Five letters, addressed to the yeomanry of the United States: containing some observations on the dangerous scheme of Governor Duer and Mr. Secretary Hamilton, to establish national manufactories. / By a farmer.

Five letters, addressed to the yeomanry of the United States: containing some observations on the dangerous scheme of Governor Duer and Mr. Secretary Hamilton, to establish national manufactories. / By a farmer.

Table of contents

Title page

FIVE LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO THE YEOMANRY of the UNITED STATES.

LETTER I.

LETTER II.

LETTER III.

LETTER IV.

LETTER V.

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FIVE LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO THE YEOMANRY OF THE UNITED STATES:

Containing some Observations on the dangerous scheme of Governor DUER and Mr. Secretary HAMILTON, to establish National Manufactories.

BY A FARMER.

PHILADELPHIA: Printed by ELEAZER OSWALD, No. 156, Market-street, between Fourth and Fifth-streets.

M,DCC,XCII.

FIVE LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO THE YEOMANRY of the UNITED STATES.

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LETTER I.

AS long as the States of America continue united under the present form of government, the PEOPLE will have to lament the want of a Bill of Rights, which would clearly and unequivocally dictate to the Legislature its duty, and to the People their rights.

It is said that the principle which pervades the Constitution of the United States, is, that the supreme power resides in the People, and that the Constitution itself opens with a recognition of this principle—that it is a compact entered into by Freemen, to support and protect the rights of each other, and therefore there is no occasion for a declaration of rights to be prefixed to the form of government—that the People, by whom it was ordained and established, retain all powers not expressly given up, and that the citizens of the United States may always say, "We reserve the right to do what we please."

In a small virtuous Commonwealth, where the offices of the government would be esteemed honorable, but not lucrative, and where every citizen would not only be eligible to a seat in the Legislature, but which, [Page] by a strict rotation, he would be obliged, occasionally, to occupy. Under a pure democracy of this kind, a declaration of the rights of the People might not be absolutely necessary: But a government of the extent and in the situation of the United States, being destitute of a clear explicit declaration of the rights of the People, the honor of serving the state, and of being useful to its citizens, will give place to the most sordid views of private emolument, and laws which should be made to promote the general welfare, will be perverted to serve the ambition and avarice of the few. Ambassadorships, and places of profit will be created for the well born; palaces will be erected, and we shall be told that it is for the honor of government that all its officers and their dependants should be supported in a style of ostentation, parade and luxury, however oppressive and injurious to their fellow citizens: Two parties will exist, the one enjoying every comfort of life without labor—the other languishing in penury, submitting to every insult and injury: And the people, unprotected by an explicit declaration of their rights, ambitious men will, by artifice and sophistry, explain away every principle of the government, in order to render it subservient to their own private purposes.

No people ever experienced a more complete destruction of their liberties by the encroachments of government than the French—Few people witnessed a Court of greater pomp, parade and expence. To preserve their country for the future from such calamities, that wise and enlightened people thought it necessary to adopt a declaration of the Rights of Man, as the basis on which their new Constitution was to stand. The declaratory exordium which prefaces the declaration merits attention.

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Declaration of the Rights of Men and of Citizens.

By the National Assembly of France.

—"THE Representatives of the People of France, formed into a National Assembly, considering that ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights, are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of Government, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn declaration, these natural, imprescriptible and unaleinable rights: That this declaration being constantly present to the minds of the members of the body social, they may be ever kept attentive to their rights and duties; that the acts of the legislative and executive powers of Government, being capable of being every moment compared with the end of political institutions, may be more respected; and also that the future claims of the citizens, being directed by simple and incontestible principles, may also tend to the maintenance of the Constitution, and the general happiness—For these reasons the National Assembly doth recognize and declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being, and with the hope of his blessing and favor, the following sacred Rights of Men and of Citizens.—

1. Men are born and always continue free, and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility.

2. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.

3. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty, nor can any individual, or any body of men, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it.

[Page] 4. Political liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. The exercise of the natural rights of every man has no other limits than those which are necessary to secure to every other man, the free exercise of the same rights, and these limits are determinable only by the law.

5. The law ought to prohibit only actions hurtful to society. What is not prohibited by the law should not be hindered; nor should any one be compelled to that which the law does not require.

That highly enlightened people have prefixed a Bill of Rights to their form of government, not as being applicable to their own situation alone, but as constituting the foundation of every just government.

Had the Constitution of the United States a foundation equally firm and equitable, we should not at this day witness the laws of the Union stained with,

1st. Mercantile regulations, impolitic in themselves, and highly injurious to the agricultural interests of our country.

2. With funding systems, by which the property and rights of poor but meritorious citizens are sacrificed to wealthy gamesters and speculators.

3. With the establishment of Banks, authorising a few men to create a fictitious money, by which they may acquire rapid fortunes without industry.

4. With Excise Laws, which violate the tranquility of domestic retirement, and which prevent the Farmer from enjoying the fruits of his care and industry.

[Page] However ambitious men may disguise the fundamental principles of civil society, by the arts of low cunning and sophistry, yet the social compact amongst freemen, establishes such an equality, that every citizen lays himself under the same obligations, and ought all to enjoy the same privileges. Thus, from the very nature of this compact, every act of the Government should be equally favorable to all the citizens without distinction; it should know the whole body of the nation, but distinguish none of the individuals who compose it,—What then is a legal government? It is not an agreement made between a superior and an inferior, but a convention between a whole body with each of its members, which convention is a lawful one, because founded on the Rights of Man—it is equitable because it is common to all—it is useful because it can have no other object than the general good—and it is solid and durable because secured by the voice of the People.

Such a government will protect and defend, with its whole force, the person and property of every one of its members, and every individual citizen, by uniting himself to the whole, will, nevertheless, be obedient only to himself, and will remain fully at liberty to every thing but injury.

The intention for which a man resigns any portion of his natural sovereignty over his own actions is, that he may be protected from the abuse of the same dominion in other men. No greater sacrifice is therefore necessary than is prescribed by this object. Nothing can be more fallacious than to pretend that we are precluded in the social state from any appeal to natural rights.—They remain in their full vigor, if we except that small portion of them which men sacrifice [Page] for protection against each other. Whenever a Government assumes more power than this object rigorously prescribes, it becomes an usurpation supported by sophistry—a despotism varnished by illusion.

If life be a bounty from Heaven, we reject the noblest part of the gift if we tamely surrender our natural and unalienable rights, without which the condition of human nature is not only miserable but contemptible. To preserve them inviolate, free citizens should always be armed with force and constancy, and should repeat every day the saying of the virtuous Palatine—Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum fervitium.

LETTER II.

HAPPY for mankind the present inquiry in the philosophical world is not the mechanism of the universe, or the composition of its elements, but the principles of civil society. The prodigious advantages which France has already derived from these inquiries, and the alterations which are daily taking place in other parts of Europe in favor of the Rights of Man, should have some influence on the measures of the general government of the United States, which are tending, in an alarming degree, to undermine the liberties of our country—to strip the farmer, the mechanic, the manufacturer, and useful laborer, of all influence and of all importance—to consign them to contempt, or at best, to the sad privilege of murmuring without redress.

[Page] The world has been sufficiently flooded with the blood of its inhabitants,—And free citizens, under the sanction of law, have been to often reduced to misery and wretchedness.

In this enlightened age let American rulers beware how they proceed—Whatever may be the opinion of those characters living upon the spoils of their fellow-citizens, or basking in the sunshine of Court favor, they will find a spirit of resistance in the People which will not submit to be oppressed, and a fund of good sense which cannot be deceived by the arts of false reasoning or false patriotism.

Governments are tranquil when they are adapted to the ideas and lights of the age: But whenever their regulations become unsuitable to the ideas of the times, and contrary to the opinion of the People, the rulers should look into their conduct, and remove every reason of complaint. All attempts to support unjust measures in this country, where the people, as yet, have so much power, are absurd, and must ultimately be unsuccessful: justice will finally take place in spite of all efforts to suppress it.

The same spirit of arbitrary power, which during the last year violated the rights of the great body of yeomanry, by an Excise Law, now proposes to interfere in the occupations of the mechanic and manufacturer. A government may waste the public money in erecting palaces, statues, &c. the evil is but temporary, but when it assumes principles injurious to the rights of the people, and by arbitrary laws interferes in the occupations of its citizens, liberty is but a name. The theory of such a government is falsehood and mockery—the practise is oppression.

[Page] Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, vol. ii, p. 86, observes, that to prohibit a great people from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or of employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind.

It may be thought improper at this early period to offer any observations on the justice or wisdom of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury on manufactures. It is true, we might have waited for the deliberations and conclusion of Congress on the subject: but Congress, having adopted a new method of legislating, by refering the most important business of the country to the different Secretaries, and adopting their reports, experience justifies a belief, that the principles of this report will also be adopted, and will come forward under the sanction of the Legislature in the form of a law. The Secretary of the Treasury, and his friends in New-York, have already prepared the way, by procuring one of the most unjust and arbitrary laws to be enacted by the Commonwealth of New-Jersey, that ever disgraced the government of a free people—A law granting to a few wealthy men the exclusive jurisdiction of six miles square, and a variety of unconstitutional privileges, highly injurious to the citizens of that state. This law merits your attention, not as a patern of justice, but to convince you how dangerous it is for a free people to place their whole political safety on the conduct of any set of Legislators, when surrounded by artful and designing men. Is it reasonable—is it just, that a numerous class of citizens, whose knowledge in mechanics and manufactures, not less necessary for the support of their familes, than useful [Page] to their country, should be sacrificed to a wealthy few, who have no other object in view than to add to their ill-gotten and enormous wealth?

Such being the nature of this corporation, can it be doubted, whether it violates the spirit of all just laws? Whether it subverts the principles of that equality of which freemen ought to be so jealous? Whether it establishes a class of citizens with distinct interests from their fellow citizens? Will it not, by fostering an inequality of fortune, prove the destruction of the equality of rights, and tend strongly to an aristocracy?

There are two kinds of inequality, the one personal, that of talent and virtue, the source of whatever is excellent and admirable in society—the other that of fortune, which must exist, because property alone can stimulate to labor; and labor, if it were not necessary to the existence, would be indispensible to the happiness of man: But though it be necessary, yet in its excess it is the great malady of civil society. The accumulation of that power which is conferred by wealth in the hands of the few is the perpetual source of oppression and neglect of the mass of mankind. The power of the wealthy is farther concentrated by their tendency to combination, from which, number, dispersion, indigence and ignorance, equally preclude the poor. The wealthy are formed into bodies by their professions, their different degrees of oppulence, called ranks, their knowledge, and their small numbers:—They necessarily, in all countries, administer Government, for they alone have skill and leisure for its functions. Thus circumstanced, nothing can be more evident than their inevitable preponderance in the political scale. The preference of partial to general interests, [Page]is, however, the greatest of all public evils: It should, therefore, have been the object of all laws to repress this malady, but it has been their perpetual tendency to aggravate it. Not content with the inevitable inequality of fortune, they have superadded to it honorary and political distinctions. Not content with the inevitable tendency of the wealthy to combine, they have embodied them in classes. They have fortified these conspiracies against the general interest, which they ought to have resisted, though they could not disarm. Laws, it is said, cannot equalize men,—No—But ought they for that reason to aggravate the inequality which they cannot cure? Laws cannot inspire unmixed patriotism—But ought they for that reason to foment that corporation spirit which is its most fatal enemy? All professional combinations, said Mr. Burke, in one of his late speeches in Parliament, are dangerous in a free state. Arguing on the same principle, the National Assembly of France have proceeded further: They have conceived that the laws ought to create no inequality or combination, to recognize all only in their capacities as citizens, and to offer no assistance to the natural preponderance of partial over general interests."

It is not the distinctions of titles which constitutes an aristocracy: it is the principle of partial association. The American Aristocrats have failed in their attempt to establish titles of distinctions by law; yet the destructive principles of aristocracy are too prevalent amongst us, and ought to be watched with the most jealous eye.

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LETTER III.

WHEN Ministers are suffered to introduce, and Legislators adopt, the spirit and regulation of a military corps, into civil government, and by arbitrary laws interfere in the private actions of citizens—it manifests a shameful ignorance of that knowledge of history, with which every statesman should be acquainted, or a want of that sound judgment, and of those just principles of philosophy, which would enable them to make a useful advantage of such knowledge.

The history of civil society does not furnish a single instance of Legislators interfering with, and directing the occupations of citizens, but with injury.

The celebrated Solon introduced this wretched system of policy. To ingratiate himself with the licentious citizens of Athens, he ordained, that the Husbandmen should not sell the produce of their farms, to any, but the Athenians. The small quantity of oil, raised in the country, was alone admitted to a free, unlimited sale. This unjust regulation served a temporary purpose of supplying the city with provisions, at a low price; but the Farmers, feeling themselves injured, converted so great a proportion of the country into olive yards, that in a short time provisions became dearer than ever, and the quantity of oil produced, occasioned Athens to become one of the most considerable markets for oil in that quarter of the world.

The Athenian policy, of restricting the sale of the produce of the country, was imitated by the Romans, and produced similar effects. The culture of grain was [Page] neglected in the neighborhood of Rome, and the distant provinces were oppressed, in order to supply the city with bread.

Modern politicians, without adverting to the inevitable consequences, have too generally adopted the regulating spirit of the ancients. Some time previous to the late war, American and British vessels, seeking for the best market for their wheat, in the Mediterranean, were accustomed to put into Marsailles, to procure a knowledge of the markets; if the difference of price was not considerably in favor of any other port, the British Consul, who acted as Agent, had directions to sell. It sometimes happened, though very rare, that the vessels were ordered to Genoa or Leghorn. This freedom of commerce gave umbrage to some of the people—they procured an order for instituting a society of Plenty, whose duty it was to seize any provisions coming into Marsailles, in order that the numerous citizens of that place, might be furnished with such necessaries, at a low price. After this regulation the vessels avoided the port, and provision became dearer than before.

Holland affords a striking contrast in favor of a free commerce. The territory of that republic, not raising a sufficiency of wheat for their own consumption, have, by the means of a free commerce, not only ensured a full supply for themselves, but frequently for their neighbors. During the late commotions in France, the distress of the people of Paris in 1789, was relieved by corn, supplied by Messrs. Hope, of Amsterdam, to the amount of one million of French livres.*

[Page] Formerly an immense commerce was carried on in the kingdom of Siam. Historians attest, that in the sixteenth century, above a thousand foreign vessels frequented its ports annually. But the King, tempted with so much riches, endeavored to engross all the commerce of his country—by which means he annihilated, successively, mines, manufactures, and even agriculture.

About the year 1750, Sir Samuel Pennant, Sir James Lowther, Admiral Vernon, and a number of other gentlemen in England, were incorporated into a Fishing Company, under the name of the Society of the Free British Fishery, with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds sterling, the object was, the white herring fishery, which was represented to be of so much importance, that several acts of Parliament was procured, granting partial privileges and bounties to this wealthy company: It received a bounty from Government of thirty shillings the ton for all the vessels engaged in the fishery—a bounty of two shillings and eight pence on every barrel of fish exported—the delivery of both British and foreign salt duty free; besides all these encouragements, the subscribers, for every hundred pounds paid into the stock of the society, were entitled to three pounds a year to be paid by the Receiver-General of the Customs, in equal half yearly payments. Besides this great Company, the residence of whose Governor and Directoes was to be in London, it was declared lawful to erect different Fishing Chambers in all the out ports of the kingdom, provided a sum not less than ten thousand pounds was subscribed into the capital of each, to be managed at its own risk, and for its own profit and loss. The same annuity and the same encouragements of all kinds, were give to the trade of those inferior Chambers as [Page] to that of the great Company. The subscription of the great Company was soon filled up, and several different Fishing Chambers were erected in the different out ports of the kingdom. In spite of all these encouragements, almost all those different companies, both great and small, lost either the whole, or the greater part of their capital; scarce a vestige now remains of any of them, and the white herring fishery is now entirely, or almost entirely, carried on by private adventurers. Previous to the final ruin of the great Company, Admiral Vernon, as one of the Directors, waited in person on a Mr. Martin, an old fisherman at Yarmouth, who, by his attention to the herring fishery, had amassed a considerable fortune, to inquire of him, by what means, he, a private citizen, had been successful in the fishery, whilst a wealthy company, having an immense capital, invested in the business, and enjoying the particular patronage and bounty of Government, were going to destruction. The old man informed Vernon and the gentlemen who attended on the occasion—That he could give them no encouragement—that inevitable destruction would be the fate of the Company—that their fishing busses, for the construction of which they had gone to a great expence, were built on a wrong construction—that their Agents had purchased improper twine for their seines, and that the mashes of the nets were too large for the fishery; but that the principal cause of their misfortunes, and of his success, was owing to the Company employing uninterested Agents, whilst he personally attended to an occupation, on the success of which, he and his family depended for bread.

The extravagant ambition of Louis XIV, not only made him anxious to become the arbiter of Europe, by [Page] carrying fire and destruction into the territories of his peaceful neighbors. But also by interfering in, and regulating all the actions of his own subjects, he wished that they should regard his absolute will as the alone object of contemplation and attention—He instituted manufactures, encouraged commerce, and undertook public works, and yet his arbitrary government rendered those very establishments useless. The very steps he took to render the agricultural interest subservient to his projects of manufactures, occasioned the ruin and destruction of both. Notwithstanding the numerous triumphal arches and statues erected in France to the memory of Louis XIV, and the adulation of his Priests, his Mistresses, and of prostitute Courtwriters, it is certain, that his system of policy tended to destroy the agriculture of his kingdom. Independent gentlemen, living on their own estates, became ruined—the country was deserted for places at Court, or in the army, and the cultivation of the land was left to a poor tenantry. Smollet, in his travels thro' France, says,—"In Burgundy I saw a peasant ploughing the ground with a jack-ass, a lean cow, and hegoat, yoked together. The peasants of France are so wretchedly poor, and so much oppressed by their landlords, that they cannot afford to inclose their grounds, or give a proper respite to their lands, or to stock their farms with a sufficient number of black cattle, to produce the necessary manure, without which agriculture can never be carried on to any degree of perfection. The peasants on the south of France are poorly clad, and look as if they were half starved, diminutive, swarthy and meagre, and yet the common people, who travel, live luxuriously on the road."

[Page] The kingdom of France, although enjoying a good soil and a fine climate, yet owing to the poverty and wretchedness of the People (previous to the late glorious Revolution) out of one hundred and thirty millions of acres which that country contains, only six millions were thought to be under a full cultivation, the remainder under tillage, affording little more than subsistence to a miserable tenantry.

The British nation at present appear flourishing; but the government having adopted the oppressive system of interfering in the occupations of its citizens, that fine country must fall a sacrifice to such unjust principles. Some time since the Minister formed the design of erecting a Board to watch over the interests of trade. The project was carried into execution, but trade so far from increasing, declined the moment that these Counsellors of Commerce began to give her lessons: of this authentic proofs were produced, and it was abolished in 1782 Mr. Gibbons, the English Tacitus, was a Member of this institution. A few years since some farmers in Yorkshire were imprisoned and fined to the amount of several thousand pounds, for cultivating tobacco, contrary to an act of Parliament. The wool bill, enacted into a law in 1787, is a remarkable instance of a violation of the liberty and property of the English Farmer. The whole advantage of this monopoly centers in the wealthy principals engaged in the woolen manufacture, whilst the laboring manufacturers can scarce earn bread above the point of starving, and whilst they and their families are daily falling on the parishes for support: The tyranny and oppression of the law does little credit to the British government. The object of it is to prevent the exportation of wool to France, where the Farmer [Page] could procure twenty per cent, more for it than in England. By such arbitrary and unjust restrictions and regulations; by excise laws; by taxes and impositions of various kinds, the yeomanry and independent country gentlemen of 3 or 4001. per ann. are almost annihilated. The gloomy eye of the Financier, rolling with baneful vigilance in search of new ways and means, let neither the crops, nor the domestic comforts of the Farmer escape. Agriculture will not long survive such measures; or if it should exist, it will be the invidious spectacle of great Lords, and their devouring Stewards on one hand, and a miserable dependant peasantry on the other.

When Colbert demanded of an old experienced Merchant what steps his master should take to encourage commerce, the answer was—Let us alone. The citizens of the United States engaged in agriculture, in manufactures, in mechanics, and even in the Cod-fishery, may with justice and propriety give a similar answer to Congress.

LETTER IV.

FOR a Government to interfere in the occupations, or in the private actions of citizens, where such actions are not injurious to the community, is not only unjust and impolitic, but is highly dangerous to the liberties of the People. All partial regulations tend to create separate interests in society, and therefore occasinon [Page] jealousy and dissention among citizens, whose true interest consists in being united. On this subject the sentiments of the great body of the People in the United States, were clearly expressed during the arduous contest to establish their liberties. The constitutions of the several states, formed during that period of public animation and attention, manifest the strongest disapprobation of monopolies and exclusive privileges. Although these just and honorable sentiments have been lately suppressed by the influence of ambition and avarice, yet they are not extinct, but will re-appear with additional lustre, reflected from the glorious Revolution of France. The Americans will adopt the political principles of that enlightened People, and, like them, will consider, that the prosperity and happiness of citizens, constitutes the real strength of nations. If, under a vague, undefined idea of supporting the general welfare, Congress is permitted to enact partial laws in favor of a few wealthy individuals, and to grant them exclusive privileges in any occupation in which their unbounded avarice may prompt them to engage, such regulations will enevitably destroy the infant manufactures of our country, and will consign the useful and respectable citizens, personally engaged in them, to contempt and ruin. All confidence of procuring an honorable support from any mechanic or manufacturing employ being at an end, no citizen will think of giving seven years of the prime of his life to acquire the knowledge of any profession in which he may be supplanted by a junto of monied men, under the immediated patronage and protection of Government.—Whatever may be the plausible pretext of such institutions, they always promote the oppressive and injurious drudgery of the manufacturers, and the indolent luxury of the principals.

[Page] In the manufacturing towns in England, the poor appear to be in state of the most abject servitude to their employers. The principals engaged in the various and extensive manufactories, give the poor artists and laborers six shillings sterling per week; one half of which is absorbed by Government, by means of excises, duties, and stamps. To this dark system of British finance, as well as to the combination of the wealthy to keep the poor employed by them in a state of daily dependance and servitude, must be attributed the rags, the dejected eye, and squalled countenance, of a very numerous, and a very useful class of citizens.

A chain does not derive its strength and utility from being composed of a few heavy links, and the remainder weak and ill conditioned, but from every link being as much as possible of equal power. The same takes place in civil society: a state is rendered more respectable and powerful by the prosperity of all its citizens, than by the over-grown wealth of the few.

Men educated in a profession which exists by the indiscriminate defence of right and wrong, will naturally support their opinions with all the art and sophistry of accute logicians; but reasoning in proportion as it extends, and becomes complicated, does not owe its triumph always to truth; mental fatigue, or implicit faith, frequently succeeds in procuring it admirers. A variety of stratagems may be made use of to deceive the People, but a Minister who knows nothing more, will never lay the foundation of a great empire; the fabrick raised by his duplecity and extravagance, must fall and bury its supporters in its ruins.

[Page] The success of American manufactures will not depend on financial calculations, or legislative interference, but on the patronage and encouragement they may receive from patriotic citizens. The Secretary of the Treasury begins his lengthy and flimsy report by a vague assertion, that "the expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States, which was not long since deemed very questionable, appears at this time to be very generally admitted." It is certain, that the powerful and increasing mercantile interest, have always suggested doubts respecting the propriety of giving encouragement to American artists and manufacturers. As agents, it is the immediate interest of the Merchants, that every raw material, and every manufactured article, should pass through their hands: but no real citizen had ever a doubt of the expediency of every independent Commonwealth being as much as possible supplied within itself, with all things necessary or useful in common life.

By giving useful employment and comfortable support to the weakest and most miserable fellow-citizen, you promote your own consequence and safety; therefore, duty as well as interest, oblige the members of the same society to assist each other. Those who use foreign manufactures in preference to such as may be procured in their own country, receive protection from the government of which they are members, without complying with their duty in supporting its citizens—an injustice that, in its increase, must be the ruin of any Commonwealth. This principle, however, should be carried no farther than is consistent with the real prosperity of the state, as connected with the full employment, the happiness, and independence, of all its citizens.

[Page] We ought not to desire the establishment of any kind of manufacture in our country, which cannot support itself, without Government granting to its agents bounties, premiums, and a variety of exclusive privileges, in violation of the Rights of the People.

LETTER V.

CONGRESS have also been officially informed by the Secretary, that "the embarrassments 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." *

Commercial regulations, restrictions and prohibitions, may be regarded as the bane of Europe. They are universally supported by the clamorous importunity of partial interests, or by the prejudices and contemptible cunning of Financiers, who seldom possess any real intention to promote the general welfare. Colbert, the confidential Minister of Lewis XIV did infinite injury to France by his desire of subjecting the commere, the manufactures, and all the actions of the People, to financial calculations and regulations. That Minister, by [Page] the tariff of 1667, proposed very high duties upon a great number of foreign manufactures upon his refusing to moderate them in favor of the Dutch, they in 1671, prohibited the importation of the wines, brandies, and manufactures of France; and it has been thought that the war of 1672, was in part occasioned by these mutual injuries. The peace of Nimiguen put an end to it in 1678, by moderating some of these duties in favor of the Dutch, who, in consequence took off their prohibitions. It was about the same time that the French and English began mutually to oppress each others industry. In 1697, the English prohibited the importation of bone-lace, the manufacture of Flanders; the Government of that country, in return, prohibited the importation of English woolens.

The motto of the French economists, Faire le bien e'est le recevoir, is as applicable to nations as to individuals; yet, in this enlightened period, do we observe the most polished nations doing every injury in their power to each other, with the unjust and absurd idea of deriving advantage to themselves, by circumscribing or destroying the advantages of their neighbors.

Whilst we are exacting a prohibitory tonnage duty from foreigners, and annually increasing the duties on their produce and manufactures, can we expect that they will not retaliate, and in their turn obstruct the progress of our trade, by embarrassments particularly injurious to the agricultural interest? If we find that such retaliation, on the part of foreigners, has actually taken place, and that our commercial regulations and restrictions operate to injure ourselves, by preventing a sale for the surplus produce of our agriculture— [Page] why not adopt a genuine system of policy, founded on the Rights of Man, and at once remove the evil, by declaring a total freedom of commerce, within the United States? Is it not more than probable, that other nations would retaliate real benefits, as well as insults and injuries. A just and enlightened policy, of this kind, would be fully adequate to remove the complaint.

Experience justifies the assertion, that a perfect free commerce, would not only take off the surplus produce of our farms, but would stimulate to industry, and would ensure the prosperity of our country. The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, were under the government of an exclusive company* which had the sole right both of purchasing the surplus produce of the colonists, and of supplying them with such goods, of other countries, as they wanted; and which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do so. The government of an exclusive company of merchants, is, perhaps, the worst of all governments, for any country whatever. It was not, however, able to stop, altogether, the progress of these colonies, though it rendered it more slow and languid. The late King of Denmark dissolved this Company, and since that time, the prosperity of these colonies has been very great. Curacoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to the Dutch, are free ports, open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom, in the midst of better colonies, whose ports are open [Page] to those of one nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity of these two barren islands. Mr. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, speaking of the causes of the prosperity of new colonies, observes, "that plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs, their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies."

But, as if the measures of Congress were ever to be directed by the momentary fluctuation of affairs, it is proposed, that to afford relief to the farmer, recourse should be had to manufacturing establishments, under the particular patronage and protection of government; and that Congress should grant exclusive privileges, bounties and premiums, to a few monied men, to encourage them to establish extensive manufactories, and to enable them to import from Europe, necessary machines and workmen. Should this scheme take place, under a false pretext of serving the agricultural interest, a valuable class of citizens, personally engaged in useful manufactures, will be sacrificed to the wealthy few.

Whilst Colonies of Great-Britain, it was the contracted policy of that Court to prevent the progress of manufactures in this country. In a report of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to Parliament, during that period, they say, "It were to [...] wished, that some expedient might be fallen upon, to divert the thoughts of the Colonists from manufactures, so much the rather, because these manufactures, in process of time, may be carried on to a greater degree, unless an early stop is put to their progress."

Had the Court of Britain pensioned a number of men in America, to effect the ruin of the infant manufactures [Page] of our country, they could not have adopted a scheme better calculated to answer that purpose, than the scheme of DUER and HAMILTON to establish national manufactories.—When Britain had power she exerted it to restrain the growth of American manufactures—That country may now accomplish by finesse what she is no longer able to effect by force,—The National Manufactory, however plausible its declared intention, is fully capable of answering this end.—The immense capital of that corporation will give the Company an opportunity of monopolizing many raw materials already procured with difficulty, particularly in the hatting and tanning business,—Their workmen, being exempt from taxes, militia duty, and enjoying other privileges, will draw off the journeymen from private manufactures, beneficially scattered through the different parts of the country,—The exclusive privilege enjoyed by the company of establishing lotteries to indemnify them for any losses, will enable them to sell the articles manufactured by them at a less price than any individual citizen, not enjoying such a privilege, can do, without certain ruin to himself.—The unjust and dangerous interference of Government in granting to a company of monied men, privileges, bounties and favors, not enjoyed by individual citizens, honorably and usefully educated to manufacturing employ, will discourage citizens from acquiring a knowledge in professions or occupations, in which they may be at any time ruined by the arbitrary interference of Government—After all, these effects are produced, and they most inevitably will be produced, should the Company be successful: the act of incorporation provides for an easy dissolution of the Company itself.

[Page] The declared intention of establishing national manufactories, is to carry off the surplus produce of our agriculture. The citizens of the United States engaged in the cultivation of the ground, comprehend nine-tenths of its inhabitants. This numerous, laborious, and useful class of citizens, have never come forward to Government to solicit partial privileges; have never sought to be incorporated as a distinct body, forming a seperate interest from the community at large, much less do they require a violation of the rights of a numerous and respectable class of citizens, personally engaged in manufactures.

The Yeomanry of America only desire what they have a right to demand—a free unrestricted sale for the produce of their own industry, and not to have the sacred rights of mankind violated in their persons, by arbitrary laws, prohibiting them from deriving all the advantages they can from every part of the produce of their farms.

FINIS.

Notes

*

Neckar's Administration, p. 331.

↵

*

Secretary of the Treasury on Manufactures.

↵

*

The Tonnage Duty of Congress places the whole of the American trade in a similar situation.

↵

Information about this book

Title statement

Five letters, addressed to the yeomanry of the United States: containing some observations on the dangerous scheme of Governor Duer and Mr. Secretary Hamilton, to establish national manufactories. / By a farmer.

Logan, George, 1753-1821.

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2005-12.

ID [DLPS]

N18829

ID [TCP]

N18829

ID [STC]

Evans 24480

ID [NOTIS]

APV9766

ID [IMAGE-SET]

24480

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99005414

Availability

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 24480.

Notes

(Evans-TCP ; no. N18829)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 24480)

Images scanned from Readex microprint and microform: (Early American imprints. First series ; no. 24480)

Source

— Five letters, addressed to the yeomanry of the United States: containing some observations on the dangerous scheme of Governor Duer and Mr. Secretary Hamilton, to establish national manufactories. / By a farmer., Logan, George, 1753-1821..

Extent

28 p. ; 23 cm. (8vo)

Printed by Eleazer Oswald, no. 156, Market-Street, between Fourth and Fifth-Streets.,. Philadelphia: :: M,DCC,XCII. [1792]. (Attributed to Logan in: Ford, Paul L. Bibliotheca Hamiltonia (New York, 1886), s.v. 50.)

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