Part I. Sophisms of Protection—First Series.
Part II. Sophisms of Protection—Second Series.
Part III. Spoliation and Law.
Part IV. Capital and Interest.
Translated from the Paris Edition of 1863.
NEW-YORK:
AMERICAN FREE TRADE LEAGUE.
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1869, by
THE WESTERN NEWS COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Northern District of Illinois.
A previous edition of this work has been published under the title of"Essays on Political Economy, by the late M. Frederic Bastiat." When itbecame necessary to issue a second edition, the Free-Trade Leagueoffered to buy the stereotype plates and the copyright, with a view tothe publication of the book on a large scale and at a very low price.The primary object of the League is to educate public opinion; toconvince the people of the United States of the folly and wrongfulnessof the Protective system. The methods adopted by the League for thepurpose have been the holding of public meetings and the publication ofbooks, pamphlets, and tracts, some of which are for sale at the cost ofpublication, and others given away gratuitously.
In publishing this book the League feels that it is offering the mosteffective and most popular work on political economy that has as yetbeen written. M. Bastiat not only enlivens a dull subject with his wit,but also reduces the propositions of the Protectionists to absurdities.
Free-Traders can do no better service in the cause of truth, justice,and humanity, than by circulating this little book among their friends.It is offered you at what it costs to print it. Will not everyFree-Trader put a copy of the book into the hands of his Protectionistfriends?
It would not be proper to close this short preface without an expressionon the part of the League of its obligation to the able translator ofthe work from the French, Mr. Horace White, of Chicago.
Office of The American Free-Trade League,
9 Nassau Street, New-York, June, 1870.
This compilation, from the works of the late M. Bastiat, is given to thepublic in the belief that the time has now come when the people,relieved from the absorbing anxieties of the war, and the subsequentstrife on reconstruction, are prepared to give a more earnest andthoughtful attention to economical questions than was possible duringthe previous ten years. That we have retrograded in economical scienceduring this period, while making great strides in moral and politicaladvancement by the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of thefreedmen, seems to me incontestable. Professor Perry has described veryconcisely the steps taken by the manufacturers in 1861, after theSouthern members had left their seats in Congress, to reverse the policyof the government in reference to foreign trade.[1] He has noticed buthas not laid so much stress as he might on the fact that while therewas no considerable public opinion to favor them, there was none at a