A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds. - Jean-Baptiste Say

The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication.