A LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, ON THE NECESSITY OF PROMOTING AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, AND THE USEFUL ARTS

Philadelphia: Patterson & Cochra, 1800. 30pp. Dbd. Light foxing and toning. A good copy. The second edition, following the first printed in Lancaster the same year, of this pamphlet promoting economic development in Pennsylvania. Logan, a thorough-going Jeffersonian farmer, was also a physician, author, and senator. According to the DAB he was "said to have been the only strict Quaker who ever sat in the United States Senate." The son of a wealthy merchant, Logan was forced to give up his medical practice when the family fortune was seriously reduced by war. He subsequently dedicated himself to cultivating his five-hundred-acre estate, advancing the study of agriculture and promoting international peace.

In this letter to his fellow citizens in Pennsylvania, Logan stresses the benefits of citizens joining together for the common good: "In a state of civil society, man must be considered as a member of a great political family. He is connected with his fellow-citizens, by ties of interest and benevolent attachment; and his social affections must extend to the whole community of which he is a member." He then enjoins Pennsylvanians to pursue various forms of economic development. "Let Pennsylvania not only exhibit flourishing enclosures and harvests, but the comfortable houses of industrious artists and manufacturers. It is impossible to contemplate the progress which we have already made, without inspiring a desire to progress in every useful occupation." Appended to Logan's letter is "The Constitution of the Lancaster County Society, for Promoting of Agriculture, Manufactures, and the Useful Arts" and "An Act for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures, and the Useful Arts" presented in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. ESTC W20662. EVANS 37841. RINK 1133. SABIN 41790. DAB XI, pp.359-60.