A Disputation Held in the Presence of General Washington
Upon the Question of Whether the Congress Ought to Prohibit the Export of Diesel Oil, that the Republic Might Keep Its Own Fuel Cheap
Washington. Gentlemen, the hour is late and the temper of the country hotter still. California whispers of ten dollars the gallon. The wagoners and teamsters mutter of revolt upon the first of next month. Congress asks whether we shall bar the export of diesel, that our own people may burn it at home. Speak, but remember you are still citizens of one Union.
Hamilton. Mr. Jefferson, you would have us clap irons upon commerce as if it were a runaway servant. Ban the export of diesel and you do not create abundance—you destroy the very motive that brings the stuff forth from the earth. The refiners and merchants sell abroad because the world will pay. Close that market and they will produce less. Less production is not plenty; it is scarcity dressed in patriotic rags. Supply and demand will then part company, and the price upon our own wharves may rise, not fall. Respect, sir, the invisible hand—
Jefferson. Invisible hand? I see a very visible one dipping into the pockets of the planter and the drover. You would feed foreign furnaces while our Southern farmers cannot afford to harvest the grain that feeds this people. History is not silent, Mr. Hamilton: a well-fed citizenry is a quiet one. Starve them with dear diesel sold to strangers by wealthy companies, and you shall have riots. I will break your invisible hand with my real-life riotous pitchforks!
Hamilton. Pitchforks! The language of the mob, not of a legislator. You would have Congress play grocer to every parish, hoarding fuel like a miser hoards coin. Commerce is the life-blood of the nation. Deny the producer his foreign custom and he will not drill, he will not refine, he will not ship. Then your farmers shall have neither cheap diesel nor any diesel at all. You better respect the invisible hand, or it shall close into a fist of want.