Grant and Wilson: Public Policy for the Common Good

Introduction: Public Policy and Presidential Leadership

As governments evolved and adapted from the ancient city-states, it became necessary to implement projects designed to improve the structure and function of government. Public policy is a guide for the administrative function of the state to implement laws, regulatory measures, and funding priorities that will benefit the citizenry. Generally, it is embodied within macro constitutional or legislative documents and acts, and/or judicial decisions (Schuster, 2009).

When Ulysses Grant came into office, he preferred to avoid the political infighting that resulted after Lincoln's assassination. Rather than form public policy based on party lines, he sought to surround himself with people who would give him accurate advice and to pursue reconciliation with the South rather than retribution or appeasement. At the same time, he felt a strong obligation to ensure that the federal government protected the newly freed slaves and prevented former Confederate separatists from regaining power in the South (Grant: A Reference Resource, 2011).

Grant and Reconstruction

President Woodrow Wilson believed in a strong, active role for the central government, and during his term established legislation that significantly enlarged the government's regulatory powers. Most of his initiatives centered on a reformist platform. Even before his presidency, Wilson was one of the three most prominent public administrationists of the late nineteenth century. As governor he continued this approach, preparing himself for his later role in addressing issues such as immigration, women's suffrage, and child labor (Woodrow Wilson, 2011).

Reconstruction dominated Grant's presidency. Reconstruction is the name for the period in United States history covering the post-Civil War era, roughly 1865–1877. Technically, it refers to the policies that focused on the aftermath of the war: abolishing slavery, defeating the Confederacy, and putting legislation in effect to restore the nation per the Constitution. Most contemporary historians view Reconstruction as a failure with ramifications that lasted at least one hundred years: issues surrounding civil rights were still being debated in the 1970s, corrupt northern businessmen known as "carpetbaggers" brought scandal and economic corruption, and monetary and tariff policies were retributive with legal consequences in the North as well. However, that was not Grant's intent; he truly believed that the Union should be preserved and that the rights of all citizens should be protected (Foner, 2002).

One issue of particular importance to Grant was the right of newly freed slaves to vote. Beginning in 1870, Congress passed a series of laws known as the Enforcement Acts, designed to protect the right to vote. One of these, the Civil Rights Act of 1871 — also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act — was specifically championed by Grant to protect southern Black citizens from the Klan by providing a civil remedy for abuses committed in the South. While the Southern states could not legally prevent Black citizens from voting, they often utilized the Klan to terrorize and prevent former slaves from exercising their new right.

President Grant did not want the federal government to be continually involved in arbitration or enforcement procedures with the states, but he used the situation in South Carolina to have federal authority broadened so that he could intervene on behalf of the formerly enslaved. After the Act was passed on April 20, 1871, Grant had the power to suppress state disorders independently and to suspend the right of habeas corpus. He was firm in his convictions in this regard and exercised this public authority on numerous occasions. As a result, the Klan was dismantled — first in South Carolina and then in other Southern states — and did not resurface until after the turn of the twentieth century (Scaturro, 1999, pp. 70–72).

Wilson and the Reformist Agenda

Woodrow Wilson came into the presidency almost as a radical reformer. He was intent on expanding economic opportunities for those at the bottom of society and wanted to eliminate the persistent privileges that the richest and most powerful seemed to enjoy. He focused on tariff reform through the Underwood-Simmons Act, arguing that high tariffs created monopolies and hurt consumers. He also pushed to end certain child labor practices and worked to engender a fairer distribution of public funds for housing, utilities, and public projects (Wilson, 2011).

Looking back at his pre-World War I policies, it was Wilson's work on currency and banking reform that seemed to have the greatest impact on American society. The Federal Reserve's monetary policy is the most important function of the Fed and is probably the most widely used policy tool in macroeconomics. Monetary policy refers to the actions undertaken by a central bank — such as the Federal Reserve — to influence the availability and cost of money and credit in order to promote national economic goals. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve responsibility for setting monetary policy. The Federal Reserve controls three tools of monetary policy: open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements. Open market operations — purchases and sales of U.S. Treasury and federal agency securities — are the Federal Reserve's principal tool for implementing monetary policy. The discount rate is the interest rate charged to commercial banks and other depository institutions on loans they receive from their regional Federal Reserve Bank's lending facility, known as the discount window. The Federal Reserve Banks offer three discount window programs to depository institutions: primary credit, secondary credit, and seasonal credit, each with its own interest rate (Colander, 2007).