A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett, selected and arranged, with a preface, by Theodore Sedgwick, in two volumes. (1839)
This collection provides important example of populist laissez-faire opinion from the Jacksonian Era in the United States. In terms of economic policy, the Jacksonians favored low taxes, decentralization, and hard-money while opposing central banks and regulation of private business.
William Leggett was born on April 30, 1801 in New York City and died at age thirty-eight, on May 29, 1839 in New Rochelle, New York. He was a Jacksonian era journalist and the intellectual leader of the laissez-faire wing of Jacksonian democracy. He wrote editorials in support of individual liberties and private property rights while working with William Cullen Bryant at the Evening Post.
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William Leggett (April 30, 1801 – May 29, 1839) was an American poet, fiction writer, and journalist. He was a laissez-faire populist Jacksonian Democrat, but he often attacked fellow Andrew Jackson supporters for failing to carry their egalitarian principles far enough. He also became an outspoken opponent of slavery.
His more influential editorials have been collected as Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy.
The great free-market classical liberal William Leggett believed that Americans do not need politicians telling us on which days Americans ought to be thankful.
