Hitler, Lincoln, and Localism
Historian Andrew Roberts stated that
Where we went wrong with Versailles was in not splitting up Germany. The reason that we had Germany so peaceful from 1945 – and it has become a completely pacifistic country – is that it was divided. I mean Germany in 1815 was 365 states. And a wonderful place it was, too. From the moment that they actually became one state, once Prussia had established itself in the mid-18th century, it went to war with Denmark, with Austria, with France, and with us twice. So actually, if anything the Versailles Treaty wasn’t hard enough.
I disagree here with his point about Versailles. Versailles was a tragic blunder not because it was too ‘soft’, but because precisely of the severity and irrationality of the entire conference. Regardless of my disagreement with him on the subject of Versailles, I wholeheartedly agree that Germany became more aggressive militarily as more and more centralization occurred on the home front. And this isn’t unique to Germany – it’s occurred all over the place.
“War is the health of the State,” as Randolph Bourne once wrote. Centralization on the domestic front is almost always accompanied by rising militarism. France under the Ancien Régime had been involved in dozens, if not hundreds, of military conflicts over the course of several hundred years. But these conflicts were primarily minor battles and skirmishes. In a few short years under Napoleon however, France almost conquered the whole of Europe. And of course, France during its Revolution and under Napoleon saw rapid centralization and state aggrandizement.
One can see this same analysis all over Europe. Once the ideas released in the French Revolution became more widespread – democracy, socialism, egalitarianism, militarism, centralism – other states followed suit. The 19th Century saw Russia, Germany, France, and the United States all greatly centralize. England, in contrast, was fairly non-interventionist (“splendid isolation”) in European affairs and pursued a policy of free trade. And what accompanied this relative period of non-interventionism? Limited domestic government on the home front, as well (again, relatively speaking).
America, on the other hand, had quite the radical transformation in the 19th Century – it went from a republic of sovereign states with a weak central government, towards a Union of weak states with a strong central government. Prior to the Civil War, the American military was used relatively rarely and sparingly, primarily in small skirmishes in the areas surrounding the actual boundaries of the United States. However, with a succession of Presidents that were believers in a strong central government – first with Lincoln, then with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson – American foreign policy changed, becoming ever more interventionist into world affairs.
Political decentralization – a bulwark of liberty as most of the Founding Fathers, Edmund Burke, and libertarians all realize – is one of the major obstacles to totalitarian dictators. Hitler was very thankful of the centralizing policies of Bismarck, and he wrote a few passages in Mein Kampf expressing support of Lincoln’s centralizing actions during the Civil War. The principles of federalism and divided sovereignty were loathed by Hitler, and he passionately supported nationalism and unification of the political powers in Germany.
Felix Morely wrote in 1959 that
There is one modern political writer who saw very clearly that military centralization is helpful in undermining a federal republic. His name was Adolf Hitler. Chapter 10 of Volume II of Mein Kampf, which is devoted to an indictment of German Federalism as an obstacle to the triumph of national socialism, is well worthy of current attention by those who do not realize that a concentration of power can be used for evil as well as for good — and is perhaps much more likely to be used for evil than for good.
None of this is say that I equate Lincoln with Hitler, nor am I arguing that there were not noble goals sought after by the Northern States during the Civil War – abolition of slavery is certainly a celebratory event. But what I am arguing is that centralization and unification are almost always precursors to increasing militarism, and that the inverse is also true. It was wonderful when the Soviet Union split apart at the end of the 20th Century. The political principles of decentralization and localism are almost always conducive of peace, prosperity, and liberty. ‘Bigness’ – whether that be Big Government, Big Business, or Big Labor – typically produces rising conflict and unrest.
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