Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XVIII, Number 5 May 1, 2021
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
WHAT KIND OF DEMOCRAT? Jefferson Levy, who served three terms (1899-1901 and 1911-15) as a U.S. congressman from New York’s 13th District in Manhattan, was a member of the conservative wing of Democratic Party. Befitting his status as a high-level real estate and stock speculator, Congressman Levy was a staunch fiscal conservative who supported pro-business legislation. On Capitol Hill, he specialized in matters of “financial importance,” a New York newspaper reporter once put it, and represented “a business element in New York State and city,” according to the Washington Herald.
In Congress, Jefferson Levy—backed by NYC’s Tammany Hall Democratic Party political machine—fought legislation that would strengthen antitrust laws. He pushed for a bill to permit the Interstate Commerce Commission to allow railroad mergers even if they violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. He vehemently opposed what in 1913 became the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, reinstating the federal income tax. That same year Levy made headlines when he pushed the House of Representatives to stop investigating business-lobbying practices.
So, without doubt, J.M. Levy strongly supported business interests in Congress and in the years when the lawyer and real estate and stock speculator who owned Monticello (from 1879-1923) was a private citizen and a member of the Democratic Party. But what about social issues?
When doing the research for Saving Monticello I didn’t come across evidence of Levy’s views on social issues. But I recently found some primary source material that strongly indicates his views on one of the hot-button, non-business political issues of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the role of the federal government in policing state election laws. This controversial issue centered on what, if anything, the government should do about voting restrictions imposed on African Americans—including poll taxes and literacy tests—in the South following the Civil War.
In 1889 and 1890, during the administration of Republican President Benjamin Harrison, congressional GOP reformers, led by Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and Sen. John Sherman of Ohio, introduced legislation that would increase federal control over national elections in the states. The proposed law was similar in intent to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 that outlawed Jim Crow laws aimed at disenfranchising African Americans that had been put in place in the South during Reconstruction.
The legislation, known as the Federal Elections Bill, was controversial. Its opponents, including virtually every Democrat in Congress, dubbed it the “Force Bill,” as they viewed it as the federal government unconstitutionally forcing its will on the states. It passed the House on July 2, 1890, by just six votes. Then it was bottled up with a filibuster up in the Senate and did not become law.
Two years later, in 1892, former President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, ran against Harrison to reclaim the presidency. In the fall of that year prior to the election—six years before he ran for Congress—Jefferson Levy, a strong Cleveland supporter, founded an organization called the Virginia League of Democratic Clubs. As its name implies, the league was made up of nearly all the influential Democratic Party organizations in the Old Dominion.
Within six weeks of the organization’s founding, Levy “succeeded in making it one of the most complete and effective organizations in the country,” the Washington Evening Star reported.
“During the [presidential] campaign it numbered over 35,000 members and, according to the assertions of the chairman of the democratic state committee, was the cause of carrying the state by such a tremendous majority for Cleveland and the party.”
A
report in the Staunton (Virginia) Spectator
on September 28, 1892, noted that Levy’s league, based in Charlottesville,
supplied Virginia Democratic clubs with campaign literature, thereby “rendering
very valuable service to the cause of Democracy, now the only hope of saving
liberties of the people, and relieve them from unjust taxation.”
While searching for more info on the League I happened on an image of a certificate of membership (above) signed by Jefferson M. Levy. I couldn’t help notice that it prominently featured two mottos, “Home Rule” and “No Force Bill.” Both were Cleveland campaign slogans. The former refers to the States’ Rights philosophy of “a free popular government, based on home rule and individual liberty,” as the official Democratic Party Presidential Platform of 1892 put it.
“No Force Bill” refers to the Cleveland pledge not to
allow the Federal Elections Bill to become law—which it didn’t. Jefferson Levy’s
strong support of the Cleveland ticket and its No Force Bill pledge strongly indicates
he was all on that quintessential States’ Rights social issue.
*************************
On the other hand, Jefferson Levy’s last public statement as a member of Congress—what he called a “general resume” of his work on Capitol Hill that he made on March 4, 1915, on the House floor as his congressional career was about to end—contains not a word about the Force Bill or any other social issue.
In this long oration centering on his “distinct views” and “strong convictions,” Levy stuck strictly to matters of business and commerce.
In this list of what Levy considered his accomplishments in his six-year career in the House of Representatives he sounded off about his opposition to congressional investigations of the Steel Trust. He went on at length about the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which created the Federal Reserve System ruled by a new a board of presidential appointees. Levy had been a sponsor of the original legislation establishing the system.
He
spoke about what he called a pattern in Congress of “unjust attacks” against
New York City, particularly in regard to laws dealing with currency and
finances. He explained why he opposed the imposition of an income tax and additional
antitrust legislation. He noted that he had been a consistent exponent of a
strong
Levy also touted his unsuccessful efforts to get the government to sell $240-million worth of Panama Canal bonds (rather than institute a special “war tax”) and his successful effort to block legislation depriving New York State of its territorial rights to the Niagara River.
The lone populist accomplishments he spoke of were writing amendments that limited loan interest rates to a maximum of 12 percent a year and that increased pay for U.S. Postal Service watchmen, messengers and laborers. He called the latter “a tardy act of justice to men in humble positions who serve the country faithfully.”
Jefferson Levy ended his congressional farewell with another complaint about the “slurs” he said “have ignorantly been sometimes made upon my great city”—New York City, that is. He allowed, however, that he had “no hard feelings on the matter,” and said he would “cherish” the “many strong friendships” he had made in Congress.
EVENTS: I have two scheduled this month, both of them for Context
Conversations.
On Wednesday, May 12 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time I’ll be doing a talk on the little-known but crucial Civil War Battle of Monocacy, which took place on July 9, 1864, and after which Confederate Gen. Jubal Early attacked nearby Washington, D.C.—the first and only fighting that took place in the Nation’s Capital during the war.
The talk, based on my book Desperate Engagement, includes many
historical images, and looks closely at the controversial Early (who went on to
be an outspoken proponent of The Lost Cause Theory), and Union Gen. Lew Wallace
(who went on to write the novel Ben Hur,
among many other things), who was vastly outnumbered but held Early up at
Monocacy giving Gen. U.S. Grant time to bring troops up from Virginia to defend
Washington—which is why the Battle of Monocacy is called “The Battle That saved
Washington, D.C.” For more info and to register go to http://bit.ly/ContextMonocacy
On
Saturday, May 15, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern
I’ll present my talk on the life of Francis Scott Key, based on my FSK
biography, What So Proudly We Hailed:
Francis Scott Key, A Life. The talk includes scores of historical
photographs about his life as a mover and shaker in the Early Republic, along
with a raft of little-known facts on how the prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer
came to write what would become the National Anthem on the night of September
13-14, 1815, during the bombastic Battle of Baltimore. For more details and to
register, go to http://bit.ly/FSKContext
Last-minute events are listed on the Author
Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com
GIFT IDEA:
Want a personally autographed, new
paperback copy of Saving Monticello?
Please e-mail me. I also have a few
as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of brand-new
copies of my other books.
The SM
Newsletter on Line: You can read back issues of this
newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMNewsLtr
