To exchange equal value with equal value, is to exchange equal labor with equal labor, and it is therefore not true that the nation which sells its hundred francs worth of cloth or of watch-springs, gains more than the one which furnishes its hundred francs worth of wool or of iron.
In a country where no law can be passed, no contribution imposed without the consent of the governed, the public can be robbed, only after it has first been cheated.

Our own ignorance is the primary, the _raw material_ of every act of extortion to which we are subjected, and it may safely be predicted of every _Sophism_, that it is the forerunner of an act of Spoliation.

Good Public, whenever therefore you detect a Sophism in a petition, let me advise you, put your hand upon your pocket, for be assured, it is that which is particularly the point of attack.
Let us then examine what is the secret design which the ship-owners of Bordeaux and Havre, and the manufacturers of Lyons, would smuggle in upon us by this distinction between agricultural produce and manufactured produce.
"It is," say the petitioners of Bordeaux, "principally in this first class (that which comprehends raw material, _untouched by human labor_) that we find _the principal encouragement of our merchant vessels_....

A wise system of political economy would require that this class should not be taxed....

The second class (articles which have received some preparation) may be considered as taxable.