In 1806, being then a member of the Select Council of the City of Philadelphia, he united with Stephen Girard and others to relieve real estate of a portion of its taxes, by transferring it to personal property, when he published a pamphlet on examination of the existing system of taxation in that city, but with no results. In 1810, when the question of the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, which was to expire on the following March, came up, he took an active and earnest part in its favor, neglecting his business for three months, and publishing a series of essays on the subject. Nearly all the Democrats of the city were opposed to this, and he made himself hosts of enemies by his course.
The publication of The Olive Branch, which was made at a critical period in the history of the country, proved to be one of the most successful books up to that time ever issued from the American press, and he regarded its preparation as one of the most important events in his life. The War of 1812–’15, between the United States and Great Britain, had developed such an acrimonious state of feeling between parties in the country, as to appear to forebode civil war. In September, 1814, Mr. Carey, in a “moment of ardent zeal and enthusiasm, was seized with a desire to make an effort by a candid publication of the numerous errors and follies on both sides to allay the public effervescence, and calm the embittered feelings of the parties.”
Hence, he began the preparation of The Olive Branch, September 18, and the book was through the press November 6th, and was published on the 8th. It was a volume of 252 pages, 12mo. The edition of 500 copies was sold within a few weeks, and it was revised and enlarged from time to time, and in three and a half years ten editions were sold, amounting to 10,000 copies. “A greater sale probably,” as he has said, “than any book ever had in this country, except some religious ones,” up to that time. He gave permission to several parties to print the book, without payment of copyright, and editions were printed at Boston, Mass., Middlebury, Vt., and Winchester, Va.
In 1818 he set laboriously and seriously to work to prepare a vindication of Ireland. Accordingly, in the following year, he published Vindiciæ Hibernicæ; or, Ireland Vindicated, of which a second edition was published in 1823. This is a large 8vo volume involving great research.
Early in 1819, struck with the prevailing condition of the United States, he commenced writing on political economy, investigating the causes, and pointing out the necessity for protecting our industries against foreign competition. Few men ever enlisted in any public cause with more enthusiasm, few ever worked with more energy and industry in such a cause. He was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry; he attended conventions in various parts of the country, and he made more extensive contributions to the literature of the subject than any other man had then done on this continent.
Some idea may be formed of the extent of this work when it is stated that between 1819 and 1833 his books and pamphlets on this question reached an aggregate of 2,322 pages. To no other man, not in public life, was the first protective tariff of 1824, as well as that more protective one of 1828, due. These were results which would have exerted a permanent influence on the country but for the nullification movement of South Carolina and Georgia.
This latter movement produced Clay’s Compromise Tariff Act of 1833, which was only abandoned in 1842 in the midst of a bankruptcy so widespread and universal that it involved not merely individuals and banks and other corporations, but state governments, and even the government of the United States itself. Mr. Carey was much discouraged by the illiberal conduct of manufacturers and others who had much at stake in the cause, and he ever after believed that to this illiberality and supineness was due the triumph of nullification, for it did triumph in the enactment of the Compromise Tariff, Act of 1833.
However, amid these discouragements, he derived some consolation from a recognition of his services by a portion of his fellow countrymen. In 1821 he was presented by citizens of Wilmington, Del., with a handsome piece of silver plate bearing the following inscription: “A tribute of gratitude to Mathew Carey, Esq., in approbation of his writings on political economy; presented by some friends of National Industry, in Wilmington, Del., and its vicinity, April, 1821.” In 1834 he was presented with a service of plate by citizens of Philadelphia and others, “as a testimonial of their respect for his public conduct and their esteem for his private virtues”; who deemed his “whole career in life an encouraging example, by the imitation of which, without the aid of official station or political power, every private citizen may become a public benefactor.” Sometime previously he received two silver pitchers from other citizens of Philadelphia.
In 1824 he was instrumental in reviving and carrying through the project for the construction of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which had lain dormant from 1805. This undertaking involved weeks of labor, and of personal solicitations for subscriptions.
In 1825 he retired permanently from business on a well-earned competency, and the remaining years of his life were devoted to public and philanthropic work, with an energy that never tired. Among his correspondents were Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, Hamilton, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Henry Clay, and hosts of others in public and private life, during a period covering more than half a century. His writings, a tolerably complete set of which is in possession of The Library Company of Philadelphia, make nine large 8vo volumes.