William Bingham

Willaim Bingham (1752-1804) was born in Philadelphia on March 8, 1752. He was the fourth and youngest son of William and Molly Stamper Bingham. In 1765, the young William Bingham would enter the College of Philadelphia, and would graduate in 1768. He would then work for the Quaker merchant Thomas Wharton. Bingham proved very successful in the merchant trade, and eventually entered into business with Willing, Morris, and Company, which was the largest American merchant firm at the time. During the American Revolution, their fleet would be contracted by the Continental Congress to serve as privateers and for the procurement of arms and munitions. Bingham himself would serve as a special agent and would be responsible for circumventing British blockades and securing French supplies via the West Indies. As the war drew to a close, Bingham was widely considered the wealthiest man in the United States, acquiring a fortune through privateering and his merchant trade, but also through his dealings in land. One such tract of land later became the city of Binghamton

Politically, Bingham was aligned with the Federalist Party, and was a political ally of Alexander Hamilton. In fact, there is even strong evidence to suggest that Bingham assisted Hamilton with preparing the Report on Public Credit. Bingham would hold public office in several capacities during his life. He would serve as a member of the Continental Congress between 1786 and 1788. Between 1790 and 1791, he would serve in the Philadelphia House of Representatives, and would then serve as President of the Philadelphia State Senate between 1794 and 1795. He would then be elected to the Federal Senate in 1795, and would remain there until 1801, choosing not to recontest the following election.

Bingham’s main work on political economy was his book entitled A Letter from an American on the Subject of the Restraining Proclamations. This was a reply to the British statesmen John Lord Sheffield, who in 1783, published the pamphlet Observations on the Commerce of the American States, which argued that Britain should enact severe economic measures on the newly independent American States. The American States, argued Sheffield, would be forced to accept such arrangements, as they were dependent on English manufactures and had virtually no prospect of developing their own. It should be noted that this was prior to the adoption of the United States Constitution. There were no provisions for a uniform national tariff under the existing Articles of Confederation. Individual States, instead, had the authority to enact their own trade legislation, independent of, and without regard to the rest of the States within the Union. This meant that “if one or more [American] states shall prohibit the manufactures of any particular country” for the purposes of developing industry, “British manufactures [will still find] their way to every part of the country” by circumventing the trade barriers of individual States via inland trade.

On this charge, Bingham responded that such measures would only compel the States to “unite together, and form one general system of exclusive navigation,” and would ultimately “operate like a charm throughout the country” and would be “a spur on the industry of our inhabitants.” Bingham’s support for protectionism was, for the most part, retaliatory and countervailing in nature, with passages of his work reading as if universal free trade would be the best of all possible outcomes. In any event, his Letter from an American would contain the germs of what would become the infant-industry argument. Anticipating The Report on Manufactures, Bingham explains that “[trade] restrictions wisely imposed, tend to stimulate and encourage a spirit of industry amongst the people.” In 1801, Bingham left the United States for Bath, England, to be closer to his daughter. He would reside there until his death on February 7, 1804.