the west on the day of their meeting-or, on that of a Popish Council, any of the pretended miracles of the dark ages. The thing is utterly impossible. And what is the evidence upon which we are required to give credit to this miraculous statement? Not a tittle, sir, but the loose and random assertions of those who are interested in deceiving the public, and who are much more skilful in manufacturing statistical statements to suit their purposes, than they are in manufacturing cotton fabrics. We have, indeed, been told, with an air of great triumph, that the British manufacturers actually imitate our manufactures, and send theirs to South America with our stamp upon them. But it must be apparent that this proves nothing-even if it be true--as to the relative cheapness of our manufactures and theirs. It only proves that ours are of a better quality. And I think it quite probable that the very manufactures to which the British attach the American stamp, are sold for half the price of the American fabric of which they are an imitation. The only fact that is really and undoubtedly true, upon which the manufacturers can found a semblance of argument on this point, is, that coarse cotton fabrics are now made in this country cheaper than they were imported before the tariff of 1816. Though this is unquestionably the case, yet it proves positively nothing as to the point in controversy. The proposition to be proved is, that domestic cotton manufactures can be made and sold cheaper than foreign fabrics of the same kind could now be imported under a system of free trade. [H. OF R. they sell in the United States. Indeed, the indisputable fact, that cotton fabrics are now imported from Great Britain, which actually pay at the custom-house an average of sixty-two and a half per cent., and are then sold at the ordinary mercantile profit, furnishes positive evidence, that the inferences drawn by me, from the analysis of the price of those fabrics, were substantially correct. There is, indeed, a striking coincidence between the results of that analysis and the facts obtained from the custom-house. The former indicates 66 2-3 per cent. as the difference between the price of British and American cotton manufactures; the latter shows a difference of from 45 to 80; making an average of 623 per cent. The single fact, that an article of easy manufacture, plate calico, is now actu ally imported under a duty of 80 per cent., is sufficient to put to flight all the loose reasonings and reckless assertions of the advocates of prohibition, on the subject of our capacity to manufacture cotton goods as cheaply as the British. I think, Mr. Speaker, it is by this time apparent, that prohibitory duties, even on those branches of manufacture, for which we have the greatest facilities, and in which we have acquired the most skill, amount to an enormous and permanent tax upon the great mass of the community, for the benefit of a very small number of wealthy capitalists. This is not as the member from Rhode Island thought proper to assert, a new doctrine. It is as old as the science of political economy; and I may almost say, it is coeval with common sense. Indeed, I regard it as one of the most daring attempts at imposture to be found in the history of any age, not excepting the darkest periods of superstitious idolatry, to allege that manufactures can be made in this country as cheap as they can be imported from Great Britain, at the very moment that it is asserted, by the same persons, that a duty of 37 per cent. is utterly insufficient to protect the domestic manufacturer from absolute ruin! It was this attempt which I denounced at the last session, in the presence and in reply to the member from Rhode Island, as an insult to the understanding of those who were designed to be the dupes and the victims of it. To attempt the establishment of this proposition by showing that the domestic manufacture can now be made cheaper than the foreign could be imported twelve years ago, involves the fallacy of comparing the present price of domestic manufactures with the price of the foreign when the latter was three times as high as it is at present. Every man at all conversant with the history of cotton manufactures in England, must know the astonishing progress of the improvements made in machinery, and the corresponding diminution of the price of the fabrics made by its agency. In about fifteen or twenty years after the introduction of Arkwright's invention, cotton yarn was reduced to one ninth, I think, of its former cost; and the tables of British statistics warrant the inference, that in every period of ten years, the average cost of cotton manufactures has been reduced nearly one half. At no period in the history of that manufacture in Great Britain, has the progress of its improvement been so rapid as since the year 1816. At that time, it is known that coarse cot-dication of the doctrines I am attempting to refute. I ton fabrics were imported from the East Indies into Great Britain, as well as into the United States. But the extraordinary improvements in British machinery have not only driven the East India fabrics from the British market, but the current of trade has been completely reversed. The raw cotton of India is imported into Great Britain, manufactured there, and re-exported to India. Having disposed of one branch of this dry argument, I heg leave, by way of episode, to call the respectful attention of the House to the address of the Harrisburg Convention, that celebrated document which has been trumpeted forth to the nation as the great depository of practical wisdom, and as containing an unanswerable vin beseech the House to favor me with as much gravity as they can command, while I read, for their edification, the first sentence of that wonderful production, which I also beg them to remember is the work of practical men, taking a mere business view of the subject. Here it is:"The ever-restless thirst for knowledge in man, leads him to the measurement of the volumes of the waters dis Every candid reasoner must at once perceive the ab-charged by the rivers, to the weighing, as it were, in a surity of comparing things which have so little practical balance, the Alps and the Andes, to the establishment of connexion as the price of our manufactures, at this time, the courses of the planets, and a determination of the ecand the price of British manufactures when they were centric ranges of comets through the immensity of space three times their present price. It proves nothing at all, itself, [Bear it in mind, Mr. Speaker, that this is about as to the relative cheapness of British and American ma- woollen manufactures!] and reduce it to human ideas of nufactures at this time; and the advocates of the prohibi- the extent of matter-[I suppose you know what that tory system have very artfully kept out of view all posi-means!] yet the study of himself, the ascertainment of tive evidence as to that point. It is very clear, therefore, those qualities given to render himself and his fellow man that there has not been adduced, even from the prolific happy, are fatally neglected, [I am not half through the stores of fabricated facts, from which the manufacturers sentence yet!] and the capacities of the human race to draw so habitually the grounds of their reasoning, a sin- walk erect, the image of God, are chiefly given up to the gle particle of testimony to show what are actually the warm visions of speculators, or cold calculations of ty. present prices of cotton goods in Great Britain. It has rants and masters; to the former, to indulge some pretty been stated, on the other side, upon the authority of re- theory or beautiful notion, fitted to other conditions and spectable importing merchants, and never contradicted, circumstances of society-and to the last, that it may be that the coarse cotton fabrics are now selling in Great counted how many must be slaughtered to win a battle Britain, at not much more than half the price at which in the field, or how great burdens he [who?] can bear, H. or R.] Turiff Bill. [APRIL 18, 1828. mere instrument in the hands of designing men, understands no more of the political and economical bearing of the "American system," than the intoxicated priestess at Delphos understood the effect of the oracular respon. ses she uttered from the tripod, and which an artful priesthood, countenanced by political rulers, converted into the means of governing the world. [Deliver us from this tariff!] and still exist to labor, and groan out a weary life of servitude and shame." Now, ir, when I inform the House that this is a fair specimen of the entire composition, I presume no man of discriminating taste and sound judgment will hesitate to admit, that the grave solemnity and dignified simplicity of the style,is in perfect keeping with the "great argument" of which it is the vehicle. But, sir, that you may have a Having said thus much of the address of the Harrisburg specimen of the didactic portion of this sententious and Convention, I will now take a brief notice of a speech to statesman-like document, I will gratify you with a sen- which that convention has called the public attention. I tence from the main body of the work, in which we are allude to a speech of an honorable gentleman from Massaindirectly advised to establish a home department:-"In chusetts, [Mr. EVERETT] made at a wool gathering in the want of a Home Department, in which, as in our own Boston during the last summer. In that speech the gen. "plummet found" Mississippi, rolling the congregated tleman from Massachusetts declares, that in supporting waters of millions of supplies, [millions of water!] to a the woollens bill of the last session, he did not abandon common reservoir, might be found collected the multitu- the principles of free trade, of which he had previously dinous!! facts necessary to a correct understanding of the been the open and able advocate. After going through internal affairs of our country, and a wise legislation con- a curious process of reasoning, to show that, in changing cerning them in the general deficiency of knowledge in his practice and his policy, he had not changed his prinpolitical economical subjects, and of the desire to obtain it ciples, he triumphantly exclaims: "Here, then, is a from the absence of professorships in our superior schools, strong case, fairly made out, and no more connected with to lead the mind of youth to contemplate and add up the the principles of political economy than with algebra or sum of production and consumption, and investigate the metaphysics." I grant, sir, that the change of the gen wants of this nation and its means of supply-[I do not tleman's course on this subject had no more to do with understand the meaning of all this jumble of words: but political economy, than his conversion to the doctrines of mark the inference!; it is to be regretted the Convention the Koran would have had to do with Christianity. But had not remained in session a considerable time, [Heaven can it be seriously maintained, that, in voting for the proforbid!] that the dispersed and important facts in the pos-hibition of foreign woollens to a large amount, he was session of as respectable a body of practical men! as ever still advocating the doctrines of free trade? The gentlewas assembled, might have been fully gathered, and pre-man says he was only vindicating the policy of the act of served for public instruction, but the sparse items mutu. ally communicated, and in part retained, may act like "a little leaven," and "leaven the whole lump," if liberally received and rightfully used"!!! Now, sr, having ex- | tricated myself from the Cretan labyrinth of this sentence, and recovered my breath a little, I must be permitted to say, thas we have here a combination of high sounding words, mixed metaphors, swelling bombast, and profound bathos, which it would puzzle all the rhetoricians in Christendom to bring within the compass of any defini. tion. Neither Aristotle, nor Blair, nor Campbell, could reduce it to any of the categories of rhetoric; and, as to Longinus, it never entered into his imagination to conceive of such sublimity. In all my reading, Sir, I recollect but a single specimen of style having any resemblance to it; and that is in an oration I heard recited from the Columbian Orator, when I was a boy at school. (1 had too much taste, even then, thank Heaven! to speak it myself.) It was in the following words, and will apply to the subject of woollen manufactures, as well as the sentences I have just quoted: "Guided by reason man has travelled through the abstruse regions of the philosophic world. He can trace the comet's flight through the regions of immeasurable space: he can almost make the marble speak. "* Now, with all becoming deference, I would suggest, that the Harrisburg Convention stand much more in need of a Professor of Rhetoric, than they do of a Professor of Political Economy. Their address would certainly furnish abundant matter for a new theory of the art of rhetorical mystification. But, sir, to be serious. I should not have criticized this document with so much severity, if it were not that I feel indignant, as an American, at the very thought of its miserable jargon going down to posterity as the foundation of this prohibitory system, and as the apology of fered by an enlightened people for submitting to the most odious and oppressive tyranny ever devised by "artful men, for private advantage, under pretence of public good."† The writer of this address, who is a From an oration of Mr. Burges. + Dr. Frankiin, who is modestly claimed by the Harrisburg Convention as an advocate of their system, says, in an essay in 1824 against the interfering legislation of Great Britain. Now what was the nature of that interfering legislation of which the gentleman complains? Was it an act throwing restrictions upon our commerce? Far from it, sir. It was an act offering the most unequivocal homage to the principles of free trade, by permitting the importation into England of foreign wool, American not except. ed-almost free of dity. And yet this liberal act of the British parliament, is made the pretext upon which an advocate of free trade is to support prohibitory duties, without changing his principles! Sir, the gentleman from Massachusetts has at least the example of the British ministry for changing sides They change from restric tion to free trade; he changes from free trade to restric tion, and rests upon their change as a justification of his own. Verily, sir, if this kind of reasoning will pass cur rent, there never will be any lack of pretext for prohibit ory duties. The British ministry prohibit foreign grain, and we are invoked to countervail the prohibition by excluding British manufactures! The British ministry repeal the duty on foreign wool, and tender to our wool growers an open market; and that also is to be countervailed, as if it were a violation of free trade! Sir, there is no end to the absurdities and inconsistencies in which the advocates of this measure involve themselves. The whole argument of the gentleman from Massachusetts resolves itself into this: that he would not have been in favor of granting the woollen manufacturers a bounty of 75 per cent. in 1827, if we had not granted them a bounty of 37 per cent. in 1824. The act of the British par liament, passed cotemporaneously with that of Com gress, would not have given our manufacturers any claim upon the government, if our act of 1824 had not been passed! Truly, sir, this has "no connexion with the principles of political economy." The just mode of coun tervailing this act of the British parliament would have been to act in the same liberal spirit, and repeal the high favor of “ open tra le :” “Most of the statutes or acts, ediets, arrets and placa: ds of parliament, princes and states, for regulating, directing and restraining trade, have, we think, been either political blunders, or jobs obtained by artful men, for private advantage under pretence of public good," APRIL 18, 1828.] : duties we impose, most injudiciously and against all sounded into its service certain pretended magical powers, by principles, upon raw wool imported from abroad. But which its worshippers are taught to anticipate golden this natural and legitimate protection the gentleman refu- visions of prosperity and wealth for themselves and the ses to give the manufacturers, because "the farmer has country. the same right to his protection, that the manufacturer The effects of labor-saving machinery are pompously has to his." And thus it is that the manufacturers commit displayed, and it is gravely contended in various essays, an act of suicide in order to buy up the support of the wool- and particularly in a Philadelphia pamphlet, published growers, under the delusive idea of protecting them also. in answer to the Boston report, that inasmuch as one la. Sir, there is no part of this whole scheme of delusion | borer, with the aid of machinery, can produce one hunwhich so strikingly illustrates its true genius, and so clear-dred times as much as a laborer without machinery; it ly demonstrates its injustice, as this combination of double follows that the introduction of machinery will increase duties first taxing the raw material, and then taxing the the wealth of the country one hundred fold. And it is manufacture, in a two-fold degree, upon the ground that specifically estimated, in the same pamphlet, that "we you have taxed the raw material. Upon what "human should then save, on our home consumption of the single principle" do you lay a duty upon raw wool? Are not all article of cotton goods alone, sixty millions of dollars." the other classes of the community called upon to sustain That is to say, if we will exclude eight millions of cotton an immense weight of indirect taxation, in order to build manufactures now annually imported, we shall "save ev up our woollen manufactories, for the professed purpose ery year to the country, sixty million of dollars." Su. of providing a domestic market for raw wool? And are premely absurd and ridiculous as these estimates and cal. we to be told, that the wool growers, who are to derive culations are, they are thrown entirely into the shade by the whole incidental benefit of this system, will not con- a certain German Professor of Political Economy and sent to the duty on woollen manufactures laid for their Necromancy, in Pennsylvania, who has been recently inbenefit, unless you bribe them to it by a direct bounty troduced to the American public, by a member of the upon raw wool? Was there ever exhibited, in human Harrisburg Convention. And I must do him the justice legislation, a grosser inconsistency? The duty upon to say, that no one could have been selected of more emwoollen manufactures is, in its entire operation, either a inent qualifiations to lecture from the text of the Harrisbenefit or a burden to the wool growers. If it be a burg address. I quote from a lecture of Professor List, benefit, with what face can the wool growers ask, as a delivered in the Representative Hall of Pennsylvania: part of the same system, an additional bounty, at the ex- "If this country would succeed, in raising, in the course of pense of the community, in the shape of a duty upon raw time, its manufacturing industry like France, then the wool? If the duty upon woollen goods, in its entire ope- property (land) of Pennsylvania would increase from se ration, is not, as I confidently believe it is not a benefit, ven to sixty six dollars per acre, or from 210 to 2046 but a burden to the wool grower, what an infamous sys- millions, which would be an increase of 1836 millions. tem of delusion have the manufacturers practised upon This sum would bring an interest, at 6 per cent., of 110 the farmers? Take which alternative you will, it brings millions, and the interest of the interest would make 61⁄2 you to the same result as to the duty on wool, It cannot millions; which is certainly more than we consume, at be justified on any principle. this moment, of foreign merchandise. To buy cheap manufactures, is, consequently, not the primary interest of the farmers, but to increase the value of their produce, and above all, the value of their lands. It is not, therefore, well done, if they buy cheap goods, as the mer. chants say; on the contrary, the cheaper the worse, if they cannot exchange the produce of their land. I ven ture to say, the worst of all things would be, if they could get their goods for nothing! because the English would, in that case, indemnify the Americans only for the inte rest of the interest of that sum which they would gain, if they would make them themselves!" This, sir, is the grand sum total of the whole lecture; and I venture to say, that amongst all the records of human extravagance and absurdity, the same quantity of assuming confidence and downright jargon, ave not to be found in so small a compass. Sir, what commentary shall I make upon propositions which I could not even recite in this grave assembly, without producing a laugh from every member When, sir, the wool grower, with a staple of cheaper who has any sense of the ridiculous, or a single muscle transportation than cotton, four to one, in comparison of risibility? An addition of 1836 millions made to the with its value, is not satisfied with having the foreign wealth of the nation, by excluding six and a half millions markets open to him; when he is not even sati-fied with of foreign merchandise, and paying a higher price for the domestic market, unless the cotton grower will con- the domestic substitute! This beats the celebrated scheme sent to pay a heavy and oppressive tax to secure him a of British finance, by which the national debt was to be monopoly of that market, I confess I am induced to doubt paid off without any taxes at all, by the mere mathemati whether there is any such thing as Justice or moral sense cal power of compound interest. We are certainly relaps. in this system of legislation. Individuals are always opening into the age of alchemy; and I challenge any man to to impressions of generosity. But classes of the com- find a parallel in the pretended discoveries of Paracelsus, munity, and sections of country, when united and stimu. Roger Bacon, or any of their followers, to the grand dis lated by the hope of gain, being destitute, like corpora- covery in political alchemy, made by this notable German tions, of individual responsibility, are, like them, destitute Professor! He is no doubt a legitimate descendant of the of hearts and souls to feel for the wrongs and sufferings Rosicrucians, who once figured in Germany; and I cannot they inflict upon others. but congratulate the Harrisburg Convention, in having supplied the desideratum which they so much lamented, by a Professor of Political Economy, who bids so fair to be the discoverer of the philosopher's stone, Let me now call the attention of the House to the relative condition of raw cotton and raw wool, as it regards the effect of our legislation upon them. I have attempted to show, on another occasion, that prohibitory duties upon the foreign merchandise we receive in exchange for our cotton, are equivalent to duties of the same extent upon the exportation of cotton. In the actual state of our trade, there can be no uoubt of the truth of the proposition. At the very moment, then, that raw cotton, and indeed all the Southern staples, are compelled to go abroad upon the ocean, under a burden of 37 per cent. laid by this government; and to contend, un der the weight of this burden, against the competition of the whole world in foreign markets: it is coldly propos. ed that this burden, which is rapidly converting the fair. est portion of this continent into a dreary solitude, shall be raised to at least 56 per cent. in order to provide a home market for the growers of raw wool. And, sir, like all the other impostures by which the cunning and artful few have made the credulous many subservient to their selfish purposes, this system has call But to return, sir, to a graver view of the subject. Is it not a plain dictate of common sense, that, however extravagant may be the estimated power of machinery, the cost of that machinery is so great, that the manufacturer can only make his ordinary profits, and the laborer obtain his ordinary wages, even when you give them millions as a bounty? And can it be seriously maintained, that an employment that is ruinous to those engaged in it, will enrich the nation? If any one thing can be more absurd than another in this system of imposture, it is the allegation that the establishment of manufactures will increase the national wealth almost countless millions, at the very time that we are called upon to pay an annual tax of some $22,000,000, to save the manufacturing establishments from ruin! [APRIL 18, 1828. I will now invite the attention of the House to an argument much relied upon by the advocates of the prohibitory system, and in relation to which, I believe, a very general misapprehension prevails. Appealing to the example of other nations, it is said, with great confidence, that no nation has ever enjoyed wealth and prosperity, that has not given this sort of protection to domestic manufactures. Now, sir, I undertake to show that the only commercial nations of modern Europe, that have pursued the system of free trade, have enjoyed an unrivall-nominal duty of three cents a pound was laid upon fored share of prosperity under, and in consequence of, that system. This was pre-eminently the case with Holland, in the days of her naval glory; and with those Italian Republics that flourished by means of a system of free trade, amidst the darkness that enveloped all the other nations of Europe. These examples are familiar to every reader of history. On the contrary, there is no instance in the history of the ancient or modern world, of a commercial nation sinking into poverty under a system of free trade. The example of Poland, and other small powers on the continent of Europe, have been repeatedly cited to prove the ruinous effects of free trade. The absurdity of this historical reference, will appear from the notorious fact, that these are not commercial nations. No inference at all, therefore, can be drawn from them, as to the relative advantages of free trade and commercial restrictions. Nothing, indeed, can be more ridiculous than to say that Poland is impoverished by free trade, when she has (with a mere nominal exception,) no foreign trade at all. She is impoverished by the want of intelligence, industry, and enterprise, sustained and animated by civil freedom. reasonable to say that no branch of human industry can The Harrisburg Convention, with a singular contempt for the dull realities of historical truth, assert, in their address, "that the moral and political degradation which has so long existed in Spain and Portugal, was caused by thefreedom of trade,' which ruined manufacturers." Now there is not a nation in Europe which has been so proverbially the victim of absurd commercial restrictions as Spain. While history ascribes her " political degrada tion," and her poverty, to those restrictions, and to the narrow spirit in which they originated, the Harrisburg Convention ascribe them to" freedom of trade." I am sorry to believe they did not know any better; but I should be still more sorry to believe they did. Be that as it may, their historical facts are not more accurate than their statistical statements. Spain is a signal example of the ruinous effects of commercial restrictions. It is not true, then, that free trade tends to impoverish, and restrictions to enrich nations. On the contrary, commerce is an essential element of national prosperity, whether manufactures or agriculture be the basis of that commerce. No nation ever flourished without commerce, though our own country has flourished beyond all example, without either manufactures or restrictions. In fact, commerce is equally the source of the prosperity of the United States and of Great Britain. The only difference is, that agriculture has been the basis of our commerce, and manufactures the basis of British commerce. Each has followed the indications of nature. Neither has been benefitted by restrictions. It is absolutely astonishing to hear American statesmen maintaining that no nation ever flourished that did not protect manufactures by bounties or commercial restrictions, when our own country furnishBut Great Britain, we are told, is a proud and splendides the most triumphant refutation of the assertion. There example of the benefits of commercial restrictions. Confidently and repeatedly as this assertion has been made, the fact is precisely the reverse. The prosperity of Great Britain has undoubtedly proceeded from her manufactures, in a great degree, but not at all from this sort of protection. By habitually confounding manufactures and protection, the advocates of the prohibitory system have produced a very general impression that manufactures never can succeed, in any nation, without protection. There cannot be a greater absurdity. It would be as is nothing in the history of the world to compare with the prosperity which this country enjoyed, when she had neither large manufacturing establishments nor commercial restrictions. And even now, notwithstanding those unwise and unjust restrictions, which are too fatally calculated to blast those beautiful and fertile fields which a kind Providence has provided for our benefit, it may be confidently asserted, that no nation in the world-taking the average of all classes-enjoys one-third part of those comforts which wealth supplies, that are possessed by the United States. And yet, with an ingratitude hardly consistent with christian piety, we are repining at our lot, and actually marring the beneficent arrangements of God's providence, by impotently attempting to substitute the providence of man. [H. of R. With what laws would utterly prostrate our manufactories, and give Sir, I assert, on the authority of all history, that no e lightened and commercial nation ever prospered by at tempting to control the course of industry by legislative bounties or restrictions. It is true, that in the dark ages of barbarism, when despotic rulers, like Edward the 3d, of England, and Peter the 1st, of Russia, happened to rule over an unenlightened and uncivilized people, such rulers might very beneficially interfere with savage pursuits, and gradually introduce a taste for the enjoyments of civilized life, as well as the means of providing those enjoyments. That ruler is certainly a national benefactor, who teaches his people to substitute agriculture for the chase, commerce and manufactures for war and plun der, bread for roots, and cloth for skins. But surely the same reasoning does not apply to a people of refinement, intelligence, and enterprise, who know, as well as their rulers, the value of the products of human ingenuity, and much better by what kind of pursuits they can best attain them. Yet the Harrisburg Convention are seriously alarmed, lest, if we do not pass a prohibitory tariff, the people of the United States will actually retrograde into the savage state, and give up their houses for "dens and ca-tain for theirs in our own markets. I think it must be apverns !!" It is thus apparent, that there is nothing in the xample of other nations calculated to recommend the system of commercial restrictions to our adoption. I will now proceed to show that there is nothing in their restrictions or bounties to justify the proposed measure, as a means of countervailing those restrictions and bounties. The truth is, that a very great misapprehension exists as to the effect of the British corn laws upon our trade in corn. By consulting the prices current of different nations, it will be found that grain bears a higher price in New York and Philadelphia, than in any port on the continent of Europe, except a few in France, and perhaps one or two others, and nearly double the price it bears in the grain countries of the continent. The repeal of the British corn laws, therefore, though it would prostate our manufactures, as I have already stated, would give no relief to our farmers; for while it would lower the wages of manufacturing labor in Great Britain, and consequently the price of British manufactures, it would furnish no market for our grain. That would be exclud. ed by the grain of Europe, which could be delivered in Great Britain for a much lower price than our farmers ob parent, then, that, though the British corn laws impose an odious and enormous tax upon the great mass of the British population, to sustain and enrich an aristocracy of land-holders, there is nothing in their example worthy of our imitation, and certainly nothing in their operation that gives our manufacturers either grounds for complaint, or claim for protection. It has been conceded by all the intelligent advocates of With a view to the further elucidation of this branch the protecting system, from Alexander Hamilton to the of the subject, I will here notice an argument frequentpresent Secretary of State, that free trade would be mostly urged with great earnestness. It is said that Great conducive to national prosperity, if all nations would pursue the policy of tolerating it. In other words, we are called upon to protect our manufactures against foreign regulations, which are supposed to be of a tendency to give foreign manufacturers an undue advantage over ours, in competing for our own market. Now, sir, I undertake to establish the proposition-and I will concede the poli. cy of this measure, if I do not-that there is not now a single bounty on the statute book of Great Britain for encouraging either the making or the exportation of any one of the manufactures embraced in this bill, nor a single commercial restriction that does not tend to give our ma-ing the sectional bearings of this subject, I shall pronufacturers an advantage over the British, in our own and in foreign markets. Britain will not take any of our productions, and we cannot, therefore, afford to take her manufactures having nothing wherewith to pay for them. This, it is alleged, is strictly, and almost literally, true of the States north of the Potomac ; and "yet (says the Pennsylvania Society for the encouragement of Manufactures,) these very States, comprising the largest portion of our population, are to be refused the means of relieving themselves from this thraldom, because, if they do not continue to consume British manufactures, England will not purchase the cotton of a few other States." In discuss ceed with that moderation and temperance which, as we are admonished by experience, the subject peculiary demands; and if I am not utterly mistaken, I shall be able to demonstrate that no principle of justice, or sound policy, will warrant the sacrifice of one great national interest to build up another; and that, in point of fact, the destruction of the southern interests, which are inseparably connected with a system of free trade, is not necessary to vindicate the rights, or to maintain the interests, of any other portion of the Union. It is not only true that there is no bounty on the making or the exportation of British manufactures of cotton, wool, iron and hemp, but it is a fact that there is a heavy tax upon them. The whole weight of British taxation operates as a bounty upon our manufactures, in their competition with those of Great Britain. This is specifically the case in regard to that regulation of the British restrictive policy which has been the subject of most complaint in this country, and which is the pretext for What, sir, is the complaint? That the middle and our system of prohibition. I allude, sir, to the British eastern States are inundated with British goods, and have corn laws. Now it is known that if those laws were re-nothing to pay for them. Can this be possibly true? Can pealed to-morrow, the manufacturers and laborers of it be seriously believed, that the people of those States Great Britain could obtain corn from the continent of Eu-annually consume British goods to the amount of ten or rope for less than one half the price they now pay for it. When I state that every increase of the price of bread in Great Britain, invariably and necessarily produces a cor. responding increase in the wages of manufacturing labor, it will be at once perceived that the British corn laws impose an unjust and oppressive tax upon the British manufacturer, and operate as a bounty, to the same extent, in favor of the American manufacturer. So incontrovertibly true is this, sir, that the repeal of the British corn fifteen millions which they have no means of purchasing? It would be a slander upon the honesty of the people of those States, to suppose that they contract any debts which they have not the means of paying. If it were true, sir, that they had not the means of paying for British goods, it would be absurd to invoke the aid of legislation to exclude those goods. Foreign manufactures could not be more effectually excluded, or domestic manufactures more effectually protected, than by the entire exclusion |