered to vote Republican, and assisted in the Republican Party’s twelve-year plundering expedition in the South, also absurdly known as “Reconstruction.”

Onerous taxes were imposed on a region that was in dire need of tax amnesty. Property taxes in South Carolina, for example, were thirty times higher in 1870 than they were in 1860. The purpose of such confiscatory taxation was to force southern property owners to either pay bribes to Republican Party hacks employed as tax collectors, or sell them their land at fire sale prices. Nothing much was “reconstructed” but a great many carpetbaggers became very wealthy.

Then there was the massive corruption and criminality associated with building the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads, a project begun when Abraham Lincoln called a special session of congress to get the ball rolling just a few months after taking office. The infamous corruption of the Grant administrations was an inevitable consequence of these policies.

The average U.S. tariff rate was escalated to nearly 50 percent during the Lincoln administration and remained in that range until the income tax was adopted in 1913. Thus, the Party of Virtue engaged in fifty years of legal plunder through protectionist trade policies.

The taxpayers were plundered further by being forced to pay more and more for veterans’ pensions, for the war created a well-oiled lobby of Union Army veterans. Veterans’ pensions comprised 29 percent of all federal expenditures by 1884.

Government bureaucrats proliferated at all levels of government, as did taxes. The regulatory state was also greatly expanded, imposing regulations on freight rates, grain warehouses, trusts, and myriad occupations.

Fortunately for the ex slaves, very little was done for them by the federal government, allowing them the freedom and independence to pursue their own livelihoods, quite often with astonishing success despite all the roadblocks they faced.

The Great Libertarian from Buffalo

In the post-war years the Democratic Party possessed most of what was left of the states’ rights, strict constructionist Jeffersonians in American politics. The party had its share of scoundrels, politics being what it is, but it still generally championed free trade over the legal plunder of protectionism, and laissez faire over Lincolnian mercantilism. Its greatest spokesman in this regard was President Grover Cleveland, who served two terms as president: 1885—1889 and 1893—1897. His political philosophy was perhaps best expressed in his second inaugural address, where he said, “The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people.” He was a nineteenth century James Ostrowski.

Cleveland began his political career as sheriff of Erie County, New York in 1871, where he earned a reputation for fearlessness and incorruptibility. He was then elected mayor of Buffalo in 1882 where he became known as “the veto mayor.” He earned this noble designation for repeatedly vetoing inflated government contracts with politically-connected firms doing business with the city. He also insisted on competitive bidding on all city contracts, a practice almost unheard of in New York.

Ascending to the governor’s mansion, Cleveland became known as “the veto governor” for vetoing numerous Tammany Hall patronage bills put before the state legislature. Inevitably, this reputation would follow him into the White House where he would veto hundreds of bills, including forty-nine that he pocket vetoed on his very last day in office, March 4, 1897 (see Alyn Brodsky, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000, p. 57).

During his first term as president Cleveland vetoed hundreds of pension expansion bills as unwarranted raids on the U.S. Treasury. He became Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of the “Grand Army of the Republic,” the Union army veterans lobbying organization that consistently agitated to plunder the taxpayers. Despite the dwindling number of veterans, expenditures on veterans’ pensions had increased by some 500 percent in the previous twenty years (Brodsky, p. 182), purely because of the political clout of Union army veterans. (Southerners paid taxes to finance the pensions, but did not qualify for them).

See the rest here

Be seeing you