on exportation; bounties to raise up a losing trade, and taxes to pull down a remunerative one; this branch of industry forbidden, and that branch of industry encouraged; one article of commerce must not be grown, because it was grown in the colonies, another article might be grown and bought, but not sold again, while a third article might be bought and sold, but not leave the country. Then, too, we find laws to regulate wages; laws to regulate prices; laws to regulate profits; laws to regulate the interest of money; custom-house ea wed sa oad of regulate the interest of money; custom-house arrangements of the most vexatious kind, aided by a complicated scheme, which was called the sliding scale, — a scheme of such perverse ingenuity, that the duties constantly varied on the same article, and no man could calculate beforehand what he would have to pay. . . . The tolls were so onerous, as to double and often quadruple the cost of production.° Under the care of the state, planning for their welfare, conditions were such that only smuggling kept the French people from starving to death. The American Colonists knew about planned economy. They wanted When the members of the Continental Congress were finally able to get down to the business of establishing the new government, they had a clean slate. The problem was what to write on that slate. Probably no one knew that they would eventually produce what would be heralded as one of the greatest documents ever penned by mortal men — The United States Constitution. 63 The American Republic of industry custom-house none of it.