rather the Northern mihtary vietory) “saved the Union”—rnthough he never seemed to grasp that a union “saved” by militaryrnconquest and devastation of more than half of it is nornlonger a union but an empire.rnLincoln wounded the Old Republic, but he failed to kill it, asrnhe failed in just about everything else that he touched. Afterrnhim, the republic remained intact, though committed to a pathrnof plutocrae and imperialism, and outside the mythographv inrnwhich the enemies of the Old Republic invested the incomparablernmedioeritv of Father Abraham, the honor of the coup derngrace belongs not to their patron saint but to those who madernuse of his myth in the following century.rnTo be sure, there was incremental enlargement of the presidene’rnunder the first Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, andrnI lerbert Hoover, as Commerce Secretary and as President himself,rndid more for the office than most Republicans know or admit,rnbut the chief architect of the modern presidency of thernmanagerial state was Franklin Roosevelt, and it was under himrnthat the wounded Old Republic was finally dispatched to gloryrnand a new class and a new order inaugurated that remains intactrntoday.rnRoosevelt’s construction of the imperial presidency throughrnhis secret and criminal diplomacy is now generally well known,rnas is his bludgeoning the Supreme Court and his centralizationrnof regulatory power in the executive branch. Yet his mo’ementrntoward executive supremacy went well bevond yyhatever measuresrnhe claimed yverc necessary to deal with whatever “emergency”rnin the economy or around the planet he was able to discoverrnor invent, hi 1937, acting on the advice of the BrownlowrnCommission, Roosexclt sought to perpetuate his presidentialrnpower through legislation. As eventually enacted, the law didrnnot create what he had wanted—essentially centralized controlrnof all go’ernment agencies under the White House as w ell as arnclearinghouse planning agency that would have given virtuallyrntotal control of the federal state to the President and his aides—rnbut it did establish the Executive Office of the President andrnsix special assistants on which future aggrandizement couldrnbe built.rnhi fact, Roosevelt’s own Caesarist political style rendered institutionalrnregularization of presidential power unnecessary.rnNot only did he ignore routine channels of administrative decision-rnmaking but he also was the first President to appeal directlyrnto the mass population, a clear emulation of the Europeanrnautocrats of the era. As his admiring historian William Leucliteiibergrnwrote of him. “Roosevelt dominated the front pages ofrnthe newspapers as no other President before or since has done.”rnHe dex’eloped the presidential press conference as “a device thernPresident manipulated, disarminglv and adroith, to win supportrnfor his programs. It served too as a classroom to instructrnthe country in the new economics and new politics,” and hern”was the first President to master the teehnicjue of reachingrnpeople directly over the radio.”rnFor the first time for many Americans, the federal governmentrnbecame an institution that was directly experienced.rnMore than state and local governments, it camernto be the government, an agency directly concerned withrntheir welfare. It was the source of their relief payments; itrntaxed them directly for old age pensions; it even gaverntheir children hot lunches in school.rnFranklin Roosevelt personified the state as protector.rnIt became conimonplaee to say that people felt towardrnthe President the kind of trust they would normally expressrnfor a warm and understanding father who comfortedrnthem in their grief or safeguarded them from harm.rnThis warm and toastv paternalism was paralleled, of course, byrnperiodic denunciations of “economic royalists,” “special interests,”rnand other in’ectiye directed against his critics and politicalrnopponents and by thinly veiled insinuations of legal prosecutionrnof those who persisted in opposition (with the plan tornprosecute the Chicago Tribune for espionage after the outbreakrnof Worid War II, it became more than insinuation). The doublernrole plaved by FDR—on the one hand, as protective fatherrnof the people; on the other, as the implacable foe of thernoppressors—is an old one, played by all tyrants who seek therndestruction of an old ruling class and the construction of arnnew one.rnThe new class, of course, was the emerging managerial elite,rnwhich sought in the presidency in particular and the federalrnle’iathan in general an instrument that would fuse the econonirnand the state and allow for centralized economic, social,rnand political planning without the constraints of markets, localism,rninstitutional cultural barriers, political opposition, or indeedrnnational boundaries. The globalism of Roosevelt’s foreignrnpolicy corresponded closely to the global reach of thernmanagerial corporations that soon allied with him against theirrnsmaller entrepreneurial competitors and to the global ambitionsrnof the new professional wariords that soon emerged in thernmilitary, diplomatic, and intelligence agencies of the leviathan.rnCordell Hull’s personal crusade for free trade was an essentialrncomponent of the revolution in the state that Rooseveltrnlaunched. Hull, the author of the income tax amendment,rnused his position as Secretary of State under Roosevelt to pushrna revolution in trade polics’, rationalized niainh’ by his unexaminedrnfaith that free trade would bring worid peace and that warsrnare caused by trade barriers, a species of utopianism that fit wellrnwith the globalism of the administration and the corporate interestsrnallied with it. As economist John Culbertson writes,rnHull’s “new program was not oriented to protecting the economicrninterests of the United States but to reforming thernworld—in a way that was more revolutionary, and more Utopian,rnthan Cordell Hull thought it to be.” By removing tariffmakingrnfrom congressional hands and placing it in the secret,rnanonymous Committee on Trade Agreements largely underrnState Department control, Hull’s free trade dogmas helpedrntransfer power over trade policy into the hands of the new emperorrnand the managerial class of what Alfred Eekes calls thern”technicians,” “specialists,” and “academics” who composedrnthe committee.rnThe presidential revolution in the federal go’erninent wasrncompleted by the construction of the apparatus for global managementrnunder the label of “national security,” and the NationalrnSecurity Act finalized the transformation. The consolidationrnof the Armed Forces under the Department of Defense,rnthe establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency, the JointrnChiefs of Staff, the Policy Planning ofhce in the State Department,rnand the National Security Council all completed the removalrnof the control of foreign and military policy fromrnCongress and their transfer to the presidency. The creation ofrnthis apparatus by itself not only ensured that the global reach ofrnthe new managerial regime would be perpetuated but also thatrna large burcaucrac would acquire a ested interest in perpetu-rnOCTOBER 1997/25rnrnrn