The American Reaction to Richard Cobden An Economy of...

Introduction Though Anglo-American relations are not currently hostile, they were not always this way. This paper will explore the free trade beliefs of Richard Cobden, and show that Americans who rejected his ideas did so out of ignorance and fear. The paper will begin with a description of Cobden’s context and beliefs and then move to an analysis of American Anglophobia and Anglomania and governmental responses to Cobden. Context Trade liberalization in Great Britain signaled an era of intense change in the European economy. The document that triggered this change was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860. Anglo-French trade antagonisms had reached an agonizing level for the two countries, beginning with the Congress of Vienna and†¦show more content†¦Later, in the same speech, he stated that the goal of the League was not to simply have cheap corn, but to have corn â€Å"follow the same law which the monopolists in food admit that labor must follow; that ‘it shall find its natural level in the markets of the world’† (Bullock Shock, 1957). Cobden also believed that military spending, instead of aiding growth, prevented markets from operating as they could if more money was available for private investment (Stringham, 2004). He believed that market interaction was the most influential factor in the success of the most powerful nations and that Britain should lower its military spending if it wanted to compete in the global market. In 1996, Knight, Loayza, and Villanueva conducted a study which confirmed Cobden’s beliefs, concluding that â€Å"military spending retards economic growth; namely, through crowding out human capital investment and fostering the adoption of various types of trade restrictions† (as cited in Stringham, 2004, p. 108). Though this study—and others like it—came much later than Cobden’s time, he planted the seed of doubt in many citizens’ minds about what they had previously seen as the benefits of military growth. Ironically, Cobden viewed the U.S. as a threat to Britain’s economic influence. The U.S. had lower taxes and less military spending (which would eventually rise with the two World Wars) and attributed the country’s sudden economic rise