Robbers and Incendiaries: Protectionism Organizes at the Harrisburg Convention of 1827
Author: W. Kesler Jackson
Date: 2010-01-01T07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: markets
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LIBERTARIAN PAPERS VOL. 2, ART. NO. 21 (2010)

ROBBERS AND INCENDIARIES: PROTECTIONISM ORGANIZES AT THE

HARRISBURG CONVENTION OF 1827

W. * K ESLER J ACKSON

ON 13 NOVEMBER, 1860, ROBERT TOOMBS, eminent Senator from Georgia, thunderously condemned the Morrill bill—legislation that would significantly increase import tariff rates. Toombs railed against the tariff as the most “atrocious” such bill “that ever was enacted,” and lambasted it as the result of a “coalition” of protectionists and abolitionists: “the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South,” he declared.1 Before closing his remarks, he asked his state legislators, “Shall we surrender the jewels because their robbers and incendiaries have broken the casket? Is this the way to preserve liberty? I would as life surrender it back to the British crown…”2 For Toombs, then, the sectionalism between North and South—which would erupt less than five months later in the nation’s bloodiest armed conflict to date—wasn’t just about slavery; it was about Northern protectionism, too. And the Harrisburg Convention of 1827, a full 34 years before Confederate artillery would take aim at Fort Sumter, marked the first time in United States history that a united, protectionist front, formed along sectional lines, presented itself in an organized manner on a national level—the North arrayed against the South in a pitched battle over tariffs and economic philosophy in general. Organized, national lobbying for federal money had been born and, together with the Southern fear of

* W. Kesler Jackson (wkjackso@syr.edu) is a Maxwell Fellow at Syracuse University.

CITE THIS ARTICLE AS: W. Kesler Jackson, “Robbers and Incediaries: Protectionism Organizes at the Harrisburg Convention of 1827,” Libertarian Papers 2, 21 (2010). ONLINE AT: libertarianpapers.org. THIS ARTICLE IS subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses). Published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

1 Robert Toombs, “Speech to the Georgia Legislature.” Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, http://gastateparks.org/net/content/go.aspx?ran=692663408&s=1339590.1.5.

2 Ibid.

1

Northern abolitionism, would eventually spark war—and it all started in the modest Pennsylvania capital with an event scarcely remembered today. Taussig devotes just one page to the convention in his Tariff History of the United States, and while the reference correctly characterizes the event as “well known in its day,” the power of the lobby and distinction of its members is not made evident. Since that landmark publication, the convention has seemingly faded from historians’ collective memory. Hofstadter is mute on the event, and it has received only passing mention, and that rarely, in scholarly articles of recent decades. Mark Thornton and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., provide a mere half-sentence to the convention in their important Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation (2004).

By the time the convention convened in 1827, legislated protectionism in the United States, like the country itself, was still relatively young, though the idea had been bounced around (to ardent opposition from representatives of both Northern and Southern states) even during the Constitutional Convention. Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations had been published in 1776, arguing that “Great nations are never impoverished by private (but) by public prodigality and misconduct.”3 In other words, Smith asserted, government intervention in the marketplace—as in the case of a protective tariff, which would, among other things, artificially raise the price of certain products—is generally detrimental to the health of the economy in which that government operates. The subsequent debate between thinkers like Adam Smith on the one hand and Friedrich List on the other arguably found no more heated a battlefield than the one revolving around protective tariffs in 19th-century America. Except perhaps within Congress (where, three years earlier, the voting for the Tariff of 1824 had split quite neatly along sectional lines),4 nowhere was the Northern protectionist agenda more succinctly delineated than in Harrisburg.

The protectionist fracas in the United States may have begun when Alexander Hamilton propounded his doctrine of implied powers, which included the idea that the federal government should enact a tariff for the express purpose of subsidizing American manufacturers.5 But Hamilton’s tariff came up against fierce opposition, and not just from the Jeffersonians. The tariff in and of itself wasn’t the issue—indeed, up until the Civil War,

3 Frank Fox, The American Founding (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 483.

4 Mark Thornton and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2004), 20. Of the 107 House votes in favor of the 1824 tariff, only three came from the South. As for the Senate, of 25 “yea” votes Southern representatives cast only two.

5 Fox, 343.

tariffs were the federal government’s chief source of revenue.6 But Hamilton’s tariff wouldn’t have been instituted to garner revenue for the government; it would have been put in place solely to “protect” certain industries, a new idea altogether. Democratic-Republicans argued that the Hamiltonians were merely combining “economic interventionism with their quest for consolidated or monopolistic governmental power.”7 In 1791 Hamilton delivered his Report on Manufactures to Congress, calling for “pecuniary bounties” for manufacturers (a practice known today as “corporate welfare”) and citing the General Welfare Clause to justify his position.8 In the end, Hamilton’s tariff was defeated, viewed as extreme even by some fellow Federalists.9

The War of 1812 changed prevailing attitudes towards tariffs. Bereft of trans-Atlantic trade, Americans (almost exclusively Northerners) had established their own manufacturing centers to produce needed arms, tools, and the like. After hostilities ended and trade resumed, American manufacturers suddenly found it hard to compete with prices overseas—and Southerners, on whom the Northern manufacturers depended to purchase their wares, began relying heavily on these less-expensive imports. The interests surrounding the manufacturers (distributors, transporters, owners, employees, suppliers, etc.) began organizing and lobbying in Washington for subsidies to save their floundering industries—and thus began protectionism on a major scale in the United States. The tariff of 1816 was the result of this political-industrial alliance, and in the words of historian H. W. Brands, “it was the first explicitly protective tariff in American history.”10 No longer was the tariff simply a source of revenue for the federal government; it had become a means of financially benefitting select private citizens or a particular geographical region. Government money was up for grabs— interested parties needed only to apply pressure in Washington.

This was the era of Henry Clay’s grandiose “American System,” of which a protectionist tariff was the lifeblood. Put simply, the American System called for a tariff to protect home industries, setting the stage for increased prosperity. Meanwhile, revenue from the tariff could be used to tackle internal improvements like roads and canals, in turn sparking an

6 H.W. Brands, The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years’ War Over the American Dollar (New York: Atlas Books, 2006), 107.

7 Thomas DiLorenzo, Hamilton’s Curse (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008), 18.

8 Ibid, 29–30.

9 Brands, 59.

10 H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (New York: Anchor Books, 2005), 333.

increase in commerce—with foodstuffs and raw materials streaming north and manufactures flooding south.11 “The true American policy is this: first, protect and cherish your national industry by a wise system of finance,” Congressman and ardent American System supporter Andrew Stewart (nicknamed “Tariff Andy”)12 told the House in a speech about this time. “Second, adopt a system of national improvements.”13 In theory, at least, it seemed like a win-win plan, but Southerners feared Northern trickery. Moreover, the very constitutionality of the internal improvements concept was still in question; at least three previous presidents (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe) had insisted that, since no express right to funnel federal funds to such projects was found in the Constitution, an amendment must be added before carrying them out. Southerners, notably John C. Calhoun (though only after going through a pro-protectionist phase of his own), seized this strict constitutionalist logic to buoy up their arguments, even as many Northerners labeled such detractors of the tariff as “quibblers” and “hair-splitters.” Meanwhile, many in the younger, Western states asserted that federal subsidies garnered via a tariff were necessary if they were to keep up with the more established east.14 It was in the midst of this debate that renowned Jeffersonian John Taylor published his classic political, philosophical, and economic treatise, Tyranny Unmasked (1822); among other things, Taylor argued that “if liberty consists…in not transferring property by unnecessary taxation and exclusive privileges, [the States] are less free than when they were provinces, and have nothing to boast of when compared with some other countries. As provinces…their property [was] safe for nearly two centuries…” To Taylor, the protective tariff represented the transfer of “property and power to a separate combined interest,” and predicted an “endless” onslaught of new abuses with the opening of the tariff floodgates.15

The Tariff of 1824 followed. Advocates for the tariff argued that without it, America would be left defenseless and unable to produce much-needed arms during conflict (recollection of the War of 1812 still smoldered in Americans’ collective memory). Andrew Jackson, not an ardent

11 Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1961), 225.

12 James Hadden, A History of Uniontown (Uniontown, PA: James Hadden, 1913), 777.

13 Andrew Stewart, The American System: Speeches on the Tariff Questions and on Internal Improvements Principally Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States (Philadelphia: Harey Carey Bailey, 1872), 4.

14 H. Von Holst, The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Vol. 1 (Chicago: Callaghan and Company, 1889), 388–93.

15 John Taylor, Tyranny Unmasked (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005), 194–95. ROBBERS AND INCENDIARIES 5
protectionist, nonetheless articulated tariff advocates’ second major contention, that “we have been too long subject to the policy of the British merchants. It is time we should become a little more Americanized.”16 To Jackson, then, the tariff was not about benefitting industry for profits’ sake— it was to be considered only within the framework of American independence and defense. One northern newspaper lamented, “While the friends of the American System support their views and measures with volumes of facts, and the most unanswerable reasoning, they are met in reply with nothing but declamation, clamour [sic] and invective.”17 On the other hand, many Southerners—almost unanimously opposed to protectionist legislation—viewed these import duties as lopsided affairs, solely benefitting Northern manufacturers while raising costs dramatically for Southern agrarians. In other words, they argued, the bulk of federal government expenses was being paid for by the South—even as the bulk of government expenditures was taking place in the North.

As might be expected, then, the general feeling in the South towards the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 bordered on hostile. “An intelligent people cannot long be duped by such management and finesse,” one Southern newspaper declared, adding that “in the meantime, the Citizens of Charleston are determined not to be shorn quietly, like so many sheep.”18 Three weeks after the convention adjourned, Calhoun, in a letter to Virginia Senator (and soon-to-be-governor) Littleton Waller Tazewell, wrote that “the Harrisburg convention…is indeed a portentous sign of the times, and must be followed with the most marked consequences. To the reflecting mind, it clearly indicates the weak part of our system, and the corruption to which it must lead, unless speedily corrected.”19 In a previous letter two months before, Calhoun expressed to Tazewell that even though, in his opinion, the presidential race between Jackson and Adams was “far the most important” that had so far taken place since American independence, his biggest concern for the nation lay not in that contest but on “another point” entirely—the protective tariff.20

16 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 381.

17 “Domestic Manufactures,” Middlesex Gazette [Middletown, CT], June 27, 1827: 2.

18 “Harrisburg Convention,” Carolina Gazette [Charleston, SC], August 13, 1827: 3.

19 th John C. Calhoun. “To L. W. Tazewell. Pendleton, 25 August 1827,” in The Papers of John C. Calhoun X 1825–1829, ed. Clyde N. Wilson (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 300–302.

20 Clyde N. Wilson, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun X 1825–1829 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 246–47.

The language employed by partisans in the national debate over protectionism was couched in sectional division and dire import. “The Pennsylvania meeting [the Harrisburg Convention] cannot but eventuate in an increased strength to [the protectionists’] cause,” a New Jersey paper declared. “We believe it is the cause of the country…[and] it is hoped that short-sighted sectional jealousy, will never be interposed to the injury of our solid interests for the benefit of foreign rivals.”21 This last sentiment was, of course, pure List—focused on a marketplace of competing nations, as opposed to Smith’s marketplace of individuals. A major shift in the perception of the role of government (at least in the United States) had taken place, and it seems that the temptation to raise tariff rates was simply too strong now that the tariff wasn’t designed strictly for garnering government revenue but also for subsidizing certain business interests (several Southern statesmen, including Taylor, had warned for years against opening these floodgates—”the manufacturers [will] come back again and again with increased demands”).22

Sure enough, the 1828 tariff saw those rates skyrocket to previously unforeseen heights. Thus the Tariff of 1828, vehemently opposed by Southerners and derided as the “Tariff of Abominations,” was the protectionists’ greatest victory to date, despite Jackson’s maneuverings. Never before had Southerners been taxed so much for what they consumed, even as the protectionist tariff failed to protect virtually everything they produced.23 “Let them have an unrestricted exchange of productions, with those who consume their products, and they fear no competition,” wrote Calhoun in a private letter to Samuel D. Ingham (Andrew Jackson’s new Treasury Secretary) in 1829, referring to Southern agrarians. “They are now crippled not so much by the low prices of their products, as the high proportional price of their supplies, occasioned by the restrictive system.” Calhoun would go on in the letter to describe the Tariff as leading to the Southern agrarian’s “utter ruin” and the “consummation” of the Southern economy. “Thus regarding [the tariff],” Calhoun concluded, “[the Southern agrarian] will consider his ruin, as the work of the Government, for the benefit of a more favored portion of his fellow citizens.”24 The seeds of sectional animosity,

21 “Domestic Manufactures,” 2. Italics added.

22 Von Holst, 403.

23 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 433.

24 th John C. Calhoun. “To S. D. Ingham, ‘Private.’ Pendleton, 26 Sepr 1829,” in Clyde N. Wilson, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun XI 1829–1832 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 78–79.

with particular mistrust directed toward what was seen as an ever-encroaching federal government in Washington D.C., had taken root.

That the tariff was the most controversial political issue of its time in the United States was noted by at least one high-profile outside observer. “The question of a tariff has much agitated the minds of Americans,” wrote de Tocqueville just a few years after the Harrisburg Convention. “For a long time the tariff was the sole source of the political animosities that agitated the Union,” he penned, a perhaps revealing statement when considering the armed conflict that would follow just a few decades later along precisely the same lines. The Frenchman noted that while the North “attributed a portion of its prosperity” to the tariff, the South blamed it on “nearly all its sufferings.”25 Talk of secession soon began to crop up, and the state of South Carolina voted to nullify the tariff, refusing to collect it at Charleston harbor. President Jackson even considered the use of force to preserve the Union, even as South Carolinians argued their right to nullify what they deemed to be unconstitutional legislation from Washington. Jackson’s threats seemed to quiet official opposition in the rest of the South, though states like Virginia and Georgia expressed a certain level of support and sympathy for the states’ rights cause.26 The conflict was prevented from getting more out of hand only when the federal government finally reduced the tariff in 1833.27 The foundations for future North-South conflict were thus laid in a battle over protectionist tariffs. Amid this heated national debate, with lines drawn between Northern manufacturers and Southern farmers and plantation owners, the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 convened in the shadows of the Pennsylvania Capitol. A hundred of the North’s most influential manufacturers and public servants were assembled to draft a “memorial” to Congress, imploring that body to pass a protectionist bill to save their industries from what they viewed as eventual ruin. As Jonathan J. Pincus observed and Thornton and Ekelund echoed, “it is not small cohesive individual groups but larger diverse ones that are necessary in order to effectively lobby representatives and senators to obtain majority coalitions” in comprehensive legislation.28 The convention would bring together this “larger diverse” group—with just such a legislative goal. Meanwhile, mostly in the South, anti-protectionist opinion continued to surge. The Harrisburg

25 Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage Classics, 1990), 193–94.

26 Brands, Andrew Jackson, 480.

27 Thomas DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), 63.

28 Thornton and Ekelund, Jr., 21.

Convention of 1827 would lead to the passage of that most hated piece of protectionist legislation—the “Tariff of Abominations” of 1828.

The call for a national convention of manufacture and woolen interests came from Philadelphia in mid-May 1827 at a meeting of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts (though some Southerners, like Calhoun, suspected that the “scheme” of a “general convention of the manufacturing interest at Harrisburg” had originated “with those in power” and not, as seemed to be the case, as a grassroots effort).29 The Society wished to “deliberate on what measures are proper to be taken” in regards to “the present state of the wool-growing and wool-manufacturing interests, and other such manufactures as may require encouragement.” The organization called on delegates from every state in the Union to gather at Harrisburg in July of that year to produce a joint statement to the citizens of the United States on protectionism.30 It was understood that the convention’s primary aim was to encourage the adoption of a highly protectionist bill.31 Copies of the Society’s call for a convention were circulated widely, reprinted on broadsides and in newspapers across the nation. Almost immediately, state conventions were selecting delegates to attend the national convention in Harrisburg. “A great convention of the friends of the Manufacturing Interest, and of Domestic Industry generally, [is] to be held in Harrisburg, Pa. on the 30th of July next,” proclaimed the Middlesex Gazette, a Connecticut newspaper. “The people are awake, and this important subject is beginning to see its true light…and we hope Connecticut will not fail to be represented in a Convention, the proceedings of which will be so pregnant with interest to the American people.”32 “The Hall and Galleries were filled to overflowing,” reported a Richmond, Virginia newspaper correspondent, about a gathering in Boston to select delegates from Massachusetts for the Harrisburg Convention, “and a more respectable and imposing assemblage, probably was never witnessed in Massachusetts.”33

When the convention finally opened on Monday, 30 July 1827, delegations representing thirteen states and comprising close to one hundred

29 John C. Calhoun. “To Lt. James E. Colhoun, ‘Boston Sloop of War.’ Pendleton, 26th August 1827,” in Clyde N. Wilson, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun X 1825–1827, 304.

30 C. J. Ingersoll and Redwood Fisher, “At a meeting of the Pennsylvania Society for the promotion of manufactures and the mechanic arts, held in Philadelphia, on the 14th day of May, 1827,” Pennsylvania Intelligencer [Harrisburg, PA], May 29, 1827: 3.

31 “Domestic Manufactures,” 2.

32 Ibid, 2.

33 “From Our Correspondent. Boston, June 6,” The Richmond Enquirer [Richmond, VA] June 15 1827: 2.

individuals had gathered together at the appointed place. Representatives from Connecticut (seven), Delaware (four), Kentucky (four), Maryland (eight), Massachusetts (seven), New York (eighteen), New Hampshire (five), New Jersey (nine), Ohio (seven, though this number would rise to eight on the fourth day of the convention when the state’s governor, Jeremiah Morrow, arrived)34, Pennsylvania (fifteen), Rhode Island (four), Vermont (five), and Virginia (two) were in attendance. Thus, the Northern and Middle States were heavily represented, while the Southern states were all but absent.

The almost complete lack of representation at the Harrisburg Convention by Southern delegates did not go unnoticed, of course, and sectionalist sentiment ran strong. During the course of the event, for example, New York representative Alvan Stewart warned fellow delegates that the protectionists had many enemies thanks to “Adam Smith’s work,” which had “poisoned the minds of the nation.” Stewart blamed Smith for the sectional “prejudices” at work in the United States, adding, “if we looked over our own country, we should discover that all the southern states were looking with an eye of jealousy, and that they were not willing to send delegates to this convention—that there were ten or eleven states disposed to contend against the great interests to be here advocated.” Evidently informed that the seat in which the convention’s chairperson was sitting was the very chair from which the Declaration of Independence had been signed, Mr. Stewart likened the fight against the free traders to the Revolutionary War, expressing hope that a “second edition [of the Revolution]” would come out of the convention. “We fought then for liberty,” he is reported to have said, “and must now fight for clothes. We had been creeping along for fifty years, without sufficient courage to say that we will clothe ourselves; and if at the end of half a century we could do so much, it would be a great point gained.”35

Obviously, the relatively new ideas of Adam Smith and other free-market economists were well-known to the convention’s participants. Indeed, many might have agreed with the theories in their entirety (though Mr. Stewart, it would seem, was not one of them)—but the problem, as they saw it, was that a free market economy demanded that every player play by the rules. “We acknowledge the theoretical excellence of the doctrines of the political economists of the age,” a Northern editorial explained, “and were all nations of the world to assent to an unrestricted intercourse, should be the first to advocate a most rigid adherence to the principles of Smith, & Say, and

34 “Harrisburg Convention,” 3.

35 “From the U. S. Gazette, August 4,” City Gazette [Charleston, SC], August 14, 1827: 2.

others, of that school.” However, the editorial went on to label the pursuit of a free-trade policy “the height of madness” as long as other nations refused to do the same. Free trade in such an environment, they argued, was paramount to forcing “these States to prostrate themselves and their industry, for the sake of abstract and impracticable theories of free commerce, etc.”36 The task was not to prove free trade theories false, but to ensure that domestic industry would be protected in a world that failed to adhere to such theories in practice.

The convention began with the selection of secretaries; John C. Wright of Ohio, a lawyer and U.S. Congressman,37 and Redwood Fisher of Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia merchant who would later gain some prominence as a newspaper editor and writer,38 were thus chosen.39 Each delegate was subsequently called forth by name, at which point he was expected to produce an official certificate of appointment. Joseph Ritner, a state legislator who would later become Governor of Pennsylvania,40 was then elected the convention’s chairperson and president. The motion for Ritner was made by Mathew Carey, a Pennsylvania delegate and one of the country’s most successful publishers;41 incidentally, Carey’s son Henry, a “publicist for the Pennsylvania steel industry,” would later become a significant economic influence on Abraham Lincoln in favor of protectionism.42,43 Finally, two “Vice Presidents” were unanimously elected: Jesse Buel, an inventive agriculturalist, state assemblyman, and future candidate for governor of New York,44 and Frisby Tilghman of Maryland, a state legislator, justice, militia leader, and socially active farmer and banker.45

36 “Domestic Manufactures,” 2.

37 Virtual American Biographies, “John C Wright,” Appleton’s Encyclopedia (2001), http://famousamericans.net/johncwright.

38 Virtual American Biographies, “Redwood S. Fisher,” http://famousamericans.net/redwoodsfisher.

39 “Official Proceedings of the General Convention,” Pennsylvania Intelligencer [Harrisburg, PA], August 7, 1827: 2.

40 James Wilson and John Fiske, Appleton’s Encyclopedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), 262.

41 Virtual American Biographies, “Mathew Carey,” http://famousamericans.net/mathewcarey.

42 Ibid.

43 DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, 71.

44 Virtual American Biographies, “Jesse Buel,” http://famousamericans.net/jessebuel.

45 Dean Herrin, “From Slave to Abolitionist: James W. C. Pennington of Washington County, Maryland” (paper presented at the Millennium Crossroads Conference, Frederick Community College, Frederick, MD, September 30, 2001). ROBBERS AND INCENDIARIES 11

Following the appointment of officers, the words of the original call for a protectionist convention, written and distributed by the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts, was read aloud. The resolution—for “farmers, manufacturers, and friends of both branches of industry” to gather and “deliberate on what measures are proper to be taken in the present posture of their affairs”—was then “referred” to a committee, ostensibly to be used to create an official statement of purpose for the convention. It is interesting that the convention was framed as an event for the friends of manufacturers and farmers—this despite the fact that the most agrarian states in the country elected not to show up at all.

This 26-member committee, the first organized at the event and made up of regular delegates from many states, presents a useful cross-section of the kinds of people who participated in the Harrisburg Convention of 1827, perhaps providing a clue as to the import to which the event was granted across the country—and the convention’s potential for future social and political influence. The committee’s members included, in no particular order, George Tibbits, a former New York state legislator and U.S. Congressman, author of the financial plan responsible for raising capital for the Erie Canal, future candidate for lieutenant-governor of his state, future mayor of Troy, and famous protectionist essayist;46 Samuel M. Hopkins, a lawyer, former New York state legislator, and former U.S. Congressman;47 Arnold Naudain, a surgeon, former militiaman and veteran of the War of 1812, member of the Delaware state house of representatives (where he’d served as house speaker the year before the convention), a future candidate for the Delaware Governorship, and a soon-to-be United States Senator (1829);48 Andrew Gray, probably the same Andrew Gray who had served as a Delaware state senator from 1817 to 1821;49 Hezekiah Niles, a Baltimore-based newspaperman, “one of the most influential journalists of the 1820s and early 30s,” and renowned economist who used his paper, the Niles Weekly (described as “a leading weekly news magazine with a national circulation”

46 Virtual American Biographies, “George Tibbits,” http://famousamericans.net/georgetibbits.

47 Virtual American Biographies, “Samuel Miles Hopkins,” http://famousamericans.net/samuelmileshopkins.

48 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Naudain, Arnold, (1790–1872),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=N000010.

49 John Munroe. “Chapter 2: The Founding of Newark College,” in The University of Delaware: A History, online at http://www.udel.edu/aboutus/munroe/chapter2.html. 12 LIBERTARIAN PAPERS 2, 21 (2010)

considered “the paper of record for its age”),50 to attempt to persuade Southerners to diversify their agricultural capabilities, build up (protected) manufacturing in the region, and grant universal education to blacks as a step towards eventual emancipation51; Otho H. Williams, likely a son of the famous Revolutionary War hero of the same name; Isaac Andruss, an officer veteran from the War of 1812 and prominent citizen of Newark;52 Robert G. Johnson, who, it is rumored, convinced the world that tomatoes weren’t lethal by eating twenty of them at once on the steps of the Salem, New Jersey courthouse in 1820, evidently without any ill effects;53 Charles J. Ingersoll, one of the convention’s chief organizers, a former (and future) Congressman, who rubbed shoulders with the likes of Daniel Webster and Nicholas Biddle54 and who would later accept a position of responsibility in the Adams administration;55 Walter Forward, a lawyer, former Congressman, and the future Treasury Secretary in the Tyler cabinet (where he was instrumental in developing the highly protectionist Tariff of 1842);56 Samuel Sprigg, attorney on retainer of the state of Virginia and one of the most famous lawyers of his time;57 Jesse Edgington, a highly respected lawyer, Virginia state senator, and an associate of Henry Clay;58 George Robertson, a lawyer, Kentucky state legislator (where he served as speaker of the house), former U.S. Congressman, and soon-to-be Kentucky secretary of state (1828);59 Samuel

50 William Kovarik, “Niles Weekly Register (1811–1849),” in Encyclopedia of American Journalism History (New York: Routledge, 2006).

51 Kovarik,William. “The Editor who Tried to Stop the Civil War: Hezekiah Niles and the New South.” Papers, William Kovarik, Radford University, 1992, online at http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/papers/niles.html.

52 Mary Depue Ogden, “Gifford, Archer and Charles L. C., Attorneys-at-Law,” Essex County NJ Archives Biographies, 1917, online at http://files.usgwarchives.org/nj/essex/bios/gifford-ac.txt.

53 Produce Oasis, “Roma Tomatoes,” P-O-P Interactive, Inc., http://www.produceoasis.com/Items_folder/Vegetables/Roma.html.

54 Samuel Breck, “The Diary of Samuel Breck, 1823–1827,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 103 (1979): 85–113.

55 Philip Shriver Klein and Ari Hoogenboom, A History of Pennsylvania (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1973), 138.

56 History of the Treasury: Secretaries of the Treasury, “Walter Forward (1841– 1843),” United States Department of the Treasury, http://www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/wforward.shtml.

57 History of the Upper Ohio Valley, Volume I (Madison, WI: Brant and Fuller, 1891), 533.

58 “Death of Hon. Jesse Edgington,” Steubenville Weekly Herald [Steubenville, OH] August 8, 1866.

59 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Robertson, George (1790–1874).” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000322.

Smith, likely the same Samuel Smith who served as a U.S. Congressman representing the state of New Hampshire;60 Ezekiel Webster, brother of the famed (and ardently protectionist) Daniel Webster, who attended the convention at the insistence of his brother61,62; and Gideon Wells, a newspaperman, Connecticut legislator, and Lincoln’s future Secretary of the Navy (where he’d be responsible for implementing the blockade portion of the “Anaconda Plan,” effectively shutting down Southern ports).63

The foregoing list of biographical sketches is incomplete; ten others served on this initial committee, not to mention the scores of others who participated in the convention as delegates (see addendum). Still, the high level of social, professional, and political accomplishment of which these sixteen men are illustrative is, certainly, instructive. Who, after all, was sent to the Harrisburg Convention of 1827? Highly regarded statesmen, legislators, writers, merchants, bankers, lawyers, and others. Congressmen (including four sitting). Senators (including two sitting). Governors. Future members of presidential Cabinets. As one newspaper reported the day after the convention ended, “We may venture to assert, with little fear of contradiction, that it embraced men of the greatest talent, ever assembled in our legislative hall, or indeed perhaps, in any deliberative national assembly, since the congress of ‘76.”64

While it may have been true that such a gathering of VIPs had never been witnessed in the United States since 1776 or the Constitutional Convention of 1786, the difference was that the Harrisburg Convention, though political in many regards, represented no political entity or organization. It was, in essence, the first national attempt at lobbying the federal government for federal money, for it represented the interests of certain private citizens or, at best, mere segments of the country’s entire population. Its goal was to raise the tariff, and not for the purpose of garnering revenue for Washington but to further the business interests of certain groups (groups that happened

60 Index to Politicians: Smith, S to T, “Smith.” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/smith8.html.

61 “Memorials of Mr. Webster.; Number Two. Hon. Ezekiel Webster—His Life. Character, and Sudden Death,” New York Times, October 29, 1852: 2.

62 Daniel Webster. “To Ezekiel Webster. Monday Eve’ [June 11, 1827]” and “To Ezekiel Webster. Boston [July 12, 1827],” in Charles M. Wiltse, ed., The Papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence 2 1825–1829 (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1976), 218.

63 Spartacus Educational, “Gideon Wells was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, on 1st July, 1802,” Schoolnet, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACWwelles.htm.

64 “National Convention,” The Oracle of Dauphin [Harrisburg, PA], August 3, 1827: 3. 14 LIBERTARIAN PAPERS 2, 21 (2010)

to be almost exclusively located in the North)—and it had brought together a formidable assembly to do just that.

The next morning (Tuesday 31 July), the convention reconvened and the aforementioned committee’s recently drawn-up statement was read before all delegates. Its message, in short, was ten-fold: (1) Congress should raise duties on imported woolen items; (2) a committee of nine should be formed to compose a “memorial” to Congress outlining the reasons for the present “depression” being experienced by manufacturers and others and suggesting measures to improve these conditions; (3) a committee of nine should be formed to compose a similar “memorial,” written to “the people,” addressing the same concerns; committees should be formed to research and report upon the need for protectionist measures to be taken in regard to (4) the iron industry, (5) the hemp and flax industries, (6) the glass industry, (7) the cotton goods industry, (8) the copper industry, and (9) the distilled spirits industry; and (10) a committee should be formed to report on the state of trade between states.65 This last resolution is especially interesting; after all, Northern manufacturers wanted the agrarian South to purchase needed goods from them. Perhaps this resolution was calculated to demonstrate Southern reliance on foreign goods, to Northern loss—and perhaps, too, to discover how much gain was to be had should a highly protective tariff be adopted in Washington.

In the afternoon, committees were organized. The next several days were spent attending to committee duties and reporting to the general body of delegates. Finally, the event’s seminal purpose—the drafting of memorials—was completed, and the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 adjourned on 3 August.

The memorial to Congress was an impassioned cry for a significantly raised protectionist tariff. Without protection (meaning protectionist legislation), the petition argued, manufacturing and farming interests in the country would face “imminent” and “utter ruin.” Furthermore, the issue of adopting more protectionist policies towards domestic manufactures was defined as “of the first importance to the general welfare of the United States”—not light language.66 This issue was, to the highly respected delegates representing the North as a bloc, the nation’s top priority, a stance that certainly sheds light on the great weight with which this matter was debated at the time by both sides. This was no mean jamboree of a few

65 “Official Proceedings of the General Convention,” Pennsylvania Intelligencer [Harrisburg, PA] August 7, 1827: 2.

66 “Memorial Reported by Mr. Ingersoll,” Harrisburg Chronicle [Harrisburg, PA], August 20, 1827: 1.

businessmen discussing profit margins and sales techniques; it was a gathering of some of the most respectable men in the country to face what they declared was the nation’s most pressing problem.

The “need” of protection for Northern manufacturers was framed in the memorial as a national issue, a “common cause,” important to the “general welfare” of the people of America. While a Southern farmer might have argued that protectionist tariffs benefitted one segment of citizenry to the disadvantage of another, the Harrisburg Convention presented the issue as something the country as a whole “[stood] in need of.” The memorial subsequently disavowed any “sectionalist views,” asserting that a protectionist tariff for American manufactures was “of primary national importance,” “one of the principal elements of the independence, prosperity, and greatness of this republic.” This, again, was pure Friedrich List—that for the benefit of the nation as a whole, a certain portion of the population must suffer. The marketplace was a competition among nations, not individuals. Supporting protectionism was, as the memorial to Congress put it, every American citizen’s “patriotic” duty.67

The convention’s proceedings were published widely in newspapers across the country—both in the North and in the South—and the memorial to Congress was delivered to that body.

The fact that the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 was a major national event known and followed by the country’s brightest political stars is difficult to dispute. Daniel Webster’s promotion of the gathering to his brother Ezekiel, encouraging him in more than one letter to attend as a New Hampshire delegate, has already been mentioned. Five days later Webster wrote several other letters to prominent citizens of New York; one of them was addressed to New York Congressman (and recent House Speaker) John Taylor,68 urging him and others to attend the Harrisburg Convention as delegates as a matter of “great importance.”69

According to Charles M. Wiltse, the Dartmouth historian who edited the papers of Webster, during the great tariff debates of the Twentieth Congress—when the tariff was far and away the major issue of the day—the Adams administration and its supporters strove to bring duties into line with

67 Ibid.

68 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Taylor, John W. (1784–1854),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000091.

69 Daniel Webster. “To John W. Taylor. Boston [June 19, 1827],” in Wiltse, 222–23. 16 LIBERTARIAN PAPERS 2, 21 (2010)

the recommendations of the Harrisburg Convention of 1827.70 In a confidential letter in April of 1828 to Daniel Webster, Boston merchant Peter Paul Francis DeGrand—a man with “the whole Caucussing [sic] Machinery of the manufacturing concern” behind him—urged Webster and all of “the friends of the Administration” not to move “one inch” from obtaining “the Harrisburg Platform.”71 Thus, the great meeting in the Pennsylvania state capital provided the blueprint for legislators over the proceeding year in crafting the “Tariff of Abominations.”

Significantly, four years later (1831) the Southern interest would respond to the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 with a convention of its own, again in Pennsylvania (this time in Philadelphia). Nearly twice as many delegates as had attended the Harrisburg Convention would deliberate the tariff at this reactionary, anti-protectionist 1831 event, many of them well-known political and social figures.72 Thus, regardless of whether or not the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 played any significant role in the passage of subsequent protectionist legislation, it demonstrated a united protectionist front, drawn along sectional boundaries, against the free traders of the South—a front to which the Southerners felt compelled to respond. Delegates were not mere farmers or even businessmen; they were by and large highly respected social and political leaders, including Governors, Representatives, Senators, and future Cabinet members. Many of them would ultimately find listening ears in future presidents, and some would ardently push for and even personally draft highly-protectionist future tariffs that would become U.S. law. Never before, it might be argued, had North and South stood so firmly and formally against one another as during the Harrisburg Convention of 1827—almost certainly laying the foundation for a future war, not too far distant, divided along the very same lines.

Delegates to the Harrisburg Convention of 1827 not mentioned above, organized by state:

VERMONT

70 Charles M. Wiltse, ed., 292–93.

71 Webster, Daniel. “From Peter Paul Francis DeGrand. Phila [April 4, 1828],” in Wiltse, 327–28.

72 De Tocqueville, 194.

• Heman Allen, a state legislator and future Congressman73 • Elijah Paine, a Revolutionary War veteran, Senator, lawyer, businessman, secretary of the state constitutional convention in 1786, state legislator, judge on the state supreme court, and, at the time of the Convention, a United States judge of the district of Vermont74

• Rollin Mallary, a lawyer, Vermont’s attorney, secretary to the Governor, Congressman, and, relevantly, the chairman of the Congressional Committee on Manufactures75

• William Jarvis, Presidential Elector for the state of Vermont76

RHODE ISLAND

• David Wilkinson, a mechanical engineer and inventor of the slide-rest lathe for cutting screw threads—”immensely significant to the machine tool industry”77

• Asher Robbins, a U.S. Senator78

Other delegates: James Rhodes, John Farnum.

PENNSYLVANIA

• William Clark, Pennsylvania state treasurer and future Congressman79 • Daniel Montgomery, Jr., a former Congressman80

73 Index to Politicians: Allen, G to I, “Allen,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/allen4.html.

74 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Paine, Elijah (1757–1842),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000026.

75 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Mallary, Rollin Carolas (1784–1831),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000079.

76 Index to Politicians: Allen, Jarvis, “Jarvis,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/jarvis.html.

77 Mechanical Engineering Biographies Throughout Time, “Wilkinson, David,” ASME International, http://www.asme.org/Communities/History/Resources/Wilkinson_David.cfm.

78 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Robbins, Asher (1757–1845),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000297.

79 Index to Politicians: Clark, U to Z, “Clark,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/clark9.html.

80 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Montgomery, Daniel, Jr. (1765–1831),” United States Congress, 18 LIBERTARIAN PAPERS 2, 21 (2010)

• William P. Maclay, another former Congressman81 • David Townsend, a prominent banker and West Chester County Commissioner82

• Joseph Patterson, a young businessman who would later play a pivotal role in loaning hundreds of millions of dollars in gold to the Union government during the Civil War83

• Jonathan Roberts, a former Congressman and Senator who had played a major role in the passage of the war bill in 1812 and would go on to become one of the country’s most ardent protectionists84

• Charles Huston, a successful lawyer and member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court85

Other delegates: James Todd, Samuel Baird, Alexander Reed.

OHIO

• Bezaleel Wells, founder of Steubenville and an influential miller and banker86

• William R. Dickinson, another prominent citizen of Steubenville who, less than two months before the convention, had, along with eleven others, invited Henry Clay to Ohio to boost support for what he had called “the great cause of the American System”87
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000864.

81 Index to Politicians: Maclachlan to Maday, “Maclay,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/maclafferty-madar.html.

82 Rash’s Surname Index, “Notes for David Townsend,” Pennocks of Primitive Hall, http://www.pennock.ws/surnames/nti/nti28533.html.

83 Virtual American Biographies, “Joseph Patterson,” http://famousamericans.net/josephpatterson.

84 Virtual American Biographies, “Jonathan Roberts,” http://famousamericans.net/jonathanroberts.

85 Encyclopedia Dickinsonia, “Charles Huston, Class of 1789,” Dickinson College, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/h/ed_hustonC.htm.

86 Ohio History Central: An Encyclopedia of Ohio History, “Bezaleel Wells,” Ohio Historical Society, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=402.

87 “From Nathaniel Dike and Others. Steubenville, June 16 [1827],” in Mary W. M. Hargreaves and James F. Hopkins, ed., The Papers of Henry Clay, Volume 6: Secretary of State (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981), 690.

• Thomas Ewing, a soon-to-be Senator, future Treasury Secretary under William Henry Harrison, and future Secretary of the Interior under Zachary Taylor88

Other delegates: John McIlvam, David Begges, James Wilson.

NEW JERSEY

• James Matlack, a former Congressman89 • Charles Kinsey, a successful paper manufacturer and Congressman90 • John Colt, a successful manufacturer and miller and, by the 1830s, the only supplier of sail cloth to the United States Navy91

• William Halstead, a successful lawyer and future Congressman, New Jersey District Attorney, and colonel in the Civil War92

Other delegates: Looe Baker, Philip Fine, Jr., A. Godwin, Jr.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

• Samuel Bell, former Governor of New Hampshire and, at the time of the convention, a Senator93

• Asa Freeman, a state senator94 • Ichabod Bartlett, a successful lawyer, Congressmen, and future candidate for New Hampshire’s governorship95

88 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Ewing, Thomas (1789–1871),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=e000281.

89 Gloucester County, New Jersey, “James Matlack (1775–1840),” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/NJ/GL.html.

90 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Kinsey, Charles. (1773–1849),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000227.

91 Archives, “Manuscript Group 636, John Colt (1786–1883), Manufacturer,” The New Jersey Historical Society, http://www.jerseyhistory.org/findingaid.php?aid=0636.

92 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Halstead, William (1794–1878),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000092.

93 Robert Sobel and John Raimo, ed., Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789–1978, Vol. 3 (Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978).

94 Index to Politicians: Freeman, “Freeman,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/freeman.html.

95 Dartmouth College Library, “Guide to the Papers of Ichabod Bartlett, 1806– 1844,” Dartmouth College, http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms908.html.

NEW YORK

• Cyrenus Chapin, a respected Buffalo medical doctor96 • Richard Keese, a Congressman and one of the only Jacksonians to attend the convention97

• Enos Throop, a lawyer and soon-to-be Governor of New York98 • Peter S. Smith, a successful merchant, fur trader, and land speculator99

• David Russel, a state legislator and future Congressman100 • Robert Denniston, a future state senator and New York Comptroller101

• Peter Sharpe, a former Congressman102 • Francis Granger, future Vice-Presidential candidate, Congressman, and Postmaster General in the Cabinet of William Henry Harrison103

• Alvan Stewart, a highly respected lawyer, future founder of the New York Anti-Slavery Society, and future candidate for Governor104

• John B. Yates, a lawyer and former Congressman105 • Abraham H. Schenck, a former Congressman106

96 Michael Rizzo, Through the Mayor’s Eyes: The Only Complete History of the Mayors of Buffalo, New York (Buffalo: The Buffalonian, 2001).

97 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Keese, Richard (1794–1883),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000043.

98 River Campus Libraries, “Enos Thompson Throop Papers,” University of Rochester, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=1166.

99 Virtual American Biographies, “Peter Smith,” http://famousamericans.net/petersmith.

100 Index to Politicians: Russell, “Russell,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/russell2.html.

101 “The Death of Ex-Comptroller Denniston,” New York Times, December 8, 1867.

102 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Sharpe, Peter (1777–1842),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000297.

103 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Granger, Francis (1792–1868),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000376.

104 The Alvan Stewart Papers, “Biographical Sketch,” University of Miami Libraries, http://scholar.library.miami.edu/stewart/biography.html.

105 Index to Politicians: Yates, “Yates,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/yates.

106 Index to Politicians: Schenck, “Schenck,” The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/schenck.html.

• James Tallmadge, a former Congressman, a businessman, and a leading protectionist writer and orator107

• Eleazar Lord, a successful businessman, founder of the Manhattan Fire Insurance Company, and soon-to-be first president of the New York & Erie Railroad108

Other delegates: E. B. Sherman, John Brown, Cyrenus Chapin.

MASSACHUSSETTS

• Abbott Lawrence, a well-known Boston merchant, future Congressman, and future U.S. Minister to Great Britain109

• Samuel D. Colt, a prominent Pittsfield woolens merchant110 • Bezaleel Taft, Jr., an early member of the Taft political dynasty, a state senator, and president of the Blackstone National Bank.111

Other delegates: Joseph E. Sprague, Joseph Strong, James Shepperd, Jonas B.

Brown.

MARYLAND

• Edward Gray, likely the successful mill founder of the same name112 • James Sykes, a prominent member—along with Hezekiah Niles—of the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of Mechanic Arts.113

Other delegates: John Patterson, William Mietteer, Franklin Anderson.

107 Virtual American Biographies, “James Tallmadge,” http://famousamericans.net/jamestallmadge.

108 Lord Family. Papers, 1807–1961: Finding Aid, “Historical/Biographical Information,” Harvard Law School Library, http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~law00183.

109 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present, “Lawrence, Abbott (1792–1855),” United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000130.

110 J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield, Massachusetts (Springfield: C. W. Bryan & Co., 1876), vi, 329, 668.

111 Blackstone Daily, “Uxbridge,” Uxbridge Historical Society, http://www.blackstonedaily.com/Outdoors&Nature/WTuxbridge.htm.

112 Friends of Patapsco Valley & Heritage Greenway, Inc., “History/Culture,” Patapsco Valley Heritage Greenway, http://www.patapscoheritagegreenway.org/history/HistPersp.html.

113 John Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, from the Earliest Period to the Present Day (Philadelphia: Louis H. Evarts, 1881), 667.

KENTUCKY

• James Cowan, a prominent attorney114 • Richard H. Chinn, a successful attorney115 and close personal friend of Henry Clay116

• John Harvie, son of the prominent politician of the same name, brother of President Thomas Jefferson’s private secretary117, and a state legislator118

DELAWARE

• John Higgins, a colonel in the state militia and a state legislator119

Other delegates: Philip Ribold.

CONNECTICUT

Other delegates: Henry Watson, Thomas S. Perkins, John A Tainter, Francis McLean, James McClelan, Lemuel Hurlbut.

114 Jennie C. Morton, ed., Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society (Frankfort, KY: The Frankfort Printing Co., 1910), 30.

115 “Applications, Recommendations, January 7 [1827],” in Mary W. M. Hargreaves and James F. Hopkins, 28.

116 Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, 89.

117 Jennie C. Morton, ed., Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 15 No. 43 (Frankfort, KY: The State Journal Company, January 1917), 96.

118 Ibid, 91.

119 J. Thomas Scharf, A History of Delaware, 1609–1888, Vol. 2. (Philadelphia: L. J. Richards & Co., 1888), 960.

About this edition

This EPUB was produced automatically from the PDF named below. The text is the publisher's; the layout was reflowed for screen reading, so page breaks, line breaks and hyphenation differ from the original.

Title: Robbers and Incendiaries: Protectionism Organizes at the Harrisburg Convention of 1827

Author: W. Kesler Jackson

First published: 2010

Series: Libertarian Papers, volume 2

Licence: Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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