The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject

COMMERCE / MANUFACTURES AND AGRICULTURE / A BALANCE

An equilibrium of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, is certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures, sufficient for our own consumption, of what we raise the raw material (and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry the surplus produce of agriculture, beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufactures and commerce. To go beyond them is to increase our dependence on foreign nations, and our liability to war.

These three important branches of human industry will then grow together, and be really handmaids to each other.

James Jay, 7 April 1809