Thomas H. Dudley
​Thomas Haines Dudley (1819-1893) was born on October 18, 1819, in Burlington County, New Jersey. He grew up working on his mother’s farm. His mother, Ann Haines, was left a widow, after the death of Thomas’s father in 1820. She was thus responsible for raising Thomas and his three siblings herself. Thomas Dudley would subsequently become a schoolteacher and would eventually save enough money from this job to commence his study of the law, which would be undertaken in the office of William N. Jeffers, a respected lawyer in Camden, New Jersey. Then, in 1843, at the age of twenty three, Dudley would serve as both the Camden City Clerk and the City Treasurer. His involvement in politics would also begin around this time. In the following year, Dudley would become Secretary of the Henry Clay Club of Camden and would thus take an active part in Clay’s 1844 Presidential Campaign.
Dudley would then be admitted as a counsellor-at-law in 1848, and it was also around this time that he began his friendship with Henry Charles Carey. Dudley continued his involvement in political activities during this period. After the disintegration of the Whigs, Dudley became an early member of the Republican Party, and in 1856, he would serve as Chairmen of the Executive of the New Jersey Branch of the Party. He would then be chosen as a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention, where he would aid in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. In addition, it has been suggested that Dudley was responsible for introducing the tariff plank to the 1860 Republican Platform. The following year, Dudley would travel abroad for health reasons. Then, at the request of the Lincoln Administration, he would be appointed as the acting Consul to Paris. In late 1861, Dudley would then be appointed as the Consul to Liverpool in the United Kingdom. As this was in the midst of the American Civil War, Dudley would also act as a spy and would coordinate a system of industrial espionage to prevent the United Kingdom from supplying the Confederate States with naval ships. During his time in Liverpool, Dudley also became acquainted with the prominent free trade statesman and Manchester liberal John Bright, and despite their differences in economic creed, it appears that the two formed a friendship. Dudley would remain as Consul until 1872. Upon his return from England, Dudley would establish a legal practice in Camden.
Dudley was a committed Protectionist since his early days as a Clay supporter, but his writings on the topic would not appear until after his return from Liverpool. Although Dudley never produced a major treatise on political economy, he did produce approximately twenty three papers and pamphlets on the subject. Among these were Protection or Free Trade for the United States of America? (1880), a Reply to Augustus Mongredien’s Appeal to the Western Farmer of America (1880), The Farmer Freedeth All (1882), and Which is Best for Farmers, Protection of Free Trade? (1887). In addition to these literary efforts, Dudley would also be elected as Vice President of the American Protective Tariff League in the 1880s, and would retain this position until at least 1892. On April 15, 1893, at the age of seventy-three, Dudley would pass away in Philadelphia.