Restriction is a system that is both wrong and oppressive. Therefore, it needs to be reversed.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 108 to 113 (in French)
Mémorial bordelais, June 14th, 1846

In this article, Frédéric Bastiat displays his optimism towards the advent of free-trade in order to reassure those who think that the situation is not evolving quickly enough. He finds two major arguments for this. First is the support of a number of statesmen who expressed their interest in the positions of the association and second is the position of a number of newspapers (closely linked to a public opinion without which nothing can change) towards free trade.

Unfortunately, he was wrong about statesmen. The future will show that their support was fragile, as explained in the editor’s footnote on page 110 or by the letter adressed to Alphonse de Lamartine by Frédéric Bastiat in October 1846. As for the newspapers and the public opinion, if there are some that are true supporters of free-trade, he was extrapolating their position too much when looking at their objectives and their positions towards slavery or towards monopoly. Intellectual consistency commands that Frédéric Bastiat was right to think they would naturally join his cause but this is granting too much credit to intellectual consistency and honesty, which are, nowadays still, too scarce.

However, if his optimism was not appropriate, his reasoning remains accurate and today’s quote remains valid.