“The merit of this work will, I hope, place it in the hands of every reader in our country. By diffusing sound principles of Political Economy, it will protect the public industry from the parasite institutions now consuming it, and lead us to that just and regular distribution of the public burthens from which we have sometimes strayed.”
Thomas Jefferson, cover letter to the publisher, Joseph Milligan, on returning the corrected translation of A Treatise on Political Economy, by Frenchman Destutt de Tracy, October 25, 1818.