What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of American 1815-1848
The Infrastructure Argument
One of the key narratives throughout American history has been the role of government. A number of Conservatives believe that governmental oversight of much of the economy began with the progressive era and then reached full flower under the New Deal. A strong argument can be made that the growth of the United States in the 19th century from former British colonies to the leading power in the world was made possible do to a lack of government. Daniel Walker Howe in his What Hath God Wrought takes a different approach.
There is much to be credited in this book. It takes a unique approach to history in pushing away from the currently accepted divisions popular in the academy of social, political, or some cases even medical history. Rather Howe cuts across all of these disciplines providing a more traditional, and more readable narrative style moving chronologically through the period.
A concern about the book is one of its key themes. It is Howe’s primary contention that it was government investments, chiefly championed by John Quincy Adams and the Whig party that created the environment for the Nation’s stunning growth from 1815 – 1848. “Adams celebrated the benefits of improved transportation and communication and undertook the resources of the federal government to further them.” It is not only Adams in this book who celebrates the role of the federal government but throughout the piece Howe does as well. Howe touches on some of the corrupting practices of intervention but in one case, he suggests where it not for Adams failure to get reelected, the role of slavery may have changed. “There was another aspect of the outcome less noticed by historians.
The National Republican improvement program of planned economic development would have encouraged a diversified economy in place of reliance on the export of slave grown agricultural staples.” Howe is suggesting that if there had been more federal involvement, then the civil war would have been avoided. The author dismisses two aspects of this argument; without federal involvement the North did proceed along these lines and it was the concern of intervention which led to so much animosity on the part of the states.
It is Howe’s goal with this book to put a better sheen on planned economies, theories that have been largely discredited by Socialist experiments throughout the world.