Pierre Gervais, « Agriculture, and commerce as its handmaid ». L’économie politique et les toasts publics en 1793

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary results of a work in progress, the aim of which is an integration of Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions of political economy with the kind of public opinion statements which began to appear in newspapers after the end of the Constitutional debate, more specifically during the year 1793. The working hypothesis used is that there was indeed around 1792-1793 a cristallization of two opposed worldviews, usually associated with Jefferson and Hamilton respectively, and built on conflicting views of the economy and its role, within and in spite of the « liberal consensus » stressed by recent historiography. This opposition was centered on contradictory assessments of the benefits and risks of merchant development, which can be observed easily in two important texts, the Notes on the State of Virginia and the Report on Manufactures. While Jefferson considered that the correlated growths of merchant power and market activity were inherently dangerous, and should be strictly controlled, Hamilton took a much more positive view of the same phenomena.
A second part relates these two positions to an as yet small sample of patriotic toasts given during the year 1793 and printed in Philadelphia and Boston papers. By carefully analyzing the use and wording of one particular kind of thematic toast, called « economic toast, » it can be shown that, within the discourse of local political actors, there were traces of the same differential view of merchant activity which structured national political discourse.

Pierre Gervais est agrégé d'histoire, maître de conférences à l'Université Paris 8 — Vincennes-Saint Denis. Il a publié Les États-Unis de 1860 à nos jours (Hachette, "Les fondamentaux", 1998).

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Bibliographie sur Thomas Jefferson commentée (à jour jusqu’en 1997)

Annexe de l'article de Pierre Gervais