¹ Premier examples are Davis, Lance E. and North, Douglass C., Institutional Change and American Economic Growth (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; North, Douglass C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, The Rise of the Western World (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gunderson, Gerald, “The Origin of the American Civil War,” Journal of Economic History, 34 (Dec. 1974), 915–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² See Davis, Lance E., Easterlin, Richard A. et al. , American Economic Crowth (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, and London: Harper and Row, 1972)Google Scholar; Fogel, Robert W. and Engerman, Stanley L., eds., The Reinterpretation of American Economic History (New York: Harper and Row, 1971)Google Scholar; and Reid, Joseph D. Jr., “On Navigating the Navigation Acts with Peter D. McClelland: Comment,” American Economic Review, 60 (Dec. 1970), 949–55Google Scholar.

³ Robert W. Fogel, “The New Economic History: Its Findings and Methods,” in Fogel and Engerman, eds., The Reinterpretation, p. 2.

⁴ “‘New’ and Traditional Approaches to Economic History and Their Interdependence,” Journal of Economic History, 25 (Dec. 1965), 480–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Redlich, Fritz, Steeped in Two Cultures (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 339–55Google Scholar. For like critiques of the new economic history of the Navigation Acts, see Broeze, Frank J. A., “The New Economic History, the Navigation Acts, and the Continental Tobacco Market, 1770–90,” Economic History Review, 2d ser. 26 (Nov. 1973), 668–78Google Scholar; and David J. Loschky, “Studies of the Navigation Acts: New Economic Non-History?” ibid., 689–91. For a general discussion, see Andreano, Ralph L., ed., The New Economic History (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1970)Google Scholar.

⁵ Redlich, Two Cultures, p. 350.

⁶ Ibid., p. 347.

⁷ Journal of Political Economy, 66 (Apr. 1958), 95–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted with revisions in Fogel and Engerman, eds., The Reinterpretation, pp. 342–61. The recent publication of Fogel, Robert W. and Engerman, Stanley L., Time on the Cross (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1974)Google Scholar, renewed and increased the support for Redlich's criticisms among new economic historians, as well as among traditional historians. See, for example, the papers presented at the MSSB—University of Rochester Conference, October 1974, and the review of Time on the Cross by David, Paul A. and Temin, Peter, “Slavery: The Progressive Institution?” Journal of Economic History, 34 (Sept. 1974), 739–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief survey of the new economic history of slavery, see Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, “The Economics of Slavery,” in their The Reinterpretation, pp. 311–41.

⁸ “Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South,” in The Reinterpretation, p. 344.

⁹ See Fogel and Engerman, “The Economics of Slavery,” pp. 311–41, or their Time on the Cross. 10 Fogel and Engerman, for example, calculated that more sanguine expectations about slavery's future, not greater slave productivity, accounted for 40 to 75 percent of the rise in slave prices during the 1850s—that is, that a large part of slaves market experience was not explained solely by objective market conditions. See their “The Economics of Slavery, p. 333.

¹¹ For a similar interpretation of the new economic history to date, see North, Douglass C., “Beyond the New Economic History,” Journal of Economic History, 34 (Mar. 1974), 1–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. New economic historians are not alone in their slight of dynamic explanation. Gerald W. Mullin applied Redlich's criticisms to traditional historians of slavery: “By examining slavery topically, concentrating on the last few years of its long existence, and using models based on modern industrial society, they [Kenneth Stampp, Ulrich Phillips, Lewis Gray, Stanley Elkins, and George Fredickson and Christopher Lasch] have limited our understanding of the changes in slavery over a period of time and obscured our view of the slaves themselves.” Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. ixGoogle Scholar. Mullin's point is not that these histories of antebellum slavery are incorrect because of their “static” and “ahistorical” treatments, but that these histories do not explain when, why, and how antebellum slavery arose. Ironically, Mullin finds that eighteenth-century slavery differed little from antebellum slavery.

¹² For uses of such models of change, see Davis, Easterlin, et al., American Economic Growth, pp. 265–66, 363–65, and 405–6. To appreciate how complex the determinants of actual adjustment paths can be, see the exemplary article by Olmstead, Alan L., “The Mechanization of Reaping and Mowing in American Agriculture, 1833–1870,” Journal of Economic History, 35 (June 1975), 327–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ David, Paul A. questions this-see his article, “Transport Innovation and Economic Growth: Professor Fogel on and off the Rails,” Economic History Review, 2d ser. 22, (Sept. 1969), 516–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ The building blocks for the following model of political activity are mined from: Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Constant (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperback, University of Michigan Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E. et al. , The American Voter (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1960)Google Scholar; Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957)Google Scholar; Gurr, Ted R., Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; McCloskey, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review, 58 (June 1964), 361–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, rev. ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1971)Google Scholar; Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Truman, David B., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951, 1962)Google Scholar; and the summary articles of Bertram M. Gross, “Political Process,” pp. 265–73, and Herbert McClosky, “Political Participation,” pp. 252–65, in Sills, David L., ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 12 (The MacMillan Co. & The Free Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ In addition to the preceding references, see Arrow, Kenneth J., Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1963)Google Scholar; Arrow, and Scitovsky, Tibor, eds., A.E.A. Readings in Welfare Economics (Homewood, ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1968), part IIGoogle Scholar; and Brock, William A. and Magee, Stephen P., “Equilibrium in Political Markets on Pork-Barrel Issues,” Report 7545, Center for Mathematical Studies in Business and Economics, University of Chicago, October 1975Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Stigler, George J., in “Economic Competition and Political Competition,” Public Choice, 13 (Fall, 1972), 91–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar, mistakenly minimizes this difference. He equates the variety of potential outcomes of a political issue with the variety of actual supply outcomes in the goods market.

¹⁷ To swiftly grasp these points, contrast the temporal pattern of Americans' support for the Vietnam War with the prosecution of the war: the war began with little knowledge, let alone support, expanded while support contracted, and ended several years after popular support vanished.

¹⁸ Compare Davis and North, Institutional Change, pp. 3–38; Gurr, Why Men Rebel, pp. 293–94, 334–38; Olson, Logic of Collective Action, pp. 53–65; and Stigler, George J., “The Theory of Economic Regulation” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 2 (Spring 1971), 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ “The Federalist,” Number 10, in Hofstadter, Richard, ed., Great Issues in American History: A Documentary Record, I (New York: Random House, 1958), p. 125Google Scholar.

²⁰ See Downs, Democracy, pp. 87–88, and Olson, Logic of Collective Action, pp. 173–76, for the different view of the politician as passive entrepreneur.

²¹ Basler, Roy P., ed., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, 1953), I, 65–66Google Scholar, quoted in Hesseltine, William B., Sections and Politics: Selected Essays, ed. Current, Richard N. (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1968), p. 114Google Scholar.

²² The quote is from Davis and North, Institutional Change, p. 10. For like prattle, see the recent contributions to the history of parliamentary enclosures, nicely summarized in N.F.R. Crafts, “Determinants of the Rate of Parliamentary Enclosure, unpublished (April 1975). Parliamentary enclosure may well reflect the greater productivity of enclosed land, as the recent contributors assume. Yet we cannot be sure a priori—as sure as we are that greater productivity induced the voluntary enclosures of open fields—for the parliamentary enclosures may reflect jobbery or the ascendent political power of the landed gentry, rather than efficiency.

²³ The following discussion analyzes events within a well-delineated political market. It neglects many of the most fundamental questions about political activity, such as the rationale for coercive government and the nonexistence of social preference orderings. Instead, the reader is referred to the references in notes 14 and 15. More important, the text does not rigorously develop a theory of the boundary between the goods market and the political market. Rather, it addresses the simpler question: given that an activity is politicized, how can we understand the historical evolution of that activity? Sentiment, loyalty, and acquiescence are proposed as the proximate determinants of political activity.

²⁴ This approach follows Downs, Democracy, pp. 114–41, but does not require voters to order outcomes identically along some scale or to have unique preferences. One could get very precise in the definition of an “outcome”: thus, is it a specific piece of legislation or can it be merely an intention to legislate? Since, however, any such ambiguity is easy to resolve in specific cases, such precision can be avoided.

²⁵ In particular, see: Stigler, “Economic Regulation,” p. 3; Davis and North, Institutional Change, ch. 3; and Downs, Democracy, pp. 128–29.

²⁶ Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, p. 175.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 176.

²⁸ Except in the trivial sense that every buyer would rather pay less and every seller would rather charge more.

²⁹ See Berelson, Bernard and Steiner, Gary A., Human Behavior: An Inventory of Scientific Findings (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), pp. 422–36 and 557–84Google Scholar, for a summary of scientific findings on the formation of opinions, attitudes, and beliefs, which distressingly suggests that sentiments are primarily inherited or taken from peers. Also see Campbell et al., The American Voter, and McCloskey, “Consensus and Ideology.”

³⁰ Only “likely,” because effecting or reaffirming an outcome may lead voters to radically revise their sentiments. The Christmas bombing of Haiphong and the Cambodian attack, effecting gradual withdrawal from Vietnam, reduced American sentiment for such gradualness, for example.

³¹ See Berelson and Steiner, Human Behavior, pp. 566–84; Campbell et al., The American Voter, pp. 388–89; and Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 76–105Google Scholar.

³² For evidence and argument of these rules, see Campbell et al., The American Voter, pp. 182, 257–65; Downs, Democracy, pp. 120–21, 135; and Gurr, Why Men Rebel.

³³ Quote from Riker, Political Coalitions, p. 207.

³⁴ “All its [a political party's] actions are aimed at maximizing votes, and it treats policies merely as means toward this end.” Downs, Democracy, p. 35. Parties “seek to maximize [votes] only up to the point of subjective certainty of winning. After that point they seek. … to maintain themselves at the size … of a minimum winning coalition.” Riker, Political Coalitions, p. 33.

³⁵ Quote is from Redlich., Two Cultures, p. 350.

³⁶ As, for example, does George Stigler in his analyses of the repeal of England's Corn Laws and the enactment of full employment policies by Western democracies since World War II. See his “Do Economists Matter?” Southern Economic Journal, 42 (Jan. 1976), 347–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Toward the Scientific Study of History (Philadelphia, New York, Toronto: J. B. Lippincott, 1972), pp. 226–27Google Scholar.

³⁸ Americans Interpret Their Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1962), p. 146Google Scholar. Pressly comprehensively surveys interpretations of the war's origins. For particular interpretations, see: Freehling, William W., Prelude to Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)Google Scholar; Hesseltine, Sections and Politics, pp. 70–133; Nichols, Roy F., The Stakes of Power, 1845–1877 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961)Google Scholar; Rozwenc, Edwin C., ed., The Causes of the American Civil War (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1961)Google Scholar; Stampp, Kenneth M., The Causes of the Civil War (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959)Google Scholar; and Sydnor, Charles S., The Development of Southern Sectionalism, 1819–1848 (Baton-Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968, c. 1948)Google Scholar.

³⁹ Gunderson, “The Origin.… “

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 928–32.

⁴¹ For a detailed criticism of Gunderson's analysis, on which I have drawn freely, see Gary D. Libecap and Richard Alford, “The Origin of the American Civil War: An Exercise in Algebraic Determinism,” University of Pennsylvania Discussion Paper No. 300 (April 1975).

⁴² Calderhead, William, “How Extensive Was the Border State Slave Trade? A New Look” Civil War History, 18 (Mar. 1972), 42–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans, Robert Jr., “The Economics of American Negro Slavery,” Universities-National Bureau for Economic Research, Aspects of Labor Economics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 217Google Scholar; table reproduced in Fogel and Engerman, The Reinterpretation, p. 325.

⁴³ Bracket, Jeffrey R., “The Negro in Maryland: A Study of the Institution of Slavery,” Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, VI (1889)Google Scholar. Calderhead, “How Extensive…” When the Reverend C. C. Jones of Liberty County, Georgia, likewise sold some slaves as a family unit to b e neither separated nor removed from Georgia, he reported that “more might have been obtained had they been sold separately.” Letter to Mrs. Mary Jones (Dec. 10, 1856) in Myers, Robert M., ed., The Children of Pride: A True Story of, Georgia and the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 271Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Gunderson, “The Origin…,” pp. 921–23 and Table 1, column 5. Gunderson apparently miscalculated the percentage for Texas, one of the first seven states to secede. It should be 19.4, not 24.

⁴⁵ Gunderson, “The Origin…” p. 923 n. 11.

⁴⁶ See Ransom, Roger and Sutch, Richard, “The Impact of the Civil War and of Emancipation on Southern Agriculture,” Explorations in Economic History, 12 (Jan. 1975), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁷ See Goldin, Claudia D., The Economics of Urban Slavery: The American South 1820 to 1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), ch. 3Google Scholar; Starobin, Robert S., Industrial Slavery in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), ch. 4Google Scholar; and Takaki, Ronald T., A Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African Slave Trade (New York: The Free Press, 1971), pp. 115–16Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ See Barney, William L., The Road to Secession, A New Perspective on the Old South (New York: Praeger, 1972)Google Scholar, and The Road to Secession and the Secessionist Impulse, Alabama and Mississippi in 1860 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Takaki, Pro-Slavery Crusade; and references cited in note 38 above.

⁴⁹ See Stampp, Causes, pp. 76–78; and Wolff, Gerald, “The Slavocracy and the Homestead Problem of 1854,” Agricultural History, 40 (Apr. 1966), 101–12Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ See Stampp, Causes, ch. 3.

⁵¹ See Wright, Gavin, “Economic Democracy and t he Concentration of Agricultural Wealth in the Cotton South, 1850–1860,” Agricultural History, 44 (Jan. 1970), 79–81Google Scholar, for evidence of the correlation between slavery and cotton. The correlation between cotton and slavery is not perfect, however, as Gunderson has privately shown me.

⁵² See Stampp, Causes, pp. 79–81, for northern editorials which emphasized the adverse implications of secession for northern commerce: “the traffic between the two sections will be materially decreased…. The General Government, … to prevent the serious diminution of its revenues, will be compelled to blockade the Southern ports…. Thus, trade of all kinds.… would be permanently embarassed…” (p. 80). Cf. Stampp's perplexity at the North's refusal to let the South secede. Stampp, Kenneth M., And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis 1860–1861 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950)Google Scholar. For northerners' sentiments on emancipation, see Berwanger, Eugene H., The Frontier Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Controversy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Sydnor, Southern Sectionalism; Freehling, Prelude.

⁵⁵ Benson, Scientific Study, 316–17; Sydnor, Southern Sectionalism, 331–39; Freehling, Prelude, esp. 340–60.