Henry C. Carey

Born 15 December 1793
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died 13 October 1879 (aged 85)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Political party Republican
Spouse Martha "Patty" Leslie
Father Mathew Carey
Relatives
Charles Robert Leslie (brother-in-law)
Eliza Leslie (sister-in-law)


Henry Charles Carey (December 15, 1793 – October 13, 1879) was an American publisher, political economist, and politician from Pennsylvania. He was the leading 19th-century economist of the American School and a chief economic adviser to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase during the American Civil War.

Carey's central work is The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial (1851), which criticizes the system of laissez faire capitalism and free trade expounded by Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo in favor of the American System of developmentalism through the use of tariff protection and state intervention to encourage national self-sufficiency and unity. Carey was also a critic of the practice of slavery from an economic perspective. His work on protective tariffs was largely influential on the early Republican Party and United States trade policy through the start of the 20th century, and his views on banking and monetary policy were adopted by the Lincoln administration in its issuance of paper fiat currency as legal tender.

His father, Mathew Carey (1760–1839), was a native of Ireland and an influential economist, political reformer, editor, and publisher whose patrons included Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. He founded a publishing firm, which soon became among the leading firms in Philadelphia and the young United States. Among his many writings was Essays on Political Economy (1822), one of the earliest American treatises favoring Alexander Hamilton's idea of protection and its use in the promotion of American industry.