| THE STATE IN THE MARYLAND
ECONOMY, 1776-1807
BY MARY JANE DOWD
THE American Revolution, it has been said, signals the
end of mercantilism with its myriad local and imperial
regulations of trade and commerce. Supposedly it ushered in
a new era of economic freeedom -laissez faire, if you will,
when the merchant, the mechanic, and the farmer were to
be allowed by government to operate freely after their best
interests. The notion now was held, in line with the think-
ing of Adam Smith, Quesnay and the physiocrats, that an
economy must be unhindered by government in order freely
to operate under natural laws.
The confederation period, particularly with the advent of
the depression of 1785, seemed to indicate that just the oppo-
site was true. Government aid was advocated and sought for
many enterprises, and states actively meddled with the econo=
my by issuing paper money, raising imposts, granting loans,
and founding and regulating companies by issuing charters.
Thus historians have shown that there was much governmen-
tal interest in the economy in the years after the Peace of
Paris. What was the case in Maryland? Did the Free State
adopt a policy of laissez faire or did it seek to encourage busi-
ness, or perhaps did it continue the regulatory practices of its
past as a colony?
The following study will seek to answer these questions and
thereby to describe the state's relationships to business in the
confederation through the Jeffersonian periods.
1
PUBLIC OPINION AND MANUFACTURING
As the Revolutionary War drew to a successful close, Mary-
landers began to express themselves in the public prints I on
1 This section was compiled chiefly from articles in the following Maryland
newspapers: the Maryland Gazette -(Annapolis, 1777-1807) , the Maryland Ga-
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