NATIONAL SYSTEM sf. OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. BY FREDERICK LIST. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY G. A. MATILE, DOCTOR OP CIVIL LAW; LATE PROFESSOR OF LAW AT NEÜFCHATEL MEMBER ; OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, ETC. INCLUDING THE NOTES OF THE FRENCH TRANSLATION, BY HENRI EICHELOT ChefduBureaudelaLégislationdesDouanesEtrangèresauMinistèredu CommercedeFrance; Auteur del'HistoiredelaRéformeCommercialeenAngleterre,etdel'AssociationDouanièreAllemande. fnünümi ê$n% oft $aU$, BY STEPHEN COLWELL PHILADELPHIA : LIPPINC OTT J. B. & C 0. 1856. Entered,accordingtotheActofCongress,intheyear1856, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Clerk's Office ofthe District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern DistrictofPennsylvania. PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. (by the translator.) Frederick List* was born, the 6th August, 1789, at Reutlingen, a free city of Suabia. His early education was incomplete. At the Classical School he exhibited so little taste for its studies, that his father withdrew him; but as he showed equal indisposition to learn his father's business, he was subsequently left to shape his own education. This he did, however, to such purpose, that we find him, in 1816, hold- ing an appointment in the Central Administration of Wurtemberg, in which he justified the confidence placed in him by a distinguished statesman, the Minister Wangenheim, who offered his young assistant, in the following year, the chair of Political Economy, in the University of Tübingen. List accepted this position. He tells us in the Preface to his National System, that the principle of free trade was one of the first encountered in his new career. "It seemed to me at first reasonable; but gradually I satisfied myself that the whole doctrine was applicable and sound only when adopted by all nations. Thus I was led to the idea of nationality; I found that the theorists kept always in view mankind and man, never separate nations. It became then obvious to me, that between two advanced countries,afreecompetition must necessarilybeadvantageous to both,if they were upon the same level of industrial progress; and that a nation, — *The sources of this biographyare 1st. List's life, byProfessorHausser, of Heidelberg, who was commissioned by ourAuthor's familywith the collec- tionandpublicationofList's works, andwhohasfulfilledTiis taskwith zealand talent. 2d. List's biography, written by his French translator, Henry Riche- lot. 3d. The article in the Dictionnaire de VEconomie Politique, (Paris, 1853). 4th. TheNational Systemitself. 5th. Wehavemadefree use of the Author's Preface, whichistherefore omittedin the translation. Icannotomitheretoexpressmyobligations,inall thatconcerns thispublica- tion, to StephenColwell, who has so kindly consented tobeits Editor, and to point out some of myerrorsin alanguagewithwhich I amyetfarfrombeing (v) PREFACE. VI unhappilyfarbehindastoindustry, commerce and navigation, andwhich possessed all the material and moral resources for its development, must above every thing put forth all its strength to sustain a struggle with nations already in advance." In his chair, as well,as in the periodicals, he advocated political re- forms design-ad to promote thewelfare ofhiscountry; but in his earnest advocacy, hefailedto preserve a desirable caution and prudence hence, ; he was soon exposed to persecutions, the result of which rendered him restless and unhappy. This condition accompanied him almost all his life; he had in many respects outstripped his age, and conscious of his genius, he could not easily bear to be trammelled in the range of his ideas. The reader of his book must be struck with his rapidity of thought, and the sagacity of his views. Whilst in Tübingen, he conceived the idea of establishing an associa- tion of merchants and manufacturers, the aim of which was to obtain the suppression of customs on the interior boundaries of the German States then, by the aid ofa common system ofcustoms on the exterior ; frontiers of Germany, to attain the same industrial and commercial de- velopment which other nations had succeeded in obtaining by their commercial policy. A change in the ministry, bywhich his friends ceased to be in power, induced him to tender his resignation as a professor. He withdrew to private life, and devoted his leisure to various literary works, espe- cially to an annotated translation of J. B. Say's Political Economy. Important events induced him to hasten from these labors to Paris. There, in 1823, he became acquainted with Lafayette, who offered to take him to America and to befriend him. The love of List for his country prevented him at that time from accepting a proposition so nattering; butwhen he found that he could no longer be ofanyservice to it, he determined, in 1825, to join Lafayette in America. List found the General in Philadelphia, and received from him a most kind recep- familiar. Mr. Colwell first turned my attention to the works of Frederick List, and recommended to me the translation of the "NationalSystem of Po- litical Economy," as aworkwhich had been received with immense favor in Germany, and which, foritsrealmerit andadaptationto ourcountry, deserved like success here. Myfrequent conferences with Mr. Colwell first gave me a tasteforEconomical studies,whichfree access to hislibrary,thelargest on the subject of Political EconomyIhave seen inEurope orAmerica, enabledme to gratify, to the full extent of all myleisure hours. This librarycontains many thousand volumes in the various departments of Social Economy, including works inthe French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Latinlanguages.