The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press) Paperback – Import, 9 September 1996

It was commonly assumed in Revolutionary America that a republican form of government could only survive in an extraordinary society of distinctly moral and independent people. The political economy of the nation played a central role in either fostering or destroying that morality and independence. Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans each had clear and sharply divergent views on what the future American political economy should look like and how it could instill popular virtue and industry. In “The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America” (1980), Drew McCoy casts light on the philosophical underpinnings and ideological beliefs that informed both perspectives.“The revolt against England went far beyond a repudiation of monarchical government,” McCoy writes, “it entailed a passionate rejection of the British form of political economy.” Conventional wisdom in the eighteenth century held that all societies progressed through four stages of political economy: hunting, pastorage, agriculture, and manufacturing. Population density often determined which stage a society lived within. The most advanced stage – manufacturing – was not necessarily the most desirable; certainly not in the infant United States, which took seriously the importance of a virtuous citizenry and looked to the classical world for inspiration in creating a new “Christian Sparta” of frugal, independent, and, most importantly, industrious (but not avaricious) citizens.It was assumed that manufacturing only developed when all available arable land was occupied and a large population of landless and indigent laborers were available to work at subsistence wages. These unlucky workers would enable the development of complex manufacturing, usually in luxury goods – often referred to then as “conveniencies” or “superfluities” – such as silks, fine linens, laces, velvets, brass buckles, and jewelry, that required advanced division of labor. The owners of these operations would become fabulously wealthy – and selfish, effeminate and dissolute, according to contemporary republican thinkers. However, unlike agriculture and household goods, these industries were inherently unstable and cemented to “the whimsical tastes of the fanciful rich.” The workers, meanwhile, would become a new class of modern savages, completely dependent upon their employers, vulnerable to bribery, corruption, and faction, and utterly unfit for any form of democracy. As one popular eighteenth century proverb put it, “The Labour of the Poor, is the Treasure of the Rich.” Manufacturing, in short, bred “loathsome dependence, subservience, venality, and corruption,” McCoy says, and made society increasingly “selfish, greedy, and hedonistic.” The end result was an unbalanced and unfair economy marked by vast inequalities in power and grinding poverty.The leading philosophical thinkers of the day weighed in on debate. Many, such as the French physiocrats, believed that agriculture represented the one and only true source of wealth. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Notes of the State of Virginia: “those who labour in the earth” are “the chosen people of God.” And Rousseau, a great critic of luxury, argued that modern society based on wealth and a craving for social distinction generated nothing but “harshness, competitiveness, jealousy, treachery, and hypocrisy.” Tilling the soil, on the other hand, inherently promoted frugality, probity, and strictness of morals, all core ingredients in classical republicanism.But what about industriousness? McCoy writes that the “American concern with molding an industrious people was obsessive at times.” In a bountiful land of milk and honey, with virtually unlimited, fecund land openly available, where subsistence farming took little effort, what was to prevent the citizenry from degenerating into lethargic idleness? The Founding Fathers’ dream of a noble republic based primarily on both simplicity and industry thus presented something of a dilemma.Not everyone was so critical of manufacturing and the accumulation of wealth. Scottish philosopher David Hume believed that commerce and trade could lead to the improvement of living standards, wealth creation, and the division of labor, all of which could contribute to the overall well-being of a society. Hume argued that commerce fosters cooperation, interdependence, and the development of social virtues such as trust and fairness. In “The Fable of the Bees” (1714), the Anglo-Dutch philosopher Bernard Mandeville argued that without private vices there would exist no public benefit. Mandeville describes a thriving bee hive that collapses once the bees suddenly become honest and virtuous. Without their desire for personal gain their economy implodes and the remaining bees go to live simple lives in a hollow tree. In its simplest terms, Mandeville’s message was that the private pursuit of wealth was “a positive force that unleashed the latent productive powers of society.”Many Federalists in America were sympathetic to this perspective. They tended to see the Old World as powerful and robust and worthy of emulation. To Hamiton, talk of a simple, bucolic republic of Spartan equality and virtuous agrarianism was “sententious cant,” according to McCoy. A predominantly agricultural nation with only household manufactures would only lead to a “stagnant and primitive society.” According to McCoy, “[Hamilton] simply accepted social inequality, propertyless dependence, and virtually unbridled avarice as the necessary and inevitable concomitants of a powerful and prosperous modern society.” Hamilton spelled out his ambitious system in stunning detail in his controversial Report on Manufactures in 1791. He unabashedly wanted for America everything that made England rich and powerful: a large funded debt, a large standing army, bankruptcy laws, and a large, advanced manufacturing base. All of these things were abhorrent to the Republicans.For the Republicans, the prospect of America becoming like England was decay, not progress. According to Benjamin Franklin, who spent years in England as a colonial agent, the old country was “an unhealthy, debauched, densely populated society, mired in the depravity of a mercantilist political economy that embodied the miseries of national ‘old age.’” In contrast, the Republican vision for the American political economy was one based on agriculture, relentless westward expansion, free trade, and “coarse” household manufacturers. The country was blessed with virtually unlimited farmland. Yeoman farmers needed an open channel for the export of surplus harvests to encourage industriousness. The income from these agricultural exports would pay for the import of luxury items that the United States would never produce on its own because of the debilitating social effects. Meanwhile, “coarse” and “necessary” manufactured goods, such as homespun clothing and basic household utensils, would be made in small household operations as a palliative for idleness and poverty. Thus, the Republicans endeavored to remain for centuries at a “middle stage” of social development between the third and fourth levels of political economy. It would require constant effort to maintain that precarious balance and time would always be against them.The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was a keystone in Jefferson’s vision of a continental “empire of liberty.” According to McCoy, “[the Louisiana Purchase] pushed far into the future that dreaded day when America would become a densely populated society characterized by inequality, luxury, and dependence.” The Louisiana Purchase checked the box on westward expansion. But what about commercial expansion? American agricultural surpluses would grow to enormous propositions once the Louisiana territory was settled. Would Europe even be capable of absorbing it all? “The establishment and security of a relatively simple, peaceful, predominantly agricultural republic paradoxically required a dynamically expansive foreign policy that promised to involve the republic in serious and potentially dangerous disputes with other nations.” The Jeffersonian political economy demanded unrestricted access to foreign markets for American agricultural products. When that access was not freely forthcoming, the Jefferson administration resorted to the most unlimited version of economic warfare ever undertaken by the United States. When that was unsuccessful, Madison took the country to war.The wars of the French Revolution led to a booming economy in the fledgling United States in the 1790s. Demand for American agricultural products was virtually unlimited. The value of re-exports exploded from $1 million in 1792 to $50 million in 1800. Republicans witnessed this mushrooming of national commerce with alarm. The political economy was becoming dangerously unbalanced and unstable. In 1800, president-elect Jefferson commented, “we are running navigation mad, and commerce mad, and navy mad, which is worst of all.”The Republicans went to incredible, sometimes foolish, lengths to secure their desired political economy. In their minds, threats to free trade were existential. “No foreign markets, no industrious republicans; it was that simple,” McCoy says. Thus, deficiency of markets for America’s surplus crops was just as dangerous to the Jeffersonian political economy as deficiency of land. Jefferson genuinely believed that Europe needed American agriculture more than America needed European fine goods. Americans could live without European silks and velvets; Europeans could not live without American wheat and corn. For fourteen months, beginning in 1807, Jefferson closed American ports to all exports and restricted British imports. It was a decision born out of “a volatile mixture of fear, bitterness, and paranoia.” It would turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in American history. The War of 1812 was an extension of that policy and proved nearly as disastrous. Often referred to as the Second American Revolution, McCoy says the War of 1812 was also the Jeffersonian Republicans’ attempt to “vindicate the promise of republican political economy.’ Despite these defeats, or perhaps strategic draws, the Republicans were politically victorious, at least in the near term. The Federalist party was destroyed after the Hartford Convention of 1814 and Andrew Jackson dismantled the remaining institutions of the Hamiltonian system.Over the course of his long and illustrious career, Thomas Jefferson got several things right and most things wrong. The fact that he remains one of the most revered presidents in American history has always baffled me. He may have defeated Hamilton and the Federalists in the near term, but in the long run we’re all living in Alexander Hamilton’s America – and I’m glad we are.

Well written history that helps define where and how we got to today. Todays leaders should read and contemplate the implications contained..

In this clearly written book, historian Drew McCoy takes us through the philosophical, ideological, and intellectual underpinnings of classical republicanism. In doing so McCoy had joined a list of illustrious and eminent scholars that includes Gordon Wood, Robert Shalhope, Lance Banning, and J.G.A. Pockock. Classical republicanism, which takes its name from the Roman republic and Italian city states of the Renaissance period, was the ideology that stressed civic virtue, self-restraint, duty to one's community, and the preservation of liberty to avoid corruption. It shared some similarities but differed in crucial ways from classical liberalism's emphasis on individualism, self-interest, and individual rights. To put ourselves in the shoes of the founding fathers, one absolutely has to understand classical republicanism. And McCoy's book is a good place to start.Readers learn through the Elusive Republic how major Enlightenment era thinkers like Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Smith, and Malthus shaped the world views of Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. The founders were very much concerned with the ways in which an increasingly commercialized and capitalistic society might corrupt the liberty and civic virtue at the core of classical republicanism. Poverty and social strife in rapidly industrializing England were warning signs for many of the founders, especially Jefferson and Madison, leading many of them to conclude that the preservation of republican liberty depended on free trade and the westward expansion of an agrarian republic. Students of history often learn that this vision contrasted sharply with the Hamiltonian proclivity toward finance, centralized power, self-sufficiency, and manufacturing, and while that is true on a general level, we learn through this book that Jeffersonians had no problem with small manufacturing (indeed we often forget that urban artisans were a major constituency of the Jeffersonian coalition of 1800).This is an enjoyable read and well worth adding to your collection.

Interesting examination of revolutionary era republicanism, American progress, and the establishment of a national political economy. Certainly a worth while read.

A terribly boring and poorly written book.