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The Political Economy of John Taylor of Caroline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Duncan Macleod
Duncan Macleod
Affiliation:
Duncan MacLeod is a Fellow of St. Catherine's College and a Lecturer in History at the University of Oxford.
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Extract

After years of comparative neglect John Taylor of Caroline has recently begun to receive again a degree of attention more in keeping with his true importance. That his impact upon both his own generation and upon subsequent generations of historians has always been less than it might have been is due largely to his tortured style of writing and the tortuous thought processes it reflected. John Randolph of Roanoke once commented that Taylor needed only a translator to make an impact, and Thomas Jefferson, replying to a communication from John Adams in 1814, wrote that a book received by Adams must have been Taylor's An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States: “neither the style nor the stuff of the author of Arator can ever be mistaken. [I]n the latter work, as you observe, there are some good things, but so involved in quaint, in far-fetched, affected, mystical conceipts [sic], and flimsy theories, that who can take the trouble of getting at them?” Taylor himself appeared to hold a fluent style in contempt, commenting that “A talent for fine writing is often a great misfortune to politicians.”

Although Taylor's style renders study of his writings far from congenial, the consistency of his purpose and thought make it relatively easy to extract the main thrusts of his arguments. Far from a rigorous theorist he provides a running commentary upon the politics of his times. In that capacity, however, he never felt compelled to define clearly, even to himself perhaps, some of the central premises from which his arguments derived.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , December 1980 , pp. 387 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

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37 Arator, pp. vi–vii, 19, 20, 22, 28, 31, 37, 39, 40. Some historians have likewise argued that too rapid settlement of the west was harmful not merely to eastern farmers but to agricultural profits as a whole; see, Swierenga, R. P., “Land Speculator ‘Profits’ Reconsidered: Central Iowa as a Test Case,” Journal of Economic History, 26 (1966), pp. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wright, G., “An Econometric Study of Cotton Production and Trade, 1830–1860,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 53 (1971), 111–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Passell, P., “The Impact of Cotton Land Distribution on the Antibellum Economy,” Journal of Economic History, 21 (1971), 917–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Passell, P. and Wright, G., “Effects of pre-Civil War Territorial Expansion on the Price of Slaves,” Journal of Political Economy, 80 (1972), 1188–1202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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