“This idea of an opposition between those two interests is the common error of the early periods of every country, but experience gradually dissipates it.”

— Alexander Hamilton , Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)
Context: It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion that though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The Northern & Southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse interests in this respect. Those are called Manufacturing, these Agricultural states; and a species of opposition is imagined to subsist between the Manufacturing and Agricultural interests. This idea of an opposition between those two interests is the common error of the early periods of every country, but experience gradually dissipates it. Indeed they are perceived so often to succour and to befriend each other, that they come at length to be considered as one. (...) Perhaps the superior steadiness of the demand of a domestic market for the surplus produce of the soil, is alone a convincing argument of its truth.

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Alexander Hamilton 106

Founding Father of the United States 1757–1804

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