Review of Bastiats Sophisms of Protection

the American Eevolution was waged mainly in the interests of a free trade; that one of the first acts of the thirteen colonies, April 6, 1776, was to establish free trade, which substantially continued until the present government was established in 1789 ; that no ill effects followed, and that the country was not flooded at that time with the cheap goods of foreigners, because the only way that can be brought about is for the natives to flood the foreigners with cheap native goods in exchange. In 1789 shrewd members of the first Congress, mostly from New England, at the instance and under the pressure of certain men who thought thereby to raise the price artificially of their own special home products, by means of lobbying and logrolling, caused to pass the first tariff bill, of which the preamble was : ' Whereas, it is necessary for the support of the Government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid,' and so on. The duties were low, but they introduced a false principle, ? that a man's neighbors may be taxed indefinitely to hire him to carry on an alleged unprofitable business; and this utterly false principle has brought on the protective system, which has grown so unjust, onerous, and abominable that no other free people would submit for a single year. It was well understood in 1789 that this system would be hostile to the interest of the farmers as such; the fallac...