John Witherspoon played important roles in the Scottish Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the formation of the American republic. This essay provides a short sketch of Witherspoon’s life before introducing and reproducing the text of a remarkable but little-known letter he drafted to George Washington in 1778, during the Continental Army’s encampment at Valley Forge, on the evils of price controls.

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Erik W. Matson is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University, and a lecturer at the Busch School of Business, Catholic University of America.
Economic PolicyEconomy
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