BLODGET, Samuel.

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Economica: a Statistical Manual for the United States of America. First and only edition of one of the earliest systematic attempts to depict the entire American economy by means of statistical data. Tables are printed throughout, with accompanying essays that reveal Blodget to be a strong nationalist, a supporter of free trade, an abolitionist, and a promoter of paper money secured by land. Blodget's view of the role of commerce in forging a republic is particularly notable, with the author arguing that joint stock companies bind people together in little commonwealths based on mutual benefit, which then act as an equipoise to the enormous anti-republican landed estates. Consequently, in Dorfman's summary of Blodget, "true friends of the republican course should therefore do all possible to extend the system of companies like banks, insurance, canals, with small shares to embrace the poorer classes" (Dorfman, p. 338).Provenance: John Hanson Thomas, with his bookplate to pastedown and ownership signature to title page, and his corrections to errata. Thomas (1813-1881) was a Maryland legislator imprisoned by Union forces from September 1861 to February 1862 for pro-Confederate sympathies.

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