Explained and analyzed, in the context of the civil-military relationship, are the reasons why the American Revolution was not undermined by an American military tyranny. The early chapters are devoted to explaining the ideological and historical background of the American revolution with respect to American fears of power, anarchy, standing armies, and military despotism; the American's faith in their militia; and their insistence on civil supremacy being the guiding principle of the civil-military relationship. Also detailed is how the Continental Army was created, structured, and maintained so as to minimize the possibility of it subverting the civilian governments. Additionally addressed in the early chapters are the personal and political dynamics of the civil-military relationship. How the Continental Congress and state governments controlled and directed their military forces, as well as how the military controlled themselves, is detailed in the middle chapters. Also included in these chapters is an analysis of the military's often critical opinion of the civilian governments and the American people; explanations for those instances when the military threatened and violated the lives, liberties, and properties of their fellow citizens; and a discussion of the military's frequent involvement in and interference with the civilian governments and the political process. The last chapters are devoted to an analysis of the civil-military relationship during the last four years of the Revolutionary War, when it was most severely tested, and when the American Revolution was most susceptible to being undermined by a domestic military tyranny. Special attention is given in these chapters to the factors which prevented the Continental Army from subverting the civilian governments, particularly during the last year of the war. Also included, in the last chapter, is an analysis, in the context of several contemporary works on civil-military affairs, of the reasons for the American Revolution not being undermined by the American military forces.

Studies of the future contribution to the independence of the United States frequently emphasize France's participation, whereas that of Spain is either relegated to a secondary role or ignored entirely. This investigation concentrates on Spain's diplomatic policy and contributions to the United States during the American Revolution, 1775-1783. It analyzes Spain's role during the reign of Carlos III and under the influence of his ministers, Marquis de Grimaldi and Count de Floridablanca. From 1775 to 1777, Spain supported intervention in the war and aid to the colonies. However, its policy was cautious and neutral, in a consistent attempt to avoid open confrontation with England. In 1777 Count de Floridablanca assumed the position of Prime Minister, bringing about a new phase of intervention. Even while offering limited help to the rebellious colonies, Spain was attempting to reach an agreement with England. And while negotiating the possibility of recovering lost territory from her traditional adversary, Spain was looking to gain time to arm her troops and prepare for the possibility of war with the British empire. However, England's refusal to accept the conditions led Spain to join France during this conflict and on June 22, 1779, Spain declared war on England. Even then, Spain was not inclined to favor the British colonies' cause of independence. The decision to declare war was motivated more by the desire to avenge the countless humiliations inflicted by Britain. Although the policy carried out by Spain during this conflict was ambiguous, this was due to a large extent, not to Spain's inability to take a position, but rather to a directed strategy. Spain hoped to recover lost territory, control the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and build its prestige in Europe and America, while maintaining an image of integrity. The Spanish territories in America played a critical role during the American Revolution. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Louisiana, helped to meet some of the indispensable needs of the United States' independence. Spain's aid, though cautious and reserved, made a significant contribution in money, manpower, and war supplies to the independence of the United States.

Deregulation and The Partisan Politics of the Savings and Loan Crisis, 1970-1989, explores the politics of banking deregulation by examining the national policy response to the 1980s savings and loan crisis. Exploring the interactions among the key players in the policymaking process—congressional lawmakers, executive branch officials, interest groups, and regulators—this dissertation demonstrates that partisanship played a central role in turning the thrift industry’s problems into a hundred-billion-dollar economic disaster—the second worst banking fiasco of the twentieth century. By recasting the politics of the thrift debacle as more partisan and less cooperative, this dissertation challenges the conventional wisdom among political historians that deregulation was primarily a bipartisan enterprise. In doing so, this monograph undercuts the “neoliberal” narratives of post-1970 America that tend to depict Democrats and Republicans as one and the same on matters of regulation. The dissertation begins with President Richard Nixon’s appointment of the Hunt Commission. It recommended phasing out the New Deal interest ceilings known as Regulation Q. While Nixon’s own legislative efforts failed, the Hunt Commission’s suggestions influenced future discussions over deregulation. The high inflation and interest rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s shattered the thrift industry’s profitability and provided the political fuel to enact the Hunt Commission’s recommendations. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress removed Regulation Q by passing the Depository Institution Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA). While the politics of DIDMCA reflected a bi-partisan approach, partisanship characterized the laws passed by the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In 1982, President Reagan and top Republicans ushered through the Garn-St Germain Act—the law that most contributed to the thrift disaster by permitting bankrupt thrifts to enter unfamiliar lending markets. Over time, these insolvent thrifts incurred large losses. Partisanship also bedeviled the efforts to clean up the resultant mess with the 1987 Competitive Equality Banking Act (CEBA) and the 1989 Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). By delaying a timely solution, the partisanship in the late 1980s allowed the thrift situation to further deteriorate. Ultimately, the disaster cost American taxpayers 123.8 billion dollars. / 2025-03-31T00:00:00Z

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The Civil War Era was defined by a failure of bilateral diplomacy and marginalized peoples’ — specifically freed people and Indigenous people — quest for self-determination. For freed people, the Civil War represented the long-awaited exodus from slavery which freed people used to escape bondage, join the U.S. Army, and systemically destroy the Confederacy. While freed people won hard fought victories, such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, those very same laws purposefully excluded Indigenous people. The tension between the relative successes of one marginalized group and the purposeful exclusion of another deserves scrutiny. The Civil War for Indigenous people was a period of turmoil, trauma, and fierce resistance. Indigenous people, especially Dakota, Cherokee, Navajo, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Comanche, and Southern Cheyenne, viewed themselves and their communities as inextricably linked to the events created by the Civil War and its aftermath. Indigenous political acumen and flexibility to dealing with challenges allowed Indigenous societies during an era of intense violence to resist Euro-American expansion and defend their ancestral lands and autonomy. Whether Indigenous societies fractured or coalesced, allied with the U.S. or Confederacy, the practical diplomatic decisions about how to handle the war of the rebellion recast relationships between the federal government and Indigenous societies. While the actions of the Dakota, Cherokee, Navajo, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Comanche, and Southern Cheyenne are not emblematic of all Indigenous people, they offer a unique window into how diverse Indigenous societies interpreted and reacted to the war of the rebellion. / History

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This dissertation examines the relationship between federal work relief programs of the New Deal era and the democratization of public recreational sport in New York City. While sport historians assert the New Deal's important role in democratizing sport, their accounts are brief and frequently based on secondary sources. This study relies predominantly on primary sources, especially documents of the national and New York City WPA, the city's Department of Parks and the New York Times as a chronicle of daily events. Since the late nineteenth century, social reformers promoted public recreational sport as a means to combat ill-effects of urban life such as poor health, delinquency and unsavory pastimes. The city provided public parks in wealthy neighborhoods but consistently neglected the recreational needs of tenement districts. By 1930, existing public facilities for the poor and working class were appallingly inadequate and dilapidated; recreational sport remained a prerogative of the wealthy. Federal work relief, which followed private, city and state efforts, attempted to counter the Depression's harmful effects. Recreational sports projects met the criteria of providing benefit to the community hence were acceptable as work relief projects. Presidential approval of large federal grants for recreation reflected Franklin D. Roosevelt's intention to expand recreational sport, particularly for urban residents. Directed by Robert Moses, New York's ambitious Park Commissioner, relief workers built a system of public recreational sports facilities often regarded as the nation's finest. Under Eduard C. Lindeman's leadership, the WPA recreation service program promulgated recreational sport as a civic right for all rather than as a privilege of the rich or charity for the poor. The study illustrates that federal involvement in public recreational sport occurred within the liberal reform tradition in which democratization is viewed as increased equality of opportunity. Such unprecedented federal activity represented change from the past and continuity with traditional democratic values.

“Banking, Law, and American Liberalism: The Rise and Regulation of Bank Holding Companies in the Twentieth Century” excavates the history of the bank holding company, a corporation that owns or controls one or more United States banks, and the movement to prevent its monopolistic expansion in the twentieth century. Utilizing the battle for bank holding company reform as a lens through which to trace the development of antimonopoly law and policy, this dissertation argues that banking played a generative role in the origins and endurance of the American antimonopoly tradition. That tradition, it contends, neither began in the late nineteenth century with the advent of antitrust laws nor comprised a singular modality of reform. From the public provision of currency and credit to delegating and dispersing the privilege of money creation, from central banking to public utility regulation, antimonopolists pioneered differing methods and legal tools to combat the concentration of financial power. By the dawn of the twentieth century, powerful antimonopoly impulses had contributed to the entrenchment of a decentralized banking system comprised of predominantly small, local banks largely prohibited from expanding geographically or engaging in commercial business. The emergence of the holding company as a means of concentrating capital and control in the Gilded Age therefore served as an invaluable mechanism for evading the regulatory constraints of federal and state banking law. Through a bank holding company, enterprising bankers could acquire the stock of innumerable banks and businesses despite restrictions on branch banking and mixing banking and commerce. Though early efforts to prevent the use of the bank holding company device to escape regulation arose in the first decades of the twentieth century, they were largely ineffective. Rather, a wide-ranging and potent antimonopoly movement premised upon the danger bank holding companies posed to American democracy succeeded only in the aftermath of World War II. Culminating in the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the movement for bank holding company reform represents a pivotal, yet virtually unacknowledged, chapter of the American antimonopoly tradition. Challenging longstanding narratives of political economy that portray World War II as the “end of reform” and the antitrust movement as a faded passion, this dissertation argues that antimonopoly ideals survived long after their supposed demise and continued to structure national policymaking well into the postwar decades. Tracing the rise and regulation of bank holding companies ultimately reveals the complexity, breadth, and remarkable resiliency of American antimonopoly law and policy as it evolved across centuries. / 2024-11-03T00:00:00Z

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