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Laissez-Faire Thought in Pennsylvania, 1776–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Louis Hartz
Louis Hartz
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Nearly seventy-five years have elapsed since Henry Carey complained that the term laissez faire had become a meaningless symbol, an object, as he put it, of “word-worship.” If the task of definition seemed imposing in his time, it is not less so in ours. The concept has been used with abandon on various levels of political and economic discussion. It belongs to a whole category of catchwords in our social thought whose connotations, if they ever were precise, have become blurred through constant and polemical usage. They are dangerous labels for the historian. This paper seeks to analyze the ideas developed in Pennsylvania to oppose governmental action in economic life during the period from the Revolution to the Civil War. For the present purpose it is not a matter of significance whether one chooses to believe that any of these ideas are genuinely laissezfaire in character or not.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 3 , Supplement S1 , 1943 , pp. 66 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1943

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References

1 Principles of Social Science (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1867), III, 431.Google Scholar

2 Wright, Benjamin Fletcher, American Interpretations of Natural Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), 3–61.Google Scholar

3 For a discussion of the adoption of mercantilist modes of thought by the colonists, see Johnson, E. A. J., American Economic Thought In the Seventeenth Century (London: P. S. Knight, 1932). Johnson writes, p. 11, “On one point there is agreement. Preacher, planter, historian, diarist, and law-maker insisted that the government must regulate economic activity.”Google Scholar

4 Good Order Established in Pennsylvania And New Jersey (Reprinted with introduction and notes by Frederick J. Shephard. 1902), 41–57.

5 The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies (Philadelphia. 1965), 41–41.

6 Constitutions of Pennsylvania (Legislative Reference Bureau, Harriburg, 1926), 232–236.

7 Dallas' Laws, 1, 15, 769; III, 447; Journal of the General Assembly nf Pennsylvania, 227; Pennsylvania Statutes, Vol. 9, p. 387. See also Bishop, J. L., A History of American manufacturers(Philadelphia: Edward Young & Co., 1864), 380, 389, 394–6.Google Scholar

8 Quoted, Eiselen, M. R., The Rise of Pennsylvania Protectionism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932), 10.Google Scholar

9 Political Essays (Philadelphia, 1791).

10 Nevins, Allan, The American States During And After The Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1924), 186–191.Google Scholar

11 The Proceedings relative to Calling the Conventions of 1776 and 1790 (Harrisburg, 1825), section on Council of Censors, 66–82.

12 Cited in Richard C. Bull, “The Constitutional Significance of Early Pennsylvania Price-Fixing Legislation,” 11 Temple Law Quarterly 314; Dallas' Laws, III, 447; see also Raymond E. Hayes, “Business Regulations in Early Pennsylvania,” 10 Temple Law Quarterly 155, and Giesecke, Albert Anthony, American Commercial Legislation Before 1789 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1910),Google Scholar

13 Eiselen, passim.

14 House Journal, 1820–1821, pp. 26–31, 158; 1821–1822, pp. 451–4; 1826–1827, Vol. II, 2, 669–704; 1827–1828, Vol. II, p. 91; 1832–1833, Vol. II, pp. 551–553.

15 A survey of the public works in Pennsylvania may be found in Bishop, A. L., The State Works In Pennsylvania (New Haven, Conn.: Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor Press, 1907).Google Scholar

16 Niles Register, September 24, 1825; United States Gazette, January 21, February 11, June 3, 1825; House Journal, 1824–1825, Vol. II, p. 284.

17 Senate Journal, 1819–1820, p. 235.

18 Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture (New York: C. P. Putnam, 1939), 55, writes: “To the founding fathers control of production and distribution of commodities by means of any political agency whatsoever would have seemed the complete nullification of all they were fighting for.” This is an example of a common error in the interpretation of this period and the decades which followed. By finding in the Revolution a radical break with the mercantilist history of the colonies and by reading into the individualist ideas of the Revolution implications which they did not have, many writers have been impelled to describe the pre-Civil War epoch as one in which little if any governmental action in the business field took place. Another element contributing to such misinterpretation lies in the fact that since 1900 we have come to think of business regulation increasingly in national terms. Before i860, however, regulation was primarily a State matter; economic growth had not yet pushed many problems of national control into the foreground. The result has been that integral aspects of State politico-economic history during the pre-Civil War epoch have been forgotten or obscured. It seems clear also that a type of anti-governmental philosophy with respect to economic issues which proceeded to develop widely after the Civil War and which gained a strong hold on the popular mind, began to condition the writing of history itself.Google Scholar

19 A forthcoming study in collaboration with Mr. B. F. Wright will deal at length with this aspect of Pennsylvania development.

20 Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank v. Smith, 3 Sergeant and Rawle 63 (1817).

21 Benjamin F. Wright, The Contract Clause of the Constitution, 39.

22 Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Scries, Vol. 7, p. 154.

23 Ibid., Fourth Series, Vol. 7, pp. 1–277.

24 Workingman's Manual (Philadelphia, 1831); Mechanics Free Press, September 25, December 25, 1830.

25 House Journal, 1822–1823, p. 588; 1823–1824, pp. 784–6; 1826–1827, Vol. II, p. 42.

26 Senate Journal, 1837–1838, Vol. I, pp. 322–27; for testimony before the Committee see Vol. II, pp. 278–359.

27 Stephen Girard (Philadelphia: T. C. Bonsai, 1832).

28 Freedley's Practical Treatise on Business (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Cramko & Co., 1852), 28, 30, 60.

29 Proceedings And Debates of the Convention of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1837), III, 387.Google Scholar

30 House Journal, 1836–1837, Vol. II, pp. 801–814; 1841, Vol. II, pp. 547–588; 1840, Vol. II, pp. 226–364.

31 Letters of A Pennsylvanian on the State Canals, 4

32 Legislative Documents, 1854, p. 335.

33 Ibid., 335–336.

34 Harrisburg Democratic Union, February 14, 1844.

35 Governor Pollock remarked in 1856: “The laws now in operation, regulating manufacturing and other improvement companies, are in some of their provisions too severely restrictive, and should be modified. Legislation on these subjects has heretofore tended to restrain the investment of capital.” Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series, Vol. 7, p. 831. Pollock spoke of the necessity of encouraging “individual enterprise,” but it is significant that the meaning he attached to this symbol is diametrically opposed to the meaning given it by the Democratic groups who had popularized it in Pennsylvania thought. They used it to attack corporate power, Pollock now used it to rationalize greater corporate freedom. See also Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series, Vol. 7, p. 884; for the theory developed to oppose liquor legislation, X. X. A Few Reasons Why A “Maine Liquor Law” Should Not Be Passed By the State of Pennsylvania (Lancaster, 1852); North American Gazette, March 9, 1854.

36 Letters On The Subject of the Sale of the Maine Line of the Public Improvements, by a Citizen of Adams County (Harrisburg, 1837), 46.Google Scholar