Domestic policy in relation to agriculture is not a recent phenomenon. Even during the era of free land farmers were interested in legislation which affected its settlement and also in peace treaties and other measures by which the land area was increased. According to Edwards:2 The struggle to shape national policy with a view to protecting and furthering agricultural interests began with the formation of our Federal system. In the vote on Constitutional ratification, the more distinctly rural sections, representing the debtor class, opposed prohibition of State power to issue paper money, and questioned the 'sanctification' of contracts. Once launched, the Federal Government, in response to threats of secession from Southwestern farmers, was almost immediately obliged to negotiate with Spain for the use of the lower Mississippi River and for deposit rights at New Orleans. In domestic policy, the agrarians broke with the Federalist Party on Hamilton's measures, which were designed, as it seemed, to subordinate the interests of a population 95 per cent agricultural to the paramount control of an oligarchy of traders, bankers, and speculators. Under the lead of Southern planters, notably Jefferson and Madison, the agrarians formed the DemocraticRepublican, later known as the Democratic, Party and gained political control in the Presidential election of 1800. Thus began a theme of national policy for the aid, or benefit, or relief of agriculture which has grown in breadth and complexity to the present. Always the basis has been some real, or imagined, difficulty of the industry which loud and vocal groups, often a small minority but which spoke as the leaders of the mass of farmers, used to bring political pressure on the Congress for action. Over the years since the founding of the nation agricultural policy has grown from a thin thread of agricultural information into a thick, twisted rope of close production controls, price supports, and manifold measures to expand demands; and the end is not in sight of this growth in breadth and complexity. But fortunately more attention than ever before is being given to the dependence of agriculture on a high level of economic activity and full employment, in which the problems peculiar to agriculture are being solved, it is hoped, along with the problems of the entire economy, the whole of which agriculture is a part. In examining the effects of domestic policy3 on the South's agricultural prob-
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Aug 4, 1961
Milton D Lowenstein 
Open Access