Any endeavor to alter the path of private economic activity through active intervention would have been deemed inappropriate and, more important, unnecessary. In one of the more notable coincidences of history, our Declaration of Independence was signed the same year in which Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations.
Smith's prescription of letting markets prevail with minimal governmental interference became the guiding philosophy of American leadership for much of our history. With a masterful insight into the workings of the free-market institutions that were then emerging, Smith postulated an "invisible hand" in which competitive behavior drove an economy's resources toward their fullest and most efficient use.