Economic History of the Fugger

This post just notes the important research of Aloys Schulte, Die Fugger in Rome, from 1904 (also available on Google Books).

Correlating Population with Bank Solvency

In the previous post we discussed two assumptions about Hill et al's 1977 argument regarding the prudence of opening a savings society in Kirtland in 1836. Recall that they had used Coover's enumeration of Ohio banks to conclude that the population in Kirtland should have been sizeable enough to support a modest bank. The presupposition of this claim is, as I noted

• Population size is a good predictor for bank success.

In this post I want to break down the claim that is wrapped in this statement into its constituent parts. The current formulation, though not an inappropriate assumption based on the data that Hill et al had used to make their case, sounds too statistical in nature, while the argument that Hill et al had in mind was in all likelihood more qualitative.

The basic observation is that banks require specie to operate. Specifically, they have to have specie to have their bank notes accepted and to make loans to customers (where the interest charged is part of the income that the bank produces). The way banks obtain specie, other than by accepting deposits, is to take down payments for subscribed stock that they issue. In my dissertation I detail some of the rules of how subscriptions worked and how much of the stock value had to be paid in as specie by what point during the subscription period by the subscribers [RCK15, 230-238] and I replicate the information from Coovers' research in the appendix [RCK15, 425f]. 

Since there is no residency requirement for subscription, subscribers can come either from 

• within the community wishing to have a bank; 
• or can be American financiers, usually at that point in time from the East Coast, 
• or Europeans engaged in trade with the US who wish to park their profits from their trade within the Americas within the US of A. 

Europeans here means wealthy non-Americans and in the majority, British traders. Though the world economy was rapidly moving toward integration---Joseph Smith Sr had been exporting East Coast Ginseng root to China in the years before Joseph Smith Jr had been born [RCK15, 79]---the wealthy traders from Africa, India or the Far East were not involved in American frontier banking.

As Charles Clifford Huntington showed in his 1915 thesis, A History of Banking and Currency in Ohio before the Civil War (available at the Internet Archive), there was much concern about capital flight in Ohio in the 1830s, due to the large number of financiers from the East Coast and even from outside the country proper that were involved in buying Ohio banking stock (Hunt15, 137f). In fact they owned over 70%, US$3.35 million of the US$4.73 million in capital stock in the state, before March of 1834 [RCK15, 233], as researched by the Cincinnati Republican.

There were examples of banks completely supported by the community, such as the infamous Owl Creek bank; or the Bank of Wooster that failed in spite of $150,000 paid-in stock and a leverage of 1.29 [RCK15, 245]; but the more typical case was the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company, who had only three residents of Ohio among its twenty board members and was held, in the words of the Ohio Monitor of March 14, 1836, "by the Wall Street gentry of New York" [RCK15, 234]. The company had given loans totalling almost US$2 million in 67 counties of Ohio, which were secured with some US$4.34 million worth of real estate---a very different league from the banks of Wooster mentioned above or of West Union, which had $20,000 of species at 2.42 leverage when it failed.

With this information at our fingertips, we can now note two things:

• For the successful banks, the majority of the capital stock was held by out-of-state financiers.
• Banks that were predominantly funded from within the community failed during the banking crisis of 1837.

Again, the Bank of Wooster is the most interesting example. Its was chartered in February of 1834 with US$100,000 and immediately oversubscribed by its population by 25% [Hunt15, 141]. In 1837, with a leverage of 1.29, it was almost stellar, $150,221 paid in for a circulation of $194,289 notes. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is the lack of expertise? 

Population and Bank Support

In their 1977 paper, Hill et al. The Kirtland Economy Revisited (BYU Studies Vol 17, 4, Article 2) argued that the idea of founding a bank such as the Kirtland Safety Society was an appropriate idea based on the size of Kirtland and the number of other banks in existence in other communities.

Kirtland at this time was one of the larger communities in northern Ohio---a number of smaller communities already possessed banks. Judging from the successful experience of other banks in Ohio, one with as little as $20,000.-- in paid-up capital, Kirtland probably could have supported a modest bank. (433)

In a footnote they go on to enumerate some of the locales with banks that Hill et al had in mind.

... smaller banks in northern Ohio included Warren (3), Ravenna (2), Canton (2), Salem, Youngtown, Elysia, Ashtabula, and Cuyahoga Falls. Cleveland, which had perhaps twice as many people [as Kirtland, RCK] had eleven [sic RCK] banks. (433 Fn 61)

In my dissertation,  where I discuss this argument (246), I argued that this exposition was misleading on multiple grounds. But in order to fully counter the claim by Hill et al, one needs to first explicate the argument structure. And in order to explicate the argument structure, we need to make clear that this argument is trying to support the larger notion that the creation of a bank, as endeavored by the Church leadership in 1836 was a reasonable thing to undertake and had all of the appearances of success on its side. 

So the argument structure goes something like this:

• Warren had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Warren had three banks.
• Raven had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Warren had two banks.
• Canton had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Canton had two banks.
• Salem (Ohio) had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Salem had one bank.
• Elysia had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Elysia had one bank.
• Ashtabula had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Ashtabula had one bank.
• Cuyahoga Falls had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Cuyahoga Falls had one bank.

The inductive leap of this assumption then is that towns with smaller populations than Kirtland had between one and three successful banks in 1836. We will call this argument Min1-3

(Note: The bank of West Union, which is the one of $20,000 capitalization, is not in this list. Perhaps it was not possible to arrive at population data for West Union?)

The argument in the case of Cleveland goes in the other direction.

• Cleveland had double the population of Kirtland.
• Cleveland had twelve banks.

The inductive leap here is that Kirtland should be able to support six successful banks. We will call this argument Max6.

Combining these two inductive leaps Min1-3 and Max6, we can now create another inductive leap, to wit:

• Kirtland's population sized should have supported at least one to three banks (Min1-3) and possible as many as six banks (Max6).

We will call this argument Kirtland-1-3-6. 

Hill et al are arguing that the Church leadership made this same sequence of inductive leaps. They have no documentary proof for this, but it is a reasonable imposition: the members of the Church leadership were well connected with political leaders and the legislature; furthermore, they had taken out loans before and engaged in real estate speculation, a task that required banking connections during the boom times of the federal land sales [RCK15, 248f]. Assuming Kirtland-1-3-6 and the absence of any banks in Kirtland in 1836, at all, it was a reasonable idea to found one and to expect it to succeed.

The first problem is that the argument is prefixed by the assumption that Hill et al interpreted the data given in Coover correctly. Unfortunately, as I argued in my dissertation [RCK15, 247], that is not the case. Coover's list gives all the banks known for Ohio between 1803 and 1866, not just the banks operating in 1836 time. In fact, since Coover was a collector of banknotes, all that can be said is that at some point someone issued a note with the name of a bank located in one of these cities (and some people made notes for non-existent banks, as Coover pointed out). 

As I pointed out in my dissertation [RCK15, 247], the following banks have to be removed from the list, because we know nothing about when and how successfully they operated:

• Two of the three banks in Warren.
• Both banks in Ravenna.
• One of the banks in Canton.
• The bank in Salem.
• The bank in Youngstown.
• The bank in Elysia.
• The bank in Ashtabula.
• The bank in Cuyahoga Falls.
• Ten of the twelve banks in Cleveland.

In terms of inductive evidence that is a slaughter. 

But there are further problems. There are two key unstated assumptions in this argument:

1. Population size is a good predictor for bank success.
2. Past success is a good predictor for future success.

The first is wrong on the observation, as spelled out in my dissertation, that a lot of the money in Ohio banking was from out-of-state, both financiers of the East Coast [RCK15, 244] as well as Europeans doing import/export business with the United States. In the 1830s, the United States was effectively a third-world country, running a huge trade deficit on its import of goods and export of raw and somewhat processed materials. Because these problems were common to all of the frontier states, the situation was the same in Michigan for example.

The second one seems like a reasonable slogan, but one could only have agreed to that assumption with respect to a bank if one was ignorant of the then-brewing storm regarding small bills in general (New Jersey and Maine in 1835 forbidding small bills, Virginia & Maryland & Pennsylvania purging small bills from their monetary system at the same time). Furthermore, the no-bank Democrats had just won dominance in the legislature of Ohio, they had been cool on charters for bank for a while now, and they had passed no charters in 1836 by the summer, pointing to the unused potential for capitalization in the existing charters [RCK15,234f]. Ohio was also pressuring its bank during the spring of 1836 with threats of taxation should they not strive to remove the small bills from circulation, with all $3 bills phased out by July 4, 1836. 

Perhaps even more importantly, President Andrew Jackson on July 11, 1836 had issued his famous specie circular via the Treasury, which eliminated local banknotes as method of payment for purchasing federal lands and insisted on hard specie. Professional cashiers left the frontier banks after this circular, unless their fianciers promised additional monetary support, as Henry Dwight of Massachusetts did to H.K. Sanger, who was cashier at the Bank of Michigan [RCK15,244].

Post Scriptum

It is not entirely clear when the Church leadership decided to go ahead with the plan for the Kirtland Safety Society. Oliver Cowdery was already traveling to New York to inquire into credit for printing plates in August of 1836. The revelation promising resolution to the financial plights (v5) that is now Doctrines & Covenants 111 was given in Salem, Massachusetts, August 6th, 1836. The letter that reports the decision was printed in the Messenger & Advocate in September 1836.  

Points that I did not make clear with reference to this argument in my dissertation include that the Kirtland Safety Society was anything but modest [RCK15, 250], and the number of Cleveland banks in the research by Coover on Ohio Banking Institutions from 1913, on which the observations were based, is twelve not eleven.

The Hanse in London

The Hanse operated the so-called Stalhof (the Steelyard) in London in the 15th and 16th century.
In addition to the information on Wikipedia, linked above, there is also a talk on Project Gutenberg, by Reinhold Pauli, on the Hansische Stahlhof in London, held in Bonn on March 11th, 1856, but published in a newspaper in Bremen.

Reading with Context in Mind: Plough, Sword and Book (Part 1)

The following discussion analyses a few pages of material from Ernest Gellner's Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History, London (Collins Harville) 1988. The idea behind the exercise is to distill out in exemplary fashion the contextual form of book contents that makes some of the strategies of statistical or pattern-based NLP less helpful than one might hope.

In addressing the problem of the role that primitive man plays in modern political thought (the chapter is entitled, "Which way will the Stone Age Vote swing?"), Gellner analyzes the way in which some philosophers talk about previous social states and their impact on morality.

In between the two extremes---candid fictional reconstructionists and paid-up professional anthropologists---there are other who, while not professional specialists in the area of early man, nevertheless intend their affirmation about him [i.e. early man] to be realistic, not mere fictions, but who wish them, all the same, to point a moral for the conduct of our own social life. (p.26)

The fact that this is Gellner's analysis means that this paragraph is his own, and he owns the words in it and the thoughts as well. Thus, if Gellner, to concoct an example, were to deny ever using the word "realistic", one would be justified in pointing to this paragraph and contradicting that assertion.

For instance, one of the profoundest and most influential of prophets of modern economic and other liberalism is F. A. Hayek. Hayek's analysis of the options and perils of modern society do in fact dovetail with a sharply delineated vision of the primitive social order and ethos. On his view, the strong social morality of early man and its survival in contemporary society constitute a positive danger to us: (p.26)

This paragraph is a potential mixture; it starts out as something that Gellner says about Hayek, but toward the end it becomes possible that Gellner uses diction that is more properly considered Hayek's than Gellner's. This is because Gellner is trying to reconstruct Hayek's thought, and when people do that, they often use the words that the author to be reconstructed employs. For example, if the expression "positive danger" strikes readers as interesting, this paragraph would be ill-suited to determine if Hayek or Gellner would use that expression.

Gellner then quotes Hayek, using a block-quote with reduced font-size to indicate that this is so (p.26):

There is ... so far as present society is concerned, no "natural goodness", because with his innate instincts man could never have built up the civilisation on which the numbers of present mankind depend for their lives. To be able to do so, he had to shed many sentiments that were good for the small band, and to submit to the sacrifices which the discipline of freedom demands but which he hates. The abstract society rests on learnt rules and not on pursuing perceived desirable common objects; and wanting to do good to known people will not achieve the most for the community, but only the observation of its abstract and seemingly purposeless rules.^(Fn6) (p.26)

Notice that this paragraph needs to be attributed to Hayek---as footnote 6 tells us, here indicated by ^(Fn6), the passage is from page 20 of Hayek's work The Three Sources of Human Values, published by the London School of Economics and Political Science in London in 1978. Thus, Hayek is the one who talks about submitting to sacrifices, and the discipline of freedom, not Gellner. (Gellner may of course share that view, but we have so far not seen any textual material to support such a supposition.)

Gellner then prepares to quote another passage from Hayek, which he relates to the first passage via an editorial comment on the stance that Hayek has taken.

And, should anyone not understand what this implies in practice, let it be spelt out: (p.26)

So even though Gellner is pointing out a relationship in Hayek's thought, Gellner is at least to some extent using his own words to express that relationship and thereby give an interpretive bias to the reading of the Hayek passage.

The following quote is again distinguished by a smaller font and a blockquote presentation, marking it as a direct quote from a writing by Hayek (minus the editorial [The] that Gellner felt should be inserted).

... the long submerged innate instincts have again surged to the top. [The] demand for a just distribution in which organised power is to be used to allocate to each what he deserves is thus strictly an atavism, based on primordial emotions. And it is these || widely prevalent feelings to which prophets, moral philosophers and constructivists appeal by their plans for the deliberate creation of a new type of society.^(Fn7) (pp.26f)

The passage is from the same work, as we learn from Fn 7, but two pages earlier, p.18. Notice that this casts an odd light on Gellner's transitional phrasing, because having the implication of a thesis precede the thesis is an odd way to present an argument, and cannot really be called a spelling-out, given that most people read from the low to high page numbers.

Gellner now tries to give Hayek a strong interpretation, one that makes plausible why someone would agree to Hayek's claims. That means, we should expect to encounter Hayek's thinking presented in Gellner's words with Hayek's phrases sprinkled throughout.

The picture is striking and suggestive. Men must have lived in something like "bands", groups too small to be capable of imposing abstract and impersonal rules, for a long time---during the overwhelming majority of generations since the inception of humanity, however that inception may be dated. So, on this view, throughout most of our history our situation instilled in us an ethic which is directly opposed to all that is innovative, creative, progressive in human civilization. Hence, civilization is based on the overcoming, not so much of our lowest instincts, but on the contrary of all that had usually been held to be moral: the social impulses of mankind, the tendency to cooperate with fellows in the pursuit of shared aims. Respect for abstract and incomprehensible rules must replace love of fellow men and community and a sense of shared purpose, if civilization is to emerge and survive. (p.27)

We can see immediately that this is a paraphrase of Hayek's thinking; so far, Hayek has only spoken of  "abstract and seemingly purposeless rules", which under Gellner's reconstruction morph into "abstract and impersonal rules" or "abstract and incomprehensible rules", neither of which is far away from Hayek's meaning, but clearly not synonymous with it either.

After all, rules that are seemingly without purpose may still be personal and comprehensible---for example, the rule that after each 1000-point drop in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the CEOs of the Fortune 500 have to apologize on public TV and do 20 push-ups. That rule is both personal and comprehensible, just not very conducive to any purpose that we associate with economics.

It remains possible that Gellner was citing phrases from other sections of the Hayek paper that he did not quote directly; we lack the information to determine this. But we can already see that the complex interplay of commentary ("The picture is striking and suggestive"), expansion of ideas (the speculation on the small groups, with the word `bands`, a term that Hayek uses without quotation marks, now in double-quotes) and summaries of arguments ("the tendency to cooperate with fellows in the pursuit of shared aims") makes it very difficult to attribute phrases and ideas to either Hayek or Gellner directly. At the same time, I cannot shake the feeling that, if someone cited the sentence

Respect for abstract and incomprehensible rules must replace love of fellow men and community and a sense of shared purpose, if civilization is to emerge and survive. (p.27)

as Gellner's point of view, Gellner would probably protest, calling such use a case of being quoted out of context, and seeing himself as primarily elucidating Hayek---even if Hayek should object to the rules being labeled "incomprehensible".

It is important to note that Gellner strengthening Hayek's stance by paraphrasing and working to give it additional plausibility is not a fault at all, but one of Gellner's qualities as a good writer, as someone who tries to compact Hayek's writing for an audience unfamiliar with Hayek's views and takes the arguments of Hayek seriously.

Not very surprising, Gellner continues to unfold Hayek's thought, formally repeating the methods of the previous paragraph, elucidating and bringing in new notions from Hayek's extensive oeuvre.

In Hayek's vision, an unplanned, unintended culture, which was the fruit neither of conscious reason nor of animal instinct, had somehow arisen, and it alone made possible that automatic mechanism of response to need, that sustained innovative improvement, which is manifested in and fostered by the market. ... || ... Seeing how recent precarious our liberation from over-socialization is, it is surprising that we are not even more thoroughly in thrall to atavistic sociability than Hayek fears. It is a social ethic and cohesiveness, not their absence, which are our greatest threat. (pp.27f)

Even though Gellner explicitly labels the exposition as Hayek's (his "vision"), he is now bringing in terms that are not licensed by the quotes and that presumably come from the other parts of Hayek's oeuvre, key among which the notion of the market, or the notion of natural selection. (Gellner errs in not providing footnotes for the source of these concepts in Hayek's writing, but increasingly, footnotes have come to be viewed as pedantic and no longer in need of precision.)

At the same time, the paraphrasing with its subtle shifts of meaning continues; Hayek in the quotes at least never spoke of "animal instinct", but called them "innate instincts". For example, with Steven Pinker we could claim that language belongs to the innate instincts, but clearly is not a good example of an animal instinct, give how few (or none, if one follows Pinker) animals share our form of language.

Since the point of the exercise is not to understand either Hayek or Gellner's argument, just how the thoughts and the linguistic presentations of these thoughts co-occur in a specific text, we will not delve into the elided middle section of that paragraph of Gellner's (see the ellipsis in the quotation from pp.27f above) and continue straight to the next paragraph of Gellner's exposition, on page 28.

Hayek's way of presenting our general condition differs from what might be called the simplest or classical formulation of laissez faire liberalism, in his conscious stress on the cultural preconditions of an open or market society. The classical formulation suggests that its only important condition is a political one: a just, effective and unrapacious state must be present, a political authority which uses its power to keep the peace and uphold the rules, and does not use it simply to despoil civil society. Hayek's new way of defining the problem makes him insist that mere political order is not enough, that a certain kind of abstract culture is also required, the emergence of a sense of and respect for abstract rules, and a detachment from communal, cooperative ends. The Hidden Hand can operate only in a suitable cultural milieu, amongst men who are not too sociable, men who respect rules rather than social aims. (p.28)

At this point, Gellner is contrasting two stances simultaneously, what he calls the classical formulation of liberalism and Hayek's form. These two stances are distinguished, according to Gellner, in their emphasis, the one putting the accent on the political and the other on the cultural preconditions.  Because the paragraph has the potential for losing even the interested reader, Gellner has begun to use emphasis (italics) in the typography to distinguish the key terms that identify the stances. Such an emphasis would have been even more effective if he had not been forced, by convention, to also italicize the French (i.e. non-English) phrase "laissez faire" in the same paragraph.

We observe that Gellner's use of italics for emphasis is in general ambiguous to its precise meaning; on p.27, he used it to mark the introduction of important economic term of the market. That market's regulatory force, the Hidden Hand, however, receives no such emphasis and is capitalized as an agentive force instead.

Our little excursion is almost completed at this point, as we turn to the last paragraph in Gellner's consideration of early man. Gellner turns to the social theory of Hayek's one-time colleague at the London School of Economics and former compatriot, Karl Popper.

A very similar sense of the struggle, not with destructive animal instincts, but on the contrary with an oppressively social morality and the deep feelings which underline it, is also found in the social thought of Karl Popper.^(Fn8) This Hayek/Popper vision might well be called the Viennese Theory. One may well wonder whether it was not inspired by the fact that, in the nineteenth century, the individualistic, atomized, cultivated bourgeoisie of the Habsburg capital had to contend with the influx of swarms of kin-bound, collectivistic, rule-ignoring migrants from the easter marches of the Empire, from the Balkans and Galicia. Cosmopolitan liberals had to contend, in the political sphere, with the emerging breed of national socialists. This "Viennese" vision is an inversion, a denial all at once of romanticism -- it elevates || Gesellschaft (society) over Gemeinschaft (community) --- and of Marxism. Marx anticipated the restoration, rather than the overcoming, of the alleged social proclivities of early man. (pp.28f)

The literature referenced for Karl Popper in Footnote 8 is his classic The Open Society and Its Enemies, London 1945. We observe that we again encounter the use of italics to highlight terms, e,g, national socialists such as the Austro-Fascists as compared to economic socialists in the sense of the followers of Karl Marx, as well as non-English terminology, such as the German words Gesellschaft or Gemeinschaft.

In this paragraph, the reader has to pay careful attention to attribute stances properly. Not only is Gellner discussing Popper, but he is aligning Popper with Hayek and even combining them into a single theory or "vision" (cf the Viennese Theory versus the "Viennese" vision).  At the same moment, for the first time in the selection that we have been analyzing, Gellner actually engages in historiography (we will get to this problem soon), so he is reporting background information to justify his postulate of a Viennese Theory. Thus, because he is not describing the stance of the theory, but its genesis, Gellner owns this paragraph and its terminology.

To summarize: In roughly three pages, Gellner has given us an exposition of at least two intellectual stances that he may or may not share, namely those of F.A. Hayek and of the classical formulation of laissez-faire liberalism; Popper really received one sentence only and was not given a single quote. Gellner has presented these positions in quotes, which are typographically distinct, and in paraphrases, some of which make inexact use of the terminology found in the reconstructed texts. Gellner has interleaved these reconstructions which his comments and in the case of the Vienna Theory, even with an origins story that draws additional background information into the text. Notice that the brevity of the sample did not allow some other occurrences one should expect in a book the size of Gellner's, such as direct quotes of other writers' interpretations of Hayek or Popper, or paraphrases of others' reconstructions of the texts under consideration.

It is perhaps not surprising then that the typical techniques of corpus linguistics cannot succeed readily in such a setting; even though there is a sense in which Gellner's book is a corpus of conceptual stances. Perhaps the reading is not distant enough.

Lishi Website

Completely forgotten that I used to work on this (here my polyptique interests took their departure).
Probably would need to request a password again at this point in time.

applying TEI modeling to financial information

The MEDEA project (an acronym for Modelling semantically Enriched Digital Edition of Accounts) was pointed out to me by Paige Morgan (University of Miami, Florida) as an effort that she is involved in. It would be fun to take the accounts from the steam-boat "Maid of Iowa" and transcribe them into their TEI format, once that encoding format has been fully defined.

Paige also pointed me to the Guelph workshop on Digital Humanities where she is teaching for four days from May 9-12, 2016. Here's wishing her all the best.

Consecration and Stewardship Revelations

In addition to D&C 42, the core revelation for the Law of Consecration and Stewardship,  there are other revelations relevant to stewardship and consecration.

• D&C 48 [received at Kirtland, Ohio, March 10, 1831] discusses the process of land procurement for the Saints, both around Kirtland and in the (yet undisclosed) Zion.
• D&C 51 [received at Thompson, Ohio, May 20, 1831] discusses the process by which Bishop Partridge is supposed to accommodate the newly arriving Eastern Saints.
• The organization by the Divine Laws is not optional, but necessary (vv.1f)
• Partridge is to appoint the "portions, every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs" (v.3).
• Partridge fills out a certificate for each portion, that designates that assigned as the man's inheritance, which he will lose if he "transgresses and is not accounted worthy by the voice of the church" (v.4).
• Consecrated stuff belongs to the work of the church, even if someone leaves; only their deed stays with them (v.5).
• All this shall happen without violating the laws of the land (v.6).

to be continued

May 1837 complaint against Frederick G. Williams

In the First Minute Book, p.226, there is an interesting complaint against Frederick G. Williams and several other members of the church leadership from May of 1837, when the banking crisis was hitting the US hard.

Trial for Lack of Benevolence

In the First Minute Book, p.212ff, there are several trials against church members for not paying their due. The trial seems to date from the Kirtland period, June 1836.

Lavoisier and Sage on Potash Production

This is reading notes from the accessible potash document I described in this post.

Sage et al (p.1) note that potash smells acidic and like urine. It usually is dark brown in coloration (p.2), when it is in its coarse state. When fired in the reverberatory furnace, it turns slate blue or white and is now called potash (p.2). When potash is calcined well [i.e. turns into pearl ash, RCK], it becomes porous and light, like pumice (p.3).

The most common method for potash production is to burn wood (p.5) and put the ashes into a copper vessel, adding water and boiling the mixture. One lets the lye settle, decants it into a separate boiler, then lets the remaining water evaporate until the potash is dry.

In places of charcoal production, stovepipes can be used to gather up the humidity distilled out of the charring wood pile into basins, which are then evaporated using boilers (p.6). If the salts sticks too strongly to the pans, scissors and mallets are used to detach it (p.7).  All woods produce some salts, but some more than others. Older ashes produce more, provided they are kept wet, and the best come from hardwoods (p.7). In the summer, they use cold water; in the winter, they mix hot and cold water half-and-half. Water that is too hot spoils the process, as the grease cannot separate from the salts. Stagnant waters give twice the potassium than clear waters.

One places wooden troughs of oak or pine a finger and a half apart, with a false bottom, where one places a bed of straw, and masses the ashes on top of that, so that the water cannot drain too quickly (p.8). One replaces the straw every six weeks in winter, and in the summer only every two months. Once the liquid stops fuming, one has to stir it with a stick, let the fire go out and cut the salt out with sticks.

The best method is the Swedish method, where one cuts the wood into pieces and piles it up.

L'art de fabriquer le salin et la potasse

I am still trying to figure out the relationship between

L'art de fabriquer le salin et la potasse ; suivi des Expériences sur les moyens de multiplier la fabrication de la potasse ([Reprod.]) / par le citoyen Pertuis, & par le citoyen B. G. Sage... (Bavarian library copy) and the Lavoisier article from 1779 with the same title (catalog entry). Earlier I confused the Lavoisier book with this article on just Salpeter production, which Lavoisier also wrote when a regisseur at the poudre commission.

At first I thought that Pertuis and Sage were regisseurs with Lavoisier, but that seems unlikely based on this essay. At the same time, the name and the structure look so similar, that one suspects it might be a reprint, cleansed for the Republic (as the labels citoyen make one suspect).

One thing is certain: Lavoisier was executed in 1794.

Prof Marco Beretta of the University of Bologna, in a private communication, pointed out [typos rectified, RCK], that L'art de fabriquer le salin et la potasse was

... originally published anonymously upon a report made by Tillet, Cadet, Sage and Lavoisier. The report was probably written and conducted by Lavoisier. In the second ed. the experiments by Pertuis were added and for [from?] the index it seems that a few experiments by Sage were also added to the original ones. Thus, although Sage and Pertuis claim to be the author of the whole work[, this] was misleading to say the least, [but] their additions, apparently not particularly significant, justified the appearance of their names on the frontispiece.

However, an analytical comparison of the two editions remains a desideratum.

The industrial history of the United States by Comen

In The industrial history of the United States from 1905, Katharine Coman reconstructs the start to the war of 1812 in the lack of guaranteed neutrality of American shipping and the impressment of sailors into the British Navy (p.172). America had found itself pushed into the second best spot in international shipping after the French navy had been worsted at Trafalgar and the European continental countries found themselves confined to their harbors with the Union Jack reigning at sea.

In 1806 the British were blockading the European coast "from Brest to the Elbe", and relying on the articles from 1793 to confiscate any goods going to France. Napoleon and the British Empire had claimed the right to claim any ships, cargo and crews that were assisting the other side (p.173). The protesting ports of Salem, Boston, New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia received no assistance from Virginia planter and president Jefferson, who was above all else interested in avoiding war. The Embargo Act therefore required all American ships to trade along the coast exclusively, with bonds at twice the value of the cargo to ensure compliance.

Though some people complied with the rules by selling the ships or simply not returning to harbor in the US (p.174), the impact for the economy was disastrous.

Prices of foreign commodities doubled ; prices of domestic goods fell below the cost of production. The $50,000,000 of capital invested in shipping brought in no revenue. Thirty thousand out of forty thousand American sailors were suddenly thrown out of employment. Farmers unable to dispose of their produce offered their lands for sale. Lumbermen and fishermen were reduced to beggary. The mercantile classes suffered no less. In New York the Embargo caused one hundred and twenty bankruptcies and threw twelve hundred unfortunates into the debtors' prison. (p.174)

In 1809, the US Government reversed course (p.175) with the nonintercourse with Great Britain, and now the US could pick up the neutral shipping.

The war tariff of July 1, 1812, doubled and trebled the duties on imported commodities. Imports and exports rapidly declined. Their combined value in 1814 was but $20,000,000, one seventh of the foreign trade of 1810. Our shipowners faced ruin. (p.175)

Anyone who owned a ship took out a privateering contract and made for the seas to capture British ships, with the full approval of the government.

Sixty-five vessels were commissioned as privateers in the first three weeks of the war, one hundred and fifty in the first two months. During the summer of 1812 one hundred prizes were taken, and but fifty vessels were lost to the enemy, only thirteen of these being privateers. During the three years of war the five hundred and fifteen privateers commissioned by the United States captured over thirteen hundred British vessels, most of them 'merchantmen carrying valuable cargoes. Congress allowed a rebate of one third the import duty on captured goods and offered twenty-five dollars for each prisoner taken. (p.176)

Though in the immediate aftermath, trade blossomed, by 1821, it had collapsed again, and the key reason---beyond the panic of 1819 and the tariff of 1816---was the reciprocity of free trade offered by the US to the rival shipping nations (p.177).

The real gainers from the reciprocity policy were not the shipowners but the farmers and planters, whose surplus products were sent to foreign markets at declining freight rates. (p.178)

Then Comen turns to the development of manufacturing.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in spite of the encouragement, legislative and otherwise, that had been given to manufactures, the United States was still in the main an agricultural nation. We were producing more both of food products and raw materials than were consumed in the country, and we could not provide manufactured commodities sufficient to supply the home market. (p.180)

Shipping, farmers and consumers were happy to trade raw products for manufactured goods imported, only the manufacturers were unhappy (p.180). From the Embargo in 1808 to the end of the War in 1815, the manufacturing of cotton enjoyed a virtual monopoly within the US. This caused a boom in the cotton manufacturing that had previously only progressed gradually. The boom was amplified by the redirection of capital; shipping monies moved into manufacturing instead.

Slater's success at Pawtucket had demonstrated the possibilities of this new textile industry, and men trained under his eye went out to set up rival establishments. The mills at Slatersville, Rhode Island, Pomfret, Connecticut, and Union Village, New York, were direct offshoots from the "Old Mill." For the first ten years development was slow. (p.180)

[Slater had grown up in Belper, England, where he had apprenticed at a frame using the Arkwright spinning method for leveraging water power, invented in the 1760s. This knowledge he brought to Rhode Island, even though departure for weaving apprentices was supposed to be illegal, where he collaborated with American artisans like David Wilkinson to reconstruct an Arkwright like frame. RCK]

In 1807 there were fifteen cotton mills running 8000 spindles and producing 300,000 pounds of cotton yarn annually. In 1811 there were eighty-seven mills operating 80,000 spindles, producing 2,880,000 pounds of yarn per year and employing 4000 men, || women, and children. In 1815, 500,000 spindles gave employment to 76,000 persons, with a payroll of $15,000,000 per year. Rhode Island was the center of this flourishing industry. Within thirty miles of Providence were one hundred and thirty mills running 130,000 spindles and employing 26,000 operatives. (pp.180f)

However, the cotton was still weaved by hand on looms, until C. Lowell succeeded in 1814 in establishing the first power loom in the USA in Waltham, MA (p.181). The innovation spread, and the work had been simplified to the point that women and children could do it (70%-85% of the employees), which significantly lowered cost.

Establishing the woolen manufacturing required weaning oneself from the sheep imports from Spain, Portugal, Saxony, Russia, South America and Syria (p.182). Merino sheep seemed to be the solution and caught on first; they were able to handle the continental climate. Woll was fetching 75c in 1811 and $2-3 in 1813 (pp.182f). Rowland Hazard succeeded in putting together the first woolen factory, were carding, spinning and weaving was all accomplished by water power, in 1828 (p.183).

The US Iron manufacturing was favored because of the availability of anthracite or stone coal (p.183), which was brought to Philadelphia via the Delaware River as early as 1804 (p.183).

In 1805 there were five furnaces and six forges in Fayette County [in Pennsylvania, RCK]. Three rolling and slitting mills and a steel furnace were successfully established by 1811. The iron deposits of the river valleys to the north were being developed in the same period. Pittsburg was the natural center for this rising industry because of her unexcelled advantages in the way of water transportation. (p.183)

Getting a grip on Economic History on the Internet Archive

Ernest Ludlow Bogart did not only write a general Economic History of the United States (accessible here, here and here), but also a Financial History of the State of Ohio. Bogart also published readings in economic history (here and here).

Then there is Thurman William Van Metre, who also wrote an economic history (here, here, here and here). Or Edward Mead Earle, who wrote an Outline of Economic Development of the United States.

Sidney Reeve Armor also wrote a modern Economic History (scan 2).

Peter Termin worked on the Bank War of the 1830s. Katharine Comen wrote an economic history of the land beyond the Mississippi (Vol I, Vol 2) also here, here, here and here.

Then there are selections of readings on economic history for specific time periods.

• Benjamin Rand, Selections illustrating economic history since the Seven Year's War
• Guy Stevens Callender, Selections from an economic history of the United States 1765-1860 (scan 2, scan 3)
• Chauncey Mitchell Depew's Economic readings from 1795-1895 on commerce. (Volume I, Volume II)

An early theoretician of the economy in the US was Daniel Raymond, about whom  Charles Patrick Neill wrote a book.

A History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce by Emory Richard Johnson sounds good too, as does Hans Keiler's book on Shipping.

Then there is an Industrial History by Katharine Comen (as a school book). As well as a multi-volume Documentary History of American Industrial Society (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6, vol 7, vol 8, vol 9, vol 10), edited by John Rogers Commons. Commons collaborated with Ulrich Bonnell Phillips on Plantation and Frontier Documents (1649-1863).
Lewis Austin wrote on the American Proletariat. Edith Abbott offers some insights on women's role in this story of industrialization. 

Marion Mills Miller wrote a multi volume history (over 14) that shows the connection between political and economic debate, entitled American debate; a history of political and economic controversy in the United States, with critical digests of leading debates (Volume 1: here and here; Volume 2: here and here), and who knows which volumes here and here. These it makes more sense to search for the one needed ....

Robert Marion La Follette also wrote a multi-volume history on the Making of the United States of America, only some volumes are available: vol 3 (industry and finance), vol 6 (mining and metallurgy), vol 7 (inventions), vol 10 (public welfare).

On a more political level is Charles Austin Beard's oeuvre, for example on the economic underpinnings of Jeffersonian Democracy. Gustavus Meyer has a multi-volume history on the Great American Fortunes (vol I (scan 2), vol 2 (scan 2), vol 3 (scan 2)).

Albert Bushnell Hart comments on the socio-economic forces in American History. Seymour Dunbar has his multi-volume history of the impact of Travel on all aspects of American History, including the socio-economic (Vol I, Vol II, Vol III, Vol IV). The US department of transportation issued a book on the history of American Highways.

Lydia Rebecca Blaich does a tri-nation comparative economic geography of the US (with Germany and England) (Scan 2, Scan 3, Scan 4).

Last but not least, the cool Graphic History of the United States by Louis Morton Hackrich.

More possible sources for Stephen Mack

If it should become necessary to do more on Stephen Mack, there is the Michigan Historical Collection series, where the exploits of Major Mack in Detroit and possibly in Pontiac occasionally peek through the sides.

A British Influence on Nauvoo Industrialization?

In a tantalizing paper A Dam for Nauvoo from 1978, Donald L. Enders of Maid of Iowa fame reports that Joseph Smith Jr was pushing for a dam to power mechanization and industrialization in Nauvoo in 1841, when the Church leadership was worried about the influx of English poor, none of whom were farmers.

Enders quotes Joseph Smith Jr as writing:

There are great numbers of the Saints in England who are extremely poor and not accustomed to the farming business, who must have certain preparations made for them before they can support themselves in this country, therefore, to prevent confusion and disappointment when they arrive here, let those men who are accustomed to making machinery, and those who can command a capital, though it be small, come here as soon as convenient, and put up machinery and make other such preparations as may be necessary, so that when the poor come on they may have employment to come to. (Times and Seasons 2 (1 January 1841), p.259)

This might mean that the influx of British converts, who were coming from a country that had been playing the industrial revolution game for at least 50 years, and whose poor city proletariat provided a fertile field to harvest for the English missionaries,  might have contributed a decisive push in the direction of industrialization for Joseph Smith Jr's thinking.

Of course, the specifics are again the use of water power, just as had been the case in Palmyra. Donald L. Enders, who wrote his thesis on the Des Moines Rapids at BYU, fails to mention steam mills such as the one that the Law brothers built.

Even after Joseph Smith Jr's lynching, Saint publications like the Nauvoo Neighbor were thinking in terms of what had been doable as far back as 1800, not in terms of the manufacturing that had since arisen in Rochester and would soon overtake Nauvoo in Chicago.

Here is the proud and gallant Mississippi, with her rapid current, rumbling to the broad Atlantic, seeming to say (as she quickens her pace over the rugged rocks of the lower rapids, just opposite our beautiful Nauvoo), only improve my shores and banks, ye saints . . . and I will propel your mills, cottons and woolen manufactories, by which your laborers can find employ, and your poor can be adorned after the similitude of a palace.
(Nauvoo Neighbor, 12 March 1845, p. 2.) 

Murray N. Rothbard on the Panic of 1819

The e-book The Panic of 1819 by Murray N. Rothbard is constructed from his 1962 publication of the similar title, which in turn is Rothbard's dissertation. It's topic is the economic (banking) Panic of 1819, for the understanding of which Rothbard's work was a milestone.

Bibliographic Record

Rothbard, Murray. 1962. The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. Columbia University Press, New York. E-Book Version hosted at www.mises.org.

Clues toward Joseph Smith's Socio-Economic Matrix

While reviewing my reading notes from Arrington et al, I was struck as to what Arrington pointed about about the communitarian aspect of the fight between Campbell and Rigdon (p.19). They had a debate at Austintown, after which Rigdon felt badly treated by Campbell because his economic attempts at restoring Christian primitivism were rejected (cf. Amos Sutton HAYDEN, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio, 1875, p.209).

Campbell and Rigdon differed on three points (Hammon, p.22-24) that basically distinguished the Baptist Church from the Mormon Church: the spiritual gifts of the apostolic age,  the authority to perform ordinances, and Christian communitarianism (Hammond has this from Van Wagoner).

Leonard Arrington et al on Cooperation (Fragment)

Mormonism and the American Dream

Order, the value Puritans prized above all others, could not be maintained in the immensities of America. The very geography induced diversity in cultures and ways of life. (p.2)

More Puritan than Yankee, Joseph Smith consciously sought to stay the forces which threatened to disrupt the ordered rural village life of the early nineteenth century. His was not, however, just a rearguard holding action. In some respects it could be said that his aim was to realize the Christian commonwealth which had been the idea of John Winthrop. (p.3)

Based on his converts, the authors argue, one sees many of the principles that later became part of the revealed religion prefigured:

Found among these groups were beliefs in an eventual restoration of an unsullied primitive church, a conviction that the Lord's return was imminent, a desire to adjust prevailing social and economic patterns to conform more closely to some form of Christian communalism, a fondness for spiritual manifestations, and a literalistic interpretation of the Bible, all of which became in some form a part of the revealed religion. (p.3)

The authors suggest to resist the temptation to connect Smith with the radical reformation [[as some of his 19th century critics have done, RCK]], though many of his early followers had ties to communities inspired by these (p.4). Another source of possible inspiration might be Robert Owen, whose community in New Harmony, Pennsylvania, had started in 1825 (p.4). Though Owen claimed to abolish religion, his value system was so Christian that transporting it into religious reform was simple (p.4).

Certainly he encouraged many Americans in the optimistic hope that the traditions of the past need impose no limits upon their ability to build a better society. (p.4)

Clearly Joseph Smith was practical and experimental in the way Robert Owen was (p.4). But there is little advantage to drilling open the dependencies and inspirations (p.5).

A detailed genealogy of possible influences upon the Prophet would not explain his successes or his failures. The combination of ideas that he took into his system became, by his joining them together, logically and appropriately his. (p.5)

And, like Klaus Hansen, the authors see Smith as envisioning to extending his governance to the world.

No pietistic recluse, he was planning a system that he and his followers confidently expected would take over the reins of the world government. He consciously pursued power in earthly political realms as a preliminary to eventual world dominion. His design for the city of Zion included a plan for the proliferation of satellite cities in indefinite numbers destined to fill up the inland stretches of the North American continent from the Missouri to the Pacific. (p.5)

The authors then point out an interesting difference between Mormonism and modern reform movements.

Living under ideal institutions is not, in the Mormon view, an experience that perfects man. Rather, it is an evidence that man has achieved perfection. (p.8)

There was only a limited appreciation of beneficent institutions allowing one to make progress toward becoming better (p.8). Institutions were not instruments of reform; that instrument of change was faith (p.9).

In looking at the failure of Brigham Young's efforts, the authors remind us that Joseph Smith had set out in a very different America (p.12).

The Prophet's experiments took place during the heyday of communal experimentation in America. Though singularly far-reaching in design, they fit appropriately into a society where social ferment was proliferating communes in unprecedented numbers. (p.12)

Brigham Young's anti-capitalist idealism collided straight with a time that thought Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were heroes (p.12).

Smith Jr's communitarianism was also not anarchical and egocentric, like the social experiments of the 1960s and 1970s in the USA.

Deference to high church authority and obedience within a clearcut hierarchy of church offices and responsibilities have become prominent aspects of Mormon group character. (p.13)

These aspects caused the well-known economist Richard T. Ely in 1903 to compare the "perfect piece of social mechanism" of the Mormons to the German Army (p.13).

Communitarianism under JS

Of the law of consecration of 1831, the authors offer the following characterization:

Briefly, the law was a prescription for transforming the highly individualistic economic order of Jacksonian America into a system characterized by economic equality, socialization of surplus incomes, freedom of enterprise, and group economic self-sufficiency. (p.15)

Explaining the basic pattern of giving a consecration and then receiving a stewardship from the bishop, the authors note:

The stewardship might be a farm, building lot, store, workshop, or mill. It was expected that in some cases the consecrations would considerably exceed the stewardships. Out of the surplus thus made possible the bishop would grant stewardships to the poorer and younger members of the church who had no property to consecrate. (p.15)

The main idea was to provide an equal footing for all members (p.16).

The system aimed at equality in consumption but not in the capital controlled or managed by individuals. (p.16)

In order to stem creeping inequality, surpluses "(or residue, as it was called)" (p.16) were to be re-consecrated to the bishop (p.16). This surplus gave the bishop a way to equalize misfortune and pay for church needs such as lands in Missouri, education and publication, and similar (p.16).

... the properties placed at the disposal of each family head were to be used in producing whatever goods and services he desired, and whatever combinations of factors of production he selected, from among the limited opportunities open. (p.17)

[[The authors bring the Rigdon "Family" on (p.19) for the first time. RCK]]

At the same time, it was a communitarian system "in concept and application", as early critics already noted, such as "apostate bishop" John Corrill (p.17).

Social union, in turn, was indispensable to the establishment and operation of an exemplary Mormon community whose convert-citizens would have the disposition and means to prepare the earth for the return of the Savior and the institution of the kingdom of God. (p.17)

Orson Pratt offered the distinction between dividing property, and uniting property (p.18) to express the difference.

The Latter-day Saint community was to be established as the result of a "gathering" of the "faithful in heart" from "out of the bosom of Babylon" to a place designed as "Zion". ... Thus, an industrious, frugal, independent society was to be established under the direction of the priesthood. (p.18)

The authors point out that the approach of the law of consecration, because it gave the legal title to the bishop [in the early period, RCK] was different from the common stock of the Shakers, Harmonists, and similar.

Both theory and practice of stewardship as it was first established in Missouri disallowed unilateral conveyance of consecrated property by a steward to other persons with whom sales and exchange might be contemplated, including wife, children, and heirs. (p.18)

The authors point out that Rigdon and Campbell had fought over the communitarian aspects of the early apostolic church, and that Rigdon's group had experimented with the "Family" system, which was based on the common stock principle (p.19). Joseph Smith Jr replaced this system with the law of consecration and stewardship shortly after arriving in Kirtland from New York (p.19).

The need to suggest something positive to replace the impractical common-stock principle was one purpose of the revelation. (p.19)

But there was also the need to divide up the farmland to accommodate the poor families who were coming from New York and elsewhere to Ohio (p.19).

There was undoubtedly a third and more far-reaching objective in the revelations on consecration and stewardship. As the founder of "restored Christianity", Joseph Smith saw it as his responsibility to establish the social and economic basis for a Christian society. The passage in Acts ... was doubtless a challenge to the youthful prophet, as it was to Bible-reading Christians generally. (p.20)

In addition, scriptures already brought forth by Joseph Smith portrayed Book of Mormon peoples and the citizens of the ancient city of Enoch living an ideal, communal economic order. The prophecy of Enoch was particularly powerful, holding up to the Prophet's small group of followers a perfect society "of one heart and one mind ... and there was no poor among them." (p.20)

There was also such a proliferation of common law approaches at the time that it is hardly surprising that the revelation called the law of consecration "the more perfect law of the Lord." Even the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle were corresponding about communitarianism.

We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a New Community in his waistcoat pocket. (p.20)

[[This also ignores that Joseph Smith's uncle was running a self-sufficient economic community in upper Canada with its own clippership. RCK]]

Thus, the Law of Consecration and Stewardship could be seen as a consequence of practical need and Christian idealism. It is not surprising that the plan should have been intensely practical in certain respects, and that it should have overestimated the possibilities of human altruism in other respects. (p.21)

And maybe as the best summary provided of the law, the authors note:

It was to a degree individualistic, though with strong elements of group control and influence. (p.21)

The authors then review some of the failures of the law. The first, by the Colesville Saints, in Thompson near Kirtland, Ohio, ran into troubles when the wealthier members [e.g. Copley, RCK] backed out and sued for their land back, causing such confusion that the Colesville Saints were more or less haphazardly shipped off to Missouri (p.21).

In their explanation of the second attempt to be made in Missouri, the authors talk about the intentions for the plat of Zion, which was supposed to not only provide families with homesteads, but also the farmers with land, the mechanics with tools, and the teachers & musicians & writers with a license specifying how they were to support the community [= HC 1:357-362]; but of course the plat of Zion only made it to Missouri weeks before the July 20th, 1833 Jackson County riots kicked the Mormons out (p.21).

The basic plan had been for the settlers to bring something to consecrate that could then be exchanged for an inheritance (p.22). The bishop had a storehouse operational [the Gilbert & Whitney store, RCK] in 1831, and a printing establishment soon thereafter [the Literary Firm, RCK] (p.22). By July 1832, somewhere between 300-400 church members were in Jackson County, Missouri, "almost all of whom were located upon their inheritances" (p.22). By July 1833, one year later, 1,200 had gathered in Zion, about 700 of whom were converted Latter-day Saints (p.22) [= Morning & Evening Star 2 (July 1833): 110, "The Elders Stationed in Zion to the Church Abroad, in Love, Greeting"].

[[The authors are trying to interpret a very obtuse passage: "At present, we have not the exact number of the disciples, but suppose that there are near seven hundred. - Include these, with their children, and those who belong to families, and the number will probably amount to more than twelve hundred souls." Are disciples to be only the men? But then what about the women? Given that most families had more than one kid, 500 for all the children for 350 families is a very low estimate. Who else would belong to the families but not be a disciple? Grandparents? Maids? RCK]]

The authors also wonder about idleness in the community of the Zion inhabitants, which occasionally is mentioned in the sources.

Perhaps some of the immigrants, filled with the millenarian spirit of the times, did not understand the necessity of laboring to build up Zion. (p.22)

Though some would later recall the Zion times fondly---cf. Parley P. Pratt autobiography---(p.22_ there were two serious problems (p.23), the legal status of the properties and the size of the inheritances (p.23). Partridge had come up with a way to lease the land out to the immigrants, to ensure that opportunism or free-loading were checked and that standards of quality could be maintained (p.23). [[See also the photocopies that I brought back from BYU, RCK]]

The authors then discuss some of the few deeds that have survived, which enumerated the responsibilities of both parties (p.23). The granting of the gift is itemized; in the case of James Lee, for example, that list included "household furnishings and clothing as well as livestock, farming equipment, and artisan's tools" (p.23). The specific items are

"... saddler tools, one candlestick & one washbowl valued seven dollars twenty five cents; --- also saddler's stock, trunks and harness work values twenty four dollars; --- also extra clothing valued three dollars" -- possessions totaling $34.25 in value. (p.24)

The wealthiest example, George W. Pitkin, gifted

... "sundry articles of furniture values forty seven dollars thirty seven cents,---also three beds, bedding and extra clothing valued sixty eight dollars,---also sundry farming tools valued eleven dollars and fifty cents,---also two horses, one harness, one waggon, two cows and one calf valued one hundred and eighty one dollars"---the total worth $307.87 according to the evaluation agreed upon by himself and the bishop. (p.24)

In return, the member received a loan and a lease of property.

Mormons would probably have called this document, printed on the other half of the form, a deed of stewardship or a stewardship agreement. In civil law it would be described as simply a lease-and-loan agreement. (p.24)

Only four completed land descriptions are known to have survived, leasing inheritances as small as carpenter Joseph Knight's village lot of 1.8 acres and as large as Levi Jackman's farm of 33 acres. (p.24)

There are also cases of the consecration of an individual, where all the gift was returned as loan and lease--a system that could not have worked in the general case (p.24).

A widow could enter the system on her husband's terms, and minors until their coming of age had "a claim upon the property for their support" (p.25). Grown children started out like new converts, thus inheriting nothing from their parents (p.25).

A steward could not by his own decision expand the productive facilities of either farm or workshop, for each year his surplus would be taken into the common fund, unless the bishop decided otherwise. (p.25)

The authors sum up the description with a historical comparison.

The economic system Joseph Smith offered his followers, especially his system of land tenure, would have fit more comfortably into medieval England than into Jacksonian America. (p.25)

The approach did not translate well into the legal thinking of the frontier.

Judges on the frontier viewed properties held in trust with noticeable disfavor. Some apostates successfully sued in the courts for the return of their consecrated properties. (p.25)

As Mario DePillis first pointed out in his dissertation (p.434 Fn 42), sometime after October 12th, 1832, when the Joseph Knight contract was dated, and before July 1833, when the Mormons were evicted from Jackson County, the format of the deeds changed, possibly in response to the legal challenges (p.26). In the face of such resistance, Joseph Smith Jr instructed Partridge on May 2nd, 1833 (p.26) to issue real deeds to the members for their inheritance. But it is not clear that the changes in the printed deeds were in reaction to the Prophet's instructions (p.27), because they came so late in the time frame and because the modifications to the wording are not completely in line with the Prophet's instructions (pp.27-28). The instructions of the prophet did arrive though, because the Church prepared its members (p.30) in June 1833 that they would be receiving "a warranty deed securing to himself and heirs, his inheritance in fee simple forever" [= Editorial in Morning and Evening Star, June 1833, p.100] (p.30).

It was also clear that the church was still struggling to explain to a skeptical environment that they were not doing a common-stock Quaker system (p.26). In an editorial from 1835, when reprinting the Morning and Evening Star from August 1832, Oliver Cowdery took position against this claim (p.26).

Some have said, and still say, that this Church, "has all things in common". This assertion is meant, not only to falsify on the subject of property, but to blast the reputation and moral characters of the members of the same.

The church in Jerusalem in the days of the apostles, had their earthly goods in common; the Nephites [inhabitants of ancient America described in the Book of Mormon], after the appearance of Christ, held theirs in the same way; but each government was differently organized from ours; and could admit of such a course when ours cannot. (p.26) 

The problem of how to assess fairly what the gift was and how much each family needed was also discussed in the May 2nd, 1833 letter, but it is doubtful that its instructions were implemented before July 1833 (pp.30-31).

The authors wonder whether the system of consecration was not flawed in that it gave to the poor more than they could handle, since they "were incapable of wise management of property" (p.31). While the bishop probably had theoretical flexibility in the amounts given out, the preponderance of poor made such a division scheme unlikely (pp.31-32). [[This tack is very surprising, that economic equalization seems to have been the driving motor of the law of consecration. RCK]]

The authors also share Brigham Young's suspicion that giving up the surplus was just not going to work.

I was present at the time the revelation came for the brethren to give their surplus property into the hands of the Bishops for the building up of Zion, but I never knew a man yet who had a dollar of surplus property. No matter how much one might have he wanted all he had for himself, for his children, his grandchildren, and so forth. [= BY, JD, 16:11] (p.32)

The system was not long enough in implementation to be fully tested; persecution in Jackson County commenced in April 1833 and were in full swing in July 1833 (p.32).

In the aftermath of the Zion's Camp debacle, in a revelation from June 22, 1834 [= D&C 105], the law of consecration and stewardship was suspended until Zion could be freed with purchase rather than blood (p.32).

The authors then turn to the discussion of the new inferior law given in Far West 1838 (p.33), which was supposed to be different from the celestial because of "the pollution of the inheritances" in Jackson County (p.34), but it differed not markedly from the "celestial" version of the law. The law still required the consecration of surplus property (p.34), which "obviated the transfer and reverse transfer by requiring that he consecrate only his surplus and retain the remainder" (p.34). The law was also weakened to a tithe or a tenth of the annual increase, rather than the entire increase (p.34). What it did not obviate was some solution to how to define surplus, as people would make provisions for all that they had (p.35), as Brigham Young pointed out (p.35).

While in Far West, agricultural companies were formed, one for each compass direction (p.36); cf. also the testimony of John Corrill. Similar plans for mechanics, shopkeepers and laborers were under way (p.36). The goal was to implement "economic equality, socialization of surplus incomes, partial freedom of enterprise, and group economic self-sufficiency" (p.36). Again the eviction from Missouri, this time into Illinois, tanked the experiment.

In Nauvoo, no attempt was made to-instate the law of consecration and stewardship [= HC 4:93; 6:37f] (p.37). The authors see this as a sensible choice of the church leadership given the altered circumstances in Nauvoo.

The church had to make far larger unit investments in land in Nauvoo than it had ever been called upon to do before, and its resources, financial and otherwise, were relatively fewer, partly because of forced property sales and partly because of the heavy expenses of frequent moving and establishing service enterprises. (p.37)

As a result, in 1841,  the law of tithing was adopted (p.37). At the same time, some of the intentions had be left behind (p.38), namely the ability to redistribute property and equalize the economic standing.

Biographical Record

Leonard J. ARRINGTON, Feramorz Y. FOX, Dean L. MAY, Building the City of God: Community & Cooperation among the Mormons, Salt Lake City UT (Deseret) 1976.

More miscellanies from the Whitney papers

I worked some on the bills of Joseph Smith Jr in the Whitney collection today, including a bill from one of the stores he purchased from and a receipt from one of his trips that he got reimbursed for, both from 1842.