Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

Capitalism, Slavery, and Republican Values: Antebellum Political Economists, 1819-1848 byAllen KaufmanReview by: Grant MorrisonJournal of the Early Republic, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 85-86Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the EarlyAmerican RepublicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3122864 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 85

Genovese, Herbert Gutman, and August Meier. More often, how- ever, the author's research in local family history has discovered

tantalizing fragments of evidence that add weight to her specula- tions. Although many facts concerning Free Frank can never be unearthed, enough details are presented by Walker to substan- tiate her conclusion that the ex-slave was, in his own way, an "Afro-American freedom fighter."

Despite Walker's skillful efforts at reconstructing Free Frank's life, her book is more satisfying as social history than as bio-

graphy. The distinctive features of slavery on the western frontier and the contribution of blacks to the development of that region have not been studied systematically by historians. Walker's suc- cess at casting new light on these subjects should stimulate others to undertake further research.

Frederick Douglass Papers John R. McKivigan

Capitalism, Slavery, and Republican Values: Antebellum Political Economists, 1819-1848. By Allen Kaufman. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Pp. xxx, 189. $25.00.)

In a foreword to this book, Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox- Genovese refer to Allen Kaufman as one of "a swelling group of

younger Marxist historians who are illuminating Southern in- tellectual history and the ideological development of the slaveholding class" (xix). Actually, this study of the work of a half dozen political economists deals only in part with the South. Dis- cussions of the major English classical economists and of north- erner Daniel Raymond comprise over half of the book, followed by inquiries into the work of two southerners, Thomas R. Dew and Jacob Cardozo.

As Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo analyzed their nation during its transformation from a preindustrial to an industrial capitalist order, so the antebellum economists looked at the United States later during the same kind of transformation. Kaufman empha- sizes the parallel between the English Corn Law debates and the American tariff controversy. He sees a strong anticapitalist strain in Raymond's thought which reflected a general unease through- out the North about the process under way. Kaufman interprets Raymond's opposition to laissez faire and his program of state in-

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86 JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

tervention, of which the tariff was the most important element, as "an offensive strategy against industrialization" (48). Dew de- fended slavery but saw in it long-term disadvantages which would lead to its declining importance as the southern economy ma- tured. Cardozo on the other hand advocated diversification and believed that with economic development slavery would somehow prove compatible with manufacturing.

Kaufman advances suggestive arguments: that in the North a desire to promote economic growth was matched by a desire to preserve precapitalist relations, while in the South political econ- omy-whether it argued for a capitalist development that re- tained slavery, or called for preservation of the plantation econ- omy though conceding the inevitability of capitalist relations-- was mired in deep quandries. But his supporting evidence is thin. For example, he discovers a detestation of industrialization in

Raymond which is by no means obvious. Large-scale industriali- zation had not yet appeared in Raymond's time, but he celebrated the potential of machines and made clear his belief that manu-

facturing was central to America's future. Even when the author disclaims the intention of writing a general history of antebellum economic thought, a discussion of one northerner and two southerners is insufficient for a study of "capitalism, slavery, and

republican values." A comparison of this book with the recent

study by Maxine Berg, The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy, which covers exactly the same period in

English history, indicates how limited is Kaufman's treatment of the material.

He does examine complex ideas with more clarity than fre-

quently is found in the writings of economic historians, and he does a fine job of showing how the American economists had to come to terms with the analyses of their towering English prede- cessors. Within the context of his own professed ideological com- mitment, Kaufman presents his arguments competently, if not

always convincingly, and it seems likely that both passion and in- terest will move him to pursue these themes more comprehen- sively in the future.

C. W. Post College of Grant Morrison Long Island University

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