BOOK III. GREAT SPEECHES ON GREAT ISSUES. (continued 6)

When gentlemen have succeeded in their design of an immediate or gradual destruction of the American System, what is their substitute? Free trade! Free trade! The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child, in its nurse’s arms, for the moon, or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It never has existed, it never will exist. Trade implies, at least two parties. To be free, it should be fair, equal and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to the admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, what ports of any other foreign nation shall we find open to the free admission of our surplus produce? We may break down all barriers to free trade on our part, but the work will not be complete until foreign powers shall have removed theirs. There would be freedom on one side, and restrictions, prohibitions and exclusions on the other. The bolts, and the bars, and the chains of all other nations will remain undisturbed. It is, indeed, possible, that our industry and commerce would accommodate themselves to this unequal and unjust state of things; for, such is the flexibility of our nature, that it bends itself to all circumstances. The wretched prisoner incarcerated in a jail, after a long time becomes reconciled to his solitude, and regularly notches down the passing days of his confinement.

Gentlemen deceive themselves. It is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it will lead substantially to the re-colonization of these States, under the commercial dominion of Great Britain. And whom do we find some of the principal supporters, out of Congress, of this foreign system? Mr. President, there are some foreigners who always remain exotics, and never become naturalized in our country; whilst, happily, there are many others who readily attach themselves to our principles and our institutions. The honest, patient and industrious German readily unites with our people, establishes himself upon some of our fat land, fills his capacious barn, and enjoys in tranquillity, the abundant fruits which his diligence gathers around him, always ready to fly to the standard of his adopted country, or of its laws, when called by the duties of patriotism. The gay, the versatile, the philosophic Frenchman, accommodating himself cheerfully to all the vicissitudes of life, incorporates himself without difficulty in our society. But, of all foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so quickly with our people as the natives of the Emerald Isle. In some of the visions which have passed through my imagination, I have supposed that Ireland was originally, part and parcel of this continent, and that, by some extraordinary convulsion of nature, it was torn from America, and drifting across the ocean, was placed in the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain. The same open-heartedness; the same generous hospitality; the same careless and uncalculating indifference about human life, characterize the inhabitants of both countries. Kentucky has been sometimes called the Ireland of America. And I have no doubt, that if the current of emigration were reversed, and set from America upon the shores of Europe, instead of bearing from Europe to America, every American emigrant to Ireland would there find, as every Irish emigrant here finds, a hearty welcome and a happy home!

But I have said that the system nominally called “free trade,” so earnestly and eloquently recommended to our adoption, is a mere revival of the British colonial system, forced upon us by Great Britain during the existence of our colonial vassalage. The whole system is fully explained and illustrated in a work published as far back as the year 1750, entitled “The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered, by Joshua Gee,” with extracts from which I have been furnished by the diligent researches of a friend. It will be seen from these, that the South Carolina policy now, is identical with the long cherished policy of Great Britain, which remains the same as it was when the thirteen colonies were part of the British empire.

I regret, Mr. President, that one topic has, I think, unnecessarily been introduced into this debate. I allude to the charge brought against the manufacturing system, as favoring the growth of aristocracy. If it were true, would gentlemen prefer supporting foreign accumulations of wealth, by that description of industry, rather than in their own country? But is 3091it correct? The joint stock companies of the north, as I understand them, are nothing more than associations, sometimes of hundreds, by means of which the small earnings of many are brought into a common stock, and the associates, obtaining corporate privileges, are enabled to prosecute, under one superintending head, their business to better advantage. Nothing can be more essentially democratic or better devised to counterpoise the influence of individual wealth. In Kentucky, almost every manufactory known to me, is in the hands of enterprising and self-made men, who have acquired whatever wealth they possess by patient and diligent labor. Comparisons are odious, and but in defence, would not be made by me. But is there more tendency to aristocracy in a manufactory supporting hundreds of freemen, or in a cotton plantation, with its not less numerous slaves, sustaining perhaps only two white families—that of the master and the overseer?

I pass, with pleasure, from this disagreeable topic, to two general propositions, which cover the entire ground of debate. The first is, that under the operation of the American System, the objects which it protects and fosters are brought to the consumer at cheaper prices than they commanded prior to its introduction, or, than they would command if it did not exist. If that be true, ought not the country to be contented and satisfied with the system, unless the second proposition, which I mean presently also to consider, is unfounded? And that is, that the tendency of the system is to sustain, and that it has upheld the prices of all our agricultural and other produce, including cotton.

And is the fact not indisputable, that all essential objects of consumption effected by the tariff, are cheaper and better since the act of 1824, than they were for several years prior to that law? I appeal for its truth to common observation and to all practical men. I appeal to the farmer of the country, whether he does not purchase on better terms his iron, salt, brown sugar, cotton goods, and woolens, for his laboring people? And I ask the cotton planter if he has not been better and more cheaply supplied with his cotton bagging? In regard to this latter article, the gentleman from South Carolina was mistaken in supposing that I complained that, under the existing duty the Kentucky manufacturer could not compete with the Scotch. The Kentuckian furnishes a more substantial and a cheaper article, and at a more uniform and regular price. But it was the frauds, the violations of law of which I did complain; not smuggling, in the common sense of that practice, which has something bold, daring, and enterprising in it, but mean, barefaced cheating, by fraudulent invoices and false denomination.

I plant myself upon this fact, of cheapness and superiority, as upon impregnable ground. Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity and produce a thousand speculative solutions of the fact, but the fact itself will remain undisturbed.

This brings me to consider what I apprehend to have been the most efficient of all the causes in the reduction of the prices of manufactured articles—and that is COMPETITION. By competition, the total amount of the supply is increased, and by increase of the supply, a competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition. It is action and reaction. It operates between individuals in the same nation, and between different nations. It resembles the meeting of the mountain torrent, grooving by its precipitous motion, its own channel, and ocean’s tide. Unopposed, it sweeps everything before it; but, counterpoised, the waters become calm, safe and regular. It is like the segments of a circle or an arch; taken separately, each is nothing; but in their combination they produce efficiency, symmetry, and perfection. By the American System this vast power has been excited in America, and brought into being to act in co-operation or collision with European industry. Europe acts within itself, and with America; and America acts within itself, and with Europe. The consequence is, the reduction of prices in both hemispheres. Nor is it fair to argue from the reduction of prices in Europe, to her own presumed skill and labor, exclusively. We affect her prices, and she affects ours. This must always be the case, at least in reference to any articles as to which there is not a total non-intercourse; and if our industry, by diminishing the demand for her supplies, should produce a diminution in the price of those supplies, it would be very unfair to ascribe that reduction to her ingenuity instead of placing it to the credit of our own skill and excited industry.

The great law of price is determined by supply and demand. Whatever affects either, affects the price. If the supply is increased, the demand remaining the same, the price declines; if the demand is increased, the supply remaining the same, the price advances; if both supply and demand are undiminished, the price is stationary, and the price is influenced exactly in proportion to the degree of disturbance to the demand or supply. It is therefore a great error to suppose that an existing or new duty necessarily becomes a component element to its exact amount of price. If the proportion of demand and supply are 3092varied by the duty, either in augmenting the supply, or diminishing the demand, or vice versa, price is affected to the extent of that variation. But the duty never becomes an integral part of the price, except in the instances where the demand and the supply remain after the duty is imposed, precisely what they were before, or the demand is increased, and the supply remains stationary.

Competition, therefore, wherever existing, whether at home or abroad, is the parent cause of cheapness. If a high duty excites production at home, and the quantity of the domestic article exceeds the amount which had been previously imported the price will fall. This accounts for an extraordinary fact stated by a Senator from Missouri. Three cents were laid as a duty upon a pound of lead, by the act of 1828. The price at Galena, and the other lead mines, afterwards fell to one and a half cents per pound. Now it is obvious that the duty did not, in this case, enter into the price: for it was twice the amount of the price. What produced the fall? It was stimulated production at home, excited by the temptation of the exclusive possession of the home market. This state of things could not last. Men would not continue an unprofitable pursuit; some abandoned the business, or the total quantity produced was diminished, and living prices have been the consequence. But, break down the domestic supply, place us again in a state of dependence on the foreign source, and can it be doubted that we should ultimately have to supply ourselves at dearer rates? It is not fair to credit the foreign market with the depression of prices produced there by the influence of our competition. Let the competition be withdrawn, and their prices would instantly rise.

But, it is argued that if, by the skill, experience, and perfection which we have acquired in certain branches of manufacture, they can be made as cheap as similar articles abroad, and enter fairly into competition with them, why not repeal the duties as to those articles? And why should we? Assuming the truth of the supposition the foreign article would not be introduced in the regular course of trade, but would remain excluded by the possession of the home market, which the domestic article had obtained. The repeal, therefore, would have no legitimate effect. But might not the foreign article be imported in vast quantities, to glut our markets, break down our establishments, and ultimately to enable the foreigner to monopolize the supply of our consumption? America is the greatest foreign market for European manufactures. It is that to which European attention is constantly directed. If a great house becomes bankrupt there, its storehouses are emptied, and the goods are shipped to America, where, in consequence of our auctions, and our custom-house credits, the greatest facilities are afforded in the sale of them. Combinations among manufacturers might take place, or even the operations of foreign governments might be directed to the destruction of our establishments. A repeal, therefore, of one protecting duty, from some one or all of these causes, would be followed by flooding the country with the foreign fabric, surcharging the market, reducing the price, and a complete prostration of our manufactories; after which the foreigner would leisurely look about to indemnify himself in the increased prices which he would be enabled to command by his monopoly of the supply of our consumption. What American citizen, after the government had displayed this vacillating policy, would be again tempted to place the smallest confidence in the public faith, and adventure once more in this branch of industry?

Gentlemen have allowed to the manufacturing portions of the community no peace; they have been constantly threatened with the overthrow of the American System. From the year 1820, if not from 1816, down to this time, they have been held in a condition of constant alarm and insecurity. Nothing is more prejudicial to the great interests of a nation than unsettled and varying policy. Although every appeal to the national legislature has been responded to in conformity with the wishes and sentiments of the great majority of the people, measures of protection have only been carried by such small majorities as to excite hopes on the one hand, and fears on the other. Let the country breathe, let its vast resources be developed, let its energies be fully put forth, let it have tranquillity, and my word for it, the degree of perfection in the arts which it will exhibit, will be greater than that which has been presented, astonishing as our progress has been. Although some branches of our manufactures might, and in foreign markets now do, fearlessly contend with similar foreign fabrics, there are many others yet in their infancy, struggling with the difficulties which encompass them. We should look at the whole system, and recollect that time, when we contemplate the great movements of a nation, is very different from the short period which is allotted for the duration of individual life. The honorable gentleman from South Carolina well and eloquently said, in 1824, “No great interest of any country ever yet grew up in a day; no new branch of industry can become firmly and profitably established but in a long course of years; every thing, indeed, great or good, is matured by slow degrees: that which attains a speedy maturity is of small value, and is 3093destined to a brief existence. It is the order of Providence, that powers gradually developed, shall alone attain permanency and perfection. Thus must it be with our national institutions, and national character itself.”

I feel most sensibly, Mr. President, how much I have trespassed upon the Senate. My apology is a deep and deliberate conviction, that the great cause under debate involves the prosperity and the destiny of the Union. But the best requital I can make, for the friendly indulgence which has been extended to me by the Senate, and for which I shall ever retain sentiments of lasting gratitude, is to proceed with as little delay as practicable, to the conclusion of a discourse which has not been more tedious to the Senate than exhausting to me. I have now to consider the remaining of the two propositions which I have already announced. That is:

Secondly. That under the operation of the American System, the products of our agriculture command a higher price than they would do without it, by the creation of a home market; and by the augmentation of wealth produced by manufacturing industry, which enlarges our powers of consumption both of domestic and foreign articles. The importance of the home market is among the established maxims which are universally recognized by all writers and all men. However some may differ as to the relative advantages of the foreign and the home market, none deny to the latter great value and high consideration. It is nearer to us; beyond the control of foreign legislation; and undisturbed by those vicissitudes to which all international intercourse is more or less exposed. The most stupid are sensible of the benefit of a residence in the vicinity of a large manufactory, or of a market town, of a good road, or of a navigable stream, which connects their farms with some great capital. If the pursuits of all men were perfectly the same, although they would be in possession of the greatest abundance of the particular produce of their industry, they might, at the same time, be in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence. The uniformity of the general occupation would preclude all exchanges, all commerce. It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members of a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges which conduce to the general prosperity. And the greater that diversity, the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange. Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of the interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could never profitably reach the foreign market. But let us quit this field of theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical operation of the system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our agriculture.

But if all this reasoning were totally fallacious—if the price of manufactured articles were really higher, under the American system, than without it, I should still argue that high or low prices were themselves relative—relative to the ability to pay them. It is in vain to tempt, to tantalize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than our own, if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them. If, by the home exchanges, we can be supplied with necessary, even if they are dearer and worse, articles of American production than the foreign, it is better than not to be supplied at all. And how would the large portion of our country which I have described be supplied, but for the home exchanges? A poor people, destitute of wealth or of exchangeable commodities, has nothing to purchase foreign fabrics. To them they are equally beyond their reach, whether their cost be a dollar or a guinea. It is in this view of the matter that Great Britain, by her vast wealth—her excited and protected industry—is enabled to bear a burden of taxation which, when compared to that of other nations, appears enormous; but which, when her immense riches are compared to theirs, is light and trivial. The gentleman from South Carolina has drawn a lively and flattering picture of our coasts, bays, rivers, and harbors; and he argues that these proclaimed the design of Providence, that we should be a commercial people. I agree with him. We differ only as to the means. He would cherish the foreign, and neglect the internal trade. I would foster both. What is navigation without ships, or ships without cargoes? By penetrating the bosoms of our mountains, and extracting from them their precious treasures; by cultivating the earth, and securing a home market for its rich and abundant products; by employing the water power with which we are blessed; by stimulating and protecting our native industry, in all its forms; we shall but nourish and promote the prosperity of commerce, foreign and domestic.

I have hitherto considered the question in reference only to a state of peace; but a season of war ought not to be entirely overlooked. We have enjoyed near twenty years of peace; but who can tell when the storm of war shall again break forth? Have we forgotten so soon, the privations to which, not merely our brave soldiers and our gallant tars were subjected, but the whole community, during the last 3094war, for the want of absolute necessaries? To what an enormous price they rose! And how inadequate the supply was, at any price! The statesman who justly elevates his views, will look behind, as well as forward, and at the existing state of things; and he will graduate the policy which he recommends, to all the probable exigencies which may arise in the Republic. Taking this comprehensive range, it would be easy to show that the higher prices of peace, if prices were higher in peace, were more than compensated by the lower prices of war, during which supplies of all essential articles are indispensable to its vigorous, effectual and glorious prosecution. I conclude this part of the argument with the hope that my humble exertions have not been altogether unsuccessful in showing—

1. That the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to be regarded as the genuine American System.

2. That the Free Trade System, which is proposed as its substitute, ought really to be considered as the British Colonial System.

3. That the American System is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion.

4. That the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld, and a decline averted by the Protective System.

5. That if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished by the operation of that system, the diminution has been more than compensated in the additional demand created at home.

6. That the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition among ourselves, and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects.

7. That in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price.

8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be much more extensively felt.

9. And finally, that the substitution of the British Colonial System for the American System, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin.

The danger to our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the American System, but on that of its abandonment. If, as I have supposed and believe, the inhabitants of all north and east of James river, and all west of the mountains, including Louisiana, are deeply interested in the preservation of that system, would they be reconciled to its overthrow? Can it be expected that two-thirds, if not three-fourths, of the people of the United States, would consent to the destruction of a policy, believed to be indispensably necessary to their prosperity? When, too, the sacrifice is made at the instance of a single interest, which they verily believe will not be promoted by it? In estimating the degree of peril which may be incident to two opposite courses of human policy, the statesman would be shortsighted who should content himself with viewing only the evils, real or imaginary, which belong to that course which is in practical operation. He should lift himself up to the contemplation of those greater and more certain dangers which might inevitably attend the adoption of the alternative course. What would be the condition of this Union, if Pennsylvania and New York, those mammoth members of our confederacy, were firmly persuaded that their industry was paralyzed, and their prosperity blighted, by the enforcement of the British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade? They are now tranquil and happy, and contented, conscious of their welfare, and feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home manufactures and home industry throughout all their great arteries. But let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to predominate, and the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up; let New England and the west, and the middle States, all feel that they too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of our country despair of any favorable change, and then indeed might we tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union!

And now, sir, I would address a few words to the friends of the American System in the Senate. The revenue must—ought to be reduced. The country will not, after, by the payment of the public debt, ten or twelve millions of dollars become unnecessary, bear such an annual surplus. Its distribution would form a subject of perpetual contention. Some of the opponents of the system understand the stratagem by which to attack it, and are shaping their course accordingly. It is to crush the system by the accumulation of revenue, and by the effort to persuade the people that they are unnecessarily taxed, while those would really tax them who would break up the native sources of supply, and render them dependent upon the foreign. But the revenue ought to be reduced, so as to accommodate it to the fact of the payment of the public debt. And 3095the alternative is or may be, to preserve the protecting system, and repeal the duties on the unprotected articles, or to preserve the duties on unprotected articles, and endanger if not destroy the system. Let us then adopt the measure before us, which will benefit all classes; the farmer, the professional man, the merchant, the manufacturer, the mechanic; and the cotton planter more than all. A few mouths ago there was no diversity of opinion as to the expediency of this measure. All, then, seemed to unite in the selection of these objects for a repeal of duties which were not produced within the country. Such a repeal did not touch our domestic industry, violated no principle, offended no prejudice.

Can we not all, whatever may be our favorite theories, cordially unite on this neutral ground? When that is occupied, let us look beyond it, and see if anything can be done in the field of protection, to modify, or improve it, or to satisfy those who are opposed to the system. Our southern brethren believe that it is injurious to them, and ask its repeal. We believe that its abandonment will be prejudicial to them, and ruinous to every other section of the Union. However strong their convictions may be, they are not stronger than ours. Between the points of the preservation of the system and its absolute repeal, there is no principle of union. If it can be shown to operate immoderately on any quarter—if the measure of protection to any article can be demonstrated to be undue and inordinate, it would be the duty of Congress to interpose and apply a remedy. And none will co-operate more heartily than I shall in the performance of that duty. It is quite probable that beneficial modifications of the system may be made without impairing its efficacy. But to make it fulfill the purposes of its institution, the measure of protection ought to be adequate. If it be not, all interests will be injuriously affected. The manufacturer, crippled in his exertions, will produce less perfect and dearer fabrics, and the consumer will feel the consequence. This is the spirit, and these are the principles only, on which, it seems to me, that a settlement of the great question can be made, satisfactorily to all parts of our Union.

Mr. Buchanan’s Speech on the Independent Treasury,

January 22, 1840, which gave rise to the “ten cent” charge.

“We are also charged by the Senator from Kentucky with a desire to reduce the wages of the poor man’s labor. We have often been termed agrarians on our side of the House. It is something new under the sun, to hear the Senator and his friends attribute to us a desire to elevate the wealthy manufacturer, at the expense of the laboring man and the mechanic. From my soul, I respect the laboring man. Labor is the foundation of the wealth of every country; and the free laborers of the North deserve respect, both for their probity and their intelligence. Heaven forbid that I should do them wrong! Of all the countries on the earth, we ought to have the most consideration for the laboring man. From the very nature of our institutions, the wheel of fortune is constantly revolving, and producing such mutations in property, that the wealthy man of to-day may become the poor laborer of to-morrow. Truly, wealth often takes to itself wings and flies away. A large fortune rarely lasts beyond the third generation, even if it endure so long. We must all know instances of individuals obliged to labor for their daily bread, whose grandfathers were men of fortune. The regular process of society would almost seem to consist of the efforts of one class to dissipate the fortunes which they have inherited, whilst another class, by their industry and economy, are regularly rising to wealth. We have all, therefore, a common interest, as it is our common duty, to protect the rights of the laboring man: and if I believed for a moment that this bill would prove injurious to him, it should meet my unqualified opposition.

“Although this bill will not have as great an influence as I could desire, yet, as far as it goes, it will benefit the laboring man as much, and probably more than any other class of society. What is it he ought most to desire? Constant employment, regular wages, and uniform reasonable prices for the necessaries and comforts of life which he requires. Now, sir, what has been his condition under our system of expansions and contractions? He has suffered more by them than any other class of society. The rate of his wages is fixed and known; and they are the last to rise with the increasing expansion and the first to fall when the corresponding revulsion occurs. He still continues to receive his dollar per day, whilst the price of every article which he consumes is rapidly rising. He is at length made to feel that, although he nominally earns as much, or even more than he did formerly, yet, from the increased price of all the necessaries of life, he cannot support his family. Hence the strikes for higher wages, and the uneasy and excited feelings which have at different periods, existed among the laboring classes. But the expansion at length reaches the exploding point, and what does the laboring man now suffer? He is for a season thrown out of employment altogether. Our manufactures are suspended; our public works are stopped; our private enterprises 3096of different kinds are abandoned; and, whilst others are able to weather the storm, he can scarcely procure the means of bare subsistence.

“Again, sir; who, do you suppose, held the greater part of the worthless paper of the one hundred and sixty-five broken banks to which I have referred? Certainly it was not the keen and wary speculator, who snuffs danger from afar. If you were to make the search, you would find more broken bank notes in the cottages of the laboring poor than anywhere else. And these miserable shinplasters, where are they? After the revulsion of 1837, laborers were glad to obtain employment on any terms; and they often received it upon the express condition that they should accept this worthless trash in payment. Sir, an entire suppression of all bank notes of a lower denomination than the value of one week’s wages of the laboring man is absolutely necessary for his protection. He ought always to receive his wages in gold and silver. Of all men on the earth, the laborer is most interested in having a sound and stable currency.

“All other circumstances being equal, I agree with the Senator from Kentucky that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the highest wages. I do not, however, mean by the terms ‘highest wages,’ the greatest nominal amount. During the revolutionary war, one day’s work commanded a hundred dollars of continental paper; but this would have scarcely purchased a breakfast. The more proper expression would be, to say that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the greatest reward; where one day’s labor will procure not the greatest nominal amount of a depreciated currency, but most of the necessaries and comforts of life. If, therefore, you should, in some degree, reduce the nominal price paid for labor, by reducing the amount of your bank issues within reasonable and safe limits, and establishing a metallic basis for your paper circulation, would this injure the laborer? Certainly not; because the price of all the necessaries and comforts of life are reduced in the same proportion, and he will be able to purchase more of them for one dollar in a sound state of the currency, than he could have done, in the days of extravagant expansion, for a dollar and a quarter. So far from injuring, it will greatly benefit the laboring man. It will insure to him constant employment and regular prices, paid in a sound currency, which, of all things, he ought most to desire; and it will save him from being involved in ruin by a recurrence of those periodical expansions and contractions of the currency, which have hitherto convulsed the country.

“This sound state of the currency will have another most happy effect upon the laboring man. He will receive his wages in gold and silver; and this will induce him to lay up, for future use, such a portion of them as he can spare, after satisfying his immediate wants. This he will not do at present, because he knows not whether the trash which he is now compelled to receive as money, will continue to be of any value a week or a month hereafter. A knowledge of this fact tends to banish economy from his dwelling, and induces him to expend all his wages as rapidly as possible, lest they may become worthless on his hands.

“Sir, the laboring classes understand this subject perfectly. It is the hard-handed and firm-fisted men of the country on whom we must rely in the day of danger, who are the most friendly to the passage of this bill. It is they who are the most ardently in favor of infusing into the currency of the country a very large amount of the precious metals.”

Lewis Cass on the Missouri Compromise.

From a speech made on the 20th of February, 1854.

Mr. President: I have not withheld the expression of my regret elsewhere, nor shall I withhold it here, that this question of repeal of the Missouri compromise, which opens all the disputed points connected with the subject of Congressional action upon slavery in the territories of the United States, has been brought before us. I do not think the practical advantages to result from the measure will outweigh the injury which the ill-feeling, fated to accompany the discussion of this subject through the country, is sure to produce. And I was confirmed in this impression from what was said by the Senator from Tennessee, (Mr. Jones,) by the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Dixon,) and from North Carolina, (Mr. Badger,) and also by the remarks which fell from the Senator from Virginia, (Mr. Hunter,) and in which I fully concur, that the South will never receive any benefit from this measure, so far as respects the extension of slavery; for, legislate as we may, no human power can establish it in the regions defined by these bills. And such were the sentiments of two eminent patriots, to whose exertions we are greatly indebted for the satisfactory termination of the difficulties of 1850, and who since passed from their labors, and, I trust, to their reward. Thus believing, I should have been better content had the whole subject been left as it was by the bill when first introduced by the Senator from Illinois, without any provision regarding the Missouri compromise. I am aware that it was reported that I intended to propose 3097the repeal of that measure, but it was an error. My intentions were wholly misunderstood. I had no design whatever to take such a step, and thus resuscitate a deed of conciliation which had done its work, and done it well, and which was hallowed by patriotism, by success, and by its association with great names, now transferred to history. It belonged to a past generation; and in the midst of a political tempest which appalled the wisest and firmest in the land, it had said to the waves of agitation, Peace, be still, and they became still. It would have been better, in my opinion, not to disturb its slumber, as all useful and practical objects could have been attained without it. But the question is here without my agency.

Clement L. Vallandigham on Slavery.

October 29, 1855.

“Slavery, gentlemen, older in other countries also, than the records of human society, existed in America at the date of its discovery. The first slaves of the European, were natives of the soil: and a Puritan governor of Massachusetts, founder of the family of Winthrop, bequeathed his soul to God, and his Indian slaves to the lawful heirs of his body. Negro slavery was introduced into Hispaniola in 1501: more than a century before the colonization of America by the English. Massachusetts, by express enactment in 1641 punishing ‘manstealing’ with death:—and it is so punished to this day under the laws of the United States—legalized yet the enslaving of captives taken in war, and of such ‘strangers,’ foreigners, as should be acquired by purchase: while confederate New England, two years later, providing for the equitable division of lands, goods and ‘persons,’ as equally a part of the ‘spoils’ of war, enacted also the first fugitive slave law in America. White slaves—convicts and paupers some of them; others at a later day, prisoners taken at the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, and of Sedgemoor—were at the first, employed in Virginia and the British West Indies. Bought in England by English dealers, among whom was the queen of James II., with many of his nobles and courtiers, some of them perhaps of the house of Sutherland; they were imported and sold at auction to the highest bidder. In 1620, a Dutch man-of-war first landed a cargo of slaves upon the banks of James River. But the earliest slave ship belonging to English colonists, was fitted out in 1645, by a member of the Puritan church of Boston. Fostered still by English princes and nobles: confirmed and cherished by British legislation and judicial decisions, even against the wishes and in spite of the remonstrances of the Colonies, the traffic increased; slaves multiplied, and on the Fourth of July, 1776, every colony was now become a slave state; and the sun went down that day upon four hundred and fifty thousand of those who in the cant of eighty years later, are styled ‘human chattels,’ but who were not by the act of that day emancipated.

“Eleven years afterwards, delegates assembled at Philadelphia, from every state except Rhode Island, ignoring the question of the sinfulness and immorality of slavery, as a subject with which they as the representatives of separate and independent states had no concern, founded a union and framed a constitution, which leaving with each state the exclusive control and regulation of its own domestic institutions, and providing for the taxation and representation of slaves, gave no right to Congress to debate or to legislate concerning slavery in the states or territories, except for the interdiction of the slave trade and the extradition of fugitive slaves. The Plan of Union proposed by Franklin in 1754, had contained no allusion even to slavery; and the articles of Confederation of 1778, but a simple recognition of its existence—so wholly was it regarded then, a domestic and local concern. In 1787 every state, except perhaps Massachusetts, tolerated slavery either absolutely or conditionally.—But the number of slaves north of Maryland, never great, was even yet comparatively small; not exceeding forty thousand in a total slave population of six hundred thousand. In the North, chief carrier of slaves to others even as late as 1807, slavery never took firm root. Nature warred against it in that latitude; otherwise every state in the Union would have been a slaveholding state to this day. It was not profitable there; and it died out—lingering indeed in New York till July, 1827. It died out: but not so much by the manumission of slaves, as by their transportation and sale in the South: and thus New England, sir, turned an honest penny with her left hand, and with her right, modestly wrote herself down in history, as both generous and just.

“In the South, gentlemen, all this was precisely reversed. The earliest and most resolute enemies to slavery, were Southern men. But climate had fastened the institution upon them; and they found no way to strike it down. From the beginning indeed, the Southern colonies especially had resisted the introduction of African slaves; and at the very outset of the revolution, Virginia and North Carolina interdicted the slave trade. The Continental Congress soon after, on the sixth of April, 1776, three months earlier than the Declaration 3098of Independence, resolved that no more slaves ought to be imported into the thirteen colonies. Jefferson, in his draught of the Declaration, had denounced the King of England alike for encouraging the slave trade, and for fomenting servile insurrection in the provinces. Ten years later, he boldly attacked slavery in his “Notes on Virginia;” and in the Congress of the Confederation, prior to the adoption of the Constitution, with its solemn compacts and compromises upon the subject of slavery, proposed to exclude it from the territory northwest the river Ohio. Colonel Mason of Virginia vehemently condemned it, in the convention of 1787. Nevertheless it had already become manifest that slavery must soon die away in the North, but in the South continue and harden into perhaps a permanent, ineradicable system. Hostile interests and jealousies sprang up, therefore, in bitterness even in the convention. But the blood of the patriot brothers of Carolina and Massachusetts smoked yet upon the battle fields of the revolution. The recollection of their kindred language, and common dangers and sufferings, burned still fresh in their hearts. Patriotism proved more powerful than jealousy, and good sense stronger than fanaticism. There were no Sewards, no Hales, no Sumners, no Greeleys, no Parkers, no Chase, in that convention. There was a Wilson; but he rejoiced not in the name of Henry; and he was a Scotchman. There was a clergyman—no, not in the convention of ’87, but in the Congress of ’76; but it was the devout, the learned, the pious, the patriotic Witherspoon; of foreign birth also, a native of Scotland, too. The men of that day and generation, sir, were content to leave the question of slavery just where it belonged. It did not occur to them, that each one among them was accountable for ‘the sin of slaveholding’ in his fellow; and that to ease his tender conscience of the burden, all the fruits of revolutionary privation and blood and treasure; all the recollections of the past; all the hopes of the future: nay the Union, and with it, domestic tranquillity and national independence, ought to be offered up as a sacrifice. They were content to deal with political questions; and to leave cases of conscience to the church and the schools, or to the individual man. And accordingly to this Union and Constitution, based upon these compromises—execrated now as ‘covenants with death and leagues with hell’—every state acceded: and upon these foundations, thus broad and deep, and stable, a political superstructure has, as if by magic, arisen, which in symmetry and proportion—and, if we would but be true to our trust, in strength and durability—finds no parallel in the world’s history.

“Patriotic sentiments, sir, such as marked the era of ’89, continued to guide the statesmen and people of the country for more than thirty years, full of prosperity; till in a dead political calm, consequent upon temporary extinguishment of the ancient party lines and issues, the Missouri Question resounded through the land with the hollow moan of the earthquake, shook the pillars of the republic even to their deep foundations.

“Within these thirty years, gentlemen, slavery as a system, had been abolished by law or disuse, quietly and without agitation, in every state north of Mason and Dixon’s line—in many of them, lingering, indeed, in individual cases, so late as the census of 1840. But except in half a score of instances, the question had not been obtruded upon Congress. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 had been passed without opposition and without a division, in the Senate; and by a vote of forty-eight to seven, in the House. The slave trade had been declared piracy punishable with death. Respectful petitions from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, and others, upon the slavery question, were referred to a committee, and a report made thereon, which laid the matter at rest. Other petitions afterwards were quietly rejected, and, in one instance, returned to the petitioner. Louisiana and Florida, both slaveholding countries, had without agitation been added to our territory. Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, slave states each one of them, had been admitted into the Union without a murmur. No Missouri Restriction, no Wilmot Proviso had as yet reared its discordant front to terrify and confound. Non-intervention was then both the practice and the doctrine of the statesmen and people of that period: though, as yet, no hollow platform enunciated it as an article of faith, from which, nevertheless, obedience might be withheld, and the platform ‘spit upon,’ provided the tender conscience of the recusant did not forbid him to support the candidate and help to secure the ‘spoils.’

“I know, sir, that it is easy, very easy, to denounce all this as a defence of slavery itself. Be it so: be it so. But I have not discussed the institution in any respect; moral, religious, or political. Hear me. I express no opinion in regard to it: and as a citizen of the north, I have ever refused, and will steadily refuse, to discuss the system in any of these particulars. It is precisely this continued and persistent discussion and denunciation in the North, which has brought upon us this present most perilous crisis: since to teach men to hate, is to prepare them to destroy, at 3099every hazard, the object of their hatred. Sir, I am resolved only to look upon slavery outside of Ohio, just as the founders of the constitution and Union regarded it. It is no concern of mine; none, none: nor of yours, Abolitionist. Neither of us will attain heaven, by denunciations of slavery: nor shall we, I trow, be cast into hell for the sin of others who may hold slaves. I have not so learned the moral government of the universe: nor do I presumptuously and impiously aspire to the attributes of Godhead; and seek to bear upon my poor body the iniquities of the world.

“I know well indeed, Mr. President, that in the evil day which has befallen us, all this and he who utters it, shall be denounced as ‘pro-slavery;’ and already from ribald throats, there comes up the slavering, drivelling, idiot epithet of ‘dough-face.’ Again, be it so. These, Abolitionist, are your only weapons of warfare: and I hurl them back defiantly into your teeth. I speak thus boldly, because I speak in and to and for the North. It is time that the truth should be known, and heard, in this the age of trimming and subterfuge. I speak this day not as a northern man, nor a southern man; but, God, be thanked, still as a United States man, with United States principles;—and though the worst happen which can happen—though all be lost, if that shall be our fate; and I walk through the valley of the shadow of political death, I will live by them and die by them. If to love my country; to cherish the Union; to revere the Constitution: if to abhor the madness and hate the treason which would lift up a sacrilegious hand against either; if to read that in the past, to behold it in the present, to foresee it in the future of this land, which is of more value to us and the world for ages to come, than all the multiplied millions who have inhabited Africa from the creation to this day:—if this it is to be pro-slavery, then, in every nerve, fibre, vein, bone, tendon, joint and ligament, from the topmost hair of the head to the last extremity of the foot, I am all over and altogether a PRO-SLAVERY MAN.”

Speech of Horace Greeley on the Grounds of Protection.^[84]

Mr. President and Respected Auditors:—It has devolved on me, as junior advocate for the cause of Protection, to open the discussion of this question. I do this with less diffidence than I should feel in meeting able opponents and practiced disputants on almost any other topic, because I am strongly confident that you, my hearers, will regard this as a subject demanding logic rather than rhetoric, the exhibition and proper treatment of homely truths, rather than the indulgence of flights of fancy. As sensible as you can be of my deficiencies as a debater, I have chosen to put my views on paper, in order that I may present them in as concise a manner as possible, and not consume my hour before commencing my argument. You have nothing of oratory to lose by this course; I will hope that something may be gained to my cause in clearness and force. And here let me say that, while the hours I have been enabled to give to preparation for this debate have been few indeed, I feel the less regret in that my life has been in some measure a preparation. If there be any subject to which I have devoted time, and thought, and patient study, in a spirit of anxious desire to learn and follow the truth, it is this very question of Protection; if I have totally misapprehended its character and bearings, then am I ignorant, hopelessly ignorant indeed. And, while I may not hope to set before you, in the brief space allotted me, all that is essential to a full understanding of a question which spans the whole arch of Political Economy,—on which able men have written volumes without at all exhausting it—I do entertain a sanguine hope that I shall be able to set before you considerations conclusive to the candid and unbiased mind of the policy and necessity of Protection. Let us not waste our time on non-essentials. That unwise and unjust measures have been adopted under the pretence of Protection, I stand not here to deny; that laws intended to be Protective have sometimes been injurious in their tendency, I need not dispute. The logic which would thence infer the futility or the danger of Protective Legislation would just as easily prove all laws and all policy mischievous and destructive. Political Economy is one of the latest born of the Sciences; the very fact that we meet here this evening to discuss a question so fundamental as this proves it to be yet in its comparative infancy. The sole favor I shall ask of my opponents, therefore, is that they will not waste their efforts and your time in attacking positions that we do not maintain, and hewing down straw giants of their own manufacture, but meet directly the arguments which I shall advance, and which, for the sake of simplicity and clearness, I will proceed to put before you in the form of Propositions and their Illustrations, as follows:—

3100Proposition I. A Nation which would be prosperous, must prosecute various branches of Industry, and supply its vital Wants mainly by the Labor of its own Hands.

Cast your eyes where you will over the face of the earth, trace back the History of Man and of Nations to the earliest recorded periods, and I think you will find this rule uniformly prevailing, that the nation which is eminently Agricultural and Grain-exporting,—which depends mainly or principally on other nations for its regular supplies of Manufactured fabrics,—has been comparatively a poor nation, and ultimately a dependent nation. I do not say that this is the instant result of exchanging the rude staples of Agriculture for the more delicate fabrics of Art; but I maintain that it is the inevitable tendency. The Agricultural nation falls in debt, becomes impoverished, and ultimately subject. The palaces of “merchant princes” may emblazon its harbors and overshadow its navigable waters; there may be a mighty Alexandria, but a miserable Egypt behind it; a flourishing Odessa or Dantzic, but a rude, thinly peopled southern Russia or Poland; the exchangers may flourish and roll in luxury, but the producers famish and die. Indeed, few old and civilized countries become largely exporters of grain until they have lost, or by corruption are prepared to surrender, their independence; and these often present the spectacle of the laborer starving on the fields he has tilled, in the midst of their fertility and promise. These appearances rest upon and indicate a law, which I shall endeavor hereafter to explain. I pass now to my

Proposition II. There is a natural tendency in a comparatively new Country to become and continue an Exporter of Grain and other rude Staples and an Importer of Manufactures.

I think I hardly need waste time in demonstrating this proposition, since it is illustrated and confirmed by universal experience, and rests on obvious laws. The new country has abundant and fertile soil, and produces Grain with remarkable facility; also, Meats, Timber, Ashes, and most rude and bulky articles. Labor is there in demand, being required to clear, to build, to open roads, &c., and the laborers are comparatively few; while, in older countries, Labor is abundant and cheap, as also are Capital, Machinery, and all the means of the cheap production of Manufactured fabrics. I surely need not waste words to show that, in the absence of any counteracting policy, the new country will import, and continue to import, largely of the fabrics of older countries, and to pay for them, so far as she may, with her Agricultural staples. I will endeavor to show hereafter that she will continue to do this long after she has attained a condition to manufacture them as cheaply for herself, even regarding the money cost alone. But that does not come under the present head. The whole history of our country, and especially from 1782 to ’90, when we had no Tariff and scarcely any Paper Money,—proves that, whatever may be the Currency or the internal condition of the new country, it will continue to draw its chief supplies from the old,—large or small according to its measure of ability to pay or obtain credit for them; but still, putting Duties on Imports out of the question, it will continue to buy its Manufactures abroad, whether in prosperity or adversity, inflation or depression.

I now advance to my

Proposition III. It is injurious to the New Country thus to continue dependent for its supplies of Clothing and Manufactured Fabrics on the Old.

As this is probably the point on which the doctrines of Protection first come directly in collision with those of Free Trade, I will treat it more deliberately, and endeavor to illustrate and demonstrate it.

I presume I need not waste time in showing that the ruling price of Grain (as any Manufacture) in a region whence it is considerably exported, will be its price at the point to which it is exported, less the cost of such transportation. For instance: the cost of transporting Wheat hither from large grain-growing sections of Illinois was last fall sixty cents; and, New York being their most available market, and the price here ninety cents, the market there at once settled at thirty cents. As this adjustment of prices rests on a law obvious, immutable as gravitation, I presume I need not waste words in establishing it.

I proceed, then, to my next point. The average price of Wheat throughout the world is something less than one dollar per bushel; higher where the consumption largely exceeds the adjacent production, lower where the production largely exceeds the immediate consumption (I put out of view in this statement the inequalities created by Tariffs, as I choose at this point to argue the question on the basis of universal Free Trade, which is of course the basis most favorable to my opponents). I say, then, if all Tariffs were abolished to-morrow, the price of Wheat in England—that being the most considerable ultimate market of surpluses, and the chief supplier of our manufactures—would govern the price in this country, while it would be itself governed by the price at which that staple could be procured in sufficiency from other grain-growing regions. Now, Southern Russia and Central Poland produce Wheat for exportation at thirty to fifty cents per bushel; but the 3101price is so increased by the cost of transportation that at Dantzic it averages some ninety and at Odessa some eighty cents per bushel. The cost of importation to England from these ports being ten and fifteen cents respectively, the actual cost of the article in England, all charges paid, and allowing for a small increase of price consequent on the increased demand, would not in the absence of all Tariffs whatever, exceed one dollar and ten cents per bushel; and this would be the average price at which we must sell it in England in order to buy thence the great bulk of our Manufactures. I think no man will dispute or seriously vary this calculation. Neither can any reflecting man seriously contend that we could purchase forty or fifty millions’ worth or more of Foreign Manufactures per annum, and pay for them in additional products of our Slave Labor—in Cotton and Tobacco. The consumption of these articles is now pressed to its utmost limit,—that of Cotton especially is borne down by the immense weight of the crops annually thrown upon it, and almost constantly on the verge of a glut. If we are to buy our Manufactures principally from Europe, we must pay for the additional amount mainly in the products of Northern Agricultural industry,—that is universally agreed on. The point to be determined is, whether we could obtain them abroad cheaper—really and positively cheaper, all Tariffs being abrogated—than under an efficient system of Protection.

Let us closely scan this question. Illinois and Indiana, natural grain-growing States, need cloths; and, in the absence of all tariffs, these can be transported to them from England for two to three per cent. of their value. It follows, then, that, in order to undersell any American competition, the British manufacturer need only put his cloths at his factory five per cent. below the wholesale price of such cloths in Illinois, in order to command the American market. That is, allowing a fair broadcloth to be manufactured in or near Illinois for three dollars and a quarter per yard, cash price, in the face of British rivalry, and paying American prices for materials and labor, the British manufacturer has only to make that same cloth at three dollars per yard in Leeds or Huddersfield, and he can decidedly undersell his American rival, and drive him out of the market. Mind, I do not say that he would supply the Illinois market at that price after the American rivalry had been crushed; I know he would not; but, so long as any serious effort to build up or sustain manufactures in this country existed, the large and strong European establishments would struggle for the additional market which our growing and plenteous country so invitingly proffers. It is well known that in 1815–16, after the close of the last war, British manufactures were offered for sale in our chief markets at the rate of “pound for pound,”—that is, fabrics of which the first cost to the manufacturer was $4.44 were offered in Boston market at $3.33, duty paid. This was not sacrifice—it was dictated by a profound forecast. Well did the foreign fabricants know that their self-interest dictated the utter overthrow, at whatever cost, of the young rivals which the war had built up in this country, and which our government and a majority of the people had blindly or indolently abandoned to their fate. William Cobbett, the celebrated radical, but with a sturdy English heart, boasted upon his first return to England that he had been actively engaged here in promoting the interests of his country by compassing the destruction of American manufactories in various ways which he specified—“sometimes (says he) by Fire.” We all know that great sacrifices are often submitted to by a rich and long established stage owner, steamboat proprietor, or whatever, to break down a young and comparatively penniless rival. So in a thousand instances, especially in a rivalry for so large a prize as the supplying with manufactures of a great and growing nation. But I here put aside all calculations of a temporary sacrifice; I suppose merely that the foreign manufacturers will supply our grain-growing states with cloths at a trifling profit so long as they encounter American rivalry; and I say it is perfectly obvious that, if it cost three dollars and a quarter a yard to make a fair broadcloth in or near Illinois in the infancy of our arts and a like article could be made in Europe for three dollars, then the utter destruction of the American manufacture is inevitable. The foreign drives it out of the market and its maker into bankruptcy; and now our farmers, in purchasing their cloths, “buy where they can buy cheapest,” which is the first commandment of free trade, and get their cloth of England at three dollars a yard. I maintain that this would not last a year after the American factories had been silenced—that then the British operator would begin to think of profits as well as bare cost for his cloth, and to adjust his prices so as to recover what it had cost him to put down the dangerous competition. But let this pass for the present, and say the foreign cloth is sold to Illinois for three dollars per yard. We have yet to ascertain how much she has gained or lost by the operation.

This, says Free Trade, is very plain and easy. The four simple rules of arithmetic suffice to measure it. She has bought, say a million yards of foreign cloth for three dollars, where she formerly paid three and a quarter for American; making a clear saving of a quarter of a million dollars.

3102But not so fast—we have omitted one important element of the calculation. We have yet to see what effect the purchase of her cloth in Europe, as contrasted with its manufacture at home, will have on the price of her Agricultural staples. We have seen already that, in case she is forced to sell a portion of her surplus product in Europe, the price of that surplus must be the price which can be procured for it in England, less the cost of carrying it there. In other words: the average price in England being one dollar and ten cents, and the average cost of bringing it to New York being at least fifty cents and then of transporting it to England at least twenty-five more, the net proceeds to Illinois cannot exceed thirty-five cents per bushel. I need not more than state so obvious a truth as that the price at which the surplus can be sold governs the price of the whole crop; nor, indeed, if it were possible to deny this, would it at all affect the argument. The real question to be determined is, not whether the American or the British manufacturers will furnish the most cloth for the least cash, but which will supply the requisite quantity of Cloth for the least Grain in Illinois. Now we have seen already that the price of Grain at any point where it is readily and largely produced is governed by its nearness to or remoteness from the market to which its surplus tends, and the least favorable market in which any portion of it must be sold. For instance: If Illinois produces a surplus of five million bushels of Grain, and can sell one million of bushels in New York, and two millions in New England, and another million in the West Indies, and for the fifth million is compelled to seek a market in England, and that, being the remotest point at which she sells, and the point most exposed to disadvantageous competition, is naturally the poorest market, that farthest and lowest market to which she sends her surplus will govern, to a great extent if not absolutely, the price she receives for the whole surplus. But, on the other hand, let her Cloths, her wares, be manufactured in her midst, or on the junctions and waterfalls in her vicinity, thus affording an immediate market for her Grain, and now the average price of it rises, by an irresistible law, nearly or quite to the average of the world. Assuming that average to be one dollar, the price in Illinois, making allowance for the fertility and cheapness of her soil, could not fall below an average of seventy-five cents. Indeed, the experience of the periods when her consumption of Grain has been equal to her production, as well as that of other sections where the same has been the case, proves conclusively that the average price of her Wheat would exceed that sum.

We are now ready to calculate the profit and loss. Illinois, under Free Trade, with her “workshops in Europe,” will buy her cloth twenty-five cents per yard cheaper, and thus make a nominal saving of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her year’s supply; but, she thereby compels herself to pay for it in Wheat at thirty-five instead of seventy-five cents per bushel, or to give over nine and one third bushels of Wheat for every yard under Free Trade, instead of four and a third under a system of Home Production. In other words, while she is making a quarter of a million dollars by buying her Cloth “where she can buy cheapest,” she is losing nearly Two Millions of Dollars on the net product of her Grain. The striking of a balance between her profit and her loss is certainly not a difficult, but rather an unpromising, operation.

Or, let us state the result in another form: She can buy her cloth a little cheaper in England,—Labor being there lower, Machinery more perfect, and Capital more abundant; but, in order to pay for it, she must not merely sell her own products at a correspondingly low price, but enough lower to overcome the cost of transporting them from Illinois to England. She will give the cloth-maker in England less Grain for her Cloth than she would give to the man who made it on her own soil; but for every bushel she sends him in payment for his fabric, she must give two to the wagoner, boatman, shipper, and factor who transport it thither. On the whole product of her industry, two-thirds is tolled out by carriers and bored out by Inspectors, until but a beggarly remnant is left to satisfy the fabricator of her goods.

And here I trust I have made obvious to you the law which dooms an Agricultural Country to inevitable and ruinous disadvantage in exchanging its staples for Manufactures, and involves it in perpetual and increasing debt and dependence. The fact, I early alluded to; is not the reason now apparent? It is not that Agricultural communities are more extravagant or less industrious than those in which Manufactures or Commerce preponderate,—it is because there is an inevitable disadvantage to Agriculture in the very nature of all distant exchanges. Its products are far more perishable than any other; they cannot so well await a future demand; but in their excessive bulk and density is the great evil. We have seen that, while the English Manufacturer can send his fabrics to Illinois for less than five per cent. on their first cost, the Illinois farmer must pay two hundred per cent. on his Grain for its transportation to English consumers. In other words: the English manufacturer need only produce his goods five per cent. below the American to drive the latter out of the 3103Illinois market, the Illinoisan must produce wheat for one-third of its English price in order to compete with the English and Polish grain-grower in Birmingham and Sheffield.

And here is the answer to that scintillation of Free Trade wisdom which flashes out in wonder that Manufactures are eternally and especially in want of Protection, while Agriculture and Commerce need none. The assumption is false in any sense,—our Commerce and Navigation cannot live without Protection,—never did live so,—but let that pass. It is the interest of the whole country which demands that that portion of its Industry which is most exposed to ruinous foreign rivalry should be cherished and sustained. The wheat-grower, the grazier, is protected by ocean and land; by the fact that no foreign article can be introduced to rival his except at a cost for transportation of some thirty to one hundred per cent. on its value; while our Manufactures can be inundated by foreign competition at a cost of some two to ten per cent. It is the grain-grower, the cattle-raiser, who is protected by a duty on Foreign Manufactures, quite as much as the spinner or shoemaker. He who talks of Manufactures being protected and nothing else, might just as sensibly complain that we fortify Boston and New York and not Pittsburg and Cincinnati.

Again: You see here our answer to those philosophers who modestly tell us that their views are liberal and enlightened, while ours are benighted, selfish, and un-Christian. They tell us that the foreign factory-laborer is anxious to exchange with us the fruits of his labor,—that he asks us to give him of our surplus of grain for the cloth that he is ready to make cheaper than we can now get it, while we have a superabundance of bread. Now, putting for the present out of the question the fact that, though our Tariff were abolished, his could remain,—that neither England, nor France, nor any great manufacturing country, would receive our Grain untaxed though we offered so to take their goods,—especially the fact that they never did so take of us while we were freely taking of them,—we say to them, “Sirs, we are willing to take Cloth of you for Grain; but why prefer to trade at a ruinous disadvantage to both? Why should there be half the diameter of the earth between him who makes coats and him who makes bread, the one for the other? We are willing to give you bread for clothes; but we are not willing to pay two-thirds of our bread as the cost of transporting the other third to you, because we sincerely believe it needless and greatly to our disadvantage. We are willing to work for and buy of you, but not to support the useless and crippling activity of a falsely directed Commerce; not to contribute by our sweat to the luxury of your nobles, the power of your kings. But come to us, you who are honest, peaceable, and industrious; bring hither your machinery, or, if that is not yours, bring out your sinews; and we will aid you to reproduce the implements of your skill. We will give you more bread for your cloth here than you can possibly earn for it where you are, if you will but come among us and aid us to sustain the policy that secures steady employment and a fair reward to Home Industry. We will no longer aid to prolong your existence in a state of semi-starvation where you are; but we are ready to share with you our Plenty and our Freedom here.” Such is the answer which the friends of Protection make to the demand and the imputation; judge ye whether our policy be indeed selfish, un-Christian, and insane.

I proceed now to set forth my

Proposition IV. That Equilibrium between Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce, which we need, can only be maintained by means of Protective Duties.

You will have seen that the object we seek is not to make our country a Manufacturer for other nations, but for herself,—not to make her the baker and brewer and tailor of other people, but of her own household. If I understand at all the first rudiments of National Economy, it is best for each and all nations that each should mainly fabricate for itself, freely purchasing of others all such staples as its own soil or climate proves ungenial to. We appreciate quite as well as our opponents the impolicy of attempting to grow coffee in Greenland or glaciers in Malabar,—to extract blood from a turnip or sunbeams from cucumbers. A vast deal of wit has been expended on our stupidity by our acuter adversaries, but it has been quite thrown away, except as it has excited the hollow laughter of the ignorant as well as thoughtless. All this, however sharply pushed, falls wide of our true position. To all the fine words we hear about “the impossibility of counteracting the laws of Nature,” “Trade Regulating itself,” &c., &c., we bow with due deference, and wait for the sage to resume his argument. What we do affirm is this, that it is best for every nation to make at home all those articles of its own consumption that can just as well—that is, with nearly or quite as little labor—be made there as anywhere else. We say it is not wise, it is not well, to send to France for boots, to Germany for hose, to England for knives and forks, and so on; because the real cost of them would be less,—even though the nominal price should be slightly more,—if we made them in our own country; while the facility of paying for them would 3104be much greater. We do not object to the occasional importation of choice articles to operate as specimens and incentives to our own artisans to improve the quality and finish of their workmanship,—where the home competition does not avail to bring the process to its perfection, as it often will. In such cases, the rich and luxurious will usually be the buyers of these choice articles, and can afford to pay a good duty. There are gentlemen of extra polish in our cities and villages who think no coat good enough for them which is not woven in an English loom,—no boot adequately transparent which has not been fashioned by a Parisian master. I quarrel not with their taste: I only say that, since the Government must have Revenue and the American artisan should have Protection, I am glad it is so fixed that these gentlemen shall contribute handsomely to the former, and gratify their aspirations with the least possible detriment to the latter. It does not invalidate the fact nor the efficiency of Protection that foreign competition with American workmanship is not entirely shut out. It is the general result which is important, and not the exception. Now, he who can seriously contend, as some have seemed to do, that Protective Duties do not aid and extend the domestic production of the articles so protected might as well undertake to argue the sun out of the heavens at mid-day. All experience, all common sense, condemn him. Do we not know that our Manufactures first shot up under the stringent Protection of the Embargo and War? that they withered and crumbled under the comparative Free Trade of the few succeeding years? that they were revived and extended by the Tariffs of 1824 and ’28? Do we not know that Germany, crippled by British policy, which inundated her with goods yet excluded her grain and timber, was driven, years since, to the establishment of her “Zoll-Verein” or Tariff Union,—a measure of careful and stringent Protection, under which Manufactures have grown up and flourished through all her many States? She has adhered steadily, firmly, to her Protective Policy, while we have faltered and oscillated; and what is the result? She has created and established her Manufactures; and in doing so has vastly increased her wealth and augmented the reward of her industry. Her public sentiment, as expressed through its thousand channels, is almost unanimous in favor of the Protective Policy; and now, when England, finding at length that her cupidity has overreached itself,—that she cannot supply the Germans with clothes refuse to buy their bread,—talks of relaxing her Corn-Laws in order to coax back her ancient and profitable customer, the answer is, “No; it is now too late. We have built up Home Manufactures in repelling your rapacity,—we cannot destroy them at your caprice. What guarantee have we that, should we accede to your terms, you would not return again to your policy of taking all and giving none so soon as our factories had crumbled into ruin? Besides, we have found that we can make cheaper—really cheaper—than we were able to buy,—can pay better wages to our laborers, and secure a better and steadier market for our products. We are content to abide in the position to which you have driven us. Pass on!”

But this is not the sentiment of Germany alone. All Europe acts on the principle of self-protection; because all Europe sees its benefits. The British journals complain that, though they have made a show of relaxation in their own Tariff, and their Premier has made a Free Trade speech in Parliament, the chaff has caught no birds; but six hostile Tariffs—all Protective in their character, and all aimed at the supremacy of British Manufactures—were enacted within the year 1842. And thus, while schoolmen plausibly talk of the adoption and spread of Free Trade principles, and their rapid advances to speedy ascendency, the practical man knows that the truth is otherwise, and that many years must elapse before the great Colossus of Manufacturing monopoly will find another Portugal to drain of her life-blood under the delusive pretence of a commercial reciprocity. And, while Britain continues to pour forth her specious treatises on Political Economy, proving Protection a mistake and an impossibility through her Parliamentary Reports and Speeches in Praise of Free Trade, the shrewd statesmen of other nations humor the joke with all possible gravity, and pass it on to the next neighbor; yet all the time take care of their own interests, just as though Adam Smith had never speculated nor Peel soberly expatiated on the blessings of Free Trade, looking round occasionally with a curious interest to see whether anybody was really taken in by it.

I have partly anticipated, yet I will state distinctly, my

Proposition V. Protection is necessary and proper to sustain as well as to create a beneficent adjustment of our National Industry.

“Why can’t our Manufacturers go alone?” petulantly asks a Free-Trader; “they have had Protection long enough. They ought not to need it any more.” To this I answer that, if Manufactures were protected as a matter of special bounty or favor to the Manufacturers, a single day were too long. I would not consent that they should be sustained one day longer than the interests of the whole Country required. I think you have already seen that, not for the 3105sake of Manufacturers, but for the sake of all Productive Labor, should Protection be afforded. If I have been intelligible, you will have seen that the purpose and essence of Protection is Labor-Saving,—the making two blades of grass grow instead of one. This it does by “planting the Manufacturer as nearly as may be by the side of the Farmer,” as Mr. Jefferson expressed it, and thereby securing to the latter a market for which he had looked to Europe in vain. Now, the market of the latter is certain as the recurrence of appetite; but that is not all. The Farmer and the Manufacturer, being virtually neighbors, will interchange their productions directly, or with but one intermediate, instead of sending them reciprocally across half a continent and a broad ocean, through the hands of many holders, until the toll taken out by one after another has exceeded what remains of the grist. “Dear-bought and far-fetched” is an old maxim, containing more essential truth than many a chapter by a modern Professor of Political Economy. Under the Protective policy, instead of having one thousand men making Cloth in one hemisphere, and an equal number raising Grain in the other, with three thousand factitiously employed in transporting and interchanging these products, we have over two thousand producers of Grain, and as many of Cloth, leaving far too little employment for one thousand in making the exchanges between them. This consequence is inevitable; although the production on either side is not confined to the very choicest locations, the total product of their labor is twice as much as formerly. In other words, there is a double quantity of food, clothing, and all the necessaries and comforts of life, to be shared among the producers of wealth, simply from the diminution of the number of non-producers. If all the men now enrolled in Armies and Navies were advantageously employed in Productive Labor, there would doubtless be a larger dividend of comforts and necessaries of life for all, because more to be divided than now and no greater number to receive it; just so in the case before us. Every thousand persons employed in needless Transportation and in factitious Commerce are so many subtracted from the great body of Producers, from the proceeds of whose labor all must be subsisted. The dividend for each must, of course, be governed by the magnitude of the quotient.

But, if this be so advantageous, it is queried, why is any legislation necessary? Why would not all voluntarily see and embrace it? I answer, because the apparent individual advantage is often to be pursued by a course directly adverse to the general welfare. We know that Free Trade asserts the contrary of this; maintaining that, if every man pursues that course most conducive to his individual interest, the general good will thereby be most certainly and signally promoted. But, to say nothing of the glaring exceptions to this law which crowd our statute books with injunctions and penalties, we are everywhere met with pointed contradictions of its assumption, which hallows and blesses the pursuits of the gambler, the distiller, and the libertine, making the usurer a saint and the swindler a hero. Adam Smith himself admits that there are avocations which enrich the individual but impoverish the community. So in the case before us. A B is a farmer in Illinois, and has much grain to sell or exchange for goods. But, while it is demonstrable that, if all the manufactures consumed in Illinois were produced there, the price of grain must rise nearly to the average of the world, it is equally certain that A B’s single act, in buying and consuming American cloth, will not raise the price of grain generally, nor of his grain. It will not perceptibly affect the price of grain at all. A solemn compact of the whole community to use only American fabrics would have some effect; but this could never be established, or never enforced. A few Free-Traders standing out, selling their grain at any advance which might accrue, and buying “where they could buy cheapest,” would induce one after another to look out for No. 1, and let the public interests take care of themselves: so the whole compact would fall to pieces like a rope of sand. Many a one would say, “Why should I aid to keep up the price of Produce? I am only a consumer of it,”—not realizing or caring for the interest of the community, even though it less palpably involved his own; and that would be an end. Granted that it is desirable to encourage and prefer Home Production and Manufacture, a Tariff is the obvious way, and the only way, in which it can be effectively and certainly accomplished.

But why is a Tariff necessary after Manufactures are once established? “You say,” says a Free-Trader, “that you can Manufacture cheaper if Protected than we can buy abroad: then why not do it without Protection, and save all trouble?” Let me answer this cavil:—

I will suppose that the Manufactures of this Country amount in value to One Hundred Millions of Dollars per annum, and those of Great Britain to Three Hundred Millions. Let us suppose also that, under an efficient Protective Tariff, ours are produced five per cent. cheaper than those of England, and that our own markets are supplied entirely from the Home Product. But at the end of this year, 1843, we,—concluding that our Manufactures have been protected long enough and ought 3106now to go alone,—repeal absolutely our Tariff, and commit our great interests thoroughly to the guidance of “Free Trade.” Well: at this very time the British Manufacturers, on making up the account and review of their year’s business, find that they have manufactured goods costing them Three Hundred Millions, as aforesaid, and have sold to just about that amount, leaving a residue or surplus on hand of Fifteen or Twenty Millions’ worth. These are to be sold; and their net proceeds will constitute the interest on their capital and the profit on their year’s business. But where shall they be sold? If crowded on the Home or their established Foreign Markets, they will glut and depress those markets, causing a general decline of prices and a heavy loss, not merely on this quantity of goods, but on the whole of their next year’s business. They know better than to do any such thing. Instead of it, they say, “Here is the American Market just thrown open to us by a repeal of their Tariff: let us send thither our surplus, and sell it for what it will fetch.” They ship it over accordingly, and in two or three weeks it is rattling off through our auction stores, at prices first five, then ten, fifteen, twenty, and down to thirty per cent. below our previous rates. Every jobber and dealer is tickled with the idea of buying goods of novel patterns so wonderfully cheap; and the sale proceeds briskly, though, at constantly declining prices, till the whole stock is disposed of and our market is gorged to repletion.

Now, the British manufacturers may not have received for the whole Twenty Millions’ worth of Goods over Fourteen or Fifteen Millions; but what of it? Whatever it may be is clear profit on their year’s business in cash or its full equivalent. All their established markets are kept clear and eager; and they can now go on vigorously and profitably with the business of the new year. But more: they have crippled an active and growing rival; they have opened a new market, which shall erelong be theirs also.

Let us now look at our side of the question:—

The American Manufacturers have also a stock of goods on hand, and they come into our market to dispose of them. But they suddenly find that market forestalled and depressed by rival fabrics of attractive novelty, and selling in profusion at prices which rapidly run down to twenty-five per cent. below cost. What are they to do? They cannot force sales at any price not utterly ruinous; there is no demand at any rate. They cannot retaliate upon England the mischief they must suffer,—her Tariff forbids; and the other markets of the world are fully supplied, and will bear but a limited pressure. The foreign influx has created a scarcity of money as well as a plethora of goods. Specie has largely been exported in payment, which has compelled the Banks to contract and deny loans. Still, their obligations must be met; if they cannot make sales, the Sheriff will, and must. It is not merely their surplus, but their whole product, which has been depreciated and made unavailable at a blow. The end is easily foreseen: our Manufacturers become bankrupt and are broken up; their works are brought to a dead stand; the Laborers therein, after spending months in constrained idleness, are driven by famine into the Western wilderness, or into less productive and less congenial vocations; their acquired skill and dexterity, as well as a portion of their time, are a dead loss to themselves and the community; and we commence the slow and toilsome process of rebuilding and rearranging our industry on the one-sided or Agricultural basis. Such is the process which we have undergone twice already. How many repetitions shall satisfy us?

Now, will any man gravely argue that we have made Five or Six Millions by this cheap purchase of British goods,—by “buying where we could buy cheapest?” Will he not see that, though the price was low, the cost is very great? But the apparent saving is doubly deceptive; for the British manufacturers, having utterly crushed their American rivals by one or two operations of this kind, soon find here a market, not for a beggarly surplus of Fifteen or Twenty Millions, but they have now a demand for the amount of our whole consumption, which, making allowance for our diminished ability to pay, would probably still reach Fifty Millions per annum. This increased demand would soon produce activity and buoyancy in the general market; and now the foreign Manufacturers would say in their consultations, “We have sold some millions’ worth of goods to America for less than cost, in order to obtain control of that market; now we have it, and must retrieve our losses,”—and they would retrieve them, with interest. They would have a perfect right to do so. I hope no man has understood me as implying any infringement of the dictates of honesty on their part, still less of the laws of trade. They have a perfect right to sell goods in our markets on such terms as we prescribe and they can afford; it is we, who set up our own vital interests to be bowled down by their rivalry, who are alone to be blamed.

Who does not see that this sending out our great Industrial Interests unarmed and unshielded to battle against the mailclad legions opposed to them in the arena of Trade is to insure their destruction? It were just as wise to say that, because our 3107people are brave, therefore they shall repel any invader without fire-arms, as to say that the restrictions of other nations ought not to be opposed by us because our artisans are skilful and our manufactures have made great advances. The very fact that our manufactures are greatly extended and improved is the strong reason why they should not be exposed to destruction. If they were of no amount or value, their loss would be less disastrous; but now the Five or Six Millions we should make on the cheaper importation of goods would cost us One Hundred Millions in the destruction of Manufacturing Property alone.

Yet this is but an item of our damage. The manufacturing classes feel the first effect of the blow, but it would paralyze every muscle of society. One hundred thousand artisans and laborers, discharged from our ruined factories, after being some time out of employment, at a waste of millions of the National wealth, are at last driven by famine to engage in other avocations,—of course with inferior skill and at an inferior price. The farmer, gardener, grocer, lose them as customers to meet them as rivals. They crowd the labor-markets of those branches of industry which we are still permitted to pursue, just at the time when the demand for their products has fallen off, and the price is rapidly declining. The result is just what we have seen in a former instance: all that any man may make by buying Foreign goods cheap, he loses ten times over by the decline of his own property, product, or labor; while to nine-tenths of the whole people the result is unmixed calamity. The disastrous consequences to a nation of the mere derangement and paralysis of its Industry which must follow the breaking down of any of its great Producing Interests have never yet been sufficiently estimated. Free Trade, indeed, assures us that every person thrown out of employment in one place or capacity has only to choose another; but almost every workingman knows from experience that such is not the fact,—that the loss of situation through the failure of his business is oftener a sore calamity. I know a worthy citizen who spent six years in learning the trade of a hatter, which he had just perfected in 1798, when an immense importation of foreign hats utterly paralyzed the manufacture in this country. He traveled and sought for months, but could find no employment at any price, and at last gave up the pursuit, found work in some other capacity, and has never made a hat since. He lives yet, and now comfortably, for he is industrious and frugal; but the six years he gave to learn his trade were utterly lost to him,—lost for the want of adequate and steady Protection to Home Industry. I insist that the Government has failed of discharging its proper and rightful duty to that citizen and to thousands, and tens of thousands who have suffered from like causes. I insist that, if the Government had permitted without complaint a foreign force to land on our shores and plunder that man’s house of the savings of six years of faithful industry, the neglect of duty would not have been more flagrant. And I firmly believe that the people of this country are One Thousand Millions of Dollars poorer at this moment than they would have been had their entire Productive Industry been constantly protected, on the principles I have laid down, from the formation of the Government till now. The steadiness of employment and of recompense thus secured, the comparative absence of constrained idleness, and the more efficient application of the labor actually performed, would have vastly increased the product,—would have improved and beautified the whole face of the country; and the Moral and Intellectual advantages thence accruing would alone have been inestimable. A season of suspension of labor in a community is usually one of aggravated dissipation, drunkenness, and crime.