Daniel Raymond

Daniel Raymond was the first important political economist to appear in the United States. He authored Thoughts on Political Economy (1820) and The Elements of Political Economy(1823).

He theorized that "labor creates wealth," which may have been an improvement based on the thinking of Adam Smith of Europe. Daniel Raymond thought that the economy of England was actually the economy of the higher-ranking members of that society, and not the economy of the entire nation. He held that wealth is not an aggregation of exchange values, as Adam Smith had conceived it. Daniel Raymond held that wealth is the capacity or opportunity to acquire the necessaries and conveniences of life by labor.

His writings affected the political developments that shaped the United States. States Rights Democrats appeared in the United States Congress for the first time when James Hamilton Jr. of South Carolina was elected in 1822. Congressman Hamilton was a staunch Pro-Slavery advocate of nullification, as was Robert Y. Hayne, the first Pro-Slavery Democrat to be elected to the United States Senate, in 1823.