| Great American Principles: Mom, Apple Pie and Trade | Our Independence Day is the perfect opportunity to reflect on America's founding principles. Principles such as freedom, equality, hard work, fair play...and trade.
Among the men and women who celebrated the Boston Tea Party, the right to trade was considered one of their fundamental liberties. Consider these comments from some of America's founders:
''Our interest will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent [sale] of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs.''
- Thomas Jefferson
''We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.''
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
''Any nation which leaves all her ports open to the world on equal terms will have commodities cheaper, sell its own production dearer, and be on the whole most prosperous.''
- Benjamin Franklin
''Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.''
- Henry David Thoreau
The pending trade promotion agreements with Peru, Colombia, and Panama are part of a proud American tradition. By ''opening the doors of commerce,'' they promise opportunity and growth.
From North America...to South America...this July, let freedom ring!
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|  | |  | | Did you know?
| | | The world's largest free trade area was created in 1789 with the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America.
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| | | | Overheard
| | | ''Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions...Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty...''
-Alexis de Toqueville
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