.. >.   god
PROPOSITIONS
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.
BY WILLARD PJIILLIPS.
B O STO N:
CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN.
1850.
6
CONCERNING
~, c. e
e:.
I - e    
Entered accordig-to-ct of Congress, in the year 1850, by
. Ad b.A R D  PH IL L I PS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CHADWICK,
EXCHA NG2 STaET. 
C  2r
PREFAC.E.
AMONG the many important inquiries relating to the social
condition of men, which now occupy contemplative thinkers,
as well as practical statesmen, both in Europe and this country, that concerning protection and free trade is among  the
most interesting, since it touches the vital agencies of civilized existence.
The various branches of the subject are so implicated with
each other, that it is not easy to come to satisfactory results
in any part, without taking a view of the whole; and, at
the same time, the subject is one upon which, under our
political institutions, it is requisite that all men who take
an interest in political affairs (and who does not?.) should
form an opinion.
It occurred to me that the inquiry might be facilitated by
presenting and contrasting the propositions on both sides, in 
INTRODUCTION.
a plain, concise form, intelligible to those not particularly
conversant with discussions of the sort, as well as to those
who are so. I have accordingly attempted, in this epitome,
so to present them.
My only interest in the subject, is that which I have in
common with every citizen who expects to live in the country himself, while he shall live, and hopes to leave representatives in it afterwards, for whom he is bound to care;
and that interest is not small, for the welfare of each of us,
and each of them, will be essentially affected by that of
the community.   My  direct personal  interest, lies,  indeed,
entirely on the side of " let-alone," for the attention I give
to the subject at this time, is a material sacrifice, as well
as inconvenience to me.
I should be happy to believe that there is little at stake,
and that the doctrines of free trade do not tend directly to
the distress, decay, and political subordination and degradation of this country, and the too great entanglement of
its industry and interests with those of other nations.  But
it has not happened to me in thus devoting my attention
more particularly to these inquiries, as it did some thirty
years ago. Being then imbued with that economical creed
which is taught in our public seminaries, I had occasion to
attempt its vindication, against the aggressions then supposed
iv 
INTRODUCTION.
to be made on commerce by the useful arts, through protective legislation; and I had the good fortune or misfortune, on
investigating the subject anew, to convert myself to the opinions I had undertaken to combat. I came out with the
thorough conviction that the science, which seemed so luminous to those at the feet of the Gamaliels, consisted very
much of groundless postulates and sophistry. I could not
divest myself wholly of a feeling of resentment at having
been imposed upon. It is possible that this sentiment may
sometimes tinge my phraseology. If it does so, I will rely
upon your accepting the cause as my apology, if you are
not on the side of free trade; if you are upon that side,
you will take it in good part, without any apology, for no
persons are less sparing, than the advocates of that doctrine,
in applying uncomplimentary epithets to such as cannot say
"Shibboleth."  I am, however, assured by friends who have
been kind enough to look over my proof-sheets with me,
that I have not committed any grave trespass in that way.
On again reviewing my economical studies for this epitome,
I have not, as you will perceive in reading it, experienced
the least symptoms of a relapse into my early creed.
W. P.
BOSTON, APRIL, 1850.
v
A*  
CONTENTS.
Page.
I. Steady adherence to the right principles of legislation
in respect to revenue, is material to the national
welfare................................
II. Revenue laws are intimately connected with industry
and with each other -Should be examined as a
whole................................
III. Industry inevitably affected by legislation   Cannot
be let alone-The  let-industry-alone doctrine
baleful and impracticable...................
IV. The Protective Policy runs through the whole system
of legislation............................
V. The Constitution expressly authorizes protection        Free-trade pretence......................
VI. Revenue laws will promote either domestic or foreign
industry - Free trade is in favor of the foreign.
VII. The promotion of OUR OWN INDUSTRY, or neglect of
it, has momentous consequences.............
VII. Free trade assumes as true at least eleven false
propositions, each of which is essential to its sup        port, and either of which not being true, the
system falls to pieces.....................
I
2
4
9
12
14
15
20 
CONTENTS.
Page.
IX. It is not true that the industry every individual,
independently of any law, deems to be advan        tageous to himself, is so to the public - Free
trade asserts that it is s o..................
X. Some kinds of foreign imports have a better influence
upon the general welfare than others -Free
trade says there is no difference.............
XI. The whole world is not one community, to all intents
and purposes, in respect to trade and industry
Free trade maintains that it is so.............
XII. Men are to be considered as producers, as well as
venders and purchasers- Free trade considers
them only as venders and purchasers..........
XIII. We can export only certain descriptions of articles,
and those only to countries where the money
price is higher than with us, whether we take
their goods or not........................
XIV. How much a foreign country will take of our ex        ports - There is a limit to the quantity - We
cannot dispose of enough exports abroad to pay
for an unlimited quantity of imports- Free trade
assumes that we can......................
XV. The same amount of capital in a community can,
by protective legislation, be made to employ a
greater amount of labor than it otherwise would
do -Free trade expressly assumes the contrary.
XVI. We have more labor offered, and can supply more
products of labor, than there is a demand for at
home and abroad - We have a surplus of labor         Free trade says we have no surplus.............
viii
22
24
25
30
31
33
37
45 
CONTENTS.
Page.
XVII. In legislation, regard is to be had to the future as
well as the present- Free trade considers only
to-day................................   52
XVIII. A war with some great foreign naval power, at
some period, is possible; and may cut off the
supply from abroad, of means for defensive or
offensive operations....................... 57
XIX. Arts and manufactures do not spring up without
encouragement-Disadvantages under which new
arts and business labor- Free trade says, " Man        ufactures would encourage themselves as soon
as the country was adapted to them."..........    67
XX. Low price, whether in money or barter, is not the
sole criterion of the best economical policy        Free trade assumes that it is................  87
XXI. The comparative price at which citizens exchange
the products of their labor and capital with each
other, is the important consideration - As long
as the ratio of the price of one thing to that of
another is the same, it is immaterial, as between
themselves, whether that rate is high or low        Free trade teaches that the low money price of
articles consumed in the country, whether the
same be produced at home or abroad, is the sole
consideration to be kept in view.............. 89
XXII. We ought not to depend upon any foreign country
for such ordinary necessaries of life as the coun -
try is well adaptedto produce, at least until we
have a naval power able to command the ocean -
Free trade proposes to render us immediately
and permanently so dependent............... 91
ix 
CONTENTS.
Page.
XXIII. Home competition compels producers to as intense
competition and as low profits, as foreign - Pro         tection not monopoly -Not true, as insisted by
free trade, that foreign competition is necessary
to put home production at the lowest practicable
rate.................................. 96
XXIV.  Protection promotes commerce    Old pretence of
free trade that it would destroy commerce...... 97
XXV. Protection of our own industry will not bring the
necessity of resorting to land-tax and excise         Free trade pretends that it will.............. 97
XXVI.  Balance of trade -There  is such a thing -A
country may buy of another more than it pays
for, or can pay for at the time; it can be con         stantly in arrears - Free trade assumes the con         trary................................ 98
XXVII. It is not for us to take care that other countries
shall have means to pay us for our exports         Free trade says it is...................... 99
XXVIII. Protection of our own domestic industry is in
no degree hostile to other countries-  Free trade
pretends the contrary.....................   102
XXIX. The country may be crippled by a foreign com         merce that is profitable to those directly con        cerned - Free trade says what is profitable to
them, is best for the whole country...........      105
XXX. It is not true that capital remains entire, to be
transferred from a bad business to some other        Free trade assumes that it remains, and can be
withdrawn from an abandoned business to a better. 106
X 
CONTENTS.
Page.
XXXI. The dogmatism of free trade in persisting in its
assumptions............................ 108
XXXII. Accumulation of capital necessary to prosperity,
industry, and arts........................111
XXXIII. Multiplicity of useful arts in high cultivation
prerequisite to great national stock, to wit, capi        tal; and  great capacity for production-Free
trade proposes national poverty.............. 113
XXXIV. Many arts can be carried on most advantageously
in large masses, requiring large capital and many
hands - It is accordingly desirable that there
should be in the community large aggregations of
capital............................... 116
XXXV. Protection to the arts promotes agriculture; is
essential to its prosperity-Contrary pretence of
free trade.............................. 122
XXXVI. The maintenance of our institutions, and the
well-being of the whole people, depend on sus         taining the rate of wages.................   128
XXXVII. Protection favors the working classes; is for
the benefit of both the many and the few- -Free
trade represents it to be for the few only...... 129
XXXVIII. Free industry, preferable to industry fettered
by free tra    de............................ 133
XXXIX. Our extent of territory and variety of climate
enable us to extend arts, and thus sustain wages
-The effect of free trade is stagnation of indus        try, and consequent reduction of wages to the
European level.......................... 133
XL. Vicinity of artisans and cultivators is a great mutual
xi 
CONTENTS.
Page.
advantage to both - Free trade puts them to great
distances from each other.................. 135
XLI. Protection operates for the benefit of those in the
interior in a far greater ratio than for that of
those near the coast and ports -Free trade tends
to make a few great commercial towns, and a
thinly settled, poor, interior country........... 137
XLII. It is not expedient to put off the cultivation and
practice of the useful and ornamental arts in the
United States, until the average of the aggregate
money rates of rents, interest, and wages, is as
low as in the rival places of production in Europe
-Free trade teaches that it is expedient to do so.  142
XLIII. It is not for the interest of the country to put off
each useful art, until our own artisans have as
great skill in it as artisans in countries abroad,
where it has been practised for centuries - Free
trade proposes that we should do so........... 144
XLIV. A duty, however great, cannot operate to give any
class of producers an excessive profit but for a
short period - Free trade pretends that it gives a
permanent advantage to the class............. 145
XLV. The merely adequate degree of protection should
be adhered to -  Pretence of monopoly......... 148
XLVI. The object of protection is to make the interest of
the public and that of the individual coincide
Free trade pretence of restriction................. 151
XLVII. The tendency of putting a domestic product into
the market, is, immediately to reduce to the con         sumer the cost of the corresponding imported
article................................. 155
XI1 
CONTENTS.
Page.
XLVIII. Protection favors those who use capital -Free
trade those who have it to lend................. 157
XLIX. Protection reduces the money price of the great
mass of the most important productions of the
useful arts -Free trade assumes that it invari         ably enhances the money price at a rate equal to
that of the duty.......................... 160
L. Diminishing the duty on imports does not necessarily
diminish the price-  Free trade alleges that it
diminishes the price in the ratio of the duty...  173
LI. Reducing the duty below the point of adequate protec         tion, on an article of which part of the domestic
production is exported, diminishes the gross
amount of imports and of revenue -Free trade
pretends that it augments both...............       174
LII. In stating the account with protection, it is to be
credited with what it saves to the country; the
balance is in its favor, even by the erroneous free         trade rule for stating the account- It is incalcu         lably more so in a true statement of it......... 178
LIII. Our foreign commerce small in comparison with do         mestic-  Free trade magnifies the foreign....... 202
LIV. The domestic market steady;  permanent;  can be
relied upon - Foreign, fluctuating and precari         ous -  Free trade looks only at the foreign..... 202
LV. An ad valorem duty is unequal; leads to frauds.... 204
LVI. Import duty is less burthensomre, and is not attended
by greater inequality than revenue raised in
other ways -Free trade pretends that it is un
equal, etc.................................... 209
B
xiii 
CONTENTS.
Page.
LVII. Investments made under sanction of law, should
not be recklessly destroyed by law- Free trade
abjures good faith in quest of present low money
price....................................211
LVIII. Danger to the domestic arts from domestic compe        tition, needs not to be guarded against-Free        traders affect to be alarmed for them on this score. 212
LIX. Protection should be proportionate, and adequate... 213
LX. It does not appear that there is any alarming danger
of smuggling -Free trade pretends danger of
smuggling, and yet facilitates the evasion of
duties by false invoices.................... 214
LXI. Our whole exports bear a small proportion to our
whole production, and our whole imports in like
manner to consumption- Free trade exagger         ates their comparative importance...........2. 214
LXII. Constant never-ceasing extension and improvement
and change of the arts, require corresponding
modifications of the law - Free trade teaches
that legislation should stand at the dead point... 215
LXIII. The country must always have more or less infant
arts until it passes its meridian - Free trade sup         poses that we go per saltum to the summit of the
arts...................................  216
LXIV. The legislation of a country, affecting its industry,
should have reference to the opinions, prejudices,
capabilities, and habits of its people   Free trade
disclaims any such reference................ 218
LXV. Protection and encouragement are necessary to the
introduction of new arts or industry; or exten         sion of old............................. 218
xiv 
CONTENTS.
Page.
LXVI. The arts are mutually connected and dependent on
one another as to the degree of skill and perfec         tion in each; they must flourish or decay together. 219
LXVII. Vicinity of arts, immediately auxiliary to one
another, is mutually advantageous.............. 221
LXVIII. Protection of domestic industry is due to the in        ventive genius of our  countrymen -Inconsis         tency of free trade........................ 224
LXIX. Ever since the settlement of the country, the policy
of Great Britain has been to discourage and sup         press the arts in America, and keep the country
perpetually in a provincial state, and one of semi         civilization............................. 228
LXX. A check to imports, and impulse given to our own
production by duties, have always been followed
by general prosperity; and an influx of imports,
induced by low duty or however else, is always
followed by general depression and distress, north,
south, and west.......................... 231
XV  
PROPOSITIONS
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.
I. Steady adherence to the right principles of legislation,
in respect to revenue, is material to the national welfare.
WE have the highest authority against building a dwelling upon the sand, lest it should be swept away by the
floods. The maxim is no less applicable to other branches
of industry than house-building. The man who plants a
sugar estate, dykes a rice plantation, constructs a factory
or a ship, needs the firm basis of the laws and institutions
of his country to depend upon, as much as he who builds
a house needs a rock. A shifting legislation, and feeble,
corrupt administration of law, (as among some of our neighbors on the southern part of this continent,) are as destructive to all kinds of industry as hurricanes, earthquakes,
and floods can be to crops or buildings.
It is true that the specific provisions of the laws, as well
those of revenue (and others more directly affecting industry) as the rest, must be modified and adapted to existing circumstances from time to time; but the policy and
principles, on which they ought to be made and changed,
1
CONCERNING 
PROPOSITION II.
are surely the same, and of a permanent character; and
though the ascertaining and lucid demonstration of those
principles, so as to establish them beyond controversy, is
obstructed by certain theories, sophisms, and fallacies, and
much dogmatism, it is still by no means to be despaired of.
These right principles ought no doubt to be adhered to
steadily; or, if a change be necessary, it should be slow,
and after due notice, that everybody may prepare himself,
and the community thus be saved from shocks and revulsions, brought on by legislation. My object is, if possible,
to contribute something towards the recognition and settling
of those principles.
II. Revenue laws are intimately connected with industry
and with each other- Should be examined as a whole.
If you have ever seen, when a spider touches a thread
of his web, how the whole net-work will tremble, you have
an illustration of the manner in which all the fibres of all
the different kinds of industry carried on in the country are
interwoven together, so that a shock in any part is transmitted to the others, and runs through the whole texture.
If the price of flour rises, the cost of bread is increased,
and with it the cost of living, and with that the cost of
labor; for the laborer, whether in agriculture, a mechanical
trade, merchandizing, law, physic, or teaching, — in whatever employment, capacity, or profession, - must support
himself, or must be supported by his employer, and the
cost of his labor will be enhanced by that of his support;
and hence, the cost of all the results of labor - that is to
say, of everything that bears a value and has a price- will
tend to be enhanced by the rise of the price of flour. And
the value of the land which produces wheat will also be
2 
PROPOSITION II.
enhanced, or, at least, the tendency of the rise in the price
of flour will be to enhance it, not merely, as in the other
cases, because it costs more, - as it does, fertility being
mostly the result of labor, - but because the capacity of
an acre to produce twenty bushels per annum is more useful
to the possessor, since it yields him a greater net annual
value. Whatever affects the price of flour will, therefore,
extend its influence over almost all branches of industry,
to some in a greater and to others in a less degree, and may
help or hurt each, or neither help nor hurt any one of them,
whether the tendency is to enhance or reduce the money
price. Whether a change of the price of this or any other
article will have a good or bad effect upon other kinds of
production, we do not now inquire; the present purpose
being merely to illustrate the reciprocal dependence and
influence of the different species of productive industry one
upon another.
The article of flour is taken as an example, because the
price of bread, and the difficulty or facility of procuring it,
will affect every employment more directly and obviously
than the plenty or deficiency of any other article. Proceed
by a similar process to trace out the connection of the
product of any art or species of industry, as of printing,
the iron manufactures, those of lead, copper, wood, wool,
cotton, hemp, leather, and, if you have not gone through
the same process before, you will be astonished to find with
how many others it is directly or remotely connected, and
on how many others it depends, and how many others
depend upon it.
Now, every desription of legislation either helps or hurts
industry, as we shall more plainly see by and by, and more
especially the revenue laws have such effects, in respect to
every article which it is possible for us to produce ourselves,
3 
PROPOSITION III.
whether the law be to impose a comparatively higher or
lower duty on any one, or leave its importation free; and
since, as we have just seen, the production of any one of
the numberless marketable articles is connected with that of
all, or at least very many of the others, and the whole
system of useful industry is one immense net-work, it is
plain that the amount of duty to be levied on each cannot
be judiciously determined without taking into consideration
the whole system in one deliberate, broad, and liberal view.
Next to the founding and constructing the government itself
in its origin, the regulation of the revenue laws is one, at
least, of the most important of political acts, demanding
gigantic faculties, and labors like those of HIamilton.  A
fearful subject this, to be submitted to the experiments of
fanatical visionaries, or to be the sport of factious intrigues
and party frenzy, or an instrument for gambling in the
hands of unscrupulous political charlatans, prone by instinct
and consecrated by destiny to the public detriment!
In order to come to true conclusions upon this subject,
we must examine its divers parts, as connected together in
one whole.
III.  Industry inevitably affected by legislation -Cannot
be let alone-  The let-industry-alone doctrine baleful and
impracticable.*
It is a stereotyped doctrine of free trade, that to let
* "Let them alone, is all that is required of man; let all international exchanges of products move as freely in their orbits as the heavenly bodies in
their spheres, and their order and harmony will be as perfect, and their results
as beneficial, as in every movement under the laws of Nature when undisturbed by the errors and interference of man."  Secretary Walker's Report,
1848. This is a rhetorical repetition of Adam Smith's dogma in respect to all
species of industry, which he himself directly contradicted more than once,
and which has in like manner been repeated and contradicted by his school
from his time to the present.
4 
PROPOSITION III.
alone industry is the true way to promote it; and Mr. Polk,
when he took the position that duties are to be levied with
a sole view to revenue,- meaning, without any regard to
the effect upon industry,- as extraordinary as the doctrine
may seem, expressed no more than the doctrine of his
school, and the plain upshot of all the logic of their writers
upon this subject.
Now it is quite obvious, that, in regulating duties, and
in all other legislation, the industry of the country will
necessarily be affected for the better or for the worse; it
will either be promoted, or be embarrassed and depressed;
whether, in making the laws, we take it into consideration,
or wholly disregard it. We cannot, then, "let it alone,"
without  ceasing to make or have any  laws.   We   must
legislate, and administer the laws, in respect to industry,
and so either promote or depress it, or, by ceasing to have
laws, relapse into barbarism, and, by so doing, affect
industry in the utmost possible degree, that is, annihilate
it. The let-us-alone dogma is, therefore, saying, in other
words,- Shoot at random without taking aim, and you will
be sure to hit the mark.
Industry is the living fountain of welfare, publie and
private. Those who say we must levy duties or omit levying them, or do or omit any other act of legislation whatsoever, without regard to its effect on industry, insist that
the doctor shall have no regard to the patient's health, but
shall let him die if he will. It is not in the wit of man to
frame a more profligate and fatal maxim of legislation.
It has always been the doctrine, as well of the free-trade
advocates as the protectionists,-  a doctrine common to all
parties and all sects,- that the excitement and furtherance
of useful industry is desirable.   Mr. Polk, and his secretary, Mr. Walker, and many others of the same economical
I*
5 
school, extol agriculture and depreciate arts and manufactures in comparison, and represent them as antagonistic to
agriculture.   The author of an elaborate and apparently
leading  free-trade  pamphlet,* published in 1821, says:
"The only difference which the various uses of capital can
make to the nation is, that in some employments the same
amount of capital will employ and support a greater number of laborers than it would in others." And upon this
ground he advocates the pursuit of foreign commerce in
preference to the domestic arts.  All agree that it is a
transcendent economical principle, that such a course should
be pursued in legislation; and all such social and moral
influences should be resorted to as may tend to produce
the greatest degree of the most useful voluntary industry
of the greatest number.   I say voluntary industry, for
nobody proposes to follow the example of the Chinese
emperor, who drove out his people in multitudes to build
the great wall, or that of the Pacha of Egypt, who in like
manner made the canal from Alexandria to the Nile, but
every one agrees in the expediency of holding out inducements to useful activity. This principle is assumed in all
discussions, by whomsoever and wheresoever, to be that of
effectuating the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
The doctrine is not confined to climate or section. It is
as true applied to the South as to the North, to the West
as to the East, and to the seaboard as to the interior.   The
material and debatable question, upon this subject, relates
to the species of industry to which any particular country
and its population are adapted. So the professors of free
trade themselves put it.  They say that we in the United
States are adapted only to agriculture and trade, meaning
* Examination of the New Tariff proposed by Henry Baldwin. By One of
the People. Published by Go'ild & Banks, New York. Page 177.
6
PRO-POSITION Ill. 
PROPOSITION ItI.
principally the export and import trade, whether by our
own ships or foreign, and a certain line of policy will promote these and depress others; for it is a material part of
their doctrine, that it will depress arts and manufactures,
since otherwise their doctrine is the same as that of the
protectionists, who differ from them only in saying that our
country and population are adapted to the working up of
wood, leather, wool, cotton, and iron, to some extent at
least, as well as to the producing of these raw materials;
and, therefore, that the arts and manufactures should, to
such extent, be encouraged and promoted. All thus agree
in the doctrine that industry, in general, is of prime importance, and the promulgator of free trade, no less than
the protectionist, undertakes to form an opinion of the
species of industry, and determine to which the country is
adapted; and each professes the expediency of promoting
his species of industry; and each also professes to be able
to discriminate what measures and proceedings will tend to
promote his own favorite industry and depress other kinds.
Legislation, either neglected or practised, and by whatever
policy guided, will, as we have seen, proprto viore, and,
whether so intended or not, affect the industry of the
country, and either promote or depress it.
When this question is once settled, therefore, whether
our circumstances confine us to the mere production of
provisions and the raw materials of agriculture, or extend
also only to the coastwise carrying-trade; or merely include,
besides that, the foreign carrying-trade; or go a step beyond, and embrace, to a certain extent, the working up of
wood, leather, wool, cotton, and the metals, into useful or
ornamental forms and fabrics, -then, after settling this
preliminary question, it follows as a necessary consequence,
and a direct deduction from these premises, to which the
7 
PROPOSITION III.
free-trader agrees as well as the protectionist, that the true
course is to protect, foster, encourage, and further every
such species of industry, by legislation, publications, public
addresses; example, by turning the current of habit and
fashion and custom towards it; and by other influences and
incentives, in measure and degree according to its import ance, and in proportion to the obstacles in the way of
naturalizing and perfecting it. This is the practical doctrine
which intelligent men, who act upon any general principle
of public policy, are constantly inculcating upon others, and
constantly acting upon themselves. There is no question
of this, I think; and yet how does it tally with the let-alone
dogma?
You cannot say that you will legislate and do other acts
blindfold and reckless of consequences, nor can you deny
that your making a law or doing any other act of public
influence, whichever side or whatever course you may take,
will have a direct or indirect, and, in many cases, decisive
influence upon one or another branch of industry.   You
might as well talk of opening the valve of a steam-engine,
and then letting it alone to do the transportation between
two termini, as to talk of the possibility, or, were it possible, of the expediency, of letting alone industry.  It is
the pickpocket, the cheat, the impostor, the man of false
pretences, who says universally, Laissez-znous faire, Leave
us alone.   The millions of the industrious invoke the laws
and all the social influences to help them, or rather to enable them to help each other. Help them or harm them
you must. Destiny so has it. The question is, What is
helpful and what is harmful; and that we will subsequently
consider. At present, we are, I think, authorized to aver
the proposition that the doctrine of letting alone, totally
disregarding, and ignoring industry, by  way of promoting
it, is profligate, false, and absurd.
8 
PROPOSITION IV.
IV. The Protective policy runs through the whole system
of legislation.
It is the great predominating object of constituting society, and of conducting legislation under its constitution,
and also of a vast proportion of private associations and
individual benefactions, directly and indirectly to foster,
protect, and promote useful industry.  This principle, by
universal admission, lies at the foundation of this entire
magnificent social fabric. What Hooker says of law is no
less applicable to this principle, " None too high to do it
reverence, and none so low as not to feel its fostering care."
The entire stock on hand -the present value of the lands,
the buildings, the improvements, the thousands of movable
things now possessed, is not so much the subject proposed
to be secured and protected by legislation and social and
political institutions, as the industry whereby all this value
is perpetually reproduced, since the amount of this entire
existing value is consumed and again reproduced evely
six or seven years; so that the aggregate industry of the
community is to the aggregate value of its possessions, in the
proportion of the enjoyment of a thing forever, to the enjoyment of it for six years.   All possessions are the preserved
fruits of labor, and guarded and protected, not merely for
their own sake and out of reverence to the principle that
every one shall enjoy what, by the laws of nature, is his
own, but also for the purpose of encouraging useful industry in all its thousand forms; for what would labor avail to
thec laborer if its fruits were not secured to him?  Who would
labor to produce what may be wrested from him by the first
wrong-doer he meets? The protection of property is thu~
intended, and essential, as a security and protection to industry, and also as an excitement to it.
9 
PROPOSITION IV.
The first act in forming society, and in legislation, and in
the administering of law, is directly based upon the protective policy. The founders of our government were protectionists in fact, as well as in principle; and you may just
as well inculcate the let-alone doctrine in respect to the
incendiary as to the useful laborer; you encourage and
sustain the laborer, and restrain and punish the criminal,
upon precisely one and the same principle. Whether you
levy taxes, make highways, railroads or canals, authorize
aqueducts, bridges, embankments, mill-dams; raise armies,
train the militia, make treaties, construct fortifications, manufacture arms, maintain schools, regulate marriages, grant
patent rights, regulate fences, the occupation of lands held
in common; restrain the sale of poisons or intoxicating drinks,
prescribe the hours for a day's work, require that children
shall not be hindered from attending school, or shall be sent
to school, make inspection laws, authorize ferries, forbid the
killing of useful wild animals at certain seasons, give rewards for destroying wolves, bears, etc., regulate fisheries,
prescribe the rate of interest, provide for abating nuisances,
lighting streets, preserving land-marks, piloting vessels; regulate weights and measures, and stamps; coin money, provide for a currency, establish and regulate banks, suppress
gaming, prescribe the proceedings in civil actions, the forms
of contracts and grants, and wills, and the descent and distribution of estates; enact sanitary laws, and poor-laws;
grant acts of incorporation, make laws of trade, internal or
foreign; regulate navigation; prescribe quarantine; build and
maintain light-houses; construct harbors; establish post-offices;
prohibit the sale of unwholesome provisions; give rewards for
agricultural or other productions; prescribe the duties of
carriers; levy taxes; or authorize assessments in counties and
towns, associations, and corporations; establish judicatories;
10 
PROPOSITION IV.
in a word, whatever laws you pass or neglect to pass, either
economical, civil, or criminal,-you, in the great mass of the
subjects of legislation, intend and profess, directly and studiously, to excite and promote useful industry, by giving it
every possible facility to bring out its products, and every
possible protection in the use and enjoyment of them when
brought out; and without such encouragement and protection, its products never can be realized. The let-us-alone
doctrine is for the marauder, the bee that plunders another's
hive, not for the one that collects its stores in the fields.
Examine for yourself this view of the objects and principles of the social institutions and of legislation in general;
if there is any mistake or fallacy in it, you will easily detect
it, for the whole subject is within the experience and comprehension of every man, though he may never have read
a treatise on political economy. If you consider it correct;
if the proposition is a plain expression of your own opinion,
such as you now entertain and always did entertain, as you
certainly will find it to be, then you cannot help saying that
the le-alone doctrine, which is the fundamental dogma of
free trade, is a fallacy, flimsy and transparent in the superlative degree.   It is so directly contradictory to the common
thinking and acting of all men of all times and places,
those professing free trade, no less than others, that the promulgation of it as an axiomatic proposition, if sincere, seems
to be a strange intellectual phenomenon, and if not sincere,
an act of signal effrontery.
This is not the sole foundation upon which the advocates
of free trade put their theory, but it is the main one. The
others shall be considered in their proper place. I think we
may put this one down to be classed with the "straw and
stubble," on which no man-of sense and honesty will build.
We must then scout the doctrine that the legislator must
11 
PROPOSITION V.
turn his back upon the industrious laborer, or the industrious and honest capitalist, whether great or small, and we
must adopt the opposite one. No intelligent, honest man
can, it seems to me, have a choice; he will find himself
under a grateful necessity to believe and admit, that civil
society cannot be maintained, nor any system of legislation
and civil administration carried on, without either promoting
or discouraging useful industry at every step and every
stop; and that it is a great fundamental principle that indlustry, instead of being let alone, is to be always kept in
mind, and always helped, and protected in all suitable forms
and ways possible, in due measure and proportion, according to the particular object and the particular circumstances;
so that it shall be for the interest of every member of the
community  to employ himself and his capital, great or
small, in arts and pursuits conducive to the common weal.
Some professor of free trade will reply, that "This is precisely what free trade proposes and will effect."   We  shall
see.  At present let him  admit that industry is not, and
cannot be, let alone, except by such practical political economists as the Esquimaux of our own continent, or the
Buslhmen of Africa.
V. The Constitution expressly authorizes protection -
Free-trade pretence.
Some of the learned expounders of free trade and constitutional law, pretend not to be able to discover in the
constitution any authority to impose a duty on imports, for
the purpose of promoting domestic production. They say
further, that in imposing any duty on the import of an article, Congress is bound not to have any regard to the effect
upon domestic industry, means of national defence, or wel
12 
PROPOSITION V.
fare. This is the doctrine of divers messages and speeches,
if my memory serves me well; it is, however, very possible that I may not state it with rigid precision, and I
will, therefore, bring myself within the secure limits of the
assertion, that they profess to find some insurmountable constitutional barrier against the protection of domestic industry by duties on imports. I mention the subject here, for
if there really is this formidable guard at the threshold, forbidding ingress, it will be prudent to retreat at once; but
if on the contrary, we find it to be only a fanciful "picture
of nobody," such as some of the people of the East Indies
put up at the side of their doors, we shall not be afraid.
The constitution authorizes Congress to "lay and collect
imposts, provide for the common defence, and general welfare, regulate commerce, and make all laws necessary and
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and
all other powers vested in the government, or any department or officer thereof."  Here seems to be  "literal" authority in great abundance for protection of industry by
levying duties. But, say the professors of the same school,
the constitution must be construed not only "literally"
but also strictly, so as to find as little authority as possible
given by it, and if none at all so much the better. Any
other principle of construction, say they, is latitudinarian,
against the sovereignty of the States, and the fundamental doctrine of nullification. They insist that the true principle of construction is the opposite one, that has neither
latitude nor longitude, neither breadth nor length; so infinitesimally minute that it deals in points, without magnitude
or space.
It is a hard imputation upon those who framed this instrument, to suppose that they intended such a futile impracticability.  By another provision,  "the importation of such
2
13 
PROPOSITION VI.
persons," etc., meaning slaves, was not to be prohibited
prior to 1808, whereby they expressly recognized the general power  of  Congress  to prohibit an "importation;"
a fortiori, Congress can check, and modify, and limit and
control one. If four express grants and one specific recognition, do not confer a power, what device can be resorted
to for the purpose? The English language has no expressions more decisive, and the plain meaning is confirmed by
the history of the States preceding the adoption of the constitution; by the reasons for adopting it; and the legislation
under it.
Any person who can really persuade himself that the
constitution does not plainly confer upon Congress the power
to impose duties upon an import, or to prohibit it, for the
sole and exclusive purpose of promoting domestic industry,
or suppressing a vice, or any other object deemed to be promotive of the general welfare, must very frequently find
himself at cross purposes with other people, by reason of
his whimsical  conceptions of the import of the English
language.
VI. RPevenue laws will promote either domestic or foreign
industry - Free trade is in favor of the foreign.
All legislation, as we have seen, promotes or hinders
industry, either of all kinds or some kinds, as the case may
be.   The same is true of many fashions, prejudices, tastes,
opinions, passions, and associations for industrial or other
purposes, -indeed, the greater part of social influences.
Since, then, legislation pre-eminently will promote or obstruct
this or that art, or the arts generally, is it not of infinite
importance to consider what effect any measure will have in
this respect? Legislation, supported by the administration
14 
PROPOSITION YVII.
and enforcement of the law, in fact, sits supremne arbiter,
predominating over all other causes in determining the destiny of the country in its career in arts and civilization,
whether to be long and triumphant, or short and unhappy.
Among all the influences bearing upon the subject, no one
is so decisive of our destiny as the regulation of the struggle
between our own domestic arts and industry of all sorts,
with the antagonist arts and industry of other countries.
Legislators cannot stand neutral, as mere lookers-on at a
drama, in the catastrophe of which they have no hand.
They are the appointed, responsible actors and agents, and
the result, whether success or ruin, is of their achievement.
The false pretence of free trade not to act, is, in fact, positively and directly, in the most efficient  manner possible,
taking sides with the foreign competitor. The pretence that
the government is to be neutral in this contest, is as preposterous as to pretend that it is to be neutral in the case
of hostilities with  any  foreign country.   The  strongest
party may well inculcate such a doctrine, and that is precisely the reason why British artists and capitalists modestly
inculcate it upon our government.
VII.  The promotion of ouR  owN INDUSTRY, or neglect
of it, has momentous consequences.
We  may, then, consider it to be an established, indisputable, and, indeed, on all sides admitted, principle, that
legislation, as well as the neglect to legislate, and also the
policy and administration of the government, will forward
or hinder the national industry and the progress of the
domestic arts.  We  shall readily see that it is of infinite
importance to favor and promote that industry and those
arts.   This  you  admit, perhaps.   So  much  the better.
15 
PROPOSITION VII.
But some do not admit it: the late administration did not,
when it recommended to Congress a duty on tea and coffee,
which we do not produce, in preference to raising the revenue on such articles as we do produce; for which, as far as
I can perceive, it could have no possible motive, but to
avoid the encouragement of our own industry; and to such
a degree was it actuated by the dread of merely incidentally
promoting the useful industry of the country by the mode
of levying the imposts, that, for the purpose of avoiding
this, it was recommended that a duty should be imposed on
the two imported articles in the consumption of which the
poor man comes nearer to an equal amount with the rich
man than in any others, except drugs and medicines. By
this and other like propositions, the same executive has
done service to the country; for before its messages and
reports and offieial documents were promulgated, only Mr.
Mc(ulloch  of London,  and some  few of our Southern
politicians of the abstract, metaphysical school, had explicitly
avowed the fallacious postulates and extravagant sophisms
of free-trade logic. It was desirable to have some authority
of a practical character, even if no better than official or
sectional and partisan, for the preposterous results to which
the free-trade theory necessarily leads, and this we now
have, such as it is; so that, if we state the doctrines in
plain terms, we are not liable to be told, that, though such
doctrines may be those of Adam  Smith, Mr. Senior, Mr.
MecCulloch, etc., they are not those of our professors of
free trade. There are, then, those among us, besides recluse, speculative theorists, who profess and teach the transcendentalisms of that so-called scienee, as thus appears by
vouchers and signatures, -persons who go to, at least, the
ultima  Thule of the system, if not beyond.
The great importance of labor and its annual products
16 
PROPOSITION VII.
merely in respect to value, independently of other considerations, appears manifestly from the fact, that it is, in comparisori with the entire value of real and personal property
in the community, as has already been suggested, in the
proportion of the absolute possession of a thing forever to
the value of the use of it for six years. Vary this proportion as you may, from any data of the least authority, still
the value and importance of the labor will immensely predominate; from which it necessarily results, that the promotion of industry is of vital importance.   Arts, civilization, national strength and progress, political life or death,
depend upon it.
Take an illustration of the effect of a want of employment in the case of Pittsburg in 1819, from M1atthew
Carey's New  Olive-Branch.   You may make as much allowance as you please for any supposed want of exactnless
in his statistics, though he plainly intended to be within the
mark, and still this cause of poverty and distress will be
sufliciently fearful.  Hle says,  "This  city, in 1815, contained about 6,000 inhabitants. It exhibited as exhilarating
a scene of industry and prosperity as any place in the
world. Its immense local advantages, seated at the confluenee of two noble rivers, forming the majestic Ohio; its
boundless supplies of coal, and the very laudable enterprise of its inhabitants, had for a long time rendered it the
emporium of the western world. But alas! the immoderate influx of foreign manufactures poured in there shortly
after the peace, produced a most calamitous reverse.   The
operations of the hammer, the hatchet, the shuttle, the spindle,
the loom, ceased in a great degree. Noble establishments,
which reflected honor upon the nation, were closed; * the
* These were, no doubt, put up to supply the necessities of the country during the war of 1812,-what Mr. Secretary Walker considered to be monu               2*
17 
PROPOSITION VII.
proprietors ruined, the workmen discharged, a blight and a
blast overspread the face of the city; and the circumjacent
country, which had shared in its prosperity, now equally
partook of its decline."  And he states that by a minute
investigation, conducted by citizens of high standing, it amppeared that 2,576 people of that city had been deprived of
the employment which supported them; that is, over one
third of the population had lost the income from their labor,
to many of whom it was their sole income. The loss in
that one year in the wages of labor, compared with 1815,
he computes at $1,735,833.  He makes the corresponding
loss in Philadelphia, $7,100,804.
Here is a result in two cities, one on the seaboard, and
one in the interior, which would represent the country generally. The population of these two cities was then about
115,000; and that of the United States, exclusive of slaves,
about 8,800,000; from which data, allowing that the average
intensity of distress for want of employment throughout
the country, was one eighth of the estimate for those two
cities, the result is a loss on industry alone that year, of
$83,750,000. Vary the statistics as you please, still if you
admit of any fraction whatever of the population being
thrown out of employment, you will come to a result demonstrating the pre-eminence of industry, and the mighty effect
of whatever enlarges or curtails it.
But this is not the whole of the destructive effect of any
law or policy, or any neglect to make a needed law, or to
follow an expedient policy. The income of capital, that is,
the advantage annually accruing to every man, rich, or of
ever so small possessions, in land, tools, or industrial mate
ments of folly; that is, the folly of industrious, enterprizing men, who come
to help the country in its need, when the free-trader folds his arms, and says,
Let alone.
is 
PROPOSITION VII.
rials or means of whatever description, is depressed by the
same cause. This accumulated stock of tools and materials,
which we call capital, cannot, in such circumstances, all be
used advantageously. If one man in ten is out of employment, then one plough in ten will be out of use, and the
wages of men and the value of implements will be reduced
two or three tenths or more, and so on through the whole
variety of trades, industrial instruments, and materials of all
kinds, even the most necessary in their degree; for if men
of very moderate means are out of work, they will be less
comfortably clad, fed, lodged, and sheltered, that is, will demand, use, purchase, and consume a less amount of every
sort of things, than when they had full employment. Thus
the fact of their being out of employment will be again the
cause of their continuing so, since their motive to labor for
themselves, and that of others to employ them, is to sell the
products of their labor in the market, as the consumption
of almost every individual in a civilized community consists in but a small degree of the direct products of his own
labor, and there is thus, by reason of the diminished consumption, less demand for the products of labor, and for the
use of all the lands, tools, materials, and apparatus, namely,
stock and capital, of the community, to employ labor upon.
Diminish industry, and you bring in a train of evils fertile
again of new evils, in an endless succession.
We may, then, safely say, that whatever legislation or
course of policy diminishes our own industry, or neglects to
promote it, is wicked, calamitous, and ruinous.
19 
PROPOSITION VIII.
VIII. Free trade assumes as true at least eleven false
propositions, each of which is essential to its support,
and either of whiech not being true, the system falls to
pieces.
It is surprising with what a complacent simplicity of unconscious self-conceit, many of the political, social, and economical thinkers of these times of ours, propose the total destruction and reconstruction of the whole social and industrial system of their own country, or of all Christendom. The St.
Simonians, the Fourierites, the Communists, the Amazons,
have less scruple and compunction in sweeping away at a dash
the whole social system, than a young author in erasing his
bad fine passages.
The thorough-going theorist of free trade is of the same
stamp. Hle proposes what is in the extremest degree theoretical, never having been practised in any civilized community excepting some  small commercial  places of trivial
internal resources, and assumes in its support, as preliminary
concessions, and essential and fundamental postulates, at
least eleven palpably erroneous propositions.
The original proposition that embodies his theory, viz. the
let-alone dogma, assumes what is an impossibility, as applied to any community that is governed by law; since, as
we have seen, legislation cannot let alone industry if it
would.
The demonstrator of that "science," then, assumes as
part of his premises, that what each individual supposes to
be most for his own private interest, is most advantageous to
the public.
Hle instructs us that, commerce being only an exchange
of equivalents, the sole criterion for discrimination is that
made by the trader, viz. the comparative money price at the
20 
PROPOSITION VIII.
time, in the market; and, except this difference, one sort of
import is as advantageous to the country as another.
He repudiates boundaries and nationality in matters of
foreign commerce, and says our interest, in this respect, is
identical with that of every other nation, and that the true
commercial system is an absolute international communism;
that the interest of each is identical with that of each other,
just as before, the interest of every individual in a community, as he himself calculates it, is identical with that of
the community.
He forms his theorems upon the supposition that men are
merely venders and purchasers, and not producers.
He assumes that the market for all vendibles is unlimited,
and that a glut is an impossibility.
He lays down the doctrine that a given amount of capital
will inevitably put in motion, proprio  viqore, a certain
amount of industry, which cannot be increased by legislation;
and then denies his own proposition;  and then goes on reasoning from it, through immense treatises, as being true.
He assumes that every man and woman and child in
the community, able and willing to work, has full employment at fair wages.
He assumes that the interest of the country is the same,
and it is to be governed as if its affairs were to be
wound up and the final balance struck, in a profit and loss
account, in dollars and cents, at the end of the current year,
or month, or day; and that this result is an infallible index
of the progress or decline of a nation.
He assumes that the millennium has begun, and war can
never more occur.
He asserts that whatever production the country and population are adapted to, will spring up spontaneously without
protection or encouragement at precisely the proper time, in
21 
PROPOSITION IX.
successful competition with the unchecked influx of foreign
products.
The theorist of free trade takes for granted in the outset,
either tacitly, or by direct assertion, at least, these eleven
propositions, and presumes upon your conceding them; and
if you deny him any one of them, all his deductions vanish,
and his science is gone.
Though these eleven fundamentals are all, as I have said,
palpable and glaring fallacies, and speak plain enough for
themselves, yet we will examine those not already disposed
of, as we proceed, in connection and contrast with what must
be the true propositions, if those are false; and also, in the
sequel, we will consider separately, the other doctrines of
that same science, so styled, that are corollaries, and different phases, of these same eleven extraordinary postulates.
IX. It is not true that the industry every individual, in  dependently of any law, deems to be advantaqeous to him  self, is so to the public - Free trade asserts that it is so.
Let us examine the original foundation of the let-alone
doctrine, and see whether it will crumble as coon as you
touch it.
It begins with a false implied assumption of Adam Smith,
who says, that "Every individual can judge better than any
statesman or lawgiver can do for him, what is the species of
industry his capital can employ, and of which the produce is
likely to be of the greatest value."
This proposition assumes that protective legislation.presupposes the legislator to affect to know what is for the individual's interest better than the individual himself, whereas
it never presupposes any such thing. Protective legislation presupposes that the legislator knows that certain kinds
22 
PROPOSITION IX.
of industry are useful and certain other kinds are hurtful,
and that certain kinds of industry need fostering, certain
others do not, and certain others need to be prohibited and
put down.
In one form, it proposes to protect the individual against
plunder and violence; in another, against fraud; in another,
to help him begin a useful new business without loss; and in
another form, to relieve the laborer against domestic competition, by introducing new employments; and in another, to
sustain labor against foreign competition.
It proposes to make it for the interest of individuals to
pursue a species of industry which, as is supposed, it will be
advantageous to the public that they should pursue.
In one of these forms it grants money to defray the expense of experiments for the application of electro-magnetism to mechanics, because it is supposed, or rather it is evident, that such an application, if practicable, will be of public utility, and that it would not be for the interest of any
individual to make the experiment requisite to test it.  So
much for the sham presumption.
Second, for the other prop, the false express proposition,
which is that "The study of his own advantage, naturally,
or rather necessarily, leads every individual to prefer that
employment for his capital which is most advantageous to
society."
That is, the burglar's capital consists of a bunch of false
keys and picklocks, and the study of his own advantage naturally leads him to employ this capital in gaining entrance
into your house by night, and stealing your plate, which employment thereof is most advantageous to society.
The starved apothecary prefers to employ his capital in
selling poisons; the quack doctor in vending deleterious nostrums; Eugene Sue in publishing immoral stories, etc. etc.
23 
PROPOSITION X.
A  more glaringly false proposition than this was never put
forth.
But the thief, etc., are exceptions, says Adam Smith's disciple. True, and there are a thousand others, that you can
enumerate ex tempore, some criminal and as many lawful,
and this it is that makes the proposition palpably false.
If an individual could be as Louis XIV. styled himself,
the state, if he were an independent immortal national integer,
then there would be an exact analogy; but as he is only an infinitesimal ephemeral fraction, it is quite otherwise.  A nation
ought to act as a sensible individual would if he were a nation. This shallow truism is all the truth that can be extracted from this grand fundamental proposition of Adam
Smith. I think, then, we may safely say that the let-alone
doctrine is based upon a miserable fallacy.*
X. Sonme kinds of foreign imports have a better influence
upon the general welfare than others - Free trade says
there is no difference.
The motive to all foreign trade on the part of the individual who pursues it, is profit, and it will flow in the channels
where the profit is greatest. If it were supposable that one
kind is prejudicial to the country, it would seem to follow
that the law, as far as convenient and practicable, should discourage it, or absolutely prohibit it, as it does the slave trade;
and, vice versc, if some kinds were beneficial, that they
should be encouraged. But free trade says that none ought
to be either encouraged or discouraged by legislation. This
is, in effect, to say, that whatever trade is most profitable to
Mr. Colton, Pub. Econ., N. Y., 1848, p. 56, Is willing to adopt the doctrine
of the free-trade economists in the sense that a nation should observe rules of
economy, no less than an individual  but this is not their sense.
24 
PROPOSITION XI.
the importer is most beneficial to the community. This doctrine is expressly so stated by Adam Smith and his disciples.
But, say you, there are exceptions. Then you undertake
to discriminate between different kinds of trade, that is, different kinds of industry; and to discourage and prohibit
some, and to prefer and promote others. You are not, then,
of the sect of free trade, but a protectionist, for this is all
that the latter proposes.
XI. The whole world is not one community, to all intents
and purposes, in respect to trade and industry- Free
trade maintains that it is so.
The free-trade  creed assumes  and asserts, that, as to
matters of industry and trade, the whole world is one
community, and that legislation and the administration of
law ought to proceed upon this supposition of universal
fraternity; and that, whenever any country acts upon the
notion that its commercial or industrial interest is in competition with that of any other, and endeavors to favor and
protect its own, it commits a great blunder. This doctrine
is necessarily included in the comprehensive, negative, one
idea of "let alone."  We are only to study "the greater
increase of the aggregate produce of the world." * What
avails addressing arguments to persons who, in practical
affairs of business, and, in fact, of life and death to poor
laborers, talk about "increasing the aggreyate produce of
the world?" This theory of national communism is inculcated with as solemn gravity and confidence as religious
enthusiasts assume, when they announce the millennium.
Anderson, speaking of the English Navigation Act, says:
* Mill, Pol. Econ., c. 25, s. 2.
3
25 
PROPOSITION XI.
'The Rump Parliament made a most excellent and memorable law for the advancement of our shipping. It had
been observed that the merchants of England, for several
years past, had usually freighted the Hollanders' shipping
for bringing home their own merchandize, because their
freight was at a lower rate than that of the English ships,
whilst our own shipping lay rotting in our harbors; which
determined the Rump Parliament to enact that no merchandize should be imported into England in any but Englishbuilt ships, belonging to English subjects. The novelty of
this act occasioned at first loud complaints, that although
our own people had not shipp'ng enough to import whatever they wanted, they were nevertheless by this law debarred
receiving due supplies of merchandize from other nations,
who only could, and, till then, did, import them." *
This act was the foundation of British useful arts, commerce, and power. It was carrying the protective policy
to an extreme, but not a thousandth part so dangerous and
deadly as the opposite one of the free-trade doctrine of Let
alone, and all things will of themselves work for the best.
Hlad the Rump Parliament gone upon the principle, that,
as to commerce, the English and Dutch were all of the
same community, n'importe, c'est egal, according to the freetrade theory, Great Britain and Holland would not now
have held the same relative rank among nations as they do.
The Dutch were then decidedly on the free-trade side, as far
as navigation was concerned, and went to war in its defence,
just as the English now, in many matters where they imagine
that they now have the same advantage that the Dutch then
had in navigation, are strenuous advocates of free trade.
This doctrine of the community of interest between differ
* And. Com., vol. 2, p. 415.
26 
PROPOSITION X1.
ent nations collectively, and inhabitants individually, fanciful
as it is, is a fundamental resting-point of the free-trade
hypothesis. It may be put into Adam Smith's formula for
calculating the veritable cause of the wealth of nations, as,
thus, every nation knows what branches of industry are
most advantageous to itself, and what is the most so to
itself, is most so to all nations. This theorem is as applicable to nations as to individuals, to whom he applies it.
You have, therefore, only to let them alone, whether they
return you the compliment or not, being sure that whatever
they do will be for your advantage, and for that of every
other country and its people. This is the philosophical
lesson, gravely, and with a magisterial air, inculcated upon
practical men by the professors of free trade.
The thirty-four young men who were graduated at Harvard College in 1770, dressed in homespun cloth,* considered it to be quite a different thing whether their dress were
of domestic or British manufacture.
The cosmopolitan communism of free trade is in striking
contrast also to the first act under our government, in 1789,
when the people, with Washington at their head, were fresh
from the great achievement of the last century.   I would
choose rather to sympathize with his sentiments, in wearing
a home-made dress at his first inauguration, and with theirs
in applauding this act, than to enjoy the torpid satisfaction of
the free-trade economist, in computing the imagined loss of a
shilling in the money price at the time, by the misapplication of labor in making that garment.   Suppose  that it
appeared as plain as the estimate of the Iscariot, that three
hundred pence might have been saved by the sale of the
box of ointment, that the shilling might have been saved by
* Holmes's Am. Annals.
27 
PROPOSITION XI.
importing the cloth for the garment from England or Ger —
many, or still more by importing it ready made up, it would
not make out a case. The free-trade economists pretend, as
he did, charity to the poor, and with as good reason.   As
to the man who has capital, it is indifferent to him, so far as
his private interest is concerned, whether he employs it in
importing the article, or hiring workmen to produce and
make it, provided he can, in either case, depend upon the
good faith of the government. But not so with the journeyman, or laborer, whose industry is his only capital. He cannot elect out of the whole world where to use his hands. He
does not choose to expatriate himself.   His whole capital,
like himself, is American.   He is rooted in the soil.  He is
not a cosmopolite as to industry and arts-; he is an  American.  It, therefore, makes a great difference to him whether
his trade can be carried on here, or is to be exiled to England,
Germany, or India. He feels also that it is a great benefit to
him to have a great many persons of different trades about
him in his own country, who will take the articles he makes,
for he is much more sure of their custom than of that of a
workman in Leeds, or Brussels, or Canton.   He feels that
he depends almbst wholly upon American customers, of a
different trade from his own.   He  makes hats, say, and if
the person who makes the coat that he wears, is in his vicinity,
he is sure of a customer for a hat, but not so if his clothmaker is in Germany. The case of the person employed in
or upon the earth, is still stronger.   Of most articles produced directly from the earth nearly the whole are consumed
within the country.
Such products constitute from two to three fifths of the
expense of living of the people, and residents in the country must be supplied with them from their own soil.  Some
three fifths of our population are employed about these pro
28 
PROPOSITION XI.
ducets. Every inhabitant of the country, employed in any
other way, goes to them for a supply of two to three fifths of
all that he uses and consumes. Does the inhabitant of Leeds,
Brussels, or Canton, in China, take the same proportion?  If
the foreign artisan is in India, he takes nothing of our agriculturists; if he is on the continent of Europe, he takes next
to nothing; if he is in England or Scotland, he cannot, even
with the free admission of grain and provisions, take as large
a proportion of his articles of use and consumption in
products imported there; and most of those he would use,
would come from Denmark, Poland, and Russia. One inhabitant of this country, therefore, affords as much demand for
the products of our land, that is, uses and consumes as much
of them, as ten, twenty, or thirty inhabitants of England or
Scotland would do, under the freest possible admission
there of those products.
The truth of this statement, as a general proposition, is
fully within the knowledge and comprehension of every man.
There is no need of statistical tables for vouchers. Can anybody say, then, that it is a matter of entire indifference to us,
whether the person who furnishes an article that we use, resides in this or the other hemisphere? Is it not an outrage
against the ordinary conventional decorum of discussion, to
state such a proposition?   Besides, we  are not yet so far
gone in cosmopolitan communism as not to care more for an
American, than for an inhabitant of Scotland or Holland; and
of the two, not to prefer to contribute to the well-being of
the former; or his continuing at all to be.
There is at least one difference to us between the foreign
artist and the American, that affects our economical calculations, for if the foreigner is not supplied with labor to support himself, there is perhaps, one chance in two, that he will
not be shipped out to this country to be supported in the
3*
29 
PROPOSITION XII.
alms-house here, whereas there is no such chance of exemption in the case of the American; if he cannot support himself by his own industry, he must be supported by that of
his neighbors.
We may, then, safely say that the whole world is not to
all intents and purposes one community, as to matters of
trade and industry, without any national or sectional discrimination; that our own fellow citizens, in whatever part of the
United States, are of greater importance to us, in respect to
our national economy and prosperity, than an equal number
of those of Havre, though these latter take considerable
quantities of our exports; and that the contrary doctrine is
as false in science as it is repugnant to national sentiment.
XII. Men are to be considered as producers, as well as
venders andpurchasers - Free trade considers them only
as venders and purchasers.
Almost every one in the United States, of any mental and
physical capability, is a worker, a producer. The first question that each puts to himself, and that every legislator ought
to put also to himself is,- What course is most likely to open
to him a chance of producing something to be consumed by
himself or exchanged? The advocate of free trade answers
for the legislator, "No course."   This we have seen to be
impracticable, and also inconsistent with the whole conduct
of all legislators, philanthropists, moralists, and economists,
of whatever theory or sect.   In other respects than in respect to the regulation of commerce, they declare themselves,
and act, in direct contradiction to the fundamental dogma of
free trade.
To the present point then, they suppose, that every person has now on hand a certain article for sale. They do not
30 
PROPOSITION XIIt.
go behind this state of the case, and inquire what policy in
legislation will enable every one to obtain such an article:
let him alone for that; they suppose him to have it.   They
then assume, secondly, that some one of the antipodes will
take it of him at a fair price; whom, if left alone, if in fact
he possibly could be so, by legislation, and all influences and
helps whatever, he will infallibly find.
The protective system, on the contrary, considers people,
in their character of producers, as substantially all of ours
are. They inquire, not merely how you may make a good
bargain in the exchange of what you already have, which i
a very proper inquiry; but also, which is immeasurably more
important, what course of policy is best calculated to put you
in the way of producing something more; that is to say, to
give you a chance for industry.
XIII. We can export only certain descriptions of articles,
and those only to countries where the money price is
higher than with us, whether we take their goods or
not.
This proposition that we can export only to the countries
where the money price is higher than with us, is too obvious
to need a word in its support.*
The exporter of goods from the United States to Europe,
must charge from four to eight or nine months' interest, be
* The nearest approximation, if not the only one, to an exception, is lumber,
iron, stone, coal, or other articles, transported for ballast on one passage by sea,
where the principal object of the voyage is another passage, as coal from Liverpool to New York, and paving or building stone thence to New Orleans,
when the main object is the freight of a cargo to Europe. This sort of transportation is of immense importance in respect to commercial conventions with
foreign countries, and precisely those in which the wider range of British commerce, and, it is to be feared, the more. thorough statistical knowledge of British statesmen, enable them to get the advantage of us.
I
31 
PROPOSITION XIII.
tween the time of paying for the goods here and realizing the
proceeds there. He must also pay commissions and premium
of insurance.   If the article is earried merely for ballast,
therefore, and not to make freight, he must sell it from five
to ten per cent. higher than he bought it, in order to get
back his money. This supposes that the ship is going to
Europe for another object, say for a cargo. The shipper
also takes into the account the rate of exchange; namely,
if the rate on Europe is two per cent. above the actual par,
and it will cost him one per cent. to send out specie, he can
send out goods instead of the specie, if they net him in the
European market, in specie, one per cent. less than they cost
him in the United States, including interest and all charges.
In general, no merchant will ship goods to a foreign country
unless he expects to realize net cash proceeds exceeding the
cost, taking into the account the rate of exchange.
This proposition is plain, and the plainer the better; and
I put it down here, not to be proved or explained or illustrated, but merely to be remembered.
Formerly, opium and furs were the principal articles,
worth more in money, in India, than in the United States.
But money was then, and is now, worth more there than
here, in silks, teas, and divers other articles. The quantity
of opium that could be brought into the trade was not
enough to pay for all the silks, teas, saltpetre, etc., needed
from India, and we, therefore, sent out great quantities of
specie. The balance of trade was immensely in favor of
India.   This, the free-trade political economists say, and
pretend to demonstrate by a misty dialectical process, was
as advantageous to the country as any other trade. But
those who have formerly witnessed the agony of our commercial community when an Indiaman was being fitted out, with
four or five hundred thousand dollars in specie, the banks
32 
PROPOSITION XIV.
stopping discounts, and interest rising to the rate of twelve
per cent. or more per annum, will require something more
to satisfy them that this was highly advantageous, than the
mere say-so of a speculative professor, who concocts abstract
theorems of political economy in his closet.
Now there are only certain descriptions of productions
of the United States which bear a lower money price here
than in any foreign country, and only such can be exported
to any such country. And many articles produced by us,
bearing a lower money price here, cannot be exported to
any country without loss, either on account of the kind, or
because the expense of exportation would exceed the difference of price.
XIV. How much a foreign country will take of our ex  ports - There is a limit to the quantity - We cannot
dispose of enough exports abroad to pay for an un  limited quantity of imports - Free trade assumes that
we can.
It is modestly assumed by free trade, that we can export,
and can sell in foreign markets, a sufficient quantity of our
own products to purchase whatever amount we desire to import and consume of their products and manufactures. The
free-trade thinkers say it is better to cultivate potatoes, beans,
peas, corn, wheat, cotton, tobacco, and rice, and produce
beef and pork, and make butter and cheese, to send abroad
for sale in foreign markets, and with the proceeds purchase
all our steel, iron, coal, and all of our fabrics of wool, cot
ton, and hemp, and all the fabrics we need of wood, metals,
and leather, except the very rudest and coarsest.
This is assuming and taking for granted that we can export and sell enough of the former abroad to purchase what
33 
PROPOSITION XIV.
we want of the latter.  Do  they prove this?   Not at all.
Do they show it probable or possible?   No.   Do  they at tempt to do so? Never. They do not even say it is so, but
implicitly take it for granted, and proceed to recommend to
our farmers and planters to raise wheat and cotton, and other
products of the soil, and to our merchants to export the same,
in quantities sufficient to buy whatever amount we need of
the other descriptions of articles.
"But," says the cultivator, "I already supply to the mer chant quite as much cotton and flour as he will pay me a living
price for; if I should supply more, he would immediately re duce the price so that I should get less money for more, than
I do for what I now sell him.  In fact I now have a surplus;
and Wisconsin and Texas are already coming in with such
quantities as to make the surplus still larger."
But still the free-trade transcendentalist goes on in his
monotone, "We ought to send abroad flour and cotton to
buy our coats, gowns, and stockings;  we get them  much
cheaper in this way."   "But," says the cultivator, "What
avails the cheapness if I cannot get them at all?   If you
will shape legislation so that an additional hundred or thousand men or women within the range of my market, that is,
in the United States, will find some other occupation than
raising cotton and wheat, or making butter and cheese, and
so take off a little of my stock, I shall be able to buy the
said coat and gown at some rate, and the satisfaction of obtaining them, is much greater to me, than the low price, supposing it would be so, when I should be unable to buy them.
Your free-trade is no freedom to me; it is bondage; it is
slavery to an hypothesis; it paralyzes me- it binds me
down, and then you coolly bid me walk. To me this is not the
free-trade system; it is the no-trade system."
The proclaimer of free-trade, and palsied industry, ad
34 
PROPOSITION XIV.
dresses himself to our knowledge and experience, in taking
for granted that there is ample foreign demand for all the
raw products of the soil, that are, or possibly can be, produced
in the country. He supposes us to assent to this; for when
he advises us that it is exceedingly advantageous for us to
employ ourselves in producing certain articles for a foreign
market, that is, all the articles which can, by his system,
be put into the foreign market by us at a less money price
there than by others, he speaks without any practical meaning, and trifles with us, unless there is such a market for
our whole mass of surplus products, actual or possible.
He offers no fact, and says not one word, to show the
existence, or probability, or possibility of any such foreign
demand. Unless, therefore, he really himself thinks there
actually is, or probably may be, such a demand,  he deals
with us deceitfully; as he has for these many years been
continually expressly told that we do not think so, but quite
the contrary, for reasons that we specify; he is accordingly
bound by the ordinary rules and proprieties of discussion,
and owes it to his own zeal in his cause, and his own reputation as one of its champions, to come to the point, and
adduce some facts, or render some reason, instead of unheedingly still going on repeating his hackneyed generalities.
If he can give no such reason or fact, as he surely cannot,
let him at least express in words the proposition he is constantly assuming, and without which all his elaborate system
vanishes. Let him directly and plainly say, that, for the
products we must export to pay for the two or three hundred additional millions, which he proposes we shall import,
we can find a market in foreign countries, -not a place
where they can be given away and lost, but a market,
where they can be sold at a price covering cost and charges.
Or he may stop vastly short of this.  Let him assert, in so
35 
PROPOSITION XIV.
many words, that there is a sufficient foreign market for our
present existing surpluses, and that he builds up a stupendous superstructure of public economy based upon the
verity of this proposition. This would be more honest and
above-board than implicitly and obliquely to shuffle in his
assumption. The proposition of free trade, which he thus
infers, would thus have the verbal semblance of a deduction.
It would pretend to be inferred from something. The logic
would then go upon all-fours, in words, though it would
have only a false pretence to stand upon; not merely false,
but palpably and notoriously contradictory to every man's
experience.
If there is an unlimited or an adequate foreign market,
at remunerating prices, for all we do or can produce for
exportation, then it is not impertinent and absurd for the
expounder of the causes of the wealth of nations to recommend to us to devote our growing industry more and more
to production for that market.   It does not establish his
theory, but merely to this extent removes one conclusive
objection to it; for otherwise he would be recommending an
impossibility. If such a market exists, free trade, in the
sense of the economists, may be the scientific verity it
pretends to be, if there are not other objections; but if
there cannot be found such a market,- or, if it were found
for the time, there would be no certainty, or even the least
probability, of its continuance,- then free trade is palpably
a fallacy, and the legislator or the voter, who does not favor
and promote arts and kinds of industry which will supply
a home market for the surplus of raw products which cannot
be sold abroad, is a conspirator against the welfare of the
country. He is more blameworthy than one who merely
does not provide for his own household, for he also studiously and knowingly prevents others from doing so.
36 
PROPOSITION XV.
XV. The same amount of capital in a community can, by
protective legislation, be made to employ a greater amount
of labor than it otherwise would do - Free trade expressly
assumes the contrary.
Take Mr. Mill's words for this fundamental of his science,
who says, " Industry is limited by capital." * This is one
of those propositions that is a mere partially-true truism in
one sense, and a mere sophism in its only other sense, which
latter is the one intended, and it is a fundamental postulate
of the system of free trade.   Take it away, and you have
no such system left.
The teachers of this occult science instruct us that capital
spontaneously seeks the best channel, that is, the one most
productive, most profitable, and most useful to the public;
and thus will put into action the greatest possible amount
of labor. They have less alacrity in making this last assertion, but they foist it in as you will see, and are forever assuming it; for they are well aware that if legislation can
"create," as they call it, that is, increase the amount of, industry, that would open the question of the advantage of such
increase in particular cases; and when such a discussion is
once admitted, as of an open question in reference to each
particular branch of industry, their science is gone, for the
advantages of such an increase, in many cases, as we shall
by and by more plainly see, are so palpably transcendant, as
to overwhelm, at once, their frail sophisms.
Though they are, sometimes, or, at least, some of them,
a little squeamish, therefore, in directly and broadly announcing this postulate, they all take it for granted in all cases
where it is needful to their conclusions.   It is, in fact, one
* Polit. Econ., B. 1, ch. v., s. 1. Boston ed., 1848, p. 79.
4
37 
PROPOSITION XV.
of their most fundamental fundamentals, though as we shall
see anon, they themselves in other places expressly repudiate it.
The doctrine as assumed and used in free-trade logic, is,
that a given amount of capital can put into action only a
given amount of industry, and that it puts that amount in
motion as regularly as a weight moves  clock-work.   You
may let it alone for that; it is one of the inevitabilities of
industrial economy.   The community  is represented as a
sort of live mechanism, each living part being adapted and
impelled by its nature, to perform its functions in the best
possible manner, provided you never mend or regulate it.
The legislative part of the mechanism is the only exception,
as they tell us. This has a sort of free agency, and is endowed with a capacity to err. Its true function is inaction,
nihility, no-function.  It is, in respect to industry and production, a sort of angel of death, strong for destruction,
otherwise powerless. As long as this is inert, all other constituents of the combination are guided right by destiny, and
produce given results, and these are the best possible. This
is what the writer in the Edinburgh Review,* before cited,
denominates the "normal" state of industrial concerns;
for it is, he says, the original state; which means, that it
was the state anterior to legislation touching industry; that
is to say, anterior to civilization; to wit, in the same condition in which divers savage tribes are still found in this
hemisphere and the other.
In this way, we are told, you have the maximum results
of capital and industry, that is, the greatest possible amount
of annual products, so that the only question for legislation,
if there can be any, is the distribution of these products be
* July, 1829.
38 
PROPOSITION XV.
tween labor and capital, and between different sorts of each,
and this, according to the demonstrations of the same "science," should be as studiously ignored in legislation, as its
augmentation.   In levying taxes, declaring war, making
peace, prescribing judicial and executive powers, and all
the acts of government, the effect on the amount of production and on the distribution of the products of industry,
must be scrupulously disregarded. Congress may regulate
commerce, and provide for the general welfare, if it is done
without regard to industry and its products; if the effect on
these is regarded, it is a violation of the constitution, no less
than of the everlasting laws of nature and of science.
Let Mr. Mill give you the doctrine in his own words.
He says (vol. 1, p. 80,) " It long continued to be believed
that laws and governments, without creating capital, could
create industry. Not by making the people more laborious,
or increasing the efficiency of their labor; these are objects
to which the government can in some degree contribute.
But when the people already worked as hard and as skilfully as they could be made to do, it was still thought that
government, without providing additional funds, could create
additional employment." He then gives the instance of a
prohibition of an import, that caused the article to be produced at home; and says the government then "plumed
itself upon having enriched the country with a new employment.'"  And he adds, that although this notion "has fallen
into a little discredit in England, it still flourishes on the
continent."
You observe that he begins with the proposition that it
was heretofore supposed that laws and governments could
"create industry, without creating capital."  This is the
proposition which he proposes to deny or disprove;  if to
disprove, it is by his proposition above cited, that industry is
39 
' PROPOSITION XV.
limited by capital, and can be increased (for that is what he
must mean by created) only by the creation, that is, increase, of capital, which is beyond the power of governments. His syllogism stands thus: --
Major. Industry can be increased only by the increase
of capital.
Minor. Laws and governments cannot increase capital.
Conclusion. Therefore, laws and governments cannot
increase industry.
This is very transparent logic. The sophism is glaring.
The major is what old Robert Burton would designate a
"stupend" fallacy.
Adam Smith had already said that the same amount of
.capital, employed "in the home trade, will give four-andtwenty times more encouragement and support to the in,dustry" than in the foreign trade of the country.*
Laws and governments can undoubtedly divert capital
into the home trade, instead of the foreign, by protecting the
home production, and excluding the import. The expediency
of so doing is not the question here.   The question is
whether laws and governments can "create," that is, increase, industry, by diverting the employment of capital
from one channel into another. This is the question Mr.
Mill, in the passage above quoted, was discussing. Whether
it is expedient or not, he, after Adam Smith, etc. etc.,
settles by the let-alone dogma, which, in free-trade science,
always comes in, like the supernatural agent in epic poetry,
to cut the knots, and rescue the fable. But its function
does not reach to this case, the simple, plain question being,Can laws and governments augment the amount of industry
put in motion by a given capital?  According to Adam
* Wealth of Nations, Book II., eh. 5, cited in Soph,isms of Free Trade, by a
Barrister. London, 1849. Page 10, etc.
40 
PROPOSITION XV.
Smith, they can augment it in the ratio of twenty-four to
one. This, it is true, he himself contradicts, expressly or
in effect, and by implication, some thousand or two of times,
as also his followers; all which reiterations he himself thus
cancels and expunges as you see.
So Mr. Mill cancels his syllogism, and in so doing, in
effect demolishes his whole free-trade fabric. He commits
this demolition, not in large type in the text, like his corypheus, but in nonpareil at the bottom of the page, where,
after a formal statement of this fundamental of his " science"
in the text, he says aside in the note, "An exception must
be admitted when the industry, created or upheld by the
restrictive law, belongs to the class of what are called domestic manufactures."   " If a protecting duty causes this
occupation to be carried on, when it otherwise would not,
there is, in this case, a real increase of the production of
the country."
That is to say, his proposition in the text, laid down with
so much formality, is true, with the small exception of all the
the industry at their own homes. He talks of his exception
as applying only to domestic manufactures, "in which no
transfer of capital to the occupation is necessary to its
being undertaken, beyond the value of the materials and
tools, which is often quite inconsiderable."  This specification
leaves the exception applicable to the employment of capital
in kinds of production constituting a very large and very
material part of the industry of every country.
The limiting of the exception to domestic manufactures
seems to be wholly gratuitous.   I can see no distinction
between this industry and that in factories, fishing, or mining,
or agriculture, and venture to be not persuaded that Mr. Mill
could see any such distinction himself. If so, his exception
covers every species of industry, and so this fundamental
4*
41 
PROPOSITION XV.
bubble of free-trade "science" also bursts, and vanishes,
under his own exception.
That the same amount of capital may employ or set in
motion a hundred times as much labor in one employment
of it as in another, is obvious enough. The support of the
workman is of course out of the question, for he must be
supported by himself or the public at any rate; and accordingly IMr. Mill puts his support out of the case. Take, for
example, a quantity of sand and soda, worth say fifty cents,
that can in a short time be used, the one in mortar, the
other in soap, so as in the new compounds to be worth twice
as much. Use the same ingredients in making a fine block
of glass, to be ground and polished for the object-glass of a
large telescope, by a skilful person, to be employed upon it
for two years or more, and worth, when successfully brought
to the proper form, with a suitable surface, some four thousand dollars.   Here is a practical instance, of four thousand (or, if you please, reduce it to one thousand, one
hundred, ten, or two) to one, in the labor employed by the
different uses of given materials; that is to say, of the same
amount of capital.
But, says the disciple of free trade,  "You  must  not
choose between  these uses.   The  making of glass will
spring up spontaneously at the proper time in the suitable
places. The introduction of mirror-glass making into France
by Colbert was a violation of the first principles of the
' science' taught at our colleges with the other sciences, and
perfectly understood by the young gentlemen. It was as
absurd as the foundation of the Smithsonian Institute would
have been, had it been founded by a legislative provision.
It is for the diffusion of knowledge; but such diffusion is of
no utility, if the knowledge, when diffused, is sterile, and
does not show itself in arts and civilization.   Its object is
42 
PROPOSITION XV.
the promotion of the arts, and these should be left by
legislation, at least, to spontaneous germination."
Let it be so, then, for the present, (for we have considered
this theory of spontaneity under another head,) the question
now in discussion being, whether the amount of industry,
that can be employed on the same capital, is fixed and invariable, or may be varied and augmented,. or diminished,
by legislation, and also by other causes visible everywhere.
The fact that legislation professes to affect arts and their
products, and always has done so, and inevitably must forever continue to do so, has already been shown under former
heads. I will venture to persuade myself, also, that it has
been shown, that, where it is intended to promote arts and
industry, it is more likely to have that effect than the contrary, supposing the legislators not to be persons non cornpotes mentis. It can encourage and bring about the introduction of an art, orthe improvement and extension of one;
and by so doing, can enlarge our own, and in some cases
the foreign, market, for the products of our industry.
If it has these effects, it may, if judiciously brought to
bear, augment industry. This is beneficial to those whose
only capital it is, for greater demand for employment is
thereby induced. It is beneficial to those who possess any
capital in stock or tools, money or land, for it gives a demand
for the use of them, and tends to accumulation, the eventual result of which will be the reduction of interest on loans,
whereby greater facilities will be given to those enterprizing
men, who, having inadequate capital of their own, depend,
more or less, upon loans to put in motion the industry of the
country. All industry, and, with it, all capital, will be thus
benefited.
We are, then, fully authorized to appeal from Adam
Smith and his school, when they decree ex cathedral to the
43 
PROPOSITION XV.
contrary, to the same judges, when they say, that industry can
be augmented by laws and governments, and add also, that
it is one of the prime functions of legislation to augment it.*
* There is also a dogma of the free-trade sect about capital and industry, which,
though in another form, is identical with the above, viz.: that there cannot be
a surplus of capital, over what will be productively employed in industry. It
follows from this, that all the capital lent abroad, from Great Britain, and sent
abroad for investment in mining etc., causes a proportionate deduction from
its productive industry. I pass over this phase of the dogma as not immediately material to my subject.
While I was writing the above section, a book entitled "Sophisms of Free
Trade," recently published in England, came to my hands, which I recommend
to all professors of free trade as a demonstrative exposure of some of the sophisms which I have examined. The following is a quotation from it:  "Suppose England to manufacture, from English materials, gloves to the
amount of a million sterling a year.
"This million sterling does, as we have seen, two things. First, it affords net
annual income to that amount, available (every farthing of it) for the support
of the population. Secondly, this million sterling creates a market to that
amount for other English products. The whole million is every year feeding,
clothing, and lodging men, women, and children, and at the same time, finding
a market for cottons, woolens, hard ware, corn, iron, timber, silk. When an
industrious population are employed, they not only enrich the whole community to the extent to which they themselves are enriched, but by the market
which their prosperity affords to other industries. When Manchester is in full
employment, what a market does Manchester itself afford, not only for other
articles, but even for its own productions!
"Now change the supposition.  Suppose that French gloves can be imported
cheaper by five per cent. than English gloves can be made. It is the immediate pecuniary interest of all consumers to buy French gloves instead of English ones, and they will be bought accordingly. We will even suppose the
French government to allow the French gloves to be bought by the very same
English cottons, woolens, hard ware, corn, iron, and silk, that bought the English gloves before; nay, we will go further, and admit the extravagant postulate, that all these English products could, in exchange for the French gloves,
find as good a market in France as they formerly did in England. Now take
the account. Let us see what individual glove-consumers have gained, and
what the English nation has lost.
"Gloves have in the aggregate cost those who wear them less money than before by 5 per cent. on a million sterling, that is, by ~50,000O. Glove-consum-iers
have gained by the change ~50,000 in one year. But the nation has lost in the
same year the nmillion sterling which used to maintain Englishmen with their
wives and children. Englishmen, as a body, have, by the chanrge, lost a revenue of ~950,000 a year.
44 
PROPOStTION XVI.
XVI.  We have more labor ofered, and can supply more
products of labor, than there is a demand for at home
and abroad-  We have a surplus of labor -Free trade
says we have no surplus.
Another proposition taken for granted by the advocates
of free trade, is, that every man, woman, and child in the
community has full employment. In respect to this, as to
the other fundamental propositions essential to their single
comprehensive dogma of let alone, they beg the question,
or rather proceed as if there was no question. They say,
"If you employ persons in a new industry, you take just
so many from an old one already in practice."
If you are a free-trade man, you will have said to yourself at the end of the last sentence, "This is a self-evident
proposition, no more to be proved or denied than an axiom
in geometry;" but, hold a little; not so very self-evident.
"But this is only part of the mischief; for though their revenue, their subsistence is gone, the English men, women, and children remain, and must be supported by public charity.
"But we have here given the free-traders the benefit of three suppositions, no
one of which is true. We have conceded, first, that the French government
would allow the free import of as much English produce as would entirely
pay for the gloves; we have conceded, secondly, that all this English produce
finds at once as ready and good a market as it did at home; we have conceded,
lastly, that there will be no exportation of the precious metals, depreciating
prices, appreciating the currency, and augmenting the pressure, not only of
taxes and public burthens, but of all debts and private obligations.
"But if these concessions are not true, then, in addition to a million a year,
lost as revenue, formerly supporting men, women, and children, you lose a
market also for other productions to the extent of a million a year, and are
subject to all those numerous evils that afflict industry, when there is a tendency to the export of the precious metals.
"Nor does the mischief stop here. Other commodities which have lost their
market will to that extent cease to be produced. And by that cessation not
only will the subsistence of the people to that extent disappear, but other markets will be injured, and so the mischief will go on and be felt through every
grade of society, and in every department of industry."-Sophisms  of Free
Trade. Lond.? 1849, p. 24? etc,
45 
PROPOSITION XVI.
You say that the hands that have now within a few years
been put to making fringed shawls, and rolling railroad iron,
and manufacturing any part of the long catalogue of apparatus and machinery used in either, were taken from cultivating wheat or cotton, etc. Now our population is annually
augmented by the excess of births over deaths and by
immigration, nearly three per cent.; and the three new
hands to a hundred, thus coming in each year, may have
been put upon the fringed shawls and railroad iron, so as to
have taken none from the wheat, cotton, etc. The present
annual increase of population is, by this rule, over six
hundred thousand. Here is an ample supply of new hands
for making the shawls and railroad iron, and for much other
newly introduced industry.
This rate of increase of our population, though not selfevident, rests upon evidence not to be disputed. Allowing,
then, that half of this increase consists of effective laborers
in divers employments of the wits and hands; the other
half being children, aged, and infirm; these three hundred
thousand may be put to new species of industry, without
diminishing the number occupied in the old.
I do not, of course, suppose that the precise three hundred thousand who come into the departments of useful industry during the year, will go over to the new industry, for
very many of the workers are continually changing from
their employments, to other kindred ones. A new form of
production can, then, be prosecuted without making any vacancies in those previously practised,
But it may be said, that, as the population increases, an
additional number of hands is needed in the existing kinds
of industry. This will depend upon whether those already
in some of those kinds, can more than supply the market, both
foreign and domestic, even if it is enlarged as much as it po.
46 
PROPOSITION XVI.
sibly can be; that is, whether there is full employment for
all, who are able and disposed to work, in all the useful
branches of industry; and whether there is, or is not, a sur  plus production in some branches already, so that an additional
production would be a loss to the producers, and, in-effect, a
waste to the community.
Is a surplus of laborers, or of domestic products, possible?
If there is a surplus of laborers, - that is, if there are more
persons able and willing to work, at all times, or any time,
than can find employment at reasonable wages, or if there is
an adequate supply of all articles, and a surplus of many,
then you have a case where new kinds of industry may be
introduced without withdrawing workmen from those others,
without calculating on the increase of population. It will be
immaterial whether the surplus be of laborers or products;
if the former, then you have persons already waiting to be
set to work; if the latter, you have those just about to be
out of employment; for if there is already a surplus of
any kind of production, then there will, as soon as this is
felt, directly be a smaller number employed in it.
If you are one of the worshippers at the free-trade shrine,
you have just this instant said, "Yes, here it is; you have
hit it; the evil cures itself; if there is over-production in any
branch, less capital and fewer persons will be employed in
it; this brings all right again.   This is, therefore, a matter
about which neither the legislator nor the philanthropist
needs to trouble himself." Were we discussing the subject together, instead of my writing down what you would say,
it would not surprise me if, when you had said, "The evil
cures itself," you should go off satisfied that the matter was
settled too plainly to admit of anything further; or if, haply,
you had some latent suspicion of a fallacy in this commonplace axiom, you might go on uttering much phraseology, all
47 
PROPOSITION XVI.
amounting to the same thing, to wit, "Let alone, the evil
will cure itself;" in so much that any attempt, by suggestion or expostulation, to stop at the question, whether
this infallible specific is really the best or only remedy, in
all cases, would be quite hopeless. But as it is, we can
stop here a moment.
What, then, is there in economical evils and distresses
that  distinguishes them  from all others?   Why  can we
say that the evil of a deficiency of production, surplus of
labor, or any other disturbance of industry or trade, will
work out its own remedy, any more than that a wounded
limb, or an aching tooth, will do so? The Irish are suffering
the evils of deficiency of employment, and of the consequent
partial distribution of food, and other products, so that many
can obtain only enough to protract the agonies of death.
"Let alone,"  say the professors of the free-trade school,
"the evil remedies itself;" that is, the people die.
In Cromwell's time, the Dutch had got the start of the
English in the carrying trade, and carried for them as well
as for others. "Let alone," say Adam Smith, etc., down
to Mr. Treasurer Walker, who would have said, "the evil
will cure itself." But Cromwell and his Rump Parliament
thought it safer to cure it themselves, and so passed the
Navigation Act; by the operation of which they drove the
Dutch out of, not only the carrying for themselves, but also
that for other nations.
In 1820, the French, by means of their discriminating
tonnage duty, were taking to themselves the whole carrying
between France and this country.  "Let alone," the Scotch
economist would have said, "if the French miss the true doctrine, so much the worse for them;" but not so our Congress
of that time, which passed a countervailing law, immediately
on the case being represented to them, and brought the trade
48 
PROPOSITION XVI.
back to our shipping.   That was before the drivelling policy
of the present time had taken possession of anybody's brain.
Nobody said, if you pass this law the French will exclude
your cotton, tobacco, rice, etc. etc. from their market; and
if any one had been poor-spirited enough to have said so,
none would have heeded him. They knew then, and all
who are not infatuated with some single idea or dreamy
hypothesis, now know, that we have a decisive advantage
over other nations in contests, by regulations relative to
commerce, on account of the nature of our exports, sec onded by our skill and enterprise in navigation.   Though
it may not be wise to push this advantage to the utmost, it
is rank folly to throw it away.
The act of Congress referred to, you say, was to counter vail a regulation made by the French government. True,
but what is the distinction, whether the disadvantage you
are providing against arises from the commercial regulations
or the social condition of a foreign country? If the effect
is to check, restrain, embarrass, and suppress your own productive activity, this is sufficient reason for providing a remedy, from whatever cause the evil arises.
This is enough to be said here on the dogma that economical evils remedy themselves, as it is only one of the forms
of the let-alone doctrine, which has already been sufficiently
noticed.
Leaving alone, then, the dogma, that the evil will cure
itself, we return to the question whether it can exist. Can
there be in a community more persons able and ready to
work, than can find employment? I do not here or elsewhere, in speaking of labor, work, or industry, mean merely
manual labor, but all sorts of useful work, muscular or mental, or a combination of the two; and they are usually combined, in all occupations, though in different proportions.
5
49 
PROPOSITION XVI.
Can there be in a community a superfluity of minds and
hands in want of employment? And can there be a superfluity of products of labor, over and above the quantity demanded for consumption or use? The free-trade economists,
as we have seen, take for granted that neither of these superfluities exists, when they say, that if you put more hands into
an existing employment, or direct them to a new one, you
take just so many from some other. Adam Smith said so,
and it has been repeated to the present time by his school.
They go into no data to establish this proposition; and yet,
if it is false, it unhinges their whole system of public economy.   Their "science" must go down with it.  If superfluity of laborers or products is possible, their proposition is
false; not merely possibly or probably, but demonstrably
false.
And shall I go about to satisfy you that one of these superfluities may possibly sometimes exist? What else do we
see in the newspapers, and hear of in all the resorts of men
of business every day?  The moment a new territory offers
inducements for emigration, or a newly introduced or extended branch of industry offers employment, thousands
flock to it, and fill the chasm, without causing any perceptible one elsewhere. The abundance of animal life and means
of its sustenance, gushing forth in an advantageously circumstanced well-governed community, as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms generally, is inexhaustible. The dull old
prosing about paucity of workmen and dearth of capital, and
the multitude of impossibilities that stop industrial progress,
is not applicable to such a people, if it is to any one. In the
United States there always exists, except at occasional short
intervals, a superfluity of both workmen and products; that
is, we always have hands for the extension and introduction
of branches of industry, and always have on hand a stock of
50 
PROPOSITION XVI.
our productions for the supply of any new market that offers,
and, at the same time, millions of dollars worth are annually
lost without being sent to a market, and millions more are
sacrificed in those that are overstocked. In 1846, the crops
fell short in Great Britain.   Forthwith, and without any
expectation of an extraordinary demand, we sent abroad
$40,000,000 worth of provisions to fill this vacuum. In
1848, a sudden demand arose in California for some 30,000
or 40,000 industrious persons, and for some millions worth
of supplies for them, and both men and supplies were forthwith despatched. A single advertisement for a laborer in
any useful employment, will immediately bring a multitude
of applicants; while, on the other hand, an advertisement
of articles for sale will frequently, as we witness, bring no
purchaser.
If you are not satisfied by the evidence daily passing about
you of labor wanting sufficient employment, and products of
labor wanting a sufficient market, any more would be lost
upon you; if you are satisfied of those facts, then you must
approve of the legislation best calculated permanently to give
additional employment for our own labor, and additional
demand for its products.
The proposition in hand, viz., that there may be more
labor able and ready to be employed than can find employment, and more products of our labor on hand than can be
sold at a remunerating price; this, I persuade myself, you
are willing to subscribe to; and, if you do, you cannot hold
to the doctrines of the free-trade school; for this being admitted, that system caves in.
51 
PROPOSITION XVII.
XVII. In legislation, regard is to be had to the future as
well as the present -Free trade considers only to-day.
It has already been said, that, in traffic, men necessarily
have to look to the present price. They produce what will
give them the most money for their work, and purchase
where they can, at the time, get most for the same sum.
Very few have capital enough, and fewer an inclination, to
carry on a business at a present loss, expecting, by degrees,
to make it profitable. If one is adventurous enough to undertake to do so, he can expect to follow it up but for a
little while; and such an attempt is hardly to be looked for
at all, much less to be so on a large scale for a long period.
All the world act upon the contrary system of making their
industry, whether it be in production or traffic, of the great
est immediate pecuniary avail, and are not over-ready to sacrifice the present for the future, even where it is dictated by
interest or duty.
Life is short and art is long; and this proverbial truth is
applicable to our subject, for it is a long process, involving
many experiments and many failures, to introduce and domesticate any art, even onre apparently so simple as the
making of a button. It is now thirty years and more, since
an ardent zeal for improvements in agriculture and horticulture
has prevailed in this country, and been constantly spreading,
and growing more intense, and yet we are but in the rudiments of the science of this first and greatest branch of industry, though it is happily not very subject to be affected by
foreign pauperism or bad legislation at home; by reason of the
expensiveness of freight, or the perishable nature of most of
the products, this industry enjoys all but the exclusive possession of the domestic market.
Since, therefore, every nation has to serve a long appren
52
I 
PROPOSITION XVII.
ticeship, and learn much from others, and discover and invent
many improvements for itself, before attaining to great proficiency in any art, it is a great advantage to be in advance
of competitors in time, in so much that British writers, estimating their useful arts to be at least twenty years in advance -of those of all other countries, calculate upon this superiority, to bear them up, and bring them off triumphant in
every comnpetition.* They accordingly cry out for free trade,
which is no more nor less than a challenge to all the world
at the game of competition, upon the conditions " heads I
win, tails you lose;" for if they prevail, they take our own
market from us, if we prevail, we lose the cost of the struggle, though we keep our own market. We plank the whole
stake; if we win it, namely, our own market, we are just
where we  were, the only contest being whether we  shall
lose it.
Some of our chivalrous contemporaries of the north and
west, and still more of the south, are eager to engage in this
game upon these terms, some perhaps for the honor of a triumph, of which their high-wrought patriotic estimate of our
strength and skill make them certain; others, probably, especially those of the South Carolina nullification school, out
of sheer hostility to northern industry, which they are not
unwilling to injure even to the prejudice of their own; and
a still greater number from an innate proneness to dupe others, or be themselves duped, by metaphysical abstractions
and fallacies.
It is a singular fact that the English free-trade economists,
excepting the supertranscendentalists, fight for their alleged
faith, because they think it will infallibly promote their own
arts and industry, while many of their American neophytes
* Edinburgh Review, July, 1849.
5*
53 
PROPOSITION XVII.
go for it, because they hope it will depress, and eventually
annihilate ours.
But to return to our present subject, you will, I persuade
myself, admit, without an argument, that the producers of
materials, as well as those who work them into all their
forms, useful and ornamental, for distribution, trade and
consumption, and those who transport, buy, or sell them, are
determined by the present money price, that is, they produce and make what they expect will sell for the greatest
money price, compared with the labor and cost, and buy at
the shop where they can obtain the same thing at the least
present money price.
Suppose twenty or a hundred thousand persons knew
themselves fated to live a century or more, and remain together in a community by themselves, in the same social
relation, and mutual dependence upon each other, and with
mutual help or harm. Let them see that they possess in
their own position and territory, and, what is more material,
within themselves, in their own character and habits, certain
industrial resources and capabilities, which by mutual co-operation and exchange of commodities (that is, protection)
can, in the course of a few years, be developed and brought
into as successful activity, as any similar resources and capabilities of any foreign community. They would see that,
in the mean time, each one would have the advantage of sure
customers in the others, and so be sure of steady employment in supplying them, and thus the certain means of supplying himself from them in turn, instead of beating about
the world in search of a customer, and often not finding one;
and sometimes getting very small proceeds and returns, and
at others, not any, to supply his own wants. It would not
be strange, if in these circumstances, they should enter into
some stipulations for mutual assistance and encouragement
54 
PROPOSITION XVII.
for a number of years to come, and thus, for the present,
secure to themselves the essential and vital requisite to wellbeing, namely, full employment; and also, sooner or later,
the secondary less material, but still important advantage of
a productiveness of their labor equal to, or greater than, that
of other communities.
But as things are, in this and like cases, men cannot personally make such stipulations among themselves, looking
into the far-off future, and, therefore, they enter into political associations, and constitute governments to express by
legislation, at least, those regulations for the everlasting
community, which it would be for their general interest
to make individually, even if to continue but for one
generation.
This is not in the nature of restriction or coercion, in a
country where the legislative acts are an expression of the
general opinion and interest. Some stolid German peasants,
or wild Irishmen, just come over, regard the government as
their enemy, and the law as hostile, both here and elsewhere; whereas, it is, in fact, with us, what the majority
agrees to. Every law promoting domestic industry, therefore, amounts merely to this, that the workman or person
employed, in whatever description of useful labor, says to
the owner of the workshop, the factory, or the field, "I will
work for you at such a compensation, being twice that paid
for the like employment in England or France, and take my
pay in the articles made in your shop or factory, or produced
on your farm, at the lowest price at which you can afford
so to make or produce them," to which the other side agrees.
This expresses all that is meant by a protective tariff. The
person employed says to his employer, "If you will protect
me against the competition of the foreign pauper-laborers,
I will protect you against that of their foreign employers.
55 
PROPOSITION XVII.
I take my chance against competition by American laborers,
you take yours against competition by American producers
or mamlfacturers. If everybody takes the products of the
foreign laborer, then the American laborer, whether Irish,
German, or Yankee, must of course be idle and starve, or
must finally work at as low wages as the English or Dutch
laborer abroad, which is the next thing to starving. And
if the foreign products are let into our market without discrimination, you must shut up your shop or factory, or convert more of your land into a sheep pasture, or let it run to
waste. To avoid these alternatives, we agree to favor each
other." This is the protective tariff.
But the free-trader steps in, and says to the American
laborer, "What is the American cultivator, master-mechanic
or manufacturer, to you, more than the English or Dutch?"
And to the latter, "What is the American laborer to you,
more than one in England or Holland?"   Trade knows no
such distinction as kinsman, neighbor, or fellow-countryman.
Buy wherever you can; get a thing at the lowest present
money price. In business we are all foreigners and strangers to each other." Be it so, for I am not inculcating
gratuities and acts of mere generosity; but there is at least
this one difference, namely, that being members of the same
community, and subjects of the same government, we can,
through that government, as our common representative and
agent, make stipulations, compromises, and conditions with
each other, which are not practicable, and cannot be depended upon between us and persons subject to a different
jurisdiction, and residing on the opposite side of the globe;
who may some day find it to be their bounden duty, as good
patriots and good subjects, to burn our capital, sink our
ships, batter down our fortifications, and plunder, and rob,
and kill us. Any stipulation or mutual dependence between
56 
PROPOSITION XVIIT.
these latter and us, supposing it to take place, is less to be
relied upon than the agreements and relations, which we
enter into among ourselves, through our own legislation.
Through this, we can secure to each other, between and
from each other, more advantages than we could possibly
secure from all the nations of all the world besides, supposing them all to forget their own peculiar interests, lay
aside selfishness, and adopt precisely the regulations, and
pursue the kinds of industry that we should recommend.
Our country is not a mnere little commercial district, it is
wide, and presents an immense variety and amount of resources.   This advantage possessed by us, owing to our
peculiar position and circumstances, combined with the character of our people, we are invited and urged by the freetrade advocates in England, and their American associates,
to cast away wantonly, in order merely to lighten the burthen of British pauperism, and promote British arts.
I confess I cannot conceive how any honest, fair-minded
American, can embrace a system of legislation on matters of
public economy, which, in its fundamental doctrines, is
limited only to the present, and supposes national blessedness to consist solely in a present supposed low money price
of articles, however idle and poverty-struck the people may
be for want of employment, and consequently, want of the
means to purchase the articles at any price, high or low.
XVIII. A war with some great foreign naval power, at
some period, is possible; and may cut off the supply
from abroad, of means for defensive or offensive op  erations.
Another false assumption tacitly made by the advocates
of free trade and fettered industry, is, that we are secure of
57 
PROPOSITION XVIII
everlasting peace with foreign nations. This assumption is
false, and it is not possible that the feeblest understanding
can but know it to be so; but it is made notwithstanding.
You are a professor of free trade, and, perhaps, deny that
you make any such assumption. Then I will convince you
that you do make it so plainly, that if you make it hereafter
you shall not be able to say that you do not do so knowingly. To be sure if you are operating upon a set of constituents whose faculties are bewildered with the fallacies of
free trade, it may go hard to bring you to confess to yourself, but I persuade myself that you will, notwithstanding;
unless you are one of those unfortunate political transcendentalists, who  talk of demolishing  the  custom-houses,  and
fortifications, and giving up the navy yards; who affect great
abhorrence of "villanous saltpetre," burlesque the militia,
and deem a military or naval school, to be a mere national
blood-sucker.   "There be players, that I have seen play,"
who  do their part thus.   Such  I  do  not  profess  to
undertake.
But if you think it probable that men and nations will
continue to be somewhat similar to themselves, and will probably go as, far, at least, in self-defence, as the Quaker, who,
(deeming himself not to be so strictly bound to the letter of
the English translation, made under our once gracious sovereign James, of ever-blessed memory, that he must present
the other cheek,) took the liberty to hold his assaulter and
batterer very hard; if you go, I say, only as far as he,
I do not hesitate to count upon your agreeing with me, that
the policy of protecting and promoting useful industry by
legislation, no less than by other means, is as commendable,
and as obligatory on our government, as the building of forts
at our harbors, manufacturing arms, and fitting out naval
steamers; and if so, then you will also admit that free trade
assumes the contrary of all this.
58 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
Our postulate is, that there is a possibility in respect to
any nation, and in respect to us a probability, that we may
somie day have war; and, consequently, if our enemy have
any naval force, an interruption of our maritime intercourse
with such nation, if not also with others, will follow.
We all remember how many naval steamers the British
government dispersed over the three oceans at the time of
the Oregon dispute. I cannot prove that we shall be liable
to war, any more than I can prove that the present laws of
nature will continue, but the presumption that we may is
certainly very considerable. What is especially remarkable,
some of the persons at present most forward to make this
assumption, that we shall never have a war, are the very
same who were fierce for a war with Great Britain, on the
question of 54~ 40.
Hlow does it appear, then, that the free-trade professors
make the assumption that we are exempt from any liability
to war?  It is thus: They say, that in levying duties, the
raising of revenue alone is to be regarded.*
Their explicit meaning is, that when a duty on coffee or
tea is proposed, you cannot object that this duty will bear
hard upon the poor, to whom these articles are become
necessaries of life, and who use a much greater quantity of
them, in comparison with the rich, than any article whatsoever, excepting breadstuffs, fuel, and salt; if indeed even
these can be excepted.   You  cannot object that the  duty
imposed by the same persons in 1846 on certain coarse
wools, is greater than on the imported blankets made of
similar wool, so that by the operation of the two duties, the
* See the messages of our late free-trade President, reports of our late freetrade Secretary, and speeches of free-trade members of Congress, passim. I
will not presume my reader to be so little acquainted with the subject, as to
need more reference to authorities.
59 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
domestic production and manufacture are, in this way of
"letting alone," put under  a positive  gratuitous disadvantage in competition with the foreign. You are bound,
you say, by the Constitution, to ignore those considerations.
That instrument nowhere expressly provides that you may
adjust the two duties, so that they may help, and not depress
our own industry and arts. The protectionist says, "You
may so levy the duties as to promote our own industry," the
free-trader, the contrary. This is one of the two fundamental
points of difference. "My pope, my priest," says the bigot;
"My  conscience,"  says the  hypocrite;  "The  Constitution," says the partisan, when one or the other asserts a
proposition that is an outrage upon common sense.
Our free-trade compatriots of South Carolina are among
the very chivalrous champions  of the Constitution.   The
framers of that instrument little dreamed to what systems of
hermeneutics they were giving occasion. But whether the
proposition be derived from a vacuum in the Constitution,
or the destiny that predominates over mankind, or whatever
other source, true it is, that the free4rade people lay it down
as a fundamental principle of public economy, that in levying
the revenue, you must scrupulously think of nothing but
levying it; that is, I suppose, how to get most. This seems
to be the one idea conveyed by the proposition, according to
Ex-Secretary Walker's politico-economical report in 1848.
If the proposition does not go so far, it, at least, goes the
length of asserting that, in levying duties, the government
must not have any, even the remotest regard to the effect
upon the useful arts and industry of the country; for it is
in this specific application that it is laid down.
We have then made  one step.   Our next is, that the
mode of levying the revenue does, in fact, have some effect
on our arts and industry. It is admitted on all sides, that
60 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
the levying of a duty on any kind of import, tends to
promote the domestic production of the same article; if
it be one to the production of which, our soil, climate, and
the character and habits of our people, are adapted.
Again, we know very well, that certain articles are neces  sary in carrying on a war. As the art of war is at present con  ducted, we need, for that purpose, guns, gun-carriages, small
arms, powder, balls, armed steamers, armed sailing vessels,
tent-cloths, clothing, and food for those engaged in the pub lic service, with other things too many to be enumerated;
and, also, all the materials and articles that go to the con struction or manufacture of those.
We also know very well, that our soil, climate, and the
enterprise, ingenuity, skill, and activity of our people,
adapt us to the production and manufacture of all the most
important materials and supplies requisite in war. These
articles are of a kind that we have as good means of pro ducing, and we  can, in general, produce them  by as few
days' labor, at least, as any people on earth, as soon as the
production is well established, and steadily conducted, in a
domestic market not liable to be flooded every four or five
years, in time of commercial plethora, with the remnantsand
surpluses of all the factories, and shops, and work-houses of
all Europe.
But, says the free-trade statesman, "We must admit all
these as freely as possible, and, for this purpose, reduce the
duty half, if it will double the imports, and three quarters,
if it will triple them, and so on, as long as we can, in this
way,         augment   or maintain the revenue.    In levying the
revenues, we must have an exclusive regard to the amount
that       can  b e raised.  We must consider nothing else.   It is
true, that I say on other occasions, we may regard cheap               6
61 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
ness in the present money price; but this is an exception
to my rule."
We may expostulate with him, "My dear sir, pray reflect
that if your powder and shot must come across the ocean in
time of war, your enemies' ships may intercept them.   If
you have depended on your enemy, in time of peace, for
clothing and shoes, your soldiers may, in time of war, be
reduced to make bloody tracks upon the frozen ground, as
was the American army, in 1777, in their march from
Princeton to Morristown.    Or if you depend  upon the
enemy to furnish the blankets stipulated by treaty to be
annually supplied to our Indian tribes, you will be under
the necessity of violating your treaty in time of war, as our
government did in the war of 1812. And then, if you get
up the necessary workshops and factories, increase your
flocks of sheep, put your people to practise strange trades in
a rude manner, etc., for supplying the necessary wants of
the whole community during a war, as well those in, as
those out of the public service, the whole population will
suffer very great distress, and be put to great saecrifices, before these supplies can be thus got ready.   Your war will
be greatly protracted for want of means to prosecute it; and
if you should not, from this cause, in the end, be beaten,
the expenses will thus be immeasurably enhanced. Besides
aU  this, your outlay, reckoned in the money  price at the
time, or in any other way, to supply, pro tempore, and but
poorly, the common necessaries and conveniences of life,
will be enormously aggravated. And, finally, when peace
comes, and a free intercourse is again opened with the foreign factories and workshops, and huts and work-houses, to
which you propose, forthwith, again to resort for the articles
of common necessity, as well as for defence, you would inundate the country by a flood of the foreign articles added
62 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
to the stock of similar domestic ones on hand, and thus
cause, for a period, that great national felicity, a low money
price, followed by a general commercial collapse, with ruin
of merchants, artisans, and manufacturers, stagnation of agriculture, and loss of employment to laborers, strewing the
country with the decaying remains of the buildings, fixtures,
and machinery, hastily put up to meet the general wants
during the war. This picture is historical as well as prophetic. It is precisely what happened after the last war,
when the high duties imposed during it, ceased; and what
would happen after the next, were we to be transformed by
free trade, into our former chrysalis state in respect to the
useful arts.
"All these consequences necessarily follow from your
grand let-alone specific for boundless prosperity, to come
some thousands of years hence, when the Czar of Russia,
and all other potentates and legislators, have conspired to
convert the world into a commercial paradise."
You reply, perhaps, that you "vote for building fortifications, and arsenals, manufacturing arms, maintaining military and naval schools," etc. Good. Then you contradict
your doctrine by your own acts, for your doctrine is, "Let
alone; individuals will find out what is for their interest;
and what is for theirs, is for that of the aggregate;" from
which it would follow, that individuals enough will discover
it to be for their interest to study military and naval tactics,
and the art of fortification, and provide stores of guns, shells,
Congreve rockets, swords, pistols, and the like, ready for all
emergencies.
"No," you say, "these are exceptions to the rule."  Do
you admit this? Then you are a protectionist, and not of
the sect of free trade.
The economist, J. B. Sayv, goes as far towards an excep
63 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
tion of new manufactures, meaning, of course, those for
which any particular country is adapted, as to say, "perhaps," etc.  If I am not mistaken, others of the same school,
though not without some misgiving, venture upon a like departure from the let-alone dogma.
If you add to these two exceptions, the doctrine that,
when the country undertakes to promote and protect a branch
of industry, it must, as a general rule, adhere to its undertaking, you have the entire protective system.
But if you admit only the first, you are substantially a
protectionist, for if you will, in your mind, run through with
a list of those articles of wood, metal and other minerals,
wool, cotton, hemp, and leather, which are essentially requisite in national defence, and for the domestic production of
which our soil, climate, and the character, habits, and the
industrial capabilities of our people especially adapt us, and
admit that the home production of these is to be encouraged
by legislation, you will find yourself a protectionist, and can
never again repeat the let-alone and other dogmas of free
trade.
You reply that you are in this case "only a protectionist in
degree, and sub modo." So be it.  You admit the expediency
of favoring domestic industry to some extent, and for some
purposes   You are then a protectionist.   The only question
between you and other protectionists, is, to what articles, and
in what degree, encouragement is to be given? This is a
fair subject for discussion, whether the question be the
means of defence and independence in time of war and
peace, or the promotion of the welfare of the people, by multiplying and extending the arts, and thereby consequently
supplying to them more employment, and thus also sustaining the rate of wages, in useful trades and pursuits.  The
moment you enter upon these inquiries, you cease to be in
64 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
the free-trade ranks; and are not one of those with whom I
am at present discoursing.
I am addressing myself to you other persons, who say,
Let alone; the individual motive of profit from the present
money price, left free of all attempted influence from the
government and the laws, will infallibly work out the greatest productiveness of labor, and the utmost possible national
progress." This is your doctrine, which you inculcate without qualification or exception, and affect to practise upon,
though, as I have already shown in a preceding article, it is
not possible to apply it practically in any civilized community. It is only the Ojibewas, Pawnees, and other savage
tribes, that do really, or can, act upon the free-trade system.
In any community, governed by any system of permanent
and regularly administered laws, you may, by professing and
pretending to do nothing whatsoever in legislation to promote and protect industry, in reality take the most effectual
measures you possibly could, to depress it. For this is one
of those cases where it is impossible to be neutral. The
legislator must be for or against.
But whether it be so or not, you being of the free-trade
school, dogmatically maintain it to be the bounden duty of
every good citizen to eschew the helping or promoting of
useful industry in any case whatsoever, whether in legislation or otherwise, and that the uninfluenced comparative
present money price, is the infallible talisman for keeping
off all social and economical ills. This is your science in
reasoning, and your creed in dogmatizing.
If I am right, then, in the two facts above stated, I have
proved that you assume as a fundamental postulate of freetrade, that no foreign nation on which your system might
make us dependent for the necessary means of military or
naval defence, will ever be at war with us, or liable to have:
6* 
PROPOSITION XVIII.
its intercourse with us interrupted by our, or its, foreign
enemy.   This is the necessary result of the two propositions
above stated. One of them is, that if we have not within
ourselves adequate resources for supplying ourselves with
the means of national defence and attack in war, every war
will be incalculably more protracted, more expensive, more
disastrous, and more perilous to our social and economical
welfare,  and national integrity and independence.   The
other is, that, in your lessons of free-trade, you say that the
industry, that is, the destiny, of the country, must be left
exclusively to the operation of the comparative present
money price, at home and abroad. You do not estimate the
probable money price of iron or wool for twenty years to
come, under protection and without protection, in peace and
in war; taking into account the vast sacrifice made during
the war for want of means and skill for home production.
The free-trade economists dodge all considerations of this
sort. It is easy to see in their speculations where they spy
any such objection ahead, and studiously shy it. If one
suggests it, they can't hear, their minds are so full of "let
alone trade." They do not include in the real cost of the
exclusive foreign supply of munitions of war, and necessaries
of life from abroad, the incalculably enhanced expenses and
sacrifices for these during a war.
Therefore, what I undertook to prove, is true, viz., that
the propagandists of free trade assume as an essential fundamental condition of their theory, that we are not liable to
any foreign war that would interfere with our supply of
necessary articles from abroad. If they are ingenuous and
honest, as they will surely not object to our considering them
to be, and really contemplated the possibility of any such state
of hostilities, they would certainly bring into the account the
sacrifices and dangers plainly consequent upon the adoption
66 
PROPOSITION XIX.
of their theory, when reckoning the advantages and disadvantages of free trade or protection. They never do this,
and, therefore, we must, in order to maintain an opinion
of their candor and fairness, understand them to really believe that henceforward, this country is to be to other nations
what the island of Delos was among the Greeks, and what
the canal across the Isthmus is proposed to be, a neutral
territory, where belligerents shall always meet as friends;
and more than this, that our people, and ships, and property,
wherever they may happen to be among the hostile collisions and crashes of other nations, will be held sacred and
inviolable.
XIX. Arts and manufactures do not spring up without
encouragement - Disadvantages under which new arts
and business labor- Free trade says, "IMfanufacturers
would encourage themselves as soon as the country was
adapted to them." *
It is one proposition to say that any art or kind of production is not to be introduced into a country until the country is adapted to it, and a very different one, to say, that it
will spring up of itself, whenever the country is adapted to
it. If one should advise that a youth should not be put to
a trade until he was old enough, we should assent, but if he
were to lay down, as a universal rule, that a youth would,
at a suitable age, of his own mere motion, without encouragement or incentive, betake himself to some useful calling,
we should directly remember, if indeed we had not too much
occasion to regret, instances enough to the contrary.
In order to form an opinion whether the arts and manu
* Secretary Walker's Report, 1848.
07 
PROPOSITION XIX.
aetures to which a country is adapted, will spring up spontaneously, just at the proper time, where foreign producers
already have possession of the market; observe the requisites and obstacles to their so springing up.
The mere habit of being supplied by the foreigner, has in
itself, like all other habits, a tendency to continue.   Most
men prefer the beaten track, in so much that the good-will
of an establishment, that is, the habit of customers to resort
to it, is a sort of property, that fetches a price in the market.
This advantage to the foreigner already in possession of your
market, is worth something to him. When the useful arts
began to take root in this country, about the time of the war
of 1812, this advantage to the British and French, more
especially the former, amounted to, at least, ten per cent.
That is to say, the consumer could not, at first, be tempted
away from the foreign article by the mere difference of cost,
unless he should save, at least, ten per cent. by so doing.
This advantage has wholly disappeared in respect to many
articles, those of our ownil production being in quite as good
esteem as the foreign; and is greatly diminished in respect
to others.  In respect to some, the domestic production of
which is still recent, it remains in full force. As a general
rule, we will estimate this advantage at three per cent. on the
proceeds.
Whoever makes an article, must have the requisite tools
and materials, and pay rents and wages, and charge interest
for the time on these outlays. Interest in England, France,
Holland, and Germany, is from four, to seven, tenths of our
rate. A year is a short time enough, to allow in general,
from commencing an article to realizing the proceeds of its
sale.   Our rate of interest may be estimated at six per cent.
per annum, at least.   The foreign competitor accordingly
has the advantage of three per cent. on this item.
68 
PROPOSITION XIX.
Allow wages to be, in general, one third of the cost of the
article; and the money rate, in those countries, to be three
fifths as much as ours. This gives the foreigner an advantage of thirteen per cent.
A well-organized system for carrying on a business, has
very great advantages. All the auxiliary arts concerned in
its prosecution, are near at hand; with frequent and cheap
communication with the sources of supply of materials, stationary and travelling agents and correspondences, at home
and abroad, for distributing the manufactured articles, and
forcing them upon the attention of every consumer, civilized
or savage, not merely at the commercial centres, but also in
the remotest corners and obscurest recesses, where creatures
possessed of anything to barter, can be found. This gives
an advantage that may, in general, be estimated at three per
cent. at the least.
The preceding item is confined wholly to the system of
arrangements, agencies, and communications.   Another advantage of much greater importance in favor of the party
already exclusively possessed of the field, is the organization and skill of his artificers and workmen. The difference
between these, and those newly brought into an employment,
is the same as between regularly drilled troops, and militia.
"A sort of twist or gimp," made in Great Britain, "which
cost three shillings making, when first introduced, is now
manufactured for a penny, and this solely through the increased dexterity of the workmen, without the intervention
of any new machine." * This is an extraordinary case, and
is, therefore, the more striking illustration of a consideration
of momentous import in national economy.   The manual
dexterity acquired by practice in dispatching a greater quan
* Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1849, p. 81.
69 
PROPOSITION  XIX.
tity of work of superior quality, avails much in all employments, and in many predominates for years over competition. The disadvantage of inferior manual skill cannot be
overcome at once by importing workmen from abroad. This
is the first step. Many foreign artisans come to us from
Europe. So we send, from time to time, a company of overseers and operatives in cotton manufactories, to Mexico; and
in like manner have dispatched shipwrights and cotton-cultivators to Turkey, and machinists to Turkey and Russia.
Intelligence and public spirit, in the governments and their
subjects of our times, is doing for other arts, what brutal
persecution on the continent, did for the woolen manufacture, in England, in the seventeenth century.
But the importation of instructors in arts is an expensive
operation. Thus the English engineer first employed on
the Albany and Schenectady Railroad locomotive trains, had
a salary of three thousand dollars a year, for a service that
now costs sixty dollars a month. Then it requires some
time to introduce and thoroughly domesticate an art. The
imported artist often proves to be unskilful, vicious, conceited, turbulent, or impracticable; and his faults will, perhaps, be aggravated by the jealousy and antipathy of our
own natives employed with him, whereby the undertaker is
subject to great vexation and expense. When, tbirty years
after having emancipated ourselves from the grievous political domination of our unkind mother-country, we began to
extend the business of making hats and rude fabrics of other
kinds, and dimly conceive the design of gradually working
our way out of our still colonial condition, in industry and
trade, the discouragement from want of science, tools and
arts, seemed to be insurmountable, and would have been
really so, but for the great enterprise and energy of our
people, seconded by patriotic far-seeing legislators, who did
70 
PROPOSITION XIX.
not glory in the degradation of the nation in science, arts, or
commerce. But now, after struggling for thirty years, first
against European superiority in the arts, and the opposition
of those concerned in navigation and imports, and the agents
of foreigners, and afterwards the gratuitous jealousy of the
large class of cotton-growers, and latterly, the British decoy
of free-trade,-thanks to the indomitable genius, energy and
public spirit, of our people, we have domesticated among us
the rudiments, at least, of nearly all the sciences and arts,
and brought many to a good degree of perfection. We have
established our equality with the Europeans in many, and
are fast coming up with them in the others. The advantage
of our competitors in this respect, is still very considerable
in some branches. We may estimate it as varying from
nothing in some branches, up to ten per cent. in some
others, averaging, say, three per cent.
Another advantage in a country where any branch of industry is established, is its inventions, machinery, and improved processes.   This advantage is not limited to the
mechanic arts usually called manufactures, but extends to
all the arts, ornamental as well as useful. Witness the
improved agricultural implements and vehicles for transport,
whether by land or water. The invention of the cotton-gin
by Eli Whitney, was the foundation of the transcendent
success of cotton-planting in this country, and this instrument, with the subsequent improvements upon it, gives a
decisive advantage for that cultivation, over competition in
countries behind us in the arts auxiliary to the making of
these gins.   In England and Scotland, they reckon very
largely upon their being able to put down all foreign competition, if admitted freely to the contest, and this confidence
accounts for the clamorous declamations of their merchants
and manufacturers in favor of free-trade. Their confederates
71. 
PROPOSITION XlX.
in this country, and also those who believe that our commner cial millennium consists in our relapsing into the colonial
condition, upon the Canada and Nova Scotia level, join in
the glorification of free trade from the same motive. An
able British writer has recently presented the great impor tance of keeping the lead in machinery and improved pro cesses.  He says: "To the inventive genius of her sons,
England owes the foundation of her commercial greatness.
We will not go the length of asserting her proud pre-emi nence solely upon the condition of her keeping twenty years
ahead of other nations in the practice of the mechanic alrts;
but there is no question that a fearful proportion of our fellow-subjects hold their prosperity upon no other tenure."*
Here the writer assumes that Great Britain is twenty years
ahead of other nations  in the mechanic arts, and seems to
hesitate whether its commercial pre-eminence can be maintained without keeping so far in advance, and asserts decidedly, that if his country does not maintain this pre-eminence,
meaning, indefinitely, without limit of period, the fortunes
of a fearfulproportion of his fellow-subjects will be ruined,
which, of course, involves the misery and starvation of millions.  He accordingly suggests the establishment of institutions for scientific mechanical education, as one of the
means of maintaining, and, if possible, carrying still higher
this supposed pre-eminence. And yet, in contradistinction
of principle to such recommendation, the same writer is, no
doubt, strenuous in recommending free trade as the transcendent economical policy for every other country, and he
may be the author of some of those volumes, coming out to
us one or two a year, to persuade us how surpassingly for
the benefit of all the world in general, and the United States
in particular, will be that same system.
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1849, p. 81.
72 
PROPOSITION XIX.
Such is the view of able British writers on the subject of
the advantage enjoyed by a nation through its pre-eminence
in improvements and inventions. As far as we are concerned, however, there is one very considerable se-off. A
leading country is apt to become extremely conceited and arrogant, so that its whole industrial corps, from the undertaker and superintendent down to the rudest laborer, will
consider their methods and processes perfect, and regard
others as hardly worthy of attention; whereas the prejudices of the younger competitor are not likely to be so stiff.
And if he adopts all the improvements of the leader, and
adds some of his own besides, he will, in the end, himself
become leader in his turn. He has the greater facility for
the purpose, by reason of his not having immense investments in structures and apparatus, suited only to the accustomed methods.
This advantage of Europeans over us in matters of inventions, machinery, and improved processes, varies exceedingly
in different branches. It has wholly ceased in many extensive species of industry, and is being fast overcome in others.
One obstacle in the way of our more rapid progress in this
particular, is the difference of language between us and the
French and Italians, which keeps us from a familiar knowledge of an infinite number of arts and devices of theirs,
connected with personal accommodation, elegances and ornaments, well adapted to our condition, which, if we spoke
a common language, we should be more ready to adopt, with
suitable modifications, and, sometimes, improvements.   If
we look at particular branches of production to which our
country, character, and condition, invite us, the advantage in
question, on the side of some foreign producers, over us,
will be a large per-centage, but if we spread it over the whole
7
73 
PROPOSITION XIX.
circle of products of labor and skill, it will be quite inconsiderable. Let it be estimated at two per cent.
Another vantage-ground of a country of highly improved
arts, is in its establishments, formed for the production of
particular species of articles in immense quantities.   Such
can only be raised up by the help of a great market, domestic or foreign. In an extensive and populous country the
former depends solely on the policy of the government, the
territorial resources, or the character of the people, and is
beyond the reach of every foreign power, except one that
can dictate, as Great Britain does in Portugal. The United
States will present an immense market for all vendibles, as
long-as ambitious agitators for dissolution do not split us
up, and free trade does not cripple our industry, and make
our productive capacity dwindle away, so as to employ our
people but a small part of their time at reduced wages,
yielding only the rude products of the soil and the arts
thereby scrimping consumption in like proportion.
There is some limit to the advantage of a great production in inducing economy, and reducing the cost. When you
once have divers successful establishments in active competition; as in the making of shoes and of nails in the United
States, in each of which, business is conducted on so large
a scale as to carry the division of labor to its utmost limits,
and afford every one full employment; the inventive faculties of the artisans, being, at the same time stimulated to the
utmost stretch in making improvements, and devising new
processes and combinations, nothing more can be done towards promoting productiveness, cheapness, and perfection
of work.
But suppose the market for any such establishment to be
confined to the country in which it is situated, say in this
country. For such one, let there be four similar ones in a
74 
PROPOSITION XIX.
foreign country, say Great Britain, whose market is not confined to that country, but extends also to this, and to Asia
and Africa, South America, and Australia. Let each of the
five establishments be able to produce and afford the same
article, of the same quality, delivered in this country, at the
same price. Then suppose another ease, namely, that the
one establishment in this country cannot yet be conducted
on so large a scale as to be most economical and productive,
by reason of the branch of business not having been established over thirty or forty years, and having been broken
down three or four times during that period by hostile legislation, and carried on the rest of the time with fear and
trembling, excited by the bad faith, and the vacillating policy of the government. ILet it be hindered by any cause
whatever from expanding to such dimensions as to be the
most advantageously conducted. In either of the two cases
just supposed, the four establishments will infallibly run
down the one. I hesitate to suppose that you will ask
why, for the reasons I think will be instantly apparent to a
person at all conversant with trade, or the doctrine of chances, or contests and competition of any sort.
But I wish to guard myself against taking for granted
what you will not concede, even supposing you to be of the
straitest sect of free trade.   In the first ease, then, the
four foreign establishments have not only our own market,
but also their own home market, and that of all the world
besides, to operate in. Each of those divers markets will
be fluctuating, sometimes brisk, at others dull, and where
either is dull, the current of their products will be turned
towards the others, and by these compensations, their market, as a whole, will be more steady and uniform than if it
were confined to any one country, however large. As the one
establishment is limited to the market of this country, in
75 
PROPOSITION XIX.
which the other four are also, as our case supposes, competitors with it, the shock of any stagnation and revulsion
here, will fall upon its whole business, whereas the same
cause will reach but a third or fifth or tenth part of the
business of the four competitors. A single deep wound
may prove mortal, while the party might survive the same
degree of violence expended in superficial ones. Or take
.an illustration in numbers.   Let the four establishments
have our own, and four other markets. Let the depressions
and revulsions come round once in five years, as they usually, in fact, do, very nearly. Let the loss, for there always
is one during the collapse, be ten per cent. per annum, on
the capital employed, as would most likely be the case, if it
'were five on the proceeds of the sales, which may be taken
to be, annually, double the amount of capital permanently
-employed. The depression usually continues from one to
three years.  The four establishments will find relief in the
activity of their four other markets, to compensate for the depression in any one, so that the drawback is thus distributed
much more equally and constantly, approximating to four or
six per cent. every year on their whole business, which is
wholly or partly made up by their profits, meantime, in other
markets. They, of course, at the same time, leave an immense load in our market for our one establishment to stat,
ger under, in addition to its own constantly accumulating
weight-accumulating, because it struggles on as long as
possible, to avoid the sacrifice of stopping.   But the loss of
ten per cent. a year for two or three years, much aggravated
probably by depreciated credit, scarcity of funds to be lent,
and the exorbitant current rate of interest, may very likely
sink the owner of the one establishment; or if he, by and
by, begins to rise, by the returning buoyancy of the market, the foreign competitor being only a few days' dis
76 
PROPOSITION XIX.
tance across the Atlantic, spies the first sign of his recovery, and directly throws.upon him an additional weight, before he is fairly afloat. So he may not recover himself, and
while he is undergoing the process of strangulation, his freetrade benefactor rejoices exceedingly at the low price of goods
sold to the consumer from the wreck; and triumphantly produces this result as a glorious illustration of the benefits of foreign competition; taking care not to glance at the permanently
high price at which the same articles must be subsequently
paid for. If you are not very young, you will recognize
this to be literal history, from your own observation, if not
experience; and if you have not lived long enough to witness or feel the experiment, you cannot but perceive that,
from the nature of things, it must be so.
The case put, is where each competitor can and will in
any case, in the long ran, left merely to his own domestic
competition, supply to you the same article at the same
price, the difference being, that one is in a position to suffer
less and endure longer, in the periodical visitations of commercial distress. The one competitor needs some help over
these depressions; that is, such an adjustment of the commercial regulations, as shall give him some advantage, or
rather alleviate the disadvantage he is under at such periods.
The case supposed, as you have already perceived, is an
illustration of the position of this country in respect to
European manufactures, and maritime trade, more particularly those of Great Britain. In some branches, involving         mostly fabrics of wood, leather, and cotton, including
also some in which iron is the predominant material, business
is conducted among us upon a scale large enough to give all
the advantage possible to be derived from mere magnitude,
and extended to a sufficient variety of foreign markets, to
afford it all the relief and power of resistance and endur                   7*
77 
PROPOSITION XIX.
ance, derivable from that source. But this does not hold of
other very important products, and the advantage still enjoyed by the foreign rival in the greater comparative magnitude of his business, and extent and number of the markets
supplied by him, varies widely in different articles, ranging
from one to five, or ten per cent. on the amount of sales,
according to the state of each particular species of production.
The advantage to the foreign producer, from these causes,
we will estimate on the average at two per cent. on the
proceeds.
The cost of materials is a great matter in a competition to
undersell the  products.   All materials  produced in the
United States, as far as their money price is influenced by
the rate of wages, are at a higher money cost and price, than
in any European country.* The enhancement of cost and
money price, is partly countervailed by lower rents, and by
territorial advantages for some products, and partly by more
direct and effective modes of production, and greater despatch.   But these counterpoises do not extend to all articles
ordinarily used as materials. The main exceptions are the
two tremendous ones of wool and iron. In wool our producers have advanced most rapidly upon their foreign competitors, and the rather, because rent goes very largely, and
labor but inconsiderably, into the production.   The main
obstacle is deficiency of skill.  It is one of our greatest products, and would have been much greater, if a more skilful
and effective legislation could have been brought to bear
upon it, and the fabrics made of it, considered in connection
* Mr. Mill somewhere says, in reference to the comparative value of money
in two countries, as affecting the question of free trade, that it is immaterial,
and that oftwo countries, the one in which the money price of labor and other
things is higher by fifty per cent., is under no disadvantage in a free-trade competition with the other, in the markets of both. This assumption will appear
to be wholly erroneous, under divers heads.
78 
PROPOSITION XIX.
with each other. There have, however, been great intrinsic
difficulties in this legislation, at first quite disheartening, but
now in a considerable degree surmounted.
The production of iron involves much chemical science,
and nice intricate art, in which our producers cannot directly
come up with their established foreign competitors, who are
themselves  constantly advancing.    The  certain unfailing
supply of this material from reliable sources within our own
control during war as well as peace, is as vitally essential
to the arts, as like sources of supply of food and clothing are
to the existence of the artists. Witness the scenes of misery
and starvation in Ireland, and then gravely extol the saving
of a cent in the pound or yard in the money prices, instead
of adopting a course of policy for opening all possible additional employment to all useful laborers, whereby they may
earn food for themselves and families, instead of starving in
idleness amid low money prices, while the food, which they
are deprived of the means of earning, is exported in great
masses to foreign countries, to pay for low-priced manufactures, which they can never buy.
In regard to the production of the main articles of food,
there is no danger of any exterior interference with our
domestic industry for some centuries at least.  But in regard
to its distribution to the whole population through the
medium of a universal industry, free trade has a direct tendency, and, if in full operation, would have a rapid effect,
to reduce us to the present state of Great Britain as well as
Ireland. The high orthodox in the free-trade faith, teach,
as they are bound to do, that the country has no more
reason for encouraging the domestic production of iron and
wool, than that of oranges and pine-apples.   This is the
usual comparison, from the time of Adam Smith downward.
But those who have not penetrated so deep into the meta
79 
PROPOSITION XIX.
physics of free trade, pass over iron and wool, and some
other like indispensable articles, for the production of which
our country and people are specially adapted, and thus
implicitly admit that it is not desirable to depend upon a
permanent supply of them from abroad. This is to be sure,
in effect, to utterly repudiate the whole free-trade system,
and shows the predominance of plain good sense over metaphysics in their minds. We will suppose, then, the maintenance of these productions will continue to be the policy
of the country.   The tariff of 1846, apparently for the
mere purpose of discouraging our own industry, imposes
duties on some raw materials used in our arts and manufactures, but it can hardly be supposed that so absurd a policy
as this will long prevail.
Assuming then that the price of some raw materials, as
iron and wool, and others standing on a similar footing, will
be enhanced in the United States for a longer or shorter
period-of some of them, perhaps permanently-by a duty on
the importations, we have another disadvantage under which
the American producer is put, who uses those materials in
his branch of business, in his competition with the foreign
producer. In some branches of business, this disadvantage
under which the law itself justifiably, and, in a manner
necessarily, puts the American producer, amounts to a large
per cent., say five or six, on the proceeds of his sales. In
other branches it is trifling. Let the general estimate of it
be two per cent.
The above examination will, I hope, clearly expose to the
mind of every person, the superlative absurdity of the Proerustes system of a uniform rate of duty on every kind of
imported article. And it may, perhaps, suggest a doubt of
the expediency or decorum of again taking counsel of the
agents and partners of foreign producers, in determining on
our commercial regulations.
so 
PROPOSITION XIX.
It is obvious that the disadvantage under which the
American producer labors in competition with the foreign
competitor, varies under each of the above heads, not only
in respect to the several articles of commerce, being great in
one, and trifling in another, as already remarked, but also
in the same article, at successive periods, in the different
stages of our progress in producing it.  Thus, in some
species of cotton goods, in some kinds of edge tools, in hats
of different kinds, in divers musical instruments, and various
other things, in producing which the foreigner formerly had
an advantage by his better skill, machinery and processes,
amounting to twenty or thirty per cent., he has now nothing
to boast of in these particulars. Therefore an estimate of
his relative advantage in one does not apply to another, and
one that is true this year, may cease to be so next.
You will be struck with one circumstance in going over
the preceding analysis, which is, that of all these advantages
possessed by the foreign competitor, but two are likely to be
permanent, namely, the lower rates of wages and interest.
The free-trade policy would have the direct and necessary
effect to bring down our rate of wages. Under our step to
free trade by the tariff of 1846, if so singular a thing as its
continuance shall take place, multitudes of unemployed personrls, more and more than at present, every year increasing,
will be traversing the country in search of work; and consequently the rate of wages will be reduced lower and lower,
until we arrive at the European level.   This might give
some unwelcome help to manufacturers; but loss of skill and
capital in the downward progress would, at the same time,
be against theln. The other advantages of the European
competitor, will still hold good, not excepting the rate of
interest, which will still be high with us, as it always is in a
stagnant behind-hand community, no less than in a very
rapidly growing one, though from a different cause.
81 
PROPOSITION XIX.
According to the above estimates, the average advantage
of a European competitor is thirty-one per cent., without
taking into the account any of the partially countervailing
set-offs; that is, it varies on different articles from a very
slight per centage, if anything, up to fifty or sixty per cent.
on his sales. If you should consider this to be discouraging
odds, you have only to go back thirty years, and you will
find it to have then been much greater. Besides, we shall
plainly see under other heads, that all discouragement and
danger of sacrifice vanish, even supposing the odds not so
much diminished already, as above estimated. But at present we will keep in view our proposed subject, namely, the
probability, or rather possibility, of the useful arts springing up spontaneously.
You have above presented to you the particulars in which
an advantage may lie on the side of the competitor in a
foreign country, where the arts are more advanced,  and
laborers are, by the low rate of wages, reduced to the very
poorest food, clothing, and shelter, by which the strength
necessary to support labor, can be maintained. You will at
once see, that not one of those particulars can be struck out.
You will also see that each one of them bears very hard
against the introduction of most of the arts, into a country
still in an earlier stage of civilization, in so much that, where
a rude agriculture, and the rude improvements auxiliary to
it, and to the furnishing of only coarse food, and clothing,
and comfortless abodes, are all that the people can show, to
distinguish them from savages, they may be kept in an everlasting semi-civilization, by the too facile introduction of the
products of the perfected arts of wealthy, highly cultivated,
industrious, alien neighbors.
A people so circumstanced can only produce for themselves articles, for the production of which they have trans
82 
PROPOSITION  XIX.
cndent territorial advantages, or the transportation of which
is in a high ratio to their value.   In short, they will remain
everlastingly in the condition of a colony. This will be
palpably evident, if you go over the particulars just enumerated, in which it may appear, that the more advanced community has the advantage. You may, perhaps, add others
that I have overlooked. Test the truth of my position for
yourself.   You have two communities in commercial juxtaposition and competition; the United States, where wages
and interest are high, and the productive arts, though rapidly
progressing, yet less advanced in many branches, and many
species of products turned out in comparatively small quantity, on one side; and Great Britain, France, Germany, and
the Netherlands, in contrast and competition.
Take the common price current, and estimate for yourself
how the advantage lies, and what it amounts to. Make this
estimate with all your prejudices in favor of American capability and resources, if you please, and you will, in spite of
yourself, come out with the result, that free trade, if that
theory, instead of being repudiated, in the first Congress, as
it was, by the men who achieved our political independence,
and made us a nation compacted together by a government,
had been adopted and adhered to, we should now, instead of
being the United States we are, have remained much the
same as before 1776, except those disrupted political bonds;
in short, substantially such as the other British-American
colonies are at this day, or rather in a worse condition, that
is, such as those colonies will now soon become, when the
competition let loose upon them in the British markets, by
the act of parliament of 1849, shall expel them thence, and
at the same time, the growth of the arts among themselves,
continue to be choked by the free influx of the products of
the industry of the dominant country.
83 
PROPOSITION XIX.
The practical adoption of the dogmas, or rather dogma, of
free trade, in this country, now, and abrogation, in a great
degree, of the existing legislation that is actually protective of industry, would reduce the country to a condition
incomparably worse than if we had from the beginning
remained rude and torpid in arts and industry, since a sluggish, subordinate, colonial existence may be passed, free of
pain, and even with a dull satisfaction, whereas intense suffering would be incident to the retrogradation and decay,
necessarily consequent to the chivalrous experiment recommended to us by the disinterested merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain, analogous to the pangs of the premature dissolution of a person in vigorous life.*
Such is the result to which you must inevitably come,
however reluctant you may be, upon testing, in the particulars named, the advantage of European labor and art over
our own, in supplying our market with a very large proportion of the products of mechanical and chemical skill and
science. The single capacity of the foreign competitor to
hold out longest in an unchecked competition in underselling at a loss, is of itself alone, sufficient, supposing all
other things equal, to enable him, if he is so disposed, as he
undoubtedly is, to drive the American producer out of the
American market. For you will, let you be ever so far
gone in free-trade reveries, admit that if either competitor has, in the aggregate, any permanent advantage, he will,
most assuredly, discomfit the other. And you cannot so far
impose upon yourself as to go through the comparison above
made, with all the deductions and counterpoises that you
* By the adoption of the free-trade theory, I mean, of course, the professed
neglect and leaving alone of industry in legislation and public policy, such as
is inculcated by that theory, which, as I have said in a previous article, would
in fact be to adopt a legislation and policy positively hostile to it. To let
alone industry is impracticable, but to suppress and extinguish it, in affecting
to let it alone, is quite practicable.
84 
PROPOSITION XIX.
can possibly conjure up, so as not to come out with the resuit that the advantages in the contest are at present on
the side of the foreign producer, in equal competition to supply our market with all articles the production of which is
materially facilitated by more advanced arts, larger establishments, and larger markets, and lower rate of wages,
where these advantages are not counterpoised by the expense of transportation.
"That is the very reason," you say,    why we should
depend on the foreign supply." This -is flying off upon a
collateral issue, a subterfuge that often serves in caucus and
on the stump, and even in deliberate assemblies. Though
I have grazed upon that question in the present article, it is
more specifically treated in divers of the others, both preceding and following, where reasons are given for protection,
notwithstanding the present, or, in many and very heavy
branches  of production, the permanent, money price, especially in time of peace, should be thereby enhanced. At
present our sole subject is the spontaneous springing up of
the arts.*
* By the arts I mean all the useful arts, however conducted. The products
of the mechanic, with other useful arts, are denominated manufactures, though
I have not so often used that term, as I might, for two reasons. In the first
place, the systems of protection alad free trade affect all the arts, as already
suggested under a previous head; the fine arts and ornamental arts, and also
the sciences, flourish and decline with the mechanic and other useful arts,
being all linked together and mutually auxiliary to each other; and the high
or low, present or future, money price, though of vital import in making
exchanges in competition with foreigners in foreign markets or our own, is to
be viewed in a very different light, in respect to exchanges between our own
citizens, who being all put upon the same footing by the law, are upon a perfect equality in settling the terms of their exchanges. As among themselves,
whether their land, materials, or labor, and the products of all three, are reckoned in a high or low money price, is perfectly immaterial, excepting that the
high prices require the use of higher numbers, and a greater amount of currency of some kind, in buying and selling. Thegreat questions of economical
science, therefore, with us in the United States, though they involve a consideration of the money price of the same articles at home as compared with
8
85 
PROPOSITION XIX.
In respect to a large body of the arts that belong to an
advanced civilization, then, whether to be carried on to the
greatest advantage in private dwellings by individuals employed separately, or by great multitudes in company in
large factories, you find on examination that, though this
country is physically and in the character of its people, as
well adapted to them as any other, yet some other, owing to
some temporary circumstance, or the depression of its laborers, may, for the time, or, say if you please, for an indefinite
time, have a material advantage; and if so, can drive us
from our own as well as the foreign market, if it is left free
to it so to do, and our producers left free so to suffer.  For,
in such case, free trade is nothing less than the privilege to
a foreign industry to prevail against ours, and crush it. I
think it may  be made to appear very plainly, that no
that abroad, involve also other considerations infinitely more important than
the greater or less cost of that small proportion of our whole consumption
with which we can possibly be supplied from abroad, not exceeding one
tenth under any, even the most dependent, subservient relation we can
assume towards other countries. If I speak of the arts, the reader is less
likely to lose sight of those other great considerations, connected with our
whole social and political well-being.
Again, ill the second place, the term manufactures, though it properly comprehends all the mechanic and useful arts, is so frequently used in popular discourse and publications, in reference to those conducted on a great scale in factories, that to many persons the term has no other import. Some one or more
species of manufacture for which a country has a special adaptation, as of silk
in China, iron in Sweden, springing from the fossils or peculiar soil or climate
of the territory, and in the nature of spontaneous products, may be carried
to some moderate degree of improvement, independently of the state of
the sciences and useful arts generally in the country. If it be said that such
arts will spring up spontaneously in any country, just as the art of curing the hides and meat of the buffalo has sprung -up among the Indians of
the western prairies, and that of curing fish among the Simoides, it may be
readily conceded.  When persons speak of "manufactures encouraging themselves," with reference to the growth of the country and the development of
its resources, and of the genius and capabilities of the people, we presume
them to have reference to such arts and sciences as belong to a people in an
advanced state of civilization.
86 
PROPOSITION XX.
country, not possessing a predominant military and naval
power, can, without the most imminent jeopardy to its national safety, civilization, and economical well-being, expose
its industry and arts to such an encounter: at least you will
easily satisfy yourself that this country cannot. You will
find yourself compelled to the conclusion that, to take that
course, would annihilate a vast proportion of our national
industry, sufficient to cripple and stunt the whole. I say
that you cannot have gone through the examination, and
tested the effects in the manner above proposed, upon any
principles or modes of estimate that you can honestly adopt,
without coming out with the conclusion that free trade would
be a sovereign prescription to make us a dwarfed nation.
I conclude, then, that manufactures will not  "encourage
themselves as soon as the country is adapted to them," and
that they must be encouraged by this country and every other
that chooses to have them.
XX. Low price, whether in money or barter, is not the sole
criterion of the  best economical policy- Free trade
assumes that it is.
You never knew a man to prosper, who occupied himself wholly in making great bargains. The propagators of
free trade assume that the mighty interests of national industry, arts, defence and prosperity, are to be wielded upon
the sole principle of making cheap purchases abroad at the
time being. This is the transient narrow basis of their structure; and they deceptively allege for the doctrine, the authority of individuals in managing their private affairs.
A cultivator fells a forest andcl grubs up a swamp, and
clears his field of boulders, though it may require the crops
of some years to reimburse his expenditures.   If the father
S7 
PROPOSITION XX.
of a family can, by a present outlay for tools and materials,
and for the acquirement of some skill, enable his children to
make articles for domestic use, at times when  they would
otherwise be idle, he does so, though the articles would thus
cost twice their market value, reckoning their time at the
current rate of wages, if such wages could be had.
A huckster, whose sole business is making profit by the
purchase and sale of articles on a small scale, occupies himself solely with the net present profit-and-loss result, in his
cash account.  But the husbandman,  the projector of distant voyages, or of a system of business involving outlays
and the combined prosecution of divers arts to produce future
results, and also the legislator, whose acts are the causes of
resulting causes and effects in an indefinite series hereafter,
cannot test their work by the footing of the to-day's profit and
loss, reckoned in cash.
The two periods of intense distress since we became a
nation, were after the peace, 1783 to 1789 -and after the
last war, 1817 to 1824; and at each of those periods foreign
goods were at very low prices in our market: a sufficient
proof that the national well-being is not exclusively governed
by the prices of imports; and that some other circumstances
are to be taken into consideration in accounting, for the
hapimess land misery of mankind.
88 
PROPOSITION XXI.
XXI. The comparative price at which citizens exchange
the products of their labor and capital with each other,
is the important consideration- As long as the ratio of
the price of one thing to that of another is the same, it
is immaterial, as between themselves, whether that rate
is high or low- Free trade teaches that the low money
price of articles consumed in the country, whether the
same be produced at home or abroad, is the sole consid  eration to be kept in view.
Free trade triumphs greatly in beating down mechanics;
as if to get articles made by them cheap, were a great national
blessing. Thus, a writer in a recent Edinburgh Review*
makes much gratulation that the reduction of the British
tariff of duties on gloves and linen, had reduced the
price at home, and augmented the exportation. Now, if
the reduction had any influence whatever upon the price,
(which it probably had not,) it must have been by reducing
the pay of the already miserable makers in London, and in
the north of Ireland. Thus the writer, in effect, felicitates
his school and the British empire, on the enhancement of the
misery of the miserable. Free trade had, as he imagined,
given that fortunate people gloves at a penny or two cheaper,
and put Irish damasks on the tables of the "' Czar of Russia," and the kings of "Denmark," "Saxony," and "Sweden," the "ex-king of France," and even "Queen Victoria."
This is the sort of glory, real or imaginary, on which free
trade plumes itself.
As to the foreign triumph, contemplated by the writer
from his high position of low money price, it is not proposed
to consider that here, where we are looking exclusively
* For July, 1849, pp. 146-150.
8'*
89 
PROPOSITION XXI.
at the domestic achievement so extolled in the review. Let
it be granted then. Double and treble it, and still let it be
granted. Admit that some of the British people wear kid
gloves, or whatever other kind occasions the writer's ecstacy,
at five per cent., or ten per cent. less cost, by reason of the
reduction of duty in 1842. So much is wrung from the
poor workmen.   There is nothing peculiar in the glove
business.   This writer mentions nothing.   A like achievement in hosiery or any other article, is to be no less desired.
Go then to the hosiers, hatters, tailors, shoemakers, housewrights, cultivators, and all other artisans, until you have
visited the whole circle of useful domestic industry with your
beneficent process, and brought down the products of each
ten per cent.   What have you accomplished?   And  for
whom?   So far as the persons  are concerned, who  are
employed in carrying on production, either as principals or
agents, and operatives, which in the United States comprehends nearly all the community, the effect is merely that
less nominal capital, that is in money, by ten per cent., is
requisite to carry on the same business of all kinds; and in
exchanging the products of their own labor mutually
among themselves, which comprehends some nine tenths
of all the exchanges they make. The two parties to each
exchange, reckon the price of the same articles exchanged
between them at nine dollars, instead of reckoning it at ten,
as before the reduction.
Persons whose property consists of public stocks, bank
stocks, or the balance of debts due to them, are benefited, if
they have held it in those forms from the time when the
reduction began; which would, however, not be one case in
a hundred.
The result then is, that in respect to the great mass of our
exchanges, including labor among them- for that is bought
90 
PROPOSITION XXII.
and sold, as well as its products, and quite as extensively,
and the price of labor influences that of products, and the,
price of products influences that of labor -the result I say
is, that the amazing improvement so rapturously hailed by
the professors of low money price, when finally consummated
by the depreciation of all the vendible articles of all the
workers and vendors, comes to nothing more than reckoning
the value of two things exchanged for each other, or in other
words, the article sold and that bought as its proceeds, at
nine dollars instead of ten.
XXII. We ought not to depend upon any foreign country
for such ordinary necessaries of life as the country is
well adapted to produce, at least until we have a naval
power able to command the ocean -Free trade pro  poses to render us immediately and permanently so
dependent.
Formerly we had an immense household manufacture of
wool and flax, both before and long since the revolution.
Every house in the country was furnished with a great spinning-wheel for wool, a small one for flax, with wool-cards, a
hetchel, warping-bars, and a loom.   Some of this antique
machinery may be still found in the interior. I made a
discovery of some of it near the White Hills, in New Hampshire, as late as 1848.
Adam Smith, in his inquiry into the nature and causes of
the wealth of nations, lays down a proposition that has been
round and round the free-trade circle now for these eighty
years, the import of which is, that if a woman's wages
were a quarter of a dollar a day, and with that sum she
could buy as much woolen cloth as would cost her the labor
of a day and a half, including the cost of the material,
91 
PROPOSITION XXII..
that can be produced or manufactured abroad and imported,
at a lower money price than it would come to if produced
or made at home.
Yet the same persons who make such assumption, do not
deny that there are thousands and millions out of employment, many of them starving with hunger and cold, in different countries, who would gladly labor if they could find others
to employ them, or means to employ themselves.   There
may be such perishing multitudes in a country that at the
same time exports provisions, as in Ireland, so that the fact
of a sufficient domestic production of an article of necessity,
does not secure a population from starvation for want of its
distribution.  This must depend upon there being such an
internal industrial organization as may, through the medium
of full employment at adequate wages, distribute the requisite portion of the annual products to the different members
of the community. It appears under other heads-, that free,
trade, as a general system, has no tendency whatever to multiply and diffse domestic industry, and that protection and
encouragement, when extended with any, even moderate
discretion, not merely has such a tendency, but is obviously
and infallibly effectual for such purpose, in any country not
'become overcharged with population surpassing all internal
room and means of occupation; that is, it has such effect in
a country in which any old species of industry can be extended, or any new one introduced.
At present we exclude that inquiry, and look merely to
the fact of the national supply of articles of necessity by
domestic production, or by importation from abroad.   The
question is merely this.  Is a population, among the great
'branches of whose industry is the domestic production of
the common and necessary articles of food, and clothing,
Eand fuel, and ordinary conveniences of living, as liable, all
93 
PROPOSITION XXII.
that can be produced or manufactured abroad and imported,
at a lower money price than it would come to if produced
or made at home.
Yet the same persons who make such assumption, do not
deny that there are thousands and millions out of employment, many of them starving with hunger and cold, in difrent countries, who would gladly labor if they could find others
to employ them, or means to employ themselves.   There
may be such perishing multitudes in a country that at the
same time exports provisions, as in Ireland, so that the fact
of a sufficient domestic production of an article of necessity,
does not secure a population from starvation for want of its
distribution. This must depend upon there being such an
internal industrial organization as may, through the medium
of full employment at adequate wages, distribute the requisite portion of the annual products to the different members
of the community.  It appears under other heads, that free
trade, as a general system,.h-as no tendency whatever to multiply and diffse domestic industry, and that protection an&
encouragement, when  extended with any, even moderate
discretion, not merely has such a tendenecy, but is obviously
and infallibly effectual for such purpose, in any country not
'become overcharged with population surpassing all internal
room and means of occupation; that is, it has such effect in
a country in which any old species of industry can be extended, or any new one introduced.
At present we exclude that inquiry, and look merely to
the fact of the national supply of articles of necessity by
domestic production, or by importation from abroad.   The
question is merely this. Is a population, among the great
branches of whose industry is the domestic production of
the common and necessary articles of food, and clothing,
Ad fuel, and ordinary conveniences of living, as liable, all
93, 
PROPOSITION XXII.
other things being equal, to be reduced to distress and starvation, as one habitually and permanently depending upon
the industry of the other hemisphere for such supplies?
This is a grave question for a legislator, or speculative
thinker, or philanthropist, or patriot; and one to which but
one answer can possibly be given by any person, of what
ever economical creed. If only one answer can be made,
is there any doubt of the importance of the inquiry? Will
any person say it is a trivial criterion of the comparative
character of two systems of policy, whether one or the other
has the greater tendency to starvation or other physical
distress?
Where a nation, like the Romans in their glory, predominates far and near by sea and land, and holds absolute control of access to all markets for exchanges, and all sources
for supplies, in all climates; and can, at all times, throw the
products of its own industry, whatever they may be, into
every market, and derive all kinds of products from everywhere, it has some apology for indifference whether ordinary
articles of necessity must come from within its own limits
or from another continent. But only one nation can enjoy
such pre-eminence at once, and it is not often that any one
has it.  Distant communications, and resources, implicated
with alien and antagonistic interests and influences, are subject to disturbances and vicissitudes, from which it is desirable to secure the ordinary supplies requisite to the subsistence and comfort of the masses of the population, as far as
they can be so secured without very great sacrifices.   So
far as this country is concerned, they can be secured without the slightest sacrifice, as is fully shown under other
heads.
We are here upon the proposition, that, if such security
could be had only at great cost, it would be worth it, for
94 
PROPOSITION XXII.
one of the leading benefits of government is the steady preservation of the physical well-being, of its subjects. To pretend to define all its functions for this purpose under the
dogma, laissez-nous faire, is mockery; and to identify the
supreme social good, with the mere present low money price,
is charletanism. Enlargement of occupation at fair wages,
and the certain command of supplies essential to physical comfort and national defence, are objects worthy of some consideration to legislators, and of some thought on the part of
those contemplative persons who take upon themselves to
teach mankind how to improve their condition.   And ever
since the days  of 2Esop's  lark and her young, it has
been as true in respect to a nation as an individual, that one
who depends on himself, is not so liable to be disappointed,
as one that depends upon others.* Any man who should
question the truth, or grave importance of this proposition,
would be wondered at; and, therefore, the free-trade economist usually dodges it; he cannot recognize it without negativing his whole creed-t
* The free-trade partisans very often admit the great importance of the domestic supply of things materially necessary. Thus Mr. Edmund Burke, whom
I understand to endorse Mr. Walker's free-trade paper, says, in his report as
commissioner of patents for 1848, p. 147, speaking of rotting hemp, "It would
be a good appropriation were the navy department to have a course of experiments tried by Mr. Fleischman for this purpose. If it succeeds, it will doubtless relieve the country from the necessity of importing hemp from Russia."
t In the practical application of the proposition above stated in the text, inquiry arises as to the specific articles of necessity and ordinary use, such as
iron, wool, and many fabrics of which each constitutes a large part, which it is
essential to the well-being of this country to produce from our own resources;
and which specific article first, and which next, and how many, and what
ones in concurrence. These details are not within my plan, through the principles and criteria on which the discrimination is to be made, will be found
touched upon under various heads.
95 
PROPOSITION XXIII.
XXIII. Home competition compels producers to as intense
competition and as low profts, as foreign - Protection
not monopoly-  Not true, as insisted by free trade, that
foreiyn competition is necessary to put home production
at the lowest practicable rate.
Everybody knows that the people of this country are vigilant to push into every branch of business that promises
extraordinary profits, and not slack to follow one that affords
only the ordinary rate.   Everybody also knows that this
produces a sufficiently brisk competition to reduce every
species of production and trade to the average rate of profit,
and stimulates each one in each branch, to resort to every
improved process, and to practise the strictest economy, in
order to save or enhance his profit.   And yet free trade is
always implying, and very often saying, that foreign competition is essentially necessary to regulate profits, skill, improvements, and economy, in home production, to the desirable point.* Though each one of ten or twenty thousand
domestic producers is putting forth his utmost energies to be
able to undersell the others, and get the supply of the market,
still the free-trade professor laments the sluggishness of these
producers, unless they are stimulated by foreign competition, for applying which he complacently explains to them
their obligations to him. This is going beyond the doctrine,
that the subject to be operated on can secure happiness only
by willingness to be miserable, for it congratulates him on
the fact of his actually being miserable.t
* Edinburgh Review, July, 1849., p. 149.
t Edinburgh Review, July, 1849, p. 149, where the writer, speaking of the
reduction of duty on silks, says that bringing that branch of industry into competition with French industry, called the English "skill into more active opera
96 
PROPOSITION XXIV.
XXIV.  Protection promotes commerce -Old pretence of
free trade that it would destroy commerce.
One of the early great objections to the protection of domestic arts, was, its supposed tendency to ruin commerce.
Experience has confuted the objection, and the wonder now
is that it could ever have been made; for if it be supposed
that it would entirely extinguish the foreign commerce of
the country, which is an idle dream, still it would evidently
increase domestic trade to a greater amount; and it is indifferent to the trader himself, so far as his own profit is concerned, whether the two parties who exchange the products
of their labor, be an American and foreigner, or both Americans. Protection increases labor and its products, and as
every producer, either in cultivation or the mechanic or any
other arts, exchanges, half, three quarters, or the whole, of
the products of his labor, with some other producers, either
domestic or foreign, the increase of industry and its products, of consequence, augments commerce.
"But does it increase labor and its products?" you ask.
This inquiry is answered under other heads.
XXV. Protection of our own industry will not bring the
necessity of resorting to land-tax and excise-  free
trade pretends that it will.
Another fanciful objection to protection, is, that it will
dry up our present great source of revenue from import
duties.* This dreaded consequence will probably happen
tion, by which the manufacture cannot fail to benefit." The only effect, if
any, in this respect, as in linens and gloves, must have been to pinch the
workmen.
* Secretary Walker's Report, 1848.  Examination of Baldwin's proposed
tariff. Printed in New York, 1821, p. 128.
9
97 
PROPOSITION  XXVI.
about the time when the sky falls. Chimerical notions like
this are less surprising when insisted upon, on the circuit,
to a petit jury of twelve, than when put forth in a grave
official document addressed to a tribunal of twenty millions.
But the thorough-going transcendentalists in free trade,
instead of lamenting the loss of this source of revenue, propose voluntarily to abandon it at once, for land-taxes, excise,
and poll-tax.
XXVI. Balance of trade- There is such a thing- -A
country may buy of another more than it pays for, or
can pay for at the time; it can be constantly in ar  rears- Free trade assumes the contrary.
"The balance of trade is a vision."* So says free trade.
If it be a phantasm, it is a very mischievous one, for, as
Adam  Smith says,t "A  nation may import to a greater
value than it exports, for half a century, and the gold and
silver that comes into it, all this time, may be all immediately sent out of it" by this phantom, and "the debts
which it contracts in the nations with which it deals, may be
gradually increasing." The consequent evils are scarcity of
money, paper-money, long credit, commercial embarrassment, bankruptcies, annihilation of the value of many species
of property, suspension of industry, loss of employment to
laborers, distress to the poor, and railings and recriminations
by different classes against each other, as being the authors
of the distress. In the meantime, unprincipled demagogues
exasperate these mutual animosities with malignant glee.
* Examination of Baldwin's proposed tariff. New York, 1821, p. 125. And
see the free-trade writers, passim.
t As quoted by Mr. Colton, Public Economy.  New York, 1848, p. 328.
9s 
PROPOSITION XXVII.
All this is familiar to every person conversant with the
history of this country, while it was a colony politically, and,
since 17]'6, at those periods when it has been no less a
colony industrially, by reason of its foreign commercial relations. But the philosopher of free trade contemplates this
disturbance of the industrial elements, with serene tranquility; being profoundly certain of the restorative operation
of his universal remedy, viz., the very evil which, he gravely
assures you, "will cure itself;" and this he seems to think
just about as satisfactory as if it could prevent itself.
XXVII. It is not for us to take care that other countries
shall have means to pay us for our exports - Free
Trade says it is.
We are reminded by free trade, that "The result of protection must be the annihilation of the foreign-import trade
of the country, so far as regards the articles protected; with
the exclusion or diminution of imports, the exports must
cease or be reduced, for foreign nations could not buy
them."* That is to say, we must take care lest, by producing
for ourselves, all, or too many, of the articles for our own
consumption, we shall thereby withhold from all, or some,
foreign countries, the means of paying for those which we
export to them.
It not unfrequently happens, that individuals who are not
very skilful or vigilant in their own concerns, have a great
solicitude in looking out for these of other people. So the
free-trader says,  " Let alone the industry of your own
country, and take care of that of other countries." lHe says
we must first take an immensity of imports from the foreign
* Rep. Sec. Treas. 184.
99
:.e 
PROPOSITION XXVII.
producer, and then he, honest and grateful man, will straightway take as much of ours. This is supposing him to make
an overture analogous to that of a worthy knight of the time
of Henry IV., " He that will caper with me for a thousand
marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him." He
is supposed to propose to us, to buy and pay for his goods,
and get back the same amount in the price he will pay for
ours, if we can. But perhaps he will out-caper us, and so
keep the money himself, and let us go for another customer,
where we can find him.   Some of our "fraternal" foreign
producers have done this for some years past, to the amount
of some fifty to sixty millions at least of the precious metals
and stocks, that we have remitted to them, to pay the balance
that we have taken of them, over the amount which they
have taken of us in return.
Nations are in the practice of making commercial conventions, when each supposes it gets quid pro quo, and the
recluse transcendental political economists who write textbooks for our colleges, have recommended by all means to
have no thought for the quid; but I am not aware that any /
statesman has ever before put forth such a notion, in practical affairs, or otherwise than as a decoy to foreign countries.
This involves the question of balance of the direct trade
between two countries, which may signify much, or little, as
the case may be. It differs essentially from that between
one nation and all others, such as the one against this
country, the three past years. This "vision," as it is styled,
when sinister, is a significant diagnostic of a disordered
industrial system.*   Not necessarily so is the  balance
between two countries in respect to either of them, if each
* The excessive drain of the precious metals is the only sure indication of the
actual general balance. The returns of exports and imports to the Treasury
department are a very fallacious index of it.
100
.;,, i. 
PROPOSITION XXVII.,
has a trade with various others. The trade of each with the
other, will run into that of third parties. We send some
millions' worth of cotton to Great Britain every year. One
third, or half of this, may go to supply the consumption of
Great Britain and its dependencies; and the remaining half
or two thirds go to third countries, and come back to us,
in the shape of cotton fabrics: that is to say, it is in effect a
transit trade between us and such third countries, as far as
the material that goes to them is concerned. This part of
the trade is vastly more important to Great Britain than to
us, provided Great Britain has competitors in this trade to
third countries, as she has in the French and ourselves.
Great Britain can keep only as much of the supply of the
third countries in her hands as she can furnish cheaper, or
in some way more convenient and acceptable to them than
her competitors. Her statesmen know this very well, and
accordingly the duty on the import of cotton into that
kingdom, has been  taken off.   No  stipulation whatever
is proposed for a preference to us in this trade.   The
cotton-growers say they do not need any such preference.
True. But many champions who have challenged all the
world have aforetime been beaten, and the same is possible
hereafter.  If, however, the preference should be needed,
it will never be granted.   We can send through Great
Britain to other countries what it is for her advantage to
take. So we in turn reship to other countries considerable
quantities of our imports, either in the same form, or after
manufacturing them.   It is a combination of trade and
industry which operates very beneficially upon any country.
It is, then, as you see, a very complicated, puzzling computation, to settle how much the consumption of A.'s products
by B. enables A. to buy those of B.
According to the commercial returns, we export less than
9*
101 
PROPOSITION XXVIII.
three quarters of one million to the British East Indies, and
import thence two millions.   Supposing these returns to
present the true state of the case, it is not necessarily, in
itself, a datum for any important inference as to the trade
being advantageous or prejudicial to us. We might export
much to any country and import nothing directly from it,
and yet the trade be equally advantageous to both; for
much of foreign trade goes through a circuit. A. buys of
B., B. of C., C. of D., and D. of A.   Each member of the
alphabet is concerned in some hundred or thousand such circuits, the result in each of which, as far as he is concerned,
may not be a fact of any important significance, though the
balance of his cash account with the whole, at the end of the
year, may affect very materially his industry and productive
capacity, as I have stated more particularly under another
head.
There are, then, two good reasons why we should not vex
ourselves to look out to furnish other countries with the
means to pay for what they wish to buy of us; first, because
we do not show any such superior sagacity in our own commercial arrangemnents abroad as to evince our eminent qualification for that function; and, second, because we have not
the means to understand their case.
XXVIII. Protection of our own domestic industry is in
no degree hostile to other countries -Free trade pretends
the contrary.
We are told that free trade makes man the brother of man,
and the citizens of one country brothers to those of another,
and protective legislation is "the forbidden fruit whose taste
102 
PROPOSITION XXVIII.
brought all our woe," with loss of the industrial Eden of
cheap products.*
HIow does free-trade policy lead to peace? Did the desire of Great Britain to free trade in opium, lead to peace
with the Chinese?
Free trade proposes to bring about greater communication
and exchanges, and complicity of interests, between nations.
Does this necessarily bring peace?  Before entering into
this contract of community, it is better to look out to see
which party is to act the lion in the division of advantages.
The more complicated, and blended together, the interests
of any two countries are, the greater the danger that one will
become wholly dependent upon, and subservient to, the other.
This is the reason why Great Britian just now preaches national communism, to some in the namby-pamby rhetoric of
the free-trade school, to others in that of saltpetre.
It is prudent in a nation, as well as an individual, to deliberate before entering into these fraternal intimacies with
all comers. The fellowship may be the good-fellowship of
equals, but it may be only the harmony and good mutual
* " The true industrial interests of nations are identical, and in exchanging
with each other the products most cheaply produced by each, labor everywhere benefits labor, man his brother man, and nations each other, and their
only antagonism is introduced by legislation."'-Sec. Walker's Rep. 1848. This
very metrical sentence has other poetical merit besides its rhythm. 1st. It
assumes that there is no such thing as international competition and antagonism in trade and industry between us and any other country, or between any
two countries in the world. 2d. It assumes the money price at the time being,
as the only criterion. 3d. It assumes that there is an unbounded foreign market, where every man in the United States, who works at high wages, can exchange his products for the cheap ones of low wages. 4th. It assumes that every man in the country has employment whereby to produce something to be
exchanged. 5th. It assumes that the cheap foreign labor benefits our laborer
who has high wages. 6th. It assumes the let-alone axiom. 7th. It assumes
that the main dependence of this country is on its foreign commerce. We thus
have more fictions than lines. And ifyou analyze any other piece of free-trade
rhetoric, you will find it to be made up in the same way.
103 
PROPOSITION XXVIII.
understanding that take place when one can say to the
other, "Go, and he goeth."
Have we not at this minute questions about reciprocity?
The British minister, in behalf of his government, puts in
for a part of our coasting trade. He also begins to inform
Congress what acts of theirs "will produce a disagreeable
effect upon public opinion in England," on a subject that
concerns Russia and Sweden no less than Great Britain.
This is the initiatory of our national fraternity with Great
Britain on the free-trade platform. Whether it is original
with the British minister, or with his government, or first
hinted by some of our own free-trade compatriots, does not
appear.   The constitution requires the president to recommend measures to Congress, but it has no specific provision
to the same effect in respect to the British government, or
its representative.   It seems to require a little brush every
thirty or forty years, to awaken the consciousness in England, that we are not still part of " Her Majesty's provinces
in North America."   Perhaps our minister in England
will, in return, suggest to the Parliament what acts will
have an agreeable or disagreeable effect on public opinion in
the United States, as a test whether the new dawning commercial fraternity is perfectly reciprocal in its operation.
No. The notion of community and unity of interests between nations, in this world, prior to the "Advent," is as
false and fanciful, as it is in respect to individuals, and there
is no more probability or possibility of its being universally
adopted and acted upon by the former than the latter. There
are, in either case, both commercial and industrial unities
and diversities, concurrences and competitions, coincidences
and antagonisms; and when any one asserts the contrary, it
only suggests the query, whether it indicates fantastical
thinking or sinister purpose.
104 
PROPOSITION XXIX.
The idea that the jumbling of all nations together in a
higgledy-piggledy fraternity in matters of industry and commerce, and the opposite Japanese policy of national occlusion, are two extremes, each of which is to be shunned. In
medio tutissimus ibis.
XXIX. The country may be crippled by a foreign com  merce that is pro,ftable to those directly concerned  Free trade says what is profitable to them, is best for the
whole country.
What an importer of foreign goods finds to be for his own
interest, is, says free trade, speaking through Adam Smith,
for the interest of the country.
It is for the interest of the importer to do a great and
profitable business the present year, and his profit or loss
this year has little or no connection with that of the next.
Suppose all the importers to be, at present and in future,
American citizens, residing permanently in the country, and
not birds of passage, commorant here only in harvest time,
and admit their interest now and hereafter, as a body, to be
identical with that of the country; even in that case the importer of to-day has no motive for talking care of the interest of his successor twenty years hence. He is influenced
wholly by motives of present gain or loss.   His interest is
not identical with that of the country. He is not, therefore,
a proper representative of the interests of the country.  If
we could convoke a council of the importers of the present
time, and that of twenty and that of fifty years hence, we
might then have an approximation to a just representation of
the interest of the country. The legislature is this council.
The legislators, if they truly fulfil their functions, are the
practical personations of the merchant, and tradesman, and
other classes of the future, as well as the present.
: -'l..
i J ~
105 
PROPOSITION XXX.
If the present life were for two or three centuries, then
Adam Smith's proposition would be less fallacious; though
still sufficiently so, for the result of a trader's purchases and
sales, whether abroad or at home, usually come about in a
short period, whether he himself be long or short lived.
He, therefore, looks to the immediate result; that is, if he
be an importer, to the profit of the present importation.
But if the consequence of his large business is the drain
of specie from the country; high interest; an indebtedness
abroad, accumulating and weighing heavier and heavier upon
the country for half of a century, as Adam Smith says it
may be; and a suspension of our own industry and stagnation of our arts, causing our civilization to be stationary or to
retrogade; it signifies little to the public that the importer
has himself made a profit. In fact, a nation as well as an
individual may be ruined by doing a business that is profitable at the time. It is what very often happens. This is
the abyss into which the free-trade advocates are endeavoring
to precipitate the country.
XXX. It is not true that capital remains entire, to be trans  ferredfrom a bad business to some other - Free trade
assumes that it remains, and can be withdrawn from an
abandoned business to a better.
The free-trade writer in a late Edinburgh Review already
cited,* speaking of a kind of business abandoned as impracticable, says, "We  may be  certain that the capital,
which will be withdrawn from it, will not be suffered to be
idle, but that it will be turned to account in giving employment to industry in some new channel, much more to the
welfare of the community."
* July, 1849, p. 146.
106
o.,,..,
. I 
PROPOSITION XXX.
This signal common-place of free trade, is characterized
no less by cool contumely to misfortune, than outrage to the
common sense of mankind. You meet with it in all the freetrade essays, great and small, from Adam Smith downward.
In the very article just quoted, the writer mentions the complaint of a leather manufacturer that the sudden reduction of
the price of leather occasioned by the change of the British
tariff, of which the writer was speaking, operated hard
upon the six months' stock which he was obliged to keep on
hand in his business. Suppose the reduction to have been
twenty per cent. and his stock is fifty thousand dollars, and
his own floating capital, besides structures, fixtures, machines,
apparatus, and tools, to be ten thousand dollars, and the
amount of his debts five times that amount, a proportion by
no means extraordinary. What part of his floating capital
has he to withdraw and "turn to account in giving employment to industry in some new channel?"
Suppose his business to be broken up, the very case of
which the writer is speaking, into what "new channel" will
this same leather manufacturer turn his vats, his structures,
fixtures, machines, apparatus and tools, all which are adapted to that branch of business, and no other? Into what
other channel would the proprietors of sugar estates turn
their capital invested in planting plantations of cane, and
putting up buildings and apparatus for grinding canes and
making sugar, if that business were broken up? Into what
other channel shall the worker in iron, iron-making, or coalmining, turn his skill in that business, which is his capital,
which he may have been years in acquiring, in case of such
business being broken up?
The same inquiry may be extended to every established
branch of business, great and small, and receive the same
answer.  The other "channel" is perdition.
107 
PROPOSITION XXXI.
You will say then, perhaps, in behalf of free trade, that I
maintain that every species of industry has inalienable vested
rights in the pursuit of its particular business, but I do not.
My proposition is, that when a manufacturing, or any other
business, requiring peculiar structures, fixtures, machinery,
apparatus and tools, and skill, is broken up, but a part, at
best, and frequently not any, of the capital invested in it, is
left to be turned into any channel. Free trade is forever
repeating the contrary.
XXXI.   The dogmatism of free trade in persisting in
its assumptions.
We have seen that the free-trade theory begins by taking
for granted, at least, eleven palpably false propositions, every
one of which is essential as a foundation of the system, without
saying with your leave, or paying you the decent respect
to give any facts or reasons. It was to be expected that
thinkers, who set out with such premises, would attempt to
patch up, and prop up, their conclusions with false pretences,
fallacies, and sophisms, and wander off, perplexing themselves and their disciples with false issues, aside from, and
immaterial to, the question; and raising a cloud by means
of mystical jargon.
I speak of the theory as being, at the outset, a dreamy
hallucination, made up of fallacious, sophistical assumptions,
the reproduction and reiteration of which, at this time
of day, after so many unanswered and unanswerable expositions and experimental demonstrations of its utterly
false and shammy character, call to mind the profound Mr.
Jenkinson's learned discourse on Sanconiathon, Berosius
and cosmogony, to which one might fairly give the reply of
the Rev. Mr. Primrose, "I beg pardon, sir, for interrupting
108 
PROPOSITION XXXI.
so much learning, but I think I have heard all this before;"
and request the teacher of these mysteries of his "science,"
to spare himself and us the repetition of those general, abstract, indefinite, mystical, transcendental theorems, and set
about giving us some reason, practical or theoretical, for assenting to some one, at least, of those eleven fundamental
propositions, to all of which he presumes our assent.
Do you doubt whether I speak respectfully enough of
those who have occupied the chair on this subject with such
magisterial gravity? And pray, how much deference is to
be challenged by a thinker, announcing himself to be one of
the great lights of the world, who has been reminded now
these many years, that there are, at least, eleven specific,
essential conditions precedent to his imagined industrial and
commercial millennium, all of which seem to be utterly
wanting, and if either is so, his whole theory explodes; and
yet he unheedingly goes on, monotonously chanting, as if by
rote, these same groundless assumptions, not unlike a Moslem Mueddin, reciting in his pulpit chapters from the Koran. Does he, in fact, assume these propositions? That has
been shown, and is notorious.   Have  they been denied?
Again and again.   Have they been distinctly pointed out
to him?   Often.   Does he deny that he assumes them?
Not at all.  Does he undertake to prove them?   Never.
Does he give any reason for them, or for any of them?
None.   Does he give any reason for not giving a reason?
Never.   Does he say anything about them?  Not one word.
On the contrary, whenever he spies one of these chasms of his
"science" ahead, he veers, and gives it a wide berth.  If
you remind him of -it, he plays deaf, and hurries off in a
torrent of phraseology.
Judge then, which party is the aggressor in point of conventional decorum; the one who gives and asks for a reason,
10
109 
PROPOSITION XXXI.
or the one who arrogates to himself the privilege of dog matizing ad libitum.
There are not wanting men of quite measurable knowI edge and intellect, and quite immeasurable self-conceit, who,
after musing for a time upon national economics, do, in all
honesty and simplicity, bona.fide, consider themselves to be
duly commissioned as the true successors to the apostle of
their "science," and have such a comfortable assurance of
the faith that is in them, that they fancy their mission to be
merely to announce it, and dogmatically prescribe to men,
all and singular, to become implicitly endowed therewith.
It is to no purpose to reason with such. If one comes to a
position through a maze he knows not how, he finds it very
difficult to retrace his steps.
Some persons persuade themselves that they have a pecuniary interest in maintaining what is called free trade. I
am persuaded that, the more the subject is agitated, the more
clearly they will see that the pecuniary interest of individuals, (I mean Americans, permanently stationed in the country,) is identified with that of the country.
Those who practise politics for a living or through ambition, if their local, sectional prospects are on the side of
the free-trade theory, will, of course, be very slow to be convinced of its sophistry until after their supporters are so 
until when, they cannot be regarded as hopeful cases.
So the class of dreamy, transcendental abstractionists, devotees to a single idea, who have soared to some empyrean height, where they have lost sight of this world, or are so
far from it that they cannot distinguish their own country from
another, though they are honest, sincere, and commendably
ardent, yet they are so pre-occupied and so far off, that I
have no hope of gaining their attention.
But I more especially and hopefully address these propo
110 
PROPOSITION XXXII.
sitions, not only to those who have not examined the subject, but also to persons * who, having wandered into the
mysticisms of free trade, in their incipient cogitations upon
social phenomena and social destiny, have too easily acquiesced in the enormous sophisms and inconsistencies of Adam
Smith and his echoes, and are free from pride of opinion,
esprit du corps, or other bias, to hinder them from revising
their opinions candidly.
XXXII. Accumulation of capital necessary to prosperity,
industry, and arts.
There are not wanting in our community, or any other in
the world, persons of untoward circumstances or untoward
dispositions, who cherish a spite against those whom they
deem to be more fortunate; and they have reason, in countries where the distinction is arbitrarily established by the
laws of inheritance, or the terrific authority of superstition;
or the no less mighty one of hereditary distinctions of castes
and races. Neither our laws nor customs encourage such distinctions between free citizens, but, on the contrary, aim at
a complete equality of rights. Some are not satisfied with
this, but insist on a universal equality of condition. I mention this subject, (not for the purpose of contending with the
malignant philanthropy of socialism, or the hypocritical appeal of demagogues to the bad passions,) but on the contrary,
to say that I do not intend to propose anything here that is
not just as applicable to a community where an idle knave
shares the earnings of an honest, industrious member, as
where the latter is entitled to his own earnings.
The simple question is, whether the existence of wealth in
the community, is desirable in general, the laws, civil rights,
* Pars quorum fui.
ill 
PROPOSITION XXXII.
customs, and all other things, being the same.   Is the condition of all descriptions of persons, including the destitute
who depend on alms, as well as those who depend on themselves, on the whole, better in a community where there is
an abundance of everything, or one in which there is a deficiency of everything?   The distinction is precisely that
;between England and Ireland. A great mass of the population is without property in each. England is rich, and
Ireland poor. In which of the two is their situation most
desirable, or, if you please, least deplorable?
There is no room for doubt. The affluence of a community, all things else being equal, is beneficial to all its members.  But, in this country, this truth has ten-fold, indeed a
Hundred-fold, more force, since the laws do not render the
lands inalienable, nor make any distinctions of castes, or famiies, or classes, as to civil rights, or those of possessing,
using, and transmitting property. The benefits of acquisition and possession, extend to very nearly all members of
the community.   Instead of three out of four being destitute as in England, or nine in ten as in Ireland, with us
not one in ten, probably not one in twenty, is so.
I think, then, I am safe in the position, that with us, accumulation of wealth in the country is advantageous to all.
"Yes," you say, perhaps, "provided it be not made by
one, at the expense of another." True, but that is not the
present question. We shall come to it in course.
One of the advantages incidental to the accumulation of
wealth in a community, is obvious and universal, namely,
the reduction of the rate of interest. Anderson * cites Guicciardini, remarking upon the usual rate of interest of twelve
per cent. per annum, at Antwerp, that "such a high interest
* Hist. of Corn., v. 2., p. 109, Anno 15803 Lond. Ed., 1789.
112 
PROPOSITION XXXTII.
was a great grievance to the poor, as well as a great obstruction to commerce."   The Rump Parliament reduced the
legal rate of interest to help English commerce in its competition with foreign.* If you double the wealth of a country, and at the same time reduce the rate of interest from
twelve to six per cent., all those who need to hire money or
get credit, (in other words, to avail themselves of the capital
of others, that is to say, all the more active and less wealthy,)
obtain double the quantity at the same annual expense. This
is one among the very many advantages accruing incidentally to all members of a community from the accumulation
of its general stock of wealth.
XXXIII.  Multiplicity of useful arts in high cultivation
prerequisite to great national stock, to wit, capital; and
great capacityfor production - Free trade proposes na  tional poverty.
It was a truly philosophical suggestion of MIr. Gallatin,t
that the degree of civilization to which the American Indians
attained, must have been essentially promoted by their possessing the article of Indian corn, that could be so easily,
and so long preserved. The same remark is applicable to
the dressed skins used by the aboriginal tribes. These, with
their weapons and pipes, constituted the main part of their
capital, which I allude to for the purpose of illustrating more
plainly what really constitutes capital; for the word is used
by writers on economy, especially those of Adam Smith's
school, in a way to leave in the reader's mind a vague notion of its meaning. It means valuable things possessed,
* And., Hist. of Com., v. 2, p. 415, Anno. 1699.
t Stated in Mr. Bradish's Address to the New York Historical Association,
1849.
10o
113 
PROPOSITION XXXIII.
and subject to transfer from owner to owner, exclusive of
contracts and personal claims.
You wonder why I should so formally state what is so
plain. It is for the purpose of making my deduction plain.
And I will proceed a step further by way of premises. Without going through the different classes of valuables, we will
notice some few distinctions.  Some are objects of taste, as
pictures and statues; some of luxury, as plate, rich furniture, equipages, and jewelry, and architectural and personal
ornaments. But the great body of the stock on hand, viz.,
the capital, of any community, in any degree advanced in
civilization, consists of its instruments and apparatus for
production. The annual consumption of the people of the
United States, at one dollar per week each, is one thousand
and forty millions.   The land, and all other vendible instruments and means of production used to  supply this
consumption, and at the same time add something to the permanent stock, must be some six or seven times that amount.
I take it to be universally admitted by all persons, thinkers or not, to be desirable, all other things being equal, to
live in a rich, rather than in a poor country. There may
be enough of misery in a wealthy country, as every one
knows, but this is not owing to the abundance, but to an
unfortunate social and industrial organization, and other
causes; and even in such a case, the least fortunate will
always feel the benefits of the general prosperity and advanement in arts. Not to dwell upon this point, if any one
doubts the advantages of life to the poor as well as to the
rich, in a country advanced in civilization, and abounding
in arts and wealth, I refer him to Macaulay's comparison of
the present condition of the people in England, with that of
the time of Charles II.*
* See History of England, chap. 1.
114 
PROPOSITION XXXIII.
Now, if you will sum up all the value of the land, materials,
and stock on hand, and movable vendibles of every description belonging to an agricultural country, having only a few
rude arts auxiliary and essential to a rude cultivation, you
will find a small footing, compared to that of the inventory
of the same country peopled with cultivators, mechanics, and
artists of every description, with its agriculture and horticulture, as well as other arts in a high state of improvement,
possessed of an immense apparatus of implements and machinery, and plentiful stocks for consumption, reproduction,
and commerce.
A town, like Bremen, or small territory like Venice,
Florence, the Hanse Towns, etc., formerly, may be wealthy
by its floating industry and foreign barter, making itself a
great mart through which the exchange of products between
foreigners is effected, but not so of a great country like the
United States. If all the rude products of the whole territory could be exchanged abroad in the great purchases that
free trade treats of in large discourse, it would only make
a few wealthy marts at the points of exchange. The rest of
the country would be so thinly peopled that a traveller would
be troubled to find inhabitants of whom to inquire which of
the bad roads led to his destination. A country cannot be
well peopled without a well-provided population, nor wealthy
without having domesticated within itself, the arts of production to which it is adapted, and keeping those arts in a continued progress and improvement. Therefore - I say therefore, for I consider the deduction as rigidly logical -what
free trade, by proposing to limit our industry to cultivation
and a few rude arts, really and in effect proposes and advocates, is national poverty.
115 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
XXXIV. Many arts can be carried on most advantage  ously in large masses, requiring large capital and many
hands —  It is accordingly desirable that there should be in
the community large aggregations of capital.
A recent tourist * observes, as he supposes, a diminished
productiveness of agricultural labor in France, by reason of
the partitions, and repartitions, of the lands into small allotments under the present French law of inheritance. It is
very easy for a tourist to be mistaken in what he supposes
himself to witness, for he does not always know how to distinguish what he brought from home in his mind's eye, from
what he really sees abroad, but there is, I suppose, no question that some species of cultivation can be carried on with
more economy, and in a better system, in large than in small
proprietaries.   The lake country, and the valley of the
Mississippi, are said to present good fields for cultivation on
a large scale. At any rate, many species of industry, especially some kinds of manufactures, can undoubtedly be most
advantageously conducted on a large scale. And it is plain
that whatever causes, whether legislation, foreign wars or
peace, or short crops abroad, or credit and confidence at
home, promote our domestic industry, will operate favorably on that conducted in large masses on a broad scale, as
well as that conducted on a narrow one.
Nobody proposes to prohibit by law the carrying on of
transportation in a great ship or steamboat, or on long railroads, or of manufactures in great buildings at waterfalls on
deep rivers, costing fifty or one hundred thousand, or a million of dollars for dams and canals, or the tanning of ten
thousand hides in one establishment, or the cultivation of
* Musgrave's Parson, Pen and Pencil.  London Ed., 1848, v. 3, p. 92.
116 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
more than a hundred acres by the same proprietor. Every
one, then, as I presume, contemplates large industrial concerns, where persons can find their account in forming them.
You desire that industry should be productive, and, therefore, that great aggregations of capital should be formed for
conducting it, where its productiveness may be thus promoted. Your theory, then, demands wealthy individuals to
carry on production on their individual account, and that
large masses of capital should be formed by contributions
by members of industrial associations, no one of whom has
himself sufficient means separately to prosecute the same
business advantageously.
A large concern can employ one man in inventing, and
another in engraving, new designs. In Lancashire, England, some concerns employ an inventive artist on a salary,
to make improvements in processes and machinery. Such
expenses can be incurred only in extensive concerns.
You will not understand me to be maintaining, that all
industry can be carried on most beneficially to the country
in great systems. The very magnitude of the undertaking,
as we witness in a thousand instances, is the cause of failure.
My position is, that in some localities, and under certain
conditions, certain branches of business may be conducted
in a great system, most advantageously to those concerned,
and to the country; and, further, unless the intelligent
Anglo-Saxon energy of the people shall be killed by a
fantastical, empirical, unprincipled legislation, or their
industry crushed by the perverted administration of the law,
unless, in short, we are destined to a degrading transformation, we shall continue to witness large enterprises in divers
arts and modes of production. And who, but a person infatuated by some whimsical singularity, can wish the contrary?
We agree, then, for so I take to be the fact, that the
117 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
people of these States should still continue to have the privilege of undertaking large enterprises, and extensive systems
of production.
We also agree, of which I cannot persuade myself to
doubt, that such undertakings, on the whole, materially
extend industry, and are essentially necessary in order to
carry the useful arts to a high degree of improvement.
We agree, thirdly, that everybody, rich, poor, middling,
of this trade or profession or that, whether one of the ninetynine workers, or the one, or less, in a hundred, depending on
income, and not seeking or pursuing an employment, (substantially every man woman and adult child in the United
States,) is benefited directly or indirectly by such extension
of industry, and multiplication and high improvement of the
useful arts; and is so benefited in proportion to his interest
in industry, in his capacity of producer, or consumer, capitalist or laborer, undertaker, or party employed; or, if you
question the proportion being the same, though this you
will probably concede to be true in the long run, still you
will not deny that every one is benefited; and no one is likely
to quarrel with his own benefit, because he supposes that
some other, owing to his particular circumstances, happens
to derive a greater, any more than he would wish to divert
a stream from irrigating his own lands at all, merely to prevent its irrigating his neighbor's more. I am not presuming
on a concession of anything obscure, ambiguous, theoretical,
or doubtful, but only what every person ordinarily expresses,
and constantly implies in his conduct.
Every one then, who regards his own interest, (as who
does not?) desires that production should be conducted on a
large scale, by individuals separately, or by associations, as
the case may be, where it can be so carried on more successfully. He, therefore, considers it to be materially ad
118 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
vantageous that capital should be possessed by individuals,
or contributed by associations, for that purpose.
What then is the meaning of the outcry made on the subject of protection by some demagogues, from 1820 to the present time, against "capital," "capitalists," "corporations,"
"the rich few?" etc. Is it then a crime to establish a great
system of industry, or contribute to it? Is it true that every
one of that glorious multitude of young and middle-aged
men, the pioneers in physical and intellectual industry, who
is impelled by a generous ambition to acquire a competence, or to found or increase his fortune, and, in so doing,
keeps in motion the productive energies of the country,
is guilty of a crime? I understand the demagogues and Mr.
Secretary Walker,* who denounce the possessors of property, to impute a misdemeanor - an offence against society
perpetrated or attempted- to all who possess or strive to
acquire property.
Those who thus stigmatize the wealthy for being such,
are not sincere, for many of them are of that class themselves;  or, if not, they hope to make themselves so by
dint of railing against the wealthy, and thus getting some
lucrative appointment. But they apply these denunciations
to manufacturers. They do not, perhaps, intend to vilify a
professional man, an office-holder, a cultivator or trader, for
being wealthy, or endeavoring to become so.  It is the manufacturer, the master-mechanic, the contractor for large jobs,
who employs others, and tries to make a profit thereby: he
is the offender.  This sort of phraseology is addressed with
malignant motives to the malignity of sordid minds. But
it is too palpably false, and the hypocrisy and malignity is
too visible, to be acceptable to any but such as wish for
some pretence to afflict themselves by cherishing bad pas
* Report, 1848.
119 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
sions.   It supposes the existence of fixed, distinct social
classes in the community, which is a libel upon our institutions, and a contradiction of every day's experience; and
no sensible honest man can be persuaded of any such lasting
distinction, when he sees all about him, persons transposed
from good to bad, and bad to good condition; some slowly
or rapidly bettering themselves, others sinking, according
to their habits and fortune; the son of a wealthy man a
beggar, and the son of a beggar wealthy.
In all these changes, an industrious man, not overtaken
by some misfortune - and there is no guarantying everybody against that -though his competence consists solely
in his faculty for industry, feels that he is no more nor less
dependent upon those by whom he is employed than they
upon him.*
The drivelling declamation of well-clad demagogues, about
the rapacity of the wealthy, and oppression to the poor in
this country, is addressed to the only civilized people in the
world among whom there is no class of men that can be oppressed. The reason is, that circumstances, and the character of the people themselves, have combined, hitherto, to
keep up the rate of wages in comparison with the necessary
expenses of living. The immediate and certain consequence
of free trade, would be, as we more plainly see under subsequent heads, to reduce wages, and render those dependent whose only capital is labor.
You reply that "The denouncers merely assert that protection favors those persons now engaged in carrying on the
branch of industry protected, and these are the rich intended
* I remember having heard of the following dialogue.  "So, your employer
has turned you off? "  "No."  "I heard so."  "Not at all.  I have turned off
my employer." This reply illustrates the relation in which most of our people
consider themselves, more truly than the contrary would do.
0
120 
PROPOSITION XXXIV.
by the declamation." -It is then a two-fold misrepresentation.
It supposes those concerned in carrying on the business of
the useful arts, to be rich in comparison with others, which
is not true.   Persons so Concerned are of all degrees in
point of property, from the manufacturer who braids his own
little stock of leather into whips, or shapes his own little
stock of wood into whip-stocks, or reeds, or shuttles, or
bobbins, through all the intermediate grades of those who
employ their own families, or one or two hired hands, and so
on to the one who launches great steamboats from his shipyard, or turns out great masses of cloths or metals from
his factory. The epithet rtch is probably less applicable to
them, in general, than to merchants and agriculturists.
The same declamation implies also, that persons concerned
in carrying on the arts, ask some preference to themselves
over others - that government should do for them what it
should not do for others - which is utterly false. They
put forth no such claim.
It is also expressly said, that they demand a legislation
that shall enhance profits at the expense of labor.   This is
a subject of consideration under other heads.
But suppose that every manufacturer, that is, every person in the United States who carries on any species of production, except that of raw materials from the soil, were
rich.   Is he, therefore, an outlaw?  Such persons comprehend a large portion of the whole number of our citizens.
Are they disfranchised? The government was constituted
expressly for the protection of the persons, the property, and
the industry of the citizens; not this one nor that one in particular, but of all the citizens; and all the inhabitants,
whether citizens or not. And every one has a legal right to
present to Congress any subject that concerns the general
welfare, and if the matter concerns his own interest also,
11
121 
PROPOSITION XXXV.
this is an additional reason why he is the proper person to
present it, and also to be heard upon it.
The free-trade concocters of the tariff of 1846, went upon
a different rule. A distinguished member of Congress from
Tennessee signalized himself by moving that no communication should be admitted from manufacturers, that is to say,
persons constituting and representing about two fifths of the
whole population of the country; and the projectors of that
stain upon our statute-book, I mean that tariff, instead of
consulting with citizens of the United States, whose interests
were involved in the prosperity of the domestic arts of the
country, took counsel of the representatives of foreigners,
who considered it to be for their own advantage to destroy
these arts.
These are, however, topics only incidentally connected
with our present proposition, viz.: that, since some kinds of
business can be most productively carried on upon a large
scale, and everybody is benefited by the successful prosecution of useful industry, and it can be so carried on only by
an individual or an association having a large capital, it is
desirable to everybody, that there should be such aggregations of capital in the community.
XXXV. Protection to the arts promotes agriculture; is
essential to its prosperity- Contrary pretence of free
trade.
We have seen that the hollow basis of the free-trade theory consists of at least eleven postulates, each of which is
essential to its support, and every one of which is a fallacy.
As we proceed in examining the sundry pretences alleged
in its support, we have found and shall find, that every one
of, them, excepting the pretended danger of committing
122 
PROPOSITION XXXV.
insubordination to Great Britain, depends directly upon one
or more of those eleven fallacies. These postulates and
pretences, without that exception, are all like those figures
inclosed in the old Etruscan sepulchres, which crumble the
moment light is let in upon them. Some, at least, of the
pretences are not made sincerely.
There was a great demand in 1847 for our breadstuffs
and provisions in Great Britain, to fill the chasm consequent
upon the short crops there.   This export was  seized upon
by the free-trade politicians as one of the beneficent effects
of the tariff of 1846.* Such pretences show the insincerity
of those who make them, and that they do not themselves
really and honestly believe in the theories they promulgate.
It is a harmless conceit, for surely the people of the United
States, though they may sometimes be imposed upon by a
fallacy, at least for a time, cannot be made to believe that
the tariff of 1846 caused the potatoe rot in Ireland. And
if it could have that unkind effect every year for a century
to come, the market thereby created for our agricultural
produce would be a very small matter in comparison with
that afforded at home by the protection and consequent extension of our domestic useful arts.
The notion insisted on for thirty years past,t and so painfully elaborated by Mr. Polk and Mr. Walker, that protection of the domestic arts is so prejudicial to agriculture,
is a fallacy worthy only of an unscrupulous advocate of a
bad cause. Agriculturists cannot live wholly on their products.  They must, in general, sell at least two fifths, that
is to say, over 400,000,000 dollars' worth annually at home
or abroad, in order to maintain their present mode of living.
By abridging their comforts and luxuries, they might de
* Walker's Report, 1848.
t See Examination of Baldwin's Tariff. New York, 1821, p. 1121.
123 
PROPOSITION XXXV.
pend more upon their own products, but this they have no
motive or inclination to do. They can send abroad but about
100,000,000 worth, including cotton, which is somewhere
near one half of the exports.   The remainder is mostly
breadstuffs and provisions.
Were we to abolish all our arts excepting those mechanical ones that are indispensable to a community of cultivators,
we could not send abroad anything more, except the amount
that we ourselves should take back again in the shape of
manufactures; and that increase, were it possible, would not
be equal to one quarter of the amount of domestic manufactured articles of our own that we now send abroad in part
pay for imports. If we adopted Lord Chatham's limit, now
so urged upon us by the British patrons of our industry, not
to make even a hobnail for ourselves, other nations would
not, therefore, want any more of our flour and provisions,
for their own consumption. And we could not, in fact, continue to take so great an amount of their manufactures as
now, for the reason that we could not then pay for them.
We could only run up the bill increasing for half a century,
of which Adam Smith speaks. The doctrine of free trade,
that the foreign market is to be relied upon in preference
for the consumption of our agricultural products, rests wholly
upon the fallacy, already exposed, of the boundlessness of
that market.
Though we cannot, by abolishing our arts, or in any
other way, create a foreign demand for a greater quantity of
agricultural products, we can and do create one at home,
and this we can increase ad libitum, for a century to come,
by well-timed, well-applied, and well-proportioned protection. We have means of doing so, not possessed by any
other equally civilized people. No European nation can
supply the common necessaries and comforts of life to its
124 
PROPOSITION XXXV.
inhabitants at a cheaper rate. By cheap rate, I mean
a large quantity for the same amount of labor. This state
of things will continue, so long as the rate of wages is sustained; and the only way to sustain wages, is to extend the
useful arts by protection as heretofore.
We have abundance of territory within our own limits for
enlarging the cultivated area every year, for at least a century to come, but that cannot be so enlarged without a proportionally increasing market; and only persons engaged in
other pursuits than agriculture can furnish this market;
and such persons cannot be had abroad: they must be sought
within our own limits. "Why not just as well abroad?"
you ask.  "Why  is not an English, German, or French
mechanic, just as good a customer as one at my next door?"
For the reasons that are really too obvious to need to be
expressed. He will not take your timber to construct his
dwelling, your wood or coal for his fuel, your meats, roots,
vegetables and fruits, for his table. He will not take his
clothing from other neighboring American artisans, and
thereby help to employ them, so that they may also be customers for the products of your land.
This has been often said, and it surely must be plain to
every person of common capacity, though he should never
have heard it said. The apology for repeating it is, that I
understand it to be flatly denied by Mr. Polk, Mr. Walker,
and the other promulgators of the doctrines of free trade;
for the precise question is, whether the foreign or domestic
artisan is the best customer to the cultivator, and they say
the foreigner is the best.  "But no," you say, "we only
assert that the foreigner will give a greater quantity of his
work, for a cord of your wood, or bushel of your corn or
fruit." Suppose it to be so, if the articles could be sent to
them, and they would take them when sent. But the truth
11*
125 
PROPOSITION XXXV.
is, that many of the articles of a perishable nature, which
would be taken by a neighbor customer, cannot be sent
abroad, and of those that would bear transportation, a very
small part, if any, of our surplus, beyond our present exports,
could find any market abroad. The fallacy consists, therefore, in recommending to the farmer a customer to whom he
cannot send some part of his products, and who will not
take that which can be sent.
Fifteen years is not too far for a legislator to look ahead,
and in that time, at the present rate, population will increase
some fifty per cent., that is, ten millions or more. These
ten millions cannot go into agriculture, and trading in its
products; if they could possibly do so, those products,
whether cotton, wool, tobacco, rice, flour or whatever else,
would be turned out in superabundant masses, and the price
so reduced that the producers could not afford to raise them,
even though the price of land should fall to one half of its
present rate. Three fifths of this increase will be a large
allowance for agriculture. Protection of other arts will give
employment for four additional millions of consumers of the
increased quantity of agricultural products. This gives an
additional demand for those products, gradually increasing,
pari passu, with agriculture, till at the end of the fifteen
years, it amounts to one hundred and twenty millions of
dollars annually. I am estimating the whole expense of
living to each inhabitant, at fifty dollars a year in round
numbers, without adding anything for accumulation. There
should be an addition for that. And I compute the consump
tion of the value of the products of the soil, to be three fifths
of the whole amount of consumption.
If this computation is not satisfactory, adopt any one that
may be so, and substitute the result, which it will not be
possible to bring out at an amount that will not fully sup
126 
PROPOSITION  XXX~V.
port my inference. This inference, which seems to me to
be irresistible, is, that this additional demand for, and consumption of, our agricultural products, the whole of which is
absolutely necessary to our agricultural and horticultural
prosperity, must be sought fo)r in our own domestic market,
and can be had there by protecting and fostering our domestic useful arts; and that this is the only possible way of
obtaining it. The most imaginative eulogist of the great
bargains to be made abroad, in free trade, cannot conjure
up, in his fancy, any other way that will not be as extravagant and impossible as the eastern mythology. The result
of reflection, reasoning, past experience, and observation of
the present, is, that our own fellow citizen, employed in
other arts, is the great and only reliable customer for our
agriculture; and that this customer can be secured by protecting and encouraging such arts, and in no other way.
"A piece of fine cloth weighing eight pounds," says
Adam Smith, "contains in it the price, not only of eight
pounds of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight
of corn, the maintenance of the different working people and
their employers."* Which will most promote the business
of a farmer in Ohio, the importation of the "several thousand weight " of German corn, in the form of the eight pounds
of cloth, or selling several thousand weight of his own corn,
to be put into the form of eight pounds of cloth, made in his
own neighborhood'? t
* Quoted Colt. Pub. Econ., N. Y., 1848, p. 437.
t See Hudson's Rep., Committee of Ways and Means, 1848.
127 
PROPOSITION XXXVI.
XXXVI. The maintenance of our institutions, and the
wellbeing of the whole people, depend on sustaining the
rate of wages.
"It is neither the increase of population," says Sismondi,
"nor the increase of labor performed by that population,
which constitutes the well-being of society, but the proportion between population and property, and the equitable
distribution of the income whose source is labor. Society is
happy when each one, according to his condition, can enjoy
content and ease; it is happy when wages are high, because
the poor are not obliged to work every hour of the day in
order to exist." *
Dr. Pickering, in his report on the races of men,t says
that the missionaries at the Hawaiian Islands, consider it a
great obstacle to the civilization of the inhabitants, that in
their limited notions as to style of living, they are content
with "a little fish and a little poi."
It is especially desirable in our community, that those
whose only capital is their capacity to work, should, as well
as others, have some privilege for education, and enjoy some
leisure, and some of the comforts and gratifications afforded
by the arts of civilization. These cannot be secured to them
by merely positive order of law; nor can they themselves
secure them by mobs, and strikes, and conspiracies, for these
are attacks upon all the rights, and the well-being of all
members of the community, whereby they make themselves
the first, and greatest sufferers. If they prevail, they can,
at the best, like Sampson, but bury themselves in the common ruin. Such a state of things can be brought about only
by the spontaneous legislation of opinion, sentiment, usages
'Essays on Political Economy, Lond., 1847, p. 215, 216.
128
tP. 89. 
PROPOSITION XXXVII.
and habit, aided by the tendencies and consequences of the
prescient provisions of the statute-book.
At any rate, we all agree in the present proposition, viz.,
that the well-being of the masses should be cared for, and
that the rate of wages has a predominating influence upon
it. Southern proprietors have a double interest in sustaining
the general rate of wages, for the value of one great mass of
their property depends upon it, since it is the capacity
of the slave to earn wages that constitutes his value, and of
course, the higher the rate, the greater is that value.
Therefore, if the tendency of free trade is to reduce the
rate of wages, and that of protection to sustain it, the latter
is, in this respect, the true policy of the country; and the
influence of such policy upon that rate, is our next subject
of inquiry.
XXXVII. Protection favors the working classes; is for
the benefit of both the many and the few - Free trade
represents it to be for the few only.
Free trade pretends that protection and promotion of useful domestic arts, are prejudicial to the interests of labor, as
well as to those of agriculture. It is hard to say which of
these pretenees surpasses the other in extravagance. To believe any one, who is given to science and thought, to be
sincere in such assertions, is to maintain his honesty at the
expense  of his understanding.   The assertion, however,
though fallacious, implies the importance of these interests.
In this we all agree. Useful labor is the common and richest inheritance of man, and it is an accursed policy that
would hinder him the enjoyment of it, or despoil him of
its fruits, whether such policy be ecclesiastical, predatory,
tyrannical, or economical; and it is the most cruel to those
129 
PROPOSITION XXXVII.
who have no other capital for their support, not having
as yet realized its surplus proceeds in any form of accumulation.
The magnitude of this interest of industry may be made
apparent at a glance. The portion of this community, male,
and female, ready to labor in different useful employments,
we will estimate to be eight millions, after deducting the
too young and too old or infirm for work, the idle deadweights, the vicious, and the depredators. Let them be able
to realize annually, at the existing rate of earnings in the
various industries, within doors and out of doors, the average amount of $100, each, deducting nothing, of course,
for the expense of their support, for one great object of their
industry is to defray that expense. We have an annual result of $800,000,000, that is, more than five times the
whole amount of exports to foreign countries. This is the
great interest in question, being more than forty times the
amount of all the profits annually made in foreign commerce,
estimated at the rate of twelve and a half per cent., and according,ly, the augmentation of this industry, one fortieth
part, by judicious legislation, or a diminution of it in the
same ratio, by sinister legislation, such as that adopted on
the motion of foreign merchants and manufacturers, seconded by our own free-trade partisans, will affect the wealth
of the country as much as the gain or loss of the whole net
profits of our whole foreign commerce.
Such is the magnitude of this interest, from which we
shall readily see the tremendous consequences that may follow from the aye or no of the legislator, or a stroke of his
pen. We may safely adopt it as a general rule, that whatever affects industry, touches a vital part; and the effect of
a policy in promoting or checking industry, is a test of its
being useful or hurtful.
130 
PROPOSITION XXXVII.
Does protection, then, promote or hinder industry? Is its
tendency to supply employment for more or fewer workers?
The question of its effect upon the price of articles consumed
by the worker, is for another place; the proposition here is,
that protection augments employment, and, therefore, makes
a greater demand for work of all kinds; and consequently,
since the price of anything is kept up by its being in demand, and can be kept up in no other way, protection sustains the rate of compensation for work.
How does this appear? It has already appeared in treating of the effect of protection upon agriculture, and is in
fact too obvious to require proof or illustration. The object
of protection is, to employ artisans residing in the country to
make those articles for us that we cannot obtain from abroad,
because foreigners will not, and cannot, take a materially
greater quantity of our exports than they already take. We
already send, besides our other exports, more of our gold
nd silver than we ought to spare from our own currency
and other uses; and, therefore, have no means left of obtaining from the other continent, or the other hemisphere, the
additional quantity of things we need for our necessities and
conveniences, over and above all the exchanges that we can
possibly make abroad. Or, if you please, we can supply
ourselves with our necessaries and conveniences, but desire
to add some luxuries, and have abundance of men ready to
employ themselves for that purpose. Cultivators also wish
to extend their cultivation. The Western farmer wants to
raise more wheat, or more pork-the Carolina planter more
rice -or the tanner of the middle or northern states to tan a
greater number of hides. The foreigner can take no more
of these, being already supplied. In either case, by the
operation of protection, we detail one out of a hundred of
our working men, whether those who employ themselves
131 
PROPOSITION XXXVII.
upon their own materials, or are employed by others at
wages, to produce the additional provisions, and make the
additional quantity of articles wanted. Does not this increase the demand for labor, and, consequently, sustain
wages?   It in fact fills a vacuity.   It gives something
where we should else have nothing. This is the creative
effect of protection, judiciously applied.
This is the ordinary normal condition of this country.
We have filled every corner of the world with whatever its
inhabitants will take and can consume, of our raw products;
and still we have a surplus on hand, and at the same time,
wish to extend the production.   The world cannot open a
market for us outside; our only resort, and the most fortunate one to have, where to open the requisite market, is
within ourselves, by opening which we make room for labor
and its products, and thereby sustain the rate of wages. If
a neighboring artisan supplies us, instead of a German, he
consumes more of our domestic products of all sorts than
the latter could, and supplies employment for others, and
thereby assists to sustain the rewards of industry.
You may, perhaps, say, that this operates unequally on
the different sides of Mason and Dixon's line. It does so;
but when we ascertain that a policy is decidedly the best for
the whole, broadly considered in its general and permanent
operation, it should over-rule inconsiderable, temporary, and
partial inequalities, of which there always will be some, and
they will fall now in favor of this party, and then in favor
of that, so as in the long run, to be fairly balanced.   On
one side of that line, a citizen has an exclusive right only to
his own industry, on the other, besides his own, he has the
exclusive right to that of another. Whatever policy, therefore, enhances the value of labor, and sustains the rate of
wages in the country, operates in favor of the latter in a
132 
PROPOSITION XXXIX.
double ratio. But, were we to boggle at every such local incidental diversity, we should never move a step in either
public or private affairs.
XXXVIII. Free industry, preferable to industry fettered
by free trade.
The people of this country, excepting a small number of
persons, who claim exemption from labor, in virtue of their
vices or incapacity, have their capital partly or wholly in
their faculty for labor. Action, physical and intellectual, in
useful employments, is the source on which they depend,
and free booty, free quarters, free trade, or any other species
of freedom, that deprives them of the use and fruits of this
capital, is not freedom but impediment to them. They
need the legislation that shall extend and promote arts, and
thus, by enlarging the sphere of industry, secure to them
the privilege of working at fair wages. This, as we have
seen, can be done only by the protective system.   Free
trade is the real restrictive system.
XXXIX. Our extent of territory and variety of climate
enable us to extend arts, and thus sustain wages-  The
effect of free trade is stagnation of industry, and con  sequent reduction of wvages to the European level.
Nothing can be done in mechanics without a sufficient
power to put the machinery in motion. The people, in
matters of public economy, are what a power is in mechanical operations. If you have not at the bottom the right
physical, moral, and intellectual endowments, civilization
can, at the best, make but little progress. No one will
12
133 
PROPOSITION XXXIX.
complain of any deficiency in our people for productive
pursuits. We have an immense territory to work in,
including a rich variety of soils and products, adapted to
supply necessary food, clothing, and shelter, at a moderate
expense, not subject to be enhanced for a century to
come, that is, not until our vacant territory shall be fully
occupied for improvement, which will probably require that
period, even under circumstances the most favorable to the
increase of the population. Until the expiration of that
period, we have within our own limits, all the material
elements of growth and strength, and have no occasion,
except in the true spirit of chivalry, to enter the lists of
free trade with any nation whatever, to decide in open battle,
which shall triumph and gain the market for the products of
all the arts, except those of agriculture and fishing; and
which be condemned by defeat to the hewing of wood, and
supplying other rude products of the soil and the waters.
It will be time enough to go out on such an adventure,
when, if ever, the rate of wages in this country, shall have
put our arts on a footing of equal competition, in this particular, with those of the challenger, or the party that we
may in such case ourselves challenge. At present our rate
of wages is high, and the great and indispensable necessaries of life are now, and for many years to come will continue to be, low, whatever may be the course of legislative
policy. But though the products of the soil and the waters
are low, our institutions and the well-being of our population
forbid a sudden and forced reduction of the rate of the
earnings of industry.
If the view taken under previous heads is just, free trade
has a direct and inevitable effect to diminish the means and
demand for industry, and consequently to reduce the rate of
wages; and protection infallibly sustains wages. If we had
134 
PROPOSITION XL.
already passed over all the descent in social deterioration of
the condition of laborers for hire, and found ourselves on the
European level, with three quarters of the population like
England, or nine tenths like Ireland, destitute of property,
and dependent on the wages, larceny or alms, of each day,
for the food of the day, and the wages were at the lowest
point, so as barely to suffice for maintaining existence, it
would then be no treason against the rights of the destitute,
to put them upon a level with their foreign competitors.
But to precipitate them into that condition, is an inhuman
policy, and it is that of free trade.
XL. Vicinity of artisans and cultivators is a great mu  tual advantage to both-  Free trade puts them to great
distances from each other.
It is profoundly remarked by Hamilton, in his report on
manufactures, that it is a great advantage to those to be
supplied with the products of any art, to be near to the
place where it is carried on.  Every man has constant experience of this truth, in his greater or less distance from the
shoemaker, blacksmith, trader, school, the physician, or practiser of any art or species of industry, with whom he exchanges the products of his own labor.   The parties are
known to each other, and each has a reputation to maintain,
which promotes fair dealing.
The facility of communication is a great matter. A person in the midst of the practice of an art, is a better judge
of the quality of its products than those at a distance, since
he is in the habit of seeing a greater variety of its products
than those who depend on a far-off supply. What is considered to be a good silk fabric here, is counted very ordinary
135 
PROPOSITION XL.
at Canton. The English, a few years ago, put into the market what appeared to be a facsimile of an American cotton
fabric, and put it into the American, as well as other foreign
markets, at a lower price, and drove out very much of the
American article from our own, as well as other markets.
But, on trying the substitute, the similarity proved to be
only apparent, arising merely from the finish, and wearing
and washing proved it to be sleazy, and it was given
up after the first year in the United States, for the people
here, being in the vicinity of manufactures of the kind, had
become quick observers and good connoisseurs of the quality
of such fabrics; but abroad, in countries where there are no
manufactures of the sort, the British article was not so easily
displaced.*
I suppose I shall be entirely safe in making inferences
from the fact, that the vicinity of mutual producers and consumers to each other, is very advantageous to both, in many
respects; a fact to which we should probably arrive by reasoning a'priori, though we had no specific example.
Protection tends to bring the parties, who mutually exchange with each other the products of their labor, near
together. Free trade not only tends, but expressly professes and endeavors, to put them on opposite sides of the
Atlantic.
* I have this from a gentleman whose name would be good authority.
136 
PROPOSITION XLI.
XLI. Protection operates for the beneft of those in the
interior in a far greater ratio than for that of those
near to the coast and ports - Free trade tends to make a
few great commercial towns, and a thinly settled poor
interior country.
I was the other day informed by a gentleman from Chicago, that a company in the interior of Illinois are putting
up a woolen factory.  It struck me as not being a wild notion in those projectors to undertake to make the wool, grown
in their own vicinity, in a factory on the spot, (supplied with
building materials, provisions, and fuel, by near proprietors
of land,) into cloth to be worn in the same vicinity. And
when I recently met with a machinist on his way to Alabama,
to set up the machinery of a cotton-mill there, it seemed to
me not at all wonderful, that the idea of putting such machinery in motion there, should occur to an inhabitant of
that state.
It is possible that Mr. Walker, in his next Secretary's
report, may remark on the folly of the undertakers of these
enterprises, as he did, in his last, on that of those who supplied the country with such cloths as they could make on
the spur of the moment, during the last war, when nothing
could be brought from England, and whose establishments
had gone to ruin after the peace. It may perhaps prove to
have been unwise, to trust to the wisdom of our legislation
the contrary is, however, to be hoped.
These two instances may serve as illustrations of the general tendency of certain descriptions of arts, to migrate into
the interior. Mechanic arts follow the example of agriculture; in both cases, those on the frontiers of the region
already occupied, are the pioneers in the new.    The first
step in every art, as well as science, is, to learn what  is
12*
137 
PROPOSITION  XLI.
already known, and this is most easily done by those who
are'in greatest communication with the present masters.
Some arts were brought into this country by the original
settlers, and additions have been made to them from time to
time, for two centuries and more.   In the early stages of an
art, the Europeans are our instructors; and we, in many
cases, import the artist himself, and learn his arts from him
practically here on the spot, and employ him until he becomes perverse and impracticable, as not unfrequently happens; and then let some of our own people take up the art,
and go on with it, until it is brought to the degree of improvement already attained in Europe, and then we are just
as likely to repay them by our further improvements as to
avail ourselves of theirs.
The art being once naturalized at the centres of foreign
intercourse on the coast, is then easily communicated to the
interior. This is the process that has been going on now
for twenty-five years, at one time briskly, then sluggishly,
according to the state of business and of legislation. The
proposition of Mr. Polk and Mr. Walker to abandon all our
acquisitions in this form of civilization, and relapse into the
rudest agriculture and arts, after the colonial model, is parallel to the rash, perilous caution or party hostility of some
of our statesmen in the affairs of individual states, who,
when a state had deeply implicated its credit and resources,
in a hal -finished railroad, proposed to stop short there.
Certain species of arts, in certain degrees of their improvement, thus pass from point to point in the interior,
and, in the natural course of things, this proceeds until manufacturing arts and processes, on a small scale and large
scale, according to the circumstances, are gradually disseminated throughout the country, and brought into proximity
to agriculture and horticulture, each one auxiliary to every
I..15 8 
PROPOSITION  XLI.
other, throughout our territory, from east to west, and from
north to south.
Which then, in the long run, is most benefited by this
propagation of the arts, the interior or the sea-board? Evidently the interior; for suppose we stop midway, or according to the inculcations of Mr. Polk and his Secretary, and
other counsellors, the representatives of foreign manufacturers, and the whole corps of thorough-going disciples of
free trade, we relapse into a merely agricultural and grazing
country; a nation of husbandmen, herdsmen and shepherds,
spread over the whole breadth of the continent, relying
upon the discovery of an abysm of a market in some remote region, that would be always open for such a vast export,
rivalling the icebergs in magnitude, if it all could float
in so large masses; and return us a great profit in manufactures.  This, chimerical as it may seem, is precisely and literally, the vision of free trade.*  Who then, have the best
chance in this exchange of our raw products for the manufactures of the artists beyond sea, the inhabitants of the
coast, or those of the interior? Plainly the former, for all
the raw products from the interior must go through their
hands and pay them a commission, on their destination to
the foreign market; and all imports taken in exchange must
also pass through their hands on their way to the consumer
in Illinois or Minesota, and pay them a commission, and be
chargeable with the land transportation besides.   The result
necessarily is, that those near the coast will sell their raw
products ten to twenty per cent. higher, and obtain their im
* In case of doubt, see Mr. Secretary Walker's Treasury Report, 1848; I
might also add, see the free-trade writings, passim. I refer also to the previous
head on the subject of the foreign abysmal markets, that caninot be glutted or
sufficiently suppilied -universally supposed to exist, and taken for granted, by
all the free-trade writers.
139 
PROPOSITION XLI.
ports ten to twenty per cent. lower, than the victims of
free trade residing between the Alleghanies and the Rocky
Mountains.
But suppose, in consequence of the protection and encouragement of our own domestic industry and arts, the
business of making the ordinary substantial articles of use
and consumption, which constitute, in fact, the greatest
bulk and value of the whole consumption, becomes disseminated in the interior, in all the various localities, according
as each is best adapted to any particular product of the various arts and trades.   In that case, the inhabitants of the
interior will be supplied with all the pain domestic products
to which their vicinity is adapted, at as cheap a rate as those
.near the coast; and, in many articles, at a cheaper rate, by
a difference of ten to twenty per cent.
This ought to be a strong argument in free-trade reasoning,
which goes wholly on cheapness; but it does not come
within the limits of that logic which is confined to the
present money price exclusively, and contemplates nothing
but foreign imports to affect price, as already shown under
other heads. The system of duly applied protection, and of
the progress of American industry, that is, of progressional
civilization, considers the other direct effects of such a dif
fusion of the arts throughout the country, as of much greater
importance, for it gives a near and steady market in every
part of the country for the products of cultivation, influenced,
it is true, by the rain and sunshine of the surrounding country, as it must be, but not dependent upon the short crops,
war and peace, and other vicissitudes of the distant quarters
of the globe. It brings the producers and consumers of a
great variety of articles into vicinity to each other, in every
fertile ten miles square of the country, each locality sup
plying itself with the products of agriculture or arts, to
140 
PROPOSITION XLI.
which it is adapted. It augments employment, stimulates
invention, encourages improvement, gives facilities for social
intercourse and education, in every interior locality that has
any basis of growth, either in its soil or situation. These
are the circumstances that tell in the well-being of the
people, incomparably more than the difference of twenty
per cent., or thirty per cent., in the present money price of
exchanged products of labor, whether that percentage be
one way or the other.
But the mere matter of profit and loss, estimated on the
prices of articles bought and sold, will, under protection,
in the long run, infallibly come on the credit side, in the
interior, whatever may be its effect on the borders of the
oceans, or great rivers. If a farmer makes a permanent
stone-fence to protect his crops, he estimates, in his profit
and loss, not merely the produce of the year, but the addition to the permanent value of the land.  So it is in the
introduction and improvement of the useful arts, the incidental and lasting results in a pecuniary estimate, make a
great item in the account, and are more striking in the interior, where the value of every acre of soil, and every forest
tree, and every fossil, and every raw product that can be
used and consumed in the vicinity, is enhanced on the approximation of population, that is, of a market.
If I am not mistaken, we have seen, under other heads,
that useful arts are multiplied and improved by encouragement, and never did, and never can flourish without it, in
this or any other country; and that it is the great function
of legislation to foster them.   And unless there is some
very great error in the data stated under this present head,
the interior of any great country, and of the United States
especially, has by far the greatest interest in the protective
system.
141 
PROPOSITION XLII.
XLII. It is not expedient to put off the cultivation and
practice of the useful and ornamental arts in the LUnited
States, until the average of the aggregate money rates of
rents, interest, and wages, is as low as in the rival
places of production in Europe-Free  trade teaches
that it is expedient to do so.
Free trade says we must have only those arts in which we
can now, at the time being, come down to the European
level in the money cost and price in our own market. Now,
everybody knows that the cost of every article consists of
rent, interest, and labor; and the proposition of free trade is,
that we should by no means make for ourselves any article,
the amount of the rent, interest, wages, and freight, going
to the production, manufacture, and delivery of which in our
market, is not less than those of the same article produced
in any country in the world.
In the present state of transportation, freight is a very
trifling item in   articles of any considerable value in comparison with the weight and bulk. In the belligerent hurlyburly to come off in Europe, by and by, when the question
of civilization and barbarism shall come up to be determined
between Russia, as formerly between Turkey, and the rest
of Europe, and foreign freights and insurance shall be manifoldly enhanced thereby, then, according to the free-trade
formulary, it will be quite expedient for enterprizing men, if
there shall be such, to borrow of capitalists, if such there
shall be, at the current rate of interest, the wherewithal to put
up buildings, erect works, and employ men, and to devise
and make tools, and teach workmen a great variety of new
arts, manufactures, and modes of production, in order to
supply the wants of the country, during the storm; all such
142 
PROPOSITION XLII.
works to be crushed, and abandoned, when it shall have
passed over, and the undertakers, lenders, artists, and
laborers, buried under the ruins, as in 1816 to 1820. Mr.
Walker* and other seilf-gratulating free-trade speculators,
meantime pointing with complacent satisfaction, to such
monuments of folly, and extolling the wisdom of free trade.
But at present the way is open to the ends of the earth,
and not infested by any commissioned waylayer, or "seasolicitor," and all races and tribes are neighbors, and pass
articles to and fro with great facility, at very low freights
and insurance. Accordingly, the competition of domestic
and foreign industry is decided substantially, in respect to a
vast proportion of commodities, by the comparative rates of
rents, interest, and wages.    Rents are of most material
account in certain agricultural articles. Our money price
of most products used as materials in the arts, is, in a very
large proportion fully equal to or above the European, and in
the rest a very little lower. The rate of interest and wages,
which constitute a large part of the cost of the products of
the arts, is in general nearly twice as high in the United
States as in Europe. Interest cannot be brought down to
the European standard, until after some years of the prosperous cultivation of arts and commerce, and consequent accumulation of capital.   The promoters of free trade, therefore,
expect to begin the introduction of the arts, if at all, by
reducing wages to three fifths of the present rate.  Is it
not better to proceed now in sustaining and extending the
arts, and thus, if possible, sustain wages at the present rate,
at least for one or two centuries?
* See his Report, 1848.
143 
PROPOSITION XLIII.
XLIII. It is not for the interest of the country to put off
each useful art, until our own artisans have as great
skill in it as artisans in countries abroad, where it has
been practised for centuries-Free trade proposes that
we should do so.
It is plain that a less skilful artist will be beaten in a
competition with one more so, all other things being equal.
The British advocates of free trade, in leading periodicals,
and their statesmen, in public addresses, claim a vast superiority for their artisans over those of other countries, in the
useful arts generally, alleging them to be at least twenty
years in advance. Our advocates of free trade say, that at
the proper time our arts "will encourage themselves," * and
that it is altogether unadvisable to think of introducing any
particular art into the United States until our artisans- of
which, upon their system, we shall have none - have
advanced in skill, equal to that gained by twenty years of
assiduous study and practice of the art, in which, of course,
they can have no practice at all. This is going beyond
the maxim, that the boy must not go into the water until he
has learned to swim, for it requires that he shall wait until
he is expert enough to beat the best swimmer! How many
centuries hence do the expositors of free trade calculate to
be the time when the unaided, unpractised, useful and ornamental arts, would, on their system, effectively "encourage
themselves" in the United States?
* Walker's Report, 1848.
144 
PROPOSITION XLIV.
XLIV. A duty, however great, cannot operate to give any
class of producers an excessive proft  but for a short
period-Free trade pretends that it gives a permanent
advantage to the class.
The duty on an imported article may be raised in such
manner as, for a time, to give those engaged in the domestic
manufacture of a like thing, a profit exceeding the ordinary
rate in business generally. It may be expedient to do this,
where there is a pressing exigency for the enlargement and
full establishment of a branch of production. Such a stimulus to the domestic production of hemp, wool, or iron, would
be advantageous, where great embarrassment and sacrifices
were foreseen from the deficiency of the domestic production.
That expediency is not the present inquiry. We will limit
ourselves here to the proposition, that by raising the duties,
the proft of the domestic production may be enhanced, where
there was already some profit, and a possibility of one may
be induced, where it was before impossible. This result
may be accompanied by an enhancement of the price of the
article to the consumer; or it may be effected without any
such enhancement, as is shown plainly, I venture to say,
under other heads. But we are not now occupied with this
question any more than the other one of expediency, the
case here in question being the fact of the enhancement of
the profit of the domestic production by raising the duty
on the imports.
So the profit on a domestic production may be reduced in
consequence of a reduction of the duty on the importation of
a like article, and the value of the investment, in the instruments and means of the production, may thus be annihilated
or materially reduced, to the ruin of those concerned, as
many have learned by experience.
13
145 
PROPOSITION XLIV.
It hence appears how very important it is to maintain a
judicious tariff of duties, which I understand to be one
that is adapted and adequate to raise revenue and promote
industry, according as the object is either or both.
In all matters of financial policy, it is one great object not
to embarrass industry, and if possible to promote it. Where
the principles-I repeat, the principles-of the system
continue to be uniform, though their application should, from
time to time, be revised and modified, there would never be
those excessive enhancements or ruinous reductions of profits
by the mere effect of an alteration of the revenue laws,
that are sure to follow the vibrations of a system from one
extreme to the other. If the public may be prejudiced by
the sudden and excessive, that is, superfluous, enhancement
of profits in any branch of production by reason of injudiciously raising a duty on imports, as certainly it may be;
and if it may be prejudiced still more by an injudicious
reduction, this is a reason for avoiding such extremes.
If the determination is not to vibrate from extreme to
extreme, nor to adhere to the medium of an adequate, and
only adequate, rate of duty for both protection and revenue,
but to abide forever in one extreme, the low one is incomparably the more disastrous, as applied to the United States,
since it inevitably impoverishes the country, and reduces it
to be a mere parasitic dependent upon a foreign one.
A high tariff, applied to articles for the domestic production of which the country is well adapted (and nobody contends in behalf of any other) if steadily adhered to, can, at
the worst, enhance profits excessively only for a short period,
for, as all the world knows, profits tend to equality, and, in
this country especially, where the people rush into new pursuits with great alacrity, the excessive profits of any branch
of production are sooner reduced to the general level, than
146 
PROPOSITION XLIV.
in any other whatsoever. And it thus appears, that so far
as individual benefit is concerned,- the inequality of excess
of profit, if it really exist, is but for a short period, and is,
moreover, always followed by a corresponding reduction, or
absolute loss, brought about by the domestic competition that
is sure to follow. The danger of this consequence was one
of Mr. Secretary Walker's pretended objections to the tariff
of 1842.*
The enhancement of profits thus caused, when it is in fact
caused, will be of longer duration in some branches of production than in others. I will not, however, go into particular consideration of its duration in one as compared with
another, but rest with the proposition that it is necessarily
temporary.
The ordinary object of protection is not to give any
such enhancement of the profit of any particular production
over the average rate, but merely to sustain it, because it is,
at its starting, (or was, forty, fifty, or sixty years ago at
its starting,) decided to be for the interest of the country
to sustain it. It is possible that, in so doing, under the
circumstances, a temporary enhancement of profit to those
concerned, will be incidentally occasioned by the measures
that are indispensably necessary in order to sustain the
business. If so, it is among the thousand temporary private
advantages and disadvantages unavoidably incidental to all
public proceedings. It is impossible to grant a right to
make a railroad or canal, or to make war or peace, or extend
a mail route, or do any other important public act, without
incidentally benefiting or prejudicing some individuals for a
time, or permanently.   In such eases, the citizens thus
expecting to be benefited, will promote the act, and those
* Report of 1848.
147 
PROPOSITION XLV.
fearing injury, will oppose it; and instead of making an outcry against them for so doing, you listen to what they say on
either side; and if any foreigner, who has no interest in the
matter by treaty or international law, or a title under our
own law, but only a foreign public or private antagonist
interest, should mix himself up in this matter, you would
deem it obtrusive, and turn a deaf ear,* instead of listening
to him, and advising with him, and turning a deaf ear to
your own citizens, as was done in concocting the tariff of
1846.
XLV. The merely adequate degree of protection should be
adhered to-Pretence of monopoly.
Free-trade writers speak as if protection was a sort of
gratuitous grant to particular classes or persons. Such a
representation is not surprising in inflammatory declamations addressed to bad passions and narrow prejudices,
but is out of place in grave debates and treatises. A protectionist proposes the encouragement of a particular branch
of business begun, or to be introduced, as being of public
utility. He asks nothing for himself exclusively. He does
not apply for a monopoly of a trade, or an exclusive right
against other citizens, for the practice of a manufacture, or
any branch of production, like the applicant for a patent.
Let the proposition be, that certain descriptions of the
products of the earth, or of any art, shall finally, after the
production is fully domesticated and established, be supplied
wholly from domestic sources; or let it be eventually to sup
ply substantially the whole consumption of all descriptions
* This was written before Mr. Bulwer put in the British protest against
raising our duty on iron.
148 
PROPOSITION XLV.
of an article from such sources-substantially the whole, not
fully, for whenever, by reason of deficiency in the supply
from home sources, the price is enhanced, this brings in
imports. Thus, where the English or French send an article
of new style, or new fashion, it will be taken at whatever
price, until our own artists betake themselves to the same
production, and thus bring down the price.
So also, when either a foreign or domestic producer makes
a great improvement in a particular art, as in experience
actually happens, he takes his own and the foreign market,
until his competitor adopts the improvement. In these considerations we plainly see a reason why protection should be
only adequate to its object, namely, to give domestic production the opportunity of substantially and generally supplying the domestic markets, so that foreign competition
shall be only occasionally let in for a time, under extraordinary circumstances.
Now, some of the professed advocates of free trade, who
have not bewildered themselves in the metaphysical abstractions of their school, often, impliedly at least, admit that
this medium point is to be sought, and they are thus protectionists, for the protectionists on their side profess to propose,
and no doubt generally intend to propose nothing more.
The difficulty is to hit this just degree, which can be ascertained only by an intimate knowledge of the production of
the particular article, and the trade in it. The principle of
protection is to fix the encouragement at that point; or to let
it be adjusted to that point from time to time in regard to
articles in which the true medium is subject to successive
variations other than the ordinary temporary ones, and thus
effect a supply  for the consumption,  substantially from
domestic resources.
"Monopoly! " says free trade. But, strike off the duty
13*
149 
PROPOSITION XLV.
absolutely, and then the supply is perhaps exclusively in
the hands of the foreign competitor, and so the protectionist
may rejoin, "l]onopoly!" in the same sense of that term;
though it is usually a perversion of the term to apply it in
either case, for in each it is the right of contending with
some hundred thousands of competitors for the supply of the
market. It does not propose in either case to give, nor can
it give, a lasting rate of profit to the producer of the particular article, above the average. In the outset, when the
new production begins under encouragement held out, no individual in the community has any stake at risk. It is the
legislation and the public wants, that invite a domestic supply; but not from A., or B., or C., but from the whole
alphabet.   Subsequently, individuals  have  some  claims,
which it is for the public interest, as well as a matter of
fair dealing, to have in some consideration, as I propose to
show under another head. Suffice it here to say, that protection proposes to hold out a sufficient encouragement to
secure substantially and in general, a supply from domestic
sources, either of particular qualities, or of all qualities of
any kind of production; and if this be called a monopoly, it
is better to give it to our own citizens than to foreigners,
provided the country is well adapted to the production.
Is it not this very monopoly that divers nations are
seeking to obtain for the products of their industry, just
as every producer and trader seeks for such a monopoly
for what he produces or sells? The nation seeks command
of the market abroad by underselling, and the individual
at home by the same means. It is what Great Britain has
been seeking now for two centuries since Cromwell's time
by protection; and what it is now seeking by great professions and some practice of free-trade doctrines.
When a nation thinks it has a decided present advantage
150 
PROPOSITION XLVI.
in supplying any market, it cries out for free trade in such
market in order to keep such advantage; that is, to secure to
itself this so-called monopoly. But the function of legislation is to be very differently exercised in respect to the
domestic and foreign markets, as I persuade myself we have
seen, and shall see plainly, under other heads. It is enough
to say here, that an additional reason for giving domestic arts
protection, is, that they may stand a better chance of gaining
that sort of monopoly of the foreign markets, the importance
of which to the national welfare, is so highly estimated by
free trade.
XLVI. The object of protection is to make the interest of
the public and that of the individual coincide -Free
trade pretence of restriction.
We have already seen, plainly enough, that every man
does not, as a matter of course, always see what is best for
himself for the present and future, and pursue it; and if it
be admitted that he did so, and also that the industry that
each one chooses for himself is, under the then existing circumstances, best for himself and his community, it would prove
nothing to the present purpose. It has no bearing whatever
upon the question whether you shall encourage the home
production of certain articles, by duties on similar imported
ones, or by bounties and rewards, or by honors.
For instance, a certain inventor, after exhausting his patrimony, and spending thirty years of his life under pecuniary
pressure, or on the verge of want, in experiments for improvements in Reed's nail-machine, finally hit upon a very
simple effective one, the patent for which proved to be a
good property, and afforded him a competence. The patentlaw gave him a motive to devote his energies, mental and
151 
PROPOSITION XLVI.
physical, to this pursuit for thirty years, through all his sacrifices and privations, and under that law it proved in the
end to be beneficial to him; and but for that law, must have
been so obviously ruinous that he would not have so devoted
himself; and you may, if you please, assume that it would
not have been advantageous to the public that he should
have done so. The law changes the circumstances, and then,
what would otherwise have been disadvantageous, now proves
eventually to be advantageous, both to him and his country.
This instance serves not only as an illustration of the character of every well-devised law, or judicious public act or
private act, in furtherance of any kind of industry, but also
as an argument in favor of such laws and acts.
Take another instance, not of a permanent public law,
like that providing for patents, but of a special legislative
interposition, that is, the application of a permanent principle of legislation to an exigency of the time. Some thirty
years ago, the French had a discriminating revenue-law,
whereby goods imported into France in a French ship, were
subject to less duty than by a foreign ship. A ship-broker
in Boston,* finding that all our exports to France went by
French ships, on investigation readily discovered the reason,
whereupon a petition to Congress was got up for a countervailing law, and such a law was thereupon passed,t whereby
a fair proportion of the freights was restored to our ships.
The free-trade theorists say, Let other nations pass as many
protective and restrictive laws as they please; it is so much
the worse for them; free trade on our side will countervail
them all, and give us the victory. But neither the French
government nor ours thought so at that time, nor was, nor
is, the fact so. We ran right counter to the pretended tri
f Act. 1820, chap. cxxvi.
152
- Mr. Thomas Thaxter. 
PROPOSITION XLVI.
umphant demonstrations of free4rade science, and thereby
saved our commerce. This, say the professors, was restriction and coercion, and interference with industry, to countervail the like. True, it had a motive, as it always should
have, and was intended to produce an effect upon industry.
There was perceived to be an obstacle to a certain description of American industry and art; and a law was made
whereby to escape or remove it. Denominate this restriction,
or coercion, or licence and freedom, as you please, it was
doubtless eminently expedient; and it may be equally so in
case of other obstacles, whether occasioned by foreign legislation, or foreign policy, or superior arts or factitious advantages, or, in certain, cases, and to a certain extent,
natural advantages.
It is no reply to say that you may offer individuals too
strong motives, and give them too great an impulse in some
particular channel of production; for however commendable
any particular line of policy may be, it may be overdone.
You may ruin yourself, and thus injure the community, by
deeds of charity; but this does not prove it to be a vice in
all cases, and in whatever extent practised. The law, or
the munificence of some association or individual, may, by
its natural tendency, and the effect due to it under ordinary
circumstances, produce excessive excitement towards an object, and this might be a reason why it should be modified.
And on the other hand, where a motive ordinarily will have
but just an adequate effect, yet temporary circumstances
may give it for a time excessive influence, and at another
time prevent its having due influence; this will not be any
reason for modifying it. This comes under the question of
more or less, excess and deficiency, which is no less applicable to the promotion of industry and the protective policy, than to a million of other laudable things.
153 
PROPOSITION XLVI.
Our literature has been enriched by vast contributions of
rhetoric on "restriction," "the restrictive system" meaning
that of protection and encouragement to our national industry. This application of the term restriction, like that of
monopoly, already noticed, is a figurative use of a word denominated catachresis, unless such use of the terms is too
remote from their meaning to come within that sort of
metaphor.
If the encouragement and protection of the products of
any domestic art, are a restriction, by reason of their promoting the home production and diminishing the importation, then is complete free trade in the foreign products of
the same art, doubly a restriction; for it not only prevents
our merchants and traders from purchasing the domestic
products, but also our own artisans from producing them.
The restriction is against trade and production, both. The
artisan desires to produce the thing, the trader is as ready
to deal in the domestic as the foreign product, but both are
prevented by the action or the neglect of the legislature.
The preference given on the score of luxury and superfluity, will sometimes operate in favor of imports, and, at
others, in favor of the domestic products, according as ornamental designs, gloss and finish, or advertising devices, or
huckstering importunity, prevail from time to time, on one
side or the other. But these do not usually determine the
choice; I say, not usually, for sometimes, in very nicely
balanced competition, they do determine the whole current
to be permanently from foreign or domestic sources.
If the consideration of the case of the consumer belongs
in this place at all, it is evident that he is just as much
restricted to the foreign product by free trade where that has
the desired effect, that is, to extinguish the domestic production, as he is to the domestic, in the opposite result of
154 
PROPOSITION XLVII.
protection. But I do not see that he is restrained in either
case. I accordingly dismiss this matter of restriction as a
mere metaphor which may be used as appropriately on one
side as the other.
Whether the price of articles to the domestic consumer is
more enhanced by protection or free trade, and what are the
effects of each, in the long run, is considered under other
heads.
XLVII. The tendency of putting a domestic product into
the market, is, immediately to reduce to the consumer the
cost of the corresponding imported article.
It has always been asserted by protectionists that the immediate effect of domestic production is to reduce the price
of the corresponding imported article, and statistics have
been given to prove it. The advocates of free trade do not
admit this, but usually seek some other cause of the reduction, when they makle any allusion to this subject.   But
they, in effect, admit that the domestic production does reduce the price, and they make this admission in one of their
leading topics; for they say that the introduction of imports
more freely, reduces the price of goods of domestic manufacture in our market, and of course, vice versa, the introduction of domestic goods into our own market, in competition with the imported goods having possession of it, will
have a like effect on the price of them, upon the same principle, the duty still remaining the same.
This frequently embarrasses the undertaking of a new
manufacture.   Thus, when  an establishment for making
lawns was begun about four or five years ago, the imported
article was over twenty-five cents per yard, and after the domestic establishment was put into operation, the price fell
155 
PROPOSITION XLVII.
first, in 1847, to twenty cents; in 1848, to sixteen; and in
1849, to eleven and a half.
Whether this reduction was wholly the effect of the introduction of the products of the new establishment into the
market, might be the subject of opposite opinions, but that
this, if not wholly, was at least partially, the cause, will
hardly be doubted, except by a person under a very strong
prejudice; the additional quantity thus put into the market
being very considerable.
A similar effect has been noticed in very many instances,
at least; I believe in all instances, without exception, when
any considerable quantity of productions of domestic industry has been brought into the market in competition
with the imports, and the price has thereafter been kept at
a reasonable rate, as long as the domestic products have kept
a place in the market.
This consequence has been so frequent, and so apparent,
that the partisans of protection have asserted that the invariable effect of an increase of the duty upon imports, so as
to give confidence in the domestic production, is to reduce
the cost to the consumer.
However this may be, at least, you cannot but admit,
whether you are willing to do so or not, that the introduction
of a large quantity of any article into the market from domestic production, has the effect to reduce the cost to the
consumer, whatever is the occasion of the introduction of
such additional quantity; and, supposing the increase of the
duty to be the occasion, the article may-  I say may- notwithstanding such increase, come to the consumer cheaper
than before; for if you admit, as you must do, that such a
reduction may be thus occasioned, you cannot, without some
data to the contrary, in a particular case, say but that the
reduction from this cause, is more than sufficient to counter
156 
PROPOSITION XLVIII.
vail the tendency of the duty to enhance the price. But I
stop short of this, the proposition being that the introduction of the domestic article has a direct tendency to reduce
the cost to the consumer, and has this effect, except so far
as it is countervailed by an increase of duty or some other
cause.
XLVIII. Protection favors those who use capital- Free
trade those who have it to lend.
One of the old common-places of free-trade declamation
always has been, that protection favors the rich, and free
trade favors the poor. We have seen under other heads
how free trade favors the poor, its tendency in the United
States being to give them leisure and starvation.
The arguments for free trade in England are precisely
those for protection in the United States, for in England the
poor depend for their labor and their bread upon the foreign
market for their manufactures; our poor, what few we have,
and, also those not poor, who rely mostly on their own industry, depend mainly on the domestic market for employment, not upon the foreign. Our foreign trade is unquestionably of great importance; but the home market, as shown
under previous heads, is the seat of our industrial vitality.
Now the object of not merely protective legislation, but
of almost the whole body of legislation, is to promote the
use of capital, not hoarding, not the idle consumption of
rents, though individuals have a right to these privileges.
Both the policy of the law and object of exertion for the
general welfare, are to increase reproduction.   I have
already, in another article, stated what I understand by capital, and what may be readily comprehended to be so by
every one, namely, the land, dwellings, fixtures, and all
14
157 
PROFOSTION XLVII.
movable stock, tools, apparatus, and materials, all vendibles,
including specie and excluding contracts; that is to say,
whatever, in a pecuniary view, is useful and available beneficially to the community.
The object, and, as I have endeavored to show, and I hope
successfully, the demonstrable tendency, in this country, of
protection, is to promote the use of all property whatsoever,
and to bring into activity the industrial faculties and skill
of every industriously inclined person whatsoever.   It is
objected by the free-trade advocates that protection favors
manufacturers; that is, all the enterprizing men who carry on
the useful arts, which are indiscriminately included in manufactures.  Its object undoubtedly is to favor them and all
others employed or interested any way in undertaking, superintending, or working in, any useful art, or in furnishing
food, clothing, shelter, or materials to them; that is, in short,
everybody in the community, except the voluntary drones,
who are very few, and those who are incapacitated through
age or misfortune.
Does any theorist dream, that it is possible to provide by
law any means whereby those employed at wages in any art
or business, shall have full employment, and prosperity,
while those who employ them shall be sinking to insolvency]
Their interests are all bound up together. When the products of an art are in brisk demand, the labor of all those
employed in it is so also, and consequently their wages are
kept up; and if the market for the products of any species
of labor is slack, the demand for the labor is so too, and the
tendency of wages downward.    Therefore, those who say
that protection promotes the activity and prosperity of those
concerned in carrying on the arts, directly admit the success
and expediency of the protective system; and the contrary
doctrine is, as if you were to exhort the crew to sink the
158 
PROPOSITION XLVIII.
ship and themselves in it, because there was a prospect of
a profitable voyage to the owners.
We see by the operation of the dose of free trade administered to the country in 1846, what is its effect upon those
concerned in the arts, either as undertakers or employed
parties. Both suffer together; the former by the want of a
market and by high interest, the latter, by the want of employment and downward tendency of wages.   The lenders
have been the only parties benefited; and we ought to be
glad that anybody has been so; they ought to have their
turn; and we have the universal remedy of free trade to
console us, namely, that the evil will cure itself; that is,
activity will again be revived in those arts that were struck
at, and interest thus again reduced to what it was in 1845,
or those who have been hoping, finding it to be'I against all
hope," give up the struggle, and cease to demand loans.
Adam Smith,* among his very many fallacies, considers
interest and profits as always rising and sinking together,
which is contradicted once in every revolution of the market, as everybody witnesses, for though when the markets
are in the flood, operators may borrow, because profits exceed the rate of interest, yet when the markets are on the
ebb, they borrow for precisely the opposite motive, namely,
to hold on to their products in expectation of a more favorable market, and by so doing, avoid a loss by a sale at a
low price.  High interest is thus alternately paid in every
revolution of the market, at one time to gain a greater
profit, at another to avoid a greater loss.
Now, the tendency of free trade, as already shown, is, to
stop many kinds of production and check all others.  Its
professed object and undoubted effect, is, to take away
* Book 1, ch. 8, p. 120.
159 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
the domestic market from the domestic producer, whether
employer or employed, and thus cut off the profits of one,
and consequently the wages of the other. Its certain,operation accordingly is, to enhance the rate of interest by distress, and thus promote the wealth of lenders at the expense
of the borrowers and the poor.
XLIX. Protection reduces the money price of the great
mnass of the most important productions of the useful
arts - Free trade assumes that it invariably enhances
the money price at a rate equal to that of the duty.
One of the current fallacies in economical speculations,
is, to assume -as universally true, what is so only under particular circumstances, and subject to certain conditions. It
is a fallacy that runs through all Malthuis's science, as he
deemed it to be, of the tendency to the geometrical increase
,of the human species,* and infects all the treatises of the
free-trade sbchool.
It is evident that a duty on import tends to enhance the
present price of an article to the consumer; tends I say; but
to what -degree it will have that effect, and whether it will
have such effect at all, will depend upon the adaptedness of
materials and arts, and the vivacity of the domestic compe"fition, for producing the same thing.
Free trade here puts in the objection, that if it has not
'the effect of enhancing the price, it has no effect, and,
therefore, there is no occasion to impose the duty for proteetion.   This objection has been answered  under other
heads, where it is shown that, in such case, the country is
* See the dissection of this fallacy, Westminster and Foreign Review, for
July, 1848.
160 
PROPOSITION XLI,IX.
not sure to retain the production without protection, and that,
if the cost of the foreign and domestic article is precisely
the same to the consumer, then it is greatly for the advantage of the country to produce it at home, since industry,
employment, improvement in our own arts, that is, the advancement in civilization, and the augmentation of our productive capacity, are involved; and these are among the
leading objects of political association and legislation.
So, where the price of an article is enhanced to the consumer temporarily, by reason of the arts concerned in the
production of it not being yet perfected, or the domestic
competition not being yet sufficiently strenuous, the temporary enhancement is compensated a hundred-fold by domesticating the production.
So, if the article is one of indispensable necessity, and the
being deprived of it by a state of war, by the interruption of
foreign intercourse, by Berlin and Milan decrees, orders in
council, or by reason of the inadequate demand for our own
products in foreign markets to purchase it abroad, would
bring down sudden misery and starvation upon the great
mass of the people, it may be surpassingly expedient to
secure, within ourselves, the means of producing it for ourselves, though it' should, in fact, be at a permanently
enhanced cost to the consumer.
So also, if the article be essential to national defence
so also, if the domestic production of the article be materially
auxiliary to improvements in the arts, or the sciences, or to
education, or to the means of moral culture; or to recreation,
or to melioration of manners, in the community generally.
These are all sufficient and conclusive reasons for encouraging the domestic productions to which the country is
adapted, in due time, and by due degrees. These topics
are noticed under other heads, and my reason for mentioning
14*
161 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
them here incidentally is, lest some reader should not start
fairly and understandingly with me, in what I propose to say
under the present head.
To resume the subject, then, a duty on the import tends
to enhance the present cost of the article to the consumer,
and may have this effect permanently, or, on the contrary,
it may have the certain effect eventually, and after no long
time, to reduce the cost to the consumer, besides producing
the other still more important advantageous consequences on
the general welfare just mentioned. This latter effect will,
I persuade  myself, appear  so plainly, that you will feel
uneasy in not admitting it, however much you may be saturated with free-trade prejudices and fallacies.
But why do I put particular stress upon this fact, if fact it
be? First, because it is important; second, because, though
no attempt is made by free trade to show the contrary that I
am aware of, yet the contrary is assumed and taken for
granted in all the speculations of its school, and this assumptioa is the basis of very much of its vehement protestations
and appeals in popular addresses and writings, and the one
pivot upon which a great part of the abstract sophistry on
that side turns.
This is one of the postulates of that system, which, if you
take away, the whole breaks down; for if you once admit
that some art may be successfully introduced by protection,
which could not be introduced otherwise, and its domestic
products subsequently supplied to consumers cheaper in the
money price,* so as more than to repay the supposed sacrificee made to introduce it, with compound interest at six per
cent. per annum, which is the free-trade formula! for the
calculation; then you have an exception to the dogma of free
* Cheaper, is always the sole point in free trade.
162 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
trade, and consequently the science is gone. For, in that
case you are bound, by your own theory, to come over to
the principle of protection, in respect to such branch of production. And you will readily find many branches that
have, and many more that may, come within this category.
You might open an account current with protection, in the
mercantile style, to test the profit and loss, provided you
would estimate and include all the items, present and future,
on the credit side, if indeed some of them are not above all
such estimate, and abide the result. But at present we will
adopt the free-trade formula, and make our estimate in the
present cash balance, precisely as a purchaser and vender of
an article does, and omit all incidental, indirect, collateral,
future and consequential benefits, which are vastly more
important than the present balance on the cash-book, and
stick to this balance, according to the free-trade system of
book-keeping in matters of legislation and national economy.
Mr. Polk, in his last message to Congress, spoke of agriculture on one side, and the mechanic arts on the other, as
being antagonistic, and assumed the position that these can
be protected only at the expense of agriculture, meaning that
agriculture should be sustained, and these let drop by the
reduction of the duty on imported products of the arts.  Ir.
Walker, the Secretary, and all the rest of the chorus with
him, re-echoed this passage, accompanied by the "organ,"
and a full orchestra} accompaniment of the free-trade press.
This surely stops them from denying, what they and their
sect have been expressly asserting for now these thirty years,
that our present manufactures are of "hot-bed" culture, or,
in other words, have been created and are sustained by the
duties on imports.   The  British manufacturers and their
agents and representatives, in fabricating the tariff of 1846,
also say the same t ing in etect, for they obligingly recom
163 
PROPOSITION  XLIX.
mend that we should reduce the import duty so as to enable
foreign manufacturers to take abroad ten pounds sterling
worth of the cotton, or wool, or wood, which we now manufacture in our own factories and workshops, and at domestic
firesides, and send it back to us in a manufactured form at
the price of fifty pounds sterling, for which it is proposed
that we shall pay the balance of forty pounds in United
States and other stocks; or in gold, if we can get this latter
by digging in California.
It may be that some of the same theorists say, that these
same arts, which we now have, would  have sprung up heretofore, or would spring up hereafter, spontaneously, without
protection.
But asserting a thing does not make it a fact. You might,
with about as much reason, say, when a mountain has been
tunnelled for a railroad or canal, that it was lost labor, for it
would, if let alone, ere now, or hereafter, have removed
itself out of the way suo proprio motu, at the bidding of
some one having faith, which is a mental act largely
reckoned upon by these same theorists. It appears, under
another head, that this supposition of spontaneity is wholly
inconsistent with experience in respect to arts and kinds
of production which are common to all civilized nations.
They do not grow wild any more than wheat and barley,
but are the products only of protected cultivation.   The
partisans of firee trade surely, of all others, are least at
liberty to put forth such a notion, until we can find some
fiee-trade treatise, speech, or public address, that does not
assume and assert as one of its common-places, that the
domestic, mechanic, and chemical arts, the products of which
are turned out in large masses and are of kinds of articles
which are subject to a duty on importation, that gives to
them adequate protection, are in an unnatural, forced, abnor
164 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
mal condition. UJntil we can find some such omission, we are
surely safe in discussions with persons who put forth such
an opinion, in assuming that the establishment and maintenance of such domestic arts, are owing to protection, and of
that very hot-bed production which they cry out against.
Let us now examine into one of the palpable benefits
already derived from the hot-bed. According to the treasury
returns for 1847-8, our exports of manufactures, that is, the
products of the arts other than those concerned in supplying
raw materials, were sixteen and a half millions; five and a
half millions of which consisted of manufactures of cotton.
The proposition of free trade is, that we shall all turn graziers, and farmers, and fishermen, and instead of working up
the raw materials into manufactures in the various arts,
whether practised at the homes of the workmen, or in small
shops, or large factories, should export them to European
work-shops, and take them back in a manufactured state,
at four or five times the price we sell the raw material for,
and find means to pay the balance as we can.
This is literally the proposition of free trade. Those profound political economists stationed in the ports of principal
importation, on salary, or on commission of a certain percentage, to publish superlatives respecting the goods of their
European employers, and in praise of the tariff of 1846, fill
the newspapers and periodicals devoted to their interest with
exhortations and appeals, that call to mind the public ad,
dresses in Germany, in Martin Luther's time, by the venders
of the Pope's indulgences.   They compute in figures, a
saving of twenty or thirty millions a year, I forget how much
exactly, to the country, by importing English, Scotch, and
Swedish iron, and leaving idle the workmen, and deserted
the works, employed previously in making those articles in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. These were the
165 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
sage privy-counsellors of Mr. Walker,  in  projecting his
tariff.
Let us, then, consider this item of sixteen millions and a
half of exports of American manufactures, which they propose to strike out of our commerce.* We shall find it a
very instructive item, of more worth than all the abstract
theories and syllogisms of free trade.
Of this amount, you observe, five and a half millions consisted of cotton fabrics, which will be most convenient for
illustrating our present proposition, because the data respecting this branch of the arts are nearer at hand, and more
satisfactorily settled than in the others, and also because the
particulars of the estimate in this, are stated in a note, under a subsequent head, by reference to which you will be
able to correct my mistakes, if any, and substitute your own
deductions for mine.
In consequence of the duty on imported cotton fabrics, we
have carried the manufacture to such a state of improvement,
that we now export them to foreign countries, and sell them
in foreign markets, in open competition with all the world,
up to what is called number sixteen in fineness of thread.
Now, unless we could, notwithstanding the high price of labor, and high rate of interest in this country, and all our
other disadvantages, put this article aboard ship for export,
at as low a cost in money as any other country can do so,
we could not send it to the foreign market, for in that case,
the exporter could not make any profit upon it, but would
take his trouble for nothing, or actually incur loss by the
operation.t
* I include manufactures of wood, these not being distinguishable in principle from the others put under the head of manufactured articles in the treasury reports of commerce, and many of them are the products of an advanced
state of the arts concerned in their manufacture, the material being a slight
proportion of the cost.
Here the free-trade advocate will  begin to say, "No duty on import is then
166 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
Had we not by forcing in the hot-bed, established the
manufacture of cottons, we must now have been supplied
with them from abroad, upon the free-trade system of cheap
purchases.   But, we  see that we must, in that case, now
have paid as much in money for them in the foreign country,
where we should have been obliged to buy them, as they
now cost us in money at our own doors. I say at our own
doors, for the manufacture of ordinary kinds of plain cotton,
is, in consequence of the protection given to this business
heretofore, now established in the interior, as well as on the
seaboard, in all parts of the country; more than half in number of the factories being in the interior, so that most per..
sons, north and south, east and west, are supplied with substantial fabrics of this kind principally in use, by manufacturers not far distant from them, and at the same rate; that
is, the article does not cost perceptibly more to a consumer
in Ohio or Illinois, than to one near Boston, New York,
or Philadelphia, or  Baltimore.    Many  have  it cheaper.
Taking the whole country through, every consumer is supplied with this species of article in exchange for the products
of his own land or labor, at the lowest price at which it is
sold in the world.
What then, is the average difference in the money price of
an article in the home market, where it is made, and in a
foreign country, three or four thousand miles from the place
of manufacture? There is some difference. It consists of
freight, commissions, insurance, and interest, besides profits
to the importer. I put these, at the lowest, at twelve and a
half per cent. But estimate them in your own way, and
make  your deductions accordingly; you will probably  put
them at fifteen per cent. at least.
necessary." On the contrary, it is essentially necessary, as has fully appeared
in another place.
67 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
You will find, under a subsequent head, the amount
of domestic cotton fabrics consumed in the country, to be
estimated at about fifty-five millions of dollars, to which add
the five and a half millions exported, and you have a
domestic manufacture amounting to sixty and a half millions
annually.
This is the amount of this particular article, that the advocates of free trade say we never ought to have produced
for ourselves, and that we have lost so many millions with
compound interest, by producing for ourselves; and which,
if foreign manufacturers can, by dint of low wages of their
labor, low interest of capital, or immense accumulation of
capital, and gloss in finishing, and noise in hawking, drive
from our own and our foreign market, it will be highly
advantageous to this country to take this whole additional
sixty and a half millions of imports from abroad, and pay
for it at a great bargain in      nobody knows what.  This
is the practical, preposterous result of a logical process, of
what its learned professors are pleased to denominate a
science; and what seems to them conclusive in its favor, is, (as
they gravely assert by way of putting an end to all doubt,)
that if it be not so, then-" Political economy is' no science.'"
What a sore calamity it would be to the civilized world, to
be bereaved of such a science, and have it taught no longer
in our universities, and colleges, and high-schools!
There are eleven millions more of exports of manufactures in the same returns.* This amount includes divers
kinds of articles of which we make for our own consumption
a much greater quantity in proportion to the export, than we
do of cotton-cloths. With many of them we supply our own
consumption entirely. Our artisans have an "odious monopoly" of the supply. Let the average ratio be the same.
This would give of the other articles, hats, furniture, ear
* Supra, p. 165.
168 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
riages, etc., of such kinds as we export more or less of to
foreign countries, one hundred and thirty-two millions of our
own manufactures consumed in the country annually, besides
the eleven millions exported, as you will readily see by
making the figures. But as the ratio of domestic consumption to export is much greater, on an average, in these articles than in cottons, the amount of our consumption of such
domestic products must far exceed one hundred and thirtytwo millions. It must be double, treble, or more.
How much of this amount do the adepts in the science of
the causes of national wealth, of the Adam Smith school,
propose to annihilate, for the purpose of augmenting the
wealth of the United States? If you wish to be satisfied
with my estimate of it, I will refer you to Mr. Secretary
Walker's reports on commerce, manufactures, and the tariff,
and to the speeches and addresses of his collaborators
in the same field. From the augmented revenue anticipated by them to accrue from low duties, and from the
golden Pelions upon Ossas of national wealth piled up to the
heavens by the same giants of political economy, out of the
savings to be made by means of the importation of cheap
products of the arts, I conclude that they estimate an amount
of at least five or six hundred millions of the present annual
products of our own arts, to be destroyed and supplanted.
Let us, however, take the amount only at the above estimated   proportion of one hundred and thirty-two millions,
making, together with the proposed cheap imports of cottons,
the small total of two hundred and nine and three quarters
millions of dollars of imports, at the very lowest estimate,
promised to us by free trade. It seems to promise vastly
more, but this amount, in addition to our present imports of
one hundred and fifty-five millions, is a staggering burthen
enough f or the "science" to  carry to market.   The vast ad                15
169 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
ditional amount of agricultural products which its professors
seem to calculate upon exporting, may be left out of the
question until the foreign demand shall be augmented by
means of the annexation of another planet.
Now then for the result of this tremendous commercial
operation, scientifically promised by free trade.   The proposition that we are now considering, is, that a duty on the
import of an article may have the effect to supply the same
from domestic production, at a cheaper money price to the
consumer, than he could have it at by importation, sup
posing custom-houses were abolished, and the world, from
one polar circle to the other, were the one commercial fraternity which the free-trade thinkers imagine in their daydreams.
In the case supposed, the products of the mechanic arts,
of the kinds such as we now export, would come to us from
abroad, excepting the coarsest, and those for which we have
an advantage in the low cost of materials, or expense of
transportation, amounting to from twenty to forty per cent.,
to countervail the low wages, low interest, greater experience and slkill, and other advantages possessed by our
European competitors. In the commercial millennium supposed by free trade, the Europeans would keep and perpetuate all the advantages they have, and make them greater
every year. This is not deprecated by free trade; on the
contrary, it is one of the effects desired by its professors.
They directly and expressly promise, as a great boon to be
bestowed upon us by their science, that, when the "expected morn" shall have arisen, we shall be, thereafter,
beatified with these additional cheap imports, to replace the
two hundred and nine millions we now have from our own
domestic production, at a less cost to the consumer, reckoned in money merely, by fourteen millions and a half of
170 
PROPOSITION XLIX.,
dollars, than they would be supplied to us for from abroad,
under free trade.
You already see for yourself how this appears. We sell
in the foreign markets some of these same manufactures,
amounting, as you recollect, to sixteen and a half millicns.
Now we know, as already suggested, that no merchant exports goods to any considerable amount, except for a profit.
The freight, insurance, interest, and a reasonable profit, will
amount, as already estimated, to twelve and a half per cent.
The goods will not be exported by the merchant, therefore,
from the United States to a foreign country, or imported
hither from abroad, unless they net, at the port of delivery,
twelve and a half per cent. over their cost at the port of
shipment. You would, therefore, at first suppose that we
are supplied with this whole amount of two hundred and
nine millions of products of domestic arts, at a less cost in
money to the consumer by twelve and a half per cent., than
they would be supplied to him for from abroad, free of duty,
making an annual saving of over twenty-five millions of
dollars to the country.
We certainly could not have begun the manufacture of
cotton without the hot-bed, which was prepared expressly
for this product by the joint work of both northern and
southern legislators - most by southern - in Congress,
on the suggestion of the late Mr. Francis C. Lowell, in
1816. The duty on many other articles of the kinds exported,
that are included in the remaining eleven millions of exported manufactures, besides cottons, was a like hot-bed to
start them, and in many of them, such as articles of leather,
and iron, furniture, carriages, hats, paper, the amount of
domestic consumption compared to that of the export, is
ten-fold, to twenty or thirty-fold, what it is in domestic cotton goods.   But take it to be on an average only the same,
t7l 
PROPOSITION XLIX.
and instead of estimating the saving in the money price to
the domestic consumer on the whole two hundred and nine
millions, estimate it on the same proportion as hereafter in a
subsequent note, in the article of cottons, namely, on one
hundred and seventeen millions.   Though the amount on
which the estimate should be made, is vastly greater, we
will put it at that, or, if you please, at any less amount.
Our people then have, say one hundred and seventeen
millions of domestic products of the mechanic and chemical
-arts, which have been protected, and fostered, and started
:in the hot-bed, which would otherwise have been nipped and
'blasted by foreign competition; and which now come to the
American consumers as cheaply, at least, as to any con,sumers in the world, and twelve and a half per cent. cheaper
than they could have been imported under free trade. Here
:is a reduction of the cost to our domestic consumers on these
articles in the money price, amounting to fourteen and a half
mniillions; thanks to the hot-bed.
I would not be understood to imply that the annual econ~omy from this cause to consumers, in present direct expenditure, independently of all collateral and consequential advantages, is not vastly greater, than that amount, but I am
coming within the limits to which you cannot but assent,
and if the above are too large, reduce them.   Unless you
are entrenched behind some prejudice, or interest, or pride
'of opinion, or esprit du corps, that is reason-proof, you will
find not a few, and not a small amount, of the products of
'the principal domestic arts supplied to the domestic consumers, through the operation of protection, at a less money
price than they would have been, had the custom-houses
been shut up in 1789, and so continued to the present time.
And if you make such a discovery, you will assent to my
proposition, that, "Protection reduces the money price of a
172 
PROPOSITION L.
great mass of the most important productions of the arts."
And if you so assent, you must be a protectionist, at least
to the extent of the saving on the present money price, for
if the question is whether a certain duty is to be imposed or
maintained on a certain article, you will, if your notion of
economy, as a legislator, is like that of an individual in his
own affairs, examine to ascertain whether the article in
question is of the description on which a protective duty
will result in a saving in the present cash account.   The
dogma of free trade will not exonerate you from the obligation to make this inquiry; for you have thus conclusively
shut out let-alone.   But I persuade myself that you will,
on examining the subject, go further, and take into the account, the other collateral, incidental, indirect, and consequential advantages of promoting the arts, which are so
vastly more important than a trifling enhancement or reduction of the present money price of an article; but you
are bound, at any rate, to go as far as this will carry you.
L. D)iminishing the duty on imports does not necessarily
diminish the price   Free trade alleges that it dimin  ishes the price in the ratio of the duty.
It follows from the preceding proposition, that diminishing
the duty on the imported article does not necessarily, and
in all eases, diminish the price to the consumer.   If the
duty were abolished to-day on all the manufactures of the
kinds that we send to foreign markets and sell there against
all competition, it might encourage foreign manufactures to
make use of their larger capital and wider business to drive
our domestic manufactures out of our own market and break
them up; but the same goods would then come to our consumers at a higher price, as already shown. This might be
15*
173 
PROPOSITION LI.
the result of the ordinary operations of trade without any
specific design on the part of the foreign manufacturers, to
crush our manufactures, as is shown under another head.
Therefore, in this ease, taking off the duty entirely, would,
in the event, instead of diminishing the cost of the article
to the consumer, have the effect to enhance it, by, at least,
twelve and a half per cent.
LI. Reducing the duty below the point of adequate protec  tion, on an article of which part of the domestic pro  duction is exported, diminishes the gross amount of im  ports and of revenue - Free trade pretends that it aug  ments both.
We have already seen, that is, if we see alike, that there
may be such a thing as a balance of trade between two countries, or a general balance of all its foreign trade in favor
of or against any one country, and if so, we have seen what
the free-trade writer of 1821, before quoted, calls "a vision."
There may not only be a balance of the whole trade of a
country against it, to be paid in its circulating medium, or
stocks, public or private; but also an outstanding indebtedness going on accumulating and weighing heavier and
heavier upon it, and paralyzing its industry and its arts, and
keeping its currency in a deranged state, for fifty years, as
Adam Smith puts the period in the quotation before made
from him,* and for one hundred and fifty, as was experienced in this country in the colonial and provincial times.
In such case, the country may, by reason of the failure
of its merchants, or by that of its banks and other corporations, the stocks of which have been remitted in payment
* Supra, p. 98.
174 
PROPOSITION LI.
for imports, or by repudiation where the public stocks have
been so remitted, obtain for itself imports, which it never
pays for. This is a source of gain, on which, I presume, no
person, whether on the side of protection or free trade, will
calculate as part of his system for economical growth and
social progress, any more than he would upon piracy.
Excepting such gain, if such it can be called, which
always, like other errors, brings with itself distressing retributions, all the imports into a country must be paid for by
its exports and its earnings by navigation. The income to
a country from navigation, will usually depend materially
upon its exports, at least ours does so, for our outward
freights, taken altogether, are much greater than the homeward; and we now carry between foreign ports very little,
as I understand, except in connection with the transportation
of our own exports. In other words, our ships go from our
own ports, and after a circuit of two, three, or more passages, return home. They do not generally remain abroad,
as the Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch seem sometimes to
have done, to carry on navigation between third countries,
though they do considerable transportation between foreign
ports in connection with the transportation of our own exports and imports.
We ought to keep one half, at least, of the carrying between the United States and foreign countries, though we
may easily lose this and our coasting trade besides, by being
over-reached in commercial conventions, a sort of game to
which we seem, at present, to be able to bring quite as much
confidence as skill; and to be in danger of seizing for prey,
what will prove to be bait.
But we will suppose that we keep our just proportion of
our foreign, and all of our coasting, trade.   The income, or
profits, or earnings, whichever you may prefer to call it, of
175 
PROPOSITION LI.
our foreign navigation, may be assumed to be governed by
the amount of our imports and exports, and to increase and
decrease proportionally with them. We may accordingly
omit the separate consideration of freight, and, for our
present purpose, regard it as included in the value of our
exports; as it, in fact, practically is, for it constitutes a part
of their value in the foreign markets, where they are disposed of.
Excluding, then, acquisitions of imports by means of insolvency and repudiation, and considering the freights of
our navigation to be included in the value of our exports,
our imports cannot exceed the value of our exports, which
foreign countries will buy of us and pay for at a price in
money, some twelve and a half to twenty, twenty-five, or
thirty per cent. higher than our market price.*
Is, then, the quantity these foreign countries will take
of our exports, and pay such prices for, unlimited?   Is it
infinite? Free trade says it is. This assumption has been
examined already under a previous head, to which I here
refer; and if you shall, notwithstanding, still have faith in
the infinitude of such foreign market, sufficient for all our
exports, actual and possible, at such a price, leaving still an
immeasurable chasm, that cannot be filled, according to the
fundamental incredible dogma of the free4-trade science, then
I have no premises with which you can proceed with me
under the present head. But if you suppose that we now,
pretty fully supply, and do, in fact, often glut, the foreign
markets with most kinds of our exports, and have no small
surplus left over for the next year, unless they are too perishable to survive; then I can take you with me, in the
little remaining to be said upon the present proposition.
* The freights of lumber and other articles of small value in comparison to
their bulk, are subject, of course, to a freight that is very high in proportion to
their value.
176 
PROPOSITION LI.
I say, then, that we now in general fully fill, and sometimes overcharge, the foreign markets with the articles that
it is possible to export, and that we have no means of paying for imports but by exports. It follows, consequently,
that whatever diminishes the value of our exports, has the
inevitable effect to diminish our imports. If this is the necessary effect of the free trade proposed by our doctors of
that science, then we may apply to their prescriptions what
Macbeth said of physic, to his doctor. We now export sixteen and a half millions of manufactures. They propose to
substitute agricultural productions for a great part, at least,
of these manufactures, and to depend on the export of provisions and raw materials. We now fill the markets with
these, and should we cease to export the sixteen and a half
millions of manufactures, as proposed, we should thereby
diminish the value that we now put into the foreign markets,
by some ten millions, more or less.   The computation is
thus: - Let the raw materials for these sixteen and a half millions of exports be six and a half millions. Admitting that
we could find a foreign market for these additional six and a
half millions, which is admitting a gross improbability, still,
at this best result that we can thus make to help free trade,
it leaves us a deficit of ten millions in the value of our exports in the foreign markets to buy imports with.   This
effect of free trade, desired by its advocates, would diminish
our imports ten millions of dollars, estimated at the foreign
market price. Consequently we have so much less of imports to raise revenue upon, so that the revenue would, at
any given rate of duty, be less, and be subject to still greater
diminution by the reduction of the rate of duty.
Vary the estimate if you choose, still the result will, in
spite of your prejudices and biases, if such you have, come
out on the same side, if not in the same amount.
177 
PROPOSITION LII.
Therefore, in such case, (and the case comprehends a
vast proportion of our industrial system,) I think we may
say without qualification, that reducing the duty below the
point of adequate protection, has the certain effect of reducing the amount of imports, and that of the revenue.
The effect may be modified, temporarily, by a foreign
famine, or a disturbance of foreign industry by war, or some
other calamity, giving us relief through the distress of other
countries; or by the excessive export of the precious metals,
which brings present distress to ourselves; or the effect may
be postponed by remitting public stocks, and running up an
immense foreign credit, which is merely putting off the evil
day, and meanwhile aggravating the evil, as we have been
doing for three years past. Such intervening circumstances
may afford plausible opportunity for fallacies and unsubstantial pretences in behalf of free trade, apologizing for it, and
giving it the credit due to a war, or famine, etc., and for otherwise "clouding high matter with dark words;" * but that
such in general, on the whole, is the certain effect, I venture
to say, beyond any reasonable doubt.
LII. In stating the account with protection, it is to be cr-ed  ited with what it saves to the country; the balance is in
its favor, even by the erroneous free-trade rule for stating
the account- It is incalculably more so in a true state  ment of it.
My object being to present the outlines of free trade and
protection, in a condensed and plain form, and to bring them
within the reach of every reader, whether man of business
or leisure, I often omit what has been said on different top
* Athenae Oxonienses. Vita Rob. Fludd, a Rosacrucian, Anno, 1637.
178 
PROPOSITION LII.
ics, and not unfrequently considerations that occur to me
which I do not recollect to have met with; and on the present subject of unproductive taxation, by duties- for that
is, as you see, really the subject- I feel obliged to confine
myself to a very concise abridgement which I am the more
ready to do, as it has been elaborately presented in, perhaps,
all its phases, in all degrees of exaggeration and extenuation, and is in short so stale and used up, that I ought to
express my acknowledgements to you for reading thus far;
and I make this preliminary apology by way of saying to you
at the beginning, what Diogenes said to his impatient fellow sufferers, on catching a glimpse of the end of a tiresome
discourse, " Cheer up, my friends, we begin to see land."
The question here, is, under what circumstances, and in
what degree, a duty operates as a tax, without yielding a
proportional revenue. The advocates of free trade object,
that a duty on articles, such as are produced in the country,
whether in agriculture or by other arts, enhances the price
to the consumer, not only of what is imported, but of the
whole domestic production of the same species of article,
by an amount equal to, or rather exceeding, the duty- exceeding, because the importer will charge interest and profits
on the amount which he advances for the duty.
This is one of the propositions, which, being true under
certain conditions to a limited extent, the scientific economists assume to be universally true, like a geometrical theorem; and having thus converted it into a fallacy, proceed
to work out demonstrations with it. Mr. Secretary Walker
made up a great part of some of his reports with this same
fallacy. It is quite a transparent fallacy, as you will readily
perceive, if you have not already done so.
According to the estimate of the commissioner of patents,
the crop of wheat in the country, in 1848, at a dollar and
179 
PROPOSITION LIIl
fifteen cents per bushel, amounted to one hundred and fortyfive millions; and of wheat, Indian corn, barley, rye, oats,
beans and peas, to six hundred and seven millions; the duty
on these imports being twenty per cent. The potatoe crop
was supposed to be thirty-two millions, the duty being thirty
per cent.   If, therefore, we suppose the duty to have been
paid on a valuation of half of the above amounts, we sustained,
according to the infallible "science" of free trade, (as expounded by Mr. Walker, who speaks in the esoteric style
of the sect which Great Britain advises this country to join,)
a gratuitous dead sacrifice in that year, of fourteen millions,
by raising our own wheat instead of importing it, and sixty
millions by raising that and the other articles, just named
with it, and subject to the same duty, instead of importing
them all, and nearly five millions more by raising our own
potatoes. According to that science, we should have saved
during that one year, by importing all those articles from
abroad, sixty-five and a half millions of dollars, and if we
had pursued the same policy the previous year, we should
have thus saved twice that amount; enough to have paid our
debt for the war with Mexico, and the purchase of California and New Mexico, and had a large surplus in the treasury. Such are the prodigies that we are told would have
come of the "wonder-working" of the let-alone.
If you doubt whether I am giving a genuine specimen of
the logical deductions of the economical science of Adam
Smith, and Mr. Walker, and the agents of foreign manufacturers in our sea-ports, it is because you have not read
the seeretary's report, and the treatises of free-trade economists, and the profound articles on this subject in the freetrade periodicals; and I accordingly have the honor of initiating you into that transcendent science.
The free-traders in Great Britain illustrate their doctrines
iso 
PROPOSITION LII.
out of agriculture, those of the United States out of other
arts, the case being precisely reversed in the two countries,
but the theory is equally applicable in either case. Apply
it then in domestic manufactures, as Mr. Walker did in
his report, the estimate of which in the United States for
the same year, by the Commissioner of Patents, was
$550,000,000. This comprises all the manufactures, those
subject to duties on imports, as well as those that are free,
and we will assume the proportion of free articles of manufacture to be the same as that of the imports generally,
namely one seventh. This will give us $470,000,000 of
domestic products of the arts, such as are subject to a duty
on importation. This duty is, on an average, somewhere
about twenty per cent.
We will assume that- they pay duty on importation at
seventy per cent. of their value as estimated in the report of
the Commissioner of Patents.
Our gratuitous dead loss then, according to free trade, by
making our own clothes, hats, shoes, furniture, and divers
other products of our domestic arts, instead of purchasing
them all at imagined great bargains from foreign manufacturers, with imaginary means to pay for them, was, in the
same year, 1848, $66,000,000; very near the amount we
sacrificed, according to the same veritable science, by raising
our own wheat, corn, potatoes, etc., instead of importing
them.
This is somewhat staggering to men of little faith, and not
yet thoroughly indoctrinated in the mysteries of the science,
but one who has attained to the degree of doctor in it, will
follow the example of Dr. M'Culloch, when interrogated by
a committee of parliament respecting the effects of absenteeism on Ireland. He did not boggle in the least at the
dilemma, but answered straight, as he was bound to do by
16 
181 
PROPOSITION LII.
the "science" of which he is one of the luminaries, that it
was not in the least prejudicial. He says the same in his
published treatises. You are bound to have an unqualified
faith in the above results, and others no less marvellous, under the penalty of being written down with Dogberry by the
professors of that sort of political economy, which is now
daily taught in our colleges and public schools.
For myself, I plead guilty. I make confession that I
have not the least faith in those marvellous deductions of freetrade dialectics. I have already given some reasons for this
lack of faith under preceding heads, where it is proved, unless the premises are disputed, that all domestic products
whatsoever, whether of mechanic arts or agriculture, that we
sell in foreign markets upon a footing of equal competition
with all other producers, are supplied by our own industry
to our own consumers, not merely at as low, but at a lower
present money price by one eighth, than they could obtain
them by importation, even if we could produce or procure
anything exportable to pay for them, which we evidently
could not do; and also that the advantage thus derived from
domestic products of the arts to our own consumers in the
interior, is vastly greater in proportion than that derived
to consumfers residing near the points of foreign importation.
Those employed to drum up orders to foreign manufacturers, and here and there a paid editor, will no doubt continue to utter and publish that the prices of our domestic
products are invariably enhanced to the consumers, by an
amount at least equal to that of the duty on like imported
articles, and more enhanced to those consumers living in the
interior, that is to the farmers and planters, than to people
on the coast and at the commercial centres,- but with how
much reason, I leave to your decision.
Dismissing, then, that proportion of the consumption of
lS2 
PROPOSITION LII.
domestic products in the country, (comprehending, as you
have seen, very nearly the whole amount of our consumption,) on which there is not only no ground, or pretenee
of ground for alleging a tax without revenue, but which,
on the contrary, has been proved to come to the consumer
at a much less present money price than articles of like
quality would be supplied to him through importation,
free of duty, if they could be so obtained and paid for,
which they could not be; we now come to kinds and
qualities of products of our domestic arts, such as are
consumed in the country without the exportation of any of
the like kind or quality in any appreciable quantity. These
are the only products of our arts concerning which there can
be any question about taxation beyond the amount of revenue thereby produced.
One object of levying a duty is revenue, and where the
article is not produced in the country at all, as spices, sundry wines, spirits, fruits, etc., with various refined manufactures above the reach of our arts at present, or to which our
locality, climate, and raw products, or the habits and character of our people are not adapted, the duty has no effect,
and is not intended to have any on the domestic production.
These articles afford ample subjects for raising revenue by
import, without including tea, coffee, medical drugs, raw
materials for manufacture, and other articles which, in ordinary times, would naturally be admitted free.
Between such articles on one hand, such as we do not
produce for ourselves, and those on the other which we produce and send to foreign markets, in case of their being of
a kind admitting of exportation, lies all the debatable
ground respecting taxation by import, over and above the
amount of revenue thereby yielded. This discussion concerning high tariff and low tariff, in reference to the productiveness of the duties, is confined within these limits.
lS3 
PROPOSITION LII.
IHere you will notice in passing that the number and proportional quantity of our domestic products to which this
supposed objection of taxation without revenue, can be pretended to be applicable, are constantly diminishing, and the
number and comparative quantity of those supplied by our
domestic arts to our own consumers cheaper in money price
than they could be imported duty-free, are pretty steadily
increasing.
It is now only about twenty-five years, since higher and
more complicated mechanical and chemical useful arts, began
to take firm root in the country, and but fifteen or twenty
years since their products have been subjects of export in
any appreciable quantity.
These arts have been twice arrested by legislation, and
some of them brought to a stand, during the twenty-five
years. Yet they have, on the whole, kept on the advance;
so, as at first, to supply the coarser and ruder products, then
those of a superior description; whether at a cheaper or a
dearer rate than they could have been obtained by importation is of small consideration, since nobody, not even the
wildest theoretical dreamer, has dreamed of any specific
possible way of getting the means of being supplied to the
same extent with the same articles, except by our own
domestic arts.
We find that for some twenty years, we have exported
sundry products of our arts in competition with foreign producers, thereby proving that our own consumers were supplied by our own arts with a vast amount of such articles,
cheaper in the money price, than they possibly could have
been supplied with them free of duty.   Since the proportional quantity has been constantly increasing, and we have
no reason to doubt, that, under a protective legislation, it
will continue to increase, it follows that the proportion about
184 
PROPOSITION LII.
which there can be any pretence of unproductive taxation,
is diminishing, and will continue to diminish, in an equivalent ratio.
Before proceeding to the class of domestic products of
which we do not export any appreciable quantity, let us
glance at some of the articles belonging to that division;
and see if we do not find some, of which there can be no
question of the expediency of the domestic production,
though at an expense enhanced above that of importation,
supposing the obtaining of a foreign supply of them to be
practicable.   The two that most obviously present themselves, are iron and wool, and fabrics consisting wholly or
mainly of either, which enter so largely into our consumption; as also into that of every civilized country.   It is not
easy to say which of the two is the more important. The
production and use of both are greatly auxiliary to the different branches of industry, iron more so to the mechanic
arts, wool more directly so to the occupation and improvement of land, of which the country fortunately has an immense surplus. This surplus is of some advantage even if
we propose, in pursuance of the recommendation of Mr.
Secretary Walker and the representatives of European manufacturers, to relapse into the semi-civilized condition of
husbandmen and graziers, with ancillary rude arts up to
Lord Chatham's mark of the "hobnail;" but it is of immensely more importance, if we continue to avail ourselves
of this vast territory to promote our useful arts, by furnishing to them a market expanding itself indefinitely,
commensurately with their growth, and thus, at the same
time, supplying an ever-increasing market for agricultural
products.
Those two species of materials, as also leather and cotton,
come into the category of articles, to the production of
16*
185 
PROPOSITION LII.
which the country is adapted, and with which it is essential
to our national well-being that we should be able to supply
ourselves from our internal resources. They are no less important to us as means of defensive war, than forts, and
military and naval preparations.
" But," says the Edinburgh political economy, "the normal state is that of peace."   Granted, if you please, for
the present purpose; it is very certain that the surest way
for a nation to keep itself in that normal state, is to be prepared for the abnormal one of war. All that can be said
upon this topic is familiar to everybody, and needs not to be
dwelt upon. What seems remarkable, this is one of those
considerations that free-trade philosophy never dreams of,
though it really comes into the question of cheap and dear -
high and low price; but it is not confined to the market
money price to-day, and so is beyond the horizon of that
"science." I repeat, in this connection, that if we include
a tenth part of the incidental advantages, and make out the
cash account for a course of years to come, in all the vicissitudes of foreign trade, in belligerent as well as peaceful
periods, the cheapest-  incomparably cheapest- supply of
the above named articles of iron, wool, leather, cotton, and
others to the production of which the country is adapted,
and standing in the same relation to our industry and wants,
is from our own domestic resources, even admitting the inadmissible possibility of getting means to pay for a foreign
supply of them.
But I maintain that the interest of the country requires
the domestic supply of these articles at whatever present or
permanent enhancement of the money price to the consumer:
on the ground that the other considerations far outweigh any
difference there possibly can be in the money price; and, if
so, the question between protection and free trade is settled.
IS6 
PROPOSITION LII.
It is also settled by another consideration relative to these
same articles, for, as already suggested, nobody dreams of
any possible way of obtaining them otherwise than by domestic production, and nobody will deny that they are indispensably necessary, not merely to our advancement, but also
to the keeping of our present position, in industry, arts, and
civilization. No one, but the veriest transcendental fanatic in
free trade, will pretend that the production of these articles,
will be less economically and vigorously conducted and
brought to perfection, under steady and adequate protection,
than without protection.  In either state of the case, therefore, the palpably true and safe course is protection.
Perhaps you will not be ready to believe that the freetrade policy involves the suppression of the branches of industry in question. The journals of that school not long
since, congratulated the country on the saving of twenty-five
millions of dollars-I think it was that amount - during
the year 1849, by the importation of foreign iron, under the
tariff of 1846, and the consequent ruin of many of our own
iron establishments, which is in reality to congratulate the
country upon the fact that thousands of laborers had been
thrown out of employment. Such was the desired and intended effect of the reduction of the duty. Mr. Walker, in
his memorable report of 1848, asks, "When will they," that
is, the manufactures, "cease to be infant?" implying that
they never will cease to be so. The whole drift of his argument, and that of his school, in regard to what they deem
the "sickly" offspring of protection, is in favor of adopting
the Chinese common-law custom of infanticide.
I may surely presume that the people of this country estimate civilized existence and progress to be of more worth
than cheap purchases abroad, of bar-iron, copper, lead, hats,
boots, wool and ordinary woolen cloths, hemp, etc., etc.
lS7 
PROPOSITION LIT.
Admitting that such purchases could be made, most egregiously cheap in the money price at the time, it should
surely be but a very inconsiderable circumstance, in determining the industrial policy, and the civil and political
destiny, of the country.   The saving of a penny  in the
yard or pound certainly weighs very light against such
considerations.
With these reservations, let us proceed in the inquiry
into the real extent of the saving and loss by protection,
reckoned in the present money price according to the freetrade way. We shall, I am confident, be able to dispel some
of those frightful illusions that have been conjured up on
this subject. When you come near to "the demi-gorgons
and chimeras dire" of home industry, you will find that
they "mock the sense."
In the example we have taken to illustrate the operation
of protection generally, when applied to products to which the
country is adapted, I estimate that there is an annual credit
of near five millions to be given to the protection of our domestic arts, in the manufacture of cotton fabrics, of number
sixteen and under, by reason of a saving of at least twelve
and a half per cent. on the money price of such articles
consumed in the country. The data for this estimate are
given in a subsequent note.
We next come to the division beginning firom number sixteen in fineness, where we suppose export to cease. It does
not cease precisely at that point, for it is said that we send
abroad some fabrics up to number thirty or thirty-one,
and may perhaps import some as low as sixteen; but, at
present, I understand the export substantially ceases at the
latter number. Our own consumption is supplied substantially, though not exclusively, by our own domestic arts, up
to number forty inclusive.   Though we make some articles
iss 
PROPOSITION LII.
of a higher thread, yet, as I am informed, the foreign article prevails above that number. This division of numbers,
sixteen to forty, includes, according to the best estimates I
can get, twelve fiftieths of our whole consumption of domestics; that is, in round numbers, about thirteen out of
fifty-four millions.
Now, as numbers sixteen and under are supplied to our
consumers by domestic arts cheaper in the present money
price by one eighth than they could be by importation free
of duty, if the duty gives an advantage to domestic production over imports equal to the amount actually paid, the
domestic arts will be able to supply the home consumption
in preference to the foreign, up to the point at which the foreign manufacturer, by reason of cheapness of labor abroad,
superior arts and other advantages, can stand the competition
in our market with our domestic producers, notwithstanding
the duty; that is to say, until we arrive at the point where
his advantages of one kind or another are equivalent to the
duty. This point we put above number forty.
In order to know how much the consumer is benefited or
taxed according to free trade, we must see what the duty
really paid amounts to.
Before making that estimate, I will ask your consent to a
short digression, relative to a collateral consideration of some
importance, here presenting itself.
In one of the most able and instructive treatises ever
published on political economy,* it is sagaciously and philosophically suggested, that many objects of vanity, taste, and
* New Principles of Political Economy5 by John Rae. Boston, 1834. This
treatise was written in Scotland, and intended for publication in Great Britain,
but the author having changed his residence to Canada, found it more convenient to publish in the United States. Mr. Mill praises the work, instead of
answering its arguments.
189 
PROPOSITION LII.
luxury, are esteemed by some consumers, not so much for
their utility, excellence, or beauty, as their costliness. lHe
instances the solution of pearls drunk by Cleopatra, and occasionally by some wealthy Romans, not for the flavor or
virtues of the potion, but merely from motives of distinction;
since but very few of the most wealthy persons could indulge
in this princely folly. We have a modern illustration of the
influence of the same motive, that comes nearer to our subject. Under Napoleon's continental system, the price of
smuggled cotton stockings was exceedingly enhanced in
Paris, whereupon the more wealthy and fashionable Parisians
forthwith appeared in cotton stockings, while persons of moderate fortunes were so unhappy as to be able to wear nothing
better than silk.
Whatever may be the cause of the enhancement, whether
the cost of production, rarity, danger of smuggling, or a duty
on the import, still the desirableness of the article from this
motive, is increased in proportion to its expensiveness.
So far, therefore, as this motive has influence, the duty is
no tax, for the consumer obtains what he seeks in his purchase, and is willing to pay for, namely, distinction; the
gratification of his vanity; and the law imposing the duty
effects what free-traders say it never can do, for it gives an
additional (not merely cost, but) real value to the article,
and thus "creates" the very "capital" that pays the tax.
You observe that we are now approaching the region
where this motive begins to operate, in cottons, and in the
thousands of other articles of consumption, which I am here
taking cotton fabrics to represent.   It is a consideration not
to be overlooked in legislation, or in speculations upon economical phenomena. In divers things coming from England
and France, the value to the consumer, and his motive to
purchase, depend on the distinction on account of their ex
190 
PROPOSITION LII.
pensiveness, rather than beauty, utility, or excellence in the
articles themselves, and so far as a duty serves to indulge
this motive, it is no tax, either by the rules of free trade, or
any other way of making an estimate.
But we will wholly omit this consideration in our present
estimate.
We must, as a preliminary step in the application of the
free-trade rule of the present money price, in order to
determine the balance of gain and loss in the article in
question, and other articles corresponding to the different
qualities of this one, ascertain what rate per cent. is actually
paid under an ad valorem duty of twenty-four and a half
per cent. on its value in the foreign market.*
Unfortunately, the twenty-four and a half per cent., is, in
fact, not realized on goods sent to the United States by our
resident foreign instructors in political economy.   They are
not like Mr. Mill, Mr. M'Cullocb, Mr. Senior, and others
after Adam Smnith's example, mere theoretical free-traders.
They are practical men, who make as near an approximation
to actual free trade as possible, not only in advising our Secretary of the Treasury and committees of Congress, when
consulted about the proper tariff to be adopted by this country, but also in invoicing their own goods, and entering them
at our custom-houses for payment of duties. They put the
value of them very low. We have their oaths to the fact
that they are for free trade.   Accordingly, the method
adopted by some American importers, in order to do business
to advantage, is to purchase their goods delivered in the
United States, thus including the entry and custom-house
* The different rates on cotton fabrics are twenty, twenty-five, and thirty
per cent. ad valorem; the average, taking into consideration the quantities of
the different descriptions subject to the different rates, is estimated to be twenty
four and a half per cent.
191 
PROPOSITION LII.
oath in the bargain. Such round-about ways does free trade,
with its ad valorem duty, drive our own merchants to, in
order to retain a share in carrying on our own commerce.
They are obliged to import the custom-house oath as well as
the goods. I accordingly understand that from this, and
other causes, a fair estimate of the duty actually paid upon
these imports, as it has heretofore been levied under the tariff
of 1846, is not over eighteen and three eighths per cent.
In the division including numbers seventeen to forty, now
in question, amounting, as estimated on the best data I can
obtain, to more than thirteen millions of dollars, if we reckon
by the free-trade rule of the present cash account, and grant
to it all its postulates, there is an enhancement of the price
to the consumer without revenue to the government, amounting to a little over two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. I refer to the subjoined note for the particulars of the
computation.*   The cotton fabrics of yarn above number
forty in fineness, being estimated at one fiftieth part of the
products of the cotton manufacture,  amount annually at
present, to nearly two millions of dollars.
*Annual profit and loss account of domestic cotton fabr
according to the free-trade theory, granting all that the the
granted, and assuming nothing which it denies.
Annual returns of cotton used in the country, bales     -    -
Add for what passes from the producer to the consumer in the in
terior, and does not come into these returns, say bales    -
Bae, —-- _ —---------— _ —-8,0
Estimated at 450 lbs. to the bale, lbs.   -    -    -   283,500,000
Allow for waste, as per returns of a mill for six months; thread
waste 3 3-7 per cent., worth 3 cts. per lb., cotton being at 10
cts.;  common waste 6 per cent., worth 2 1-4 cts. per lb., batting
waste 1-7 per cent., at 4 1-2 cts. per lb.; picker waste 2 per
cent., worth 1-7 ct. per lb.; in the whole about 12 per cent.: and
allow that one third part of its weight re-appears in some manu factured form, leaving net waste, eight per cent., lbs.    -    -    22,680,000
Weight of manufactured cottons, lbs.         -    -       260,820,000
192
- 530,000
-     100,000
630,000
Bales, 
PROPOSITION LII.
Let us estimate the tax to the consumer upon this amount,
according to the free-trade method, granting all its extraor
Brought forward, lbs., -  -  -  -  -  -                260,820,000
Deduct exports, $5,700,000, estimated 3 square yards to the lb., at
7 1-2 cts. per square yard, lbs.,    -    -    -    -   -    -     25,334,000
Leaving for domestic consumption, lbs.    -    -    235,486,000
Estimate 37-50 of this consumption to be cloth made of thread
No. 16 and under,    -   -   -    -   -         lbs. 174,260,000
12-50 cottons of No. 17 to 40, inclusive,   -  -    "   56,516,000
1-50 cloth above No. 40,     -  -    - --          "    4,710,000
The value of these three divisions will be respectively as follows:
1st. 174,260,000 lbs. No. 16 and under, say 3 square yards to the
lb., at 7 1-2 cts. per square yard,  -.. -          ---          $39,208,500
2d. 56,516,000 lbs. cloth No. 17 to 40 inclusive, including prints 4 1-2
square yards to the lb., at 5 1-4 cts. per square yard,      -   $13,352,000
3d. 4,710,000 lbs. cloth over No. 40, 6 square yards to the lb., at
71-2 cts. per square yard,    -. —. - ---          $1,978,200
Whole amount,  -... -                ----             $54,538,700
These estimates result from consultations with persons conversant in the
business.
Annual saving to the country, to be credited to the cotton manu  facture, 12 1-2 per cent. on the first of the three above amounts,
viz., $39,208,500, as already shown in the text, computed on the
money price, merely, according to free trade,     -    -    -     $4,901,000
On the second amount of $13,352,000, Nos. 17 to 40 inclusive, if the net average duty were 12 1-2 per cent. on the value, there would be no tax without
revenue, reckoning by the same free-trade rule, for we begin with a saving of
that rate to the consumer at No. 17, and stop at No. 40, with a tax without
revenue at the same rate, and the two would precisely balance each other.
But the average rate of duty on the market value being estimated at 18 3-8 per
cent., there is, by that rule of computing, a tax of 5 7-8 per cent. which begins
to take effect when we have passed over just about twelve thirtieths of
that amount from 17 upward. That is, it enhances eighteen thirtieths, viz.,
three fifths of that amount, but as it begins at zero and gradually enhances the
price of this three fifths, until the enhancement amounts to 5 7-8, the average
enhancement of this proportion, by the same rule, is 2 15-16 per cent. This
rate on three-fifths of $13,352,000, viz.,on $8,011,200, is $235,329.
On the third amount, viz., $1,978,200, of cloth over No. 40, we will adopt the
same method of computing, that is, we will grant everything assumed by the
theory of free trade, and admit that the tax paid by the consumers, which yields
no revenue to the government, is equivalent to the realized rate of duty esti                    17
193 
PROPOSITION LIL
dinary assumptions.   Suppose, if you can, that we could
find a foreign market in terra incogntta, for a sufficient
quantity of our exports of raw materials, to yield proceeds
wherewithal to pay for additional imports of sixty millions'
worth of cottons, besides four hundred additional millions
and over, of other foreign products, proposed by free trade
to replace our other domestic manufactures; and also leave
out of the account all the incidental, collateral, and consequential advantages accruing from the increase of domestic
arts   You can, in this free-trade way of computing, make
the tax without revenue on home-made cottons, above number forty, but about three hundred and sixty-four thousand
dollars.
The result is, that you Ieave an annual balance in the
present money price in favor of this branch of domestic arts,
of over four millions, an absolute annual saving of that
amount to the consumers of domestic cottons in the United
States.
I give in a note the premises from which this deduction is
made. I intend, both here and elsewhere, to make plain
every step of the process whereby I come to my conclusion.
The steps must necessarily consist partly of estimates. These
mated on the whole amount of the domestic consumption of domestic cottons. That rate I estimate on an average on imported cottons, allowing for
cunningly contrived invoices, etc., to be 18 3-8 per cent. on the value, which
on the above amount of $1,978,200, is $363,494. These two enhancements
amount to -—.....                                   -$598,823.
Deduct this last amount from the above credit of $4,901,000 due to this
branch of industry, and you have the net annual saving to the domestic consumers of these products, compared to what they would, at least, cost in the
cash price, imported wholly free of duty, viz:     -    -    -    $4,302,177.
This estimate concedes to free trade all its postulates, aEd supposes what is
incredible, that we could obtain elsewhere goods of equivalent character; and,
what is impossible, that we could produce and find a foreign market for sixty
millions' worth of other products besides cotton-cloths, in addition to our present exports of such other products.
194 
PROPOSITION LIT.
I give. If there is any inaccuracy in them, correct it. You
cannot find the error so great as to reverse the result. It
can, at most, only modify its amount.
But this is not the whole of our indebtedness, in ready
money, annually, to this branch of domestic industry. The
former duty on cotton imported into England, is said to have
been equivalent to about five per cent., then reduced to about
half of that rate, and finally, in 1846, taken off entirely.
Under this duty we paid a tribute to the British government.
Suppose the duty of five per cent. to be now levied at Liverpool, on our cotton sent thither, and our imports of cotton
goods to be the same as in 1847-8, we should have paid,
during that year, about one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars to the revenue of the British government.* This
duty has been abolished, partly at least, on account of our
competition in the manufacture of cotton. How much is
due to the French, and other European competition, it is
not easy to say. This branch of manufacture is, therefore,
to be credited on account of its having helped to relieve us
from this tribute.
The annual saving to the country, as above computed, according to the free-trade theory, on this one branch of the
arts, is but a small part of the actual operation of this industry upon the general welfare. It promotes, sustains, and
improves a long train of arts, it is not easy to say how
many, which are very important to the sustenance, com
* The duty on the import is of course included in the price of the manufactured article.  We imported from abroad $18,000,000 of cottons in 1847-8,
say $12,000,000 from Great Britain. Let the price of the cloth be 33 1-3 cts.
per lb. This gives 36,000,000 lbs. of the cotton that we take back in the form of
cotton-cloths. Calling the value of cotton at Liverpool 10 cts. per lb., we
hiave its value there on which the duty would be paid, $3,600,000; five per
cent. on which is $180,000, the amount that would have been thus paid by us
for the duty at Liverpool.
195 
PROPOSITION LII.
fort, and happiness of the population of every part of the
country. It gives a certain market for two hundred and
sixty millions pounds of cotton for domestic consumption,
and twenty-five millions of pounds for exportation; amounting to between twenty-six and thirty millions of dollars,
annually; and makes a certain home market for provisions,
and various products of agriculture, and those of divers
collateral and auxiliary arts to the amount of some seventeen to twenty millions of dollars more.
This single branch of business opens a market for provisions produced in the country equal probably to one half,
at least, of our entire export to all foreign countries.   The
producers of wheat, corn, rye, potatoes, fruits, cotton, rice,
and sugar, will, generally, very cheerfully acknowledge their
obligations to it; if any do not, this, though it may show an
unsocial temper on their part, will not prove that they are
not benefited. This same branch of industry, among divers
others no less important, is of itself of such magnitude, that
the progress of the country on the one hand, or its distress
and decay on the other, depend upon its being sustained
by legislation, or let die out.
The same is true of the tanning of leather, and some
branches of its manufacture; the making of iron, and some
branches of its manufacture; the production of wool, and
also its manufacture.
The depression and suspension of some branches of domestic production, are, in fact, at this time, precipitating
the  country towards  an abyss.    Now, for three years
that the country has suffered the affliction of the tariff of
1846, in its full force, it has been thereby gratuitously embarrassed by contributing its custom in order to employ
paupers resident in Europe, and by defraying the expense of
supporting here the myriads of European paupers and crim
196 
PROPOSITION LII.
inals consigned to us, to be maintained by the public in the
poor-houses and penitentiaries. Besides the proceeds of all
the exports we can possibly force into all the markets of the
world, we have remitted, annually, some ten millions of
stocks to pay for the inundation of cheap imports, with
which to overwhelm ourselves, and still the private foreign
debts are continually augmenting in amount. While we are
thus precipitated along the rapids, with the painful foreboding whither, we are consoled in the descent, by the glorification of the free-trade experimenters, in the brilliant
success of their experiment.
One of the silent, but eventually prostrating effects  of
that act upon our industry, is the enhancement of the rate
of interest. Adam Smith supposes a regular coincidence of
the rate of interest and that of profits, making each the sure
index of the other; which is one of his common sophisms,
namely, taking a proposition that is sometimes true as being
always so, or one that is half true, as being wholly so;
for interest is enhanced by a struggle against low profits, as
well as by the prospect of high profits, as we frequently
witness. This is M. Bastat's " incomplete syllogism."
It is in a great degree the sinister operation of that tariff,
that has caused the recent enhancement of the rate of interest. At the time of its going into effect, the rate was
five, to five and a half per cent. It was difficult to make a
desirable and safe investment in the large money markets at
six per cent. The current rate on good business paper has,
on an average, since then, been- nine per cent. at least.
Take the estimate of the annual income of the country, made
by the last commissioner of patents,* who puts it at
* Edmund Burke, Esq., since one of the editors, with Mr. Ritchie, of the
Washington Union. See Rep. for 1848, p. 719, etc.
17*
197 
PROPOSITION LII.
2,323,564,756 dollars. Call it less than half as much - for
his plan of making the estimates includes divers things twice,
and some that should not be included for our present purpose-say $1,000,000,000. Say, that the active persons
in the community, who carry on its industry, have paid three
per cent. per annum for loans and credits, in consequence
of that tariff, more than they would have paid, had it not
been inflicted on the country. Say that a fifth part of the
production is carried on by loans and credit, this makes a
tax upon the industry of the country of $60,000,000 annually; say a tenth part is so carried on, this makes a tax
of $30,000,000; say a twentieth, which is certainly too
low, this makes such a tax of $15,000,000, paid by
industry to capital, for the last three years, in consequence
of a tariff eulogized by its concoctors, as designed to protect
industry against capital.
This desired effect (for its projectors expressly proposed to stop the progress of manufactures, that is, the mechanic arts generally) is produced first by surcharging
the country with imports, and thus drawing specie abroad;
second, by depressing the useful arts and diminishing the
income of those who carry them on, and thus compelling
them to resort more to borrowing.   In consequence of that
tariff, two sets of operators have, therefore, been pressing
upon the money market to enhance the rate of interest;
namely, first, the agents of the foreign manufacturers, who
have come in for specie to pay the balance of our consumption of their goods, over the amount of all our exports to
all countries; and, second, those persons who carry on our
mechanic arts, who needed greater loans.   The lucky person, therefore, who lives by discounting business paper, has
thus, by means of this tariff, an increase of fifty per cent.
on his income. It is not any subject of reproach to him
198 
PROPOSITION LII.
that he avails himself of the advantage thus offered: on
the contrary, he renders as much service to others by lending
at whatever is the current rate, as they to him by borrowing;
but it is a matter of reproach to those, who, by their policy,
produced a state of things so sinister in effect upon the industrial and productive prosperity to the country.
Another advantage, therefore, of this same branch of cotton manufacturers, is, that it prevents this depressing annual
foreign balance from being as large as it would otherwise be,
by some two and a half millions of dollars, for the exports 
of domestic manufactured fabrics of cotton sell abroad for
so much more than the cotton could be sold for of which
they are made, admitting that its market price abroad would
not by that additional export, have been reduced.
This article is only, as already said, taken as a specimen
of the effects of protection, and an illustration of its opera,
tion in the different qualities of goods of other descriptions.
It would be a great labor to me, and tedious to yourself, to
go through with the other forty-eight manufactured articles
of exports, besides cotton goods and coin, enumerated in
the returns for the year above referred to. Their amount
is about eleven millions, that is, about twice that of the
exports of manufactured cottons. In some of these, the enhancement of the value of the products by the mechanical
and chemical processes performed upon  the materials of
which they consist, is much greater, in others much less,
than in the case of manufactured cottons. Assume it to be,
on an average, the same. In many of them, as musical instruments, paper, books, printing presses, glass, etc., the materials would be of trivial value if exported; in others, as
carriages, iron in the manufactures out of it, and household
furniture, amounting to over a million and a half, the materials would not be exported at all.   In other instances, as
199 
PROPOSITION LII.
sperm candles, the materials might have been exported, and,
if they could have found a foreign market, would have sold
for a very considerable part of the price of the manufactured
article. Say that, on an average, the value of the manufactured articles bears the same proportion to that of the
material, as in cottons.   By this estimate we have an additional amount of near five millions put into the foreign
markets, in these articles, by means of our useful arts, to
help to pay for our imports.   And yet Mr.  Secretary
Walker, and his school, would recommend to abolish the
arts, and rely wholly upon the export of raw materials,
not only to pay for as much as we now import, but for
immensely more. Free-trade logic beats the old romances
of chivalry, in inventing monstrous improbabilities.
If I had data and time, and could presume on your
patience, to go through with all the other articles subject to
duty, and of the same kinds as are produced by our own
domestic industry, such as the fifteen millions of imported
woolens; one million of imported hats, caps and bonnets;
six millions and a half of iron and steel manufactures;
nearly a million of glass, etc.; and analyze the operation of
a protective tariff on each class, as in the case of cottons,
and make an account current on each, after the free-trade
fashion of stating such an account, I am confident that in
most of these, the balance would, even in that way of estimating, be proportionally much greater in favor of protection
by duties, than it has been shown to be in cottons.
It is not, however, necesssary for the present purpose to
tax my own industry or your patience to that degree, since
though, by this way of estimating, erroneous and illusory as
it is in favor of free trade, the balance thus resulting were
against protection, it would be of very little weight. What
signifies a statement of an account that leaves out the largest
200 
PROPOSITION LII.
amounts on the credit side? Where, as in cottons, or any
other article, the balance, made out according to the freetrade theory, is in favor of the domestic production, notwithstanding the omission of the greatest items on that side,
this is conclusive against the theory of free trade. It is in
that regard only, that I thus present it.
Another object in thus presenting this question, is, to
show the manner in which it seems to be necessary to examine the operation of protection, and the results of progress
in any branch of domestic production, in consequence of
protection, in respect to the money price of the product to
the consumer, compared to what it would otherwise be.
This is a matter that comes into the consideration of the
reasons for and against the protection of an article, but instead
of being the only one, it is but- one among others, in respect
to a very numerous class of articles, as has been already
shown.
The state of the case changes from time to time, in respect
to the same article, as is obvious; one rate of protection
being expedient now, another ten years hence. The money
price, under domestic production induced by protection, or
on free import, considered in respect to the present time
and the future, in peace and war, in times of scarcity and
those of plenty, being one of the questions proper for
investigation in determining on the expediency of protection
and its requisite degrees, it is essential to adopt a true
method for ascertaining the effect on that price. In regard
to some articles, it might appear that by sustaining the domestic production by protective legislation, the price to the
consumer will be considerably enhanced on an average, in
the long run. If it is not thereby thus enhanced, then
there is no question of the expediency of sustaining the
domestic production. If it is so enhanced, then the ques
201 
PROPOSITION LIV.
tion is how much; and the rate of the duty is not an infallible
index of the degree of enhancement, as I think I am authorized to say has been made manifest.
LIII. Our foreign commerce small in comparison with
domestic -Free trade magnifies the foreign.
The old cry against the encouragement of our domestic
arts was that it would annihilate commerce.*   This is become obsolete, but we are too apt to overlook the comparative importance of the foreign and domestic-trade.
Mr. Walker puts our annual domestic commerce at five
hundred millions,t being four times the amount of our foreign trade in provisions and raw materials, that is to say,
the export commerce which he and his school maintain should
be the sole export commerce of the country. As far then
as commerce is concerned, it will probably be readily conceded that it is easier to increase this trade one quarter by
protection, than to double the foreign commerce, by free
trade; or than to increase that commerce one twentieth part
in that way.
LIV.  The domestic market steady; permanent;  can be
relied upon -- Foreign, fluctuating and precarious  Free trade looks only at the foreign.
The magnitude of domestic production and coastwise trade
compared with foreign imports, appears under other heads;
the production being eight to one, and the trade four to one.
There are other differences between the two, not less important.
* Examination of Baldwin's Proposed Tariff. New York, 1821.
t Rep., December, 1847.
202 
PROPOSITION LIV.
Foreign trade is generally of a precarious and unsteady
character. A trade between countries of entirely different
climates and pursuits is, however, much more steady and to
be relied upon, than between those of similar products and
habits. Thus our trade with the West Indies and South
America in sundry articles from the north, and with Europe
in some of the staples of the south, though liable to change,
as is all foreign commerce whatsoever, still is not subject to
such sudden fluctuations and reverses as a trade with Europe
in provisions and all raw materials of common production
there and here.
And then of all articles, those of provisions and others of
a perishable nature, are most uncertain, since though the
surplus of one country may come in to supply the deficiency
of another, yet the surplus of one year cannot, as in Egypt
in Joseph's time, be kept, to any great extent, to supply the
scarcity of the next. And we may safely lay it down as a
general proposition, that any one whose means of industry,
and consequently his welfare, depend upon the contingencies
of the seasons, and the political relations and legislation in
other quarters of the globe, is not so secure as he whose data
for his calculations are more within his reach.
Though variations in supply and demand, and in prices
and in the means of employment for the industrious, are constantly taking place all over the world, both near and at a
distance, yet the relations of those under the same government, whether of commerce or any other mutual dependence,
are less sudden and surprising, and more easily foreseen,
and consequently less disastrous, when they happen. These
latter relations are, on this account, incomparably preferable.*
* See Mr. Hudson's remarks on the fluctuation in the foreign markets for
wheat, in the Report of the Committee of Ways and Means, 1848-9.
203 
PROPOSITION  LV.
LV. An ad valorem duty is unequal; leads to fraudsa.
The question of ad valorem and specific duties on articles
of the kinds produced by our own domestic industry, has
been so perspicuously presented in Mr. Secretary Meridith's
report, in December, 1849, that I hesitate whether to say
anything upon it, and I shall treat it very cursorily.
At this stage of our inquiries, I presume upon its being
conceded that the constitution expressly, literally in terms,
also by implication and recognition, gives Congress power to
impose a duty for the sole purpose of protecting the domestic production. It has also, as clearly, the power to prohibit the importation of any article, as appears beyond question, from the general powers granted, and also from the
provision against the prohibition of a particular "importation" viz. that of slaves, prior to the year 1808, which
would be an absurdity, if it had not the general power to
prohibit importations.   But where the object is substantially and in general to suppress a species of importation,
the way usually preferred, is by a high duty, instead of an
absolute prohibition; and it has been considered to be the
preferable method, for over eighty years at least, this being
the way recommended by Sir James D. Steuart, in 1767.
Congress exercises the power of imposing duties, as it does,
or ought to, its powers for the promotion of the general
welfare, and this may require the check or suppression of
the importation of one or another article for divers reasons,
or according to specified varying conditions and circumstances provided for in the law.   Thus it may be adapted
to such circumstances, at the time being, by the sliding
scale of admission or exclusion, according to the market
price; the objection to which form is not in the constitution,
204 
PROPOSITION LV.
but the inconveniences in applying it, in the mode adopted
in England. At least, so I suppose, for it is not necessary
to follow that inquiry here, since the exigency in view in
these inquiries may be generally met by a specific limit of
the duty, as experience has proved, and as would be obvious
without experience.
The motives determining the form and rate of duty are
divers, as raising revenue; uniformity in all the different
ports; facility and precision in estimating it, so as to save
the importer and the public from the mistakes, prejudices,
partialities, caprices, incapacity, and ignorance, where there
are such, of custom-house officers; equality between American and foreign importers, or the preference of the former;
favoring honest men; checking some vice, as intemperance';
causing the duty to bear upon luxuries and superfluities as
far as may be, instead of necessaries; providing for a home
supply of articles indispensable in time of war; securing
a domestic and steady supply for ordinary wants;  the
promotion of domestic industry, and domestic arts, literature and science. These are all just grounds of discussion,
and afford ample range, without outraging common sense
with extravagant conceits and cavils going to nullify the
constitution.
Among these various motives, bearing upon the selection
of the subjects of the duty, and determining its form and
rate, we are occupied, especially with the influence on industry
and arts, and on our own foreign trade, which influence,
however, is much connected with the other considerations to
be regarded in the decision. Domestic arts and industry are
esteemed to be proper subjects of consideration in legislation, by the greater part of people, I believe, and at present
I assume that they really are so. I ask your consent to the
proposition, that it is more important to you, that the
205
is 
PROPOSITION LV.
mechanic, maker of hats, shoes, clocks, clothes, books, pictures, and so on through the whole catalogue, living in the
same neighborhood or under the same jurisdiction with yourself, is skilful and fully employed, and prosperous, than
that one in Europe or India is so; and also to the proposition that it is for your interest, and is your duty as a fellow citizen, to promote the business of American merchants,
and navigators, in preference to that of their foreign competitors.   The reason of my asking your assent to those
propositions, here, is, that what little I propose to say on
the present subject pre-supposes them; and I am aware
that they are denied by the professors of the sublimated
political economy, claimed to be a science.   If you dissent, I can only refer you to the other heads where I have
considered those propositions; if you assent to them, then you
are opposed to ad valorem duties predicated on the supposed
cost of imports, in all cases where specific duties can be conveniently adopted.   Such duty ad valorem favors the knave
to the prejudice of the honest man, and prefers the foreign
importer to the American, for the goods cost the foreigner
less, in fact, and, in very many instances, to a still greater
degree less in falsehood; and this was the consideration that
apparently influenced the projectors of the tariff of 1846 to
propose that system.   Its object was, probably, what was
urged by Mr. Secretary Walker in his report of 1848, to
be so desirable, namely, the suppression of domestic arts
for the purpose, as he preposterously pretends, of promoting
agriculture and preserving the sources of revenue from being
dried up.   He may have, bona fide, considered these to be
valid reasons; for thinkers of even our enlightened age do,
now and then, very sincerely announce very eccentric no tions. But I am, in this place, presuming you, as already
said, to think otherwise.
206 
PROPOSITION LV.
All experience has conclusively proved the prejudicial
operation of ad valorem duties on the interest and business
of honest importers, as distinguished from dishonest, and of
American importers, as distinguished from foreign.
It is plainly desirable, wherever it is practicable, to assess
a duty by some criterion independent of the oath of the importer, and of the arbitrary discretion of reveniue officers,
and also to make it uniform in all the different ports. This
may be effected in many articles by specific duties, and in
others it may be approximated to by the minimum principle,
whereas the ad valorem rule makes as many rates of duty
on the same article as there are foreign ports from which it
is imported, and domestic ports of entry. This objection
touches both importers and consumers.
These objections to the ad valorem rule are sufficient; and
its prejudicial operation upon domestic industry and arts, is
one of equal weight. Everybody knows that the market
price of every article varies from time to time. One sort of
article will rarely vary over five or ten per cent.; another
will vibrate up and down, at no long distance of time, within
the range of twenty per cent., another thirty, and so on.
The price rises in consequence of a brisk demand, and con sequent prosperous business, both in producing, or making
and vending the article; and the higher it rises, the greater
the protection to the domestic production, since a duty of
ten per cent. on a market price of one dollar, is twice as
much as the same rate on a market price of fifty cents for
the same thing; and, considered as an encouragement to the
domestic production of the thing, is in the high price, double
what it is in the low one, for under the high price it gives
the domestic producer an advantage in our market, over the
foreign one, of ten cents, in the other five cents. I state
the operation thus particularly, supposing myself to be ad
207 
PROPOSITION LV.
dressing a person not conversant with the subject, which I
suggest by way of apology to one who is so.
This will be an irregular and variable protection, adequate
for a course of years and then ceasing to be so, or adequate
one year and inadequate the next, and so vibrating perpetually.  We have ancient authority for the maxim that a people
is miserable where the law is vague and doubtful, and such
is the condition of the domestic producer under the operation
of such a revenue-law, for he can never know what to calculate upon in his business for six months to come. What
is most disastrous to him in a rate of duty on this principle,
is, that it gives him a great advantage over the foreign competitor when he least needs any, and very little at the times
when he needs it most, or the only times, perhaps, when he
needs it at all; for it is when demand is rife in the general
market, and the price of the article rising, or sustained at a
high rate, that the foreign competitor has least motive to
avail himself of this market, as consumers in other foreign
countries will then take off his products largely, at a good
profit, and our domestic producer is accordingly not stringently pressed upon, in the competition from abroad.
When, vice versa, the price is at a low point in the general market, the domestic producer and his foreign competitor are both straitened in their business, and their profit is
reduced by degrees until it comes to the point of zero, and
next, of absolute loss, for he cannot instantaneously stop the
nmotion of a large train of business, proceeding with a great
momentum, any more than a long train of heavy-freighted
railroad cars can be so stopped.
It is precisely at this period that the ad valorem duty affords the least obstacle to the influx of the foreign commodity, and at that same time, the foreign producer feeling the
pressure of the state of the market in like manner, seeks
208 
PROPOSITION LVI.
most eagerly abroad where to throw off the oppressive burthen of his own products, perhaps even at a loss on the cost,
which is often, in such a dilemma, the smaller sacrifice.
Notwithstanding such fluctuations, and untoward operation
of the ad valorem scale, it must be resorted to in some kinds
of imports, because no other convenient criterion of the rate
of duty can be devised. But the above objections to it are
so weighty and so obvious, that one is excusable for looking
about for some obliquity of purpose or theory, when anybody
advocates it as being the best general system.
LVI. Import duty is less burthensome, and is not attended
by greater inequality than revenue raised in other ways  Free trade pretends that it is unequal, etc.
The system of revenue by import to meet the expenses
of the general government, in concurrence with a revenue
by assessment on property and income and by excise in
the separate states, is altogether as equal in its operation as
can be devised; but the part of it coming in the form of an
enhancement of the price of an article, where it comes at all,
is not more unequal than any other. It falls entirely upon
consumption, and is in the proportion of each individual's
consumption of the article.
Such a tax is probably as fairly proportioned as any other
to the ability of each person to pay it. A tax either according to amount of property, or that of income, would,
if it were the only one, be very much out of proportion to
the ability of people to pay. You will at a glance see many
persons within your own knowledge, of very considerable,
and even large, incomes, who, by reason of infirmity, or
some incumbrance imposed upon them by their domestic
circumstances, or social position, or by their own generous
1s~
209 
PROPOSITION LVI.
and kind disposition, are restricted to very limited expenditures for their own support or the indulgence of taste. A
like disproportion would be incident to a tax levied according
to the amount of property.
The most equal system of revenue would be on the amount
of property, income, and expenditure combined. In what
proportions they should be combined, is a question of practical detail, to be governed by the varying circumstances,
and not within the range of our inquiries. The position at
which we rest is, that the amount of consumption is an
essential element in an equal system of taxation; and revenue by impost belongs, necessarily, to a great extent, and
mnay wholly belong to that element. How far it so belongs,
will depend on the kind of articles that are subject to the
impost. Not many persons object to this species of revenue,
and those who do, are mostly of the radical class, who are
for eradicating everything, and who plant nothing.
Admitting, then, that such a tax is a proper element in
the system, as you most probably would have done in the
outset, you will readily agree that it is, of all species of
taxes, the least offensive to levy, where it is pre-paid on a
large quantity of commodities at once, by the party who puts
them into the market, as is usual in respect to duties on imports, and also in those descriptions of excise that are in use
in the States, such as auction taxes, and bank taxes, for the
exaction can always be anticipated, and the amount known
beforehand, and it is paid by a party who expects to reimburse himself, or who merely represents others, and to whom,
therefore, the aspect of the officer making the exaction, or
acknowledging the receipt, is not especially horrid.
Again, revenue thus derived, falls less burthensomely
than in any other form, for it may be so apportioned as to
fall very lightly on articles of indispensable necessity to all
210 
PROPOSITION LVII.
persons, and bear with proportionally greater weight upon
those articles that may be forgone without distress. This
gives to people for the most part, the option whether to consume the articles and pay the tax or not, in which circumstance duty on imports is distinguished from a land-tax, and
many other forms of direct taxation.
This may suffice, as far as protection and free trade
are concerned, on this subject, though in itself of vast extent, when analyzed for the purpose of devising a system of
revenue.
LVII. Investments made under sanction of law, should
not be recklessly destroyed by law- Free trade abjures
good faith in quest of present low money price.
Though the advocates of vested rights sometimes stretch
the doctrine so as to shelter public wrongs, yet nobody will
carry radicalism so far as to hold that in legislation no regard
is to be had to the destruction of property, that may be thereby occasioned. A pupil of the Edinburgh political economy
should be the last to maintain such a doctrine, since his sect
hold public wealth, and the aggregate of individual wealth,
to be identical, and that whatever is prejudicial to an individual, is so to the community, and the destruction of his
property is surely to his prejudice.
It has been remarked already, that a vast amount of the
individual wealth in every civilized community, consists of
its fixtures, machinery, tools, implements, and apparatus of
industry, insomuch that a nation can hardly be esteemed
to be wealthy, that does not include in its schedule vast
amounts of these kinds of property. Whenever, by reason
of sinister legislation, or any other cause, any of the productive arts retrograde, and especially when they are broken
211 
PROPOSITION LVIII.
up, the value of all property of the kinds in question, is
depreciated, and much of it annihilated. This is an evil to
the community, attended with great individual calamity.
You say it is counterpoised by the incidental advantages.
That is considered under other heads. The present point
is, that it is disastrous, and that the destruction thus occasioned is to be taken into account in determining on any
course of policy. And it is marvellous to witness with what
self-complacent indifference some political economists contemplate this destructiveness of their policy.
LVIII. Daager to the domestic arts from domestic compe  tition, needs not to be guarded against- Free traders
affect to be alarmed for them on this score.
Our own producers must stand the brunt of competition
with each other.   No  protectionist pretends the contrary.
The only security against it would be a monopoly, which
nobody asks for.
Our free-trade advocates affect to be anxious lest, under
encouragement of the domestic arts, our producers should
be stimulated to too sharp a contest for the market, and be
ruined by competition in underselling each other.*
On the other hand, the vindicator of the same theory, in
the Edinburgh Review,t complains that under protection
the producers become slack and drowsy, and need, ever and
anon, to be stimulated by the free-trade spur.
We may dismiss this subject, then, with these two counterpoising authorities on the opposite sides of the balance.
* Walker's Rep., 1848.
212
t July, 1849. 
PROPOSITION LIX.
LIX. Protection should be proportionate, and adequate.
It is a plain result of the foregoing inquiries, that, so far
as protection to domestic industry is concerned, the rate of
duty ought to be adequate for its purpose, or it will be useless, or hurtful. If it is put at a rate which will just sustain
any domestic production at a favorable time, when the material is low and the outlay small, in comparison with the
price of the product, and let in a flood of imports on every
slight unfavorable change, the certain consequence is, the
destruction of that industry, accompanied by the sacrifice,
to the country, in the value of the tools, machinery, fixtures,
and apparatus belonging to it; the ruin of those employed
in it and concerned in conducting it; and, the loss of the
value of their skill, and also that of their time until they
can learn or find a new employment.
You say, perhaps, "They must take their chance." So
if the question were respecting a provision to suppress trespass or robbery, you might say the same. Men form social
institutions for the very reason that it is not convenient, separately, to take their chance; and the principle bears as directly upon their industry, as it does upon their personal
safety.   It is identical with the safety of their property.
There are sinister chances enough left for the individual,
after the government has done its part in diminishing them.
If, instead of so doing, it endeavors to multiply them, as the
projectors of our tariff of 1846 did, it is an outrageous abuse
of its functions.
No, - it being once settled that protection to a specific industry and employment of capital, is expedient, the interest
of the country, and that of those concerned; economy, both
public and private, plainly require that the support should
be adequate and effectual.
213 
PROPOSITION LXI.
LX. It does not appear that there is any alarming danger
of smuggling-Free trade pretends danger of  smug  gling, and yet facilitates the evasion of duties by false
invoices.
One of the old cries against protection, was the infinite
troubles and crimes of smuggling, thence to arise; but this
objection seems to have become almost obsolete.* The free
traders have not the same fear of the evasion of duties by
the false invoices of foreign importers, under the ad valorem
duty, which is equivalent to smuggling aggravated by
perjury.
LXI. Our whole exports bear a small proportion to our
whole production, and our whole imports in like manner
to consumption- Free trade exaggerates their compar  ative importance.
We have seen t that the whole amount of our foreign
trade, is small in comparison with our domestic trade. The
proportion of the amount of the exports and imports between the United States and foreign countries to that of
our domestic products consumed in the country, is but half
as large; and yet free-traders are always harping upon the
former, as if the one ninth that we exchange with foreign
countries, were of more importance than the eight ninths
produced and consumed at home. Our exchanges between
different parts of the country, are four times as much as
those that we make with foreign countries, and our consump
* Mr. Walker enumerates it in his catalogue of 1848.
t Prop. liv. 
PROPOSITION  LXII.
tion of domestic products is eight times that of imported
articles.*
Adam Smith, therefore, well said that "Every country
is necessarily the best and most extensive market for the
greater part of the productions of its own industry." t
We accordingly see that the increase of our production
and consumption of domestic products one quarter, by encouraging the domestic arts, is equivalent in amount, to
doubling our exports and imports; and the former depends
wholly upon ourselves and is not only practicable, but easy
to be done in a short period, and is certain and constant;
the latter depends on foreign countries, and is not merely
difficult to be done at all, but if practicable, can at the best
be affected only after a long series of years, and is subject
to a thousand contingencies and fluctuations.
LXII. Constant never-ceasing extension and improvement
and change of the arts, require corresponding modif  cations of the law- Free trade teaches that legislation
should stand at the dead point.
It is matter of surprise to hear people imply that the affairs
of a nation relative to revenue and protection of industry
and property, were a sort of thousand-years clock, which
needed only to be wound up, and might then be left to go
for thirty generations. The act of Congress of 1831, known
as one of that sort called compromise acts, has been claimed
as predicated upon such a notion.
The principles according to which a chronometer or a na
* Assume the annual production of the country to be eleven hundred millions. Our average annual exports of raw products for three years prior to
July 1, 1848, was $114,000,000; call it $120,000,000.
t Wealth of Nations, B. 5, c. 2, art. 4. VoL 3, p. 374.  Edinb. Ed., 1806.
215 
PROPOSITION LXIII.
tion is constituted and regulated may continue to be the
same, but something is required to be done, from time to
time, in applying them to new circumstances.
It is true that an isolated nation, such as the Japanese
and Chinese have been, may become, politically, morally,
and in matters of economy, petrified like that city of the
Arabian tales, whose inhabitants were  transformed to stone
in whatever attitudes and acts they happened to be. We
have not as yet suffered such a transformation, though we
have experienced, from timne to time, some analogous symtoms in the ossification of our living arteries, brought on by
spells of free trade; and the teachers of that science strenuously recommend to us to retrace our steps, and to relapse
into what they call the "normal" state of mere husbandminen,
herdsmen, and shepherds, at least, if not to copy the Buenos
Ayres example of living by lassoing wild cattle.   It proposes the adoption of an unchangable economical code, comprised in the one sentence, "Let industry encourage and
protect itself;" and that, thereupon, the crank of the legislative machinery, should, for all economical purposes, stand
forever at the dead point. But this will not do; the affairs
of the world are perpetually moving and changing, and we
must move with them.
LXII. The country must always have more or less infant
arts until it passes its meridian- Free trade supposes
that we go per saltum to the summit of the arts.
"Will our manufactures ever cease to be infant until they
are weaned from legislative protection?" says the freetrader.* No, they most assuredly will never be old enough
* Secretary Walker's Report, 1848.
216 
PROPOSITION  LXIII.
to be weaned from that protection. "We have called them
so (viz., infant) for sixty years," says the same authority.
That goes back thirty or forty years before most of them
saw the light. But it is to be hoped that we shall, for a
thousand years to come, continue to have infant arts, that is,
new arts of one kind after another, to be protected by
legislation, and that such protection will continue to be extended to both infant and mature arts, as well as to infant
and mature people.   For what other purpose  do we have
legislation?
If by the inquiry, "When will our arts cease to be infant?" be meant, "When will they arrive at their ne plus
ultra, in number and improvement? when will they come
to the point of perfection where nothing can be added or
changed for the better?" we may well hope that this never
will be. This would be the stand-still point from which deeline and decay begin. Arts can never advance to the utmost
bounds of human invention, and exhaust all the possibilities
of improvement. They may easily be checked and arrested
in their progress under pretence of being let alone. But so
long as such a judgment of outlawry shall not be passed
against them, they will advance by one improvement giving
rise to another, so as to propagate infant arts in an infinite
series.
Theorists seem to think it possible for the artisans of a
nation to pass from rudeness to the ultimate perfection in
any and all arts, at a step. It required thirty years in England to introduce the power-loom so as fully to suppress the
hand-loom. The people of this country have been engaged
in the study of the science, and practice of the art, of
music, for over two centuries, and the English much longer,
and are not yet adepts of the highest order; but neither we
nor they, therefore, think of giving it up in despair of having
19
217 
PROPOSITION LXV.
capacity for this branch of civilization; or of remaining
stationary. What you see passing under your own observation daily, will render any argument unnecessary in order
to satisfy you, that the arts do not, like their ancient patroness, Minerva, instantaneously spring into existence in
complete maturity and perfection. "Life is short and art
is long;" that is, long in comparison with human life.
LXIV. The legislation of a country, affecting its industry,
should have reference to the opinions, prejudices, capa  bilities, and habits of its people -Free trade disclaims
any such reference.
We have seen that legislation will inevitably have a decisive
influence upon industry and the rights of property. The
legislator must, therefore, have some regard to the character
of the people, their habits, prejudices, capabilities, and skill
and progress in the various arts, that he may adapt his
measures to them; and thus promote their productive capacity and progress. The let-alone of free trade disclaims
all such reference.
LXV. Protection and encouragement are necessary to the
introduction of new arts or industry; or extension of
old.
In some period of a nation's existence you will see, if
you look forward twenty years or more, that it may be expedient to make efforts to bring out a new art or kind of
industry, or sustain an old one; which individuals cannot
do without the encouragement of the laws, that is to say,
the concurrence of the community, because great obstacles
are to be surmounted in the beginning, or because there is
218 
PROPOSITION  LXVI.
a huge production of the same thing outside, which every
five or six years, in a plethory of the markets, will pour out
a flood of its refuse stock and drown out the beginner.
Legislation should then interpose; and make it for the interest of an individual to carry on the production, either by
hiring him at a salary, as in the manufacture of arms, instruction in military or naval service, or by a bounty, exclusion of the foreign production, etc.  You thus reconcile the
interest of the individual and that of the public. You are
not taking special care of him. You are acting merely for
the public, and only remove an obstacle to his being employed in this way to the same advantage to himself, as other
individuals are in other ways. The only question is, whether
such a case can exist? If it can, it brings with it the expediency of protection; and is a demonstrative refutation
of the doctrine of free trade.
LXVI.  The arts are mutually connected and dependent
on one another as to the degree of skill and perfection
in each; they must flourish or decay together.
It has been well known, from the time of Cicero's defence of Archias, at least, that there is among the arts and
sciences a common affinity.   They are connected together,
interlaced and mutually dependent, one upon another. They
must flourish or sink together. It follows thence, that, in
those arts, which require, if carried on at all, to be carried
on in large masses, the producers and laborers should have
the predominating possession of our own market to a certainty, since the success and the very existence of the other
ancillary arts, which will comprehend almost the whole catalogue of those to which the country is adapted, are dependent on those large branches.   This is the reason that the
219 
PROPOSITION LXVI.
enemies of civilization, and eulogizers of pastoral life and
rude agriculture and arts, strike at these leading branches.
You have seen that the extinction or arrest of any one
of the great branches of our domestic industry, will inevitably be followed by decadence and decay, rude arts, clumsy
implements, sluggish industry, dilapidated dwellings, and
slovenly agriculture. And, in the sequel, you will see a
people staggering under a load of debts abroad and debts
at home, railing in turn, at the banks, the brokers, and the
merchants, as the causes of the everlasting epidemic of
scarcity of money; and, for a remedy, resorting to stoplaws, tender-laws, and exemption of property from liability
for contracts. You will see an ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-instructed,
disheartened, dejected people, with whom enterprise has
ceased, and whose hope is dying out. This is not conjecture,
but the authenticated history of the past, and a true representation of what the future will be, under like circumstances.
It can be hardly necessary to show how intimately all the
useful arts are affiliated together, and reciprocally dependent.
Take any one mechanical trade with which you are familiar,
or any one article of at all complicated structure, a house, a
railroad-car, an elaborate piece of furniture, a book, a cloth
boot, a pleasure vehicle-you can hardly choose amiss-and
see how great a variety of materials, and how long a catalogue
of trades are directly combined, or indirectly brought into
action to produce it. The watch, though it is a more than
usually complicated piece of mechanism, and one not yet
undertaken in this country, that I am aware of, will serve
not the worse on these accounts as an illustration.   At
Geneva, two hundred and fifteen distinct trades are directly
concerned in the manufacture of this little piece of mechanism, without including the arts that contribute its materials.*
* See Edinburgh Review, July, 1849.
220 
PROPOSITION LXVII.
Then go a step further, and reflect how greatly the despatch, economy, and degree of perfection in producing an
article, will be facilitated by the despatch, economy, and the
degree of perfection in the arts directly and indirectly auxiliary to its production.   You will inevitably come to the
conclusion, that the arts are knit into one great system, and
must advance or become retrograde together; and conse.
quently that a blow, or neglect, affecting any one important
branch, affects the whole.
It may seem to you that I dwell unnecessarily upon what
is obvious. Its being obvious is one reason for insisting
upon it, for the great truth that we are considering is so familiar, that we are apt not to be sufficiently impressed with
its importance.
Whoever, therefore, strikes at, or would neglect any important branch of production, whether agricultural or mechanical, to which the country is adapted, thereby shows
himself to be hostile to the great body of the arts- in other
words, to the civilization of the country.
LXVII. Vicinity of arts immediately auxiliary to one
another, is mutually advantageous.
The mere fact of the vicinity to each other of trades and
arts mutually auxiliary, is not unfrequently decisive of success or failure in prosecuting each. A foreigner came to
this country sometime about 1824, and set up the business
of stocking weaving, bringing with him machinery and tools
for the purpose, supposing he should find it advantageous
to transport his workmen and apparatus, instead of his products; and so it might have been but for the want of the
arts auxiliary to his business, near by. He soon found,
however, that he had to send to Europe as often as a piece
19*
221 
PROPOSITION LXVII.
of machinery or tool needed to be replaced, for he had not
sufficient capital to bring over the different descriptions of
workmen, whose services he needed; and if he had brought
them over, he could not himself alone have found employment for them. On this account, mainly, he broke up his
business, and returned to Europe.
The arts have made great progress in the United States
since that time, and the same business is now, I understand,
successfully carried on in different parts of the country.
This instance serves as an illustration of a truth that is
obvious to any man, who needs to avail himself of the services, or the custom, of a blacksmith, shoemaker, watchmaker, clock maker, gardener, farmer, schoolmaster, or any
one else; and nobody is exempt from such wants. He will
readily see that the vicinity of the person whose services or
custom he needs, and the one who needs his, is of immense
importance, making an advantage to him of five, to twentyfive or thirty per cent.
One is, therefore, struck with the simplicity and conceited
levity of some teachers of economical philosophy, who take
for granted that a solitary art can be instantaneously introduced into a community, in its utmost perfection, and carried
on successfully, in competition, upon equal terms, with a competitor who is surrounded with all the auxiliary arts and
trades.
Besides cheapness, there is an advantage to the artisan
in the quality of the articles supplied to him by others
in his own vicinity. He will, in the long run, be supplied
with those better adapted to his particular business, than he
possibly could be by workmen three thousand miles off. He
will not be subject to the inconvenience of servilely following,
in a subordinate provincial way, the foreign fashions and
notions at a distance of a year or two in the rear.
222 
PROPOSITION LXVII.
If you have been accustomed, during the past twenty-five
or thirty years, to select and provide things for your own
use in your trade, in any of the considerable towns that
supply the wants of neighboring artisans, your own experience will suggest to you how much more satisfactorily
you can be supplied now than formerly; and if you go into
an inquiry for the cause, you will readily find it to be owing,
in some degree, to improvement in the arts, and the increase
in their variety, in your vicinity.
You will readily see about you, proofs enough that the
nearer you are to the place whence your tools and materials
are supplied, and the more intimate your communication is
with it, the better adapted to your wants they will be.
This is not a reason for being supplied with everything near
at hand. Numberless articles must come from a great distance, and numberless others, in like manner, be carried far
away. Where circumstances admit of it, there is an immense
advantage to the arts from such vicinity. This is one
among the very many reasons why our own manufactures may
with confidence be encouraged by legislation, and in all other
ways; and it is evident that the advantages multiply, and act
with a continually increasing force, with the progress of the
arts and increase of our population, while the disadvantages
diminish in a corresponding degree, excepting that of higher
wages, which it is desirable should never disappear, though
it is constantly, at every step of progress in arts, more and
more compensated for.
There are circumstances to discourage, or absolutely hinder, the prosecution of this or that particular art, in this or
that particular locality. I am not speaking of cultivating
oranges and lemons in Canada, which is so strenuously objected to by the partisans of free trade, (as if somebody proposed it,) but of the pursuit of one or another species of
223 
PROPOSITION LXVIII.
production to which any place is adapted by its local position,
climate, soil, and character and habits of its people. In regard to such a kind of production, we may, I think, safely
say, that the introduction of any art is auxiliary to others in
the same vicinity, and as far as the mere fact of juxtaposition
is concerned, is mutually beneficial both to the party supplying and the party supplied, and such juxtaposition is promoted by protection, and hindered by free trade.
LXVIII. Protection of domestic industry is due to the
inventive genius of outr countrymen -Inconsistency of
free trade.
It is strange to hear the same persons propagating the
doctrines of free trade, and at the same time taking a lively
interest in the inventions and improvements of our countrymen, and congratulating the country on their ingenuity.
The success of the cultivation of cotton in the United States,
is due, in a great degree, to Eli Whitney's invention of the
gin. That is an invention which is not adapted to the
industrial pursuits of our most inconvenient competitors,
the Europeans. But almost all of the improvements in the
arts can be carried directly to Europe; and those of greatest
and most obvious utility are so, as soon, almost, as they are
brought into use in this country.*
Of what avail, then, is the constitutional provision for
granting patents to inventors, if, the moment an invention is
brought into use in this country, (such as a nail-machine, one
for dressing cloth, picking wool, cutting screws, making files,
or cards, an improvement for steam navigation, and a thou
* The improvements made in Ellrope are also brought to this country; but
that is not material to the argument, as will be obvious.
224 
PROPOSITION LXVIII.
sand others,) it is set up in England or France, where labor
and interest are but three fifths of our rate, and its products sent immediately to this country free, and prevent the
inventor from having any benefit whatever from his improvement, the exclusive use of which is so solemnly guarantied
to him by the law, as if it might be of some value? It is
precisely as if you were to give a copyright of a literary
production, and then allow of the free importation and sale
of foreign copies in our market. The European producers
must have the advantage of the invention for their own, and
all foreign markets. There is no preventing this, and no
good reason to prevent it; but that they should have it in
ours, to the annihilation of the value of the inventor's patent,
is preposterous.
This is literally "paltering"  with  the  inventor, and
"breaking to his hope" the promise of the law; and yet
this is advocated, and gravely insisted on in the name of a
so-styled science, by the very persons who are at the same
time pronouncing encomiums on the inventor, and demanding,
in his behalf, the public gratitude. The metaphysicians in
political economy, will, no doubt, be able to give some scientific reasons why it should be so, and wonder, with due
self-complacency, at the narrow, uncosmopolitan sentiments
of all dissenters.
There are many inventions of the value of which the
authors cannot be thus deprived by the legislation of the government that grants them their privilege; but no thanks to freetrade principles, which go directly to annihilate the value of
the privilege, in all cases, so far as it can be done by legislation, without directly revoking it, and would, if carried out,
annihilate it in the branches of industry most important for its
application. It is a mere mockery, unworthy of the government of a respectable nation, to grant to an inventor the
225 
PROPOSITION LXVIII.
exclusive privilege of using and vending an improved water wheel in the United States, as an encouragement and reward
to him for inventing it, and at the same time adopt a course
of legislation, the obvious and necessary tendency, and professed object of which is, to render such a wheel of about as
much value as a wine-press would be in New Hampshire.
You are much mistaken if you think this interest of patentable inventions is of very limited extent, and insignificant
import in the property, industry, and future prospects and
hopes of the country.   So far from this, it is, in the present
state of the world especially, vitally important to our political, social, and economical position. It would require a
volume to analyze, in all its details, the need of all possible
incentives to inventions and improvements in the processes
of production, in order to sustain our industry and our civilization, in the competition they must maintain with the
energies, genius, and struggles of distress, which impel
forward the productivo arts in Europe. Every person has
under his own observation, in whatever part of the country
he may be, sufficient demonstrations of the intimate connection of the faculty of invention and improvement, with
his own and the community's wealth and growth, and even
ordinary comfort and well-being. Free trade is Delilah's
shears to the strength of our Sampson.
The arts are the inspiration, no less than the trophies, of
inventive genius.  They  are social and gregarious.   A
country devoted to the production of provisions and raw
materials, cannot possess, in an advanced state, the sciences
and auxiliary arts most essential to its own industry. Chemistry is essential to a prosperous agriculture, but who would
expect to find that science in its highest cultivation, in a
community merely of agriculturists and herdsmen?   You
cannot have a few isolated, solitary arts, in high perfection.
226 
PROPOSITION LXVIII.
Each art, in order to its success, needs the near and ready
aid of a thousand others. Easy and familiar communication
between artisans, excites competition, and keeps the inventive
faculties in lively exercise. Ambition is thereby provoked;
and reputation is quickly won by merit and skill.
In order to present to your mind in a clear light, what
free trade would cast away for the present, and forfeit for
the future, you have but to imagine what would be the condition and resources of the country for production, defence,
and physical and intellectual enjoyment, at this time, supposing the knowledge and skill in the higher and more
difficult arts, such as can be acquired and maintained only
by a manufacturing people, to be annihilated. Free trade
holds out this, and the no less monstrous proposal of hereafter ceasing to learn and improve, as the consummate
national policy.
These statements I make as facts and premises.   And
what is the conclusion? To make a right conclusion we
must take along with us the proposition early laid down and
insisted on from the first, that the arts of production never
did flourish in any community, and never will, without protection and encouragement; and that the notion of their
spontaneous growth, as a general maxim, is as preposterous
as to expect plants to yield a great crop without culture,
or an uncared-for uninstructed youth to prove to be a skilful, accomplished man. The keeping alive a zeal for improvement and the activity of inventive genius, which can
be done only by effective protection and encouragement to
the arts, is of itself, without any other item being brought
into the account, more than an equivalent for any sacrifice
in the present money price, that any, not infatuated, follower
of the Edinburgh Gamaliel can estimate as attendant upon
an adequate protection to useful industry.
227 
PROPOSITION LXIX.
LXIX. Ever since the settlement of the country, the policy
of Great Britain has been to discourage and suppress
the arts in America, and keep the country perpetually
in a provincial state, and one of semi-civilization.
During the reigns of George I. and II., an English merchant, by name Joshua Gee, wrote divers tracts concerning
British manufactures, trade and navigation, which he published in a volume, in 1730. His essays had great influence
on the British policy and legislation at the time, and the
principles put forth by him have been acted upon down to
the present day.  The title of his 31st chapter is, "Plantations one great cause of enriching this nation."   It is
matter of curiosity to see in What light he then viewed the
colonies; it affords a key to the present policy of Great
Britain towards this country.   He says:  "If we examine into the circumstances of the inhabitants
of our plantations, and our own, it will appear that not one
fourth part of their product redounds to their own profit; for
out of all that comes here, they only carry back clothing,
and other accommodations for their families, all which is of
the manufactures and merchandize of this kingdom.
"The New England and northern colonies have not commodities and products enough to send us in return for purchasing their necessary clothing, etc., but are under very
great difficulties; and, therefore, any ordinary sort sells
with them; and when they are grown out of fashion with
us, they are new-fashioned enough there; and, therefore,
those places are the great markets we have to dispose of
such goods. As the colonies are a market for those sorts of
goods, so they are the receptacle for young merchants [agents]
who have not stocks of their own; and, therefore, all our
plantations are filled with such, who receive the consignment
228 
PROPOSITION LXIX.
of their friends from hence; and when they have got a
sufficient stock to trade with, they generally return home,
and other young men take their places; so that the continual
motion and intercourse our people have into the colonies,
may be compared to the bees of a hive, which go out empty,
but come back again loaded, by which means the founda tions of many families are laid." He then recommends the
favoring of certain species of trade from the colonies with
foreign countries, to obtain means of paying for their im ports from England, and adds, that "Every restraint and
difficulty put upon our trade with them, makes them have
recourse to their own products, which they manufacture; a
thing of great consequence to us, and ought to be guarded
against; for if they are supplied with their own manufac tures, one great advantage we should otherwise receive, is
cut off, and, therefore, if care be taken to find them employ ment and turn their industry another way, now in their in fancy, it may be done with very little trouble."
Such is Joshua Gee's proposed system of colonial policy,
which was followed by Great Britain down to the revolution,
backed by British legislation and enforced by British arms,
as long as Great Britain was strong enough to enforce it;
and since we began to achieve our independence, in 1775,
the same policy has been pursued by legislation, negotiation,
cajoling, threatening, and all the pliances of their immense
moral, commercial, and literary influence and resources;
last of all by the pretence of free trade, the very obvious,
as well as expressly declared object of which, on the part of
Great Britain in respect to us, is, that we shall be confined
to the production of provisions and raw materials, and the
making of a few coarse articles after our own former example,
and the present one of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New Holland, etc.  On the ninth of April,'1816,
20
229 
PROPOSITION LXIX.
Mr. Brougham, since Lord Brougham, in the House of
Commons, speaking of the immense British exports to this
country, after the peace, said "It was well worth while to
incur a loss upon the first exportation, in order, by the glut,
to stifle in the cradle, those rising manufactures in the
United States which the war had forced into existence
contrary to the natural course of things." *
Such was the policy of our "mother country" while we
were colonies, and that of the present British free trade is the
same. It is seconded and eulogized by the advocates of free
trade in the United States.
* See Edinburgh Review, Vol. 26, No-. 52, p. 263-4. The reader will not,
I hope, understand me to be particularly anti-Anglican. The people of
England and those of this country have ties that cannot be sundered. But
our kinsfolk on the other side are certainly very strongly tempted by their
position, to an indulgence of arrogance, and it is not surprising if the temptation is not always overcome. It unfortunately happens in this matter of protection and free trade, that they have a chance to avail themselves of one of
our foibles -for we are not exempt from that phase of nationality and patriotism, denominated national vanity. Thus Mr. Walker, in his report of 1848,
fancies that the British nation has been brought into the practice of free trade
by the cogent logic and persuasiveness of our advocates of that system! Such
conceit is really mortifying. The English have come into the profession, and
what practice they have of free trade, through the influence of the merest
party politics, and most likely will soon pass out of it, if they have not substantially done so in opinion and conviction already, in the like way. They
may possibly turn it to temporary account in some of their foreign commercial
relations with some nations whose governors and administrators fancy that
they are in the new era of communism between the lion and the lamb.  But
the lamb had better take care of itself  it may be that the lion has not wholly
lost his old instincts.
Great Britain is perfectly justified in looking to its own interest, but if we
imagine that its interest is identical with ours, or coincides with it in regard to
trade and industry in all cases whatsoever, we are in danger of buying a piece
of wisdom at a very high price.  Glorious Old England does not always treat
its subordinates with "sentiments of profound consideration," and has not so
fallen off fronm herself as not to have less respect for an inferior or dupe, than
for a sufficient opponent. I would not imply that there are no coincidences of
interest between this country and Great Britain; there are many. But I do
mean to say, that the particular policy which British statesmen and legislators
are pursuing in parliamentary debates and negotiations, and which its writers
of the now dominant party, are so strenuously seconding, is glaringly sinister
to the true interests and best hopes of this country.
230 
PROPOSITION LXX,
LXX. A check to inmports, and impulse given to our own
production by duties, have always been followed by gen  eralprosperity; and an influx of imports, induced by
low duty or however else, is always followed by general
depression and distress, north, south, and west.
If experience had any weight against theories, sublimated
metaphysics and abstractions, in the minds of the advocates
of free trade, we should now have no question about the
principles of protection; the only inquiry would be about
(what is a fair matter of discussion) its proper subjects and
degrees.  This science of public economy, like many others
that are necessary to be practically acted upon in affairs, is
a tentative, experimental one, in which propositions are to be
demonstrated only by the results of experience; and if it
is possible to demonstrate anything by that process, the vital
expediency of protection to domestic industry by duties on
imports, has been so demonstrated.
Looking back through the whole history of the country, we
find that the periods of 1790, etc., 1816, etc., 1836-7, etc.,*
and other times, when the influx of imports was greatest,
and foreign products cheapest in our markets, and we were
making those tremendous bargains in purchasing foreign
goods at a low money price, which free trade glorifies so
much, were those of our greatest distress, first in the ports,
then in the interior and throughout the country.   Those
same cheap goods, if you reckon all their cost, were in fact
the dearest that have ever been consumed in the country;
for they cost the wreck of our own industry, with all the in dividual ruin incidental to it.
* In 1819 there were in Pennsylvania about 36,000 actions for debt and
confessions of judgment, including a third of the number before justices.
Matthew Carey's New Olive-Branch, Ed. 1820, p. 132.
231 
PROPOSITION LXX.
Those bilious, jealous, sectional partisans, who find their
own misery in the prosperity of others, and never can be
happy while they fancy anybody else to be so, and who in
times of general activity and prosperity in their own vicinity
no less than elsewhere, cry out that they are robbed and
wretched, do not (in the adverse times of low price so
much desired by them) find sufficient consolation in the distress of others to make them forget their own.   They then
complain as loudly of their own trouble as they did before
that others were not in trouble; and so they keep up a perpetual coil.
Theories cannot obliterate history.   The renovation and
universal activity and prosperity-universal, covering every
part of the country-which followed the adoption of the tariff
of 1824, 1828, and 1842, especially and signally the last,
were known and felt by everybody; and the records of those
periods are demonstrations of the true policy of the country.
Whether the encouragement given by those tariffs was in the
best form, and most judiciously apportioned in all particulars,
is immaterial to the present purpose. However this may
have been, they were right in principle, and adequate in
degree, and in fact raised the productive arts of the country
to their present pitch, or rather above it, for they have of
late fallen off, though less than was to be expected, and less
than was intended by the projectors of the tariff of 1846,
which was a unique case of a deliberate attack upon the industry of a country by its legal guardians.
A foreign writer, speaking of the condition of the United
States produced by protection of domestic industry, contrasts
it with that of our neighbors, the British-American colonies.
He says, "Against the immense accumulation of capital in
the United States, and vast incidental improvements and
wealth, that have arisen to the country from manufactures,
232 
PROPOSITION LXX.
what have the British colonies to show? " * and those colonies
are in precisely the condition to which the British government
and its auxiliaries, our advocates of free trade, propose to
reduce this country.
So far as the supposed interest of any section of the
country, or any class of persons, whether in one part of the
country or another, is concerned, it is worthy of reflection
that the interest of every part and every class, industrious or
not industrious, so sympathizes, and is so bound up with
that of the whole country, regarded as an integer, that one
should hesitate very long before coming to the conclusion,
that his case, or that of his section or class, is an exception.
When one compares his own personal interest, or that of his
class or section, with that of the public at large, he is comparing what is near and belongs to the present, with what is
more distant and is permanent; and if he would avoid a
delusion, he must bear in mind that the near object has a
much greater apparent magnitude than one of the same size
at a distance. All the predictions of ruin to commerce, ruin
to agriculture, impoverishment of the country, destruction of
morals, distress of the poor, etc., etc., to arise from protection
to domestic industry, have been falsified; these terrific visions
have proved to be only visions, and have ceased to fright
the land from its propriety.
* Blackwood's Magazine, Oct., 1849.
233