Adam Smith's Unmerited Censure : Revisiting a 1764 Pamphlet on Slavery

We explore the 1764 pamphlet, In Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from A Censure of Mr Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. With some Reflections on Slavery in General. Authorship has been attributed to Arthur Lee. We doubt that attribution and here simply treat the identity of the author as unknown. We suggest that this pamphlet has often been misunderstood by modern scholars. On the surface the pamphlet purports to rebut Adam Smith for his having censured American colonists as base wretches and as the refuse of the jails of Europe. We argue that the true intent of the pamphlet was to promote Smith’s rebuke of the slave trade and slavery generally, and to join Smith in the cause against slavery