E. Peshine Smith
Erasmus Peshine Smith (1814-1882) was born on March 2, 1814, in New York City. His ancestry in the United States can be traced to Puritan and Huguenot settlers, who fled from Europe due to religious persecution. Shortly after the birth of Peshine Smith, his family moved to Rochester in upstate New York. Later, Smith would attend Columbia College and would graduate in 1832. In 1833, Smith would then undertake a law degree at Harvard. After graduating, Smith would return to Rochester, and would commence practicing the law. He would eventually join the law firm of the prominent Whig William H. Seward. This relationship with Seward would have a lasting impact on Smith’s life. Smith would continue working in Seward’s legal practice until 1849, when he decided to pursue a career in journalism. Smith would then become editor of the Commercial Advertiser in Buffalo.
Smith’s lifelong friendship with Henry Charles Carey would commence in 1850 after Smith read and became inspired by Carey’s The Past, The Present, and the Future. In the following year, Smith would write a review in Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine praising the work. He would then seek out academic work in the field of political economy, but was only able to obtain a temporary position as a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rochester, which he filled for two years. Smith’s major work on political economy would appear in 1853. This was his Manual of Political Economy.
In 1859, Smith would then obtain employment as a reporter of the New York Court of Appeals. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and made Seward his Secretary of State, Smith would then be called to Washington in 1865, to work under Steward in the State Department as a solicitor. Smith remained in the State Department until 1871, at which point, he was selected to be an international law advisor to the Japanese emperor. Smith would then travel to Japan later in 1871, and he would remain there for six years. Smith’s final economic work would appear in 1877, prior to him leaving Japan. This small work was entitled Notes on Political Economy Designed Chiefly for Japanese Readers. Each chapter was published as a separate tract in the Tokio Times. Upon his return to the United States, Smith had planned to write another work on the topic designed for the use in high schools, but this work never materialized. At the age of sixty-eight, Smith passed away on October 21, 1882, in Rochester.