THIS study is an attempt to discern the relationship of
the state government to the economic life of the people
of Missouri from statehood to the Civil War. Of primary im-
portance in the determination of state policy was the attitude of
the people toward government participation in economic activity.
Did Missourians feel that government was to be used as an
instrument for the common good, or did they regard the state
as a necessary evil, to be tolerated only as the protector of
property and a deterrent to crime?

Students of the subject of economic policy, basing their con-
clusions chiefly on their observations of the role of the national
government in the economic order, have generally depicted the
period between the American Revolution and the Civil War as
one dominated by the laissez-faire ideas of Adam Smith and the
Manchester school. Despite the pervasiveness of generalizations
about economic individualism, and the knowledge that federal
domination of economic affairs has been comparatively recent,
little attention has usually been paid by historians to the economic
policies of state governments during the ante-bellum period.

In an effort to meet the obvious need for information in this
important area, the Committee on Research in Economic History
recently sponsored a group of studies in four states considered
to be examples of typical economic development in the period
under consideration. Two of the series have been completed, by
Oscar and Mary Handlin in Commonwealth: Massachusetts 1774-
1861, and Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic
Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-1860. A study dealing with a south-
ern state -- Georgia -- is ready for the press, but that which was
to examine developments in a midwestern area -- Illinois -- has
failed of fruition. Possibly the present volume may serve as a
substitute for the latter.

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