In the 1830s, one generation after the Washington presidency, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited the U.S. and observed the thriving voluntary organizations founded in city after city to improve the quality of life. The “safety net” of the 1800s was stretched out by concerned citizens in the cities of America who cared for the mentally ill, the elderly, stray dogs, and so on.
In this environment, government was small and, as President Thomas Jefferson observed, “It may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, ‘What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?’” Very few Americans did see tax collectors, but even so, that small revenue collected from tariffs and whiskey taxes paid off the national debt completely in the 1830s. Americans were showing the world that freedom works; and when the slaves were freed in the next generation, Americans showed themselves willing to practice more thoroughly what we were preaching in our Founding documents.
The big change in national attitude began in the Progressive Era with the idea that the federal government needed to be enlarged to protect community rights that were being threatened by the selfish use of individual rights by rich Americans. Theodore Roosevelt gave voice to this idea in 1910 when he announced that “every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”
Who would determine what the “public welfare” was? Progressives believed then and now that politicians, especially progressive politicians, and educated experts can objectively decipher “the public welfare.” The individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had to be reigned in, new taxes had to be collected, and government planning had to take place.
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