THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES.
We cannot be too much astonished at the facility with which men resign
themselves to be ignorant of what is most important for them to know,
and we may feel sure that they have decided to go to sleep in their
ignorance when they have brought themselves to proclaim this axiom:
There are no absolute principles.
Enter the Halls of Congress. The question under discussion is whether
the law shall interdict or allow international exchanges.
Mr. C****** rises and says:
"If you tolerate these exchanges, the foreigner will inundate you with
his products, the English with cotton and iron goods, the Nova-Scotian
with coal, the Spaniard with wool, the Italian with silk, the Canadian
with cattle, the Swede with iron, the Newfoundlander with salt-fish.
Industrial pursuits will thus be destroyed."
Mr. G***** replies:
"If you prohibit these exchanges, the varied benefits which nature has
lavished on different climates will be, to you, as though they were
not. You will not participate in the mechanical skill of the English,
nor in the riches of the Nova-Scotian mines, in the abundance of
Canadian pasturage, in the cheapness of Spanish labor, in the fervor
of the Italian climate; and you will be obliged to ask through a
forced production that which you might by exchange have obtained
through a readier production."
Assuredly, one of the senators deceives himself. But which? It is well
worth while to ascertain; for we are not dealing with opinions only.
You stand at the entrance of two roads; you must choose; one of them
leads necessarily to _misery_.
To escape from this embarrassment it is said: There are no absolute
principles.
This axiom, so much in vogue in our day, not only serves laziness, it
is also in accord with ambition.
If the theory of prohibition should prevail, or again, if the doctrine
of liberty should triumph, a very small amount of law would suffice
for our economic code. In the first case it would stand--_All foreign
exchange is forbidden_; in the second, _All exchange with abroad is
free_, and many great personages would lose their importance.
But if exchange has not a nature proper to itself; if it is governed
by no natural law; if it is capriciously useful or injurious; if it
does not find its spring in the good it accomplishes, its limit when
it ceases to do good; if its effects cannot be appreciated by those
who execute them; in one word, if there are no absolute principles, we
are compelled to measure, weigh, regulate transactions, to equalize
the conditions of labor, to look for the level of profits--colossal
task, well suited to give great entertainments, and high influence to
those who undertake it.
Here in New York are a million of human beings who would all die
within a few days, if the abundant provisioning of nature were not
flowing towards this great metropolis.
Imagination takes fright in the effort to appreciate the immense
multiplicity of articles which must cross the Bay, the Hudson, the
Harlem, and the East rivers, to-morrow, if the lives of its
inhabitants are not to become the prey of famine, riot, and pillage.
Yet, as we write, all are sleeping; and their quiet slumbers are not
disturbed for a moment by the thought of so frightful a perspective.
On the other hand, forty-five States and Territories have worked
to-day, without concert, without mutual understanding, to provision
New York. How is it that every day brings in what is needed, neither
more nor less, to this gigantic market? What is the intelligent and
secret power which presides over the astonishing regularity of
movements so complicated--a regularity in which each one has a faith
so undoubting, though comfort and life are at stake.
This power is an _absolute principle_, the principle of freedom of
operation, the principle of free conduct.
We have faith in that innate light which Providence has placed in the
hearts of all men, to which he has confided the preservation and
improvement of our race-_interest_ (since we must call it by its
name), which is so active, so vigilant, so provident, when its action
is free. What would become of you, inhabitants of New York, if a
Congressional majority should take a fancy to substitute for this
power the combinations of their genius, however superior it may be
supposed to be; if they imagined they could submit this prodigious
mechanism to its supreme direction, unite all its resources in their
own hands, and decide when, where, how, and on what conditions
everything should be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed?
Ah! though there may be much suffering within your bounds, though
misery, despair, and perhaps hungry exhaustion may cause more tears to
flow than your ardent charity can dry, it is probable, it is certain,
we dare to affirm, that the arbitrary intervention of government would
multiply these sufferings infinitely, and would extend to you all,
those evils which at present are confined to a small portion of your
number.
We all have faith in this principle where our internal transactions
are concerned; why should we not have faith in the same principle
applied to our international operations, which are, assuredly, less
numerous, less delicate, and less complicated. And if it is not
necessary that the Mayor and Common Council of New York should
regulate our industries, weigh our change, our profits, and our
losses, occupy themselves with the regulation of prices, equalize the
conditions of our labor in internal commerce--why is it necessary that
the custom-house, proceeding on its fiscal mission, should pretend to
exercise protective action upon our exterior commerce?