Lewis H. Lapham Quotes
Power broken into a thousand pieces can be hidden and disowned.
Lapham, Lewis H. Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, p. 182.
The custom during the civil war was that dead soldiers would be buried in groups by the state they came from. The chaplain, after a particularly bloody battle, has asked if he should separate the bodies by state.
“Father of American Anthropology”
Traditional political jurisdictional boundaries were geographic, but in one of the wisest decisions of English Colonial government, it was recognized that dealing with the Indians demanded a much different approach than the classic European extension of the Crown by appointing a Governor for a territory. As Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Johnson, had authority and responsibility for the Indians and relations with the Indians in Massachusetts and the other colonies, the Colonial Governor not withstanding. Bernard and the other Governors of course did not care for Johnson’s authority within his territory.
There had been a proposal to consolidate the secret service and the FBI into a single organization. What is fascinating, over and above her very sophisticated reasoning, is that fact that the First Lady not only takes a position but writes about it in her daily newspaper column, but she did this while the Congress and her husband the President were weighing the issue. This is another example of Mrs. Roosevelt’s unique role in American politics. To many feminists, they find the fact that the President could and would function with his wife making all these public, independent and uncoordinated judgment, almost unique in political history. He was an admirable role model of a relationship with a wife from a gender equality point of view.
Whoever has the political control of the central government generally favors more centralized power and less decentralization. The opposition wanting to weaken the majority, tends to favor decentralization and states’ rights and the local governments.
Although a conservative, he had many iconoclastic ideas. Almost all liberals and Democrats would agree with this quotation, but most conservatives and right wing Republicans support large concentrations of power in corporations and rich individuals.
Ironically, many Republican leaders give lip service to decentralized government but they fight hard for centralized national government making. Many want Congress to make laws governing abortion and other family planning techniques. Some want the state to decide, but almost no Republicans want to leave these personal decisions to the local government much less the family and women involved. In business regulation as well, republican fight tooth and nail to have Federal legislation prempt state and local government about tort liability for defective products, and they always prefer that the Federal SEC make all the rules and regulations about selling stocks and bonds and do not want state or local government to “interfere”. Likewise, they have emasculated the state governments when it comes to authority over the state militias where virtually all the controls and promotions are decided by Congress and the Department of Defense and not by Governors or local politicians. Ther are many other examples. In most of the solid Republican Southern States, the local school boards cannot even select the textbooks that schools will use and the Republicans centralize this with the State government and state legislatures which they control. Democrats also are generally opposed to decentralization except for large cities having control along with the Federal government but otherwise they too do not want decentralization. For national political parties, what is the point of winning national elections of the big decisions are made locally?
Lewis Henry Lapham is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder of Lapham's Quarterly, a quarterly publication about history and literature, and has written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
