BASTIAT, FRÉDÉRIC (1801-1850), French economist, was the son of a merchant of Bayonne, and was born in that town on the 29th of June 1801. Educated at the colleges of Saint-Sever and of Sorèze, he entered in 1818 the counting-house of his uncle at Bayonne. The practical routine of mercantile life being distasteful to him, in 1825 he retired to a property at Mugron, of which he became the owner on the death of his grandfather. Here Bastiat occupied himself with farming, his leisure being devoted to study and meditation. He welcomed with enthusiasm the Revolution of 1830. In 1831 he became a _juge de paix_ of his canton, and in 1832 a member of the _conseil général_ of the Landes. In 1834 he published his first pamphlet, and between 1841 and 1844 three others, all on questions of taxation affecting local interests. During this period an accidental circumstance led him to become a subscriber to an English newspaper, the _Globe and Traveller_, through which he was made acquainted with the nature and progress of the crusade of the Anti-Corn-Law League against protection. After studying the movement for two years, he resolved to inaugurate a similar movement in France. To prepare the way, he contributed in 1844 to the _Journal des Économistes_ an article "Sur l'influence des tarifs anglais et français," which attracted great attention, and was followed by others, including the first series of his brilliant _Sophismes Économiques_.
In 1845 Bastiat came to Paris in order to superintend the publication of his _Cobden et la Ligue, ou l'agitation anglaise pour la liberté des échanges_, and was very cordially received by the economists of the capital. From Paris he went to London and Manchester, and made the personal acquaintance of Cobden, Bright and other leaders of the league. When he returned to France he found that his writings had been exerting a powerful influence; and in 1846 he assisted in organizing at Bordeaux the first French Free-Trade Association (Association pour la Liberté des Échanges). The rapid spread of the movement soon required him to abandon Mugron for Paris.
During the eighteen months which followed this change his labours were prodigious. He acted as secretary of the central committee of the association, organized and corresponded with branch societies, waited on ministers, procured subscriptions, edited a weekly paper, the _Libre-Échange_, contributed to the _Journal des Économistes_ and to three other periodicals, addressed meetings in Paris and the provinces, and delivered a course of lectures on the principles of political economy to students of the schools of law and of medicine. The cause to which he thus devoted himself at the expense of his health and life appeared for a time as if it would be successful; but the forces in its favour were much weaker and those opposed to it were much stronger in France than in England, and this became more apparent as the struggle proceeded, until it was brought to an abrupt end by the Revolution of February 1848. This event made the socialistic and communistic principles, which had been gathering and spreading during the previous thirty years, temporarily supreme. (See NATIONAL WORKSHOPS.) In this grave crisis Bastiat nobly performed his duty. Although exhausted by the far too heavy labours in which he had been engaged, although robbed of his voice by the malady which was preying upon him, so that he could do but little to defend the truth from the tribune of the Constituent Assembly, he could still suggest wise counsels in the committee of finance of which he was vice-president, and he could still use his pen with a vigour and dexterity which made him capable of combating single-handed many opponents.