LECTURES ON THE ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Columbia [S.C.]: Printed by Doyle E. Sweeny, 1826. [6], 280, [4] pp. Toned with light to moderate foxing. The final four pages print a Table of Contents, an Index, and an errata. The rear free endpaper contains pencil notes from an early owner. Good plus, in modern boards with gilt-lettered spine title.
Writing this tract on economics from Columbia, S.C., where he was President of South Carolina College and Professor of Political Economy [and Chemistry], Cooper was a powerful voice for Free Trade. "With especial vehemence, he championed free trade. One can imagine this did not detract from his popularity in a state that put great store upon the export of cotton to Great Britain and the import therefrom of manufactured goods. Indeed, Cooper appears to have been hardly less influential than John C. Calhoun in egging on the South Carolinians to declare, in 1832, that the Federal tariff laws were null and void in their state" [Cooley: 'Thomas Cooper, Early Libertarian', website of Foundation for Economic Education].
His book treats the nature of property, wealth, value, revenue, rents, labor, wages, interest, usury, bullion, coinage, banks, bank notes, hard and paper currency, balance of trade, national debt, poor laws, taxes, population. "These lectures became widely used as a textbook" [Cohen].
FIRST EDITION. Cohen 5755. Goldsmiths' 24776. Sabin 16621 note. OCLC records six locations [mostly in Europe and England] as of March 2026 under several accession numbers. Not in Turnbull, Eberstadt, Larned. Item #41895
Price: $1,000.00