POLITICAL ECONOMY 675 ier the federal constitution, presented to the house of representatives a report on finance, which was followed on April 23 by one on duties upon imports ; Dec. 13, on public cred- it ; Dec. 14, on a national bank; Jan. 28, 1791, on the establishment of a mint; and Dec. 5, on manufactures. It would be dif- ficult to find, among all the state papers or treatises on political economy which appeared before the close of -the 18th century, any pro- ductions of this character surpassing these in a thorough knowledge of the subjects, clear- ness and precision of statement, and logical exactness. The report of Alexander J. Dallas, secretary of the treasury, to the house of rep- resentatives, Oct. 17, 1814, on the national finances, and that of Feb. 12, 1816, in regard to a general tariff of duties, are among the able economic state papers which have emana- ted from this government. The "Addresses of the Philadelphia Society for the Promo- tion of National Industry" (1819), and "The New Olive Branch" (1820), subsequently with other papers collected and published under the title of "Essays on Political Economy " (1822), by Mathew Carey, dealt almost entirely in facts, figures, and references to history; and thus Carey reached the conviction that "there is a complete identity of interest between agri- culture, manufactures, and commerce." The first formal treatise on the subject written in the United States is Daniel Raymond's " Thoughts on Political Economy " (Baltimore, 1820). The author endeavors, and with some success, to escape from the complications and inconsistencies of the economists. His exam- ination of some of the arguments of Adam Smith in regard to stock are original, vigor- ous, and conclusive. John Eae, a Scotchman, published in Boston in 1834 a "Statement of some New Principles on the subject of Political Economy," which has been quoted and highly commended by John Stuart Mill in his "Principles of Political Economy," and he says of it: "In no other book known to me is so much light thrown, both from principles and history, on the causes which determine the accumulation of capital." In 1835 appeared at Philadelphia an " Essay on the Rate of Wages," the first of the works of Henry C. Carey. He took ground against regarding political economy as the science of wealth, and insisted upon considering its "great object" and "its chief claim to atten- tion the promotion of the happiness of na- tions." This was followed by his "Principles of Political Economy" (3 vols., 1837-'40), in which he holds that value is determined by the cost of reproduction, and that every improvement in the mode of producing any commodity tends to lessen the value of com- modities of the same description previously existing; that in all advancing countries ac- cumulated capital has a constant tendency to fall in value when compared with labor ; labor therefore steadily growing in its power to command capital, and e comerso the power of capital over labor as steadily diminishing ; la- bor and capital in their combined action con- tinually producing a larger return for the same outlay, of which larger return an increasing proportion_ goes to the laborer, while the share of the capitalist diminishes in its proportion but increases in amount, being taken from a larger yield. In 1848 appeared Mr. Carey's work entitled " The Past, the Present, and the Future." Its object was that of demonstrating the existence of a simple and beautiful law of nature in virtue of which the work of occupa- tion and cultivation of the earth had always of necessity begun upon the higher, drier, and poorer lands, passing thence, with the growth of wealth and population, to the lower and richer soils, with constant increase in the re- turn to labor. Here was a complete rever- sal of the doctrines of Malthus and Ricardo. In his "Principles of Social Science" (3 vols. 8vo, Philadelphia, 1858-' 9), he most clearly draws the distinction between the science, which treats of the natural laws governing the subject, and the art, political economy, by means of which the obstructions to the opera- tion of those laws may be removed. He de- fines his subject as being "the science of the laws which govern man in his efforts to se- cure for himself the highest individuality and the greatest power of association with his fel- low man." The more numerous the differences in the demands of society, the more complete becomes the development of the individualities of its members, the greater is the power of as- sociation and combination, the more rapid the progress, and the more perfect the responsi- bility for the proper use of the faculties which have been developed. Here, as everywhere, it is shown that in variety there is unity, and that the nation which would have peace and harmony at home and abroad must adopt a policy which shall develop the infinitely va- rious faculties of its people the plough, the loom, and the anvil working together, each for the advantage of the others. The social laws are thus, according to Carey, identical with those which govern matter in all its various forms ; differences everywhere exciting forces, forces exciting heat in matter and impulse in mind, and heat and impulse reexciting motion. Nature's laws being thus universal, the branch- es of science constitute but one great and har- monious whole, the social parts demanding the same methods of study and investigation. The methodical study of nature does, and of neces- sity must, take the place of the metaphysical. The third chapter of the book is devoted to an exposition of the great series of changes which the earth must undergo in furnishing the resi- dence and support of vegetable, animal, and human life in the order of their respective ap- pearances upon it, the relation and dependence of their various subsistence upon each other, and the circulation of the common elements of their structure, beginning with the disinte-
