'HE FARLY TEACHING OF ECONOMICS IN THE UNITED STATES 303 
President Adams and was convicted under the Alien and Sedition 
laws, as a result of which he became a popular hero.” 
In 1813 he turned his attention anew to economic topics, (hav- 
ing first written on the subject in 1799 in his Political Essays) 
and became the editor of the Emporium of Arts and Sciences, the 
object of which was to stimulate the American manufactures dur- 
ing the war. He became a warm friend of Jefferson, who asked 
his advice in 1814 as to the proposed curriculum of the nascent 
University of Virginia. It was Cooper who recommended the 
inclusion of the study of political economy—a suggestion accepted 
by Jefferson.” When the time came to fill the professorships at 
the University, Jefferson procured his appointment in 1819 as 
professor of “chemistry, mineralogy and natural philosophy,” 
with a temporary incumbency also of the chair of law. Cooper 
had in the meantime been professor of chemistry at Dickinson 
College and, since 1816, professor of chemistry and mineralogy 
at Pennsylvania. 
On account of the attacks made upon his alleged unorthodox 
religious opinions, he was compelled to resign from the University 
of Virginia, but was at once elected to a professorship of chem- 
istry in the College of South Carolina at Columbia, S. C. In 
the following year he became president. In 1823 he wrote Two 
Tracts on the Proposed Alteration of the Tariff, which com- 
manded widespread attention as a powerful argument against 
the protective tariff. As a result of his interest in these topics, 
when the trustees desired him in 1823 to teach metaphysics, he 
remonstrated and suggested the substitution of political economy. 
Although the Board agreed, he was unable to assume these 
duties until 1825, when he was relieved of the subjects of 
rhetoric and belles lettres.? 
Cooper's Elements of Political Economy, of which a second 
edition was published in 1830, although the title page bears the 
date 1829 (compare the reference on page 349 to “The Report last 
year, 1829”), was reprinted in London in 1831. It is a portly 
volume of 366 pages which, in the words of the author, refrains 
from entering upon the metaphysics of political economy and 
Nei Win Des of Dr. Cooper,” The South Atlantic Quarterly, 
* Dumas Malone, The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783-1839. New 
Haven, 1926. 
* Malone, op. cit., p. 303.