Report on Manufactures

[1] It laid forth economic principles rooted in both the mercantilist system of Elizabeth I's England and the practices of Jean-Baptiste Colbert of France.

The main ideas of the Report would later be incorporated into the "American System" program by US Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and his Whig Party.

Abraham Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig" during his early years, would later make the principles cornerstones, together with his opposition to the institution and the expansion of slavery, of the fledgling Republican Party.

Hamilton reasoned that to secure American independence, the United States needed to have a sound policy of encouraging the growth of manufacturing and ensure its future as a permanent feature of the economic system of the nation.

[5] Leading opponents of Alexander Hamilton's economic plan included Thomas Jefferson (until later years) and James Madison, who were opposed to the use of subsidy to industry, along with most of their fledgling Democratic-Republican Party.