10 THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



worthy that Hamilton, the greatest champion of the powers 

 of the federal government, should have been almost the f^rst 

 to declare that agriculture could never become one of the 

 "desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. "=> It is also 

 worthy of note that up until the establishment of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in 1889, all of the then existing execu- 

 tive departments-State, Treasury, War, Navy, Post Office, 

 Interior and Justice— with the possible exception of the 

 Department of the Interior, performed functions generally 

 considered as political in character and essential to the con- 

 duct of a central government. Moreover, there existed a 

 very wide-spread opinion that the individual States were 

 fully competent to take care of "their own agricultural 

 interests : and since agricultural conditions were so diverse, 

 each state would be better fitted to cope with its own ^diffi- 

 culties than any central organization could possibly be." It 

 hardly need be said that while this feeling may still exist in 

 the minds of some men, it is no longer a factor which needs 

 to be seriously considered. 



While Hamilton does not seem to have rested his objec- 

 tions to the general government's concerning itself with the 

 encouragement of agriculture on constitutional grounds, 

 there were not lacking those who did believe that the as- 

 sumption of a function so obviously of local concern was 

 clearly outside the authority and powers granted in the 

 Constitution. Even Washington, who was undoul)tedly the 

 most consistent and influential of the earlier advocates of 

 federal encouragement of agriculture, never seemed to be 

 entirely certain as to his constitutional position, particularly 

 as to the expenditure of funds for this purpose. 

 In a letter to Hamilton in October 1791, he wrote: 



How far in addition to the several matters mentioned in that letter 

 would there be propriety, do you think, in sugpesting the Pohcy ot 

 cncourapinR the growth of cotton and hemp in such parts of the 

 United States as are adapted to the culture of them? The advan- 

 tages, which would result to this country from the f"couragenicnt 

 of these articles for ho me manufacture, I have no dou bt o f ; hut how 



•The Federaiut" (ed. Ford), no. 17. P- 93- Later Hamilton seems 

 to have changed his opinions to some extent. 



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