N E W A C Q U I S I T I O N S * J U L Y 2 0 2 4 B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S * * * 20 20. HAMILTON, Alexander. Report of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, on the Subject of Manufactures. Presented to the House of Representatives, December 5, 1791. Dublin, 1792. Octavo, modern half brown calf, brown morocco spine label. $37,000 The rare second edition of Hamilton’s famous report urging Congress to promote manufacturing, “one of the great American state papers, ‘the Magna Carta of industrial America’” (Howes). This was Hamilton’s most innovative report, “a remarkably modern economic vision based on investment, industry, and expanded commerce.” After Washington was elected President in 1789, “the first thing he had to do was to get the national finances in order. That meant appointing Hamilton the first Secretary of the Treasury, and giving him a free hand to get on with the job.” (Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, 211). “Hamilton’s ‘Report on Manufactures’ (1791) is a classic document of U.S. economic policy… Hamilton made a broad-ranging and powerful case for the government promotion of manufacturing. The report opened by attacking the then influential French physiocratic doctrine that agriculture is the ultimate source of all wealth. Hamilton argued that manufacturing is no less valuable or productive than agriculture and, indeed, had many specific economic advantages, such as the increased productivity that comes from enhancing the division of labor, the use of machinery and technical skills, and the added diversity of employment opportunities offered workers… [Hamilton then] argued that ‘the incitement and patronage of government’ was required in order to overcome the inhibitions that prevented the start of manufacturing production… [D]omestic manufacturers not only had to contend with the ‘natural disadvantages of a new undertaking,’ but also ‘the gratuities and remunerations which other governments bestow’ on their own producers. After discussing the current conditions in the United States in relation to manufacturing, particularly the high price of labor and the scarcity of capital, the report shifted to the means by which government could promote domestic manufactures. Hamilton analyzed various trade measures, including import duties, pecuniary bounties (subsidies), patents, and other government policies… Finally, Hamilton’s report turned to specific proposals regarding a long list of itemized commodities… The report was not just a visionary document about the economic advantages of manufacturing, but also a policy document that made specific and concrete proposals for government action” (Douglas A. Irwin, The Aftermath of Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures”). “Hamilton offered a remarkably modern economic vision based on investment, industry, and expanded commerce. Most strikingly, it was an economic vision with no place for slavery. Before the 1790s, the American economy, North and South, was tied to a trans-Atlantic system of slavery. A member of New York’s first anti-slavery society, Hamilton wanted to reorient the American economy away from slavery and trade with the slave colonies of the Caribbean” (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Online Archive). This Dublin printing is the second edition of this important report, preceded only by the extraordinarily rare (and virtually unobtainable) 1791 first edition, printed in Philadelphia by Childs and Swaine. Ford, Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana 202. See Howes H123. Light scattered foxing, faint dampstaining to preliminary and final leaves. A very good copy. Exceptionally rare. "ONE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN STATE PAPERS, 'THE MAGNA CARTA OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA'": ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S IMPORTANT 1791 REPORT ON MANUFACTURES
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