To Enlarge the Machinery of Government: Congressional Debates and the Growth of the American State, 1858-1891

by Williamjames Hull Hoffer

Overview

How did the federal government change from the weak apparatus of the antebellum period to the large, administrative state of the Progressive Era? To Enlarge the Machinery of Government explores the daily proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate from 1858 to 1891 to find answers to this question.

Through close readings of debates centered around sponsorship, supervision, and standardization recorded in the Congressional Globe and Congressional Record during this period, Williamjames Hull Hoffer traces a critical shift in ideas that ultimately ushered in Progressive legislation: the willingness of American citizens to allow, and in fact ask for, federal intervention in their daily lives. He describes this era of congressional thought as a "second state," distinct from both the minimalist approaches that came before and the Progressive state building that developed later. The "second state" era, Hoffer contends, offers valuable insight into how conceptions of American uniqueness contributed to the shape of the federal government.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801886553
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/17/2007
Series:	Reconfiguring American Political History
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Williamjames Hull Hoffer is an assistant professor of history at Seton Hall University and coeditor of The Abortion Rights Controversy in America: A Legal Reader.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "Badly in Detail but Well on the Whole": The Second State
Prologue: "The Great, Noisy, Reedy, Jarring Assembly": The Capitol, Lawyers, and Public Space
1. A "Government of States": Sponsorship and the First Debate on Land Grant Colleges, 1858–1861
2. "The Object of a Democratic Government": Sponsorship and Supervision of Agriculture and Land Grant Colleges, 1861–1863
3. "A Government of Law": Sponsoring and Supervising the Freedmen, Abandoned Lands, and Refugees, 1863–1865
4. The "Two Great Pillars" of the State: The Supervision and Standardization of Education and Law Enforcement, 1865–1876
5. "To Change the Nature of the Government": Standardizing Schooling and the Civil Service, 1876–1883
6. "What Constitutes a State": Supervising Labor and Commerce, 1883–1886
7. "A System Entirely Satisfactory to the Country": Standardizing Labor and the Courts, 1886–1891
Conclusion: "To Answer Our Purposes, It Must Be Adapted"
Acknowledgments
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index

What People are Saying About This

Joel H. Silbey

An interesting and ambitious study. It will be a substantial contribution to the burgeoning fields of political development in political science and policy studies in history. It is sophisticated in its argument and recognizes that history is neither neat nor necessarily linear in the development of institutions and frames of reference.

From the Publisher

An interesting and ambitious study. It will be a substantial contribution to the burgeoning fields of political development in political science and policy studies in history. It is sophisticated in its argument and recognizes that history is neither neat nor necessarily linear in the development of institutions and frames of reference.
—Joel H. Silbey, author of The American Political Nation, 1838–1893 and Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics

Editorial Reviews

A lively and engaging account.
—Matt Field, APSA Legislative Studies Section Newsletter

Hoffer has offered a provocative challenge to the standard telling of American state development and future scholars would do well to take his argument seriously.
—D. Michael Bottoms, Civil War Book Review

Ideally suited for constitutional scholars in history, political science, and law . . . Academic and law libraries should definitely add it to their collections.
—Thomas A. Upchurch, American Historical Review

From the Publisher

Hoffer has offered a provocative challenge to the standard telling of American state development and future scholars would do well to take his argument seriously.

Civil War Book Review - D. Michael Bottoms

A lively and engaging account.

APSA Legislative Studies Section Newsletter - Matt Field

Ideally suited for constitutional scholars in history, political science, and law . . . Academic and law libraries should definitely add it to their collections.

American Historical Review - Thomas A. Upchurch