1405. COMMERCE, Freedom of.—[further continued].
Instead of embarrassing
commerce under piles of regulating laws, duties
and prohibitions, could it be relieved
from all its shackles in all parts of the world,
could every country be employed in producing
that which nature has best fitted it to produce,
and each be free to exchange with others
mutual surpluses for mutual wants the
greatest mass possible would then be produced
of those things which contribute to human
life and human happiness; the numbers of
mankind would be increased, and their condition
bettered. Would even a single nation
begin with the United States this system of
free commerce, it would be advisable to begin
it with that nation; since it is one by one only
that it can be extended to all. Where the circumstances
of either party render it expedient
to levy a revenue, by way of impost, on
commerce, its freedom might be modified, in
that particular, by mutual and equivalent
measures, preserving it entire in all others.—
Report on Foreign Commerce and Navigation. Washington ed. vii, 646.
Ford ed., vi, 479.
(Dec. 1793)
