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The CEA Report for this year ends its Overview with: 
 
In 1776, as the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, 
the great economist Adam Smith wrote: "Little else is requisite to carry a 
state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but 
peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest 
being brought about by the natural course of things."  
 
Dugald Stewart says that Adam Smith presented the quote in a lecture that 
he gave sometime around 1750-55. Stewart had a copy (now lost)written in 
the hand of a secretary who left Smith's service before 1750. The quote 
does not appear in the 1776 Wealth of Nations. 
 
Two quick sources are:  
 
Editor's Introduction to the Cannan edition: Adam Smith, An Inquiry into 
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Modern Library: New York, 
1937, p. xliii. 
 
It is also noted in: Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith, Oxford 
University Press: New York, 1995, pp 107-8. 
 
 
Paul Heise 
 
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