David Ames Wells (1828-1898), a prominent American financial economist, political activist and apostle of laissez faire, was a staunch advocate of free trade and the abolition of the tariff. "Wells wrote a large number of books, pamphlets, and articles …

His chief interests were the tariff, the theory of money and the currency question, and taxation. His discussion of all of these took character from his inspection of American economic life, which was marked in his period by progressive lo...