Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

An equilibrium of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, is certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures, sufficient for our own consumption (and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufacture and commerce. To go beyond is to increase our dependence on foreign nations, and our liability to war.[525]

This can be taken as the final view of Jefferson on a subject on which he is often misquoted and misunderstood. That he was fully aware of the change that had taken place in his own mind can be seen in a declaration to Benjamin Austin, written in January, 1816. Between 1787 and that date, and even earlier, Jefferson had seen the light and realized that to discourage home manufactures was "to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly people." He had no patience with politicians who brought forth his old and now obsolete utterances to promote their unpatriotic designs:

You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependance on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have elapsed, how circumstances changed.... Experience since has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to the difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equivalent to our demand.[526]

Desirable as it was to promote the industrial development of the United States, it was no less desirable not to encourage it beyond a certain point. Jefferson saw quite clearly that, under existing conditions, a great industrial growth of the country would have as an unavoidable result the perpetuation of slavery in the South and the even more undesirable creation of a proletariat in the North. He had always held that slavery was a national sore and a shameful condition to be remedied as soon as conditions would permit. He was looking forward to the time when this could be done without bringing about an economic upheaval; but all hope would have to be abandoned if slavery were industrialized and if slave labor became more productive. As to the other danger of industrialism, it was no vague apprehension; one had only to consider England to see "the pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression of the laboring, and the luxury, the riot, the domination and the vicious happiness of the aristocracy." This being the "happiness of scientific England", he wrote to Thomas Cooper, "now let us see the American side of the medal":

And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, who possess nothing and have no families to take care of them, being too few to merit notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a general estimate. The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families. They are not driven to the ultimate resources of dexterity and skill, because their wares will sell although not quite so nice as those of England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those at their ease, know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They have only somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than those who furnish them. Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?[527]

Once more Jefferson appears as a true disciple and continuator of the Physiocrats and one might be tempted at first to agree entirely with Mr. Beard on this point. But this is only an appearance. To understand Jefferson's true meaning, it is necessary to turn to his unpublished correspondence with Du Pont de Nemours, and particularly to those letters written after Jefferson's retirement from public life.

The rapid industrialization of the United States had greatly alarmed the old Physiocrat. In his opinion there was a real danger lest the national character of the people be completely altered and the foundation of government deeply shaken. Considering the situation from the "economist's" point of view, Du Pont came to the conclusion that the development of home industries in America would necessarily bring about a permanent reduction in the Federal income, largely derived from import duties. The government could not be run without levying new taxes and the question was to determine what methods should be followed in the establishment of these new taxes. If the United States decided to resort to indirect taxation, that is to say, excise, the unavoidable result would be the creation of an army of new functionaries, as in France under the old régime, and the use of vexatory procedure for the enforcement of the new system. Furthermore, according to the theories of the Physiocrats, indirect taxation was an economic heresy, since it was a tax on labor, which is not a source but only a transformation of wealth. The same criticism applied a fortiori to the English income tax which constituted the worst possible form of taxation.

In the controversy which arose between Jefferson and his old friend, the Sage of Monticello again took a middle course. First of all, he refused to concede that the development of industries could ever change the fundamental characteristics of the United States. They were essentially an agricultural nation, and an agricultural nation they would remain, in spite of all predictions to the contrary. Furthermore, the question was not to determine theoretically what was the best possible form of taxation, but to find out what form the inhabitants of the country would most easily bear. That in itself was a big enough problem and could not be solved in the abstract, since, according to Jefferson: "In most of the middle and Southern States some land tax is now paid into the State treasury, and for this purpose the lands have been classed and valued and the tax assessed according to valuation. In these an excise is most odious. In the Eastern States, land taxes are odious, excises less unpopular."[528]

Finally, Jefferson pointed out that his friend had neglected several important factors, one of them being "the continuous growth in population of the United States, which for a long time would maintain the quantum of exports and imports at the present level at least." Consequently, for several generations, the Government would be able to support itself with a tax on importations, "the best agrarian law in fact, since the poor man in the country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the general government." With the characteristic optimism of the citizen of a young, strong and energetic country, Jefferson then added:

Our revenue once liberated by the discharge of public debt and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone without being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The path we are now pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot fail to attain unless our administration should fall into unwise hands.[529]