"The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity"
About this Quote
Martin Van Buren distills a core Jacksonian belief: prosperity grows when private energy and enterprise are left largely free from federal meddling. As a leader of the Democratic Party and the eighth president, he carried forward Jeffersonian suspicions of centralized power into the turbulent 1830s, when debates over banks, tariffs, and internal improvements defined national politics. The line champions classical liberalism, the idea that markets coordinate human ambition more efficiently and fairly than politicians do, and that government favoritism breeds waste, speculation, and inequality.
The phrase "private pursuits" signals both economic ventures and the broader striving of individuals and associations. For Van Buren, the danger was not merely taxes or regulations; it was the web of special charters, subsidies, and monopolies epitomized by the Second Bank of the United States and by Henry Clay’s American System. Interference, in that vocabulary, meant class legislation that rewarded the well connected and distorted prices and credit. Hence his push for the Independent Treasury, designed to separate public finances from private banks and to prevent crises fueled by government-sanctioned speculation.
Historical context sharpens the claim. The Panic of 1837 collapsed credit and threw workers out of jobs. Van Buren resisted federal bailouts and large stimulus programs, arguing that market corrections, though painful, would be worsened by new political interventions. Critics at the time, and many historians since, have argued that limited action prolonged the depression. Supporters answer that the cycle was born of earlier entanglements between government and finance, and that long-run prosperity requires predictable rules, sound money, and a state that does not pick winners.
The maxim is not anarchic. It presumes courts to enforce contracts, property rights, and a basic legal order. Its bet is that within that framework, dispersed decision making outperforms centralized directives, and that prosperity is more secure when laws restrain favoritism rather than manage the economy. The enduring debate is how much restraint is enough.
The phrase "private pursuits" signals both economic ventures and the broader striving of individuals and associations. For Van Buren, the danger was not merely taxes or regulations; it was the web of special charters, subsidies, and monopolies epitomized by the Second Bank of the United States and by Henry Clay’s American System. Interference, in that vocabulary, meant class legislation that rewarded the well connected and distorted prices and credit. Hence his push for the Independent Treasury, designed to separate public finances from private banks and to prevent crises fueled by government-sanctioned speculation.
Historical context sharpens the claim. The Panic of 1837 collapsed credit and threw workers out of jobs. Van Buren resisted federal bailouts and large stimulus programs, arguing that market corrections, though painful, would be worsened by new political interventions. Critics at the time, and many historians since, have argued that limited action prolonged the depression. Supporters answer that the cycle was born of earlier entanglements between government and finance, and that long-run prosperity requires predictable rules, sound money, and a state that does not pick winners.
The maxim is not anarchic. It presumes courts to enforce contracts, property rights, and a basic legal order. Its bet is that within that framework, dispersed decision making outperforms centralized directives, and that prosperity is more secure when laws restrain favoritism rather than manage the economy. The enduring debate is how much restraint is enough.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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