Ways and Means

Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War

De: Roger Lowenstein

Narrado por: Kaleo Griffith

“Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.” —Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal

“Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review

From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history

Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern “for” its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans.

Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback—paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North’s financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields.

Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

A Facinating and Insightful History!

This book is a fascinating and insightfuil history into so much I really didn't know. The book is well presented, very chronological, accurate and detailed. It might bore some but not me. WOW! Any modern person that thinks FDR was the purveyer of big government has no idea what the Civl War and LIncoln and the Republican/National Union party did. Folks, it was for the better! Excellent!

As for the Audible rendition. It was wonderful too. Excellent.

Thank you!

A well-woven tale of social innovation

The author’s clear explanation of the financial and social innovations that owe their existence to Lincoln, his Cabinet, and the Civil War.

If you're a civil war buff.

If you're a civil War buff it's and interesting view of how the war was won.

Misleading title

I was expecting to learn more about Thaddeus Stevens’s role in financing the Civil War, being the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, but he is rarely mentioned. I learned a lot, though.

Good book, great narration.

A good addition to tge overall story of our civil war. Somethings missing in my opinion, specifically more in depth writing on the mistakes of the southern economy, though much of this is addressed culturally at the end.
Takes the veil off the idea that the Unions victory was inevitable.
A little too much ink spent on Chase.
All in all, a good story, wonderfully narrated, and a good addition of information on the a different aspect of the Civil War.

outstanding

Recommend to every student of American history., finance, sociology, government and anyone who wants to know.

The financial view of Lincoln and the Civil War

Great detailed history of Lincoln and his influence on the increasingly expanded national government. A great contrast to the usual political and military histories of the time period. Great detail.

Revealing

This book establishes the underpinnings of our financial and federal governmental systems of today through the scholarly and digestible story of the financing of the civil war. Worth the listen.

Great history

Reminds us all again that it is organization - people, ideas, and capital that improves the world. By using slaves the South hurt slaves and themselves. Terrible.

Depth of information

Shows economics of war and sanctions of Civil War but has relevance to current times. Personalities involved are fascinating.