The Elusive Republic

Drew R. McCoy. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America.
University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

One aspect of 18th and 19th century America which is somewhat foreign to modern readers is the concept of "political economy". The idea that politics and economics are two distinct spheres of activity and expertise is so deeply embedded in modern discourse, and so near-universally accepted at face value, it takes a bit of a conceptual leap for 21st century readers to appreciate that for early Americans, the distinction between the two simply didn't exist.

One important condition which dictated the earlier understanding of a political economy was the ideology of Republicanism and the demands it placed on citizens and office holders. The Republican ideology was concerned with the overall development of society, not merely the legal and constitutional order. In order to reconstruct that mentality, McCoy begins with a discussion of the concepts of social decay and corruptions, which obsessed Enlightenment-era thinkers and statesmen. These notions were bound up in natural science as understood at the time, and posited a natural life-cycle for nations and societies. So much of the Republican ideology was based on the desire to avoid corruption and also to delay the "aging" of a society towards old age and decadence.

Therefore, corruption wasn't only caused by bad actors or abuse of power; it was also the result of an unbalanced economy which failed to provide a rough equality for all citizens; an equality which, it was generally accepted, was best provided through widespread land ownership by independent farmers practicing self-sufficiency, home manufacture of necessities, and only a very limited involvement in the market for manufactured goods which were not "luxuries" as defined at the time.

The commercial revolution which early America experienced (along with the British) therefore challenged Republican notions, as it provided numerous opportunities for ordinary citizens to be tempted to engage in "corrupting" economic practices, even as it created the conditions for an increase in speculative business and a more diversified economy.

Throughout the Federalist years, the Jeffersonians perceived threats to the Republic from the Hamiltonian agenda, but once the election of 1800 gave them control over the national government, their own beliefs were constantly challenged by the ways in which the global economy refused to behave in ways republican theory said they should. Most notably, American independence did not translate to fully free trade for American exports, which hurt the US economy but also threatened to create an agricultural surplus which would deprive farmers of the necessary incentive for continued labor and diligence. Or, worse, would create the conditions favorable for large-scale manufacturing and the wage-earning poor who provided the labor for that.

Over the years, through the Madison administration and beyond, the Jeffersonian vision changed to adopt to new situations. Thomas Jefferson himself never moved beyond his agrarian ideal more than absolutely necessary (as he understood it); more problematic was his refusal to reckon with slavery and its cost to his republican ideal. James Madison, on the other hand, was able to consider different ways in which society would need to adjust in order to maintain republican principles even as changing conditions, the inevitable peopling of the vast but finite lands to the west, and the equally inevitable growth of the manufacturing sector, all worked in tandem to change the world in ways that the republicans of the Revolutionary era had considered crucial and necessary.