Whatever may be the value of my opinions on the interesting subject
now before us, they have not been hastily formed. It may possibly be
recollected by some gentlemen, that I expressed them when the existing
tariff was adopted; and that I then urged, that the period of the
termination of the war, during which the manufacturing industry of
the country had received a powerful spring, was precisely that period
when government was alike impelled, by duty and interest, to protect
it against the free admission of foreign fabrics, consequent upon a
state of peace. I insisted, on that occasion, that a less measure of
protection would prove more efficacious, at that time, than one of
greater extent at a future day. My wishes prevailed only in part; and
we are now called upon to decide whether we will correct the error
which, I think, we then committed.
In considering the subject, the first important inquiry that we
should make is, whether it be desirable that such a portion of the
capital and labor of the country should be employed in the business
of manufacturing, as would furnish a supply of our necessary wants?
Since the first colonization of America, the principal direction of the
labor and capital of the inhabitants, has been to produce raw materials
for the consumption or fabrication of foreign nations. We have always
had, in great abundance, the means of subsistence, but we have derived
chiefly from other countries our clothes, and the instruments of
defence. Except during those interruptions of commerce arising from a
state of war, or from measures adopted for vindicating our commercial
rights, we have experienced no very great inconvenience heretofore
from this mode of supply. The limited amount of our surplus produce,
resulting from the smallness of our numbers, and the long and arduous
convulsions of Europe, secured us good markets for that surplus in her
ports, or those of her colonies. But those convulsions have now ceased,
and our population has reached nearly ten millions. A new epoch has
arisen; and it becomes us deliberately to contemplate our own actual
condition, and the relations which are likely to exist between us and
the other parts of the world. The actual state of our population, and
the ratio of its progressive increase, when compared with the ratio
of the increase of the population of the countries which have hitherto
consumed our raw produce, seem, to me, alone to demonstrate the
necessity of diverting some portion of our industry from its accustomed
channel. We double our population in about the term of twenty-five
years. If there be no change in the mode of exerting our industry,
we shall double, during the same term, the amount of our exportable
produce. Europe, including such of her colonies as we have free access
to, taken altogether, does not duplicate her population in a shorter
term, probably, than one hundred years. The ratio of the increase of
her capacity of consumption, therefore, is, to that of our capacity
of production, as one is to four. And it is manifest, from the simple
exhibition of the powers of the consuming countries, compared with
those of the supplying country, that the former are inadequate to the
latter. It is certainly true, that a portion of the mass of our raw
produce, which we transmit to her, reverts to us in a fabricated form,
and that this return augments with our increasing population. This is,
however, a very inconsiderable addition to her actual ability to afford
a market for the produce of our industry.
I believe that we are already beginning to experience the want of
capacity in Europe to consume our surplus produce. Take the articles
of cotton, tobacco, and bread-stuffs. For the latter we have scarcely
any foreign demand. And is there not reason to believe, that we have
reached, if we have not passed, the maximum of the foreign demand for
the other two articles? Considerations connected with the cheapness
of cotton, as a raw material, and the facility with which it can
be fabricated, will probably make it to be more and more used as a
substitute for other materials. But, after you allow to the demand for
it the utmost extension of which it is susceptible, it is yet quite
_limited_――limited by the number of persons who use it, by their wants
and their ability to supply them. If we have not reached, therefore,
the maximum of the foreign demand, (as I believe we have,) we must
soon fully satisfy it. With respect to tobacco, that article affording
an enjoyment not necessary, as food and clothes are, to human existence,
the foreign demand for it is still more precarious, and I apprehend
that we have already passed its limits. It appears to me, then,
that, if we consult our interest merely, we ought to encourage home
manufactures. But there are other motives to recommend it, of not less
importance.
The wants of man may be classed under three heads; food, raiment,
and defence. They are felt alike in the state of barbarism and of
civilization. He must be defended against the ferocious beasts of
prey in the one condition, and against the ambition, violence, and
injustice, incident to the other. If he seeks to obtain a supply of
those wants without giving an equivalent, he is a beggar or a robber;
if by promising an equivalent which he cannot give, he is fraudulent;
and if by commerce, in which there is perfect freedom on his side,
whilst he meets with nothing but restrictions on the other, he submits
to an unjust and degrading inequality. What is true of individuals
is equally so of nations. The country, then, which relies upon
foreign nations for either of those great essentials, is not, in fact,
independent. Nor is it any consolation for our dependence upon other
nations, that they are also dependent upon us, even were it true. Every
nation should anxiously endeavor to establish its absolute independence,
and consequently be able to feed, and clothe, and defend itself. If
it rely upon a foreign supply, that may be cut off by the caprice
of the nation yielding it, by war with it, or even by war with other
nations, it cannot be independent. But it is not true, that any other
nations depend upon us in a degree any thing like equal to that of our
dependence upon them for the great necessaries to which I have referred.
Every other nation seeks to supply itself with them from its own
resources; and, so strong is the desire which they feel to accomplish
this purpose, that they exclude the cheaper foreign article, for the
dearer home production. Witness the English policy in regard to corn.
So selfish, in this respect, is the conduct of other powers, that,
in some instances, they even prohibit the produce of the industry of
their _own_ colonies, when it comes into competition with the produce
of the parent country. All other countries but our own, exclude by
high duties, or absolute prohibitions, whatever they can respectively
produce within themselves. The truth is, and it is in vain to disguise
it, that we are a sort of independent colonies of England――politically
free, commercially slaves. Gentlemen tell us of the advantages of a
free exchange of the produce of the world. But they tell us of what
has never existed, does not exist, and perhaps never will exist. They
invoke us to give perfect freedom on our side, whilst, in the ports
of every other nation, we are met with a code of odious restrictions,
shutting out entirely a great part of our produce, and letting in
only so much as they cannot possibly do without. I will hereafter
examine their favorite maxim, of leaving things to themselves, more
particularly. At present, I will only say that I too am a friend to
free trade, but it must be a free trade of perfect reciprocity. If the
governing consideration were cheapness; if national independence were
to weigh nothing; if honor nothing; why not subsidize foreign powers
to defend us? why not hire Swiss or Hessian mercenaries to protect
us? why not get our arms of all kinds, as we do in part, the blankets
and clothing of our soldiers, from abroad? We should probably consult
economy by these dangerous expedients.
But, say gentlemen, there are to the manufacturing system some inherent
objections, which should induce us to avoid its introduction into this
country; and we are warned by the example of England, by her pauperism,
by the vices of her population, her wars, and so forth. It would be
a strange order of Providence, if it were true, that he should create
necessary and indispensable wants, and yet should render us unable to
supply them without the degradation or contamination of our species.
Pauperism is, in general, the effect of an overflowing population.
Manufactures may undoubtedly produce a redundant population; but so may
commerce, and so may agriculture. In this respect they are alike; and
from whatever cause the disproportion of a population to the subsisting
faculty of a country may proceed, its effect of pauperism is the same.
Many parts of Asia would exhibit, perhaps, as afflicting effects of
an extreme prosecution of the agricultural system, as England can
possibly furnish, respecting the manufacturing. It is not, however,
fair to argue from these extreme cases, against either the one system
or the other. There are abuses incident to every branch of industry,
to every profession. It would not be thought very just or wise to
arraign the honorable professions of law and physic, because the one
produces the pettifogger, and the other the quack. Even in England it
has been established, by the diligent search of Colquhoun, from the
most authentic evidence, the judicial records of the country, that
the instances of crime were much more numerous in the agricultural
than in the manufacturing districts; thus proving that the cause of
wretchedness and vice in that country was to be sought for, not in this
or that system, so much as in the fact of the density of its population.
France resembles this country more than England, in respect to the
employments of her population; and we do not find that there is any
thing in the condition of the manufacturing portion of it, which ought
to dissuade us from the introduction of it into our own country. But
even France has not that great security against the abuses of the
manufacturing system, against the effects of too great a density of
population, which we possess in our waste lands. While this resource
exists, we have nothing to apprehend. Do capitalists give too low
wages; are the laborers too crowded, and in danger of starving? the
unsettled lands will draw off the redundancy, and leave the others
better provided for. If an unsettled province, such as Texas, for
example, could, by some convulsion of nature, be wafted alongside
of, and attached to, the island of Great Britain, the instantaneous
effect would be, to draw off the redundant portion of the population,
and to render more comfortable both the emigrants and those whom they
would leave behind. I am aware, that while the public domain is an
acknowledged security against the abuses of the manufacturing, or
any other system, it constitutes, at the same time, an impediment, in
the opinion of some, to the success of manufacturing industry, by its
tendency to prevent the reduction of the wages of labor. Those who urge
this objection have their eyes too much fixed on the ancient system
of manufacturing, when manual labor was the principal instrument which
it employed. During the last half century, since the inventions of
Arkwright, and the long train of improvements which followed, the labor
of machinery is principally used. I have understood, from sources of
information which I believe to be accurate, that the combined force of
all the machinery employed by Great Britain, in manufacturing, is equal
to the labor of one hundred millions of able-bodied men. If we suppose
the aggregate of the labor of all the individuals which she employs in
that branch of industry to be equal to the united labor of two millions
of able-bodied men, (and I should think it does not exceed it,) machine
labor will stand to manual labor, in the proportion of one hundred to
two. There cannot be a doubt that we have skill and enterprise enough
to command the requisite amount of machine power.
There are, too, some checks to emigration from the settled parts of
our country to the waste lands of the west. Distance is one, and it is
every day becoming greater and greater. There exists, also, a natural
repugnance (felt less, it is true, in the United States than elsewhere,
but felt even here,) to abandoning the place of our nativity. Women
and children, who could not migrate, and who would be comparatively
idle if manufactures did not exist, may be profitably employed in them.
This is a very great benefit. I witnessed the advantage resulting from
the employment of this description of our population, in a visit which
I lately made to the Waltham manufactory, near Boston. There, some
hundreds of girls and boys were occupied in separate apartments. The
greatest order, neatness, and apparent comfort, reigned throughout
the whole establishment. The daughters of respectable farmers, in
one instance, I remember, the daughter of a senator in the state
legislature, were usefully employed. They would come down to the
manufactory, remain perhaps some months, and return, with their
earnings, to their families, to assist them throughout the year. But
one instance had occurred, I was informed by the intelligent manager,
of doubtful conduct on the part of any of the females, and, after she
was dismissed, there was reason to believe that injustice had been done
her. Suppose that establishment to be destroyed, what would become of
all the persons who are there engaged so beneficially to themselves,
and so usefully to the state? Can it be doubted that, if the crowds of
little mendicant boys and girls who infest this edifice, and assail us,
every day, at its very thresholds, as we come in and go out, begging
for a cent, were employed in some manufacturing establishment, it would
be better for them and the city? Those who object to the manufacturing
system should recollect, that constant occupation is the best security
for innocence and virtue, and that idleness is the parent of vice
and crime. They should contemplate the laboring poor with employment,
and ask themselves what would be their condition without it. If there
are instances of hard taskmasters among the manufacturers, so also
are there in agriculture. The cause is to be sought for, not in the
nature of this or that system, but in the nature of man. If there are
particular species of unhealthy employment in manufactures, so there
are in agriculture also. There has been an idle attempt to ridicule the
manufacturing system, and we have heard the expression, ‘spinning-jenny
tenure.’ It is one of the noblest inventions of human skill. It has
diffused comforts among thousands who, without it, would never have
enjoyed them; and millions yet unborn will bless the man by whom it was
invented. Three important inventions have distinguished the last half
century, each of which, if it had happened at long intervals of time
from the other, would have been sufficient to constitute an epoch in
the progress of the useful arts. The first was that of Arkwright; and
our own country is entitled to the merit of the other two. The world is
indebted to Whitney for the one, and to Fulton for the other. Nothing
is secure against the shafts of ridicule. What would be thought of a
man who should speak of a cotton-gin tenure, or a steamboat tenure?
In one respect there is a great difference in favor of manufactures,
when compared with agriculture. It is the rapidity with which the
whole manufacturing community avail themselves of an improvement. It
is instantly communicated and put in operation. There is an avidity
for improvement in the one system, an aversion to it in the other. The
habits of generation after generation pass down the long track of time
in perpetual succession without the slightest change in agriculture.
The ploughman who fastens his plough to the tails of his cattle, will
not own that there is any other mode equal to his. An agricultural
people will be in the neighborhood of other communities, who have made
the greatest progress in husbandry, without advancing in the slightest
degree. Many parts of our country are one hundred years in advance of
Sweden in the cultivation and improvement of the soil.
It is objected, that the effect of the encouragement of home
manufactures, by the proposed tariff, will be, to diminish the revenue
from the customs. The amount of the revenue from that source will
depend upon the amount of importations, and the measure of these will
be the value of the exports from this country. The quantity of the
exportable produce will depend upon the foreign demand; and there can
be no doubt that, under any distribution of the labor and capital of
this country, from the greater allurements which agriculture presents
than any other species of industry, there would be always a quantity of
its produce sufficient to satisfy that demand. If there be a diminution
in the ability of foreign nations to consume our raw produce, in the
proportion of our diminished consumption of theirs, under the operation
of this system, that will be compensated by the substitution of a
home for a foreign market, in the same proportion. It is true, that we
cannot remain in the relation of seller, only to foreign powers, for
any length of time; but if, as I have no doubt, our agriculture will
continue to supply, as far as it can profitably, to the extent of the
limits of foreign demand, we shall receive not only in return many of
the articles on which the tariff operates, for our own consumption, but
they may also form the objects of trade with South America and other
powers, and our comforts may be multiplied by the importation of other
articles. Diminished consumption, in consequence of the augmentation of
duties, does not necessarily imply diminished revenue. The increase of
the duty may compensate the decrease in the consumption, and give you
as large a revenue as you before possessed.
Can any one doubt the impolicy of government resting solely upon the
precarious resource of such a revenue? It is constantly fluctuating.
It tempts us, by its enormous amount, at one time, into extravagant
expenditure; and we are then driven, by its sudden and unexpected
depression, into the opposite extreme. We are seduced by its flattering
promises into expenses which we might avoid; and we are afterwards
constrained by its treachery, to avoid expenses which we ought to make.
It is a system under which there is a sort of perpetual war, between
the interest of the government and the interest of the people. Large
importations fill the coffers of government, and empty the pockets
of the people. Small importations imply prudence on the part of the
people, and leave the treasury empty. In war, the revenue disappears;
in peace it is unsteady. On such a system the government will not be
able much longer exclusively to rely. We all anticipate that we shall
have shortly to resort to some additional supply of revenue within
ourselves. I was opposed to the total repeal of the internal revenue.
I would have preserved certain parts of it at least, to be ready for
emergences such as now exist. And I am, for one, ready to exclude
foreign spirits altogether, and substitute for the revenue levied on
them a tax upon the spirits made within the country. No other nation
lets in so much of foreign spirits as we do. By the encouragement of
home industry, you will lay a basis of internal taxation, when it gets
strong, that will be steady and uniform, yielding alike in peace and
in war. We do not derive our ability from abroad, to pay taxes. That
depends upon our wealth and our industry; and it is the same, whatever
may be the form of levying the public contributions.
But it is urged, that you tax other interests of the state to sustain
manufacturers. The business of manufacturing, if encouraged, will be
open to all. It is not for the sake of the particular individuals who
may happen to be engaged in it, that we propose to foster it; but it is
for the general interest. We think that it is necessary to the comfort
and well-being of society, that fabrication, as well as the business
of production and distribution, should be supported and taken care
of. Now, if it be even true, that the price of the home fabric will be
somewhat higher, in the first instance, than the rival foreign articles,
that consideration ought not to prevent our extending reasonable
protection to the home fabric. Present temporary inconvenience may
be well submitted to for the sake of future permanent benefit. If the
experience of all other countries be not utterly fallacious; if the
promises of the manufacturing system be not absolutely illusory; by
the competition which will be elicited in consequence of your parental
care, prices will be ultimately brought down to a level with that of
the foreign commodity. Now, in a scheme of policy which is devised
for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a
single year, or for even a short term of years. We should look at its
operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace. Can
there be a doubt, thus contemplating it, that we shall be compensated
by the certainly and steadiness of the supply in all seasons, and the
ultimate reduction of the price for any temporary sacrifices we make?
Take the example of salt, which the ingenious gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Archer) has adduced. He says, during the war, the price of that
article rose to ten dollars per bushel, and he asks if you would lay
a duty, permanent in its duration, of three dollars per bushel, to
secure a supply in war. I answer, no, I would not lay so high a duty.
That which is now proposed, for the encouragement of the domestic
production, is only five cents per bushel. In forty years the duty
would amount only to two dollars. If the recurrence of war shall be
only after intervals of forty years’ peace, (and we may expect it
probably oftener,) and if, when it does come, the same price should
again be given, there will be a clear saving of eight dollars, by
promoting the domestic fabrication. All society is an affair of mutual
concession. If we expect to derive the benefits which are incident
to it, we must sustain our reasonable share of burdens. The great
interests which it is intended to guard and cherish, must be supported
by their reciprocal action and reaction. The harmony of its parts is
disturbed, the discipline which is necessary to its order is incomplete,
when one of the three great and essential branches of its industry is
abandoned and unprotected. If you want to find an example of order, of
freedom from debt, of economy, of expenditure falling below rather than
exceeding income, you will go to the well-regulated family of a farmer.
You will go to the house of such a man as Isaac Shelby; you will
not find him haunting taverns, engaged in broils, prosecuting angry
lawsuits; you will behold every member of his family clad with the
produce of their own hands, and usefully employed; the spinning-wheel
and the loom in motion by day-break. With what pleasure will his wife
carry you into her neat dairy, lead you into her store-house, and point
you to the table-cloths, the sheets, the counterpanes which lie on this
shelf for one daughter, or on that for another, all prepared in advance
by her provident care for the day of their respective marriages. If
you want to see an opposite example, go to the house of a man who
manufactures nothing at home, whose family resorts to the store for
every thing they consume. You will find him perhaps in the tavern, or
at the shop at the cross-roads. He is engaged, with the rum-grog on
the table, taking depositions to make out some case of usury or fraud.
Or perhaps he is furnishing to his lawyer the materials to prepare a
long bill of injunction in some intricate case. The sheriff is hovering
about his farm to serve some new writ. On court-days――he never misses
attending them――you will find him eagerly collecting his witnesses
to defend himself against the merchant and doctor’s claims. Go to
his house, and, after the short and giddy period that his wife and
daughters have flirted about the country in their calico and muslin
frocks, what a scene of discomfort and distress is presented to you
there! What the individual family of Isaac Shelby is, I wish to see
the nation in the aggregate become. But I fear we shall shortly have to
contemplate its resemblance in the opposite picture. If statesmen would
carefully observe the conduct of private individuals in the management
of their own affairs, they would have much surer guides in promoting
the interests of the state, than the visionary speculations of
theoretical writers.
The manufacturing system is not only injurious to agriculture, but,
say its opponents, it is injurious also to foreign commerce. We ought
not to conceal from ourselves our present actual position in relation
to other powers. During the protracted war which has so long convulsed
all Europe, and which will probably be succeeded by a long peace, we
transacted the commercial business of other nations, and largely shared
with England the carrying trade of the world. Now, every other nation
is anxiously endeavoring to transact its own business, to rebuild its
marine, and to foster its navigation. The consequence of the former
state of things was, that our mercantile marine, and our commercial
employment were enormously disproportionate to the exchangeable
domestic produce of our country. And the result of the latter will
be, that, as exchanges between this country and other nations will
hereafter consist principally, on our part, of our domestic produce,
that marine and that employment will be brought down to what is
necessary to effect those exchanges. I regret exceedingly this
reduction. I wish the mercantile class could enjoy the same extensive
commerce that they formerly did. But, if they cannot, it would be
a folly to repine at what is irrecoverably lost, and we should seek
rather to adapt ourselves to the new circumstances in which we find
ourselves. If, as I think, we have reached the maximum of our foreign
demand for our three great staples, cotton, tobacco, and flour, no
man will contend that we should go on to produce more and more, to be
sent to the glutted foreign market, and consumed by devouring expenses,
merely to give employment to our tonnage and to our foreign commerce.
It would be extremely unwise to accommodate our industry to produce,
not what is wanted abroad, but cargoes for our unemployed ships.
I would give our foreign trade every legitimate encouragement, and
extend it whenever it can be extended profitably. Hitherto it has
been stimulated too highly, by the condition of the world, and our own
policy acting on that condition. And we are reluctant to believe that
we must submit to its necessary abridgment. The habits of trade, the
tempting instances of enormous fortunes which have been made by the
successful prosecution of it, are such, that we turn with regret from
its pursuit; we still cherish a lingering hope; we persuade ourselves
that something will occur, how and what it may be, we know not, to
revive its former activity; and we would push into every untried
channel, grope through the Dardanelles into the Black sea, to restore
its former profits. I repeat it, let us proclaim to the people of the
United States the incontestable truth, that our foreign trade must
be circumscribed by the altered state of the world; and, leaving it
in the possession of all the gains which it can now possibly make,
let us present motives to the capital and labor of our country, to
employ themselves in fabrication at home. There is no danger that,
by a withdrawal of that portion which is unprofitably employed on
other objects, and an application of it to fabrication, our agriculture
would be too much cramped. The produce of it will always come up to
the foreign demand. Such are the superior allurements belonging to the
cultivation of the soil to all other branches of industry, that it will
always be preferred when it can profitably be followed. The foreign
demand will, in any conceivable state of things, limit the amount of
the exportable produce of agriculture. The amount of our exportations
will form the measure of our importations, and, whatever these may be,
they will constitute the basis of the revenue derivable from customs.
The manufacturing system is favorable to the maintenance of peace.
Foreign commerce is the great source of foreign wars The eagerness
with which we contend for every branch of it, the temptations which
it offers, operating alike upon us and our foreign competitors,
produce constant collisions. No country on earth, by the extent of
its superfices, the richness of its soil, the variety of its climate,
contains within its own limits more abundant facilities for supplying
all our rational wants than ours does. It is not necessary or desirable,
however, to cut off all intercourse with foreign powers. But, after
securing a supply, within ourselves, of all the great essentials
of life, there will be ample scope still left for preserving such
an intercourse. If we had no intercourse with foreign states, if we
adopted the policy of China, we should have no external wars. And in
proportion as we diminish our dependence upon them, shall we lessen the
danger of the recurrence of war. Our late war would not have existed if
the counsels of the manufacturers in England had been listened to. They
finally did prevail, in their steady and persevering effort to produce
a repeal of the orders in council; but it was too late to prevent the
war. Those who attribute to the manufacturing system the burdens and
misfortunes of that country, commit a great error. These were probably
a joint result of the operation of the whole of her systems, and the
larger share of it was to be ascribed to her foreign commerce, and to
the ambition of her rulers, than to any other cause. The war of our
revolution, in which that ambition displayed its monstrous arrogance
and pretensions, laid the broad foundation of that enormous debt under
which she now groans.
The tendency of reasonable encouragement to our home industry is
favorable to the preservation and strength of our confederacy. Now
our connection is merely political. For the sale of the surplus of
the produce of our agricultural labor, all eyes are constantly turned
upon the markets of Liverpool. There is scarcely any of that beneficial
intercourse, the best basis of political connection, which consists
of the exchange of the produce of our labor. On our maritime frontier
there has been too much stimulus, an unnatural activity; in the great
interior of the country, there exists a perfect paralysis. Encourage
fabrication at home, and there will instantly arise animation and a
healthful circulation throughout all the parts of the republic. The
cheapness, fertility, and quantity of our waste lands, offer such
powerful inducements to cultivation, that our countrymen are constantly
engaging in it. I would not check this disposition, by hard terms in
the sale of it. Let it be easily accessible to all who wish to acquire
it. But I would countervail this predilection, by presenting to capital
and labor motives for employment in other branches of industry. Nothing
is more uncertain than the pursuit of agriculture, when we mainly rely
upon foreign markets for the sale of its surplus produce. In the first
place, it is impossible to determine, _a priori_, the amount of this
surplus; and, in the second, it is equally impossible to anticipate
the extent of the foreign demand. Both the one and the other depend
upon the seasons. From the fluctuations incident to these, and from
other causes, it may happen that the supplying country will, for a
long series of years, have employed a larger share of its capital and
labor than is wise, in production, to supply the wants of the consuming
countries, without becoming sensible of its defect of policy. The
failure of a crop, or the failure of a market, does not discourage the
cultivator. He renews his labors another year, and he renews his hopes.
It is otherwise with manufacturing industry. The precise quantum of its
produce, at least, can with some accuracy be previously estimated. And
the wants of foreign countries can be with some probability anticipated.
I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, if I have even had a success, which I
dare not presume, in the endeavor I have been making to show that sound
policy requires a diversion of so much of the capital and labor of
this country from other employments as may be necessary, by a different
application of them, to secure, within ourselves, a steady and adequate
supply of the great necessaries of life, I shall have only established
one half of what is incumbent upon me to prove. It will still be
required by the other side, that a second proposition be supported, and
that is, that government ought to present motives for such a diversion
and new application of labor and capital, by that species of protection
which the tariff holds out. Gentlemen say, we agree with you; you are
right in your first proposition; but, ‘let things alone,’ and they
will come right in the end. Now, I agree with them, that things would
ultimately get right; but not until after a long period of disorder and
distress, terminating in the impoverishment, and perhaps ruin, of the
country. Dissolve government, reduce it to its primitive elements, and,
without any general effort to reconstruct it, there would arise, out
of the anarchy which would ensue, partial combinations for the purpose
of individual protection, which would finally lead to a social form,
competent to the conservation of peace within, and the repulsion of
force from without. Yet no one would say, in such a state of anarchy,
let things alone! If gentlemen, by their favorite maxim, mean only
that, within the bosom of the state, things are to be left alone,
and each individual, and each branch of industry, allowed to pursue
their respective interests, without giving a preference to either, I
subscribe to it. But if they give it a more comprehensive import; if
they require that things be left alone, in respect not only to interior
action, but to exterior action also; not only as regards the operation
of our own government upon the mass of the interests of the state, but
as it relates to the operation of foreign governments upon that mass,
I dissent from it.
This maxim, in this enlarged sense, is indeed every where proclaimed;
but nowhere practiced. It is truth in the books of European political
economists. It is error in the practical code of every European state.
It is not applied where it is most applicable; it is attempted to
be introduced here, where it is least applicable; and even here its
friends propose to limit it to the single branch of manufacturing
industry, whilst every other interest is encouraged and protected
according to the policy of Europe. The maxim would best suit Europe,
where each interest is adjusted and arranged to every other, by causes
operating during many centuries. Every thing there has taken and
preserved its ancient position. The house that was built centuries
ago, is occupied by the descendants of its original constructor. If
one could rise up, after the lapse of ages, and enter a European shop,
he would see the same hammer at work, on the same anvil or last, and
almost by the same hand. There every thing has found its place and its
level, and every thing, one would think, might there be safely left
alone. But the policy of the European states is otherwise. Here every
thing is new and unfixed. Neither the state, nor the individuals who
compose it, have settled down in their firm and permanent positions.
There is a constant tendency, in consequence of the extent of our
public domain, towards production for foreign markets. The maxim, in
the comprehensive sense in which I am considering it, requires, to
entitle it to observation, two conditions, neither of which exists.
First, that there should be perpetual peace, and secondly, that the
maxim should be every where respected. When war breaks out, that free
and general circulation of the produce of industry among the nations
which it recommends, is interrupted, and the nation that depends upon
a foreign supply of its necessaries, must be subjected to the greatest
inconvenience. If it be not every where observed, there will be,
between the nation that does not, and the nation that does, conform to
it, an inequality alike condemned by honor and by interest. If there be
no reciprocity; if, on the one side, there is perfect freedom of trade,
and on the other a code of odious restrictions; will gentlemen still
contend that we are to submit to such an unprofitable and degrading
intercourse? Will they require that we shall act upon the social system,
whilst every other power acts upon the selfish? Will they demand of
us to throw widely open our ports to every nation, whilst all other
nations entirely or partly exclude theirs against our productions? It
is, indeed, possible, that some pecuniary advantage might be enjoyed
by our country in prosecuting the remnant of the trade which the
contracted policy of other powers leaves to us. But what security is
there for our continuing to enjoy even that? And is national honor,
is national independence, to count as nothing? I will not enter
into a detail of the restrictions with which we are every where
presented in foreign countries. I will content myself with asserting
that they take nothing from us which they can produce themselves,
upon even worse terms than we could supply them. Take, again, as an
example, the English corn-laws. America presents the image of a fine,
generous-hearted young fellow, who had just come to the possession of
a rich estate――an estate, which, however, requires careful management.
He makes nothing; he buys every thing. He is surrounded by a parcel of
Jews, each holding out his hand with a packet of buttons or pins, or
some other commodity, for sale. If he asks those Jews to buy any thing
which his estate produces, they tell him no; it is not for our interest;
it is not for yours. Take this new book, says one of them, on political
economy, and you will there perceive it is for your interest to buy
from us, and to let things alone in your own country. The gentleman
from Virginia, to whom I have already referred, has surrendered the
whole argument, in the example of the East India trade. He thinks that
because India takes nothing but specie from us; because there is not a
reciprocal exchange between us and India, of our respective productions,
that the trade ought to be discontinued. Now I do not agree with him,
that it ought to be abandoned, though I would put it under considerable
restrictions, when it comes in competition with the fabrics of our
own country. If the want of entire reciprocity be a sufficient ground
for the total abandonment of a particular branch of trade, the same
principle requires that, where there are some restrictions on the one
side, they should be countervailed by equal restrictions on the other.
But this maxim, according to which gentlemen would have us abandon
the home industry of the country, to the influence of the restrictive
systems of other countries, without an effort to protect and preserve
it, is not itself observed by the same gentlemen, in regard to the
great interests of the nation. We protect our fisheries by bounties and
drawbacks. We protect our tonnage, by excluding or restricting foreign
tonnage, exactly as our tonnage is excluded or restricted by foreign
states. We passed, a year or two ago, the bill to prohibit British
navigation from the West India colonies of that power to the United
States, because ours is shut out from them. The session prior to the
passage of that law, the gentleman from South Carolina and I, almost
alone, urged the house to pass it. But the subject was postponed until
the next session, when it was passed by nearly a unanimous vote, the
gentleman from South Carolina, and the two gentlemen from Virginia
(Messrs. Barbour and Tyler) voting with the majority. We have now
upon our table other bills connected with that object, and proposing
restriction upon the French tonnage to countervail theirs upon ours.
I shall, with pleasure, vote for these measures. We protect our
foreign trade, by consuls, by foreign ministers, by embargoes, by
non-intercourse, by a navy, by fortifications, by squadrons constantly
acting abroad, by war, and by a variety of commercial regulations in
our statute-book. The whole system of the general government, from
its first formation to the present time, consists, almost exclusively,
in one unremitting endeavor to nourish, and protect, and defend the
foreign trade. Why have not all these great interests been left to
the operation of the gentlemen’s favorite maxim? Sir, it is perfectly
right that we should have afforded this protection. And it is perfectly
right, in my humble opinion, that we should extend the principle to the
home industry. I am a friend to foreign trade, but I protest against
its being the monopolist of all the parental favor and care of this
government.
But, sir, friendly as I am to the existence of domestic manufactures,
I would not give to them unreasonable encouragement, by protecting
duties. Their growth ought to be gradual, but sure. I believe all the
circumstances of the present period highly favorable to their success.
But they are the youngest and the weakest interest of the state.
Agriculture wants but little or no protection against the regulations
of foreign powers. The advantages of our position, and the cheapness,
and abundance, and fertility of our land, afford to that greatest
interest of the state almost all the protection it wants. As it should
be, it is strong and flourishing, or, if it be not, at this moment,
prosperous, it is not because its produce is not ample, but because,
depending, as we do altogether, upon a foreign market for the sale of
the surplus of that produce, the foreign market is glutted. Our foreign
trade, having almost exclusively engrossed the protecting care of
government, wants no further legislative aid. And, whatever depression
it may now experience, it is attributable to causes beyond the control
of this government. The abundance of capital, indicated by the avidity
with which loans are sought, at the reduced rate of five per centum;
the reduction in the wages of labor, and the decline in the price of
property of every kind, as well as that of agricultural produce, all
concur favorably for domestic manufactures. Now, as when we arranged
the existing tariff, is the auspicious moment for government to step
in and cheer and countenance them. We did too little then, and I
endeavored to warn this house of the effects of inadequate protection.
We were called upon, at that time, by the previous pledges we had given,
by the inundation of foreign fabrics, which was to be anticipated from
their free admission after the termination of the war, and by the
lasting interests of this country, to give them efficient support. We
did not do it; but let us not now repeat the error. Our great mistake
has been in the irregularity of the action of the measures of this
government upon manufacturing industry. At one period it is stimulated
too high, and then, by an opposite course of policy, it is precipitated
into a condition of depression too low. First there came the embargo;
then non-intercourse, and other restrictive measures followed; and
finally, that greatest of all stimuli to domestic fabrication, war
During all that long period, we were adding to the positive effect of
the measures of government, all the moral encouragement which results
from popular resolves, legislative resolves, and other manifestations
of the public will and the public wish to foster our home manufactures,
and to render our confederacy independent of foreign powers. The peace
ensued, and the country was flooded with the fabrics of other countries;
and we, forgetting all our promises, coolly and philosophically talk
of leaving things to themselves; making up our deficiency of practical
good sense, by the stores of learning which we collect from theoretical
writers. I, too, sometimes amuse myself with the visions of these
writers, (as I do with those of metaphysicians and novelists,) and,
if I do not forget, one of the best among them enjoins it upon a
country to protect its industry against the injurious influence of the
prohibitions and restrictions of foreign countries, which operate upon
it.
Monuments of the melancholy effects upon our manufactures, and of
the fluctuating policy of the councils of the union in regard to them,
abound in all parts of the country. Villages, and parts of villages,
which sprang up but yesterday in the western country, under the
excitement to which I have referred, have dwindled into decay, and
are abandoned. In New England, in passing along the highway, one
frequently sees large and spacious buildings, with the glass broken out
of the windows, the shutters hanging in ruinous disorder, without any
appearance of activity, and enveloped in solitary gloom. Upon inquiring
what they are, you are almost always informed that they were some
cotton or other factory, which their proprietors could no longer keep
in motion against the overwhelming pressure of foreign competition.
Gentlemen ask for _facts_ to show the expediency and propriety of
extending protection to our manufactures. Do they want stronger
evidence than the condition of things I have pointed out? They ask,
why the manufacturing industry is not resumed under the encouraging
auspices of the present time? Sir, the answer is obvious; there is a
general dismay; there is a want of heart; there is the greatest moral
discouragement experienced throughout the nation. A man who engages in
the manufacturing business is thought by his friends to be deranged.
Who will go to the ruins of Carthage or Balbec to rebuild a city there?
Let government commence a systematic but moderate support of this
important branch of our industry. Let it announce its fixed purpose,
that the protection of manufactures against the influence of the
measures of foreign governments, will enter into the scope of our
national policy. Let us substitute, for the irregular action of our
measures, one that shall be steady and uniform; and hope, and animation,
and activity, will again revive. The gentleman from South Carolina
(Mr. Lowndes) offered a resolution, which the house rejected, having
for its object to ascertain the profits now made upon capital employed
in manufacturing. It is not, I repeat it, the individuals, but the
interests we wish to have protected. From the infinite variety of
circumstances under which different manufacturing establishments are
situated, it is impossible that any information, such as the gentleman
desires, could be obtained, that ought to guide the judgment of this
house. It may happen that, of two establishments engaged in the same
species of fabrication, one will be prospering and the other laboring.
Take the example of the Waltham manufactory near Boston, and that
of Brunswick in Maine. The former has the advantage of a fine water
situation, a manager of excellent information, enthusiastically devoted
to its success, a machinist of most inventive genius, who is constantly
making some new improvement, and who has carried the water loom to
a degree of perfection which it has not attained in England――to such
perfection as to reduce the cost of weaving a yard of cloth adapted
to shirting to less than a cent――while it is abundantly supplied with
capital by several rich capitalists in Boston. These gentlemen have
the most extensive correspondence with all parts of the United States.
Owing to this extraordinary combination of favorable circumstances, the
Waltham establishment is doing pretty well; whilst that of Brunswick,
not possessing all of them, but perhaps as many as would enable it,
under adequate protection, to flourish, is laboring arduously. Will
gentlemen infer, from the success of a few institutions having peculiar
advantages, which form exceptions to the languishing condition of
manufacturing industry, that there exists no necessity for protection?
In the most discouraging state of trade and navigation, there are, no
doubt, always some individuals who are successful in prosecuting them.
Would it be fair to argue, from these instances, against any measure
brought forward to revive their activity?
The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Whitman) has manifested peculiar
hostility to the tariff, and has allowed himself to denominate it a
mad, quixotic, ruinous scheme. The gentleman is dissatisfied with the
quarter――the west――from which it emanates. To give higher tone and more
effect to the gentleman’s declamation, which is vague and indefinite,
he has even assumed a new place in this house. Sir, I would advise
the gentleman to return to his ancient position, moral and physical.
It was respectable and useful. The honorable gentleman professes to
be a friend to manufacturers! And yet he has found an insurmountable
constitutional impediment to their encouragement, of which, as no other
gentleman has relied upon it, I shall leave him in the undisturbed
possession. The honorable gentleman a friend to manufacturers! And yet
he has delivered a speech, marked with peculiar emphasis, against their
protection. The honorable gentleman a friend to manufacturers! And
yet he requires, if this constitutional difficulty could be removed,
such an arrangement of the tariff as shall please him, although every
one else should be dissatisfied. The intimation is not new of the
presumptuousness of western politicians, in endeavoring to give to
the policy of this country such a direction as will assert its honor
and sustain its interests. It was first made whilst the measures
preparatory to the late war were under consideration, and it now
probably emanates from the same quarter. The predilection of the school
of the Essex junto for foreign trade and British fabrics――I am far
from insinuating that other gentlemen who are opposed to the tariff
are actuated by any such spirit――is unconquerable. We disregarded
the intimation when it was first made; we shall be uninfluenced by it
now. If, indeed, there were the least color for the assertion, that
the foreign trade is to be crushed by the tariff, is it not strange,
that the whole of the representation from all our great commercial
metropolises should unite to destroy it? The member from Boston,――to
whose rational and disinterested course I am happy, on this, as on many
other occasions, to be able to testify,――the representatives from the
city of New York, from Philadelphia, from Baltimore, all entered into
this confederacy, to destroy it, by supporting this mad and ruinous
scheme. Some gentlemen assert that it is too comprehensive. But its
chief recommendation to me is, that it leaves no important interest
unprovided for.
The same gentlemen, or others, if it had been more limited, would
have objected to its partial operation. The general measure of the
protection which it communicates, is pronounced to be immoderate and
enormous. Yet no one ventures to enter into a specification of the
particular articles of which it is composed, to show that it deserves
thus to be characterized. The article of molasses has, indeed, been
selected, and held up as an instance of the alleged extravagance. The
existing tariff imposes a duty of five cents, the proposed tariff ten
cents per gallon. We tax foreign spirits very high, and yet we let in,
with a very low duty, foreign molasses, which ought to be considered
as rum in disguise, filling the space of so much domestic spirits.
If (which I do not believe will immediately be the case, to any
considerable extent) the manufacture of spirits from molasses, should
somewhat decline under the new tariff, the manufacture of spirits from
the raw material, produced at home, will be extended in the same ratio.
Besides the incidental advantage of increasing our security against
the effect of seasons of scarcity, by increasing the distillation of
spirits from grain, there is scarcely any item in the tariff which
combines so many interests in supporting the proposed rate of duty.
The grain-growing country, the fruit country, and the culture of cane,
would be all benefited by the duty. Its operation is said, however, to
be injurious to a certain quarter of the union. It is not to be denied,
that each particular section of the country will feel some one or more
articles of the tariff to bear hard upon it, during a short period;
but the compensation is to be found in the more favorable operation
of others. Now I am fully persuaded that, in the first instance, no
part of the union would share more largely than New England, in the
aggregate of the benefits resulting from the tariff. But the habits
of economy of her people, their industry, their skill, their noble
enterprise, the stimulating effects of their more rigorous climate,
all tend to insure to her the first and the richest fruits of the
tariff. The middle and the western states will come in afterwards for
their portion, and all will participate in the advantage of internal
exchanges and circulation. No quarter of the union will urge, with a
worse grace than New England, objections to a measure, having for its
object the advancement of the interests of the whole; for no quarter
of the union participates more extensively in the benefits flowing
from the general government. Her tonnage, her fisheries, her foreign
trade, have been constantly objects of federal care. There is expended
the greatest portion of the public revenue. The building of the public
ships; their equipments; the expenses incident to their remaining in
port, chiefly take place there. That great drain on the revenue, the
revolutionary pension law, inclines principally towards New England. I
do not, however, complain of these advantages which she enjoys. She is
probably fairly entitled to them. But gentlemen from that quarter may,
at least, be justly reminded of them, when they complain of the onerous
effect of one or two items of the tariff.
Mr. Chairman, I frankly own that I feel great solicitude for the
success of this bill. The entire independence of my country on all
foreign states, as it respects a supply of our essential wants, has
ever been with me a favorite object. The war of our revolution effected
our political emancipation. The last war contributed greatly towards
accomplishing our commercial freedom. But our complete independence
will only be consummated after the policy of this bill shall be
recognised and adopted. We have, indeed, great difficulties to contend
with――old habits, colonial usages, the obduracy of the colonial spirit,
the enormous profits of a foreign trade, prosecuted under favorable
circumstances, which no longer continue. I will not despair; the cause,
I verily believe, is the cause of the country. It may be postponed;
it may be frustrated for the moment, but it must finally prevail. Let
us endeavor to acquire for the present congress, the merit of having
laid this solid foundation of the national prosperity. If, as I think,
fatally for the public interest, the bill shall be defeated, what
will be the character of the account which we shall have to render to
our constituents upon our return among them? We shall be asked, what
have you done to remedy the disorders of the public currency? Why,
Mr. Secretary of the treasury made us a long report on that matter,
containing much valuable information, and some very good reasoning, but,
upon the whole, we found that subject rather above our comprehension,
and we concluded that it was wisest to let it regulate itself. What
have you done to supply the deficit in the treasury? We thought that,
although you are all endeavoring to get out of the banks, it was a very
good time for us to go into them, and we have authorized a loan. You
have done something then, certainly, on the subject of retrenchment.
Here, at home, we are practicing the greatest economy, and our
daughters, no longer able to wear calico gowns, are obliged to put
on homespun. Why, we have saved, by the indefatigable exertions of a
member from Tennessee (general Cocke), fifty thousand dollars, which
were wanted for the Yellow Stone expedition. No, not quite so much;
for thirty thousand dollars of that sum were still wanted, although we
stopped the expedition at the Council Bluffs. And we have saved another
sum, which we hope will give you great satisfaction. After nearly two
days’ debate, and a division between the two houses, we struck off two
hundred dollars from the salary of the clerk of the attorney general.
What have you done to protect home industry from the effects of the
contracted policy of foreign powers? We thought it best, after much
deliberation, to leave things alone at home and to continue our
encouragement to foreign industry. Well, surely you have passed some
law to reanimate and revive the hopes of the numerous bankrupts that
have been made by the extraordinary circumstances of the world, and the
ruinous tendency of our policy? No; the senate could not agree on that
subject, and the bankrupt bill failed? Can we plead, sir, ignorance
of the general distress, and of the ardent wishes of the community
for that protection of its industry which this bill proposes? No, sir,
almost daily, throughout the session, have we been receiving petitions,
with which our table is now loaded, humbly imploring us to extend this
protection. Unanimous resolutions from important state legislatures
have called upon us to give it, and the people of whole states in
mass――almost in mass, of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Ohio――have transmitted to us their earnest and humble petitions to
encourage the home industry. Let us not turn a deaf ear to them. Let us
not disappoint their just expectations. Let us manifest, by the passage
of this bill, that congress does not deserve the reproaches which have
been cast on it, of insensibility to the wants and sufferings of the
people.