...commercial society. As Publius put it, "The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged, by all enlightened statesmen, to be the most useful as...become a primary object of their political cares." 43 Or, as Forrest McDonald puts it after surveying debates over economic affairs in the formative period...

...no less and no more productive than agriculture.13 In contrast, Hamilton asserted that commerce is "the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth." Moreover, Hamilton lauded commerce partly for "promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious...

...nations.93 In Federalist No. 12 he explained that "commerce [is] . . . now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as...as the most productive source of national wealth." Commerce promoted circulation of goods and precious metals, and "in proportion as commerce has flourished,...

...object of their political cares" for "all enlightened statesmen," who "now" perceive and acknowledge it to be "the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth." By multiplying the means of gratification and by promoting the introduction and circulation of the...

...at the beginning of Federalist 12: The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as...human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify all the channels of industry and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous...

...from a unity of government. (No. 1 1) THE PROSPERITY of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as...introduction and circulation of the precious metals and those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels...

...Hamilton, rather than Paine or Adams, became the truest prophet of capitalist America. He believed commerce to be "the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth."26 A commitment to free trade, a philosophical bedrock of classical liberalism, overpowered...

...whose protection was the first object of government. By "multiplying the means of gratification" and "promoting the introduction and circulation of the...darling objects of human avarice and enterprise," as Hamilton put it in Federalist 12, government would ensure that the lives of its citizens were animated...

...be feared as destructive of public virtue but rather should be embraced for its political utility: "By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting...human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify all the channels of industry and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness." Hamilton...

...pleasing reward of their toils," and this could be done "by multiplying the means of gratification [and] promoting the introduction and circulation of the...those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise" (Federalist 12). Not for him was an agrarian society modeled (as Jefferson's could have been) on Jean-Jacques...