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Tench Coxe came from
a family that continually held a leading role in public affairs. His
great-grandfather Daniel Coxe was a physician to Charles II and to Queen
Anne. Although Daniel Coxe never left England, he served
nominally as Governor of New Jersey by purchase of land, and bought other
large tracts of land throughout America. He attempted to
settle a colony of Huguenots in Virginia, but failed. Daniel
Coxe's son, also named Daniel Coxe, served as a
colonel in the British Army stationed in North America. He settled in Pennsylvania and served, first,
on the colony's Supreme Court, later, as Speaker of the Assembly and, still
later, on the New Jersey Supreme Court. Daniel Coxe was, as his grandson
would be, a strong advocate of American unity. In 1722, he wrote a book
proposing that an assembly of delegates from each state and a national
executive could unite the American colonies.
Tench Coxe's maternal grandfather was Tench Francis, "the
undisputed leader of the Pennsylvania bar of his
time," whose eloquence earned him the appointment of attorney general of
Pennsylvania in 1741. Coxe's cousin Tench Tilghman
served as a negotiator with the Onandaga Indians on
behalf of the Continental Congress, and then as aide-de-camp to General
Washington throughout the Revolutionary War.
Tench Coxe was the
twenty-year-old son of a merchant residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when the War for Independence broke out in 1775. Coxe's company carried on a thriving business with
Loyalists and the British army when the British occupied Philadelphia ―a business
which would have been impossible if the British military commanders had
decided not to allow it.
After radical
Patriots took power, Coxe left Philadelphia for a few months
only to return when British General Howe occupied the city in September 1777.
Coxe remained in Philadelphia after the British
departed in 1778, and some Patriots credibly accused him of having Royalist
sympathies and of having served briefly in the British army. Although Coxe's trading successes during the period of British
occupation lent considerable support to the charges, nothing came of the
allegations, and the Revolution ended before Coxe became active in politics.
The Pennsylvania militia records of
1780, 1787, and 1788 listed Coxe as a militia private.
Whatever Coxe's attitude during the first part of the Revolution
in Pennsylvania, the events of the Revolution seem eventually to have
influenced Coxe's political philosophy on the issue
of men and arms, because most of what Coxe later wrote about the connection
between arms and freedom was consistent with revolutionary Patriot
philosophy. For example, Coxe, like the delegates who created Pennsylvania's 1776 Constitution
and like other Patriots of revolutionary Pennsylvania, saw a direct
connection between the right to hunt and the strength of the militia as a
check on tyranny.
When occupying Philadelphia in 1778, British
General Howe had disarmed the population. As reported in Philadelphia newspapers, General
Gage had done the same to the citizens of Boston in 1775. Although
it is not known how Coxe reacted to the disarmament at the time, his later
writings are aligned closely with the political philosophy of vehement
opposition to firearms confiscation that Patriots of the time expressed in Philadelphia.
When the Revolution
ended, Coxe formed the international merchant firm of Coxe & Frazier and
began to take an interest in political reform. In addition to playing a
leading role in the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons, Coxe served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, of which Benjamin Franklin was president.
In 1786, Coxe represented Pennsylvania by serving as the
secretary for the Annapolis Convention, the effort to revise the Articles of
Confederation, which set the stage for the constitutional convention the
following year. Coxe also was appointed to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental
Congress.
Firearms were among
the many commodities dealt in for many years by the firm of Coxe &
Frazier. A sample of business records from 1786 illustrates the company's
involvement in the firearms businesses, and also reflects politico-military
conditions at that time. Several New York militia companies
lacked sufficient muskets of a common bore, and ordered two hundred stands
from the firm. The State of Georgia ordered five hundred stands of arms for
the Georgia state militia, and a Southern distributor observed how dangerous
conditions were in the deep South: "you apprehend they will want them for
there is scarcely a doubt, but they will be engaged in an Indian war ―
if they should not purchase we apprehend this state South Carolina will
...." A Northern distributor who ordered from Coxe likewise noted how
the people were arming themselves in response to political instability: "The
present uneasiness in Massachusetts Shays's
Rebellion has caused a great demand for muskets, in consequence of which we
have disposed of about three hundred of yours with bayonets &c at three
dollars each...." Like most others in the arms business, Coxe made arms
for private purchase (the firearms sold in Massachusetts), for state
militias (Georgia), and for local militia groups (New York).
In the summer of
1787, while the constitutional convention met in Philadelphia, Coxe presented a
paper urging industrial development to the Society for Political Enquiries at
the house of Benjamin Franklin. The paper presaged the major role Coxe would
play in the Jefferson and Madison administrations by promoting an early
version of American industrial policy. Among the articles that he promoted
for domestic manufacture were gunpowder and ironworks. While the convention
was meeting, Coxe delivered a major address about the need for government to
promote invention. Madison probably knew of Coxe's remarks, as Madison soon after proposed
to the Constitutional Convention that Congress should have authority to
encourage discoveries through premiums and provisions.
In 1788 Coxe served
as one of Pennsylvania's last delegates to
the Continental Congress, which held its final session early the following
year. As a compromise with the Constitution's opponents, who agreed not to
oppose the Constitution further, many federalists reversed their opposition
to a bill of rights in order to entice the remaining states to ratify.
In 1790, Treasury
Secretary Alexander Hamilton appointed Coxe as the Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury, making him Hamilton's second in
command. Two years later, and at Coxe's request, Hamilton made Coxe the
Commissioner of the Revenue.
As Commissioner of
the Revenue, Coxe was in charge of the collection of all tax revenues,
including the revenues from the Hamilton-inspired federal excise tax on
distilled spirits, which prompted the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. While there is no
evidence that Coxe personally supported the tax ― which bore unfairly
on western farmers in general and on his state of Pennsylvania in particular
(because farmers needed to distill their grain before taking it to market, in
order to make it more compact and, thus, transportable) ― Coxe strongly
opposed the western Pennsylvania farmers taking up arms in protest against
the excise tax.
Critics of the
individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment sometimes claim that
the Standard Model implies that people can go to war with the government
whenever they disagree with any government decision, such as an unpopular tax
increase. Coxe refuted this claim. Coxe clearly believed in the individual
right to arms, and he just as clearly believed that it was wrong for the
Pennsylvania farmers to take up arms against a lawful tax that had been duly
created through proper constitutional methods. Coxe would continue to support
the right to arms as a mechanism allowing popular revolt as a last resort
against tyranny ― but Coxe, like the vast majority of Americans, could
tell the difference between a tyrant and George Washington. Today, when
federal taxes are much higher than the taxes that sparked the Whiskey
Rebellion, the vast majority of Americans, including those who support Coxe's understanding of the Second Amendment, agree that
a tax constitutionally imposed by Congress is no grounds for a Second
Amendment revolution to rescue the Constitution from tyranny.
While serving
President Washington's administration, Coxe wrote a major book analyzing the
future of the American economy: A View of the United States of
America. The book was a leading work of the time on
commerce, industry, and agriculture, and has earned a modern reprint because
of its comprehensive and insightful examination of American economic
development.
Coxe's growing alignment
with Thomas Jefferson and other Republicans led to his dismissal from office
by President John Adams in 1797. Coxe then plunged into political activity
supportive of the Republican cause, adherents of which claimed to be
suffering repression under the Sedition Act within a year.
Coxe closely
associated himself with the Philadelphia Aurora, the leading Jeffersonian
newspaper of the time. By mid-1799, according to accounts in this paper,
armed conflict between Federalists and Republicans threatened. The Aurora published reports
of bullying, weapons brandishing, and rioting by soldiers in the Federalist
faction. In retaliation, a mob of "federal savages" attacked and
beat Aurora editor William
Duane. As a consequence of the mob's threat to destroy the press, "a
number of republican citizens collected with arms and ammunition, continue to
mount guard in the Printing-Office."
The same issue of
the Aurora which included this
report, also included an article signed by Tench
Coxe and an urgent appeal by "Mentor" addressed
"To the Republican Citizens of Pennsylvania." The article vividly
expressed the premises upon which Republican doctrine rested:
"But as men intent upon hostility have
associated themselves in military corps, it becomes your duty to associate
likewise ― Arm and organize yourselves immediately....
"Do you wish to preserve your rights? Arm yourselves. Do you desire to
secure your dwellings? Arm yourselves. Do you wish your wives and daughters
protected? Arm yourselves. Do you wish to be defended against assassins or
the Bully Rocks of faction? Arm yourselves. Do you desire to assemble in
security to consult for your own good or the good of your country? Arm
yourselves. To arms, to arms, and you may then sit down contented, each man
under his own vine and his own fig-tree and have no one to make him
afraid....
"If you are desirous to counteract a design pregnant with misery and
ruin, then arm yourselves; for in a firm, imposing and dignified attitude,
will consist your own security and that of your families. To arms, then to
arms."
Subsequent issues of
the Aurora charged that
newspaper offices were being attacked around the country wherever Federalists
were losing elections. The paper portrayed the riot, the attack on Duane, and
President Adams's dismissal of Tench Coxe as elements of a Federalist
conspiracy to institute monarchy. Finally, the Adams administration had
Duane arrested for seditious libel for publishing a letter Adams (while Vice
President) wrote to Coxe which admitted British influence in the government.
Duane was vindicated, and the Federalists were embarrassed, when he offered
to produce the authentic letter.
The Alien and Sedition
Acts and other Federalist transgressions were not the only aspects of the
administration of John Adams that the Republicans attacked in the election
campaign of 1800. Tench Coxe and other supporters of Jefferson emphasized that the
monarchical tendencies of Adams also were
exemplified in his neglect of the militia and support for a standing army.
Coxe served as an
unofficial economic advisor to Jefferson, and helped the
secretary of state prepare reports to Congress about America's international
commerce. Having written so assiduously on behalf of Jefferson in the 1800
election, Coxe began angling for a position in the Jefferson administration. But
Coxe did not succeed until 1803, when President Jefferson ― at the
recommendation of Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin, himself a former
arms manufacturer ― appointed Coxe as purveyor of public supplies. Coxe
held the post through the rest of the Jefferson administration, and
for the first four years of the Madison administration,
including the opening months of the War of 1812.
Aside from political
considerations of gratitude for Coxe's work in
opposition to Adams in the election of 1800, the selection of
Coxe as the head of military procurement stemmed from both his experience as
a merchant and his political commitment to the militia as the defense of a
free society. Halving the size of the standing army and arming the militias
were important objectives of the Jefferson
administration.
Even as Jefferson was attempting to
shrink the standing army, the Napoleonic wars in Europe had created a
constant foreign policy crisis for the United States. Under the Adams administration, the
United States nearly had gone to
war with France, and certainly
would have done so if a hawk like Alexander Hamilton, rather than a steady
statesman like John Adams, had been president. As purveyor of public
supplies, Coxe was responsible for procuring arms for both the standing army
and the militia during years when war and foreign invasion were a constant
threat ― a threat that materialized in 1812.
In 1807 and 1808,
Congress finally passed legislation to arm the militia, providing an annual
appropriation "for the purpose of providing arms and military equipment
for the whole body of the militia of the United States, either by purchase
or manufacture." The arms were to be transmitted to the states for
distribution to their militias. The federal armories in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harper's
Ferry, Virginia were not capable of
meeting the production demands of Congress. In administering the program,
Coxe contracted with and made monetary advances to private arms
manufacturers. This system of government patronage greatly advanced the
development of small arms making from a handicraft to a modern industry, in
part by promoting the development of interchangeable parts.
For Coxe, the 1808
Act was an ideal opportunity to use federal resources to help build a strong
domestic firearms industry. Coxe's letters to
Secretary of War William Eustis set forth the relation between the industry and
an armed populace. To defeat a standing army, a populace must be well armed:
"No part of Europe will permit us to obtain arms from them....
A general armament for the purpose of a general stand is a measure... worthy
of consideration. The omnipresence of the public force is the consequence of
a general armament. The skill of modern regular armies
require the mass of the population to be equipped for resisting the
potent invaders of this time."
Sales of arms to the
public would not only arm them, but would also generate industry advances:
"A decided tone, a good inspection, good patterns and in
short much care, pains and vigilance are necessary to procure substantial
Arms from public & private Armories. If sales to the Militia &
private persons [&] to ships should at any time be desired and
practicable, it would keep up the manufacture and enable us to improve the
standard quality.
In a circular to
contracting gunsmiths, Coxe emphasized: "The importance of good arms is
manifest.... The lives of our fellow citizens, to whom the use of them is
committed, depend upon the excellence of their arms." In his
correspondence with manufacturers and inspectors, Coxe demonstrated great
technical expertise in the design and manufacture of muskets, rifles, pistols,
and swords. But despite Coxe's expertise and
dedication, the public arms program ran into trouble.
Coxe's small office was
overwhelmed by the procurement needs of the militia and the rapidly expanding
standing army as tensions with Great Britain increased. Despite
working seven days and nights a week, he still had to bring in his adult sons
as unpaid assistants. In 1810, Coxe fired the inspector in charge of quality
control for the arms being acquired. In a series of articles published in
early 1811, Coxe's former Pennsylvania political
associate, William Duane, charged that Purveyor Coxe had accepted large
quantities of inferior firearms. In his first article, Duane made the
sweeping allegation "that arms we had seen, which had been manufactured
for the MONEY (for we cannot say the use) of the United States, were better
adapted to kill American soldiers into whose hands they should be put, than
an enemy." Coxe rejoined in the same issue, flatly denying the charges
and noting that all arms were inspected prior to payment.
In subsequent
installments, Duane relied on averments of the former inspector who was
discharged for incompetence. Duane claimed that some rifle barrels lacked
grooves (rifling), had grooves only six inches down the barrel, or had
grooves that were too shallow. Some were made with unfit Dutch locks (firing
systems), or had stocks filled with glue and sawdust. There were Hessian or
Hanoverian arms (German imports) which needed inspecting. "There were
nine hundred pairs of pistols, but not one pair fit for public service."
In a series of
articles addressed To the Public, Coxe responded to "the late unfounded
attack upon the public muskets and private manufacturers of of muskets for the United States." The muskets,
rifles, and pistols in question were the equivalent of any manufactured in
this country. Coxe stated that, thanks to the federal procurement program,
the number of private armorers had increased
ten-fold in just a few years.
Months passed
without further public controversy, but at the end of 1811, Duane renewed
"The Military Establishment" series. Duane insinuated that in
America there were those who placed "a military force before its enemy
with saw dust cartridges or balls too large for the calibre,
or with rifles without touchholes, and without spiral grooves, and of which 8
out of 18 burst on the proof with powder only of 135, whilst the true proof
should be of the standard of 150."
The Duane dispute
quieted down, and Coxe continued the course of his work, soliciting
"Home Made and Other Supplies," including "Muskets, Pistols,
Rifles and Swords." The outbreak of the War of 1812 in June of that
year, however, occasioned a military reorganization, giving Coxe's congressional opponents the opportunity to
eliminate the office of purveyor of public supplies by replacing it with a
quartermaster's department.
Despite relieving
Coxe from the purveyor's office, the Madison administration
continued to appreciate Coxe's talents. Madison appointed Coxe to
the post of collector and supervisor of the revenue in Philadelphia. Coxe eventually
left this position for the larger salary of clerk of the Court of General
Quarter Sessions for Philadelphia, a post he held
until his retirement in 1818. Coxe's most important
contribution came at the request of Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, who
assigned Coxe to analyze the condition of industry in the republic.
Coxe retired in 1818
after having served three years as clerk of the Quarter Sessions in Philadelphia; he spent his
remaining years as a writer. Coxe continued to correspond with Madison and
his other political friends. Jefferson, who had found Coxe's
self-promotion to be offensively blunt while he was President, reconciled
himself to Coxe's personality flaws, and lauded
Coxe as "'a long tried public and personal friend' and 'a fellow
laborer, indeed, in times never to be forgotten."' Coxe also continued
to write prolifically for public consumption, often on matters involving the
right to bear arms. During his retirement years, Coxe was energized particularly
by his opposition to the presidential ambitions of John Quincy Adams and by Adams's support of
restrictive European laws regarding gun ownership for hunting. Coxe argued in
detail that Adams's position undermined the entire right to
keep and bear arms, and thereby threatened republican government.
Tench Coxe died on July 16, 1824, a few months before John Quincy
Adams was elected president.
(Excerpted from
William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, February 1999)
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