Tench Coxe (May 22, 1755July 17, 1824) was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788–1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian," and was known to his political enemies as "Mr. Facing Bothways."

Biography

Coxe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 22, 1755. His mother was a daughter of Tench Francis Sr. His father came of a family well known in American affairs. His great-grandfather was the governor of West Jersey, Daniel Coxe.

Tench received his education in the Philadelphia schools and intended to study law, but his father determined to make him a merchant, and he was placed in the counting-house of Coxe & Furman, becoming a partner at the age of twenty-one.

After 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 accused him of having Royalist sympathies and of having served (briefly) in the British army. Coxe's trading successes during the period of British occupation lent considerable support to the charges, and he was arrested; although nothing came of the allegations and he was pardoned. The Pennsylvania militia records of 1780, 1787, and 1788 listed Coxe as a militia private. Of the militia, Coxe wrote,

Coxe became a Whig and began a long political career. In 1786 he was sent to the Annapolis Convention and in 1788 to the Continental Congress.

Coxe next became a Federalist. A proponent of industrialization during the early years of the United States, Coxe co-authored the famous Report on Manufactures (1791) with Alexander Hamilton, providing much of the statistical data. He had been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury on September 11, 1789, under Alexander Hamilton when Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. Coxe also headed a group called the Manufacturing Society of Philadelphia. He was appointed revenue commissioner by President George Washington on June 30, 1792, and served until removed by President John Adams. In 1796, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Coxe then turned Democratic-Republican, and in the canvass of 1800 published Adams' famous letter to him regarding Pinckney. For this he was reviled by the federalists as a renegade, a tory, and a British guide, and President Thomas Jefferson rewarded him by an appointment as Purveyor of Public Supplies; he served from 1803 to 1812. and bought Green River Plantation in Polk County, North Carolina. His grandson, Eckley Brinton Coxe, founded MMI Preparatory School in Freeland, Pennsylvania.

Works

See also

  • History of accounting
  • Karl von Zinzendorf

References

Further reading

  • Jacob E. Cooke, Tench Coxe and the Early Republic; 1978, Univ. of North Carolina Press,
  • Jacob E. Cooke, "Tench Coxe, Alexander Hamilton, and the Encouragement of American Manufactures," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 32, No. 3 (July 1975), pp. 369–92
  • The Coxe Papers, edited by Lucy Fisher West, are held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; they are available in West's Guide to the Microfilm of the Papers of Tench Coxe in the Coxe Family Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1977)
  • Mathew A. Frith, "American Protectionist Thought: The Economic Philosophy and Theory of the 19th Century American Protectionists" (2024)
  • Mathew A. Frith, "Alexander Hamilton, Tench Coxe, and the Diversity of Talents: A Neglected Argument in Early American Protectionist Thought," SSRN History of Economics eJournal (August 2025)
  • Stephen P. Halbrook & David B. Kopel, "Tench Coxe and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 1787–1823," Volume 7, Issue 2, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, pp. 347–99 (Feb. 1999)
  • Harold Hutcheson,Tench Coxe: A Study in American Economic Development<nowiki>. New York : AMS Press, [1982, c1938], ISBN: 0404613950</nowiki>
  • See David Kopel's site https://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/hk-coxe.htm for more.
  • Tench Coxe Page on Facebook
  • The Coxe Family Papers 1638-1970, highlighting the life of Tench Coxe, and the Coxe Family Mining Papers, 1774–1968, documenting one of the largest independent anthracite coal mining interests in the nation, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.