American History: Week 3

Articles of Confederation

"The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever." From the Articles of Confederation Before the United States declared its independence in July 1776, each colony ran its own affairs. The closest thing the colonies had to a national government was the British Parliament. After their bad experiences with Parliament, which led to the outbreak of revolution, the colonies were not inclined to trust a strong national government; they preferred to keep power for themselves. But after declaring independence from England and its laws, Congress knew itself to be just a group of men without clearly defined authority or a constitution that would make Congress a legal body. This was going to make it very difficult to run a war. Clearly, some kind of document was needed to help guide the new states through a war and the formation of a new country. Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) proposed the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (usually referred to simply as the Articles of Confederation) at the same time he offered the resolution for independence (June 1776) quoted earlier. A month later, John Dickinson (1732-1808) was appointed to a committee to study the idea of confederation (the union of a group of states for a common purpose). After a month of study, the first draft of the Articles was presented to Congress for consideration and adoption. The first draft provided for a strong central government. Congress adopted a revised draft on November 15, 1777, that seemed to give the federal government many powers but actually made it secondary to the states. Under the proposed Articles of Confederation, the states agreed to defend one another against outside threats. Citizens of each state would enjoy the same rights and privileges in every state, including the freedom to come and go from one state to another. There would be free trade among states, with no one paying higher taxes on trade than anyone else. The Articles also proposed a common treasury to pay for the expenses of government—expenses for "the common defense, or general welfare." Each state would pay into the treasury in proportion to the state's land area. That proposal would cause considerable controversy in the debate over adopting the Articles. Things to remember while reading the Articles of Confederation: While Congress was considering the document, word came that British general Sir William Howe (1729-1814) wished to discuss a compromise of the dispute between Great Britain and America. Massachusetts congressman John Adams (1735-1826), who was opposed to any such compromise, was appointed, along with fellow Continental congressmen Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Edward Rutledge (1749-1800), to represent "the free, independent States of America" in a conference with Howe. Upon meeting with Howe, the congressmen were informed, according to Adams, that Howe "could not confer with Us as Members of Congress, or public Characters, but only as private Persons and British subjects." Howe proposed only that "the Colonies should return to their Allegiance and Obedience to the Government of Great Britain." Adams responded that this "was not now to be expected." The conference ended with no resolution. As a result, everyone's attention turned to conducting a war and away from the Articles of Confederation. British general Sir William Howe, who proposed to the Americans a British general Sir William Howe, who proposed to the Americans a "compromise" that would have the colonies "return to their Allegiance" to the British government. The Americans refused. Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos. As expected, the difficulties of running a war without a central government soon became obvious. Whenever Congress requested the states to send money or supplies for soldiers, for example, many people in the states complained that the congressmen were reckless power seekers. On top of this, members of Congress fought constantly among themselves throughout the entire war. They grew irritable at the long hours they had to work—without pay. Their surroundings were uncomfortable and they were far from home and family. Wartime shortages made living difficult. As was true with the soldiers who fought the war, from time to time members of Congress would return home, to be replaced with amateurs. Under the circumstances, it was truly remarkable that they got anything done. Debate over the Articles lasted for more than a year. Congress was repeatedly interrupted by more immediate concerns having to do with the war. Many congressmen feared their colonies would suffer if a republican, or central, government was established. Others believed the nation was simply too large to be adequately governed by the republican form of government that was being proposed. In such a form of government, power rests with the people, who exercise their power through elected representatives. Many citizens feared that legislators (law makers) of a large republic would lose touch with the people they represented, and soon those legislators would become tyrants. An old etching of the Library of Congress building. The idea for the library came from early American patriot Thomas Jefferson. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. An old etching of the Library of Congress building. The idea for the library came from early American patriot Thomas Jefferson. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. The reality of the war finally won out over the fears of a central government. Wartime required instant decision making as well as foreign aid. The country had to have people who would be recognized by foreign countries as lawful representatives of an American government and therefore eligible to ask for assistance. Otherwise, foreign leaders might consider Americans to be British subjects. Furthermore, a feeling of nationalism was growing—the sense that America was and should be a united nation, not thirteen separate colonies. Six versions of the Articles were prepared, and Congress settled on the final version, which follows, in 1777. Articles of Confederation Articles of Confederation To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. I. The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America." II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them. If any person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the Governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State. V. For the most convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislatures of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year. No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another one for his benefit, receives any salary, fees or emolument of any kind. Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the States, and while they act as members of the committee of the States. In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress, and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests or imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. VI. No State, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance or treaty with any King, Prince or State; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any King, Prince or foreign State; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility. No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue. No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties, entered into by the United States in Congress assembled, with any King, Prince or State, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress, to the courts of France and Spain. No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States in Congress assembled can be consulted; nor shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, and then only against the Kingdom or State and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States in Congress assembled shall determine otherwise. VII. When land forces are raised by any State for the common defense, all officers of or under the rank of colonel, shall be appointed by the legislature of each State respectively, by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. IX. The United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article—of sending and receiving ambassadors—entering into treaties and alliances, provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners, as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities whatsoever—of establishing rules for deciding in all cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States shall be divided or appropriated —of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace—appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and establishing courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures, provided that no member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other causes whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another shall present a petition to Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a hearing and determining the matter in question: but if they cannot agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names as Congress shall direct, shall in the Congress be drawn out by lot, and the persons whose names shall be so drawn or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the determination; and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons, which Congress shall judge sufficient, or being present shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgement and sentence of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence, or judgement, which shall in like manner be final and decisive, the judgement or sentence and other proceedings being in either case transmitted to Congress lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the parties concerned; provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgement, shall take an oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the State, where the cause shall be tried, "well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgement, without favor, affection, or hope of reward,": provided also that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. All controversies concerning the private right of soil claimed under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions as they may respect such lands, and the States which have passed such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall on the petition of either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally determined as near as may be in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different States. The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States— fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States—regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, [who are] not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated —establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office —appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers —appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States—making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations. The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated 'A Committee of the States,' and to consist of one delegate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction—to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses—to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted—to build and equip a navy—to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State; which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the legislature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men and cloath, arm and equip them in a solid-like manner, at the expense of the United States; and the officers and men so cloathed, armed and equipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. But if the United States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of circumstances judge proper that any State should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, cloathed, armed and equipped in the same manner as the quota of each State, unless the legislature of such State shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spread out in the same, in which case they shall raise, officer, cloath, arm and equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so cloathed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. The United States in Congress assembled shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of marque or reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for the defense and welfare of the United States, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war, to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commander in chief of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same; nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day be determined, unless by the votes of the majority of the United States in Congress assembled. The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months, and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances or military operations, as in their judgement require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any question shall be entered on the journal, when it is desired by any delegates of a State, or any of them, at his or their request shall be furnished with a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several States. X. The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of the nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled be requisite. XI. Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States. XII. All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed, and debts contracted by, or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged. XIII. Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State. And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in Congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union. Know Ye that we the under-signed delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said Confederation are submitted to them. And that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and that the Union shall be perpetual. In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America. Agreed to by Congress 15 November 1777 In force after ratification by Maryland, 1 March 1781 [The Articles of Confederation were signed by forty-eight representatives of the thirteen colonies. In alphabetical order by state, they were: Connecticut: Andrew Adams, Titus Hosmer, Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, and Oliver Wolcott; Delaware: John Dickinson, Thomas McKean, and Nicholas Van Dyke; Georgia: Edward Lang-worthy, Edward Telfair, and John Walton; Maryland: Daniel Carroll and John Hanson; Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, Francis Dana, Elbridge Gerry, John Hancock, Samuel Holten, and James Lovell; New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett and John Wentworth, Jr.; New Jersey: Nathaniel Scudder and John Witherspoon; New York: James Duane, William Duer, Francis Lewis, and Gouverneur Morris; North Carolina: Cornelius Harnett, John Penn, and John Williams; Pennsylvania: William Clingan, Robert Morris, Joseph Reed, Daniel Roberdeau, and John Bayard Smith; Rhode Island: John Collins, William Ellery, and Henry Marchant; South Carolina: William Henry Drayton, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Richard Hutson, Henry Laurens, and John Mathews; and Virginia: Thomas Adams, John Banister, John Harvie, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Richard Henry Lee.] (American Journey [CD-ROM]) Articles of Confederation Most of the Native American tribes fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos. Most of the Native American tribes fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos. What happened next ... The Articles of Confederation had to be submitted to the thirteen states for approval. By 1779, the document had been approved by all the states except Maryland—and Maryland was stubbornly opposed. For two years, it seemed that the Articles of Confederation would fail because of Maryland's opposition. Maryland's point was this: Land west of the thirteen states should belong to the new United States, not to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, all of whom claimed to extend to the Mississippi River. Maryland's representatives said they would not sign until the states with western land claims gave up their claims to the United States. One by one they did, and with this issue resolved, Maryland ratified the Articles, and they went into effect on March 1, 1781. The Articles did not resolve all of the problems that had faced the First and Second Continental Congresses. The new Congress could still not levy taxes. Its operating funds would come from the states; each state would contribute according to the worth of privately owned land within its borders. But Congress now had power over foreign relations and could now make agreements with foreign governments. It could wage war and make peace, raise an army and navy, make money, set up a postal service, and it had many other powers it did not have before. The new country was governed by these Articles until Congress's next great document, the Constitution, was adopted in 1788. The Continental Congresses were unique bodies in world history. They forged a new nation from thirteen separate colonies. Making up rules as they went along, with little authority or money, the Second Congress managed to direct and win a war against the mighty British Empire, then the most powerful nation in the world. Along the way, the Revolutionary Congresses composed several great documents that were the forerunners of the American Constitution. That document has lasted more than two hundred years as the basic law of the land. Did you know ... The Articles of Confederation that were eventually adopted were largely the work of John Dickinson, who had been responsible for so many other congressional documents and political writings (see p. 63). John Adams was not on the committee that drafted the document, but as usual, he had much to say on the topic. He wrote his wife Abigail, explaining the major point that had kept the delegates arguing for so long. "If a confederation should take place, one great question is, how we shall vote," he told her. "Whether each colony shall count one; or whether each shall have a weight in proportion to its number, or wealth, or exports and imports, or a compound ratio of all." Dickinson had proposed a system of one colony, one vote. Adams held that the delegates to Congress represented all the people, not the states, and that voting should be proportionate to a state's population. In the end, Dickinson's point of view carried the day. The Articles contained a provision for the admission of Canada to the confederation. Americans had long fooled themselves that Canada, a British possession but home to mostly French speakers, would wish to become "the fourteenth colony." Surely, they thought, these people would want to throw off British domination, too! In 1775, the Second Continental Congress had prepared an address to the "oppressed Inhabitants of Canada." In it, Canadians were told: "We yet entertain hopes of your uniting with us in the defence of our common liberty." But the Canadians were not interested in Congress's proposal. Undaunted, in 1777, Congress again had invited them to join the confederation. The 1781 ratification of the Articles of Confederation ended the Second Continental Congress. On March 2, 1781, it became "The United States in Congress Assembled."

The Education of Youth in America

Introduction Having spent some time teaching, lexicographer Noah Webster was concerned with such questions as the proper curriculum of the schools and the role of the Bible in education, particularly in American schools. On the Education of Youth in America was first published in Webster's American Magazine between 1787 and 1788. In 1790, it was revised and reissued in A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings, from which the following selection is taken. Education is a subject which has been exhausted by the ablest writers, both among the ancients and moderns. I am not vain enough to suppose I can suggest any new ideas upon so trite a theme as education in general; but perhaps the manner of conducting the youth in America may be capable of some improvement. Our constitutions of civil government are not yet firmly established; our national character is not yet formed; and it is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country. It now becomes every American to examine the modes of education in Europe, to see how far they are applicable in this country, and whether it is not possible to make some valuable alterations adapted to our local and political circumstances. Let us examine the subject in two views. First, as it respects arts and sciences. Second, as it is connected with morals and government. In each of these articles let us see what errors may be found and what improvements suggested in our present practice. The first error that I would mention is a too general attention to the dead languages, with a neglect of our own. ... In deliberating upon any plan of instruction, we should be attentive to its future influence and probable advantages. What advantage does a merchant, a mechanic, a farmer, derive from an acquaintance with the Greek and Roman tongues? It is true, the etymology of words cannot be well understood without a knowledge of the original languages of which ours is composed. ... But, when we have an elegant and copious language of our own, with innumerable writers upon ethics, geography, history, commerce, and government — subjects immediately interesting to every man — how can a parent be justified in keeping his son several years over rules of syntax, which he forgets when he shuts his book, or which, if remembered, can be of little or no use in any branch of business? It is not my wish to discountenance totally the study of the dead languages. On the other hand, I should urge a more close attention to them among young men who are designed for the learned professions. The poets, the orators, the philosophers, and the historians of Greece and Rome furnish the most excellent models of style and the richest treasures of science. The slight attention given to a few of these authors in our usual course of education is rather calculated to make pedants than scholars, and the time employed in gaining superficial knowledge is really wasted. A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. ... Merchants often have occasion for a knowledge of some foreign living language as the French, the Italian, the Spanish, or the German, but men whose business is wholly domestic have little or no use for any language but their own, much less for languages known only in books. ... But the high estimation in which the learned languages have been held has discouraged a due attention to our own. People find themselves able without much study to write and speak the English intelligibly and thus have been led to think rules of no utility. This opinion has produced various and arbitrary practices in the use of the language, even among men of the most information and accuracy; and this diversity has produced another opinion, both false and injurious to the language, that there are no rules or principles on which the pronunciation and construction can be settled. This neglect is so general that there is scarcely an institution to be found in the country where the English tongue is taught regularly, from its elements to its true and elegant construction, in prose and verse. Perhaps in most schools boys are taught the definition of the parts of speech and a few hard names which they do not understand and which the teacher seldom attempts to explain; this is called learning grammar. This practice of learning questions and answers without acquiring any ideas has given rise to a common remark: that grammar is a dry study; and so is every other study which is prosecuted without improving the head or the heart. The study of geography is equally dry when the subject is not understood. But when grammar is taught by the help of visible objects, when children perceive that differences of words arise from differences in things, which they may learn at a very early period of life, the study becomes entertaining as well as improving. In general, when a study of any kind is tiresome to a person, it is a presumptive evidence that he does not make any proficiency in knowledge, and this is almost always the fault of the instructor. ... There is one general practice in schools which I censure with diffidence, not because I doubt the propriety of the censure but because it is opposed to deep-rooted prejudices: this practice is the use of the Bible as a schoolbook. There are two reasons why this practice has so generally prevailed: the first is that families in the country are not generally supplied with any other book; the second, an opinion that the reading of the Scriptures will impress upon the minds of youth the important truths of religion and morality. The first may be easily removed, and the purpose of the last is counteracted by the practice itself. If people design the doctrines of the Bible as a system of religion, ought they to appropriate the book to purposes foreign to this design? Will not a familiarity, contracted by a careless, disrespectful reading of the sacred volume, weaken the influence of its precepts upon the heart? ... Objects that affect the mind strongly, whether the sensations they excite are painful or pleasurable, always lose their effect by a frequent repetition of their impressions. Those parts of the Scripture, therefore, which are calculated to strike terror to the mind lose their influence by being too frequently brought into view. The same objection will not apply to the history and morality of the Bible, select passages of which may be read in schools to great advantage. In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect. Both these practices appear to be extremes. My wish is not to see the Bible excluded from schools but to see it is used as a system of religion and morality. These remarks suggest another error which is often committed in our inferior schools: I mean that of putting boys into difficult sciences while they are too young to exercise their reason upon abstract subjects. For example, boys are often put to the study of mathematics at the age of eight or ten years and before they can either read or write. In order to show the impropriety of such a practice, it is necessary to repeat what was just now observed, that our senses are the avenues of knowledge. This fact proves that the most natural course of education is that which employs, first, the senses or powers of the body or those faculties of the mind which first acquire strength, and then proceeds to those studies which depend on the power of comparing and combining ideas. The art of writing is mechanical and imitative; this may therefore employ boys as soon as their fingers have strength sufficient to command a pen. A knowledge of letters requires the exercise of a mental power, memory, but this is coeval almost with the first operations of the human mind, and with respect to objects of sense is almost perfect, even in childhood. Children may therefore be taught reading as soon as their organs of speech have acquired strength sufficient to articulate the sounds of words. But those sciences, a knowledge of which is acquired principally by the reasoning faculties, should be postponed to a more advanced period of life. In the course of an English education, mathematics should be perhaps the last study of youth in schools. Years of valuable time are sometimes thrown away in a fruitless application to sciences, the principles of which are above the comprehension of the students. There is no particular age at which every boy is qualified to enter upon mathematics to advantage. The proper time can be best determined by the instructors, who are acquainted with the different capacities of their pupils. Another error which is frequent in America is that a master undertakes to teach many different branches in the same school. In new settlements, where people are poor and live in scattered situations, the practice is often unavoidable, but in populous towns it must be considered as a defective plan of education. For suppose the teacher to be equally master of all the branches which he attempts to teach, which seldom happens, yet his attention must be distracted with a multiplicity of objects and consequently painful to himself and not useful to the pupils. Add to this the continual interruptions which the students of one branch suffer from those of another, which must retard the progress of the whole school. It is a much more eligible plan to appropriate an apartment to each branch of education, with a teacher who makes that branch his sole employment. The principal academies in Europe and America are on this plan, which both reason and experience prove to be the most useful. With respect to literary institutions of the first rank, it appears to me that their local situations are an object of importance. It is a subject of controversy whether a large city or a country village is the most eligible situation for a college or university. But the arguments in favor of the latter appear to me decisive. Large cities are always scenes of dissipation and amusement, which have a tendency to corrupt the hearts of youth and divert their minds from their literary pursuits. Reason teaches this doctrine, and experience has uniformly confirmed the truth of it. Strict discipline is essential to the prosperity of a public seminary of science, and this is established with more facility and supported with more uniformity in a small village where there are no great objects of curiosity to interrupt the studies of youth or to call their attention from the orders of the society. ... But if the amusements, dissipation, and vicious examples in populous cities render them improper places for seats of learning, the monkish mode of sequestering boys from other society and confining them to the apartments of a college appears to me another fault. The human mind is like a rich field, which, without constant care, will ever be covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds. It is extremely dangerous to suffer young men to pass the most critical period of life, when the passions are strong, the judgment weak, and the heart susceptible and unsuspecting, in a situation where there is not the least restraint upon their inclinations. My own observations lead me to draw the veil of silence over the ill effects of this practice. But it is to be wished that youth might always be kept under the inspection of age and superior wisdom; that literary institutions might be so situated that the students might live in decent families, be subject in some measure to their discipline, and even under the control of those whom they respect. Perhaps it may also be numbered among the errors in our systems of education that in all our universities and colleges the students are all restricted to the same course of study and, by being classed, limited to the same progress. Classing is necessary, but whether students should not be removable from the lower to the higher classes as a reward for their superior industry and improvements is submitted to those who know the effect of emulation upon the human mind. But young gentlemen are not all designed for the same line of business, and why should they pursue the same studies? ... Life is too short to acquire, and the mind of man too feeble, to contain the whole circle of sciences. ... In order to qualify persons in any profession, it is necessary that they should attend closely to those branches of learning which lead to it. There are some arts and sciences which are necessary for every man. Every man should be able to speak and write his native tongue with correctness and have some knowledge of mathematics. The rules of arithmetic are indispensably requisite. But besides the learning which is of common utility, lads should be directed to pursue those branches which are connected more immediately with the business for which they are destined. It would be very useful for the farming part of the community to furnish country schools with some easy system of practical husbandry. By repeatedly reading some book of this kind, the mind would be stored with ideas which might not indeed be understood in youth but which would be called into practice in some subsequent period of life. This would lead the mind to the subject of agriculture and pave the way for improvements. Young gentlemen designed for the mercantile line, after having learned to write and speak English correctly, might attend to French, Italian, or such other living language as they will probably want in the course of business. These languages should be learned early in youth, while the organs are yet pliable; otherwise the pronunciation will probably be imperfect. These studies might be succeeded by some attention to chronology, and a regular application to geography, mathematics, history, the general regulations of commercial nations, principles of advance in trade, of insurance, and to the general principles of government. It appears to me that such a course of education, which might be completed by the age of fifteen or sixteen, would have a tendency to make better merchants than the usual practice which confines boys to Lucian, Ovid, and Tully till they are fourteen and then turns them into a store, without an idea of their business or one article of education necessary for them, except perhaps a knowledge of writing and figures. Such a system of English education is also much preferable to a university education, even with the usual honors, for it might be finished so early as to leave young persons time to serve a regular apprenticeship, without which no person should enter upon business. But by the time a university education is completed, young men commonly commence gentlemen; their age and their pride will not suffer them to go through the drudgery of a counting house, and they enter upon business without the requisite accomplishments. Indeed it appears to me that what is now called a liberal education disqualifies a man for business. Habits are formed in youth and by practice, and as business is in some measure mechanical, every person should be exercised in his employment in an early period of life, that his habits may be formed by the time his apprenticeship expires. An education in a university interferes with the forming of these habits and perhaps forms opposite habits; the mind may contract a fondness for ease, for pleasure or for books, which no efforts can overcome. An academic education, which should furnish the youth with some ideas of men and things and leave time for an apprenticeship before the age of twenty-one years, would, in my opinion, be the most eligible for young men who are designed for active employments. The method pursued in our colleges is better calculated to fit youth for the learned professions than for business. But perhaps the period of study required as the condition of receiving the usual degrees is too short. Four years, with the most assiduous application, are a short time to furnish the mind with the necessary knowledge of the languages and of the several sciences. It might perhaps have been a period sufficiently long for an infant settlement, as America was, at the time when most of our colleges were founded. But as the country becomes populous, wealthy, and respectable, it may be worthy of consideration whether the period of academic life should not be extended to six or seven years. But the principal defect in our plan of education in America is the want of good teachers in the academies and common schools. By good teachers I mean men of unblemished reputation and possessed of abilities competent to their stations. That a man should be master of what he undertakes to teach is a point that will not be disputed, and yet it is certain that abilities are often dispensed with, either thro inattention or fear of expense. To those who employ ignorant men to instruct their children, permit me to suggest one important idea: that it is better for youth to have no education than to have a bad one, for it is more difficult to eradicate habits than to impress new ideas. The tender shrub is easily bent to any figure, but the tree which has acquired its full growth resists all impressions. Yet abilities are not the sole requisites. The instructors of youth ought, of all men, to be the most prudent, accomplished, agreeable, and respectable. What avail a man's parts if, while he is the "wisest and brightest," he is the "meanest of mankind?" The pernicious effects of bad example on the minds of youth will probably be acknowledged, but with a view to improvement it is indispensably necessary that the teachers should possess good breeding and agreeable manners. In order to give full effect to instructions, it is requisite that they should proceed from a man who is loved and respected. But a lowbred clown or morose tyrant can command neither love nor respect, and that pupil who has no motive for application to books but the fear of a rod will not make a scholar. ... The only practicable method to reform mankind is to begin with children, to banish, if possible, from their company every lowbred, drunken, immoral character. Virtue and vice will not grow together in a great degree, but they will grow where they are planted, and when one has taken root, it is not easily supplanted by the other. The great art of correcting mankind, therefore, consists in prepossessing the mind with good principles. ... Another defect in our schools, which, since the Revolution, is become inexcusable, is the want of proper books. The collections which are now used consist of essays that respect foreign and ancient nations. The minds of youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rome or to Great Britain; boys are constantly repeating the declamations of Demosthenes and Cicero or debates upon some political question in the British Parliament. These are excellent specimens of good sense, polished style, and perfect oratory, but they are not interesting to children. They cannot be very useful, except to young gentlemen who want them as models of reasoning and eloquence in the pulpit or at the bar. But every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen who have wrought a revolution in her favor. A selection of essays respecting the settlement and geography of America, the history of the late Revolution and of the most remarkable characters and events that distinguished it, and a compendium of the principles of the federal and provincial governments should be the principal schoolbook in the United States. These are interesting objects to every man; they call home the minds of youth and fix them upon the interests of their own country, and they assist in forming attachments to it, as well as in enlarging the understanding. ... Two regulations are essential to the continuance of republican governments: (1) Such a distribution of lands and such principles of descent and alienation as shall give every citizen a power of acquiring what his industry merits. (2) Such a system of education as gives every citizen an opportunity of acquiring knowledge and fitting himself for places of trust. These are fundamental articles, the sine qua non of the existence of the American republics. ... In several states we find laws passed establishing provision for colleges and academies where people of property may educate their sons, but no provision is made for instructing the poorer rank of people even in reading and writing. Yet in these same states every citizen who is worth a few shillings annually is entitled to vote for legislators. This appears to me a most glaring solecism in government. The constitutions are republican and the laws of education are monarchical. The former extend civil rights to every honest industrious man, the latter deprive a large proportion of the citizens of a most valuable privilege. In our American republics, where government is in the hands of the people, knowledge should be universally diffused by means of public schools. ... Every small district should be furnished with a school, at least four months in a year, when boys are not otherwise employed. This school should be kept by the most reputable and well-informed man in the district. Here children should be taught the usual branches of learning, submission to superiors and to laws, the moral or social duties, the history and transactions of their own country, the principles of liberty and government. Here the rough manners of the wilderness should be softened and the principles of virtue and good behavior inculcated. The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head. Are parents and guardians ignorant that children always imitate those with whom they live or associate? That a boy, bred in the woods, will be a savage? That another, bred in the army, will have the manners of a soldier? That a third, bred in a kitchen, will speak the language and possess the ideas of servants? And that a fourth, bred in genteel company, will have the manners of a gentleman? We cannot believe that many people are ignorant of these truths. Their conduct therefore can be ascribed to nothing but inattention or fear of expense. It is perhaps literally true that a wild life among savages is preferable to an education in a kitchen or under a drunken tutor, for savages would leave the mind uncorrupted with the vices which reign among slaves and the depraved part of civilized nations. It is therefore a point of infinite importance to society that youth should not associate with persons whose manners they ought not to imitate; much less should they be doomed to pass the most susceptible period of life with clowns, profligates, and slaves. ... For these reasons children should keep the best of company that they might have before them the best manners, the best breeding, and the best conversation. Their minds should be kept untainted till their reasoning faculties have acquired strength and the good principles which may be planted in their minds have taken deep root. They will then be able to make a firm and probably a successful resistance against the attacks of secret corruption and brazen libertinism. Our legislators frame laws for the suppression of vice and immorality; our divines thunder from the pulpit the terrors of infinite wrath against the vices that stain the characters of men. And do laws and preaching effect a reformation of manners? Experience would not give a very favorable answer to this inquiry. The reason is obvious: the attempts are directed to the wrong objects. Laws can only check the public effects of vicious principles but can never reach the principles themselves, and preaching is not very intelligible to people till they arrive at an age when their principles are rooted or their habits firmly established. An attempt to eradicate old habits is as absurd as to lop off the branches of a huge oak in order to root it out of a rich soil. The most that such clipping will effect is to prevent a further growth. Such a general system of education is neither impracticable nor difficult, and, excepting the formation of a federal government that shall be efficient and permanent, it demands the first attention of American patriots. Until such a system shall be adopted and pursued, until the statesman and divine shall unite their efforts in forming the human mind, rather than in lopping its excrescences after it has been neglected, until legislators discover that the only way to make good citizens and subjects is to nourish them from infancy, and until parents shall be convinced that the worst of men are not the proper teachers to make the best, mankind cannot know to what a degree of perfection society and government may be carried. America affords the fairest opportunities for making the experiment and opens the most encouraging prospect of success. In a system of education that should embrace every part of the community the female sex claim no inconsiderable share of our attention. The women in America (to their honor it is mentioned) are not generally above the care of educating their own children. Their own education should therefore enable them to implant in the tender mind such sentiments of virtue, propriety, and dignity as are suited to the freedom of our governments. Children should be treated as children, but as children that are in a future time to be men and women. By treating them as if they were always to remain children, we very often see their childishness adhere to them, even in middle life. The silly language called baby talk, in which most persons are initiated in infancy, often breaks out in discourse at the age of forty and makes a man appear very ridiculous. In the same manner, vulgar, obscene, and illiberal ideas imbibed in a nursery or a kitchen often give a tincture to the conduct through life. In order to prevent every evil bias, the ladies, whose province it is to direct the inclinations of children on their first appearance and to choose their nurses, should be possessed, not only of amiable manners but of just sentiments and enlarged understandings. But the influence of women in forming the dispositions of youth is not the sole reason why their education should be particularly guarded; their influence in controlling the manners of a nation is another powerful reason. Women, once abandoned, may be instrumental in corrupting society, but such is the delicacy of the sex and such the restraints which custom imposes upon them that they are generally the last to be corrupted. There are innumerable instances of men who have been restrained from a vicious life and even of very abandoned men who have been reclaimed by their attachments to ladies of virtue. A fondness for the company and conversation of ladies of character may be considered as a young man's best security against the attractives of a dissipated life. A man who is attached to good company seldom frequents that which is bad. For this reason, society requires that females should be well educated and extend their influence as far as possible over the other sex. But a distinction is to be made between a good education and a showy one, for an education merely superficial is a proof of corruption of taste and has a mischievous influence on manners. The education of females, like that of males, should be adapted to the principles of the government and correspond with the stage of society. Education in Paris differs from that in Petersburg, and the education of females in London or Paris should not be a model for the Americans to copy. In all nations a good education is that which renders the ladies correct in their manners, respectable in their families, and agreeable in society. That education is always wrong which raises a woman above the duties of her station. In America female education should have for its object what is useful. Young ladies should be taught to speak and write their own language with purity and elegance, an article in which they are often deficient. The French language is not necessary for ladies. In some cases it is convenient, but, in general, it may be considered as an article of luxury. As an accomplishment, it may be studied by those whose attention is not employed about more important concerns. Some knowledge of arithmetic is necessary for every lady. Geography should never be neglected. Belles-lettres learning seems to correspond with the dispositions of most females. A taste for poetry and fine writing should be cultivated, for we expect the most delicate sentiments from the pens of that sex which is possessed of the finest feelings. A course of reading can hardly be prescribed for all ladies. But it should be remarked that this sex cannot be too well acquainted with the writers upon human life and manners. The Spectator should fill the first place in every lady's library. Other volumes of periodical papers, though inferior to the Spectator, should be read, and some of the best histories. With respect to novels, so much admired by the young and so generally condemned by the old, what shall I say? Perhaps it may be said with truth that some of them are useful, many of them pernicious, and most of them trifling. A hundred volumes of modern novels may be read without acquiring a new idea. Some of them contain entertaining stories, and where the descriptions are drawn from nature and from characters and events in themselves innocent, the perusal of them may be harmless. Were novels written with a view to exhibit only one side of human nature, to paint the social virtues, the world would condemn them as defective, but I should think them more perfect. Young people, especially females, should not see the vicious part of mankind. At best, novels may be considered as the toys of youth, the rattle boxes of sixteen. The mechanic gets his pence for his toys, and the novel writer, for his books, and it would be happy for society if the latter were in all cases as innocent playthings as the former. In the large towns in America music, drawing, and dancing constitute a part of female education. They, however, hold a subordinate rank, for my fair friends will pardon me when I declare that no man ever marries a woman for her performance on a harpsichord or her figure in a minuet. However ambitious a woman may be to command admiration abroad, her real merit is known only at home. Admiration is useless when it is not supported by domestic worth. But real honor and permanent esteem are always secured by those who preside over their own families with dignity. ... A tour through the United States ought now to be considered as a necessary part of a liberal education. Instead of sending young gentlemen to Europe to view curiosities and learn vices and follies, let them spend twelve or eighteen months in examining the local situation of the different states — the rivers, the soil, the population, the improvements and commercial advantages of the whole — with an attention to the spirit and manners of the inhabitants, their laws, local customs, and institutions. Such a tour should at least precede a tour to Europe, for nothing can be more ridiculous than a man traveling in a foreign country for information when he can give no account of his own. When, therefore, young gentlemen have finished an academic education, let them travel through America, and afterward to Europe, if their time and fortunes will permit. But if they cannot make a tour through both, that in America is certainly to be preferred, for the people of America, with all their information, are yet extremely ignorant of the geography, policy, and manners of their neighboring states. Except a few gentlemen whose public employments in the Army and in Congress have extended their knowledge of America, the people in this country, even of the higher classes, have not so correct information respecting the United States as they have respecting England or France. Such ignorance is not only disgraceful but is materially prejudicial to our political friendship and federal operations. Americans, unshackle your minds and act like independent beings. You have been children long enough, subject to the control and subservient to the interest of a haughty parent. You have now an interest of your own to augment and defend: you have an empire to raise and support by your exertions and a national character to establish and extend by your wisdom and virtues. To effect these great objects, it is necessary to frame a liberal plan of policy and build it on a broad system of education. Before this system can be formed and embraced, the Americans must believe and act from the belief that it is dishonorable to waste life in mimicking the follies of other nations and basking in the sunshine of foreign glory.

The Constitution, 1787-1800 U.S. CONSTITUTION AND SLAVERY

Despite slavery's pervasive influence on the political, economic, and social life of the United States, the country's Constitution, at ratification, did not explicitly mention the practice and institution of chattel slavery. Only with the post-Civil War amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments) did the Constitution expressly acknowledge slavery's existence. The Founders spoke of slavery euphemistically, preferring ambiguous phrasing to an explicit delineation of slavery's place in the country's political order. Nonetheless, the Constitution's authors consciously designed institutions that accommodated, supported, and eventually entrenched slavery within the structures of political power. Consequently, those few euphemistic references in the original Constitution have had lasting influence on the course of political development in the United States and on constitutional interpretation. Constitutional References to Slavery Constitutional references to slavery fall into three classes: those that could have referred only to slavery; those that encompassed slavery and other practices or institutions; and those that did not directly touch on slavery, but had significant, indirect, and perhaps unforeseen consequences for slavery or slaveholding interests. Five provisions fall within the first category, and they represent key compromises made at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The first, Article I, section 2, paragraph 3 (generally called the three-fifths compromise) stipulated that both representation within the House of Representatives and any direct taxes would be apportioned to the states according to their populations, calculated "by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." This stipulation increased the representation of slaveholding states in Congress, but simultaneously decreased any potential direct tax liability. Similarly, Article I, section 9, paragraph 4 ensured that all regions of the country would be equally affected by any possible "capitation" tax. This national uniformity of any possible direct taxes meant that slaveholding could not be singled out for taxation, a concern of some slaveowners who thought northerners would try to tax slavery out of existence. Also under Article I, section 9, paragraph 1 stipulated that Congress could not ban the international slave trade until 1808. This 20 year prohibition fostered an even greater reliance on slave labor in the South and allowed for a domestic slave market to develop. Meanwhile, the fugitive slave clause (Article IV, section 2) not only prevented free states from emancipating runaway slaves within their borders, but also required them to release any fugitive slave to his or her owner. In addition, Article 5 rendered unamendable until 1808 both the fugitive slave clause and the ban on prohibiting the international slave trade. The second class of constitutional provisions reinforced the economic and physical domination slavery required. Article IV, section 4 required the federal government to help suppress domestic insurrections, if a state so requested, thereby putting the federal government in the position of defending slaveholders' property interests if slave rebellion occurred. Similarly, Article I, section 8, paragraph 15 allowed Congress to muster state militias to combat insurrections, including slave revolts. Article I, Sections 9 and 10 prevented the federal and state governments from taxing exports, which precluded any effort to tax the products of slave labor. The third class of provisions generally gave political advantages to slaveholding interests that enabled them to forestall efforts to eliminate slavery. Because of the three-fifths compromise, southern states had more votes in the House of Representatives and the electoral college than if only free citizens were represented. Also the amendment process (Article 5) required the agreement of three-quarters of all states, enabling the South to veto any constitutional amendment to ban slavery. In addition, congressional powers to admit new states and adopt regulations for the territories (Article 4, section 3) created opportunities for slave states to ensure that their numbers would not diminish. Sectional Compromises The constitutional provisions that touched on slavery, either directly or indirectly, represented a significant victory for southern interests at the time of the country's founding. The political concessions to slavery at the founding resulted from proslavery interests colliding with antislavery sentiment. That is, the political, economic, and social interests of slaveowning states came into conflict with the northerners' more diffuse antislavery sentiment, based on moral or religious sentiment. However, in order to form an economic and political union, the framers of the Constitution found it necessary to preserve, in large part, the existing legal arrangements that enabled slavery to flourish in the South after the American Revolution. At the time of the country's founding, the legal framework supporting slavery lay exclusively at the state level. The then-emerging natural law position, articulated most forcefully in Somerset v. Stewart (1772), held slavery to be contrary to natural law; therefore slavery could exist, in a legal sense, only as a product of positive law (legislative or executive-made law). The slavery-related provisions of the U.S. Constitution recognized and validated the exclusively local law of slavery, as it then existed in the states. Thus the constitutional priority of federalism, which allowed both legal systems to coexist under a single constitutional order, both sought to restrict federal governmental intrusion on individuals and tolerated a property right in slaves. In doing so, the Constitution embodied a tension between the "higher law" rhetoric of the American Revolution and the deeply political compromises over slavery. The high-toned aspirations of "We, the people" were profoundly at odds with slavery's entrenchment, simultaneously revealing within the Constitution an idealism and a complicit pragmatism.

A Developing Economy, 1790-1850 KING COTTON

During the antebellum period, cotton became known as "King Cotton" and served as the foundation of the southern economy. The dominance of cotton transformed the South and southern society in several ways. In 1790, plantation farmers in the South grew rice, indigo, and long-staple cotton in coastal areas of the southeastern United States. Inland farmers, with less fertile soil, were limited to small farms and subsistence crops. Long-staple cotton needs good soil and ideal growing conditions. In return, it gives the grower a good harvest, with fibers separating easily from seeds. Short-staple cotton grows in many more types of soil, but harvesting is difficult. Sticky seeds cling to the short fibers. Short-staple cotton, therefore, was not economical. The amount of labor required for harvest was too great. However, technological advances in agriculture revolutionized cotton production, allowing it to become a highly profitable cash crop. Invention of the Cotton Gin Patent drawing of a cotton ginIn 1792, Eli Whitney graduated from Yale University and headed south to work as a private tutor on a plantation. His employer, Catherine Greene, encouraged Whitney to investigate ways of making short-staple cotton profitable. In a secret workshop on the plantation, Whitney invented a machine that could separate the cotton fibers from their sticky seeds. He called it the cotton gin. A small version of the cotton gin could be operated by a hand crank. Larger versions could be powered by water or horses. Whitney immediately applied for a patent for his invention. However, Whitney and his business partner found it difficult to make a fortune, in large part because so many people copied their gin instead of paying them royalties or fees. Whitney's machine transformed Southern agriculture. Southern farmers replaced their tobacco, rice, and indigo crops with cotton because of its highly profitable yield and the cheap prices of its seeds. In each decade after 1800, cotton production doubled. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution brought textile mills to the North and to England, multiplying the demand for cotton. By 1850, the South was growing 75% of the world's cotton and exporting most of it to the Northern states and to England. As cotton became more profitable, small farmers expanded their acreage to create large plantations. These large plantations spread out into what once was Native American territory. Native Americans, from the Creeks of Alabama to the Cherokees of Georgia to the Seminoles of Florida, were driven from their homes and robbed of their lands as the cotton gin and short-staple cotton made those lands valuable to European Americans. Driving the need to gain more land, the cotton crop led to westward expansion, which started in the South with a desire for more cotton land. Expansion of Slavery PlantationLarge cotton plantations depended on slave labor. As cotton cultivation increased, so did the importance of slavery. Slaves planted, cultivated, and picked cotton. The demand for slaves surged, creating a subsequent increase in both the domestic and transatlantic slave trade. From 1790 to 1850, the number of slaves in the Southern states increased from roughly 650,000 to 3.2 million, with 1.8 million slaves working on cotton plantations alone. Slaves endured harsh and exhausting working conditions, rising at dawn to work in the fields and performing other chores late into the night. In the 1800s, plantation owners instituted a "gang system," dividing slaves into groups based on their physical ability. "Plow gangs" consisted of robust men who were capable of working the plow, while older men, women, and children comprised the "hoe gangs" that performed the other manual tasks associated with cultivation. Supervised by overseers who often used physical force and whips to punish slaves or increase their speed of work, brutality was a common feature in the lives of slaves on cotton plantations. Despite universal repression, slaves rebelled in various ways. These ranged from small, daily acts, such as working inefficiently, pretending to be sick, or stealing from plantation owners; to more drastic acts, including running away and organized military actions. Slaves used these tactics to protest the institution that treated them as commodities, but these acts of resistance were not enough to overturn the system. Impact on Southern Society Cotton and slavery were profitable industries for southern white plantation owners as well as the nation, providing the planters with exorbitant fortunes as well as political sway. This power and wealth gave rise to the image of the southern cotton kingdom as an aristocratic society, built on honor and chivalry; an image that has been ingrained in the South's self concept and its perception throughout U.S. history. This self-image, paired with the increasing need to continue and rationalize the use of slavery, spurred on by the impending threat of the abolition movement, caused the South to frame slavery as a social need rather than purely an economic one. Slave owners saw themselves and their paternalism as helping slaves—deemed an inferior race—and helping society by fulfilling their moral duties. They also saw their culture and traditions as superior to the changing lifestyle of Northerners who threatened to erase the southern regional identity, which contributed to a growing divide between the North and the South that would lead to the Civil War. Cotton also greatly impacted the economy of the South. The southern economy became increasingly and solely dependent on cotton production, secluding the South to an agricultural economy without the development of manufacturing and industrial infrastructure. Cotton also influenced education in the South. Because the cultivation of cotton required lots of acreage and created large plantations, the rural and scattered nature of the South made the development of schools difficult. Thus, the South had lower quality education and higher illiteracy rates than the North.

Political Life in a New Nation, 1800-1830

JEFFERSONIAN VISION Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson's victory over John Adams in the presidential election of 1800 represented the first time that the presidency had changed political parties. Both George Washington and Adams were Federalists, yet there had always been a more democratic undercurrent to American politics. These Anti-Federalists had coalesced into the Democratic-Republican Party and disagreed with the Federalists on a number of important issues, including the relative roles of the federal and state governments, whether to ally more closely with England or France (which was undergoing its own revolution), whether the future of the United States was to be guided by industrial growth or agrarianism, and how strictly to interpret the limits placed on federal power in the Constitution. Jeffersonian Democracy Declaration of Independence presented to CongressWhereas the Federalists had advocated a strong federal government to ensure strength in dealing with European powers, Jefferson believed that the federal government's role should be limited to the specific powers spelled out in the Constitution and guided by the ideals in the Declaration of Independence. The “inalienable rights†of mankind that were so much a part of Enlightenment thought were to be the central occupation of government as a whole. The Constitution was seen as an agreement between independent states that created a very limited central government meant only to handle matters that could not be effectively handled by the states or that might create undue conflict between the states' policies, such as foreign relations and Indian affairs. Anything the federal government did that went beyond that which was explicitly set out in the Constitution was void. This strict interpretation of the Constitution was to protect the rights of the states against federal tyranny. Jefferson's penchant for simplicity carried over into his presidency as well. He curtailed the number of presidential balls and state dinners in favor of more intimate gatherings, where he could do what he loved to do: discuss science and philosophy. He disdained the white wigs and finery worn by the Federalists—a carryover from English tradition—in favor of less formal attire. His relationships with members of Congress were less formal as well, favoring small gatherings in boarding houses to discuss political policy and prospective actions. James MadisonIn the Kentucky Resolutions, which Jefferson wrote in 1798, he argued that the federal government does not have the authority to determine the limits of its own powers. He believed that authority rests with the states, as they were the parties that created the federal government. James Madison echoed the same themes in his Virginia Resolution the same year. This led directly to the idea of nullification—that the states, acting collectively rather than individually, had the authority to declare any actions they considered unconstitutional to be null and void. He thought the so-called elastic clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), which has been used to justify federal actions not specifically sanctioned by the powers granted it by the Constitution, should only be invoked in the most extreme of circumstances. Jefferson himself used the clause to justify the expansion of the United States when the Constitution did not allow him to complete the Louisiana Purchase, which roughly doubled the land base of the nation. Whereas Federalists feared what Adams called the “tyranny of the majority†and imposed limits on what was put to a popular vote, Jefferson wanted to expand democracy to include a larger part of the American population. When Jefferson became president in 1801, most states required property ownership as a prerequisite to voting. This fit well with Jefferson's agrarian views and the importance of independent adult males in his vision of a virtuous republic. However, in the West, where new states were forming, an even more democratic strain of Jeffersonian Democracy was taking root, as states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio removed property requirements for voting, and during Jefferson's presidency, many of the Eastern states followed their example. In order for them to avoid tyranny, the American voters would need to be educated. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, written in 1785, Jefferson proposed a system of free public education for white male children. This would not only ensure a population that would be able to interpret and assess political arguments for themselves, but would also provide for the education of the future leaders of the nation. The Yeoman Farmer Ideal Farmland in rural PennsylvaniaWhereas the Federalists were concerned with the power the United States could wield on the world stage through trade and diplomacy, Jefferson's vision was that of an agrarian republic, as far removed as possible from the intrigues of the nations of Europe. The virtue of the nation rested on citizens that owned their own land. This was not a new idea—the Anti-Federalists had been articulating this idea since the founding of the nation, and had long been mistrusting of the Federalists' emphasis on manufacturing and trade as the basis for the nation's growth. Jefferson saw clearly the types of people he thought would create a strong and virtuous nation that would resist the tyrannical forms of government that seemed so common in Europe. Power in Europe rested largely in the cities, which were home to the wealthy and powerful. In America, power would rest in the small farmers who would be independent of outside influence. Independence would be maintained because the agrarian populous would be self-sufficient and immune to the political pressures of large landowners and moneylenders. In this vision, the primary role of the government is not to guarantee prosperity for the whole, but rather to ensure the individual's liberty and property rights. Hamilton versus Jefferson Alexander HamiltonThe differences Jefferson had with the Federalists who had preceded him were personified in his personal rivalry with Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton represented the antithesis of Jefferson's vision—he favored mercantilism as the basis for national prosperity rather than Jefferson's agrarian vision. Rather than development by individual citizens, Hamilton favored the economic development of manufacturing funded by national debt and foreign investment. Jefferson not only deemed this unwise, but unconstitutional, while Hamilton used the elastic clause of the Constitution to justify mercantile development as being beneficial to the nation as a whole. While Jefferson served as George Washington's secretary of state and Hamilton as his secretary of the treasury, their rivalry came to a head during the debate over the establishment of a national bank. The national bank would provide the economic stability and availability of capital that Hamilton thought necessary for mercantile expansion, but Jefferson opposed the measure as being outside of the federal government's constitutional bounds. The debate was essentially a microcosm of the disagreement over the role of the federal government that characterized the years between the ratification of the Constitution in 1787 and Jefferson's election in 1800. Jefferson's vision can be seen as a corrective to the Federalist view that the United States should be a full participant in the world economy, as he saw that such a path would lead the United States away from its core values and back toward the type of European tyranny that they had recently fought a war to escape. As the antebellum period progressed, Jefferson's vision became associated with the Southern states and Hamilton's with the North. Though it can easily be argued that the Industrial Revolution that followed the Civil War was the culmination of the victory of Hamilton's vision over Jefferson's, both views have always been vital parts of the American political debate, as Jefferson's words are still cited in myriad political arguments today.

The Emergence of a Nation, 1789-1800 HAMILTON AND THE PUBLIC DEBT (OVERVIEW)

When Alexander Hamilton's appointment as George Washington's secretary of the treasury was approved in late 1789, Hamilton took on the daunting task of organizing the fiscal future of the United States. Although he had to face severe opposition and weather personal attacks, he indeed took the reins and developed a fiscal policy that established a centralized economy, providing the basic model for a system that has survived to the present day. An Interlocking Set of Solutions Following the American Revolution, the government's war debt totaled approximately $50 million; foreign investors were hesitant to invest any more in the new nation; and American manufacturing capabilities lagged far behind Europe's. To correct the situation and place the nation on a firm economic footing, Hamilton proposed an interlocking set of solutions. He wanted the U.S. government to actively encourage manufacturing, assume responsibility for war debts, establish a national bank to standardize and control the currency system, tie the interests of wealthy citizens with the government's success, and maintain friendly ties with Britain to avoid a disastrous trade war. Provisions for Handling the Debt Alexander HamiltonThe first order of the day was to address the war debt. Hamilton's plan had three basic provisions: the foreign debt and interest would be paid in full; the principal of the domestic debt would be paid on par to current bearers; and state debts would be assumed by the federal government. The systematic repayment of the foreign debt was not very controversial; everyone seemed to agree that it was imperative to pay off the debt in order to continue to secure credit in the international money markets and to honor the basic responsibilities of lending and borrowing. However, settling the domestic debt question was very troublesome. The domestic debt was basically IOUs that had been issued to soldiers in lieu of paychecks or to merchants and suppliers in exchange for war-related goods and services. In need of ready cash, some of those soldiers, merchants, and suppliers had sold the IOUs to speculators, primarily wealthy Northerners who could afford to invest with the hope of a profitable payoff in the future. Hamilton maintained that the IOUs should be paid at face value to whoever owned them. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the soldiers, merchants, and suppliers who had sold the IOUs at less—in some cases, considerably less—than face value. Nevertheless, since it simply wasn't feasible to track down and sort out competing claims, Hamilton's original proposal was implemented, and the integrity of the government's promise of "payable to the bearer" was maintained. The third provision—the assumption of the states' war debts by the federal government—was also met with opposition. Hamilton argued that since the war was fought for the union, the union should pick up the tab. His underlying strategy was that assumption of the debt would strengthen the federal government by giving creditors (generally citizens with power and wealth) an interest in preserving the institution that owed them money. Critics of the provision maintained that it was unfair because some states had already paid their war debts while others had not. Assumption became a hotly debated topic. In fact, the opposition's threat to defeat assumption gave rise to serious talk of failure of the nation's entire financial structure. Thomas Jefferson came to the rescue with an unlikely, but successful deal. The opposition would agree to assumption if Hamilton and the other Federalists would agree to locate the national capital on the Potomac River. Hamilton agreed. The Virginians now had the promise of a national capitol closer to their interests and further away from Hamilton's New York power base. And, all three of the central elements of Hamilton's plan were implemented. A Brilliant Strategy Hamilton's overall plan was to encourage wealthy citizens to reinvest their capital in the government and in enterprise, which would benefit them individually and the economy as a whole. He knew that the new nation needed the capital, stability, and political support of this wealthy class to ensure its own solvency, stability, and political functioning. In essence, he created a win-win situation for the rich and for the federal government.

The Constitution, 1776-1800

CONSTITUTION (1787) First page of the Constitution The "supreme law of the land," the U.S. Constitution was drafted by legislators in Phildelphia, Pennsylvania, between July and September 1787. The delegates had originally met to revise the Articles of Confederation but decided instead to discard the Articles and create an entirely new form of government. The delegates worked to achieve a delicate balance by establishing a government powerful enough to be effective but not oppressive. The resulting document establishes the country's republican principles, outlines the checks and balances between the three branches of government, and suggests the federalist relationship between the national and state governments. After New Hampshire ratified the document on June 21, 1788, the new form of government had the necessary support of three-fourths of the states to go into effect, which it did on July 2 of that year. The U.S. Constitution has remained at the center of American government ever since then. PREAMBLE We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ARTICLE I Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day. Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide. Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sunday excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill. Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay Duties in another. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. ARTICLE II Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like Manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice President. The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States. Section 4. The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. ARTICLE III Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. The Trial of all Crimes, except in cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. ARTICLE IV Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of all other States. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. ARTICLE V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VI All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws or any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. ARTICLE VII The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Constitutional Convention

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION During the spring and summer of 1787, fifty-five delegates representing twelve American states deliberated in a forty-by-forty foot room in the Philadelphia State House with windows closed to maintain secrecy in a meeting that became known as the Constitutional Convention. The delegates engaged in a wide-ranging, frank, civil, yet passionate and often eloquent debate on the future of American government, one that continued for nearly four months despite sometimes flaring tempers and legitimate fears that they would not reach agreement and that disunion or even civil war might follow. They concluded their work by recommending almost unanimously a proposed United States Constitution (today's Constitution without its amendments), a bold new framework for continental republican government designed to replace the Articles of Confederation. This outcome occurred even though the convention had nominally been summoned to consider amendments to the Articles, not to replace it. Even more remarkably, the convention proposed that the new Constitution become effective upon ratification by nine state conventions chosen by the people, ratification principles wholly inconsistent with the Articles. The convention achieved a quorum and began official business on 25 May 1787. In theory, it met pursuant to a 21 February 1787 resolution of the Continental Congress authorizing a meeting for the "sole and exclusive purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." Under that resolution, the proposed revisions were first to be agreed to by Congress and then confirmed by all thirteen states before becoming effective. In reality, before the resolution passed Congress, seven states had already chosen delegates, responding to a summons written by Alexander Hamilton and issued from an earlier convention held in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786. Other states were reluctant to attend a convention that might consider fundamental changes to the Articles of Confederation and insisted on congressional authorization for the convention and use of the Articles amendment rules before appointing their delegates. Only Rhode Island refused to send delegates. The political skirmishing over the convention reflected the fact that by 1786, the United States faced social and economic troubles at home and political and financial embarrassment abroad that had led many people to conclude that the Articles of Confederation were fundamentally flawed. By 1787 sharply differing and often radical proposals for major changes in American government had gained currency. Some Americans believed that the persistent inability of the Continental Congress to agree on important issues showed that the United States should be dissolved and split up into three or four separate confederacies. Some believed that no government powerful enough to govern a continent could avoid becoming tyrannical. A few Americans were so disturbed by events that they favored a return to monarchy. Prominent men like George Washington, who supported a strong national republican government for the United States, were disheartened by the weakness of Articles government, which they thought made the government a "jest." Washington prepared carefully for the convention, instructing supporters to find and propose a "radical cure" for government ills whether or not they thought the cure would be agreed to by the convention. Still other well-known men, like Samuel Adams, opposed any significant change in the loose alliance of states created by the Articles of Confederation. The convention was attended by a distinguished, socially prominent group of lawyers, planters, and merchants, men Thomas Jefferson later aptly called an assembly of "demigods." The delegates included forty-two men who had sat in the Continental Congress; at least thirty Revolutionary War veterans; sixteen past, present, or future state governors; two future presidents; one future vice president; and two future U.S. Supreme Court chief justices. Collectively, they possessed substantial political experience and great political talent. The convention has been called a "rally of nationalists," but delegates had very different political philosophies and represented states and regions with often sharply conflicting interests. Ten men are generally thought to be primarily responsible for the form of the Constitution: James Madison and Edmund Randolph of Virginia; Benjamin Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania; Rufus King of Massachusetts; John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina; and Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The convention opened by electing George Washington as its president. Washington's participation was essential to the convention's political success. He had agreed to attend very reluctantly, after first declining. At age fifty-five, he suffered from severe rheumatism and had tried to withdraw from public life, but he was determined to try to create a stronger government to prevent the collapse of the union and, against the advice of supporters, was willing to risk his reputation on the success of the convention, which many thought might fail to reach any agreement. The convention agreed to meet secretly, and it barred delegates from reporting its proceedings. Madison later claimed that the Constitution could not have been adopted without this secrecy that, among other things, allowed delegates to take positions which would be unpopular back home and to change their minds without political repercussions. INTRODUCTION OF THE VIRGINIA PLAN The convention debate began with Edmund Randolph's presentation of the Virginia Plan for the new Constitution. Based on proposals by Madison, the plan called for a bicameral national legislature with power to nullify state laws, a powerful executive, and exceptionally broad federal judicial powers. The new Constitution was to be ratified by assemblies chosen by the people in order to increase the Constitution's legitimacy and to prevent legislatures from blocking it. The plan was a complete nationalist overhaul of the Articles. The plan's national government proved too powerful for most delegates, but the plan provided the basic structure for the Constitution's separation of powers and dominated convention debate. (Charles Pinckney also submitted a plan, but it was not separately debated, though it may have been considered by the Committee of Detail.) THE STRUGGLE OVER REPRESENTATION During the first several weeks of debate on the Virginia Plan, it became clear that the most contentious issue was congressional representation. The plan called for proportional representation in both houses of the legislature (today's Congress) based either on "quotas of contributions" or the "number of free inhabitants," that is, wealth or population. Virginia and other large states led by Madison and Wilson vigorously supported the principle of proportional representation in Congress, while small states like Delaware and New Jersey supported the Articles' principle that each state should have an equal vote. This debate grew so heated that both sides threatened to leave the convention if their position was not adopted. Gunning Bedford Jr. of Delaware even threatened alliance with a foreign government if his state's position was rejected. On 11 June the convention approved proportional representation in the upper house (today's Senate) by a narrow vote and appeared ready to approve a modified Virginia Plan with proportional representation in both legislative houses. This action precipitated a small state revolt. On 15 June the small states introduced the New Jersey Plan, named after its sponsor, William Paterson of New Jersey. This plan, supported by delegates from several states, including Connecticut, New York, and Maryland, was a modification of the Articles of Confederation that expanded congressional powers to include limited taxation and commerce. It proposed a unicameral legislature with equal state votes, an extremely weak executive removable on application of a majority of state governors, and a supreme court with narrow powers. The Paterson Plan was voted down by a vote of of 7 to 3, a de facto rejection of the existing Confederation. Yet it was now apparent that the convention would not succeed unless it could come to an acceptable agreement on representation. Madison sought to persuade small states that it was unjust and unnecessary for them to have equal votes. He argued that the real division of interest between the states was one between the northern and southern states resulting from the economics of slavery, not one between large and small states. Madison's argument convinced important delegates that there was a division over slavery but failed to persuade others that small states did not need "security" through representation. On 16 July 1787 a special committee chaired by Roger Sherman of Connecticut reported a proposal, commonly called the Great (or Connecticut) Compromise, that called for population representation in the lower house using a formula that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, and equal state votes in the upper house. Adopted by 5 to 4, this compromise between popular representation and representation of state governments created the political basis for federalism. A similar compromise was employed in creating the electoral college. THE COMMERCE POWER AND SLAVERY Despite general agreement that the national government should have the power to control interstate and foreign commerce, delegates sharply disagreed over political control of that power. The "eastern" states (particularly New England) and the southern states had disagreed sharply over commercial issues, and many southern representatives wanted a regional veto over any national commerce power by means of a requirement that the power be exercised only upon a two-thirds vote of Congress. Several northern states had abolished (or begun the abolition of) slavery and slave imports by 1787. Northern states also urgently wanted national taxation powers, with direct taxes to be based on wealth. The convention recessed in late July to permit a Committee of Detail to produce a draft of the Constitution. Members of the five-man committee included James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, and John Rutledge of South Carolina. The committee's 6 August report included a detailed specification of the powers of Congress, including a two-thirds voting requirement for exercising a key commerce power, the power to control navigation (for example, requiring American southern goods to be exported in American northern ships). The committee also proposed to exempt exports from taxation and to permit unlimited imports of slaves. These committee recommendations caused a debate over slavery to erupt. Some northern delegates, like Gouverneur Morris, attacked the morality of slavery. Rufus King vigorously attacked the idea that slave imports would be permitted to continue without any tax revenues from exports produced using slave labor (which could be used to offset costs of slavery such as slave rebellions) while the South was also given expanded representation in the Congress using the "three-fifths" formula. Southern delegates generally defended slavery and slave imports, with the notable exception of George Mason, who made an impassioned, prophetic speech against both. Several northern delegates accepted slavery and continued imports of slaves as contributory to national wealth or as a necessary evil essential to reaching agreement on a new constitution. A committee appointed to look for a compromise then proposed that Congress be enabled to prohibit the importation of slaves after 1800. Remarkably, southern delegates then successfully sought an extension of that provision to 1808, supported by delegates from northern states that had already abolished slavery and slave imports. When southern delegates later sought to require that the commerce power be exercised only through a two-thirds vote of Congress, they were defeated by a coalition of northern and other southern delegates. Through this negotiation, each region got what it wanted most—the North got substantial control over the commerce power, since it would control Congress initially, while the South got the right to import slaves for twenty years. This was the second major compromise of the convention. The convention also agreed to protect slavery by requiring states to permit forcible return of fugitive slaves to their owners in other states (the fugitive slave clause). THE POWERS OF CONGRESS In addition to broad powers over taxation, commerce, and appropriations (the "power of the purse"), the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war and to raise national military forces. Separate authority was provided to use and control state militias to enforce federal laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. Unlike the Articles of Confederation, major national economic and military powers did not have to be exercised through the states, and such laws could be enforced directly against individuals rather than states. The elimination of the Articles' requirements for supermajority state consent to major national actions and for state implementation of federal laws are among the most fundamental departures from the Articles found in the Constitution. Congress also received power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" its other powers, a grant of implied authority that was to become the basis for important assertions of national power in later years. LIMITS ON STATE AUTHORITY At the urging of James Madison and others, the delegates agreed to place significant limits on state powers. The Constitution limited state economic power by providing that states could not emit bills of credit, make anything other than "gold or silver coin" legal tender for payment of debts, or pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts. States were prohibited from imposing taxes on imports or exports (except to cover administrative costs) and from entering into agreements or compacts with each other, or with foreign governments, without congressional consent. THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH Delegates had highly conflicting ideas about the executive branch. Some favored a weak presidency or a plural executive of several individuals; others favored a powerful president with a lengthy term and absolute veto over legislation. The Constitution's comparatively "energetic" (powerful) presidency was a compromise between these views. To avoid choosing between popular election of the president and election of the president by Congress or legislatures, the convention agreed that the president would be chosen by an electoral college whose membership formula would be weighted toward small states and whose members would be chosen by states using state election rules. The president was given a four-year term, with no limit on the number of terms, but was made impeachable for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," a standard that, combined with a requirement for a two-thirds vote to impeach, was intended to make impeachment a rarely used remedy. The president's powers included a strong veto that could be overridden only by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, a compromise between those who wanted to give the president an absolute veto and those who wanted the veto exercisable only together with the judiciary. The president was given "the power of the sword" as commander in chief. The president shared the treaty power and the power to appoint officers of the United States with the Senate. THE JUDICIARY AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS The Constitution contained only an outline of the judicial branch structure, including a description of the jurisdiction of the federal courts. It provided for lifetime tenure for judges, widely recognized as necessary to preserve judicial independence. The Constitution also provided that the Constitution and federal laws were supreme over state laws and constitutions, a provision that bound both state and federal judges. The absence of express constitutional provisions regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation—other than the federal jurisdiction and supremacy clauses, which many people regarded as sufficient authorization for such review—led to later disputes regarding the nature and limits of such review.

The Emergence of a Nation, 1789-1800

POLITICAL PARTIES EMERGE The framers of the U.S. Constitution made no provision for political parties. Indeed, many believed political parties, or factions, were a source of corruption and an impediment to the freedom of people to judge issues on their own merits. Hoping to avoid the divisiveness of partisan groups, the United States' first president, George Washington, made a conscious effort to accommodate diverse political philosophies and policies in his choice of Cabinet secretaries. However, as it turned out, Washington's Cabinet fostered the very divisiveness he sought to prevent. His secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government and soon became the leader of the Federalists, who eventually formed the Federalist Party. On the other hand, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson believed that the individual states should have more power and wanted all citizens to be given a voice in government. Jefferson aligned himself with others who believed in the supremacy of the states, including some Anti-Federalists, to create the Democratic-Republican Party. Despite his best efforts, before Washington's second term expired, party lines were drawn. 1796 Election John AdamsThe rival candidates for the 1796 presidential election included two Federalists, Vice President John Adams and former diplomatic representative to Great Britain Thomas Pinckney, and two Democratic-Republicans, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, a leader of a political machine in New York City called the Tammany Society. The final electoral vote count was Adams, 71; Jefferson, 68; Pinckney, 59; and Burr, 30. According to the provisions of the Constitution, Adams thus became president, and Jefferson became vice president. The 1796 election stands as the only time in U.S. history when the nation had a president from one party and a vice president from a different political party. (The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1804, called for electors to specify their votes for president and vice president in order to avoid such situations in the future.) Federalists The Federalist Party had its roots in the work of various groups that advocated the drafting and ratification of the federal Constitution at the end of the American Revolution. Early leaders in the movement included Hamilton, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. After 1781, the informally organized Federalists began to advocate for a stronger national government, a treasury that would play a vital role in the nation's economic life, and a pro-British foreign policy. The Federalists were primarily supported by merchants, manufacturers, and residents of urban New England. Democratic-Republicans Thomas JeffersonMany disagreed with the actions of the Federalists and determined that the best way to remove them from power was to form an opposing party. Led by Secretary of State Jefferson and fellow Virginian James Madison, they organized the Democratic-Republican Party. The Democratic-Republicans advocated a limited federal government, little government interference in economic affairs, and a pro-French foreign policy. The Democratic-Republicans' power base was among small farmers, producers, traders, and southern plantation owners. The party's major strength was in the rural and frontier areas. A Dominant Force By 1789, the Federalists had become a dominant force in the national government. Led by Hamilton, they settled the problems of the debts resulting from the revolution, achieved stronger relations with Great Britain by way of the Jay Treaty (1794), and attempted to silence their domestic critics with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It Was Inevitable Perhaps the formation of parties was inevitable. For example, while the framers of the Constitution provided for a division of legislative powers between the federal government and the state governments, it was impossible to anticipate every eventuality and specify the extent of the federal government's role as opposed to the extent of the individual states' roles. So, as differences of opinion arose, like minds grouped together to support a cause, and political parties began to thrive. Today, we continue to debate how the Constitution should be interpreted, and political parties continue to take different sides in the debate.

Report on Manufactures

ntroduction Alexander Hamilton's fiscal program had fostered an unprecedented prosperity for some segments of American business. The Bank of the United States, which centralized a large part of the nation's capital, had been instituted under the direction of the secretary of the treasury. The next question to be considered was the purpose for which the national wealth should be used. In January 1790, the government asked Hamilton to prepare a plan "for the encouragement and promotion of such manufactures as will tend to render the United States independent of other nations for essentials. ..." The nation's strong agrarian interests protested the growth of industry; thus a plan for increasing the growth of manufactures had to be a tactful and convincing argument. Economic experts who favored the development of industry, such as Tench Coxe, were asked to help prepare the necessary data for the report. The project resulted in the Report on Manufactures, presented by Hamilton to the House of Representatives on December 5, 1791. At the time it was issued, the Report aroused little enthusiasm. However, following the War of 1812, it came to be used as a source of arguments in favor of the protection of manufacturing without the interference of any government regulation. A portion of the the Report is reprinted here. The secretary of the treasury, in obedience to the order of the House of Representatives, of the 15th day of January, 1790, has applied his attention, at as early a period as his other duties would permit, to the subject of manufactures; and particularly to the means of promoting such as will tend to render the United States independent of foreign nations for military and other essential supplies; and he thereupon respectfully submits the following report. The expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States, which was not long since deemed very questionable, appears at this time to be pretty generally admitted. The embarrassments which have obstructed the progress of our external trade have led to serious reflections on the necessity of enlarging the sphere of our domestic commerce. The restrictive regulations which, in foreign markets, abridge the vent of the increasing surplus of our agricultural produce serve to beget an earnest desire that a more extensive demand for that surplus may be created at home; and the complete success which has rewarded manufacturing enterprise, in some valuable branches, conspiring with the promising symptoms which attend some less mature essays in others, justify a hope that the obstacles to the growth of this species of industry are less formidable than they were apprehended to be; and that it is not difficult to find, in its further extension, a full indemnification for any external disadvantages which are or may be experienced, as well as an accession of resources favorable to national independence and safety. There still are, nevertheless, respectable patrons of opinions unfriendly to the encouragement of manufactures. The following are, substantially, the arguments by which these opinions are defended: In every country (say those who entertain them), agriculture is the most beneficial and productive object of human industry. This position, generally if not universally true, applies with peculiar emphasis to the United States, on account of their immense tracts of fertile territory uninhabited and unimproved. Nothing can afford so advantageous an employment for capital and labor as the conversion of this extensive wilderness into cultivated farms. Nothing, equally with this, can contribute to the population, strength, and real riches of the country. To endeavor, by the extraordinary patronage of government, to accelerate the growth of manufactures is, in fact, to endeavor by force and art to transfer the natural current of industry from a more to a less beneficial channel. Whatever has such a tendency must necessarily be unwise; indeed, it can hardly ever be wise in a government to attempt to give a direction to the industry of its citizens. This, under the quick-sighted guidance of private interest, will, if left to itself, infallibly find its own way to the most profitable employment; and it is by such employment that the public prosperity will be most effectually promoted. To leave industry to itself, therefore, is in almost every case the soundest as well as the simplest policy. This policy is not only recommended to the United States by considerations which affect all nations; it is in a manner dictated to them by the imperious force of a very peculiar situation. The smallness of their population compared with their territory; the constant allurements to emigration from the settled to the unsettled parts of the country; the facility with which the less independent condition of an artisan can be exchanged for the more independent condition of a farmer — these, and similar causes, conspire to produce, and for a length of time must continue to occasion, a scarcity of hands for manufacturing occupation and dearness of labor generally. To these disadvantages for the prosecution of manufactures, a deficiency of pecuniary capital being added, the prospect of a successful competition with the manufactures of Europe must be regarded as little less than desperate. Extensive manufactures can only be the offspring of a redundant, at least of a full, population. Till the latter shall characterize the situation of this country, it is vain to hope for the former. If, contrary to the natural course of things, an unseasonable and premature spring can be given to certain fabrics by heavy duties, prohibitions, bounties, or by other forced expedients, this will only be to sacrifice the interests of the community to those of particular classes. Besides the misdirection of labor, a virtual monopoly will be given to the persons employed on such fabrics; and an enhancement of price, the inevitable consequence of every monopoly, must be defrayed at the expense of the other parts of the society. It is far preferable that those persons should be engaged in the cultivation of the earth; and that we should procure, in exchange for its productions, the commodities with which foreigners are able to supply us in greater perfection and upon better terms. ... In order to form an accurate judgment how far that which has been just stated ought to be deemed liable to a similar imputation, it is necessary to advert carefully to the considerations which plead in favor of manufactures, and which appear to recommend the special and positive encouragement of them in certain cases, and under certain reasonable limitations. It ought readily to be conceded that the cultivation of the earth, as the primary and most certain source of national supply, as the immediate and chief source of subsistence to man, as the principal source of those materials which constitute the nutriment of other kinds of labor, as including a state most favorable to the freedom and independence of the human mind — one, perhaps, most conducive to the multiplication of the human species — has intrinsically a strong claim to preeminence over every other kind of industry. But that it has a title to anything like an exclusive predilection, in any country, ought to be admitted with great caution; that it is even more productive than every other branch of industry requires more evidence than has yet been given in support of the position. That its real interests, precious and important as (without the help of exaggeration) they truly are, will be advanced rather than injured by the due encouragement of manufactures may, it is believed, be satisfactorily demonstrated. And it is also believed that the expediency of such encouragement, in a general view, may be shown to be recommended by the most cogent and persuasive motives of national policy. It has been maintained that agriculture is not only the most productive but the only productive species of industry. The reality of this suggestion, in either respect, has, however, not been verified by any accurate detail of facts and calculations; and the general arguments which are adduced to prove it are rather subtle and paradoxical than solid or convincing. Those which maintain its exclusive productiveness are to this effect: Labor bestowed upon the cultivation of land produces enough not only to replace all the necessary expenses incurred in the business and to maintain the persons who are employed in it but to afford, together with the ordinary profit on the stock or capital of the farmer, a net surplus or rent for the landlord or proprietor of the soil. But the labor of artificers does nothing more than replace the stock which employs them (or which furnished materials, tools, and wages), and yield the ordinary profit upon that stock. It yields nothing equivalent to the rent of the land; neither does it add anything to the total value of the whole annual produce of the land and labor of the country. The additional value given to those parts of the produce of land which are wrought into manufactures is counterbalanced by the value of those other parts of that produce which are consumed by the manufacturers. It can, therefore, only be by saving or parsimony, not by the positive productiveness of their labor, that the classes of artificers can, in any degree, augment the revenue of the society. To this it has been answered: That inasmuch as it is acknowledged that manufacturing labor reproduces a value equal to that which is expended or consumed in carrying it on, and continues in existence the original stock or capital employed, it ought, on that account alone, to escape being considered as wholly unproductive. That though it should be admitted, as alleged, that the consumption of the produce of the soil, by the classes of artificers or manufacturers, is exactly equal to the value added by their labor to the materials upon which it is exerted, yet it would not thence follow that it added nothing to the revenue of the society or to the aggregate value of the annual produce of its land and labor. If the consumption for any given period amounted to a given sum, and the increased value of the produce manufactured, in the same period, to a like sum, the total amount of the consumption and production, during that period, would be equal to the two sums, and consequently double the value of the agricultural produce consumed; and though the increment of value produced by the classes of artificers should at no time exceed the value of the produce of the land consumed by them, yet there would be, at every moment, in consequence of their labor, a greater value of goods in the market than would exist independent of it. That the position that artificers can augment the revenue of a society only by parsimony is true in no other sense than in one which is equally applicable to husbandmen or cultivators. It may be alike affirmed of all these classes that the fund acquired by their labor, and destined for their support, is not, in an ordinary way, more than equal to it. And hence it will follow that augmentation of the wealth or capital of the community (except in the instances of some extraordinary dexterity or skill) can only proceed, with respect to any of them, from the savings of the more thrifty and parsimonious. That the annual produce of the land and labor of a country can only be increased in two ways — by some improvement in the productive powers of the useful labor which actually exists within it, or by some increase in the quantity of such labor. That, with regard to the first; the labor of artificers being capable of greater subdivision and simplicity of operation than that of cultivators, it is susceptible, in a proportionably greater degree, of improvement in its productive powers, whether to be derived from an accession of skill or from the application of ingenious machinery; in which particular, therefore, the labor employed in the culture of land can pretend to no advantage over that engaged in manufactures. That, with regard to an augmentation of the quantity of useful labor, this, excluding adventitious circumstances, must depend essentially upon an increase of capital, which again must depend upon the savings made out of the revenues of those who furnish or manage that which is at any time employed, whether in agriculture or in manufactures, or in any other way. But while the exclusive productiveness of agricultural labor has been thus denied and refuted, the superiority of its productiveness has been conceded without hesitation. As this concession involves a point of considerable magnitude in relation to maxims of public administration, the grounds on which it rests are worthy of a distinct and particular examination. One of the arguments made use of in support of the idea may be pronounced both quaint and superficial. It amounts to this — that in the productions of the soil, nature cooperates with man; and that the effect of their joint labor must be greater than that of the labor of man alone. This, however, is far from being a necessary inference. It is very conceivable that the labor of man alone, laid out upon a work requiring great skill and art to bring it to perfection, may be more productive in value than the labor of nature and man combined, when directed toward more simple operations and objects; and when it is recollected to what an extent the agency of nature, in the application of the mechanical powers, is made auxiliary to the prosecution of manufactures, the suggestion which has been noticed loses even the appearance of plausibility. It might also be observed, with a contrary view, that the labor employed in agriculture is, in a great measure, periodical and occasional, depending on seasons, and liable to various and long intermissions; while that occupied in many manufacturers is constant and regular, extending through the year, embracing, in some instances, night as well as day. It is also probable that there are among the cultivators of land more examples of remissness than among artificers. The farmer, from the peculiar fertility of his land, or some other favorable circumstance, may frequently obtain a livelihood even with a considerable degree of carelessness in the mode of cultivation; but the artisan can with difficulty effect the same object, without exerting himself pretty equally with all those who are engaged in the same pursuit. And if it may likewise be assumed as a fact that manufactures open a wider field to exertions of ingenuity than agriculture, it would not be a strained conjecture that the labor employed in the former, being at once more constant, more uniform, and more ingenious than that which is employed in the latter, will be found, at the same time, more productive. ... Another, and that which seems to be the principal argument offered for the superior productiveness of agricultural labor, turns upon the allegation that labor employed on manufactures yields nothing equivalent to the rent of land; or to that net surplus, as it is called, which accrues to the proprietor of the soil. But this distinction, important as it has been deemed, appears rather verbal than substantial. It is easily discernible, that what, in the first instance, is divided into two parts, under the denominations of the ordinary profit of the stock of the farmer and rent to the landlord, is, in the second instance, united under the general appellation of the ordinary profit on the stock of the undertaker; and that this formal or verbal distribution constitutes the whole difference in the two cases. It seems to have been overlooked that the land is itself a stock or capital, advanced or lent by its owner to the occupier or tenant, and that the rent he receives is only the ordinary profit of a certain stock in land, not managed by the proprietor himself but by another, to whom he lends or lets it, and who, on his part, advances a second capital, to stock and improve the land, upon which he also receives the usual profit. The rent of the landlord and the profit of the farmer are, therefore, nothing more than the ordinary profits of two capitals belonging to two different persons, and united in the cultivation of a farm; as, in the other case, the surplus which arises upon any manufactory, after replacing the expenses of carrying it on, answers to the ordinary profits of one or more capitals engaged in the prosecution of such manufactory. It is said one or more capitals, because, in fact, the same thing which is contemplated in the case of the farm sometimes happens in that of a manufactory. There is one, who furnishes a part of the capital or lends a part of the money by which it is carried on, and another, who carries it on with the addition of his own capital. Out of the surplus which remains after defraying expenses, an interest is paid to the moneylender, for the portion of the capital furnished by him, which exactly agrees with the rent paid to the landlord; and the residue of that surplus constitutes the profit of the undertaker or manufacturer, and agrees with what is denominated the ordinary profits on the stock of the farmer. Both together make the ordinary profits of two capitals employed in a manufactory; as, in the other case, the rent of the landlord and the revenue of the farmer compose the ordinary profits of two capitals employed in the cultivation of a farm. The rent, therefore, accruing to the proprietor of the land, far from being a criterion of exclusive productiveness as has been argued, is no criterion even of superior productiveness. The question must still be, whether the surplus, after defraying expenses of a given capital employed in the purchase and improvement of a piece of land, is greater or less than that of a like capital, employed in the prosecution of a manufactory; or whether the whole value produced from a given capital and a given quantity of labor, employed in one way, be greater or less than the whole value produced from an equal capital and an equal quantity of labor, employed in the other way; or rather, perhaps, whether the business of agriculture, or that of manufactures, will yield the greatest product, according to a compound ratio of the quantity of the capital and the quantity of labor, which are employed in the one or in the other. ... It is extremely probable that on a full and accurate development of the matter, on the ground of fact and calculation, it would be discovered that there is no material difference between the aggregate productiveness of the one and of the other kind of industry; and that the propriety of the encouragements which may, in any case, be proposed to be given to either ought to be determined upon considerations irrelative to any comparison of that nature. ... It is now proper to proceed a step further and to enumerate the principal circumstances from which it may be inferred that manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of the society but that they contribute essentially to rendering them greater than they could possibly be without such establishments. These circumstances are: The division of labor. An extension of the use of machinery. Additional employment to classes of the community not ordinarily engaged in the business. The promoting of emigration from foreign countries. The furnishing greater scope for the diversity of talents and dispositions, which discriminate men from each other. The affording a more ample and various field for enterprise. The creating, in some instances, a new, and securing, in all, a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of the soil. Each of these circumstances has a considerable influence upon the total mass of industrious effort in a community; together, they add to it a degree of energy and effect which is not easily conceived. Some comments upon each of them, in the order in which they have been stated, may serve to explain their importance. 1. As To The Division Of Labor It has justly been observed that there is scarcely anything of greater moment in the economy of a nation than the proper division of labor. The separation of occupations causes each to be carried to a much greater perfection than it could possibly acquire if they were blended. This arises principally from three circumstances. First, the greater skill and dexterity naturally resulting from a constant and undivided application to a single object. It is evident that these properties must increase in proportion to the separation and simplification of objects, and the steadiness of the attention devoted to each; and must be less in proportion to the complication of objects, and the number among which the attention is distracted. Second, the economy of time, by avoiding the loss of it, incident to a frequent transition from one operation to another of a different nature. This depends on various circumstances: the transition itself; the orderly disposition of the implements, machines, and materials employed in the operation to be relinquished; the preparatory steps to the commencement of a new one; the interruption of the impulse which the mind of the workman acquires from being engaged in a particular operation; the distractions, hesitations, and reluctances which attend the passage from one kind of business to another. Third, an extension of the use of machinery. A man occupied on a single object will have it more in his power, and will be more naturally led to exert his imagination in devising methods to facilitate and abridge labor, than if he were perplexed by a variety of independent and dissimilar operations. Besides this, the fabrication of machines, in numerous instances, becoming itself a distinct trade, the artist who follows it has all the advantages which have been enumerated for improvement in his particular art; and, in both ways, the invention and application of machinery are extended. And, from these causes united, the mere separation of the occupation of the cultivator from that of the artificer has the effect of augmenting the productive powers of labor and, with them, the total mass of the produce or revenue of a country. In this single view of the subject, therefore, the utility of artificers or manufacturers toward promoting an increase of productive industry is apparent. 2. As To An Extension Of The Use Of Machinery; A Point Which, Though Partly Anticipated, Requires To Be Placed In One Or Two Additional Lights The employment of machinery forms an item of great importance in the general mass of national industry. It is an artificial force brought in aid of the natural force of man; and, to all the purposes of labor, is an increase of hands — an accession of strength, unencumbered, too, by the expense of maintaining the laborer. May it not, therefore, be fairly inferred that those occupations which give greatest scope to the use of this auxiliary contribute most to the general stock of industrious effort and, in consequence, to the general product of industry? It shall be taken for granted, and the truth of the position referred to observation, that manufacturing pursuits are susceptible in a greater degree of the application of machinery than those of agriculture. If so, all the difference is lost to a community which, instead of manufacturing for itself, procures the fabrics requisite to its supply from other countries. The substitution of foreign for domestic manufactures is a transfer to foreign nations of the advantages accruing from the employment of machinery in the modes in which it is capable of being employed with most utility and to the greatest extent. The cotton mill, invented in England within the last twenty years, is a signal illustration of the general proposition which has just been advanced. In consequence of it, all the different processes for spinning cotton are performed by means of machines which are put in motion by water, and attended chiefly by women and children; and by a smaller number of persons, in the whole, than are requisite in the ordinary mode of spinning. And it is an advantage of great moment that the operations of this mill continue, with convenience, during the night as well as through the day. The prodigious effect of such a machine is easily conceived. To this invention is to be attributed, essentially, the immense progress which has been so suddenly made in Great Britain in the various fabrics of cotton. 3. As To The Additional Employment Of Classes Of The Community Not Originally Engaged In The Particular Business This is not among the least valuable of the means by which manufacturing institutions contribute to augment the general stock of industry and production. In places where those institutions prevail, besides the persons regularly engaged in them, they afford occasional and extra employment to industrious individuals and families who are willing to devote the leisure resulting from the intermissions of their ordinary pursuits to collateral labors, as a resource for multiplying their acquisitions or their enjoyments. The husbandman himself experiences a new source of profit and support from the increased industry of his wife and daughters, invited and stimulated by the demands of the neighboring manufactories. Besides this advantage of occasional employment to classes having different occupations, there is another, of a nature allied to it, and of a similar tendency. This is the employment of persons who would otherwise be idle and, in many cases, a burden on the community, either from the bias of temper, habit, infirmity of body, or some other cause indisposing or disqualifying them for the toils of the country. It is worthy of particular remark that, in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the latter more early useful, by manufacturing establishments, than they would otherwise be. Of the number of persons employed in the cotton manufactories of Great Britain, it is computed that four-sevenths, nearly, are women and children; of whom the greatest proportion are children, and many of them of a tender age. And thus it appears to be one of the attributes of manufactures, and one of no small consequence, to give occasion to the exertion of a greater quantity of industry, even by the same number of persons, where they happen to prevail, than would exist if there were no such establishments. 4. As To The Promoting Of Emigration From Foreign Countries Men reluctantly quit one course of occupation and livelihood for another unless invited to it by very apparent and proximate advantages. Many who would go from one country to another, if they had a prospect of continuing with more benefit the callings to which they have been educated, will often not be tempted to change their situation by the hope of doing better in some other way. Manufacturers who, listening to the powerful invitations of a better price for their fabrics or their labor; of greater cheapness of provisions and raw materials; of an exemption from the chief part of the taxes, burdens, and restraints which they endure in the Old World; of greater personal independence and consequence under the operation of a more equal government; and of what is far more precious than mere religious toleration — a perfect equality of religious privileges — would probably flock from Europe to the United States to pursue their own trades or professions if they were once made sensible of the advantages they would enjoy, and were inspired with an assurance of encouragement and employment, will, with difficulty, be induced to transplant themselves with a view to becoming cultivators of land. If it be true, then, that it is the interest of the United States to open every possible avenue to emigration from abroad, it affords a weighty argument for the encouragement of manufactures; which, for the reasons just assigned, will have the strongest tendency to multiply the inducements to it. Here is perceived an important resource, not only for extending the population and, with it, the useful and productive labor of the country but likewise for the prosecution of manufactures, without deducting from the number of hands which might otherwise be drawn to tillage; and even for the indemnification of agriculture, for such as might happen to be diverted from it. Many, whom manufacturing views would induce to emigrate, would afterward yield to the temptations which the particular situation of this country holds out to agricultural pursuits; and while agriculture would, in other respects, derive many signal and unmingled advantages from the growth of manufactures, it is a problem whether it would gain or lose, as to the article of the number of persons employed in carrying it on. 5. As To The Furnishing Greater Scope For The Diversity Of Talents And Dispositions Which Discriminate Men From Each Other This is a much more powerful means of augmenting the fund of national industry than may at first sight appear. It is a just observation that minds of the strongest and most active powers for their proper objects fall below mediocrity and labor without effect if confined to uncongenial pursuits; and it is thence to be inferred that the results of human exertion may be immensely increased by diversifying its objects. When all the different kinds of industry obtain in a community, each individual can find his proper element and can call into activity the whole vigor of his nature; and the community is benefited by the services of its respective members in the manner in which each can serve it with most effect. If there be anything in a remark often to be met with, namely, that there is in the genius of the people of this country a peculiar aptitude for mechanic improvements, it would operate as a forcible reason for giving opportunities to the exercise of that species of talent by the propagation of manufactures. 6. As To The Affording A More Ample And Various Field For Enterprise This also is of greater consequence in the general scale of national exertion than might perhaps on a superficial view be supposed, and has effects not altogether dissimilar from those of the circumstance last noticed. To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind by multiplying the objects of enterprise is not among the least considerable of the expedients by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted. Even things in themselves not positively advantageous sometimes become so by their tendency to provoke exertion. Every new scene which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort. The spirit of enterprise, useful and prolific as it is, must necessarily be contracted or expanded in proportion to the simplicity or variety of the occupations and productions which are to be found in a society. It must be less in a nation of mere cultivators than in a nation of cultivators and merchants; less in a nation of cultivators and merchants than in a nation of cultivators, artificers, and merchants. 7. As To The Creating, In Some Instances, A New, And Securing, In All, A More Certain And Steady Demand For The Surplus Produce Of The Soil This is among the most important of the circumstances which have been indicated. It is a principal means by which the establishment of manufactures contributes to an augmentation of the produce or revenue of a country and has an immediate and direct relation to the prosperity of agriculture. It is evident that the exertions of the husbandman will be steady or fluctuating, vigorous or feeble, in proportion to the steadiness or fluctuation, adequateness or inadequateness, of the markets on which he must depend for the vent of the surplus which may be produced by his labor; and that such surplus, in the ordinary course of things, will be greater or less in the same proportion. For the purpose of this vent, a domestic market is greatly to be preferred to a foreign one; because it is, in the nature of things, far more to be relied upon. It is a primary object of the policy of nations to be able to supply themselves with subsistence from their own soils; and manufacturing nations, as far as circumstances permit, endeavor to procure from the same source the raw materials necessary for their own fabrics. This disposition, urged by the spirit of monopoly, is sometimes even carried to an injudicious extreme. It seems not always to be recollected that nations who have neither mines nor manufactures can only obtain the manufactured articles of which they stand in need by an exchange of the products of their soils; and that if those who can best furnish them with such articles are unwilling to give a due course to this exchange, they must, of necessity, make every possible effort to manufacture for themselves; the effect of which is that the manufacturing nations abridge the natural advantages of their situation through an unwillingness to permit the agricultural countries to enjoy the advantages of theirs, and sacrifice the interests of a mutually beneficial intercourse to the vain project of selling everything and buying nothing. But it is also a consequence of the policy which has been noted that the foreign demand for the products of agricultural countries is, in a great degree, rather casual and occasional than certain or constant. To what extent injurious interruptions of the demand for some of the staple commodities of the United States may have been experienced from that cause must be referred to the judgment of those who are engaged in carrying on the commerce of the country; but it may be safely affirmed that such interruptions are at times very inconveniently felt, and that cases not unfrequently occur in which markets are so confined and restricted as to render the demand very unequal to the supply. Independently, likewise, of the artificial impediments which are created by the policy in question, there are natural causes tending to render the external demand for the surplus of agricultural nations a precarious reliance. The differences of seasons in the countries which are the consumers make immense differences in the produce of their own soils in different years and, consequently, in the degrees of their necessity for foreign supply. Plentiful harvests with them, especially if similar ones occur at the same time in the countries which are the furnishers, occasion, of course, a glut in the markets of the latter. Considering how fast and how much the progress of new settlements in the United States must increase the surplus produce of the soil, and weighing seriously the tendency of the system which prevails among most of the commercial nations of Europe; whatever dependence may be placed on the force of natural circumstances to counteract the effects of an artificial policy, there appear strong reasons to regard the foreign demand for that surplus as too uncertain a reliance and to desire a substitute for it in an extensive domestic market. To secure such a market there is no other expedient than to promote manufacturing establishments. Manufacturers, who constitute the most numerous class after the cultivators of land, are for that reason the principal consumers of the surplus of their labor. This idea of an extensive domestic market for the surplus produce of the soil is of the first consequence. It is, of all things, that which most effectually conduces to a flourishing state of agriculture. If the effect of manufactories should be to detach a portion of the hands which would otherwise be engaged in tillage, it might possibly cause a smaller quantity of lands to be under cultivation; but by their tendency to procure a more certain demand for the surplus produce of the soil, they would, at the same time, cause the lands which were in cultivation to be better improved and more productive. And while, by their influence, the condition of each individual farmer would be meliorated, the total mass of agricultural production would probably be increased; for this must evidently depend as much upon the degree of improvement (if not more) as upon the number of acres under culture. It merits particular observation that the multiplication of manufactories not only furnishes a market for those articles which have been accustomed to be produced in abundance in a country but it likewise creates a demand for such as were either unknown or produced in inconsiderable quantities. The bowels as well as the surface of the earth are ransacked for articles which were before neglected. Animals, plants, and minerals acquire a utility and value which were before unexplored. The foregoing considerations seem sufficient to establish, as general propositions, that it is the interest of nations to diversify the industrious pursuits of the individuals who compose them; that the establishment of manufactures is calculated not only to increase the general stock of useful and productive labor but even to improve the state of agriculture in particular; certainly to advance the interests of those who are engaged in it. ... It may be observed (and the idea is of no inconsiderable weight) that, however true it might be, a state which, possessing large tracts of vacant and fertile territory, was at the same time secluded from foreign commerce, would find its interest and the interest of agriculture in diverting a part of its population from tillage to manufactures; yet it will not follow that the same is true of a state which, having such vacant and fertile territory, has at the same time ample opportunity of procuring from abroad, on good terms, all the fabrics of which it stands in need for the supply of its inhabitants. The power of doing this at least secures the great advantage of a division of labor, leaving the farmer free to pursue, exclusively, the culture of his land, and enabling him to procure with its products the manufactured supplies requisite either to his wants or to his enjoyments. And though it should be true that in settled countries the diversification of industry is conducive to an increase in the productive powers of labor and to an augmentation of revenue and capital, yet it is scarcely conceivable that there can be anything of so solid and permanent advantage to an uncultivated and unpeopled country as to convert its wastes into cultivated and inhabited districts. If the revenue, in the meantime, should be less, the capital, in the event, must be greater. ... If Europe will not take from us the products of our soil upon terms consistent with our interest, the natural remedy is to contract, as fast as possible, our wants of her. Second, the conversion of their waste into cultivated lands is certainly a point of great moment in the political calculations of the United States. But the degree in which this may possibly be retarded, by the encouragement of manufactories, does not appear to countervail the powerful inducements to afford that encouragement. An observation, made in another place, is of a nature to have great influence upon this question. If it cannot be denied that the interests, even of agriculture, may be advanced more by having such of the lands of a state as are occupied, under good cultivation, than by having a greater quantity occupied under a much inferior cultivation; and if manufactories, for the reasons assigned, must be admitted to have a tendency to promote a more steady and vigorous cultivation of the lands occupied than would happen without them, it will follow that they are capable of indemnifying a country for a diminution of the progress of new settlements; and may serve to increase both the capital value and the income of its lands, even though they should abridge the number of acres under tillage. But it does by no means follow that the progress of new settlements would be retarded by the extension of manufactures. The desire of being an independent proprietor of land is founded on such strong principles in the human breast that, where the opportunity of becoming so is as great as it is in the United States, the proportion will be small of those (whose situations would otherwise lead to it) who would be diverted from it toward manufactures. And it is highly probable, as already intimated, that the accessions of foreigners who, originally drawn over by manufacturing views, would afterward abandon them for agricultural, would be more than an equivalent for those of our own citizens who might happen to be detached from them. The remaining objections to a particular encouragement of manufactures in the United States now require to be examined. One of these turns on the proposition that industry, if left to itself, will naturally find its way to the most useful and profitable employment. Whence it is inferred that manufactures, without the aid of government, will grow up as soon and as fast as the natural state of things and the interest of the community may require. Against the solidity of this hypothesis, in the full latitude of the terms, very cogent reasons may be offered. These have relation to the strong influence of habit and the spirit of imitation; the fear of want of success in untried enterprises; the intrinsic difficulties incident to first essays toward a competition with those who have previously attained to perfection in the business to be attempted; the bounties, premiums, and other artificial encouragements with which foreign nations second the exertions of their own citizens in the branches in which they are to be rivaled. ... There remains to be noticed an objection to the encouragement of manufactures, of a nature different from those which question the probability of success. This is derived from its supposed tendency to give a monopoly of advantages to particular classes, at the expense of the rest of the community, who, it is affirmed, would be able to procure the requisite supplies of manufactured articles on better terms from foreigners than from our own citizens; and who, it is alleged, are reduced to necessity of paying an enhanced price for whatever they want, by every measure which obstructs the free competition of foreign commodities. It is not an unreasonable supposition that measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign articles have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices; and it is not to be denied that such is the effect, in a number of cases; but the fact does not uniformly correspond with the theory. A reduction of prices has, in several instances, immediately succeeded the establishment of a domestic manufacture. Whether it be that foreign manufacturers endeavor to supplant, by underselling our own, or whatever else be the cause, the effect has been such as is stated, and the reverse of what might have been expected. But, though it were true that the immediate and certain effect of regulations controlling the competition of foreign with domestic fabrics was an increase of price, it is universally true that the contrary is the ultimate effect with every successful manufacture. When a domestic manufacture has attained to perfection, and has engaged in the prosecution of it a competent number of persons, it invariably becomes cheaper. Being free from the heavy charges which attend the importation of foreign commodities, it can be afforded, and accordingly seldom never fails to be sold cheaper, in process of time, than was the foreign article for which it is a substitute. The internal competition which takes place soon does away everything like monopoly, and by degrees reduces the price of the article to the minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital employed. This accords with the reason of the thing, and with experience. Whence it follows, that it is the interest of a community, with a view to eventual and permanent economy, to encourage the growth of manufactures. In a national view, a temporary enhancement of price must always be well compensated by a permanent reduction of it. ... There seems to be a moral certainty that the trade of a country which is both manufacturing and agricultural will be more lucrative and prosperous than that of a country which is merely agricultural. One reason for this is found in that general effort of nations ... to procure from their own soils the articles of prime necessity requisite to their own consumption and use, and which serves to render their demand for a foreign supply of such articles, in a great degree, occasional and contingent. ... Another circumstance, which gives a superiority of commercial advantages to states that manufacture as well as cultivate, consists in the more numerous attractions which a more diversified market offers to foreign customers, and in the greater scope which it affords to mercantile enterprise. ... A third circumstance, perhaps not inferior to either of the other two ... has relation to the stagnations of demand for certain commodities, which, at some time or other, interfere more or less with the sale of all. The nation which can bring to market but few articles is likely to be more quickly and sensibly affected by such stagnations than one which is always possessed of a great variety of commodities; the former frequently finds too great a proportion of its stock of materials for sale or exchange lying on hand, or is obliged to make injurious sacrifices to supply its wants of foreign articles, which are numerous and urgent, in proportion to the smallness of the number of its own. The latter commonly finds itself indemnified by the high prices of some articles for the low prices of others; and the prompt and advantageous sale of those articles which are in demand enables its merchants the better to wait for a favorable change in respect to those which are not. There is ground to believe that a difference of situation, in this particular, has immensely different effects upon the wealth and prosperity of nations. From these circumstances, collectively, two important inferences are to be drawn: one, that there is always a higher probability of a favorable balance of trade in regard to countries in which manufactures founded on the basis of a thriving agriculture flourish than in regard to those which are confined wholly, or almost wholly, to agriculture; the other (which is also a consequence of the first), that countries of the former description are likely to possess more pecuniary wealth, or money, than those of the latter. ... It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion that, though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The Northern and Southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse interests in this respect. Those are called manufacturing, these agricultural states; and a species of opposition is imagined to subsist between the manufacturing and agricultural interests. ... Ideas of a contrariety of interests between the Northern and Southern regions of the Union, are, in the main, as unfounded as they are mischievous. The diversity of circumstances on which such contrariety is usually predicated authorizes a directly contrary conclusion. Mutual wants constitute one of the strongest links of political connection; and the extent of these bears a natural proportion to the diversity in the means of mutual supply. Suggestions of an opposite complexion are ever to be deplored as unfriendly to the steady pursuit of one great common cause and to the perfect harmony of all the parts. In proportion as the mind is accustomed to trace the intimate connection of interest which subsists between all the parts of a society, united under the same government, the infinite variety of channels will serve to circulate the prosperity of each, to and through the rest — in that proportion will it be little apt to be disturbed by solicitudes and apprehensions, which originate in local discriminations. It is a truth, as important as it is agreeable, and one to which it is not easy to imagine exceptions, that everything tending to establish substantial and permanent order in the affairs of a country, to increase the total mass of industry and opulence, is ultimately beneficial to every part of it. On the credit of this great truth, an acquiescence may safely be accorded, from every quarter, to all institutions and arrangements which promise a confirmation of public order and an augmentation of national resource. But there are more particular considerations which serve to fortify the idea that the encouragement of manufactures is the interest of all parts of the Union. If the Northern and Middle states should be the principal scenes of such establishments, they would immediately benefit the more southern, by creating a demand for productions, some of which they have in common with the other states, and others, which are either peculiar to them, or more abundant, or of better quality, than elsewhere. ... If, then, it satisfactorily appears that it is the interest of the United States, generally, to encourage manufactures, it merits particular attention that there are circumstances which render the present a critical moment for entering, with zeal, upon the important business. The effort cannot fail to be materially seconded by a considerable and increasing influx of money, in consequence of foreign speculations in the funds, and by the disorders which exist in different parts of Europe.