Report on Manufactures
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In
It laid forth economic principles rooted in both the
Hamilton's ideas would form the basis for the American School of economics.
Economic plan
Hamilton reasoned that to secure American independence, the United States needed to have a sound policy of encouraging the growth of manufacturing and ensure its future as a permanent feature of the economic system of the nation. He argued these could be achieved by bounties or
Tariffs
Hamilton reasoned that tariffs issued in moderation would raise revenue to fund the nation. The tariff could also be used to encourage domestic or national manufacturing and growth of the economy by applying the funds raised in part towards subsidies, then called bounties, to manufacturers. Hamilton sought to use the tariff for the following:
- Protect domestic infant industries until they could achieve economies of scale and be able to compete with more established firms abroad.
- Raise revenue to pay the expenses of government.
- Raise revenue to directly support manufacturing through bounties (subsidies).
Industrial subsidies
Hamilton reasoned that bounties (
- Encourage the nation's spirit of enterprise, innovation, and invention.
- Support internal improvements, including roads and canals to increase and to encourage domestic commerce.
- Grow the infant nation to a manufacturing power that would be independent of control by foreign powers by relying on their goods for domestic, especially defense supplies.
Adoption by Congress
Though Congress refused to accept Hamilton's proposals in 1791 because of opposition from Madison and his supporters, much of Hamilton's third report would later be adopted by the
It is often thought that Hamilton's report was completely ignored, but "Hamilton worked to ensure that Congress enacted virtually every tariff recommendation in the report within five months of its delivery."[3]
Hamilton's revenue-based trade policy, with its more moderate tariffs, meant that by 1794, manufacturers had switched their support from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans, who favored higher, more protectionist tariffs.[4]
Opposition
Leading opponents of Alexander Hamilton's economic plan included Thomas Jefferson (until later years) and James Madison, who were opposed to the use of subsidy to industry, along with most of their fledgling Democratic-Republican Party. Instead of bounties they reasoned in favor of high tariffs and restrictions on imports to increase manufacturing, which was favored by the manufacturers themselves, who desired protection of their home market.[citation needed] Although the Jeffersonian stance originally favored an "agrarian" economy of farmers, it changed over time to encompass many of Hamilton's original ideas:[5] Also, "the Madison administration helped give rise to the first truly protectionist tariff in U.S. history."[6]
See also
- First Report on the Public Credit – Hamilton's report on public finance
- Second Report on Public Credit – Hamilton's report on national banking
- Federalist Party– Hamilton's political party
- Political economy – overview of economic theory research
- Free trade economics – opposing school of thought
- Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit – Hamilton's report on dealing with public credit after his resignation
References
- ISBN 9780300100068.[page needed]
- ^ "The Spies Who Launched America's Industrial Revolution". History.com.
- ^ Irwin 2004, pp. 801–2. "Although the report is often associated with protectionist trade policies, Hamilton's proposed tariffs were quite modest, particularly in light of later experience [i.e. compared to import duties of the nineteenth century].".
- ^ Nelson 1979, p. 977. "By the end of 1793 Hamilton's pro-importer political economy was driving manufacturers from Boston to Charleston into opposition to the Federalists.".
- ^ Irwin 2004, pp. 819–20. "The tumultuous experience of dealing with British trade policies after independence had transformed Jefferson from someone who had written in 1785 that farmers were 'the chosen people of God' and had pleaded 'let our workshops remain in Europe' to conceding in 1816 that 'we must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist.' 'Within the thirty years that have elapsed, how are circumstances changed!' Jefferson wrote. "[E]xperience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort".
- ^ Irwin 2004, p. 819.
Sources
- Irwin, Douglas A. (2004). "The Aftermath of Hamilton's 'Report on Manufactures'" (PDF). S2CID 154744569.
- Nelson, John R. (1979). "Alexander Hamilton and American Manufacturing: A Reexamination". JSTOR 1894556.
Further reading
- Ben-Atar, Doron (1995). "Alexander Hamilton's Alternative: Technology Piracy and the Report on Manufactures". The William and Mary Quarterly. 52 (3): 389–414. JSTOR 2947292.
- Croly, Herbert, The Promise of American Life (2005 reprint)
- Joseph Dorfman. The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1606–1865 (1947) vol. 2
- Joseph Dorfman. The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1865–1918 (1949) vol. 3
- Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970)
- Gill, William J. Trade Wars Against America: A History of United States Trade and Monetary Policy (1990)
- Lind, Michael Hamilton's Republic: Readings in the American Democratic Nationalist Tradition (1997)
- Lind, Michael What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President (2004)
- Parenti, Christian Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder (2020)
- Peskin, Lawrence A. (2002). "How the Republicans Learned to Love Manufacturing: The First Parties and the 'New Economy'". JSTOR 3125181.
- Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997)
- Edward Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century (1903; reprint 1974), 2 vols.