A Review of Volume II of Anton Chaitkin’s Who We Are
By Nancy Spannaus*
May 22, 2025–The United States is awash in pessimism today, reflected on all sides of the political divide. Some express it in rage, others in depression, and all in an ever-loosening connection to the heroic battles waged and won by our nation’s most honorable statesmen.
What comes to my mind is the period of the 1850s, which exhibited some of the same qualities. It too was an ugly decade, dominated by the aggressive advance of pro-slavery forces, the outrageously un-Constitutional and inhuman Dred Scott decision, and the abandonment of the American System of economic progress. It was the third decade after Andrew Jackson had reversed our nation’s advance toward a “more perfect union,” and there seemed to be little hope of a revival.
Yet, thanks to the leadership of Abraham Lincoln and political economist Henry C. Carey, the United States not only reversed course, but rose in the 1860s and thereafter “to industrial power, relatively high living standards, and preeminent world influence.”[1] Despite all its faults, our nation went on to provide hope, and in many cases increased prosperity, to generations around the globe.
How this reversal occurred, who led the process, and who opposed it is the subject of the just-published volume two of Anton Chaitkin’s epic series Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy. This volume covers the period from the 1830s, when Lincoln began his political career, to the 1890s, when his policy approach was largely defeated at the Federal level. In this voluminous work (600 pages), Chaitkin provides the reader with the much-needed antidote to pessimism: a deep understanding of the long-standing fight between the politics of republicanism and empire in our nation.
I highly recommend this book.
Some Highlights
Readers of this blog will be familiar with much of Lincoln’s philosophy and his Hamiltonian presidency, which Chaitkin chronicles and analyzes in some detail.[2] They are, of course, crucial to his story, but in this review, I want to emphasize the following unique elements:
Henry C. Carey
Perhaps the most surprising element of Chaitkin’s narrative for many will be his uncovering the role of Henry C. Carey in shaping the political and economic fights of this period. Carey, son of the Irish émigré and Hamiltonian publicist Mathew Carey, was a prominent social scientist, who turned to political economy and politics in the 1850s, and continued the fight for American nationalist policies until his death in 1879.
From the outset of Chapter I, Chaitkin relies on Henry Carey’s summary of the political outlook that he and Lincoln shared, as Carey described it in his 1851 book The Harmony of Interests:
Two systems are before the world… One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization.
One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of ELEVATING while EQUALIZING the condition of man throughout the world.
Later on, we learn, among other things, about how Carey helped Lincoln win the nomination for President; his strategy for the elimination of slavery; his policies for the advancement of agriculture; and his post-Lincoln battles for maintaining a policy of protectionism and government-backed credit. These are eye-openers for anyone looking behind the surface of the politics of the era.
Steel as a National Project
Champions of unfettered free enterprise will also have their axioms challenged in Chaitkin’s section of the development of the U.S. steel industry. “The narrative you are reading is the first historical account of the creation of America’s steel industry as a conscious project,” Chaitkin asserts. He details the maneuverings of the Philadelphia industrial elite, part of Henry C. Carey’s circle, in their determination to outdo Britain’s steelmaking performance, and provide the basis for leaps in U.S. industrial progress.
The battle for establishing a viable steel industry involved supportive government action, including protective tariffs. Take-off began in 1870, with an increase in the protective tariff and the accompanying expansion of the nation’s railroads, which relied on steel rails.
This section is heavy with detail, but enlightening in terms of our industrial development.
Edison and Electricity’s Revolutionary Power
My favorite section of this book was Chaitkin’s discussion of the history of Thomas Edison and electricity, which includes his sponsors in the Philadelphia industrial circles and the subsequent fight over how this new revolutionary technology would be made available to mankind, or not.
The story is enlivened by quotations from newspapers at the time which described Edison’s progress with headlines such as: “EDISON’S NEWEST MARVEL, SENDING CHEAP LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER BY ELECTRICITY.” The inventor’s exuberance over the potential of his discovery is unbounded, reminding us of when we too were excited about the unbounded potential of scientific breakthroughs like the landing on the Moon.
Of equal interest is the fight which Edison waged to evade J.P. Morgan’s attempt to suppress the spread of cheap electric power. The inventor personally funded the Edison Construction Department, which worked with companies set up by towns which he would then proceed to “electrify.” The first of hundreds of these installations took place in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where a local historical marker honors the establishment of “a completed operation central station electric plant” on July 4, 1883.
More to Come
Volume II concludes with a discussion of the rise of the economic royalists in the United States, as well as the spread of the American System abroad. Chaitkin promises a third volume that will take the story of the fight for America’s republican identity up to the Kennedy administration.
Throughout this volume, Chaitkin makes clear that his overriding concern is to “allow the reader to see how we have gone wrong,” and to “give needed assistance to the search for a possible remedy.” To do this, we must understand our history in depth – which is why Who We Are is a book you will find invaluable.
*Nancy Spannaus is the author of Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics; Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way; and From Subject to Citizen: What Americans Need to Know about Their Revolution.
[1] See Chaitkin, Anton, Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress,, from Franklin to Kennedy, Volume II: 1830s to 1890s, 2025, 600 pp., p. 2. Available on Amazon by clicking here.
[2] Readers can find many posts on Lincoln’s policies and speeches on this blog, as well as a class on his presidential term on AmericanSystemNow’s You Tube channel.
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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Anton Chaitkin, electricity, Henry C. Carey, Nancy Spannaus, steel, Thomas Edison, Who We Are
