Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy
By William Leggett
Ten years after Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826, an outspoken young editor in New York City was reformulating and extending the Jeffersonian philosophy of equal rights. William Leggett, articulating his views in the columns of the New York
Evening Post,Examiner, and
Plaindealer, gained widespread recognition as the intellectual leader of the
laissez-faire wing of Jacksonian democracy…. [From the Foreword by Lawrence H. White.]
Translator/Editor
Lawrence H. White, ed.
First Pub. Date
1834
Publisher
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc. Liberty Press
Pub. Date
1984
Comments
Essays first published 1834-1837.
Copyright
Portions of this edited edition are under copyright. Picture of William Leggett courtesy of United States Library of Congress. Original contains the inscription: "Engraved by Sealey, from a Painting by T. S. Cummings, N A." and includes Leggett's signature below.
- Foreword by Lawrence H. White
- Part I, 1. True Functions of Government
- Part I, 2. The Reserved Rights of the People
- Part I, 3. Objects of the Evening Post
- Part I, 4. Reply to the Charge of Lunacy
- Part I, 5. The Legislation of Congress
- Part I, 6. Religious Intolerance
- Part I, 7. Direct Taxation
- Part I, 8. The Course of the Evening Post
- Part I, 9. Chief Justice Marshall
- Part I, 10. Prefatory Remarks
- Part I, 11. The Sister Doctrines
- Part I, 12. The True Theory of Taxation
- Part I, 13. Strict Construction
- Part I, 14. Legislative Indemnity for Losses from Mobs
- Part I, 15. The Despotism of the Majority
- Part I, 16. Morals of Legislation
- Part I, 17. The Morals of Politics
- Part II, 1. Bank of United States
- Part II, 2. Small Note Circulation
- Part II, 3. The Monopoly Banking System
- Part II, 4. Uncurrent Bank Notes
- Part II, 5. Fancy Cities
- Part II, 6. Causes of Financial Distress
- Part II, 7. Why Is Flour So Dear
- Part II, 8. Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents
- Part II, 9. Strictures on the Late Message
- Part II, 10. The Value of Money
- Part II, 11. The Way to Cheapen Flour
- Part II, 12. The Money Market and Nicholas Biddle
- Part II, 13. The Pressure, the Cause of it, and the Remedy
- Part II, 14. Connexion of State with Banking
- Part II, 15. The Crisis
- Part II, 16. The Bankrupt Banks
- Part II, 17. What We Must Do, and What We Must Not
- Part II, 18. The Foresight of Individual Enterprise
- Part II, 19. The Safety Fund Bubble
- Part II, 20. Separation of Bank and State
- Part II, 21. The Remedy for Broken Banks
- Part II, 22. Blest Paper Credit
- Part II, 23. Questions and Answers
- Part II, 24. The True and Natural System
- Part II, 25. The Bugbear of the Bank Democrats
- Part II, 26. Bank and State
- Part II, 27. Theory and Practice
- Part II, 28. Separation of Bank and State
- Part II, 29. Specie Basis
- Part II, 30. The Natural System
- Part II, 31. The Credit System and the Aristocracy
- Part II, 32. The Divorce of Politicks and Banking
- Part III, 1. Riot at the Chatham-Street Chapel
- Part III, 2. Governor McDuffie's Message
- Part III, 3. The Abolitionists
- Part III, 4. Reward for Arthur Tappan
- Part III, 5. The Anti-Slavery Society
- Part III, 6. Abolitionists
- Part III, 7. Slavery No Evil
- Part III, 8. Progress of Fanaticism
- Part III, 9. An Argument Against Abolition Refuted
- Part III, 10. Commencement of the Administration of Martin Van Buren
- Part III, 11. The Question of Slavery Narrowed to a Point
- Part III, 12. Abolition Insolence
- Part IV, 1. Despotism of Andrew Jackson
- Part IV, 2. The Division of Parties
- Part IV, 3. Rich and Poor
- Part IV, 4. The Street of the Palaces
- Part IV, 5. American Nobility
- Part IV, 6. The Inequality of Human Condition
- Part IV, 7. A Bad Beginning
- Part IV, 8. The Whig Embassy to Washington, and Its Result
- Part IV, 9. Right Views Among the Right Sort of People
- Part IV, 10. Newspaper Nominations
- Part IV, 11. Foreign Paupers
- Part V, 1. Monopolies: I
- Part V, 2. A Little Free-Trade Crazy
- Part V, 3. Asylum for Insane Paupers
- Part V, 4. Monopolies: II
- Part V, 5. Revolutionary Pensioners
- Part V, 6. Joint-Stock Partnership Law
- Part V, 7. The Ferry Monopoly
- Part V, 8. Free Trade Post Office
- Part V, 9. Stock Gambling
- Part V, 10. Weighmaster General
- Part V, 11. State Prison Monopoly
- Part V, 12. Corporation Property
- Part V, 13. Regulation of Coal
- Part V, 14. Free Ferries and an Agrarian Law
- Part V, 15. Thanksgiving Day
- Part V, 16. Municipal Docks
- Part V, 17. Associated Effort
- Part V, 18. The Coal Question
- Part V, 19. The Corporation Question
- Part V, 20. Free Trade Weights and Measures
- Part V, 21. Associated Effort
- Part V, 22. Sale of Publick Lands
- Part V, 23. Manacles Instead of Gyves
- Part V, 24. The Meaning of Free Trade
- Part V, 25. Gambling Laws
- Part V, 26. Free Trade Post Office
- Part V, 27. Free Trade, Taxes, and Subsidies
- Part V, 28. Meek and Gentle with These Butchers
- Part V, 29. The Cause of High Prices, and the Rights of Combination
- Part V, 30. Omnipotence of the Legislature
- Part VI, 1. Rights of Authors
- Part VI, 2. The Rights of Authors
- Part VI, 3. Right of Property in the Fruits of Intellectual Labour
WHY IS FLOUR SO DEAR?
Plaindealer, December 3, 1836. Extract abridged.
This question is in every body’s mouth, and the following paragraph hints the answer which the writer seems to think will explain the difficulty:
…Is it a scarcity of the article of flour in the market, which raises the price to ten dollars per barrel, at a moment when money is worth two per cent a month? Or have those who had the control of money facilities combined to buy up all the wheat at moderate prices, with the design of speculating by a monopoly of one of the necessaries of life? Mechanicks and others have been indicted for combining to raise the price of labour; and it might be well to inquire whether combinations to raise the price of wood, pork, flour, and other necessaries of life, beyond a fair profit, are not equally offences against society.
The foregoing is from the Albany Argus. The information it conveys in relation to the amount of the wheat crops is valuable. But the measure which it suggests for the purpose of reducing the price of flour is at utter variance with the principles of free trade, and with the natural rights of citizens. If mechanicks combine to raise the price of wages, they but hold forth an invitation to competition from beyond the sphere of combinations, and competition will soon arrange prices according to a just scale of equivalents. If merchants combine to raise the price of flour by purchasing all in the market, they but provoke competitors in foreign ports, whose rivalry will soon set matters right. The
laissez nous faire maxim applies here as forcibly as in any other concern of trade. The true way is to leave trade to its own laws, as we leave water to the laws of nature; and both will be equally certain to find their proper level.
We already find that, incited by the high prices of bread stuffs here, foreign competitors are sending supplies across the ocean, and underselling our agriculturists at their own doors. Part of the cargo of the Bristol, which was wrecked at Rockaway a fortnight ago, was English wheat; and we notice in the accounts of importations in the newspapers that frequent mention is made of large quantities of foreign grain. Why is this? Why are prices so high in this country that the wheat growers of Europe can incur all the expenses of transportation, freight, insurance, commissions, and storage, and still undersell us in our own markets? Does the Argus really suppose that this result is brought about by a combination among the dealers in flour, “with the design of speculating by a monopoly of one of the necessaries of life?” The cause, let it rest assured, lies deeper than this. The monopoly is one of a worse character, of greater power, of more ruinous operation. Short crops may do something; combination may do something; but the high prices are mainly the result of the
monopoly of banking. They are the natural and inevitable consequence of the wretched system which places the currency of the country completely under the control of a comparatively few specially privileged chartermongers, who avail themselves of the speculative disposition of the people to flood the country with a paper circulation, till the influx produces its natural effect of causing a vast depreciation of money, or appreciation of money prices, which is the same thing, and attracts competitors from all parts of the world to our market. These competitors do not take in payment, and carry away with them, the spurious currency which the monopoly banks have issued, but demand specie; and then comes the necessity of sudden retrenchment, followed by wide spread commercial distress. Prices then begin to fall; and at this point we are now arrived. Flour must soon go down, despite of all combinations, fancied or real; produce of all kinds must go down; rents must go down, and labour must go down; and all things must gradually adjust themselves to the retrenched state of the currency. When this period of depression is past, and the crops of the next year have paid up the deficit occasioned by overtrading during the present, the banks will begin to be
liberal again, (munificent institutions!) and, urged on and stimulated by them, the people will act over again the same scenes of mad speculation, till the drama again concludes with a catastrophe of disastrous revulsion.
We should be glad if the Argus would turn its attention to the monopoly which is the true source of our high prices and all our financial difficulties. It will find that our exclusive bank system is the cause of the evil, and the repeal of the restraining law the only effectual remedy.
The Rivals (1775).—Ed.
THE MONEY MARKET AND NICHOLAS BIDDLE
THE PRESSURE—THE CAUSE OF IT—AND THE REMEDY
CONNEXION OF STATE WITH BANKING
THE CRISIS