Entries for January 03, 2006

This series is edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the prolific historian. The list of writers he has chosen to write each volume is interesting. I was disappointed to see that none of the authors seems to be a conservative (though perhaps some are; some of the names are unfamiliar to me), and evidently no books have been produced yet on John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, or Bill Clinton. But I have to admit that many of Schlesinger's choices seem very interesting indeed:

John Dean on Warren G. Harding, and I have enjoyed reading the former military officer Josiah Bunting III on Ulysses S. Grant, the novelist of New York society Louis Auchincloss on Theodore Roosevelt, and the late British politician Roy Jenkins on Franklin Roosevelt. I have to admit that I will probably never get to the promised William Henry Harrison biography from New York Times editorial page editor Gail Collins. But I will snap up Gary Hart on James Monroe the next time I see it on a bookshelf. As a conservative counterpoint to the books in Schlesinger's series, I recommend Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and Worst in the White House, a Wall Street Journal book edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo. I wrote the chapter on Ulysses S. Grant.

Serendipitous book-buying results in large piles of books on my library coffee table, and over the holiday weekend I happened to read three that deal with the 1840s, the decade when the United States annexed the Republic of Texas, gained full control of the Oregon Territory, and obtained by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the southwest corner of the continental United States, including California.

These books in question are Joel Silbey's Storm Over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War, Sean Wilentz's Andrew Jackson, and John Seigenthaler's James K. Polk. The first is part of Oxford University Press's Pivotal Moments in American History series, and the second two are part of Times Books' American Presidents series; Wilentz has also just published a much longer history of American politics from Jefferson to Lincoln, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, which I look forward to reading. Silbey's Texas is a workmanlike product, which goes well beyond the pivotal moment of the Texas annexation controversy of 1844–45, right up to the months before the Civil War. Wilentz's Jackson is gracefully written and presents a thoughtful and sympathetic view of Jackson, while acknowledging of course that he was anything but politically correct by anybody's standards today. Seigenthaler's Polk is the product of a longtime journalist who is presumably less familiar with the history of the 1840s than the academics Silbey and Wilentz and is a dramatic and riveting portrait of a president who is, as Seigenthaler notes, not well known but who did as much as all but a few other presidents to shape the nation.

A common theme in all three books is the changing focus of American politics in the 1840s, from the economic issues (banking, tariffs) that separated Jackson's Democrats from the Whigs to the cultural issue of slavery that separated Northerners from Southerners. Silbey and Wilentz treat this as regrettable, since it led to the Civil War and to the weakening of the Democratic Party, and avoidable, since if James K. Polk had followed the precedent of Andrew Jackson and his heir Martin Van Buren, who as presidents resisted pressure to annex Texas, the issue of slavery in the territories might not have arisen as it did. There is a certain parallel here to the view taken by many Democrats over the past generation or so that it is a shame voters are focused on cultural issues and not on the economic issues (wealth or income redistribution, presumably), which would favor Democrats in most elections.

The problem is you can't just wave cultural issues away: They are what many, often most, voters care about most. Certainly slavery and the extension of slavery was one such issue. Westward expansion of the United States inevitably raised the question of whether slavery would be allowed in new territories and new states. And slavery in the territories was, under the Constitution, inevitably a federal issue, even if Congress should, as it did in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, decree that it be settled by popular vote in each territory. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which barred slavery north of the 36 "30" line west of Missouri, seemed to settle the issue for nearly 30 years. But the acquisition of Texas (where slavery was thriving under the republic) and California (which was almost entirely unsettled in the 1840s) inevitably raised it again.

In any case, the raising of such issues resulted in sectional polarization and increasing distrust. Silbey writes (Page 142):

As James K. Polk left office in early 1849, observers of the nation's political scene could discern some ominous cracks in the various processes of national unity that had characterized and shaped the United States to this point. The warfare originating in the Texas issue had become so bitter as to undermine belief among Democrats that reciprocity would always be followed in party, and perhaps national, affairs. Parring between sectional spokesmen was constant. As each side pushed, the other had pushed back; as one of them routinely constructed negative images of the other section and persistently questioned the motives and honesty of its leaders, notions of amity, tolerance, and common unities became quite strained.

To some this sounds like our politics today. Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times has read Silbey's book and seems to think so. Brownstein compares Polk and Bush, both relatively little-known Southerners who won their first elections by narrow margins. (Polk did not run for a second term and died at age 53 just a few months after he left office in 1849, the shortest-lived president except Garfield and Kennedy, who were assassinated; his widow, who had been his chief aide, lived on in Nashville till 1891.) Polk acquired Texas, the Oregon Territory, and California and the Southwest, and thus thrust the issue of slavery in the territories forward, an issue that split the parties and ultimately split the Union. Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, in Brownstein's view, similarly split the nation. Here's his take:

Much like Polk with continental expansion, Bush has focused his presidency on a single goal: fighting Islamic terrorism, largely by encouraging the spread of democracy. In pursuit of that vision, Bush, like Polk, launched a war whose initial justification has spawned bitter dispute. And, like Polk, Bush has seen that war become more grueling and divisive than he had expected.

Polk's unwavering, impermeable conviction defines one approach for organizing a presidency in such circumstances. But Polk's early critic—Lincoln—offers Bush a better model for leadership during a difficult war. In the Civil War, Lincoln was nothing if not resolute. But as [Doris Kearns] Goodwin [in her recent book on Lincoln] notes, he also calibrated his decision —from key personnel appointments to the timing of emancipation—to hold together all shades of opinion committed to the Union.

There are a couple of answers to this. First, I think Brownstein gets Lincoln wrong. Lincoln was shrewd in holding together the Republican Party and the former Democrats who joined it. But he didn't give much ground to his Democratic opponents, even when, as in the summer of 1864, he seemed almost certain to be defeated for re-election by the hesitant general he fired, George McClellan. Polk's expansionism raised issues that the politicians of the 1850s had to deal with. It's not clear whether Bush's decision to go into Iraq is going to raise issues that politicians will have to deal with over all of the next decade.

Second, as Kaus puts it with admirable brevity in www.kausfiles.com, "OK, how about 45 percent slave, 55 percent free? So if only Polk had been more of a consensus president we would have ended slavery without a war?" Counterfactual history is always a matter of speculation, but a United States without Texas, Oregon, or California could still have faced the issue of slavery in the territories. Stephen Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which led proximately to southern domination of the Democratic Party, the creation of the Republican Party, and the resumption of a political career by Abraham Lincoln, was not concerned with the territories Polk acquired but with parts of the Louisiana Purchase covered by the Missouri Compromise, which it explicitly repealed to meet the demands of southerners.

My own view is that it was a good thing that the United States expanded to the Pacific, Puget Sound, and the Rio Grande in the 1840s—even if it raised the issue of slavery in the territories that led to the Civil War. And it was a good thing that Lincoln fought to hold the Union together and free the slaves, even at terrible human cost. It's hard to see how the United States could have become the great nation that did so much to defeat Nazi and Communist totalitarianism in the 20th century if Polk and Lincoln had not made the decisions they did in the 19th. And how could the United States be what it is today without its two largest states, California and Texas?

A final note. One difficulty in following these narratives is that many of the key figures seem to change sides as issues present themselves. John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson all supported the Missouri Compromise in 1820. Calhoun served as vice president under Adams and Jackson and broke with both of them. Adams was the lone member of James Monroe's cabinet who in 1818 defended Jackson's conduct in Spanish Florida (where he summarily hanged two British officers). All of which is a reminder that politics isn't static, that serious people who take the same position on one issue can take very different positions on others, and that the political alignments of the 1830s could not be frozen in amber and preserved into the 1840s.

. . . to write my book Hard America, Soft America by my longtime observation that American 18-year-olds are incompetent or far less competent than 18-year-olds in other advanced countries, while American 30-year-olds are the most competent 30-year-olds in the world. Now Fareed Zakaria looks at the same phenomenon in Newsweek, noting that Singaporean 18-year-olds have the best test scores in the world, while 30-year-old Singaporeans produce much less creativity and accomplishment than Americans of the same age. It's an interesting and thoughtful article, well worth reading. It's roughly congruent with my argument that American 18-year-olds do poorly because from ages 6 to 18 they live mostly in Soft America, the part of our society with little competition and accountability, and that American 30-year-olds do well because from ages 18 to 30 they live mostly in Hard America, the part of our society with lots of competition and accountability.

In contrast, as Zakaria points out, 18-year-old Singaporeans, whose success in life depends heavily on test performance, for that reason are subject to competition and accountability. But he makes a further point that I perhaps have not considered seriously enough. Singaporeans after age 18 are presumably still subject to competition and accountability in one of the world's premier capitalist economies. But they do not perform as well as Americans, Zakaria says, because they don't have the creativity, venturesomeness, and willingness to challenge authority that talented Americans have. And that's because, his Singaporan source says, learning to do well on tests does not cultivate those traits.

I argued in Hard America that we would be better off as a country if we subjected Americans between 6 and 18 to more competition and accountability. And in fact the political process has been moving us in that direction, through education accountability programs in the states (pioneered by Republican governors like George W. Bush of Texas and Jeb Bush of Florida and Democratic governors like Jim Hunt of North Carolina) and through the No Child Left Behind Act passed by Congress in 2001 and signed by Bush in 2002. Such programs—and here Zakaria agrees—provide children from educationally or economically impoverished backgrounds a better chance to get ahead in life. But another implication of Zakaria's piece is that too much teaching-to-test might stifle the creativity and bumptiousness that is a vital reason for the competence of American 30-year-olds. There may be trade-offs here that I haven't thought about enough. It's something worth thinking about.

. . . and maybe the best one I'll read for some time comes from my friend Barry Casselman, in today's Washington Times.

Barry is unique in the political commentary field: He lives in Minneapolis, where he maintains a wide and cordial acquaintance among just about every prominent Democratic Farmer-Labor and Republican politician; he travels around the country by train; he is a poet, with a deep interest in the history of Spain, who has been tutoring me in the works of Jose Ortega y Gasset. As Glenn Reynolds says, read the whole thing. I wish I'd written it.

While I was preoccupied by the Christmas season, the Census Bureau released its estimates of the populations of the 50 states for 2005. The estimates are for the population as of June 30; I make comparisons below with census totals for April 1, 2000. So we can look back at the population growth in the states over the last five years with a reasonable assurance that the figures are close to right. I have calculated the percentage growth figures from the total numbers provided by the Census Bureau, so there is a possibility I have made a calculation error; I will be grateful to any reader who points out such an error.

Growth 2000-2005. Every state except North Dakota and the District of Columbia grew between 2000 and 2005, but growth continues to be very uneven. Nationally, the population increase was 5.3 percent, but only seven states grew at a similar rate—South Carolina (6.1 percent), New Hampshire (6 percent), New Mexico (6 percent), Alaska (5.9 percent), Hawaii (5.3 percent), Tennessee (4.8 percent), and Minnesota (4.3 percent). Fourteen states grew more than 6.3 percent; 29 states grew by less than 4.3 percent.

The big population gainers were, generally, the states that had the highest percentage growth from 1990 to 2000. The gainers are clustered in the West: Nevada (20.8 percent), Arizona (15.8 percent), Utah (10.6 percent), Idaho (10.4 percent), and Colorado (8.5 percent) and in the South Atlantic: Florida (11.3 percent), Georgia (10.8 percent), North Carolina (7.9 percent), Delaware (7.6 percent), and Virginia (6.9 percent). You can see in these numbers the robust growth of boom metro areas such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Florida's Gold Coast and I-4 Corridor, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Boise, and the Carolina Piedmont.

In the East, only two states registered above-average growth: Delaware (7.6 percent) and New Hampshire (6.0 percent). Demographically, these are largely suburban states; economically, Delaware has no sales tax and New Hampshire no sales or income tax. Growth was minuscule in Massachusetts (0.8 percent), Pennsylvania (1.2 percent), and New York (1.5 percent).

All midwestern states registered below-average growth. The biggest gainers were Minnesota (4.3 percent) and Missouri (3.7 percent). The laggards were North Dakota (-0.9 percent), Ohio (1 percent), Iowa (1.4 percent), and Michigan (1.8 percent).

In the South there is a vivid contrast between the booming South Atlantic and Texas (9.6 percent) and the interior states. Tennessee (4.8 percent) and Arkansas (4.0 percent) had relatively robust growth; Louisiana (1.2 percent) very little. As these are June 30 estimates, they don't register the population losses in metro New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast caused by Hurricane Katrina.

In the West every state grew by above-average rates except Montana (3.7 percent) and Wyoming (3.1 percent). The Rocky Mountain states tended to grow more than the Pacific Coast states, though the coastal states were all above the national average: California (6.7 percent), Oregon (6.4 percent), Washington (6.7 percent).

In the 1980s we tended to see a rapidly growing Sun Belt and a lagging Snow Belt. The picture in 2000-2005 is a little different: a population boom in the South Atlantic and the arc running from Texas through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and lagging growth in the Northeast and the Mississippi Valley.

These numbers are mostly good news for Republicans. The average population growth in the 31 states carried by George W. Bush was 5.6 percent. The average population growth in the 19 states and the District of Columbia carried by John Kerry was 3.9 percent. These averages are not population-weighted; you can do that arithmetic yourself if you want to. I suspect the contrast would not be much different.

Another way to look at these numbers is to see where the greatest population changes in absolute numbers occurred. Overall, the national population increased by almost 15 million (14,988,498). More than half of that population increase occurred in just five states—California (2,260,499), Texas (2,008,148), Florida (1,807,486), Georgia (886,123), and Arizona (808,660). Population growth in all of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (1,047,657) and in the five-state midwestern industrial bloc of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin (1,001,410), was only slightly more than population growth in Georgia alone (886,123) and not much more than half the population growth in Florida (1,807,486).

Internal and international migration. The Census Bureau provides data that differentiate internal and international migration of people over age 5 in 2005. Total net internal migration is of course zero; total international migration in 2000-2005 was 6,333,941. Most states had positive net migration, i.e., more people moving in than out: the exceptions were Massachusetts (73,741), New York (334,093), the District of Columbia (32,932), Ohio (102,088), Michigan (42,183), Illinois (63,011), Iowa (11,754), Kansas (19,541), Nebraska (4,007), North Dakota (14,881), and pre-Katrina Louisiana (69,373). But the patterns of internal and international migration were very different.

For internal migration, the two big losers were New York (1,001,100) and, perhaps surprisingly to many readers but in line with the 1990s trend, California (664,460). New York's internal population loss was almost precisely the same as Florida's internal migration gain (1,057,619), while California's internal migration loss was almost precisely the same as the internal migration gain of Arizona and Nevada (679,105). That's not to say that all these internal migrants went to Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, but you get the idea.

Net internal migration from the eastern states and D.C. was massive (1,438,356), although the three northern New England states and Delaware and Maryland scored gains. The net internal migration from the midwestern states was large (870,231), though Missouri and Wisconsin made small gains. All southern states had net internal migration gains except Oklahoma and pre-Katrina Louisiana and Mississippi; the region's total net gain was 2,043,096. All western states had internal migration gains except California, Utah, Hawaii, and Alaska. But because of California's net internal out-migration, total net internal migration gain in the West was only 248,019. The primary centers of net internal migration gain are the South Atlantic states (1,741,338) and the Rocky Mountain states (784,527).

All states made gains from international migration. But nearly half of all international migration gains were in four states—California (1,415,879), New York (667,007), Texas (663,161), and Florida (528,084). Still, international migration is changing the demographics of many states. In the East only three small states—Maine, New Hampshire, and Delaware—had greater internal migration than international migration. In the midwest only Missouri did (retirees heading to the Ozarks?). In the South, the picture was different: Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas had more internal migration than international; in Texas it was the other way around.

The biggest changes are in California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, which are losing many people by internal migration and gaining by international migration. Essentially they are gaining high-education whites and low-education immigrants and losing middle- and low-education whites. This tends to make their electorate more Democratic: the high-income professionals in metro Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Boston vote perhaps even more heavily Democratic than the immigrants to those states, while the more modest-income whites who are moving out are more evenly split between the parties. (For an interesting illustration of this effect, see baroneblog on the voting behavior of Mercer County, N.J.) Liberals like to bemoan what they consider a trend toward a two-tier society, with very rich professionals serviced by low-income immigrants. But that's a trend that's most pronounced on their home turf. It's less of a factor in the rest of the country. You see a variant on the theme in the Great Plains. Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa have gained more from international migration than they have lost from internal migration: Latinos are moving in to staff the big meatpacking plants, while young whites are leaving for opportunities elsewhere, leaving behind a relatively elderly white population. So in places like Dodge City, Kan., most public school pupils come from Spanish-speaking homes.

The ever likable E. J. Dionne Jr., in his year-end column, issues the following lament:

"Ah, yes, the president and his people have a lot of enemies out there, but his friends are just as exercised. A reader from San Diego offered a view that was repeated in many different forms: 'Most liberals and some Democrats hate this president and will do anything to bring him down, including siding with terrorists against the president.' . . . [W]hen big chunks of the country begin to view their political adversaries as something close to traitors, we have arrived at a very dangerous time."

I'd agree. But who is at fault here? I would edit the comments of Dionne's San Diego reader by changing "most liberals" to "more liberals," but otherwise he's got a point. Consider the case of Michael Moore. In June 2004, about half of the Democratic senators attended the Washington premiere of Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida emerged from the theater with a big smile and a thumbs up for photographers. At the Democratic National Convention, Moore was seated next to former President Jimmy Carter on Monday night.

This is the same Michael Moore who hailed the Iraqi insurgents as "Minute Men" and who said they will and should win. This is the same Michael Moore whose own website featured his statement that Americans are the stupidest people in the world. If that is not rooting for America's enemies, I don't know what is. Yet leading Democrats chose to associate themselves with him. From 1974 to 1981 I was a Democratic campaign consultant. I don't recall ever advising a client to associate his cause with someone who called for defeat of American military forces and said that Americans were the stupidest people in the world. Yet many prominent Democrats chose to associate themselves with Moore. I find it impossible to resist the conclusion that these Democrats, in Dionne's correspondent's words, "hate this president and will do anything to bring him down, including siding with terrorists against the president." Or at least linking their cause with a prominent entertainer who sides with the terrorists and against the president. These Democrats have, at best, lost the capacity to distinguish between opponents of the president who wish the best for America and opponents of the president who don't.

Yes, E. J., "we have arrived at a dangerous time." And, no, I wouldn't use and haven't used the word "traitor" or the word "unpatriotic" in this connection. But it is these Democrats, not George W. Bush or their Republican critics, who have raised the question of whether they are on America's side.