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Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- List of Tables -- Foreword -- Preface -- I. The Disruption of the Colonial Economy -- An American Commercial Policy -- Economic Aspects of Naval Warfare -- Privateering -- Foreign Trade -- Paying for Imports -- Conclusion -- II. The Genesis of a National Economy -- Money for War -- Attempts at Financial Reform -- Food for the Army -- Goods for War -- III. Postwar Trade and Depression -- The Revival of Trade with Britain -- Payments for Imports: Exports to Britain -- Payments for Imports: Indirect Returns -- A Commercial Depression -- IV. Depression Remedies -- Efforts to Enlarge Foreign Markets -- Domestic Manufactures and American Shipping -- Merchants' Banks and Land Banks -- Conflicts over Paper Money -- V. The Economics of the Constitution -- Interests and Objectives -- Taxation and the Public Debt -- Reinforcing the National Economy -- A System of General Policy -- VI. The Federalist Program -- Revenue and Protection -- Inflation and Public Debts -- The Bank and the Mint -- The Incidence of the Federalist Program -- The Republican Opposition -- VII. The People and the Land -- Replenishing the Land -- Land Tenure and the Public Domains -- State Land Policies -- The National Domain -- Enterprise and Speculation in Land -- VIII. The Ways of the Pioneers -- Seeking New Lands -- New Lands -- The Pioneer Farmer -- The Growth of Settlement -- IX. Southern Staples and Slavery -- The Birth of the Cotton Kingdom -- Cotton and Slavery -- Other Staples -- Trade and Traffic -- X. Reaching Outward -- To Distant Lands -- The Inland Fur Trade -- The Fisheries -- A World-wide Foreign Trade -- XI. A Balance Sheet of Foreign Trade -- The British Connection -- The Balance of Trade -- Builders of Ships -- XII. The Spirit of Improvement -- Innovations in Agriculture

Mercantilism is defined for this discussion as a policy of government that expressed in the economic sphere the spirit of nationalism that animated the growth of the national state in early modern times. The policy aimed to gain for the nation a high degree of security or self-sufficiency, especially as regards food supply, raw materials needed for essential industries, and the sinews of war. This end was to be achieved in large measure by means of an effective control over the external activities and resources upon which the nation was dependent. In turn, that urge impelled the mercantilists to prefer colonial dependencies to independent foreign countries in seeking sources of supply. If the state could not free itself completely from trade with foreign nations, it sought to control that trade in its own interest as much as possible. To realize such objectives, mercantilism embraced three subordinate and related policies. The Corn Laws fostered the nation's agriculture and aimed to realize the ideal of self-sufficiency as regards food supply. State aids to manufacturing industries, such as the protective tariff, sought to provide essential finished goods, including the sinews of war. The Navigation Acts were intended to assure that foreign trade would be carried on in such a way as to yield the maximum advantage to the state concerned.

One influence of war has repeatedly asserted itself in the past—an effect on the costs of production and on the competitive position of the industries and firms of victorious or neutral nations. This subject needs more study, but certain facts suggest a hypothesis, of three parts. First: war expands some industries or concerns, increases their efficiency, enables them to operate, at the end of the struggle, on a comparatively low-cost basis, intensifies their competitive advantages, and improves their position in relation to foreign competitors. Second: war—for the duration—bolsters up some high-cost units by enabling them to sell at a profit all they can produce. The end of the war places such high-cost units at a disadvantage in the process of absorbing the shocks of the transition to a peacetime economy. Third: the history of postwar periods usually exhibits a sharp contest between such low-cost and high-cost enterprises. While "low cost" and "high cost" may refer to the relative positions of units within the same country, in most of this discussion, the terms will be applied to the producers of one country (either victor or neutral) to mean that their costs are low or high in comparison with those of their foreign competitors.