Coxe, Tench, 1755-1824

Tench Coxe (May 22, 1755 – July 17, 1824) was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788–1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian," and was known to his political enemies as "Mr. Facing Bothways."

Born in Philadelphia, Tench received his education in the Philadelphia schools and intended to study law, but his father determined to make him a merchant, and he was placed in the counting-house of Coxe & Furman, becoming a partner at the age of twenty-one. After Patriots took power, Coxe left Philadelphia for a few months, only to return when British General Howe occupied the city in September 1777. Coxe remained in Philadelphia after the British departed in 1778, and some Patriots accused him of having Royalist sympathies and of having served (briefly) in the British army. Coxe's trading successes during the period of British occupation lent considerable support to the charges, and he was arrested; although nothing came of the allegations and he was pardoned. The Pennsylvania militia records of 1780, 1787, and 1788 listed Coxe as a militia private.

Coxe became a Whig, and began a long political career. In 1786 he was sent to the Annapolis Convention, and in 1788 to the Continental Congress. Coxe next became a Federalist. A proponent of industrialization during the early years of the United States, Coxe co-authored the famous Report on Manufactures (1791) with Alexander Hamilton, providing much of the statistical data. He had been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury on September 11, 1789 under Hamilton when Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, staying in that role until it was abolished on May 8, 1792. Coxe was then appointed revenue commissioner by President George Washington on June 30, 1792, and served until removed by President John Adams. He then turned Democratic-Republican, and in the canvass of 1800 published Adams' famous letter to him regarding Pinckney. For this, President Thomas Jefferson rewarded him by an appointment as purveyor of public supplies; he served from 1803 to 1812.

Coxe was a writer on political and economic subjects and a champion of tariffs to protect the new nation's growing industries. He wrote also on naval power, on encouragement of arts and manufactures, on the cost, trade, and manufacture of cotton, on the navigation act, and on arts and manufactures in the United States. He died in Philadelphia and is interred in Christ Church Burial Ground there.