John Elliot Cairnes, 1823-1875

Educated at Trinity College, Dublin.  Cairnes held the Whately Chair at Dublin from 1856 until 1861.  He subsequently taught at Queen's College Galway until 1866, when he was appointed professor of political economy at University College London.

A ardent disciple of John Stuart Mill, Cairnes is often regarded as "the last of the Classical economists".  It was upon his shoulders that fell the responsibility of defending the Classical Ricardian doctrine in its waning years of 1869-75 -- against Thornton, against Ruskin, against Cliffe-Leslie and, finally, against Jevons and the Marginalist Revolution.   

Cairnes's most famous book -- the Whately lectures of 1857 -- was an attempt to outline the future research program for Classical economics.   Decades later, in 1874, Cairnes offered the feeble, last gasp of Classical doctrine, with wages fund embarrassingly incorporated and Jevons new theory reluctantly reviewed.

Cairnes's shining hour was his widely-discussed 1862 treatise Slave Power.  Cairnes analyzed the consequences of slavery for economic development, in particular how it speeded up soil erosion, discouraged the introduction of technical innovations and stifled commerce and enterprise more generally.  Written during the American Civil War, Cairnes warned British policymakers to think twice about backing the economically-unviable Confederacy.

Major Works of John E. Cairnes

• Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, 
• An Examination into the Principles of Currency involved in the Bank Charter Act of 1844, 1854
• The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy, 1857.
• The Slave Power: Its Character, Career, and Probable Designs: Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issues Involved in the American Contest, 1862
• "Estrangement Between the United States and Great Britain ", 1862, London Anti-Slavery Advocate (repr. Living Age)
• "The Negro Suffrage", 1865
• Essays in Political Economy, Theoretical and applied, 1873.
• Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded , 1874.

Resources on John Elliot Cairnes

• Cairnes on Carlyle and Lincoln -- extract from the Belfast Northern Whig
• "Professor Cairnes on the Slave Power", 1862, The Spectator (rep. Living Age)
• "The Slave Power", 1862, Westminster Review (rep. Living Age)
• "The Slave Power and the Secession War", 1862, National Review (rep. Living Age)
• "Cairnes on the Slave Power", 1862, Atlantic Monthly
• "Cairnes's Slave Power", 1862, New Englander and Yale Review
• "Cairnes's The Slave Power", 1863, North American Review 
• "Cairnes's Slave Power", 1863, North American Review
• "Cairnes's Slave Power", 1863, Continental Monthly
• "J. E. Cairnes's Some Leading Principles of Political Economy", 1875, North American Review
• "Professor Cairnes", by Henry Fawcett, 1875, Fortnightly Review, (repr.Living Age)
• "Prof. Cairnes", 1875, Athenaeum (repr. Living Age)
• J.E. Cairnes entry at Bartleby 
• J.E. Cairnes page at McMaster
• J.E. Cairnes page at Bristol