5006. MANUFACTURES, Encouragement of.—[further continued].
Every syllable uttered
in my name becomes a text for the federalists
to torment the public mind on by their paraphrases
and perversions. I have lately inculcated
the encouragement of manufactures to
the extent of our own consumption at least,
in all articles of which we raise the raw material.
On this the federal papers and meetings
have sounded the alarm of Chinese policy,
destruction of commerce, &c.; that is to
say, the iron which we make must not be
wrought here into plows, axes, hoes, &c., in
order that the ship-owner may have the
profit of carrying it to Europe, and bringing
it back in a manufactured form, as if
after manufacturing our own raw materials
for our own use, there would not be a surplus
produce sufficient to employ a due proportion
of navigation in carrying it to market
and exchanging it for those articles of which
we have not the raw material. Yet this absurd
hue and cry has contributed much to
federalize New England. Their doctrine goes
to the sacrificing agriculture and manufactures
to commerce; to the calling off our people
from the interior country to the sea shore
to turn merchants, and to convert this great
agricultural country into a city of Amsterdam.
But I trust the good sense of our country
will see that its greatest prosperity depends
on a due balance between agriculture,
manufactures and commerce, and not in this
protuberant navigation which has kept us in
hot water from the commencement of our
government, and is now engaging us in war.—
To Thomas Leiper. Washington ed. v, 417.
Ford ed., ix, 239.
(W.
Jan. 1809)
