fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

Thomas Jefferson: The Importance ofAgriculture (1784)Alexander Hamilton, Report on theSubject of Manufactures (1791)In this famous passage, Jefferson voices his confidence in yeomenfarmers and his fear of the influence of industry. As you read,consider why Jefferson has confidence in yeomen and why he isfearful of industry.The political economists of Europe have established it asa principle that every state should endeavor to manufacturefor itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer toAmerica, without calculating the difference of circumstancewhich should often produce a difference of result.In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up againstthe cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to ofnecessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people.But we have an immensity of land courting the industry ofthe husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens shouldbe employed in its improvement, or that one half should becalled off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraftarts for the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosenpeople of God, if he ever had a chosen people, whose breastshe has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuinevirtue.... Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators isa phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished anexample. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up toheaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandmen,for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and capriceof customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality,suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for thedesigns of ambition....Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate ofthe other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of itshusbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthyparts, and is a... barometer whereby to measure its degree ofcorruption. While we have land to labor then, led us never wishto see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff.Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but,for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshopsremain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materialsto workmen there than bring them to the provisions andmaterials, and with them their manners and principles. Theloss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlanticwill be made up in happiness and permanence of government.The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of puregovernment, as sores do to the strength of the human body.It is the manners and the spirit of a people which preserve arepublic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which sooneats to the hearts of its laws and constitution.In the following report to Congress, Alexander Hamilton, PresidentWashington’s Secretary of the Treasury, sets forth the advantages of amanufacturing system, and he forecasts the changes which later camewith the growth of industry. Compare Hamilton’s report to Jefferson’sviews outlined in his “Importance of Agriculture.”The expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States...appears at this time to be generally admitted. The embarrassmentswhich have obstructed the progress of our external trade, have ledto serious reflections on the necessity of enlarging the sphere ofour domestic commerce.... [Other nations’ regulations against ouragricultural produce] beget an earnest desire that a more extensivedemand for that surplus may be created at home...[Both the manufacturer and the farmer] furnishes a certainportion of produce of his labor to the other, and each destroys acorresponding portion of the produce of the labor of the other. Inthe meantime, the maintenance of two citizens, instead of one,is going on; the State has two members instead of one; and they,together, consume twice the value of what is produced from theland....It may be inferred that manufacturing establishments not onlyoccasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of thesociety, but that they contribute essentially to rendering them greaterthan they could possibly be without those establishments....[Increasing manufacturing encourages all of the followingbenefits]....As to the division of labor:It has justly been observed, that there is scarcely any thing of greatermoment in the economy of a nation than the proper division oflabor. The separation of occupations causes each to be carried toa much greater perfection.... This arises principally from... thegreater skill and dexterity naturally resulting from a constant andundivided application to a single object....1. As to an extension of the use of machinery...The employment of machinery... is an artificial force brought in aidof the natural force of man; and, to all the purposes of labor, is anincrease of hands, an accession of strength.... May it not, therefore,be fairly inferred, that those occupations which give greatest scopeto the use of this auxiliary, contribute most to the general stock ofindustrious effort, and, in consequence to the general product ofindustry....2. As to additional employment of classes of the community notoriginally engaged in the particular business...[Manufacturing institutions] afford occasional and extra196 fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007