A peculiar silence: The Scottish Enlightenment, political economy, andthe early American debates over slavery

Michael Guenther*

This paper explores the economic critique of slave labor that emerged from thewritings of the Scottish Enlightenment and the general failure of these ideas toinfluence American debates over slavery in the last quarter of the eighteenthcentury. While the Scottish school of political economy was quite influential inrevolutionary America, neither antislavery advocates nor economic writers choseto follow the Scots in analyzing the deeper economic ramifications of the‘‘peculiar’’ institution. Indeed, Americans who discussed slavery generally framedthe issue in terms of morality, religion, legal principles, or humanitariansensibilities. They rarely focused on slavery as a system of labor, or its effectson commercial growth. This tendency represented a peculiar feature of the lateeighteenth-century debates over slavery in America. In other parts of the BritishEmpire and Atlantic world, the discourse of political economy became one of theprimary lenses through which contemporaries viewed the institution. And ashistorians of antebellum America have long noted, the supposed economiclimitations of slavery was key in driving public anxiety over the future of theinstitution. This paper seeks to explore the historical roots of this ‘‘free labor’’ideology in the Scottish discourse of political economy; how this critique ofbondage was connected to a larger pattern of philosophical and commercialsuppositions; and how this constellation of ideas took on different meaningswhen Americans grafted their own priorities onto the economic agenda of theScots. Ultimately, the piece aims to reveal some of the tensions and dissonanceswhich historically shaped the transmission of ideas from one distinct context toanother.

Keywords: Scottish Enlightenment; anti-slavery; economic thought; transmissionof ideas; free-labor ideology; consumption.

Eighteenth-century thinkers continually put slaveholders on the defensive. Not only

did they challenge a practice that had been accepted for centuries, but they managed

to put forward a variety of different arguments to further their cause. Some

opponents of the institution drew upon the discourse of natural rights, attacking

slavery for its violations of liberty and equality. Others found inspiration in

humanitarian ideals that condemned human bondage as a dark relic of the past,

or utilitarian arguments that emphasized the harmful consequences of slave labor to

the security and prosperity of nations. Many critics turned to Christianity and the

Bible, arguing that these sources offered powerful grounds for their indictment of

slavery.1 Nor were these arguments the only tools available to the antislavery

movement, which proved quite skillful in using satire, poetry, songs, and images to

delegitimize the institution in the eyes of the public.2

*Email: guenthmb@grinnell.edu

Atlantic Studies

Vol. 8, No. 4, December 2011, 447�483

ISSN 1478-8810 print/ISSN 1740-4649 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2011.611723

http://www.tandfonline.com

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

But while most of these sentiments found expression in eighteenth-century

America, there was one line of antislavery thought that played a surprisingly

marginal role in the growing public debates over the ‘‘peculiar institution.’’3 Critics

in America showed little interest in adopting the economic critique of slave labor that

became so popular among reformist circles in Europe during the second half of the

eighteenth century. Before this time, few individuals would have questioned the

economic rationale of coerced labor. After all, compelling people to toil � whetherthrough brute force or through starving wages � was an accepted part of business in

a society filled with workhouses, corvees, and a wide spectrum of ‘‘unfree’’ laborers.4

But by the second half of the eighteenth century, European writers, politicians and

economists had begun to question the very utility of slavery, arguing that it was an

inefficient form of labor as well as one that deprived a commercial nation of valuable

consumers. In particular, the influential writings of the Scottish Enlightenment � led

by figures such as David Hume, Sir James Steuart and Adam Smith � emphasized

the superiority of modern commercial societies in which free labor unleashed the

natural wants and ambitions of ordinary workers, stimulating both the productivity

and consumption of the laboring classes. And it was this human capital � this

dynamic aggregate of people getting and spending � that constituted the true wealth

of a nation, not the narrow-minded ‘‘balance of trade’’ that had dominated earlier

mercantilist theories. Critics of slavery in Europe were quick to seize upon these

ideas, appropriating the new perspective of political economy to underscore the

‘‘impolicy’’ of the slave trade and slave labor.5

Yet by contrast, Americans rarely touched upon these issues, choosing instead to

frame the question of slavery almost exclusively in religious, ethical, or legal terms.6

As the scholarship on the Atlantic world has underscored in the past few decades,

there was nothing unusual about the fact that many Americans relied upon slave

labor, or that a growing debate about its future arose by the end of the eighteenth

century � these were common traits throughout much of the Atlantic world.7 But

what appears to have set Americans apart � what made their debates about the

‘‘peculiar institution’’ genuinely peculiar � was the fact that they tended to divorce

the subject of slavery from basic economic considerations, precluding any serious

discussions of how the political economy of slave labor versus free labor would affect

the future course of the nation.

To be sure, this economic silence might not seem all that puzzling to some

scholars in the field. One might argue, for example, that Southern planters, as well as

many Northern merchants, were not interested in engaging these kinds of economic

debates because they already knew how wrong-headed they were. After all, our

modern understanding of the profitability of slavery would suggest that Adam Smithand his colleagues were probably incorrect. And besides, why would slave labor have

continued to persist, even expand, if it was really unprofitable?8 But the subsequent

course of American history makes it difficult to be so dismissive, since in the

nineteenth century, these economic arguments actually transformed the national

debates over slavery with the rise of ‘‘free labor’’ ideology. The Republican Party �with its platform of ‘‘free soil, free labor, free men’’ � was motivated as much by its

hatred for the supposed economic consequences of slave labor as it was by a moral

and ethical aversion towards human bondage. Many Northern whites, who were not

sympathetic towards blacks, became politically engaged in the debates over slavery

precisely because they believed that the tentacles of slave labor threatened to strangle

448 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

the economic prosperity of their own free societies.9 The ‘‘paralyzing hand’’ of

slavery, as the prominent Republican William Seward phrased it, had saddled the

South with economic stagnation, a lack of diversification, ‘‘exhausted soils’’, and a

‘‘fretful and discontented people.’’10 Throughout the antebellum period, this

economic critique of slavery began to take firm root, forcing many Southern

apologists to challenge the precepts of Adam Smith and his colleagues, who had laid

the groundwork for this economic indictment of slavery in the previous century.11

Without getting into the details of these debates, what is important to note is that

political economy provided one of the central lenses through which the antebellum

generation understood and debated the problem of slavery. And whatever we might

think about the matter, the economic arguments in favor of free labor, free markets,

and a consumer economy actually spoke to the pressing concerns of many in this

generation. It seems important to ask, then, why these same ideas, which had

appeared nearly three-quarters of a century before, failed to resonate with earlier

generations of Americans.12

This failure to connect seems all the more surprising given what we now know

about the intellectual and political landscape of America in the closing decades of the

eighteenth century. Recent scholarship has underscored just how important a role

political economy � particularly the intellectual framework provided by the Scots �played in shaping how many Americans of the period made sense of their own social

and economic development as well as the rapidly changing world around them. Far

from being an academic subject, confined to narrow elites, political economy‘‘became central to the intellectual and political debates’’ of the revolutionary era

and early republic. This focus reflected the concerns of a generation attempting to

make sense of the commercial revolutions that had created an integrated Atlantic

market, brought new economic institutions into existence, and transformed many

aspects of their own society. 13 Explaining these rapid developments was one of the

chief concerns of the Scottish Enlightenment, and it helps to account for the

widespread popularity of this school of thought in late eighteenth and early

nineteenth-century America. Even Southern planters were eager to embrace the

new political economy emanating from Glasgow and Edinburgh.14 Remarkably,

however, this enthusiasm for the Scots did not carry over into the early debates on

slavery.15 The institution was examined from a variety of different perspectives,

except the economic one that would appear to have been particularly well suited for

Americans.

The economics of slavery, moreover, was an issue that abolitionists would have to

confront since they were intruding upon property rights, commercial policy, and

national interests. Many contemporaries, for example, insisted that principles ofjustice or humanity should not be allowed to dictate national policy in such weighty

matters. John Rutledge, a delegate from South Carolina at the Constitutional

Convention, expressed this common conviction when he proclaimed that ‘‘interest

alone is the governing principle with Nations.’’ He thought it both foolish and

dangerous to dismantle slavery simply on ‘‘the claims of Religion & humanity.’’16

Likewise in the British Parliament, defenders of slavery often ‘‘appealed from the

tribunal of feeling to that of reason and calculation,’’ in the words of one

contemporary observer, hoping to impress upon audiences the financial harm that

would accompany any abolition of the slave trade, not to mention of slavery itself.17

By linking slavery with national prosperity, and declaring that interest alone was the

Atlantic Studies 449

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

governing principle of legitimate statecraft, defenders of the institution were hoping

to frame the debate in a way that invalidated the arguments of the antislavery

movement. Yet for precisely this reason, critics of slavery in eighteenth-century

England and France eagerly embraced the kind of hard-nosed economic analysis

that would counter their opponents. The Rev. Thomas Clarkson’s Essay on the

Impolicy of the African Slave Trade (1784) represented just one of the most striking

examples of this growing trend. A chief architect of the antislavery movement inBritain, Clarkson had already written several pamphlets on the immorality of

slavery, when he decided to begin attacking the institution on commercial grounds.

His work, filled with statistics and detailed arguments against the slave trade, stressed

that Africans would prove more beneficial as free laborers by creating a ‘‘perpetually

growing demand for our manufactures’’ as well as by producing more staples when

enticed with these new consumer incentives.18 In a rather short period of time, in fact,

the economic case against slavery began to appear in a wide variety of abolitionist

tracts, sermons, and speeches.19 Surveying the scene in 1799, the conservative Sir

Joseph Banks confided that ‘‘a struggle almost equal to an Earthquake must take

place & Slavery must be abolished not on moral principles, which are in my opinion

incapable of being maintained in argument, but on Commercial ones which weigh

equally in moral & immoral minds.’’20 Had Banks and other European writers

surveyed the debates in America during this period, they would certainly have been

surprised to learn that few contemporaries shared their beliefs in the importance of

economic issues to the struggle over slavery.By tracing the historical roots of these arguments, this article seeks to reconstruct

the intellectual framework that made the issue of slave labor so problematic for the

Scots, and why their ideas failed to resonate in the American context. It is crucial to

understand precisely how and why Scottish thinkers focused on the issue of slavery.

And as the following section reveals, slavery emerged as an important topic in their

economic theories because it went to the heart of their overarching critique of

mercantilism. Slave labor, in fact, embodied many of the false priorities of the

mercantilist system: its reliance on coercion and restraint, its narrow-minded focus

on producing export commodities cheaply, and its related obsession with achieving a

positive balance of trade in a zero-sum world of global commerce. By contrast, the

Scots put forward a very different framework for understanding commercial

prosperity � one that prioritized consumption over production, domestic commerce

over foreign trade, diversified markets over staple exports, the efficiency of labor over

fiscal or trade policies, and the economic freedom of individuals and markets rather

than government control. By framing their economic analysis in these terms, Scottish

thinkers highlighted a number of potentially disturbing consequences of slave labor

that were largely invisible within the older mercantilist paradigm. The second part ofthis article explores how these competing ways of framing the economy, which

brought certain issues into focus while making others disappear altogether, offer

clues as to why Americans were unable to see or discuss slavery as the Scots had

intended. By examining the reception and appropriation of political economy in the

American context, we can begin to appreciate how the post-revolutionary generation

created their own intellectual framework that drew upon many ideas from the

Scottish school, while combining them with key priorities drawn from republicanism,

neo-mercantilism, and theories of public finance. The end result was an intellectual

climate, framed around a particular set of economic assumptions and priorities, that

450 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

made the long term consequences of slave labor virtually irrelevant for a generation

of Americans.

I

The appropriate starting point for understanding the problem of slavery within the

Scottish Enlightenment was a conception of society and the natural order that drew

its inspiration largely from the discipline of natural jurisprudence. While the roots of

this tradition stretched far back to antiquity, it was the seventeenth-century writings

of Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf that transformed this field of inquiry into a

philosophical study of mankind.21 Grotius departed from his predecessors by seeking

a new, more secure, foundation for natural law � one that would be independent of

religion and, thus, able to withstand the assaults of skepticism.22 He argued that

questions of theology or of God’s existence were irrelevant, because the world was

governed by rational laws embedded within nature itself.23 The broad goal of

jurisprudence, as Grotius conceived it, was to examine human nature and historical

experience to discover these underlying rules that were embedded within society and

responsible for their evolution.24 He was committed, as one scholar notes, ‘‘to

finding laws in nature, not for it.’’25 In this respect, Grotius brought natural law more

into line with the scientific view of a rationally ordered universe that was dominating

natural philosophy. Within this new framework, the principle of utility became

central as Grotius equated what is right (honestum) with what is profitable (utile) to

the preservation of mankind.26

Pufendorf built upon these insights, stressing even further the importance of self-

preservation and rational self-interest as the natural foundations of society.27 He

declared that ‘‘in seeking out the true condition of Men we have assigned the first

Place and Influence to Self-Love.’’28 Men entered into society, then, for protection so

that they could safely ‘‘pursue their own private concerns and interests.’’29 The

discovery of this principle, Pufendorf claimed, had ‘‘provided a foothold by which

moral and political science can be led to the highest peak.’’30 For the historical

development of social institutions, such as property, the family, or government, could

now be properly understood as ‘‘rational’’ � in the sense that they reflected the

purposeful rules and order of nature � since they guided the external actions of self-

interested men so as to render them useful to the peaceful preservation of mankind.31

This view offered the natural law jurists a new way to evaluate the evolving practices

of civil society as a reflection of the world’s rational order.32 Later philosophers in

Scotland were deeply influenced by this approach and it provided the ‘‘intellectual

matrix’’ out of which their political economy evolved.33

Gershom Carmichael, a professor at the University of Glasgow, played a crucial

role in transmitting this natural law tradition into eighteenth-century Scotland.34

Born in 1672, Carmichael taught influential courses on natural jurisprudence and

moral philosophy at Glasgow, where he helped set the intellectual direction for the

Scottish Enlightenment that would emerge in later decades.35 His edition of

Pufendorf ’s De Officio Hominis et Civis marked his greatest contribution. This

text became the standard work in Scotland while Carmichael’s appended commen-

taries were largely responsible for framing Pufendorf ’s reception.36 His pupil, the

distinguished philosopher Thomas Hutcheson, stated that Carmichael’s ‘‘notes are of

Atlantic Studies 451

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

much more value than the text’’ itself.37 Even Adam Smith would continue to consult

this edition as he formulated the theories for his Wealth of Nations.38

One of the more interesting aspects of Carmichael’s commentaries was his

discussion of slavery.39 Both Grotius and Pufendorf had defended the practice of

slavery on the grounds of utility.40 Pufendorf, for instance, argued that domestic

slavery was an expedient form of labor, which is why ‘‘most peoples adopted thecustom that prisoners of war, in return for their lives, be taken into servitude together

with any offspring they might subsequently have.’’41 Slavery, in other words, actually

worked to preserve human life and followed the natural dictates of self-interest. Yet

Carmichael disputed these views fervently, arguing that the institution violated the

rational principles of utility that were the foundation of any prosperous society.42 In

making this case, Carmichael focused upon Pufendorf ’s idea of ‘‘sociability’’ that

helped conceptualize the social and economic ties linking self-interest to the broader

progress of society.43 The human condition, according to Pufendorf, required mutual

dependence and engagement among people, since few could protect themselves or

provide for their own wants entirely. No man was an island unto themselves, and the

concept of sociability focused on how social and material progress emerged from this

beneficial exchange and inter-dependence among people. Such conditions not only

led to the protection of individual rights and property, but also to ‘‘the discovery and

development of the various skills and crafts by which human life has been improved

and enriched.’’44 Carmichael seized upon this point, declaring that ‘‘this usurped

right of owning slaves like cattle is a sure sign of the death of sociability,’’ striking atthe very heart of society by dismantling the individual protections and beneficial

exchanges underpinning true progress.45 Readers were left with the impression that

the disappearance of slavery in Western Europe offered an explanation for the steady

rise in commerce and industry since the middle ages.46

With a solid foundation in natural law, the study of political economy assumed a

greater importance as eighteenth-century Scots reflected upon their own commercial

development. In 1707, Scotland had accepted the Act of Union, which transformed

the independent Kingdom into a province of Great Britain. The Scots were willing to

forego political autonomy in the hopes that membership within the imperial polity

would stimulate economic growth.47 Many individuals were painfully aware of the

backwards, almost barbarous, state of their society; as late as 1723, crowds gathered

in East Kilbride just for the opportunity to see a cart with wheels.48 In this context,

‘‘improvement’’ became the order of the day as people formed clubs and societies to

spur economic advancement.49 By mid-century, the lowland areas of Scotland

witnessed a commercial transformation that brought notable prosperity as well as

profound changes to society. These dramatic developments attracted the attention ofa rising generation of intellectuals who sought to comprehend the underlying process

of social and economic growth.50 Progress became the central focus of the Scots, and

their attempts at developing a theory of the historical evolution of societies drew

considerable inspiration from the writings of the French philosophe, Charles-Louis de

Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.

As one of the leading theorists of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu exerted a

considerable influence throughout Europe and America. In The Spirit of the Laws, he

ambitiously set out to accomplish for the social world, what Sir Isaac Newton had

done for the physical � namely, to discover the governing laws that provided

structure and order to the world. The chief obstacle to this endeavor, of course, was

452 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

trying to reduce all the diversity of human societies into some kind of intelligible

pattern. In tackling this problem, Montesquieu developed a sociological approach

that explained variable customs, manners and institutions by referring to such factors

as climate, population, economic structure and political regime.51 He confidently

declared that, ‘‘I have laid down the first principles, and have found that the

particular cases follow naturally from them; that the histories of all nations are only

consequences of them.’’52 The luminati of the Scottish Enlightenment embracedMontesquieu’s approach because it complemented their own concerns so well.53 In

his philosophical study of man and society, Montesquieu was working within the

same framework of natural jurisprudence that inspired the Scots.54 As the

contemporary Dugald Stewart noted, both Montesquieu and his Scottish admirers

‘‘were attempting to account for the changing nature of societies, which take place in

the different stages of their progress . . . and the corresponding alterations which

institutions undergo.’’ Montesquieu’s chief contribution, he went on to add, was his

comparative method that surveyed ‘‘the most remote and unconnected quarters of

the globe, combining the casual observations of illiterate travelers and navigators

into a philosophical commentary on the history of law and of manners.’’ Stewart

called this approach ‘‘conjectural history,’’ and it quickly became a hallmark of the

Scottish Enlightenment.55

Conjectural history relied upon empirical evidence guided by philosophic

conjectures. This approach posited that history was not a series of contingent events

or accidental circumstances, but rather an orderly process governed by universalrules.56 For the Scottish Enlightenment, the key to revealing these principles lay in an

adequate understanding of human nature. Adam Ferguson stressed that one must

discover ‘‘the universal qualities of our nature in order to explain our varieties.’’57

David Hume pushed the point further arguing that ‘‘the science of man’’ represented

the ‘‘only sure foundation’’ for any inquiry.58 All of the Scots, in fact, relied upon the

conception of a single and unchanging human nature to construct their theories of

societal progress. The aspect of human nature that attracted the greatest attention

was mankind’s desire for self-improvement � what Adam Smith proclaimed to be

‘‘the strongest of all our desires.’’59 Armed with this principle, Scottish thinkers

embarked on a search for the underlying patterns of development in human history.

As John Millar explained, mankind’s common ‘‘disposition . . . for improving his

condition’’ has led ‘‘from one degree of advancement to another’’ producing a

‘‘remarkable uniformity in the several steps of his progression.’’60

The ‘‘steps’’ of progress, which the Scottish Enlightenment chose to emphasize,

were largely economic. William Robertson expressed the prevailing assumption that

‘‘in every inquiry concerning society, the first object of attention should be theirmode of subsistence.’’61 The structure of an economy provided the Scots with a

useful tool for both organizing and charting the evolution of societies. They put

forward a four-stage model of progress that formed the core of their social theory.62

The first stage of society offered subsistence through hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Most of the Scottish writers pointed to the tribes of North America as primary

examples. These communities would generally have small populations and lack

formal government or private property. Eventually, as the population grew, a society

would move to the second stage, ‘‘pasturage’’: in this phase, husbandry would emerge

as the dominant form of economic activity. The peoples of Arabia or Mongolia were

favorite examples. ‘‘Among such nations of shepards,’’ Smith maintained, ‘‘authority

Atlantic Studies 453

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

and subordination among men’’ would arise as well as conceptions of property. The

increased subsistence offered by herding would also lead to a rise in population that

would culminate in the advent of an ‘‘agricultural’’ society. With the classical

republics and feudal Europe as their guides, Scottish writers argued that these

nations would witness the emergence of cultivation, social ranks, legal property,

money, small towns, and formal political institutions. ‘‘Commercial’’ societies

marked the final stage in this progression, a level of advancement achieved almost

exclusively in contemporary Western Europe.63

Typical of their whole approach, Scottish writers combined history and theory to

understand the key transition from agricultural to commercial society. The historical

collapse of feudalism � which Scottish writers hailed as a ‘‘great revolution’’ or a

‘‘remarkable transformation’’ � attracted intense scrutiny. But thinkers also reflected

upon the fate of antiquity which, for all its alleged grandeur, had conspicuously

failed to cross the threshold into commercial modernity. For the Scots, what

feudalism and the ancient republics held in common was a dependency upon slave

labor. They noted that Europe witnessed a dramatic rise in economic development

just as the institution was expiring. Their writings sought to explore how and why the

emergence of free labor was a necessary condition for commercial societies. To be

sure, many eighteenth-century figures were increasingly extolling the links between

freedom, commerce, and progress � what has been referred to as the doux commerce

school of thought.64 But, as we will see, the Scots differed from some of their

contemporaries in focusing so intently, and concretely, on the issue of slavery and the

actual role of labor in generating the social and economic order of modern societies.

The Scots, in other words, went beyond a general celebration of freedom, per se, to

examine in specific detail how the transition to free labor, and the advent of free

market relations, transformed society. In their telling of history, slavery was neither

an aberration nor a peripheral issue; rather, it defined the very nature of economic

life throughout much of history, and its recent disappearance in portions of Europe

had led to the revolutionary changes they witnessed around them.One place to begin examining this critique of slavery is with the writings of David

Hume, who was such an influential voice in the middle decades of the eighteenth

century.65 While Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and his Enquiry

Concerning Human Understanding (1748) would become canonical texts in modern

philosophy, his celebrated reputation as a man of letters in the eighteenth century

was due more to his popular volumes of essays on political, economic and literary

subjects as well as his History of England.66 In his popular essays dealing with

political economy, Hume argued that ‘‘we must accept mankind as we find him,’’ and

develop ‘‘the best policy to comply with his common passions and ways of

thinking.’’67 He attributed the enormous success of the modern commercial system

to this realistic approach. Unlike the ‘‘violent methods’’ of the past, which had relied

upon coercion and even slavery to ‘‘oblige the labourer to toil,’’ commerce simply

offered ‘‘appealing commodities’’ that ‘‘enticed people to increase their skill and

industry.’’68 ‘‘When men become acquainted with these pleasures of luxury and the

profits of commerce,’’ Hume went on to conclude, ‘‘their delicacy and industry, being

once awakened, carries them on to farther improvements, in every branch of

domestic as well as foreign trade.’’69 Hence, the ‘‘genius’’ of modern commerce lay in

its ability to ‘‘encourage the natural appetites within every person.’’70 This view of

454 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

human nature linked ‘‘freedom, order, and industry’’ in an indissoluble chain that

questioned the underlying rationale of coerced labor.71

Even more troubling for Hume was slavery’s harmful effects on domestic

commerce and the development of a home market. Unlike other economists, who

invariably equated commerce with foreign exchange, and whose chief concern was

that countries maintain a favorable balance of trade in these matters, Hume stressed

that the real key to self-sustaining growth lay in a diversified economy which would

spur internal trade.72 Accordingly, the ‘‘bulk of every state should be divided into

husbandmen and manufacturers.’’73 Hume argued that this essential division of labor

would produce dynamic growth because the lure of consumer goods would cause

‘‘farmers to study agriculture as a science, and redouble their industry and attention’’

while their surpluses would provide ‘‘the maintenance of manufacturers, and the

improvers of mechanical arts.’’74 It was this kind of balanced economy � grounded in

a reciprocal and harmonious interaction between agriculture and manufacturing �that laid the true foundation for commercial prosperity. He bolstered this contention

by pointing to the well-known example of China, a nation that had built one of the

most flourishing economies in the world on the basis of internal trade alone.75

Hume’s emphasis on the importance of home markets led him to criticize the practice

of using slave labor on a large scale. The existence of slavery, he concluded, would

shackle domestic trade by replacing the useful division between farmers and

manufacturers with two ‘‘unnatural classes’’ � those who were ‘‘proprietors’’ and

their ‘‘slaves who possess no riches, and are not valued for their knowledge of

agriculture.’’ It was this arrangement of the social order that potentially restricted a

healthy market of consumers and prevented the spread of commerce, industry and

manufacturing.76

These points appeared forcefully in one of Hume’s most detailed essays, ‘‘On the

Populousness of Ancient Nations.’’ Here, Hume criticized the economies of the

ancient world for their reliance upon slave labor. The piece was largely a response to

George Wallace’s claim, in his Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, that the

population of the ancient world far exceeded that of the modern. Hume acknowl-

edged that ‘‘the comparative populousness of ages or kingdoms’’ represented a

question of ‘‘great consequence.’’77 This view was common among eighteenth-

century writers who treated population as the most revealing indicator of an

economy’s strength.78 They believed that the number of inhabitants reflected the

amount of subsistence which an economy could provide.79 For Wallace, the

population of antiquity flourished on account of its ‘‘more frugal and virtuous

system of agriculture.’’80 In challenging this opinion, Hume focused upon the ‘‘chief

difference between the domestic economy of the ancients and that of the moderns. . .the practice of slavery.’’ Only free labor, he argued, could unleash the ‘‘powerful

instincts of human nature’’ that were necessary for an efficient economy. ‘‘Slavery

therefore is as little advantageous to the master as to the slave,’’ he observed, ‘‘and its

place is much better supplied by the practice of hired servants.’’81 Hume also

reiterated the harmful consequences of slavery on the development of a home

market. The ‘‘free labourer’’ bought ‘‘many goods that contribute to his pleasure and

enjoyment.’’ In the process, these consumers provide employment for ‘‘others who

work in trade and manufactures.’’ Hume concluded that ancient commerce had

remained ‘‘in a languishing state’’ because of slavery’s limiting effects. He scoffed at

Atlantic Studies 455

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

the notion that such confined economies could support a larger population than

their modern counterparts.82

The confining effects of slavery became a dominant theme in the writings of Sir

James Steuart, one of the Scottish pioneers of political economy.83 In his major

treatise, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, Steuart employed a four-

stage framework that sketched out ‘‘the regular progress of mankind from greatsimplicity to complicated refinement.’’84 The issue of slavery appeared early on in his

opening discussion on primitive economies. Acknowledging the ‘‘elaborate perfor-

mance of Mr. Hume,’’ Steuart agreed that slave-based economies were inferior to

their modern commercial counterparts. ‘‘Slavery was not unnatural in the infancy of

society,’’ he maintained, since there were few goods and commodities that ‘‘could

entice men to labor.’’ But Steuart emphasized that people who toil ‘‘because they are

slaves to others’’ were much less efficient than those who work because they are

‘‘slaves to their own wants.’’85 Steuart repeatedly stressed this point about the

deficiencies of bound labor because he was convinced that it offered a compelling

explanation ‘‘for the difference between the progress of industry in ancient and

modern times’’86

Like Hume, Steuart framed his discussion of slavery in terms of the proper

ordering of the domestic economy. He argued that commercial expansion depended

heavily upon an appropriate distribution between farmers and ‘‘free hands’’ � i.e.

those who produced manufactures.87 These two sectors of the economy would notonly provide balance through the exchange of surplus goods, but more importantly,

they would offer luring commodities ‘‘that arouse the ingenuity and industry’’ of

both groups.88 This circular flow of goods allowed Steuart to explain how modern

commercial societies had forged a path of dynamic growth as well as to illuminate the

corresponding weaknesses of slavery. The institution disrupted this mutual exchange

by depriving a nation of domestic consumers and thereby curtailing the development

of internal trade and industry. ‘‘Upon every occasion where I have mentioned

slavery,’’ he reminded his audience, ‘‘I have pointed out how far the nature of it is

contrary to the advancement of private industry, the inseparable concomitant of

domestic trade.’’89

In one of the more interesting parts of Steuart’s work, he drew upon these

principles to suggest why such an inhibiting form of labor had been introduced into

the colonies of the New World in the first place. Since mercantilist policies had

encouraged the colonial production of staples ‘‘which are of a simple nature, and at

the same time. . .sought to curb manufactures in the new world,’’ slavery offered a

useful means of achieving both objectives, cementing the kind of dependentrelationship between colonies and metropole that mercantilists espoused. In fact,

Steuart reasoned that ‘‘if any colony shall ever begin to rival the industry of the

mother-country, a very good way of frustrating the attempt will be, to encourage the

introduction of slaves into such colonies . . . and to allow the system to work its

pernicious effects.’’90 Here was an argument that managed to undercut the basic

utility of slavery while also making sense of its continued expansion throughout the

new world. Like monopolies or trade restrictions, slavery was an appealing tool in

the arsenal of mercantilists who were trying to channel economic activity into certain

artificial paths that would bolster national power while ensuring colonial depen-

dency. Malachy Postlethwayt, who was arguably the most prominent mercantilist

writer in England during this period, echoed these views, insisting that ‘‘Negroe

456 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Labour’’ would ensure that New World colonies would forever remain ‘‘in a due

Subserviency to the Interest of their Mother-country.’’ ‘‘For while our Plantations

depend only on Planting by Negroes,’’ he continued, ‘‘our Colonies can never prove

injurious to British Manufactures.’’ The key point was that slave labor ‘‘will confine

the Plantations to Planting only,’’ keeping the colonies from not only developing rival

industries, but also domestic commerce and markets since staple commodities were

channeled into trans-Atlantic trade � an avenue, that as Postlethwayt noted with glee,would ensure Britain’s continued ‘‘superiority of Trade and Naval Power.’’91 Scottish

political economists would criticize these measures precisely because they funda-

mentally disagreed with the philosophy and priorities of mercantilism, which in their

view, stifled economic incentives and devalued labor, while distorting market patterns

in favor of export staples and foreign trade.92

The intellectual who brought this critique of slavery to its culmination was Adam

Smith. Hailed by one contemporary as the ‘‘Newton’’ of the Scottish Enlightenment,

Smith occupied the distinguished Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of

Glasgow, following Carmichael and Hutcheson in this post. Smith attracted

considerable attention in 1759 with the publication of his first work, The Theory

of Moral Sentiments. He argued that moral philosophy could only proceed from an

empirical account of human nature, recognizing the primacy of ‘‘our natural instincts

and passions.’’ ‘‘We are not at present examining upon what principles a perfect

being would act,’’ Smith explained, ‘‘but upon what principles so weak and imperfect

a creature as man actually follows.’’ He thus dismissed the notion that reasonprovided the ultimate guide for human conduct. So ‘‘slow and uncertain a faculty’’

was never ‘‘entrusted’’ with determining our actions. Rather, ‘‘nature has directed us

by original and immediate instincts’’ in such a way that ‘‘we promote the beneficent

ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.’’ Smith

envisioned an ‘‘oeconomy of nature’’ in which mankind was animated ‘‘by hunger,

thirst, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain’’ to ‘‘unknowingly promote the

welfare and preservation of society.’’ In the moral sphere, people’s natural desire for

approbation along with their fear of shame, led them to follow ethical conventions.

Yet Smith also hinted at the implications of this ‘‘harmonious system’’ for the

economy. ‘‘Nature imposes upon us’’ a longing for ‘‘wealth and greatness’’ which

‘‘rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.’’ Nothing but an

insatiable desire for ‘‘baubles and trinkets,’’ Smith argued, ‘‘has prompted men to

cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to

invent and improve all the sciences and arts.’’ In a famous passage, Smith surmised

that individuals ‘‘are led by an invisible hand’’ to ‘‘advance the interest of society . . .without intending it [or] without knowing it.’’93 As he drafted The Wealth of Nations,

he expounded upon these arguments in greater detail and explored how slaveryobstructed this natural design of progress.

Smith’s overriding concern was to demonstrate that ‘‘perfect liberty,’’ enjoyed by

all segments of society, offered the surest means to achieving the prosperity of both

individuals and nations. Smith grounded his theory of a free market in a particular

conception of human nature. He explained to audiences that ‘‘the universal desire of

bettering our condition. . . comes to us from the womb, and never leaves us till we

descend into the grave.’’ ‘‘Like every other human quality,’’ this fundamental instinct

of self-interest ‘‘improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives.’’ So when

property rights were secure, and everyone was free to reap the rewards of their own

Atlantic Studies 457

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

labor or investments, people’s natural ambition and industry would encourage them

to work with efficiency, dexterity, and purpose. Slavery, however, impinged upon

both of these conditions, leaving the laborer with ‘‘no other interest but to eat as

much and to labour as little as possible.’’ ‘‘It appears, therefore,’’ Smith proclaimed

in one of the famous passages of his book, ‘‘that the work done by freemen comes

cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.’’94 Many contemporaries seized

upon these words, embracing the connection between personal autonomy, self-interest, and efficiency that drove Smith to champion the ‘‘work done by freemen’’

over that performed by slaves.

Yet this oft-repeated line only captures a part of Smith’s deeper arguments about

the limitations of slavery, and its pernicious effects on the market. One of the chief

reasons why Smith was so interested in the issue of slave labor, in fact, was because it

went to the heart of his fundamental distinctions between self-interest and

selfishness, between liberty and license, between natural markets and artificial

ones � distinctions that ultimately explained the causes of economic growth itself.

Much of human history, according to Smith, was filled with examples of societies

that had gratified the selfish desires of those in power, who freely engaged in

conquest, plunder, piracy, theft, or slavery. Smith never doubted that such activities

were profitable in the narrow sense of increasing the wealth of those who could

literally take advantage of the weak. But such selfish activities were also self-

defeating in the larger, more important, sense that they kept society locked in a

chronic state of poverty, strife, and instability. Only in recent centuries had Europeansocieties witnessed the advent of effective law and order that had provided a new level

of security to persons and property, allowing market activity to genuinely flourish.

And if most contemporaries were willing to agree that a predatory world was actually

quite hostile to economic growth, Smith pushed them to see how contemporary

practices like monopolies or slave labor were essentially the same phenomenon in

modern guise. Indeed, both monopolies and slavery appear prominently throughout

the Wealth of Nations because they embody the kind of selfish and short-sighted

practices that threaten a genuinely free market. They cordon off certain segments of

the economy, or certain groups of society, that are to be exploited in ways that deny

the basic right of every person to pursue their own economic advancement. For

Smith, then, the natural link between freedom, self-interest, and economic progress

only worked if society prevented the kind of selfish activities that negated the rights

and freedoms of others. True liberty could not exist alongside license. And like

Hume, Smith portrayed these abusive practices as harmful not simply because they

were inefficient � a problem that would be confined only to the balance sheet of the

slave-owner or monopolist � but more importantly, because they artificially distorted

the flow of goods and services in ways that shackled the long-term growth of theeconomy. Society, in other words, ultimately paid the price. These deeper arguments

came together in Book III of the Wealth of Nations, where he examined the historical

evolution of European commerce and how slavery had shackled the medieval

economy.

Set against the backdrop of Europe’s transition from feudalism, Smith presented

the abolition of slavery and serfdom as a necessary condition for the advent of a

commercial economy. He reiterated the popular notion that the economy was

naturally structured into two key sectors: agriculture and manufacturing. ‘‘The gains

of both are mutual and reciprocal,’’ he explained, ‘‘and the division of labour is in

458 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

this, as in all other cases, advantageous to all the different persons employed.’’95

Ideally, each society would follow this ‘‘natural order’’ which would lead to continual

growth as the commerce between town and country encouraged improvements in

both agriculture and industry, while creating expanding consumer markets for the

products of both. But Smith realized that the historical existence of slavery had

subverted this process. He set out, therefore, to examine how feudal slavery created

an ‘‘unnatural and retrograde order’’ that had prevented any significant growth.Book III, in many ways, tells the story of how the demise of slavery laid the

foundation for Europe’s commercial modernity, an account that wove together

the imperatives of free labor, domestic commerce, and consumption into a

cohesive critique of slavery. And while we might question the relevance of

drawing comparisons between feudal Europe and the plantation complex of the

New World, contemporaries seem to have found Smith’s historical analysis of

Europe both compelling and timely. The editors of The General Magazine and

Impartial Review, for example, decided to publish extracts from Book III in the fall of

1792, explaining that Smith’s ‘‘short history of slavery, and the causes of its abolition

in divers nations of Europe’’ were directly connected to the public debates over

abolishing the slave-trade which were reaching a crescendo in Parliament that year.

In particular, they encouraged readers to pay close attention to ‘‘his remarks on the

impolicy and disadvantage of such a condition [slavery], both to the individual and

to the state,’’ a message they believed was every bit as applicable ‘‘to the African

negroes’’ and plantation slavery.96

Feudal slavery, Smith argued, was responsible for creating a languishing economy

with severe structural problems. He described how the ‘‘peasants were kept as slaves,’’

and how, without incentives, they ‘‘had no other interest but to eat as much, and to

labour as little as possible.’’ The prevalence of slavery also removed the possibility of

any substantial market of consumers � a fact that only further depressed economic

activity. The first significant breakthrough in these stagnant societies occurred when

the inhabitants of cities began to achieve ‘‘real freedom.’’ Smith argued that various

kings had granted liberty to the inhabitants of towns in an effort to reduce the power

of feudal lords. Sovereigns increasingly relied upon these communities as allies in

their political struggle with the ‘‘great proprietors.’’ Having achieved freedom, Smith

maintained, the townspeople ‘‘laboured to better their condition and to acquire not

only the necessaries, but the conveniencies and elegancies of life.’’ He observed that

while ‘‘the cities grew up to great wealth and splendor’’ the surrounding ‘‘countryside

remained in poverty and wretchedness’’ because of slavery. This uneven situation put

serious limits on the possibility of commercial expansion. But as trade and commerce

revived within cities, their ‘‘commodities gradually furnished the great proprietors

with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of theirlands, and which they could consume themselves without sharing it with their

dependents.’’ Lords gradually responded to this changing situation by converting

their slaves into rent-paying tenants. Smith pointed out that this emancipation was

crucial because it led to ‘‘a vast increase in the size of the market’’; and these newly

liberated consumers were largely responsible ‘‘for the revival of commerce and

industry’’ that constituted ‘‘a revolution of the greatest importance.’’97 With the

substitution of free labor for slavery, therefore, domestic trade was finally allowed to

flow through the natural channels of exchange between country and city that

encouraged real economic growth.

Atlantic Studies 459

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

If Smith’s rendering of European history underscored the increasingly popular

view that liberty and commerce were intimately tied together, it also revealed that the

demise of slavery was neither inevitable nor the product of impersonal forces. Only

the political intervention of rising monarchs-who were more concerned to curb thepower of unruly nobles than to promote freedom and trade-began the slow process

of redeeming certain segments of Europe’s servile classes. If anything, the

transformations that dominate Book III are the product of these political contests,

which ultimately secured ‘‘order and good government, and with them, the liberty

and security of individuals’’ that allowed commerce, trade, and eventually, industry

to take root. It is important to underscore the fact that neither Smith, nor other

writers of the Scottish Enlightenment, believed that slavery would somehow

disappear because of economic forces. Neither the expansion of the market, northe direction of historical progress, would do anything to uproot slavery around the

globe. Quite the opposite, the writers of the Scottish Enlightenment were above all

interested in explaining western Europe’s exceptionalism � how these nations alone,

in their view, had managed to develop thriving commercial societies by establishing

something approximating free labor and free markets. ‘‘It is not likely,’’ Smith

confessed in one of his more pessimistic moods, ‘‘that slavery should be ever

abolished’’ in the present day world, pointing out that it was only ‘‘owing to some

peculiar circumstances that it has been abolished in the small corner of the world inwhich it now is.’’ The ‘‘love of domination and authority’’ would probably keep the

institution entrenched, he went on to add, just as these same impulses would lead

many to monopolize, extort, cheat, or oppress others if society did not actively

restrain them.98 The ultimate message of these Scottish writers, therefore, was rather

disquieting. Slavery was a backwards form of labor that not only constrained

commercial growth, but actually distorted the economy in ways that diminished

future prospects. By channeling resources into an inefficient form of labor and by

inhibiting domestic consumption as well as the emergence of internal trade andmarkets, slavery created a non-diversified economy that was locked into a single path

of staple production for foreign exchange � a path that would prove quite

detrimental in the long run. Yet at the same time, slavery, like other entrenched

practices and institutions that impinged upon the freedoms of the marketplace, was

likely to continue flourishing unless political forces intervened directly to outlaw or

dismantle it.99 The invisible hand might guide the free market with the comforting

power of inevitability, but there was nothing inevitable about the emergence of actual

freedom in the marketplace.100

II

One of the powerful features of ideas � whether we speak in terms of discourses or

paradigms or ideologies � is their ability to reorganize the world into meaningful

patterns, bringing certain issues and connections to the forefront, while making

others disappear altogether. Like an optical lens, intellectual frameworks often

produce remarkable clarity of vision by essentially filtering and focusing our sight.101

And as we have seen, one distinct feature of the Scottish discourse of political

economy was that it provided a powerful lens through which contemporaries could

make sense of the underlying connections between free labor, diversified markets,

and self-sustaining growth. Indeed, slavery played such a visible role in the writings

460 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

of the Scots precisely because it brought into such sharp focus the differences

between commerce and coercion, between the natural growth of free and diversified

markets and the ephemeral profits of mercantilism, which held both markets and

labor captive. While this economic vision certainly encountered skeptics, it managed

to resonate with a large number of contemporaries throughout Europe, not least of

whom were those beginning to have doubts about the future role of slavery. More

importantly, Europeans vigorously debated these issues, with supporters andopponents alike making the case for what they believed would be the future

economic consequences of the abolition of the slave trade, and eventually, of slavery

itself.102 By contrast, American writers and politicians displayed a strange tendency

to compartmentalize these issues, keeping their growing anxieties over the future of

slavery quite separate from their growing debates over the future economic direction

of the new republic. And so we return to the original question of why this economic

critique played a surprisingly marginal role in America until the 1820s.

One possible solution to this problem lies in the notion that Americans ignored

these debates precisely because so many of them had already accepted the central

tenets of the Scots. As the historian James Oakes has recently argued, the belief in

the superiority of free labor � what he calls the ‘‘bourgeois critique of slavery’’ �enjoyed widespread support among the leading lights of the Revolutionary

generation. As early as 1751, Benjamin Franklin had questioned the profitability

of slave labor in his popular Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, a text

that Oakes suggests may very well have influenced Adam Smith’s own writings onthe subject. So ‘‘by the time they declared their independence from Great Britain,

many Americans were already well-versed in the economic critique of slavery,’’ a

position that became accepted wisdom well into the antebellum era.103 Thus if

Americans were largely silent about the economics of slavery, it reflected a tacit

consensus among a bourgeois nation that already embraced the capitalist worldview

of free labor and free markets. Yet Oakes insists that this silence has another, deeper

meaning, which helps unravel ‘‘the great paradox’’ of the Revolutionary generations’

record on slavery; namely, the fact that so many leading figures were willing to

openly condemn slavery, while often doing very little to actually abolish the

institution. Unlike other areas, where the impulses of the revolution led to concrete

efforts at reform, slavery tended to generate mostly censure, regret, and apathy. For

Oakes, the kind of fatalistic stance that characterized public opinion during this

period was rooted in the economic critique of slavery, which convinced many

Americans that such an anachronistic institution would ultimately disappear of its

own accord. The historical evolution of the market would eventually resolve this

embarrassing problem, and the revolutionary generation could rest content that in

cutting off the importation of new slaves in 1808, they had essentially set theinstitution on a glide path to extinction.104 For Oakes, then, the peculiar silence in

America regarding the economics of slavery reflected not a disregard, but a fatalistic

embrace of the Scottish outlook.

But I believe there are reasons why this apparent solution to the problem remains

ultimately unsatisfying. First, the vast majority of scholarship examining the initial

phases of American anti-slavery � i.e. from the revolutionary period until the

Missouri Crisis � has consistently emphasized the dominance of natural rights

philosophy and religion, noting the conspicuous absence of ‘‘free labor’’ ideas that

would become a hallmark of later antebellum debates.105 To be fair, Oakes is

Atlantic Studies 461

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

certainly correct in pointing out that a string of individuals such as Benjamin

Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur Lee, and John Taylor remarked on the

inefficiency of slave labor. But during this period, very few writers chose to explore

the broader economic ramifications of this point, or to employ this line of argument

as a fundamental rationale for opposing the institution. Franklin’s comments, for

example, were typically confined to his discussions of demography, and he never

really emphasized this line of argument in either his economic or antislaverywritings.106 So if there was a consensus on the superiority of free labor, there is little

evidence to suggest that contemporaries thought it was a significant point worth

emphasizing. Second, I think Oakes errs in suggesting that classical economics, as

articulated by Adam Smith and others within the Scottish enlightenment, was

responsible for promoting the notion that slave labor would eventually disappear

because of market forces.107 As discussed above, these writers did not operate under

the illusions that historical forces were conspiring to make the triumph of free labor,

free markets, or free trade inevitable. We should remember, in fact, that many

contemporaries used The Wealth of Nations and similar tracts to emphasize the need

for bold intervention and reform, selecting passages to argue their case for the repeal

of corn laws, the abolition of monopolies, dismantling the apprentice system, trade

legislation, tariffs, or slavery. Far from encouraging apathy, then, the vision of a free

market, as many historians of the period have noted, actually spurred aggressive calls

for intervention and change.108 Indeed, the more the economic critique of slavery

began to influence the abolition movement in the antebellum period, the more it

began to insist that Congress take direct action to curtail the institution of slavery,particularly with regard to its spread into the western territories.

As these last points suggest, there is a danger in approaching classical economics

as if it were a self-contained and static set of ideas. In fact, the lessons people drew

from the eighteenth-century discourse of political economy could be quite variable

and fluid, often shaped by the urgent issues and problems they sought to address in

particular moments of time. So Americans living in the 1780s, who were trying to

make sense of the economic ramifications of leaving the ‘‘old colonial system’’ of

Britain, were operating in a very different historical context than individuals in the

1820s, debating the virtues of the ‘‘American System’’ with its emphasis on internal

improvements, tariffs, and the development of a balanced national economy.

Moreover, sectional, political, and professional attachments certainly colored the

way various people employed the outlook of the Scottish Enlightenment to make

sense of these larger economic trends and policies. This is not to suggest that the

ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment were infinitely malleable, but rather to

underscore that by studying the complex ways Americans appropriated the insights

of political economy, using them to address experiences and concerns that were attimes different from those of the Scots, we might gain a deeper understanding of how

the relationship between slavery and economic growth in America could be recast in

a distinctly different light.

The remaining pages explore how key elements of Scottish political economy

were reformulated in America, causing popular perceptions of the economy to be

framed in a way that made the issue of slave labor ‘‘disappear’’ from serious public

scrutiny. In particular, the emergence of new strands of neo-mercantilist thinking

in the decades after the American Revolution helped create a national climate in

which the economic consequences of slavery became largely irrelevant, thereby

462 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

undercutting the need for any dramatic intervention to dismantle the institution on

commercial grounds. This neo-mercantilist perspective, which emerged from the rich

body of economic writings and debates of the period, actually embraced many

arguments from the new Scottish school of political economy, but incorporated them

into an older framework of values and priorities rooted in mercantilism. This

popular synthesis allowed many Americans to imagine an economic future in which

the issue of production not consumption, foreign trade not domestic commerce,regional specialization not diversified markets, financial and commercial policies not

systems of labor, became the key priorities to ensuring economic growth. Framed in

such terms, the economic critique of slavery became whittled down to little more

than the objection that free workers might do a better job of producing export

commodities than slaves. What had disappeared, in fact, was the larger, more

encompassing critique that slave labor would undercut the economy by shackling

consumption, domestic manufacturing, diversified economies, and sustainable

growth. Only in the 1820s, when the neo-mercantilist synthesis began to unravel,

and these priorities began to reverse themselves, did the larger arguments of the Scots

start to resonate with Americans, allowing many to re-conceptualize slave labor as a

kind of economic cancer that would threaten the commercial vitality of the nation

unless dramatic action was taken to remove it.

The period of the American Revolution offers an instructive window into the

intellectual dynamics that surrounded mercantilism, slave labor, and Scottish

political economy in the American context. Mercantilism, it should be remembered,had become quite controversial during the turbulent decade of the imperial crisis,

when colonists voiced their increasing frustration with Britain’s old colonial system.

The 1760s and 1770s, in fact, provided an important moment when the anti-

mercantilist perspective of the Scots found a very receptive audience among

Americans, who no doubt appreciated the presence of a timely and powerful

framework for articulating their growing resentment at the exploitative nature of

Britain’s mercantilist system.109 It was during this period, moreover, that colonists

began to focus on the role that slave labor served in cementing their subordinate

position within the empire. Echoing the Scots, some prominent figures such as

Arthur Lee and George Mason began to reconceptualize slavery as part of Britain’s

larger mercantilist design to lock the colonies into patterns of economic depen-

dency.110 Equally telling, however, were the various county resolves � especially those

from Virginia, the oldest and largest of the plantation colonies � which attacked

slavery on precisely these economic grounds, complaining that slave labor discour-

aged the immigration of free settlers, prevented the rise of local manufacturing,

stifled domestic markets, encouraged debt, and made entire communities dependent

upon the vagaries and exploitation of transatlantic commodity markets.111 And whileit was obviously self-serving to imagine that Britain had foisted slavery upon the

hapless colonies for her own greedy purposes, the climate of the early 1770s revealed

just how seamlessly anti-mercantilism and anti-slavery could merge together. The

intensity of this critique also suggested the need for timely and direct action, a call

that was heeded by a number of colonial legislatures which passed laws either

banning the importation of slaves outright, or placing prohibitive taxes on the slave

trade.112 Indeed, the 1770s witnessed the kind of intellectual climate that Oakes no

doubt had in mind when he talked about America’s ‘‘bourgeois’’ consensus against

slavery. But interestingly enough, these sentiments did not encourage fatalism or

Atlantic Studies 463

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

resignation, but actually spurred concrete steps to curb slavery. Even more to the

point, these economic concerns quickly disappeared after the revolution, under-

scoring how much they were a product of the anti-mercantilist ferment of these

particular years.

The post-revolutionary decades, in fact, ushered in a period of significant

economic and intellectual adjustment. In many ways, the war years had prioritized a

set of anti-mercantilist issues, like domestic manufacturing, economic independence,

and free trade, that made the Scottish framework of political economy resonate with

the pressing concerns of American audiences.113 But even before the conflict had

ended, shrewd commentators like John Adams were predicting that the eventual

peace would lead to a restoration of older commercial patterns that had traditionally

linked America and Europe in the past. ‘‘America is the country of raw materials,’’

Adams underscored in a series of widely published letters, while ‘‘Europe is the

country for manufactures . . . thus Europe and America will be blessings, to each

other.’’114 Such views were symptomatic of a much larger trend among the writers

and observers of the post-revolutionary period, who ‘‘constantly harked back to

familiar colonial experiences and reiterated the old mercantile role of production of

raw materials and consumption of European manufactures,’’ as one scholar has

carefully documented.115 This neo-mercantilism, to be sure, aroused the suspicion

and resentment of some artisans and domestic manufacturers who chafed at the idea

of accepting a neocolonial status � a resentment that only intensified when Britain

flooded American markets with cheap consumer goods after the war and attempted

to use its Navigation Acts to muscle Americans out of the lucrative carrying trade.

As one angry observer noted, ‘‘Powder and ball, muskets and bayonets, could not

conquer us, but we are to be subdued by British gewgaws . . . Our money will be all

drawn away, and then we can do nothing; all must stop. This is a scheme laid by

Britons now for our overthrow.’’116 Yet the majority of Americans ignored these

alarms, and instead, looked with anticipation to a commercial future that bore many

striking resemblances to their past.117

Still, the neo-mercantilism of the early republic contained important elements

and ideas that were new. First, Americans were quick to insist that all of Europe, not

only Britain, would be the appropriate trading partner and market for their

commodities, embracing the notion that they could enjoy the benefits of an

export-driven economy without suffering the debt and dependency that colonies

had often experienced when their trade was monopolized by a single imperial power.

Here, the concept of free trade, which had appeared so prominently in the writings of

Adams Smith and other Scottish authors, proved quite useful in articulating a vision

of global commerce that ironically rationalized older patterns of production and

trade that Americans were quite familiar with.118 In a similar vein, American writers

increasingly seized upon concepts from Scottish political economy as well as

physiocracy � such as economic specialization, regional advantage, and the primacy

of agriculture � to reconceptualize how America’s ‘‘natural’’ path of economic

growth lay in its traditional role as the producer of agricultural staples for export

abroad.119 Such views helped many Americans make sense of the changing economic

landscape, which especially after 1793 and the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars,

revolved around expanding foreign markets for American produce as well as growing

profits for Northern shipping interests engaged in the carrying trade.120 In fact, each

464 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

section of the country found its regional interests increasingly tied to a sustained

policy of robust foreign commerce.121

The new framework of neo-mercantilism also drew upon powerful strands of

republican ideology to address the political anxieties of the revolutionary generation.

As the historian Drew McCoy has shown, many Americans firmly believed that

republican experiments in government could not succeed without the proper social

and economic order to sustain them. Commercial issues like banking, public credit,

tariffs, or even roads were often viewed through this political prism, inviting

contemporaries to debate how such measures would affect the virtues, mores, and

social fabric needed to sustain a genuine republic. Since agrarian life was equated

with republican virtue, and manufacturing threatened to introduce dangerous

inequalities and class divisions, republicanism tended to strengthen the neo-

mercantilist paradigm that put so much emphasis on the production of agricultural

staples and raw exports, leaving manufacturing to Europe, where Thomas Jefferson

and others hoped it would remain. Yet the republican worldview, as McCoy points

out, actually incorporated many Scottish theories concerning self-interest, human

industry and the stages of societal evolution, weaving these ideas into a commercial

vision that highlighted America’s embrace of transatlantic markets as the key to

fostering the personal independence, widespread prosperity, and social stability that

a republic needed.122 Far from posing a threat to republicanism, then, the right kind

of commerce would actually create the social and economic order that would ensure

the success of the fledgling polity. Such an emphasis not only reversed the

fundamental priorities of the Scots, but also called for the kind of robust government

oversight, intervention, and encouragement of foreign trade that would have pleased

the most ardent mercantilists of the eighteenth century.

If the new preoccupation with foreign commerce and markets indicated that

economic thought was moving in a direction that would render many of the Scottish

concerns with slavery irrelevant, the growing national debates over government

finances and credit signaled a broader departure from the Scottish framework of

political economy. Whereas the Scots had made labor the primary focus of their

economic analysis, and argued that it was the foundation of commercial progress,

many Americans in the 1790s began to suggest that fiscal and financial policy were in

fact the real engines of economic growth. Alexander Hamilton’s controversial

schemes for instituting a new system of national finance � involving the federaliza-

tion of state debts, public credit, and banking � helped set the terms of debate

surrounding economic policy for a generation.123 The 1790s, in fact, marked a kind

of ‘‘fiscal turn’’ in how Americans conceptualized and prioritized economic life.124

Important writers, like Samuel Blodget, insisted that the ‘‘character and industry of

the people’’ counted for little without ‘‘a compleat system of finance, supported by

public credit and an increased CAPITAL STOCK.’’ Labor, in other words, was less

important than financial policy in securing the economic growth of nations.125 And

while participants in these debates would often cite the opinions of Hume, Smith, or

others to bolster their particular views on these fiscal initiatives, they were essentially

framing the larger conversation in a way that none of the Scots would have chosen to

do.126 And it is critical to note that the economic impact of slavery becomes far less

visible or relevant when finances, rather than labor, becomes the central focus of

economic analysis.

Atlantic Studies 465

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Thus, as Americans appropriated the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, re-

working them in light of their commitments to neo-mercantilism, republicanism, and

their goals of creating an export-driven economy, many of the key priorities that had

made slavery a central issue for the Scots began to disappear. The case against

slavery, after all, had rested upon the necessity for extensive home markets and

domestic commerce, as well as the need for a diversified economy capable of self-

sustaining growth. When Americans shifted their focus from consumption to

production, from domestic to foreign trade, and from labor to financial policy, the

economic limitations of slavery largely receded into the background. In this way,

American writers transformed the free labor and free market paradigm of the Scots

into a more narrow vision of ‘‘free trade’’ that rendered the social and economic

dimensions of slavery largely irrelevant.127

This point would seem to be confirmed by the particular timing and context

surrounding the eventual embrace of free labor ideas in the 1820s. As historians have

shown, the Missouri Crisis represented a watershed moment in the politics and

ideology of antislavery; a moment when the national debate became far more

polarizing in terms of sectional divisions as well as the arguments put forward by

antislavery and proslavery advocates alike.128 Moreover, for the first time since the

1770s, the slavery debate was framed as much in economic terms as it was in moral,

religious, or ethical terms. Quite suddenly, in fact, the economic critique of slavery

put forward by the Scots began to appear prominently in Congressional speeches,

pamphlets, sermons, and political writings.129 Central to this shift in thinking was the

growing recognition that the economic implications of slavery extended far beyond

the account books of Southern planters, as Congressman William Plumer Jr. of New

Hampshire underscored to his colleagues in the House of Representatives. Reacting

to the claims of southerners that ‘‘whatever may be the evils of slavery, they are

confined exclusively to the slaveholding States, and are, therefore, no concern of

ours,’’ Plumer went on to suggest exactly why they should concern all Americans:

Is it nothing to us that, in more than half the Union, a state of things exists unfavorableto commerce, to manufactures, to agricultural improvements, and which abstractsmaterially from the military strength and defence of our common country? And is itnothing to us, whether our new confederates [in Missouri] bring freedom or slavery,strength or weakness with them into our Union? This, then, is the interest, deep andlasting, which we have in the present question.

Throughout his speech, in fact, Plummer not only explained how slavery

undermined commerce, manufacturing, and agricultural improvements, but high-

lighted the larger effects these had in undermining domestic markets and a national

economy.130 And the ability of antislavery advocates to frame the debate in these

terms � to highlight the broader consequences of slavery as a system of labor � no

doubt reflected the important shifts in economic thinking that had emerged in the

previous decade when the intellectual and political framework of neo-mercantilism

began to unravel.131 The trying experiences of Jefferson’s embargo, the War of 1812,

and the panic of 1819 had exposed many Americans to the dangers and limitations

of narrowly pursuing an export-based economy. The most pressing concern, in the

eyes of many during this crucial decade, became the task of building a more

diversified economy and promoting domestic commerce, so as to achieve a stronger

466 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

measure of economic independence, security, and stable growth.132 And these were

precisely the priorities that the Scottish school of political economy had emphasized,

not to mention the central reason why they had focused so intensely on the effects of

slavery as a system of labor. It seems quite reasonable to conclude, then, that the

sudden espousal of free labor ideas in the 1820s was tied to the dissolution of neo-

mercantilism, which cleared the way for a new-found emphasis on domestic trade,

manufacturing, and diversified markets, that became associated with Henry Clay’s

‘‘American System.’’133 When economic priorities were reversed in this manner, and

when the lines of analysis were reframed as the Scots had originally suggested, then

suddenly the economic ramifications of slavery could appear in sudden and stark

relief.

More historical research will be needed, of course, to flesh out the broad

arguments sketched here. Indeed, as recent scholarship has demonstrated, we still

have much to learn about the complex intellectual and political currents that shaped

how early Americans understood the economy, especially during this period of

dramatic expansion and restructuring associated with the rise of capitalism. The

Scottish school of political economy offered Americans a powerful lens through

which to interpret these changes; a lens which brought the issue of slavery into sharp

focus in order to draw fundamental contrasts between their vision of free markets

and the world of mercantilism. But as we have seen, Americans choose to reframe

and re-focus the economic discussion of the post-Revolutionary decades; and in so

doing, they unknowingly erased this economic critique of slavery from public

discourse, leading to a peculiar silence that would linger for nearly four decades. In

fact, between the false dawn of the 1770s and the emergence of free labor ideology in

the 1820s, Americans did not engage in a sustained conversation about the larger

economic consequences of slavery as a system of labor. And while historians will

never know what might have happened if they had, it is worth considering how this

long silence affected the public’s engagement with the issue of slavery

Notes on contributor

Michael Guenther is assistant professor of history at Grinnell College, where he teachescourses on the history of science, environmental history and the age of Enlightenment. Hiscurrent research focuses on the social and political dimensions of science in the Anglo-Atlanticworld of the eighteenth century.

Notes

1. David Brion Davis’s landmark studies on the various strands of antislavery thought stilloffer some of the best accounts of this complex movement. See Davis, Slavery in WesternCulture and Slavery in the Age of Revolution. And while the historiography surroundingantislavery is enormous, some of the important works that have structured ourunderstanding of the ideology and rhetoric of antislavery in its Anglo-American contextinclude: Stewart, Holy Warriors; Foner, Free Soil; Perry, Radical Abolitionism; Walters,The Antislavery Appeal; Perry and Fellman, Antislavery Reconsidered; Goodman, Of OneBlood; Newman, American Abolitionism; Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics;Clark, ‘‘‘The Sacred of the Weak’’’; Ericson, Debate over Slavery; Bolt and Drescher,Anti-Slavery, Religion, and Reform; Fladeland, Men and Brothers; Gould, BarbaricTraffic; Sypher, Guinea’s Captive Kings; Drescher, Capitalism and Antislavery and The

Atlantic Studies 467

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Mighty Experiment; Temperley, ‘‘Capitalism, Slavery, and Ideology’’; Bender, TheAntislavery Debate; Midgley, Women against Slavery; and Brown, Moral Capital.

2. See Eaklor, American Antislavery Songs; Basker, Amazing Grace; Hochschild, Bury theChains; and Wood, ‘‘Emancipation Art.’’

3. In addition to the works cited above, excellent overviews of the American antislaverymovement during the revolutionary period and early republic are provided by Locke,Anti-Slavery in America; Adams, The Neglected Period; Macleod, Slavery, Race;Robinson, Slavery in the Structure; and Mason, Slavery & Politics. Roger Bruns hasalso edited an impressive collection of early American antislavery documents in Am I nota Man and a Brother.

4. See Eltis, ‘‘Slavery and Freedom,’’ 25�49, and Coats, ‘‘Changing Attitudes,’’ 58�78.5. Although it might sound awkward to modern ears, the word ‘‘impolicy’’ was a favorite

term employed by antislavery writers in the eighteenth century, who used it to signal thedeeper economic and utilitarian arguments against slavery as a system of labor andpolitical economy. More than simply an issue of profitability, the term ‘‘impolicy’’suggested the larger structural implications of slavery that affected the entire socio-economic order, and hence deserved the attention of policy makers and statesmen.

6. See Raymond, Thoughts on Political Economy, 434�5; Macleod, Slavery, Race, 28; Essig,The Bonds of Wickedness; and Turner, ‘‘Anti-Slavery,’’ 388.

7. See Blackburn, New World Slavery; Davis, Inhuman Bondage; Eltis, The Rise of AfricanSlavery; Thornton, Africa and the Africans; and Drescher, From Slavery to Freedom.

8. For modern assessments on the profitability of slave labor, see Fogel and Engerman,Time on the Cross; Drescher, Econocide; Drescher, The Mighty Experiment; Kolchin,‘‘Reinterpretation of Slavery,’’ 99�113; and Oakes, ‘‘Peculiar Fate,’’ 36�43, 47.

9. See Foner, Free Soil; Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics, ch. 2�3; [Leslie?],‘‘Wealth of Nations,’’ 269�76; and Carey, The Slave Trade. See also Glickstein, Conceptsof Free Labor.

10. Quoted in Foner, Free Soil, 44.11. See Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics, ch. 4, and Kaufman, Capitalism, Slavery,

esp. ch. 1, 5, 7.12. Turner, ‘‘Anti-Slavery,’’ 388.13. McCoy, The Elusive Republic, 5. Other important works that have reconstructed the

breadth and relevance of political economy to this era include Hirschman, The Passions;Rothschild, Economic Sentiments; Appleby, New Social Order; Pocock, ‘‘Virtues, Rights,and Manners,’’ 37�50; Hont and Ignatieff, Wealth and Virtue; Chaplin, An AnxiousPursuit; Matson and Onuf, A Union of Interests; Crowley, Privileges of Independence; andBreen, Marketplace of Revolution, ch. 3. On the broader influence of the Scots inAmerica, see also Howe, ‘‘Scottish Enlightenment,’’ 572�87; McDonald, Novus OrdoSeclorum; Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials; Sher and Smitten, Scotland andAmerica; Grampp, ‘‘Adam Smith,’’ 179�91; Feischacker, ‘‘Adam Smith’s Reception,’’897�924; and Onuf, ‘‘Adam Smith,’’ 149�64.

14. See Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, ch. 1�2. In addition to the scholarship above, seeAdams, ‘‘A Note,’’ and Dorfman, The Economic Mind, vol. 1.

15. Two of the leading historians of this period, Drew McCoy and Joyce Appleby, have bothnoted the surprising ability of the revolutionary generation to divorce the issue of slaveryfrom their larger debates about political economy and the future direction of therepublic. See McCoy, The Elusive Republic, 251, and Appleby, New Social Order, 102.

16. Speech by John Rutledge, 21 August, quoted in Farrand, Records, 2: 363. For a similarpoint of view, see the speech of Charles Pickney (ibid., 2: 371).

17. General Evening Post, 19 April 1791.18. Clarkson, Essay, 115�6; emphasis in original. It is interesting to note that Olaudah

Equiano, the former slave, concluded his famous autobiography by emphasizing thesesame points. See Equiano, ‘‘Interesting Narrative,’’ 176�7.

19. See Davis, Problem of Slavery, ch. 13�14. In the British context, see Brown, ‘‘Empirewithout Slaves,’’ 271�306; Temperley, ‘‘Capitalism’’; and Drescher, The MightyExperiment, ch. 2, 4, 7. For the French use of economic arguments see Seeber, Anti-Slavery Opinion, ch. 5. and Resnick, ‘‘Amis de Noirs,’’ 558�69.

468 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

20. Quoted in Gascoigne, Joseph Banks, 41.21. See Tuck, ‘‘The ‘Modern’ Theory,’’ 99�122.22. The resurgence of moral skepticism in this period was reflected in the popular writings of

Michel Montaigne, Justus Lipsius, and Pierre Charron. Tuck has explored how Grotiusand Pufendorf consciously responded to these disturbing claims of relativism informulating their theories of natural law. See ibid., 109�11, and Tuck, ‘‘Grotius,’’ 45�68. This same point is also examined in Schneewind, ‘‘Natural Law,’’ 289�308.

23. See Grotius, The Rights of War, 18�29. In his 1766 lectures delivered in Edinburgh,Adam Smith declared that ‘‘Grotius seems to have been the first who attempted todiscover in the world any thing like a regular system of natural jurisprudence.’’ He thenwent on to discuss how Pufendorf was inspired by similar ‘‘design’’ (Smith, Lectures,397�8; emphasis added).

24. See Meek, Social Science, 12�16, and Tuck, ‘‘The ‘Modern’ Theory,’’ 429�41.25. Teichgraeber, ‘‘Free Trade,’’ 21. See also Tully, ‘‘Governing Conduct.’’26. See Tuck, ‘‘The ‘Modern’ Theory,’’ 103�5.27. See Pufendorf, De jure naturae, 2: 2.9, 2: 3.10, and Krieger, The Politics of Discretion.

Michael Seidler also provides a useful discussion of Pufendorf ’s views in his introductionto Samuel Pufendorf’s ‘‘On the natural state of men.’’

28. Quoted in Hont, ‘‘The Language of Sociability,’’ 267.29. Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man, 35.30. Quoted in Hont, ‘‘The Language of Sociability,’’ 259.31. See Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man, 7�9, 84�96, 132�4. See also Buckle, Natural Law,

53�124.32. Peter Stein offers a helpful overview on this point in his Legal Evolution.33. Forbes, ‘‘Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment,’’ 97. J. A. Schumpeter even went so far

as to describe the thought of Grotius and Pufendorf as ‘‘an embryonic Wealth ofNations’’ (Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, 122). For a more balanceddiscussion see Haakonssen, ‘‘Natural Jurisprudence’’; Teichgraeber, ‘‘Free Trade’’; Scott,Adam Smith; MacCormick, ‘‘Law and Enlightenment’’; and Hont, ‘‘The Language ofSociability,’’ 276.

34. A growing body of literature has focused on the introduction and influence of naturaljurisprudence in the Scottish Universities following the reforms of the 1690s. SeeEmerson, ‘‘Scottish Universities,’’ 453�74; Stein, ‘‘Law and Society’’; Cant, ‘‘Origins ofthe Enlightenment’’; Chitnis, The Scottish Enlightenment, 102�36; and MacCormick,‘‘Law and Enlightenment.’’

35. Sir William Hamilton later recalled that ‘‘Carmichael may be regarded, on good grounds,as the true founder of the Scottish school of philosophy.’’ Quoted in Hutchison, BeforeAdam Smith, 192. See also Moore and Silverthorne, ‘‘Gershom Carmichael,’’ 73.

36. See Mautner, ‘‘Pufendorf,’’ 120�31.37. Hutcheson, Short Introduction, i.38. Scott, Adam Smith, 112.39. While Carmichael’s work was not widely read across the Atlantic, it is possible that some

Americans were familiar with his views since they were cited in the subsequent writingsof his more famous pupil, Francis Hutcheson. See Hutcheson, Short Introduction, 3:274�5, 310. Thomas Paine, for instance, makes a cryptic reference to Carmichael in hisantislavery essay which he published in Pennsylvania. See Paine, ‘‘African Slavery inAmerica.’’

40. Davis, Problem of Slavery, 114�8, and Dunning, History of Political Theories, 319�22.41. Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man, 129.42. More and Silverthorne, Writings of Carmichael, 138�45.43. More and Silverthorne, ‘‘Natural Sociability.’’ The connection between sociability, rights

and societal progress was also elaborated upon in a philosophical thesis that Carmichaelsupervised and helped publish in 1707 entitled ‘‘On natural law: how reverence for God issignified by respect for human rights.’’ Reprinted in More and Silverthorne, Writings ofCarmichael, 357�72.

44. Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man, 133�4. See also Hont, Jealousy of Trade.

Atlantic Studies 469

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

45. More and Silverthorne, Writings of Carmichael, 145. Even Pufendorf, in his larger studyon the law of nature, argued that free labor could be more expedient. Pufendorf, De jurenaturae, 2: 937.

46. Indeed, Carmichael’s treatment of slavery was typical of his broader effort to draw outthe historic and economic aspects of Pufendorf ’s thought. Chief among these was hislabor theory of property, that blended the ideas of John Locke with those of Pufendorf,and in the process, made the analysis of labor central to Scottish political economy. SeeTaylor, ‘‘Gershom Carmichael’’; Forbes, ‘‘Natural Law and the Scottish Enlightenment,’’201; Forbes, Hume’s Philosophical Politics, 8�90; and Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics,48�66.

47. See Trevor-Roper, ‘‘The Scottish Enlightenment,’’ and Phillipson, ‘‘The ScottishEnlightenment.’’

48. Howe, ‘‘Why the Scottish Enlightenment was Useful,’’ 575.49. On the proliferation of these movements and the role of the Scottish literati within them,

see Phillipson, ‘‘Scottish Opinion.’’50. See Campbell, ‘‘The Enlightenment and the Economy,’’ 8�22; Phillipson, ‘‘Politics’’; and

Hopfl, ‘‘From Savage to Scotsman,’’ 7, 20�40.51. See Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, 1: 316. Two of the best examinations of

Montesquieu’s thought are found in Baum, Montesquieu and Social Theory, and Aron,Main Currents in Sociological Thought.

52. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, xxxi.53. For the enthusiastic reception of Montesquieu in Scotland, see Gay, The Enlightenment,

2: 330�333, and Fletcher, Montesquieu and English Politics. Ronald Meek is probablycorrect in noting that the Scots were less indebted to The Spirit of Laws for any specificargument, than that they saw this work ‘‘as providing a kind of green light, an excathedra ‘go ahead’, for the new social science’’ (Meek, Social Science and the IgnobleSavage, 32). For a similar view, see Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics, 36�44.

54. See Stein, Legal Evolution, 114�38, and Sher, ‘‘From Troglodytes to Americans.’’ JohnMillar described Montesquieu as a ‘‘speculative lawyer’’ who, in the tradition of thenatural law jurists, sought to explain ‘‘the first formation and subsequent advancement ofcivil society’’, the ‘‘development and cultivation of arts and sciences’’, the ‘‘acquisitionand extension of property in all its different modifications’’, and their ‘‘combinedinfluence upon the manners and customs, the institutions and laws of any people’’(Millar, ‘‘The Progress of Science,’’ 4: 284�5).

55. Stewart, Account of the Life, 293�5. See also Stein, ‘‘ Four Stage Theory’’; Bryson, Manand Society, ch. 4�6; Meek, Social Science, 15�43; Hopfl, ‘‘From Savage to Scotsman,’’20�40; and Berry, Social Theory, 52�113.

56. The collection of essays in Norton and Popkin, David Hume: Philosophical Historian,offer a detailed examination of Hume’s philosophy of history and its connection to thoseof his compatriots. See also Trevor-Roper, ‘‘ Historical Philosophy.’’

57. Ferguson, History of Civil Society, 10.58. Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, 5.59. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 213.60. Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, 3. Similar views, of course, had been

expressed by other writers, most notably Bernard Mandeville, who conceived of historyas a uniform pattern of human progress based upon ‘‘the restless Industry of Man tosupply his Wants’’ (Fable of the Bees, 2: 218).

61. Robertson, History of America, 324.62. In addition to Ronald Meek’s exhaustive survey of the four-stage theory in Social Science

and the Ignoble Savage, see ‘‘Smith, Turgot.’’ Andrew Skinner has also provided anumber of insights (‘‘Economics and History’’; ‘‘Adam Smith’’).

63. This four-stage theory appeared with a considerable degree of consistency in thefollowing works: Smith, Wealth of Nations, 3: ii�v, 5: i; Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence,1: 26�32, 4: 2�30; Kames, Sketches, 31�78; Steuart, Inquiry, 20�59; Millar, Origin, 11�98;Dunbar, Essays, 153�202; and Ferguson, An Essay, parts I�III.

64. See Hirschman, Passions; and Pocock, Virtue.

470 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

65. Analysis of Hume’s views on slavery have often revolved around his racist comments inan infamous footnote appearing in his essay, ‘‘On National Characters.’’ See Popkin,‘‘Hume’s Racism’’; Immerwahr, ‘‘Hume’s Revised Racism’’; Palter, ‘‘Hume andPrejudice’’; and Davis, Problem of Slavery, 61, 457�9. More recently, scholars havebeen interested in contextualizing Hume’s thought, exploring how his connections withthe Atlantic world of commerce and slavery played a key role in shaping his writings. SeeRoss, ‘‘Emergence of David Hume,’’ 34�5, and Rothschild, ‘‘ Atlantic Worlds.’’

66. For the popularity of this collection, i.e. Hume’s Essays, Moral, Political, andLiterary, see Lundberg and May, ‘‘Enlightened Reader,’’ 262�71, and Rothschild,‘‘Atlantic Worlds,’’ 413, 415. The Continental Congress consulted Hume’s essays severaltimes when discussing economic issues. See Warner, ‘‘David Hume and America,’’ 451�4,and Madison, ‘‘Report on Books,’’ 6: 86�7.

67. Hume, ‘‘Of Commerce,’’ 260 in his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, All subsequentessays by Hume cited below come from this volume. See also Hume, Treatise of HumanNature, iv�xx.

68. Hume, ‘‘Of Commerce,’’ 262.69. Ibid., 264.70. Ibid., 266�7. See also Hundert, ‘‘The Achievement Motive.’’71. Hume, ‘‘Of the Populousness,’’ 464.72. Hume continually attacked the mercantilist preoccupation with foreign trade and argued

that domestic exchange was ‘‘undoubtedly the most important branch of commerce.’’This crucial shift in economic thinking would have important ramifications for howtheorists viewed slavery and other forms of coerced labor. Such arrangements, forinstance, would appear beneficial if the path to economic prosperity was understood tolie in producing exports cheaply for foreign markets. Slavery, starving wages for laborers,or workhouses for the poor all made sense within the mercantilist paradigm thatprivileged foreign commerce and the balance of trade. But by prioritizing the homemarket, Hume and later Scots directed attention toward what they believed were theinherent limitations in this approach. For Hume, see in particular, ‘‘Of the Balance ofTrade,’’ and ‘‘Of the Jealousy of Trade.’’

73. Hume, ‘‘Of Commerce,’’ 256; emphasis in original.74. Ibid., 261. See also Hume, ‘‘On the Populousness,’’ 419�20.75. Hume, ‘‘Of Commerce,’’ 264; McCoy, The Elusive Republic, 241.76. Hume, ‘‘Of Refinement in the Arts,’’ 277.77. Ibid., 400.78. See Whelan, ‘‘Population and Ideology.’’ The rate of interest was a second favorite

indicator among Enlightenment economists. For Hume’s view that low interest ratessignaled an advanced commercial economy see ‘‘Of Interest,’’ 303.

79. Hume continually argued that the wealth of a nation lay not in its balance of trade orstores of money, but rather, in its ‘‘stock of labor’’ or the amount of commodities it couldproduce. See Hume, ‘‘Of Commerce,’’ 262�3, and Hume, ‘‘Of Refinement of Arts,’’ 272.

80. Wallace, Dissertation, 19.81. Hume, Essays, 401�2, 411, 407.82. Ibid., 420, 432, 454�6, 461. The antipathy between slavery and commercial progress also

dominated much of the narrative trajectory in Hume’s History of England.83. Steuart was born into an aristocratic family, spending much of his lifetime on the

Continent after participating in the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Trained at theUniversity of Edinburgh, he continued to correspond with leading Scots who kept himapprised of the intellectual developments occurring there. Andrew Skinner discusses theconnections and differences between Steuart and his fellow Scots in ‘‘Sir James Steuart.’’

84. Steuart, Principles, 28.85. Ibid., 51.86. Ibid., 169, 206.87. Ibid., 43.88. Ibid., 46.89. Ibid., 206.90. Ibid., 149.

Atlantic Studies 471

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

91. Postlethwayt, The African Trade, 13�4; emphasis in original.92. It should be remembered that no one believed planters were literally going broke by using

slave labor to cultivate their crops, just as no one doubted that salt producers earnedlucrative profits under their monopolies, or that tariffs could improve the balance sheetof certain producers. What was at issue was the larger consequences of these practiceswhich distorted the economy � mercantilists believing that they did so in a positive way,engineering greater power and revenue for the nation, while Scottish writers argued thatthese distortions shackled economic growth and development in the long run.

93. Smith, Moral Sentiments, 76�9, 86�9, 137�9, 164�6, 183�5. The ‘‘invisible hand’’ hasbecome an idiom synonymous with Adam Smith although he only used the phrase onthree occasions. It appears once in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in The Wealth ofNations, and in Essays on Philosophical Subjects. See Macfie, ‘‘The Invisible Hand,’’ 596.

94. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 98�100. He later stated that the labor of a slave ‘‘can besqueezed out of him by violence only and not by his more productive interests’’ (387).

95. Ibid., 376.96. ‘‘On Slavery,’’ General Magazine and Impartial Review 66 (1792), 477�80.97. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 377, 80, 87, 90�4, 400�1, 405, 411, 418�22.98. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 186�7.99. On the tensions between progress and pessimism in the Scottish Enlightenment,

particularly with regard to Adam Smith, see Alvey, Adam Smith.100. See the illuminating discussion in [Leslie?], ‘‘The Wealth of Nations.’’101. See Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions; LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History;

and Tully, Meaning and Context.102. See Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, ch. 2�4, and Brown, ‘‘Empire Without America.’’103. Oakes, ‘‘Bourgeois Critique,’’ 30�4.104. Ibid., 35.105. See Notes 1, 3, and 6 above. Joshua Michael Zeitz also explores this point in his more

recent study of the changes in antislavery rhetoric that emerged during the MissouriCompromise. See Zeitz, ‘‘The Missouri Compromise.’’

106. See Dorfman, Economic Mind, 1: 183�6. Furthermore, the Pennsylvania AbolitionSociety, which Franklin helped to re-energize and direct in the late 1780s, made almostno mention of the economics of slave labor in their various pamphlets and petitions.

107. The notion that slavery would inevitably disappear had more to do with popularconceptions of slave demographics in the Caribbean, than doctrines of political economy.

108. See Appleby, Capitalism, and Onuf, ‘‘Adam Smith.’’109. See Landsman, From Colonials, 164�7; Egnal, ‘‘The Origins of the Revolution’’; and

Breen, Tobacco Culture.110. See MacMaster, ‘‘Arthur Lee’s Address’’; Lee, Essay in Vindication, 38�9, 42, 45�6; and

George Mason, ‘‘Scheme for Replevying Goods and Distress for Rent,’’ in Rutland,Papers of George Mason, 1: 60�2.

111. Many of these county resolves and petitions can be found in Force, American Archives, 1:493, 523, 530, 541, 593, 600, 616, 641, 687, 735, 1136.

112. See Macleod, Slavery, 31�4; Wolf, Race and Liberty, 21�8; and MacMaster, ‘‘Arthur Lee’sAddress.’’

113. See Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, ch. 2�3; Onuf and Matson, Union of Interests, ch.2; and Henretta, ‘‘The War for Independence.’’

114. Adams, Twenty-Six Letters, 62. One of the clearest statements of the neo-mercantilistperspective can be found in the ‘‘Sketches of the Political State of America,’’ written by‘‘Americanus’’ in 23 installments appearing in John Feno’s Gazette of the United Statesthroughout 1789�90.

115. Bittner, Definition of Economic Independence, 234. Bittner provides an excellentdiscussion of how Americans in the 1780s and 1790s drew upon new commercialtheories to essentially reaffirm older patterns of mercantile exchange. See also Crowley,Privileges of Independence; Peterson, ‘‘Thomas Jefferson’’; and Dorfman, EconomicMind, 1: 247�75, 314.

116. Quoted in Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, 76. For the broader context, see alsoNettles, Emergence of a National Economy, ch. 3, and Jensen, The New Nation.

472 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

117. For the changes in economic patterns and perceptions in the 1780s see East, BusinessEnterprise; Nettles, Emergence of a National Economy; Conkin, Prophets of Prosperity;Nelson, Liberty and Property; Crowley, Privileges of Independence; and Doerflinger,Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise. The primacy of foreign trade even swayed ThomasJefferson, who was one of the more committed proponents of developing domesticmarkets. As Merrill Peterson noted, Jefferson, ‘‘like nearly everyone else, regarded inlandcommerce as an accessory of foreign commerce . . . [and] foreign commerce was anecessity, all the more so if America stuck to its agricultural calling’’ (Peterson,‘‘Jefferson and Commercial Policy,’’ 589�90).

118. The embrace, and strategic use, of free trade ideas during the revolutionary period andbeyond is discussed in Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, 3�75; Stinchcombe, ‘‘JohnAdams’’; Dorfman, Economic Mind in American Civilization, 2: 277�8; and McCoy, TheElusive Republic, esp. 76�7, 85�95. And as Michael J.L. O’Connor has shown, Americansof this period tended to lionize the concept of free trade, while at the same time, rejectingthe Scottish views that domestic commerce was actually more productive and valuablethan foreign trade. See O’Connor, Origins of Academic Economics in the United States,140, 155.

119. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, ch. 1�2; McCoy, The Elusive Republic, ch. 1�3; and Persky,The Burden of Dependency, esp. 7�20.

120. See Clauder, American Commerce. See also McCoy, The Elusive Republic, 165. AsDouglas C. North has shown, the value of re-exports in the American carrying tradeincreased from $300,000 to nearly $60,000,000 during this period (North, EconomicGrowth, 25).

121. For an insightful discussion of how sectionalism was minimized within the free tradeparadigm of the early republic, see Hudson, Economics and Technology, 57�8.

122. See McCoy, The Elusive Republic, ch. 1�3, and Watts, The Republic Reborn. J.G.A.Pocock has also explored the synthesis between republicanism and Scottish politicaleconomy in his ‘‘Virtues, Rights, and Manners,’’ as well as his ‘‘Cambridge Paradigmsand Scotch Philosophers.’’

123. See his ‘‘Report on Public Credit’’ and ‘‘Report on a National Bank,’’ in Syrett andCooke, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 6: 65�168, 7: 305�42. For the broader context anddebates surrounding these economic initiatives, see Ferguson, Power of the Purse;Banning, Conceived in Liberty, ch. 1; Dorfman, Economic Mind in American Civilization,2: 335�7; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, ch. 6; McNamara, PoliticalEconomy; and McCoy, The Elusive Republic, ch. 6.

124. The work of John R. Nelson, Jr. helped to reconceptualize our understanding of theparty divisions that arose out of the heated debates. In particular, Nelson demonstratedthat Hamilton and the Federalists were more concerned with financial policy,‘‘stabilization,’’ and building a strong state than they were with promoting manufactur-ing. And the recent literature on the financial revolutions in eighteenth-century Britain,as well as the rise of a powerful ‘‘fiscal-military’’ state, helps contextualize what Hamiltonand his followers were attempting to emulate in America. See Nelson, ‘‘AlexanderHamilton’’; Nelson, Liberty and Property; Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England;and Brewer, The Sinews of Power.

125. Blodget, Increasing Wealth, iii�vi. See also Blodget, Economica, 7.126. Dorfman, Economic Mind in American Civilization, 2: 335. For an example of how Smith

and Hume could become incorporated into these debates over banking, taxes, and publiccredit, see the anonymous essay in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, 1April 1791. Peter Onuf offers an insightful analysis of how different groups of Americanscould read and appropriate The Wealth of Nations to support dramatically differentvisions of political economy in ‘‘Adam Smith,’’ 149�64.

127. It is worth noting that many economists and political writers in the second half of thenineteenth century argued that the ‘‘free trade’’ school of economics was inherently tiedto the defense of slavery and a conservative embrace of the status quo. See Hudson,Economics and Technology, esp. 250, 364.

Atlantic Studies 473

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

128. See Forbes, The Missouri Compromise; Matthew Mason, Slavery & Politics in the EarlyRepublic, ch. 6�7; Macleod, Slavery, 45�7; and Zeitz, ‘‘Missouri Compromise Recon-sidered.’’

129. See Zeitz, ‘‘Missouri Compromise Reconsidered,’’ 471�85, and Hodgson, ‘‘Malthus’Essay,’’ 746�7.

130. Annals of Congress, 16th Cong., 1st sess., 1412�40, 1429. Plummer’s remarks may wellhave struck a powerful cord with contemporaries, leading to its publication as apamphlet. Speech of Mr. Plumer, of New-Hampshire, on the Missouri question.

131. Zeitz, ‘‘Missouri Compromise Reconsidered,’’ 477�8.132. See Rothbard, The Panic of 1819; Watts, The Republic Reborn; Dorfman, Economic Mind

in American Civilization, 2: 323�7; Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution, ch. 9�10; McCoy,The Elusive Republic, ch. 10; and O’Connor, Origins of Academic Economics in the U.S.,58�9.

133. For Clay and the American System, see Howe, Political Culture , ch. 6. On thedevelopment of a nationalist school of American political economy in the post-1812decades, and their embrace of Adam Smith as a champion of domestic trade andmarkets, see Onuf, ‘‘Adam Smith,’’ 158�61.

References

Adams, Alice Dana. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 1808�1831. Boston:Ginn and Company, 1908.

Adams, Hewitt. ‘‘A Note on the Knowledge of Economics in Jeffersonian America.’’ VirginiaMagazine of History and Biography 85 (1967): 69�74.

Adams, John. Twenty-Six Letters, Upon Interesting Subjects, Respecting the Revolution ofAmerica. Written in Holland in the Year 1780. New York: John Fenno, 1789.

Alvey, James E. Adam Smith, Optimist or Pessimist? A New Problem Concerning theTeleological Basis of Commercial Society. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

Appleby, Joyce. Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1978.

Appleby, Joyce. Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s. NewYork: New York University Press, 1984.

Aron, Raymond. Main Currents in Sociological Thought. Trans. Richard Howard and HelenWeaver. New York: Basic Books, 1965.

Ashworth, John. Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1:Commerce and Compromise, 1820�1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Banning, Lance. Conceived in Liberty: The Struggle to Define the New Republic, 1789�1793.Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.

Basker, James G. Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery, 1660�1810. NewHaven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Baum, John. Montesquieu and Social Theory. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979.Bender, Thomas. The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in

Historical Interpretation. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1992.Berry, Christopher J. Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press, 1997.Bittner, Robert Bruce. The Definition of Economic Independence and the New Nation. Ph. D.

diss., University of Wisconsin, 1970.Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492�

1800. London: Verso, 1997.Blodget, Samuel. Thoughts on the Increasing Wealth and National Economy of the United

States of America. Washington, DC: Way and Groff, 1801.Blodget, Samuel. Economica: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America.

Washington DC, 1806.Bolt, Christine, and Seymor Drescher. Anti-Slavery, Religion, and Reform: Essays in Memory

of Roger Anstey. Folkestone: Archon Books, 1980.Branson, Roy. ‘‘James Madison and the Scottish Enlightenment.’’ Journal of the History of

Ideas 42 (1979): 235�50.

474 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Breen, T.H. Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve ofRevolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Breen, T.H. ‘‘Narrative of Commercial Life: Consumption, Ideology, and Community onthe Eve of the American Revolution.’’ William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser. 50 (1993):476�80.

Breen, T.H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped AmericanIndependence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688�1783. New York:Knopf, 1989.

Brown, Christopher L. ‘‘Empire without Slaves: British Concepts of Emancipation in the Ageof the American Revolution.’’ William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser. 56 (1999): 271�306.

Brown, Christopher L. Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Brown, Christopher L. ‘‘Empire Without America: British Plans for Africa in the Era of theAmerican Revolution.’’ In Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and theAtlantic, Derek R. Peterson, ed., 84�100. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010.

Bruns, Roger. Am I not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of RevolutionaryAmerica, 1688�1788. New York: Chelsea House, 1977.

Bryson, Gladys. Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century. New York:A.M. Kelley, 1968.

Buchanan, George. An Oration Upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery: Delivered at aPublic Meeting of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Reliefof Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage; Baltimore, July 4th, 1791.Baltimore: Phillip Edwards, 1793.

Buckle, Stephen. Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991.

Campbell, R.H. ‘‘The Enlightenment and the Economy.’’ In The Origins and Nature of theScottish Enlightenment: Essays, ed. R.H. Campbell and Andrew Skinner, 8�22. Edinburgh:J. Donald, 1982.

Cant, Ronald. ‘‘Origins of the Enlightenment in Scotland: The Universities.’’ In The Originsand Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment: Essays, ed. R.H Campbell and Andrew Skinner,42�65. Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1982.

Carey, Henry C. The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why it Exists, and How it may beExtinguished. Philadelphia: A. Hart, late Carey, & Hart, 1853.

Carmichael, Gershom S. Puffendorfii De officio hominis et civis, juxta legem naturalem, libriduo. Supplementis & Observationibus in Academicae Juventutis usum auxit et illustravitGerschomus Carmichael, editio secunda priore auction & emendation. Edinburgh: JoannisMosman & Sociorum, 1724.

Chaplin, Joyce E. An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the LowerSouth, 1730�1815. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Chitnis, Anand C. The Scottish Enlightenment: A Social History. London: Croom Helm, 1976.Clark, Elizabeth B. ‘‘The Sacred of the Weak’: Pain, Sympathy, and the Culture of Individual

Rights in Antebellum America.’’ Journal of American History 82 (1995): 463�93.Clarkson, Thomas. Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade. London: J. Phillips, 1788.Clauder, Anna Cornelia. American Commerce as Affected by the Wars of the French Revolution

and Napolean, 1793�1812. Clifton, NJ: A.M. Kelley, 1972.Coats, Alfred William. ‘‘Changing Attitudes to Labour in the Mid-Eighteenth Century.’’ In

On the History of Economic Thought: Volume I, British and American Economic Essays, ed.Alfred William Coats, 58�78. London: Routledge, 1992.

Colbourn, H. Trevor. The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of theAmerican Revolution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1965.

Conkin, Paul. Prophets of Prosperity: Americas First Political Economists. Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press, 1980.

Crowley, John E. The Privileges of Independence: Neomercantilism and the AmericanRevolution. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1966.

Atlantic Studies 475

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770�1823. Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press, 1975.

Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2006.

Dickson, P.G.M. The Financial Revolution in England: A Study of the Development of PublicCredit, 1688�1756. London: Melbourne, 1967.

Doerflinger, Thomas M. A. Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and EconomicDevelopment in Revolutionary Philadelphia. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North CarolinaPress, 1986.

Dorfman, Joseph. The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1606�1865. 5 vols. New York:A.M. Kelley, 1966.

Drescher, Seymour. Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition. Pittsburgh: Universityof Pittsburgh Press, 1977.

Drescher, Seymour. Capitalism and Antislavery: British Mobilization in ComparativePerspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Drescher, Seymour. From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall ofAtlantic Slavery. New York: Macmillan, 1999.

Drescher, Seymour. The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in BritishEmancipation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Dunbar, James. Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages. 2nd ed.London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1781.

Dunning, William. A History of Political Theories: From Luther to Montesquieu. New York:Macmillian Co, 1927.

Eaklor, Vicki L. American Antislavery Songs: A Collection and Analysis. New York:Greenwood Press, 1988.

Earle, Edward Mead. ‘‘Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List: The EconomicFoundations of Military Power.’’ In Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought fromMachiavelli to Hitler, ed. E.dward Earle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948.

East, Robert A. Business Enterprise in the American Revolution. New York: AMS Press, 1969.Egnal, Marc. ‘‘The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Reinterpretation.’’ William and

Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser. 37 (1980): 401�28.Eltis, David. ‘‘Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern World.’’ In Terms of Labor: Slavery,

Serfdom, and Free Labor, ed. Stanley Lengerman, 25�49. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 1999.

Eltis, David L. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2000.

Emerson, Roger. ‘‘Scottish Universities in the Eighteenth Century, 1690�1800.’’ Studies onVoltaire and the Eighteenth Century 167 (1977): 453�74.

Equiano, Olaudah. ‘‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or GustavusVassa, the African. Written by Himself.’’ In The Classic Slave Narratives, ed. Henry LouisGates, Jr, 1�182. New York: New American Library, 1987.

Ernst, Joseph. Money and Politics in America, 1755�1775: A Study in the Currency Act of 1764and the Political Economy of Revolution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North CarolinaPress, 1973.

Ericson, David F. The Debate over Slavery: Antislavery and Proslavery Liberalism inAntebellum America. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Essig, James. The Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals Against Slavery, 1770�1808.Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.

Farrand, Max. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1937.

Feischacker, Samuel. ‘‘Adam Smith’s Reception among the American Founders, 1776�1790.’’William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser. 59 (2002): 897�924.

Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Ed. Duncan Forbes. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1966.

Ferguson, James. The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776�1790.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

476 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Ferguson, Moira. Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670�1834.New York: Routledge, 1992.

Fladeland, Betty. Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Cooperation. Urbana, IL:University of Illinois Press, 1972.

Fletcher, F.T.H. Montesquieu and English Politics, 1750 (p. 1980). Philadelphia: PorcupinePress, 1800.

Fogel, Robert, and Stanley L. Engerman. Time on the Cross: The Economics of AmericanNegro Slavery. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1974.

Forbes, Duncan. ‘‘Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment.’’ In Philosophers of theEnlightenment, ed. S.C. Brown, 94�109. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979.

Forbes, Duncan. Hume’s Philosophical Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.Forbes, Duncan. ‘‘Natural Law and the Scottish Enlightenment.’’ In The Origin and Nature of

the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. R. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. 186�204. Edinburgh: JohnDonald, 1982.

Forbes, Robert Piece. The Missouri Compromise and its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning ofAmerica. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Force, Peter, ed. American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, StatePapers, Debates, and Letter. 9 vols. Washington, DC: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force,1837�53.

Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before theCivil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Gascoigne, John. Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and PoliteCulture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. New York: Knopf, 1966�69.Gilbert, Felix. To the Farewell Address; Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1961.Glickstein, Jonathan A. Concepts of Free Labor in Antebellum America. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1991.Grampp, William D. ‘‘Adam Smith and the American Revolutionists.’’ History of Political

Economy 11 (1979): 179�91.Grotius, Hugo. The Rights of War and Peace including, the Law of Nature and of Nations.

Trans. A. C. Campbell. Washington, DC: M.W. Dunne, 1901.Goodman, Paul. Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality. Berkeley, CA:

University of California Press, 1998.Gould, Philip. Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the 18th-Century Atlantic World.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.Haakonssen, Knud. ‘‘Natural Jurisprudence in the Scottish Enlightenment: Summary of an

Interpretation.’’ In Enlightenment, Rights, and Revolution: Essays in Legal and SocialPhilosophy, ed. Neil MacCormick and Zenon Bankowski, 36�49. Aberdeen: AberdeenUniversity Press, 1989.

Haskell, Thomas. ‘‘Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1 & 2.’’American Historical Review 90 (1985): 339�61, 547�66.

Henretta, James A. ‘‘The War for Independence and American Economic Development.’’ InThe Economy of Early America; The Revolutionary Period, 1763�1790, ed. Ronald Hoffman,Russell Menard, and Peter Albert, 45�87. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press,1988.

Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism beforeits Triumph. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Hodgson, Dennis. ‘‘Malthus’ Essay on Population and the American Debate over Slavery.’’Comparative Studies in Society and History 51 (2009): 746�7.

Hoffman, Paul, and John Molyneaux, eds. The Lee Family Papers. 8 reels microfilm.Charlottesville, 1966.

Hont, Istvan. ‘‘The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and theTheoretical Foundations of the Four Stages Theory.’’ In The Languages of Political Theoryin Early-Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden, 253�76. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987.

Atlantic Studies 477

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Hont, Istvan, and Michael Ignatieff, eds. Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economyin the Scottish Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Hopfl, H.M. ‘‘From Savage to Scotsman: Conjectural History in the Scottish Enlightenment.’’Journal of British Studies 17 (1978): 19�40.

Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free and Empire’sSlaves. Boston: Houghtin Mifflin 2005.

Howe, Daniel Walker. ‘‘Why the Scottish Enlightenment was Useful to the Framersof the American Constitution.’’ Comparative Study of Society and History 23 (1989):572�587

Howe, Daniel Walker. The Political Culture of the American Whigs. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1979.

Hudson, Michael. Economics and Technology in Nineteenth-Century American Thought: TheNeglected American Economists. New York: Garland Publ., 1975.

Hume, David. Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. Ed. Eugene Miller. Indianapolis: LibertyFund Press, 1987.

Hume, David. The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in1688. 6 vols. London: A. Millar, 1767.

Hume, David. Treatise of Human Nature. 2 vols. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1911.Hundert, E.J. ‘‘The Achievement Motive in Hume’s Political Economy.’’ Journal of the History

of Ideas 35 (1974): 139�48.Hutcheson, Francis. Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, in Three Books; Containing the

Elements of Ethiks and the Law of Nature. 4 vols. Glasgow: Robert Foulis, 1747.Hutchison, Terence W. Before Adam Smith: The Emergence of Political Economy, 1662�1776.

Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1988.Hutchinson, William T., and William M.E. Rachal, eds. The Papers of James Madison.

Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962.Immerwahr, John. ‘‘Hume’s Revised Racism.’’ Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992): 481�6.Jenkins, William S. Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of

North Carolina Press, 1935.Jensen, Merrill. The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation,

1781�1789. Boston: Vintage Books, 1981.Kamerschen, David R. ‘‘Adam Smith’s Concept of Man and Human Relations.’’ Journal of

Human Relations 13 (1965): 446�57.Kames, Lord Henry Home. Sketches on the History of Man. Edinburgh: W. Creech, W.

Strahan, and T. Cadell, 1774.Kaufman, Allen. Capitalism, Slavery, and Republican Values: American Political Economists,

1819�1848. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.Krieger, Leonard. The Politics of Discretion: Pufendorf and the Acceptance of Natural Law.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.Kolchin, Peter. ‘‘Toward a Reinterpretation of Slavery.’’ Journal of Social History 9 (1975): 99�

113.Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1962.LaCapra, Dominick. Rethinking Intellectual History: Text, Contexts, Language. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1983.Landsman, Ned C. From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680�1760.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.Lee, Arthur. An Essay in Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from a Censure of

Mr. Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, with Some Reflections on Slavery inGeneral. London: T. Becket, 1764.

Leslie, T.E. Cliffe. ‘‘The Wealth of Nations and the Slave Power.’’ Macmillian’s Magazine 7, no.40 (1863): 269�76.

Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to theProhibition of the Slave Trade, 1619�1808. Boston: Ginn Press, 1901.

Lundberg, David, and Henry May. ‘‘The Enlightened Reader in America.’’ AmericanQuarterly 28 (1976): 262�71.

478 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

MacCormick, Neil. ‘‘Law and Enlightenment.’’ In The Origins and Nature of the ScottishEnlightenment: Essays, ed. R.H. Campbell and Andrew Skinner, 42�61. Edinburgh: J.Donald, 1982.

Macfie, A.L. ‘‘The Invisible Hand of Jupiter.’’ Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (1971): 595�9.Macleod, Duncan J. Slavery, Race and the American Revolution. London: Cambridge

University Press, 1974.MacMaster, Richard K. ‘‘Arthur Lee’s Address on Slavery.’’ Virginia Magazine of History and

Biography 80 (1972): 141�57.Mandeville, Bernard. The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits; with an Essay

on Charity and Charity Schools, and a Search into the Nature of Society. 2nd ed. London:Edmund Parker, 1723.

Mason, Matthew. Slavery & Politics in the Early American Republic. Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Matson, Cathy D. A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in RevolutionaryAmerica. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.

Matson, Cathy D., and Peter S. Onuf. ‘‘Toward a Republican Empire: Interest and Ideology inRevolutionary America.’’ American Quarterly 37 (1985): 496�531.

Mautner, Thomas. ‘‘Pufendorf and the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Philosophy.’’ In SamuelPufendorf, 1632�1982, ed. Kjell A. Modeer, 120�31. Lund: Nordiska Bokhandelen, 1986.

May, Henry F. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.McCoy, Drew. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America. Chapel Hill,

NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.McDonald, Forest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution.

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985.McNamara, Peter. Political Economy and Statesmanship: Smith, Hamilton, and the Foundation

of the Commercial Republic. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1998.Meek, Ronald L. Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1976.Meek, Ronald L. Smith, Marx and After: Ten Essays on the Development of Economic Thought.

London: Chapman & Hall, 1977.Meek, Ronald L. ‘‘Smith, Turgot and the ‘Four Stages’ Theory.’’ In Smith, Marx and After:

Ten Essays on the Development of Economic Thought, ed. Ronald L. Meek, 18�32. London:Chapman & Hall, 1977.

Meyer, Donald. The Democratic Enlightenment. New York: Putnam Press, 1976.Midgley, Claire. Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780�1870. London:

Routledge, 1992.Millar, John. The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks. 3rd ed. London: J. Murray, 1779.Millar, John. An Historical View of the English Government: from the Settlement of the Saxons

in Britain to the Revolution in 1688: to which are Subjoined Some Dissertations Connectedwith the History of the Government, from the Revolution to the Present Time. 4 vols. London:J. Mawman, 1812.

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de. The Spirit of Laws. Trans. Thomas Nugent. 2vols. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1894.

Moore, James, and Michael Silverthorne. ‘‘Gershom Carmichael and the Natural Jurispru-dence Tradition in Eighteenth-Century Scotland.’’ In Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping ofPolitical Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Moore, James, and Michael Silverthorne. ‘‘Natural Sociability and Natural Rights in theMoral Philosophy of Gershom Carmichael.’’ In Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment,ed. V. Hope. Edinburgh: University Press, 1984.

Moore, James, and Michael Silverthorne, eds. Natural Rights on the Threshold of the ScottishEnlightenment: the Writings of Gershom Carmichael. Indianapolis: ID, 2002.

Mossner, Ernest Campbell. ‘‘Hume and the Ancient-Modern Controversy, 1725�1752: AStudy in Creative Scepticism.’’ University of Texas Studies in English 28 (1949): 139�53.

Nelson, John R., Jr. ‘‘Alexander Hamilton and American Manufacturing: A Reexamination.’’Journal of American History 65 (1979): 971�95.

Atlantic Studies 479

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Nelson, John R., Jr. Liberty and Property: Political Economy and Policymaking in the NewNation, 1789�1812. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

Nettles, Curtis P. The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775�1815. New York: Holt,Rinehart and Winston, 1962.

Newman, Richard S. The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in theEarly Republic. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

North, Douglas C. The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790�1860. New York: W.W.Norton, 1966.

Norton, David, and Richard Popkin, eds. David Hume: Philosophical Historian. Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.

Oakes, James. ‘‘The Peculiar Fate of the Bourgeois Critique of Slavery.’’ In Slavery and theAmerican South, ed. Winthrop D. Jordan. Oxford, 29�56. MS: University Press ofMississippi, 2003.

O’Connor, Michael J.L. Origins of Academic Economics in the United States. New York:Columbia University Press, 1944.

Onuf, Peter S. ‘‘Adam Smith and the Crisis of the American Union.’’ In The AtlanticEnlightenment, ed. Susan Manning and Francis D. Cogliano, 149�64. Aldershot: Ashgate,2008.

Paine, Thomas. ‘‘African Slavery in America.’’ Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser,March 8, 1775.

Palter, Robert. ‘‘Hume and Prejudice.’’ Hume Studies 21 (1995): 3�23.Perry, Lewis. Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973.Perry, Lewis, and Michael Fellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the

Abolitionists. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.Persky, Joseph J. The Burden of Dependency: Colonial Themes in Southern Economic Thought.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.Peskin, Lawrence A. Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American

Industry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.Peterson, Merrill. ‘‘Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy, 1783�1793.’’ William and Mary

Quarterly 3rd ser. 22 (1965): 584�610.Phillipson, Nicholas. ‘‘The Scottish Enlightenment.’’ In The Enlightenment in National

Context, ed. Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, 19�40. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981.

Phillipson, Nicholas. ‘‘Scottish Opinion and the Union in the Age of Association.’’ InScotland in the Age of Improvement: Essays in Scottish History in the Eighteenth Century, ed.N.T. Phillipson and Rosalind Mitchison, 125�48. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,1970.

Phillipson, Nicholas. ‘‘Politics, Politeness and the Anglicization of Early Eighteenth-CenturyScottish Culture.’’ In Scotland and England, 1286�1815, ed. Roger A. Mason, 226�41.Edinburgh: John Donald, 1987.

Pocock, J.G.A. ‘‘Virtues, Rights, and Manners: a Model for Historians of Political Thought.’’In Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in theEighteenth Century, 37�50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Pocock, J.G.A. ‘‘Cambridge Paradigms and Scotch Philosophers: A Study of the Relationsbetween the Civic Humanist and Civil Jurisprudential Interpretation of Eighteenth-CenturySocial Thought.’’ In Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the ScottishEnlightenment, ed. Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, 235�52. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983.

Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. New York and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.,1944.

Popkin, Richard H. ‘‘Hume’s Racism.’’ In The High Road to Pyrrhonism, ed. Richard A.Watson and James E. Force, 215�66. San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1980.

Porter, Roy, and Mikulas Teich, eds. The Enlightenment in National Context. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Postlethwayt, Malachy. The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the BritishPlantation Trade in America. London: J. Robinson, 1745.

480 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Pufendorf, Samuel. De jure naturae et gentium, libri octo. Frankfurt: Ex officina Knochiana,1744.

Pufendorf, Samuel. On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law. Ed. JamesTully. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Rashid, Salim. ‘‘Adam Smith’s Rise to Fame.’’ The Eighteenth Century 23 (1982): 64�85.Raymond, Daniel. Thoughts on Political Economy: In Two Parts. Baltimore: F. Lucas Jr., 1820.Resnick, Daniel P. ‘‘The Society Amis de Noirs and the Abolition of Slavery.’’ French

Historical Studies 7 (1972): 558�69.Riesman, Janet. ‘‘The Origins of American Political Economy, 1690�1781.’’ Ph. D. diss.,

Brown University, 1983.Robertson, William. History of America. London: William Strahan, 1777.Robinson, Donald L. Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, 1750�1820. New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.Rosenberg, Nathan. ‘‘Adam Smith, Consumer Tastes, and Economic Growth.’’ Journal of

Political Economy 76 (1968): 361�74.Ross, Ian Simpson. ‘‘The Emergence of David Hume as a Political Economist: A Biographical

Sketch.’’ In David Hume’s Political Economy, ed. Carl Wennerlind and Margaret Schabas,31�48. London: Routledge, 2008.

Rothbard, Murray N. The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1962.

Rothschild, Emma. Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith Condorcet, and the Enlightenment.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Rothschild, Emma. ‘‘The Atlantic Worlds of David Hume.’’ In Soundings in Atlantic History:Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, ed. Bernard Bailyn and Patricia L. Denault,405�50. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Rutland, Robert A., ed. The Papers of George Mason, 1725�1792. 3 vols. Chapel Hill: NorthCarolina University Press, 1970.

Seeber, Edward. Anti-Slavery Opinion in France during the Second Half of the EighteenthCentury. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1937.

Schneewind, J.B. ‘‘Natural Law, Skepticism and Method.’’ Journal of the History of Ideas 52(1991): 289�308.

Schumpeter, J.A. History of Economic Analysis. Ed. Elizabeth Schumpeter. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1966.

Scott, William Robert. Adam Smith as Student and Professor. Glasgow: Jackson, Son &Company, 1937.

Seidler, Michael, ed. Samuel Pufendorf’s ‘‘On the natural state of men’’. Lewiston, NY: E.Mellen Press, 1990.

Sher, Richard. ‘‘From Troglodytes to Americans: Montesquieu and the Scottish Enlight-enment on Liberty, Virtue and Commerce.’’ In Republicanism, Liberty and CommercialSociety, 1649�1776, ed. David Wooton, 368�402. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,1994.

Sher, Richard, and Jeffrey Smitten, eds. Scotland and America in the Age of Enlightenment.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Skinner, Andrew S. ‘‘Economics and History � The Scottish Enlightenment.’’ Scottish Journalof Political Economy 12 (1965): 1�22.

Skinner, Andrew S. ‘‘Adam Smith: An Economic Interpretation of History.’’ In Essays onAdam Smith, ed. Andrew Skinner and Thomas Wilson, 154�78. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1975.

Skinner, Andrew S. ‘‘Sir James Steuart: Economic Theory and Practice.’’ In The ScottishContribution to Modern Economic Thought, ed. Douglas Mair, 174�90. Aberdeen: AberdeenUniversity Press, 1990

Skinner, Quentin. ‘‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas.’’ History and Theory8 (1969): 3�53.

Sloan, Douglas. The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal. New York:Teachers College Press, 1971.

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 2 vols. Ed. R.H.Campbell and A.S. Skinner. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 1981.

Atlantic Studies 481

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Smith, Adam. Lectures on Jurisprudence. Ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael, and P.G. Stein.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie.Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 1984.

Spadafora, David. The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1990.

Stein, Peter. Legal Evolution: The Story of an Idea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1980.

Stein, Peter. ‘‘Law and Society in Eighteenth-Century Scotland.’’ In Scotland in the Age ofImprovement: Essays in Scottish History in the Eighteenth Century, ed. N.T. Phillipson andRosalind Mitchison, 148�54. Edinburgh: University Press, 1970.

Stein, Peter. ‘‘The Four Stage Theory of the Development of Societies.’’ In The Characterand Influence of the Roman Civil Law: Historical Essays, ed. Peter Stein, 395�409. London:Hambledon Continuum, 1988.

Stewart, Dugald. ‘‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith.’’ In Adam Smith’s Essayson Philosophical Subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman and J.C Bryce, 269�351. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1980.

Stewart, James Brewer. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. New York: Hilland Wang, 1976.

Steuart, Sir James. An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy. Ed. Andrew Skinner.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Stinchcombe, William. ‘‘John Adams and the Model Treaty.’’ In The American Revolution and‘‘A Candid World’’, ed. Lawrence S. Kaplan, 69�84. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press,1977.

Sypher, Wylie. Guinea’s Captive Kings: British Anti-Slavery Literature of the XVIIIth Century.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1942.

Syrett, Harold C, and Jacob E. Cooke, eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1961�87.

Taylor, William. ‘‘Gershom Carmichael: A Neglected Figure in British Political Economy.’’South African Journal of Economics 32 (1955): 250�61.

Teichgraeber, Richard. ‘‘Free Trade’’ and Moral Philosophy: Rethinking the Sources of AdamSmith’s Wealth of Nations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986.

Temperley, Howard. ‘‘Capitalism, Slavery and Ideology.’’ Past and Present 75 (1977): 94�118.Thornton, John. Africa and the Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1440�1800. New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Trevor-Roper, Hugh. ‘‘The Scottish Enlightenment.’’ Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth

Century 58 (1967): 1667�73.Trevor-Roper, Hugh. ‘‘The Historical Philosophy of the Enlightenment.’’ Studies in Voltaire

and the Eighteenth Century 37 (1963): 1667�87.Tuck, Richard. ‘‘The ‘Modern’ Theory of Natural Law.’’ In The Languages of Political Theory

in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden, 99�122. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987.

Tuck, Richard. ‘‘Grotius, Carneades and Hobbes.’’ Grotiana 4 (1983): 45�68.Tully, James. ‘‘Governing Conduct.’’ In Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, ed.

Edmund Leites, 12�71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Tully, James, ed. Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1988.Turner, Lorenzo. ‘‘Anti-Slavery Sentiment in American Literature Prior to 1865.’’ Journal of

Negro History 14 (1929): 371�492.Wallace, Robert. Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in Antient and Modern Times.

Edinburgh: G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1753.Walters, Ronald G. The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism After 1830. Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

482 M. Guenther

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011

Warner, John M. ‘‘David Hume and America.’’ Journal of the History of Ideas 33 (1972): 439�56.

Watts, Steven. The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790�1820.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

Whelan, Frederick. ‘‘Population and Ideology in the Enlightenment.’’ History of PoliticalThought 11 (1991): 38�54.

Wigglesworth, Edward. Calculations on American Population with a Table for Estimating theAnnual Increase of Inhabitants in the British Colonies, the Manner of its ConstructionExplained, and its Use Illustrated. Boston: J. Boyle, 1775.

Williams, William Appleman. ‘‘The Age of Mercantilism: An Interpretation of the AmericanPolitical Economy, 1763�1828.’’ William and Mary Quarterly 15 (1958): 419�37.

Winch, Donald. Adam Smith’s Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978Wood, Marcus. ‘‘Emancipation Art, Fanon and ‘the butchery of Freedom’.’’ In Slavery and the

Cultures of Abolition: Essays Marking the Bicentennial of the British Abolition Act of 1807,ed. Brycchan Carey and Peter J. Kitson, 11�41. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007.

Wolf, Eva Sheppard. Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from theRevolution to Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,2006.

Wormersley, David J. ‘‘The Historical Writings of William Robertson.’’ Journal of the Historyof Ideas 47 (1986): 497�506.

Zeitz, Joshua Michael. ‘‘The Missouri Compromise Reconsidered: Antislavery Rhetoric andthe Emergence of the Free Labor Synthesis.’’ Journal of the Early Republic 20 (2000):447�85.

Atlantic Studies 483

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Gri

nnel

l Col

lege

], [

Mic

hael

Gue

nthe

r] a

t 07:

05 1

0 N

ovem

ber

2011