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|49| THE INFANCY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES :
A BRIEF CHAPTER FROM OUR NATIONAL HISTORY.

The struggle for the general encouragement and promotion of American industry, by the establishment and support among us of new departments of productive labor, is of far earlier date and longer continuance than is commonly supposed. It has now been prosecuted for more than a century. While this country remained in a relation of colonial dependence on Great Britain, the American side of it was maintained at great disadvantage, but with indomitable spirit. It was a leading and then openly avowed object of British policy, to confine our people, so far as possible, to the production of colonial staples—to the cutting of timber, digging of ore, raising of grain, curing of pork, beef, &c., for the markets of the mother country, procuring thence our supplies of all descriptions of manufactures. Even Lord Chatham, our friend in the great struggle against arbitrary power, declared that Americans should be allowed to manufacture not even a hob-nail. Accordingly, acts of Parliament were passed from time to time, from the moment a disposition to minister to their own wants was manifested by our people, discouraging and thwarting that disposition. Thus, so early as 1699, only seventy-nine years after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock—years in great part devoted to desperate conflicts with savage nature, more savage men, and the wily and powerful civilized foemen on our northern frontier—the jealousy of England had been awakened by the progress of our household manufactures, and Parliament enacted “that no wool, yarn, or woollen manufactures of their American plantations, shall be shipped thence, or even laden in order to be transported, on any pretence whatever.”

In 1719 the House of Commons declared “that the erecting of manufactories in the colonies tends to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain.”

Complaints continued to be made to Parliament of the setting up of new trades and manufactures in the colonies, to the detriment of the trade of the mother country. Thereupon the House of Commons, | in 1731, directed the Board of Trade to inquire and report “with respect to laws made, manufactures setup, or trade carried on detrimental to the trade, navigation, or manufactures of Great Britain.” The Board of Trade reported in February, 1742, and their report gives the best account now extant of the condition of our infant manufactures at that time. It informs Parliament that the government of Massachusetts Bay had lately passed an act to encourage the manufacture of paper, “which law interferes with the profit made by the British merchant on foreign paper sent thither.”

They also reported that in all the colonies north of Delaware, and in Somerset county, Maryland, the people had acquired the habit of making coarse woollen and linen fabrics in their several families for family use. This, it was suggested, could not well be prohibited, as the people devoted to this manufacture that portion of time (the winter) when they could do nothing else. It was further stated, that the higher price of labor in the colonies than in England made the cost of producing cloth fifty per cent greater in the colonies, and would prevent any serious rivalry with the manufactures of England. Still, the Board urged that something should be done to divert the attention and enterprise of the colonists from manufactures, otherwise they might in time become formidable. To this end, they urged that new encouragement be held out to the production of naval stores. “However, we find (says the Board) that certain trades are carried on, and manufactures set up, which are detrimental to the trade, navigation, and manufactures of Great Britain.” Answers from the Royal Governors of the several colonies to queries propounded to them by the Board, were next requested. They generally reported that few or no manufactures were carried on within their several jurisdictions, and these few were of a rude, coarse kind. In New England, however, leather was made, a little poor iron, and a considerable aggregate of cloths for domestic use ; but the great part of the |50| clothing of the people was imported from Great Britain. The hatters of London complained that a good many hats were made, especially in New York. In conclusion, the Board sums up :

“From the foregoing statement, it is observable that there are more trades carried on, and manufactures set up in the provinces on the continent of America to the northward of Virginia, prejudicial to the trade and manufactures of Great Britain, particularly in New England, than in any other of the British colonies ; which is not to be wondered at, for their soil, climate, and produce being pretty nearly the same with ours, they have no staple commodities of their own growth to exchange for our manufactures, which puts them under greater necessity, as well as under greater temptations for providing for themselves at home ; to which may be added, in the charter governments, the little dependence they have on the mother country, and consequently the small restraint they are under in any matters detrimental to her interests.” They closed by repeating the recommendation that measures be taken to turn the industry of the colonies into new channels serviceable to Great Britain, particularly the production of naval stores.

Parliament proceeded to act on these suggestions. That year (1732) an act was passed “to prevent the exportation of hats out of any of His Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America, and to restrain the number of apprentices taken by the hat-makers in the said colonies, and for the better encouraging the making of hats in Great Britain.” By this act not only was the exportation of colonial hats to a foreign port prohibited, but their transportation from one British plantation to another was also prohibited under severe penalties, and no person was allowed to make hats who had not served an apprenticeship for seven years ; nor could any hatter in the colonies have more than two apprentices at any one time ; and no black or negro was permitted to work at the business of making hats.

The manufactures of iron next came in for a share in the paternal regard of Parliament. In 1750 Parliament permitted pigs and bars of iron to be imported into England from the colonies duty free ; but prohibited the erection of any mill or other engine for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to work with a | tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel in the colonies, under the penalty of two hundred pounds. And every such mill, engine, forge, or furnace was declared a common nuisance, and the governor of the colony, on the information of two witnesses on oath, was ordered to cause the same to be abated within thirty days, or to forfeit the sum of five hundred pounds. Such was the spirit, such were the exactions of British legislation while our fathers remained subject to the mother country. [See the foregoing facts more fully cited from the original records in Pitkin’s Statistics, edition of 1835, pp. 461–66.]

The consequences of this state of enforced and abject dependence on Great Britain for the great mass of our fabrics are such as have been a thousand times realized in the history of the world. Although allowed a nearer approach to fair trade with the mother country than she has ever vouchsafed us since our independence, the colonies were never able to sell enough raw produce to England to pay for the manufactures with which she was constantly flooding us. Our people had cleared much land, built houses, and provided every thing essential to physical comfort, but the course of buying more than their exports would pay for could not be evaded. In the midst of outward prosperity, the colonies groaned under an increasing load of debts, which were constantly effecting the transfer of property here to owners in Great Britain. It was a standing reproach against our Revolutionary fathers that they flew to arms to evade the payment of their mercantile debts and the importunities of their creditors. And the Congress which assembled in 1765 to remonstrate against the Stamp Act, drew a graphic though sad picture of the calamities which had befallen the people—the multiplication of debts, the disappearance of money, the impossibility of payment, the stagnation of industry and business, through the excessive influx of foreign fabrics.

The war of the Revolution corrected this tendency, cutting off importation, and largely increasing our own household manufactures. But peace, in the utter absence of all protective legislation on our part, revived the mischief which had been trampled beneath the iron heel of war. The struggle for independence had left all the States embarrassed, trade completely disordered |51| and the whole country overwhelmed with worthless paper money ; and the unchecked importing of foreign fabrics still farther multiplied and magnified debts, deprived us of our specie, broke down the prices of our products, and created general stagnation and distress. From the state of desperation thus engendered, arose the disgraceful outbreak of insurrection in Massachusetts known as ‘Shay’s Rebellion.’ This was but one symptom of a general disease.

Repeated attempts were made to put an end to this state of things, by imposing duties on imports. But the Congress of the old confederation had no power to do this, except with the concurrence of each of the state governments. It was attempted, but failed. Rhode Island, then almost wholly a commercial state, objected, though the duty proposed was but five per cent, and the object the paying off the debts of the Revolution. Here was presented that stringent necessity which alone could have overcome the prevailing jealousies of, and aversion to, a stronger and more national government. A Convention was called, a Constitution framed and adopted ; and the second act of the new Congress stands on the records entitled : “An Act to make provision for the necessities of government, the payment of the national debt, and the protection of American manufactures” This act passed both houses of Congress by a substantially unanimous vote.

Great Britain now became alarmed for the stability of her market for manufactures in America. Her Board of Trade made a report on the subject in 1794, urging the negotiation of a commercial treaty with the United States, based on two propositions ; the first being, “that the duties on British manufactures imported into the United States shall not be raised above what they are at present.” The other proposed that the productions of other nations should be admitted into our ports in British vessels, the same as if imported in our own. But the government did not venture to press these propositions.

It was plainly discerned by the British economists of that day, that, while our Congress had explicitly asserted the principle of protection, and had intended to act consistently with that principle, yet, from inexperience and a natural hesitation to change abruptly the direction which circumstances had given to our | national industry, they had fallen far short of this. The few articles of manufacture already produced in the country to a considerable extent, were, in general, efficiently protected ; but the greater portion of the manufactures essential to our complete emancipation from colonial dependence were left unprotected by duties of five to fifteen per cent. Years of hard experience and of frequent suffering were required to teach the mass of our statesmen the advantage and beneficence of extending protection also to those articles which had not been, but might easily and profitably be, produced in our own country, if the producers were shielded from the destructive rivalry always brought to bear upon a new branch of industry by the jealous and powerful foreign interests which it threatens to deprive of a lucrative market. We had but begun to learn the truths which form the basis of a wise and beneficent national economy, when the breaking out of the great wars in Europe opened to us large and lucrative foreign markets for our raw staples, and the heads of our most sedate thinkers were nearly turned by the tempting prizes proffered to mercantile enterprise by the convulsions of the old world. It seemed as though we had but to produce whatever was easiest and most natural to us, and Europe would take it at our own price, and pay us bountifully for carrying it where she wanted it. This was a pleasant dream while it lasted, but a brief one. We were awakened from it by seizures, confiscations, embargoes, and at last war, which imposed on us the necessity of commencing nearly every branch of manufacture under the most unfavorable auspices, and of course at a ruinous cost. The war with Great Britain was, in this respect, a substantial benefit to the country. The Congress of 1816 failed to impose a tariff at all adequate (save on a few articles) to the real wants of the country, but the germ of industrial independence had been planted in a soil fertilized, by blood, and the plant was destined to live and flourish, though exposed to rude blasts and chilling frosts in its spring-time. From 1816 to 1824, it might well have seemed doubtful whether the country would not discard all the dear-bought experience of the past, and blast all the well-grounded hopes for the future, in a heedless pursuit of what seemed (deceitful seeming !) to be the sordid interest of the present. But better counsels ultimately |52| prevailed, and the passage of the tariff of 1824 may be regarded as the resting of the ark of national independence on the dry and solid ground of efficient and positive protection to home industry. From that hour until the duties were sensibly reduced under the operation of the Compromise Act, the course of the country was due onward to more and more decided prosperity.

Experience and observation are of little use if we fail to regulate our conduct by them. The same policy which the British Government pursued towards this country whilst in its dependent colonial state, still forms the favorite measures of that government towards the United States. It would be no difficult matter to show that upon every agitation of the question of protection in Congress, the British Parliament have introduced some proceedings in order to distract, if possible, the attention of our statesmen, and to induce among us an opposition to any measures which should establish protection to our own industry, as the settled policy of the nation. The Parliament even carried the farce so far, that in May, 1840, a time when the whole people of this country were thoroughly waking up to the importance of the home system, they raised a select committee in the House of Commons, to inquire whether the duties levied by the British tariff “are for protection to similar articles” manufactured in that country, or “for the purposes of revenue alone.” This select committee, in their report of August 6, 1840, appear to have lost sight of the principal object apparent on the face of the resolution authorizing their examination and report, and content themselves with observing that the English tariff “often aims at incompatible ends ; the duties are sometimes meant to be both productive of revenue and for protective objects.” But they state that they had discovered “a growing conviction, that the protective system is not, on the whole, beneficial to the protected manufactures themselves.”

After such a discovery, and its solemn announcement by a select committee of the House of Commons, it would reasonably be imagined that some steps would be taken towards rectifying that “incompatibility” in the British policy, and in abandoning that system which they represent as having been found not to be beneficial to their protected manufactures. If, however, we expect any such | thing from that quarter we shall be much mistaken in our anticipations. That report was grown and manufactured for the American market, and was not designed for any real effect upon the proceedings of the British House of Commons. It was intended to convince the American Congress and the American people that Great Britain was almost ruined by her protective system, (a system of ruin which she adheres to with astonishing pertinacity up to the present moment,) that our protective tariff would in like manner be ruinous to us, and that our only salvation was in adopting at once the principles of free-trade,—opening our ports to all British manufactures, and becoming, in fact, merely a market for British labor. Whether, following a change on our side of the policy, they would admit our agricultural products freely, or how our own mechanics should find employment to keep them from starving, they would leave to be afterwards discovered.

Finding that their recommendation to us had no effect upon the measures of our government, they cease to be careful of the principles they put forth to the world, and seeing no longer any good reason for disguise, the leading men in both houses of Parliament afford us a fine commentary upon the text of that report of the select committee. The Duke of Wellington very recently, with the frankness of his known character, stated in the House of Peers, the true and permanent policy of Great Britain, in observing that “when free-trade was talked of as existing in England, it was an absurdity. There was no such thing, and there could be no such thing as free-trade in that country. We proceed (says he) on the system of protecting our own manufactures and our own produce—the produce of our labor and our soil ; of protecting them for exportation, and protecting them for home consumption ; and on that universal system of protection it is absurd to talk of free-trade.”

The necessity of a modification in our duties upon imports, which became apparent early in 1842, afforded a further insight into the course of British policy towards this country. So soon as the cry for protection to American industry became so loud and long as to require an answer to its demand from the supreme legislative authority, we were told throughout the whole length and breadth of our land, the information originating in |53| England for our benefit, that Great Britain was willing to take our surplus bread-stuff in exchange for her manufactures ; and that there was therefore no necessity of changing our tariff policy in order to build up a home market for our grain-growers in the Western and Middle states, as well as our cotton-planters in the South. This would have been the tale to this day if we had not settled our protective system. It continued to be used as long as it could be with any effect ; and when it became apparent to the British administration that the people of the United States could be no longer deluded by their interested and mystified views of state policy, volunteered for our service, they at once changed their note, as will be seen on reference to the speech of Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, in May, 1843, upon the motion of Mr. Villiers for a repeal of the English corn-laws. Sir Robert sustains and advocates the British system, and that motion was rejected by a majority of one hundred and ninety-six votes ! Those who had previously flattered themselves that the British ministry were prepared to go, in some modified form, for free-trade, will do well to notice the horror expressed by Sir Robert Peel of the consequences of abandoning “the principle of protection ;” and they will see by that most decisive vote that the House of Commons agree with him in sentiment. As to the judgment of the House of Peers on the subject, there cannot be a question that they are more thoroughly opposed, from interest, to any kind of free-trade, than even the Commons. The Duke of Wellington in his speech (to which we have previously referred) expressed the sentiments of a large majority of that house.

It follows then, that unless we are determined to be infatuated, we must see that Great Britain does not intend, under any possible state of circumstances, to abandon the full and entire protection of her own agriculturists, and her own manufactures. We do not see then why we should for a moment hesitate about effectually protecting ours. It does not become us as a people to suffer ourselves to be hoodwinked by interested British statesmen,—to have our state policy indicated to us by British capitalists and manufacturers—a policy which they are very careful not to adopt themselves.

And with the knowledge which our people have, or may have by merely | looking into the history of the world about us, it is beyond measure strange that there should be a difference of opinion amongst our citizens on the subject. The new school of political economists, disciples of Adam Smith, have set up for their chief maxim, that nations should buy where they can buy cheapest. This may at any time be a sufficient rule for the present by itself ; but they seem never to have reflected that with nations as much as with individuals, a smaller present good is often to be foregone for a greater good in the future. Great Britain was once dependent on Flanders for her woollen goods, on the East Indies for her cottons, on France for her paper, glass, and various articles. Had she continued to act on the present-advantage system, she would have been so dependent to this hour. She now makes them all for herself, besides gathering in half the wealth of the world by selling the surplus. It is the same policy which alone can raise us to any permanent height of strength and prosperity, or even keep us from sinking into a second state of colonial dependence. The advantages and blessings which have followed the adoption of the present tariff, the act of 1842, should open the eyes of all who are not intentionally blind. Just before the passage of the present tariff in August, 1842, there were forty thousand unemployed persons in the state of Pennsylvania alone ; and at the same time full ten thousand of the industrious classes in the city of Philadelphia were vainly endeavoring to earn the means by which to buy bread to feed themselves and their families. Our tariff has fed the hungry, found employment for the destitute ; and the blessing of those who were in want, and ready to perish, sanctifies it as one of the most righteous measures of a government founded for the good of the people.

The enemies of the American system are accustomed to assail it as unconstitutional. We consider this point to have been effectually settled by Mr. Webster’s late clear and powerful argument at Albany. We do not see how any one can read that argument, or can be in any other way familiar with the history of those times, and not be convinced of the existence of such powers in the Constitution to the full extent claimed by the friends of the tariff. It is known, as well as any thing can be known, that the exercise of such powers by the new |54| Congress “was the expectation, the belief, the conviction that prevailed everywhere ;” that the first three petitions presented to that body were from tradesmen, manufacturers, and mechanics, in different sections of the Union, for protection, and that Congress recognised the propriety of such petitions, and passed acts for their benefit.

History makes it certain, also, that our great men, throughout that eventful period and at a later day, whatever opinions they may have expressed when mere party or political interests were at stake, at other times, when looking alone at the true interests of the nation, the whole nation, have uniformly held and expressed but one opinion, and that in favor of the American protective system. Of the sentiments of Washington on this point there is not and cannot be a doubt. They have been too often expressed to leave it a matter of question. Our opponents, however, are rarely found quoting Washington on any point ; they believe in Jefferson rather. They should have better known the opinions of the man to whom they so constantly and pertinaciously appeal. The sentiments of Hamilton, Franklin, Madison, on the subject, and others of the Men of the Revolution, it would be a waste of time to call forth in array ; but as it seems to be somewhat the fashion of the day to represent the leaders of the Democratic party as opposed to the Protective System, we shall occupy a few moments to show most clearly, if they are so now, it is because they have abandoned the primitive faith of Democracy, as known in the time of Thomas Jefferson, and much later. We do this in no invidious sense, but merely to show that but one system of policy has ever been held in the country, from the first formation of our federal government to the present time.

And first, the Free-Trade and Texas party will be delighted to hear the words of one whom they are proud to call “the Apostle of Democracy.” In Jefferson’s “Report on the privileges and restrictions of the commerce of the United States” are the following sensible passages :—

“When a nation imposes high duties on our productions, or prohibits them altogether, it may be proper for us to do the same by theirs—first burdening or excluding those productions which they bring here in competition with our own of the same kind ; selecting next such manufactures as | we take from them in greatest quantity, and which at the same time we could the soonest furnish to ourselves, or obtain from other countries ; imposing on them duties light at first, but heavier and heavier afterwards, as other channels of supply open.

“Such duties, having the effect of indirect encouragement to domestic manufactures of the same kind, may induce the manufacturer to come himself into these States, where cheaper subsistence, equal laws, and a vent for his wares, free of duty, may insure him the highest profits from his skill and industry. The oppressions of our agriculture in foreign parts would thus be made the occasion of relieving it from a dependence on the councils and conduct of others, and of promoting arts, manufactures, and population at home.”

Corroboratory views are given by him in his Message of Dec. 2d, 1806. After representing the accruing revenue as being more than sufficient for the wants of government if peace should continue, he proceeds :—

“The question therefore now comes forward, to what other objects shall these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost, after the entire discharge of the public debt, and during those intervals when the purposes of war shall not call for them ? Shall we suppress the impost, and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures ? On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression, in due season, will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers.”

It is fitting that this should be followed by a maxim or two from Adam Smith, from whom this school have derived all their new tenets :

“Whatever tends to diminish in any country the number of artificers and manufacturers, tends to diminish the home market, the most important of all markets for the rude produce of the lands, and thereby still further to discourage agriculture.

“If the free importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the home manufacturers would probably suffer, and some of them perhaps go to ruin altogether, |55| and a considerable part of the stock and industry employed in them would be forced to find out some other employment.” —Smith’s Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 321.

These maxims are altogether the truth ; we are not bound to consider whether the Doctor falsifies in them his own theory.

The name of Thomas Cooper, again, is constantly in the mouths of our opponents as an upholder of their favorite notions. They should learn to read less obliquely. We quote from his Principles of Political Economy, written during or soon after the War :

“We are too much dependent upon Great Britain for articles that habit has converted into necessaries. A state of war demands privations that a large portion of our citizens reluctantly submit to. Home manufactures would greatly lessen the evil.

“By means of debts incurred for foreign manufactures, we are almost again become colonists—we are too much under the influence, indirectly, of British merchants and British agents. We are not an independent people. Manufactures among us would tend to correct this, and give a stronger tone of nationality at home.”

Consistent Democrats are always lamenting the influence of manufactures on agriculture. They will be comforted by discovering that Judge Cooper thought otherwise. He remarks :

“The state of agriculture would improve with the improvement of manufactures, by means of the general spirit of energy and exertion which nowhere exist in so high a degree as in a manufacturing country ; and by the general improvement of machinery, and the demand for raw materials.

“Our agriculturists want a home market. Manufactures would supply it. Agriculture at great distances from seaports languishes for want of this. Great Britain exhibits an instance of unexampled power and wealth by means of an agriculture greatly dependent on a system of manufactures—and her agriculture, thus situated, is the best in the world, though still capable of great improvement.”

It should ever be brought out into the light and kept before the people, that we possess an immense country, with every variety of soil, and climate, and geological structure, calculated for all the staple manufactures in use among us, and for all kinds of agricultural products, especially those grown away from the tropics ; and that one part of the country is fitted | to produce what another part cannot. One section may therefore just as well exchange commodities with another as with a foreign country, aside from the vast advantage of having a market nearer and surer. On this point and some others at the same time, we commend to free-traders among us some judicious remarks of their favorite, Judge Cooper :

“The home trade, consisting in the exchange of agricultural surpluses for articles of manufacture, produced in our own country, will, for a long time to come, furnish the safest and the least dangerous—the least expensive and the least immoral—the most productive and the most patriotic employment of surplus capital, however raised and accumulated. The safest, because it requires no navies exclusively for its protection ; the least dangerous, because it furnishes no excitement to the prevailing madness of commercial wars ; the least expensive, for the same reason that it is the safest and the least dangerous ; the least immoral, because it furnishes no temptation to the breach or evasion of the laws ; to the multiplication of oaths and perjuries ; and to the consequent prostration of all religious feeling, and all social duty : the most productive, because the capital admits of quicker returns ; because the whole of the capital is permanently invested and employed at home ; because it contributes, directly, immediately, and wholly, to the internal wealth and resources of the nation ; because the credits given are more easily watched, and more effectually protected by our own laws, well known, easily resorted to, and speedily executed, than if exposed in distant and in foreign countries, controlled by foreign laws and foreign customs, and at the mercy of foreign agents ; the most patriotic, because it binds the persons employed in it by all the ties of habit and of interest to their own country ; while foreign trade tends to denationalize the affections of those whose property is dispersed in foreign countries, whose interests are connected with foreign interests, whose capital is but partially invested at the place of their domicil, and who can remove with comparative facility from one country to another. The wise man observed of old, that ‘where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.’  ”

“Nor can there be any fear that for a century to come, there will not be full demand produced by a system of home manufacture for every particle of surplus produce that agriculture can supply. Of all the occupations which may be employed in furnishing articles either of immediate necessity, of reasonable want, or of direct connection with agriculture, we have in |56| abundance the raw materials of manufacture ; and the raw material, uninstructed man, to manufacture them. Is it to be pretended that these occupations, when fully under way at home, will not furnish a market for the superfluous produce of agriculture, provided that produce be, as it necessarily will be, suited to the demand ? Or ought this variety of occupation, and above all, the mass of real knowledge it implies, to be renounced and neglected for the sake of foreign commerce—that we may not interfere with the profits and connections of the merchants who reside among us ; and that we may be taxed, and tolerated, and licensed, to fetch from abroad what we can, with moderate exertion, supply at home ? It appears to me of national importance to counteract these notions.”

We pass finally to one of the modern pillars of the no-protection policy, John C. Calhoun. What he now thinks, his party profess to know. For ourselves, we are glad he ever held opinions so sound as these.

The passages, taken from a speech delivered in Congress, April, 1816, relate to that momentous condition to which every nation is liable, but the idea of which seems never to have presented itself to the minds of the radical economists—a state of war. The language is eloquent and powerful, the reasoning most conclusive :

“The security of a country mainly depends on its spirit and its means ; and the latter principally on its moneyed resources. Modified as the industry of this country now is, whenever we have the misfortune to be involved in a war with a nation dominant on the ocean, and it is almost only with such we can at present be, the moneyed resources of the country, to a great extent, must fail. It is the duty of Congress to adopt those measures of prudent foresight which the events of war make necessary.

“Commerce and agriculture, till lately, almost the only, still constitute the principal sources of our wealth. So long as these remain uninterrupted, the country prospers : but war, as we are now circumstanced, is equally destructive to both. They both depend on foreign markets ; and our country is placed, as it regards them, in a situation strictly insular. A wide ocean rolls between us and our markets. What, then, are the effects of a war with a maritime power—with England ? Our commerce annihilated, spreading individual misery, and, producing national poverty ; our agriculture cut off from its accustomed, markets, the surplus product, of the farmer perishes on his hands ; and he ceases to produce, because he cannot sell. His resources are dried up, | while his expenses are greatly increased, as all manufactured articles, the necessaries as well as the conveniences of life, rise to an extravagant price.

“No country ought to be dependent on another for its means of defence ; at least, our musket and bayonet, our cannon and ball, ought to be domestic manufacture. But what is more necessary to the defence of a country than its currency and finance ? Circumstanced as our country is, can these stand the shock of war ? Behold the effect of the late war on them ! When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon will, under the fostering care of government, we will no longer experience those evils. The farmer will find a ready market for his surplus produce ; and, what is almost of equal consequence, a certain and cheap supply for all his wants. His prosperity will diffuse itself to every class in the community ; and instead of that languor of industry and individual distress now incident to a state of war and suspended commerce, the wealth and vigor of the community will not be materially impaired. The arm of government will be nerved. Taxes, in the hour of danger, when essential to the independence of the nation, may be greatly increased. Loans, so uncertain and hazardous, may be less relied on ; thus situated, the storm may beat without, but within all will be quiet and safe.

“However prosperous our situation when at peace, with uninterrupted commerce—and nothing then could exceed it—the moment that we are involved in war, the whole is reversed. When resources are most needed ; when indispensable to maintain the honor, yes, the very existence of the nation, then they desert us. Our currency is also sure to experience the shock ; and becomes so deranged as to prevent us from calling out fairly whatever of means is left to the country. The exportation of our bulky articles is prevented : the specie of the country is drawn off to pay the balance perpetually accumulating against us ; and the final result is the total derangement of our currency.

“Manufactures produce an interest strictly American, as much so as agriculture. In this they have the decided advantage of commerce or navigation ; and the country will derive from it much advantage. Again, it is calculated to bind together more closely our wide-spread Republic. It will greatly increase our mutual dependence and intercourse : and will, as a necessary consequence, excite an increased attention to internal improvement, a subject every way so intimately connected with the ultimate attainment of national strength, and the perfection of our political institutions.”

|57| Having thus exhibited the opinions on this great question, of the most eminent of those whose opinions our opponents have ever professed to follow, (undoubtedly they can claim that James K. Polk is not of the number—he never had but one sentiment on the subject, and the people will remember it,) we wish only to subjoin a passage from another eminent man, on a consideration of mightier importance to a great nation than any of these practical points—the influence, namely, of the protective system on the education and morals of the people. It is a passage from Mr. Webster’s late speech at Albany.

“In this country, wages are high : they are, and they ought to be, higher than in any other country in the world. And the reason is, that the laborers of this country are the country. The vast proportion of those who own the soil, especially in the Northern States, cultivate their own acres. They stand on their own acres. The proprietors are the tillers, the laborers on the soil. But this is not all. The members of the country here are part and parcel of the Government. This is a state of things which exists nowhere else on the face of the earth. An approximation to it has been made in France, since the Revolution of 1831, which secured the abolition of primogeniture and the restraints of devises.

“But nowhere else in the world does there exist such a state of things as we see here, where the proprietors are the laborers and at the same time help to frame the Government. If, therefore, we wish to maintain the Government, we must see that labor with us is not put in competition with the pauper, unlearned, ignorant labor of Europe. Our men who labor have families to maintain and to educate. They have sons to fit for the discharge of the duties of life ; they have an intelligent part to act for themselves and their connections. And is labor like that to be reduced to a level with that of the forty millions of serfs of Russia, or the serfs of other parts of Europe, or the half-fed, half-clothed, ignorant, dependent laborers of a great part of the rest of Europe ? America must cease then to be America. We should be transferred to I know not what sort of a Government—transferred to I know not what state of society, if the laborers in this country are to do no more to maintain and educate their families and provide for old age, than they do in the Old World. And may our eyes never look upon such a spectacle as that in this free country !”

Having thus set forth, though in too short space, the early history of our | manufactures, the early and the latter conduct of England with respect to them, and the true and only policy of our government in the matter, confirming our views and the force of history by the opinions of men whom the enemies of such policy are bound to believe, we are disposed to embody, in conclusion, some of the grounds of the Protective Theory in a few simple propositions.

1. A judicious tariff affords to the industry of the country, protection against derangement and depression by unequal foreign competition ; it sustains and cherishes such industry, increasing its efficiency and rewards at the same time that it provides a revenue, adequate to pay the debts and defray the current expenses of the government.

2. It extends and diversifies the sphere of home industry, by calling into existence such new branches of production as are adapted to the wants and circumstances of the people, keeping ever in view the natural resources and facilities of the country, and the genius of its inhabitants.

3. The effect of such protection is to increase generally the intellectual and industrial capacity of the laboring class ; to render them more independent, and increase the reward of their labor ; while at the same time it ensures to capital a more uniform activity, and renders property and products of all kinds more readily and uniformly convertible at fair and reasonable prices.

4. This policy is especially adapted to and demanded by the interests of the great Agricultural class, who can very rarely secure a steady, remunerating demand for their surplus productions elsewhere than in their own country ; many of those products being perishable, and liable to be seriously injured, if not destroyed, by transportation to any considerable distance, while nearly all of them are bulky, and only to be conveyed to foreign countries at a ruinous expense.

5. Protection, though often valuable and necessary to the farmer in keeping out of our own markets foreign products which rival and supplant his own, is still more useful and indispensable to him in creating and maintaining all around and beside him ready and steady markets for his produce, by bringing into prosperous and durable existence new branches of industry which do not rival his own, but which employ multitudes who are consumers |58| only, and not to any great extent producers, of agricultural staples.

6. Duties levied on foreign fabrics which shut out those fabrics and build up a home production of substitutes, and so a vastly enlarged and quickened home consumption of provisions, fruits, wool, cotton, fuel, &c., are truly protective of agriculture, and essential to its prosperous existence.

7. The effect of an adequate and wise protection is to bring the producer and consumer far nearer each other—to unite them in friendly intimacy and mutual good-will—to diminish largely and beneficially the heavy subtraction otherwise made from the general proceeds of productive labor to pay the cost and charges of transportation and trade—and to secure them against the chances and changes of fluctuation in national policy and the occasional intervention of embargoes and war.

8. The limitations thus set to the sphere and operations of trade are not injurious even to a just and useful commerce, since every nation must still purchase of other nations those various products, mineral and vegetable, with which the diversities of soil, of climate, and of geologic structure, enable one to supply another with decided advantage to both ; and far greater development and productive efficiency will be ensured to the industry of each nation by wise protection and encouragement. The imports of any nation will be found to bear a far nearer proportion to the productiveness of its industry than to the freedom of its trade—being governed by its ability to pay rather than its willingness to buy.

9. The proper and decisive consideration in determining whether to protect or not protect the home production of a particular article, is simply—Have we evidence that it may ultimately be produced here, if adequately protected now, as cheaply—that is, with as little labor—as it can be produced elsewhere ? If it can be, then it is wise, beneficent, patriotic, to cherish the home production, although the money cost of the article, by reason of the cheapness of labor in some other countries as compared with its price in our own, may be permanently less if imported free of duty.

10. If the effective laboring population of our country be estimated at 4,000,000, by whom 3,000,000 under a revenue tariff are engaged in producing articles of necessity or utility, and | 1,000,000 in interchanging, transporting, and selling them ; and the consequence of a resort to protective duties be to diminish the latter class to half a million and increase the former, without impairing the efficiency of their labor, to three and a half millions, as its tendency must manifestly be, then the aggregate annual product of our national industry must be increased one-seventh, the average reward of labor enhanced in like proportion, and the wealth of the country be rapidly and steadily augmented.

11. While one effect of mere revenue duties manifestly is and must be an enhancement of the price to the consumer of the article on which they are levied, the influence of protective duties naturally is and must be to diminish the price of the protected articles to their consumers, by cutting down the cost of transportation and traffic, although the producer in this country may receive for it as much as, or even more than, formerly.

12. This tendency of protective duties in diminishing the cost of the protected articles to the consumer is accelerated by the following incidents or results of protection :

1st, Comparative steadiness of demand for the producer ; the home market being naturally less variable than a distant one.

2d, Increased demand for the product. Our people buy and consume more of an article made at home and paid for with their own products, than of a foreign one.

3d, Comparative steadiness of prices. The maker of hats or calicoes for a protected home market, while he is constantly pressed down in his prices by competition, to a point very near the cost of production, is yet never subjected to that sort of competition which, based on cheaper labor and other elements of production, seeks a present ruinous depression of prices in the hope of securing a future monopoly of the market, and a consequent ample remuneration for all losses.

The man who produces any fabric, knowing that he is morally sure of a fair reward for his labor, can afford it cheaper, and generally will do so, than if he labored always in terror of an unequal and ruinous competition ; just as the New England farmer of to-day can afford corn cheaper than his forefathers could two hundred years ago, when they were compelled to raise it only within |59| the shadow of a fort, and hoe with their guns stacked in the field.

13. We object altogether to the levying of a tariff for revenue merely, as unequal and unjust. On the free-trade assumption that all duties raise the price of the articles on which they are levied, and so operate only as a tax on the consumer, we deny the rightfulness of raising revenue in this mode, since the man who has no property to protect, and the woman who has no voice in the government, may often be compelled to contribute as much towards the support of the government as a Rothschild or Jacob Astor. If a tariff is not beneficently protective, it ought not to exist at all.

| 14. We do not propose nor advocate absolutely prohibitory duties. We would adjust the tariff so as to give to every branch of home industry a clear and undeniable advantage over the rival industry of foreign nations in the supply of our own markets, but leave it so that novel and rare fabrics might be moderately introduced, to stimulate invention and improvement in our own artisans, and contribute to the national revenue. Such limited importations may also be serviceable in correcting any momentary tendency to excessive prices by combinations among our own producers of any article.