“Zavodnyik presents a valuable new contribution to Praeger’s “American Political Culture” series … Summing Up: Recommended.” –Choice “A libertarian-inflected account that responsibly reinforces the main findings of political and legal historians…Readers in search of an exhaustive account of the activities of the federal government and the expansion of its impact on society will find value in Zavodnyik’s narrative.”–J.S. Smith, Associate Professor of History, University of New Mexico, Journal of American History “An impressive overview of the sometimes surreptitious growth of the power of the federal government from the Civil War through the 1920s. Zavodnyik shows that even during times in which the ideology of extensive federal power was not generally supported, incremental growth in the regulatory and redistributive powers of the federal government took place.” — G. Edward White, David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor, University of Virginia School of Law, 9/29/2010 “Zavodnyik’s comprehensive study of the politics of national consolidation from 1860 to 1933 points to one conclusion: the demise of the Founder’s republic began long before Progressives and New Dealers came to power. This book makes it impossible to deny that there is something more authentically American and home grown about big government than we ever imagined.” –Richard M. Gamble, Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Professor of History and Political Science, Hillsdale College, 10/12/2010 “An encyclopedic survey of the expanding role of the federal government from the Civil War to the Great Depression , Peter Zavodnyik’s The Rise of the Federal Colossus provides a substantial evidentiary base for future inquiries into the complex relationships among the federal, state, local and private sources of power in American life during this period. It will assist scholars who seek a better understanding of the ways in which the modern American state emerged out of, and differed from, that seed-time of federal power.” — Morton Keller, Spector Professor of History, emeritus, Brandeis University.
“Readers in search of an exhaustive account of the activities of the federal government and the expansion of its impact on society will find value in Zavodnyik’s narrative. The author seemingly leaves no piece of evidence behind in his attempt to document carefully the different ways that federal authority operated between 1865 and 1933…. A libertarian-inflected account that responsibly reinforces the main findings of political and legal historians.” Jason Scott Smith, Journal of American History.
“The most complete account of the history of American federalism is Peter A. Zavodnyik’s two volumes The Age of Strict Construction (2007) and The Rise of the Federal Colossus (2011).” Michael Les Benedict, The Blessings of Liberty: A Concise History of the Constitution of the United States., xiv.
The Rise of the Federal Colossus explains how the modest national government of antebellum America overcame the limitations imposed upon it by a Constitution that enumerated its powers and evolved into the all-powerful entity that today plays such a dominant and pervasive role in the lives of Americans.
From the Inside Flap
The history of the American federal system is, in essence, the story of a campaign. From the boundaries marked out in 1787-88, when the states consented to the formation of a national government armed with jurisdiction over the subjects listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, proponents of the expansion of federal power have pushed outward the limits of federal authority while elements hostile to centralization have retreated. The two sides have fought bitterly in political campaigns, the newspapers, the courts and in Congress. Resistance has been constant and often successful for a time but in the end the forces of centralization have always taken new ground. They have never retreated.
This offensive across the terrain of governmental authority has progressed with great speed at certain times while at others it has moved so slowly that its progress was barely detectable. On occasion great advances came with the ratification of amendments formally extending federal authority to areas formerly reserved to the states. Far more often, slow, incremental, almost microscopic progress occurred through the use of precedent. Occasionally in the federal courts but more often in Congress, the forces of centralization used precedent to push forward the lines of federal jurisdiction. Prior acts of Congress were cited in support of the constitutionality of new laws or programs that were more novel and further removed from the original understanding of the powers of Congress listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
The notion of a steady advance over 150 years by the proponents of centralization conflicts sharply with the standard view of American history, which sees the federal system as relatively static until 1933. This view ignores, or at least fails to acknowledge adequately, the advance by the forces of centralization across the terrain of government during the preceding century-and-a-half. To date the process of centralization from 1933 is as unsound as dating the defeat of the Confederacy from the fall of Atlanta in September 1864. The federal system’s original framework had been fatally weakened by 1933 and all that was necessary to arm the federal government with unlimited regulatory and spending powers was the political will to exploit the precedents that had already been established.
The Rise of the Federal Colossus surveys this weakening during its critical phase: the years between 1861 and 1933.
About the Author
Peter Zavodnyik is a lawyer in private practice in Houston, Texas and the author of The Age of Strict Construction: A History of the Growth of Federal Power, 1789-1861 (Catholic University of America Press, 2007).
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