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 TALD1ADGE 
 
 Address, Delivered at the Close 
 of the Eighteenth Annual Fair of the 
 American Institute. 
 
 HC 
 105 
 T21
 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE CLOSE OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL FAIR 
 
 American institute, 
 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW. YORK, 
 
 OCTOBER 24, 1845. 
 
 BY THE HON. JAMES TALLMADGE, 
 
 President of the limiitinc. 
 
 PUBLISHED FROM THE NOTES OF THE REPORTER. 
 
 ~ o t : 
 
 JAMES VAN NORDEN & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 60 WlLUAM-STREET. 
 
 1845.
 
 V 
 
 -**,. /ajfeU.- 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE CLOSE OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL FAIR 
 
 American Institute, 
 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 OCTOBER 24, 1845. 
 
 BY THE HON. JAMES TALLMADGE, 
 
 President of the Institute. 
 
 PUBLISHED FROM THE NOTES OF THE REPORTER. 
 
 Jfl'jetD'- $crk: 
 
 JAMES VAN NORDEN & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 60 WILLIAM-STREET. 
 
 1845.
 
 WE come this Evening to award the Premiums and to close this 
 Fair of the Eighteenth Anniversary of the American Institute. We 
 have, in the beginning, to proffer our thanks to this numerous and 
 crowded assembly for their many demonstrations of kindness and 
 support, of the great principles involved, and their eager anxiety 
 evinced for the success of our cause. 
 
 Custom has rendered necessary an Address on these occasions, and 
 the attendance of such an audience as this indicates the great interest 
 the public feel in the ceremonies of the Institute. Allow me to say, 
 that until within a few days past I did not expect to have been present 
 on this occasion. I have no speech prepared. I have no Address 
 ready to deliver ! It seems, however, a fitting occasion, and with 
 the indulgence of this assembly, I propose that we should spend the 
 time of this evening, and informally talk over our family concerns; 
 and recount with each other the varied circumstances in our family 
 affairs, which have tended to depress or to advance our domestic 
 prosperity. A review of the past may better enable us to mark the 
 course for the future. 
 
 A Convention of Farmers, Gardeners and Silk Growers of the 
 United States has been held during this Fair, in which, all the 
 States and Territories, except five, were represented, which brought 
 together and imparted much valuable information. From such 
 sources, as well as from our individual experience and realization, 
 he was gratified to announce that our nation, in all its districts, was 
 blessed with great prosperity and happiness. Our climate is genial ; 
 our soil is productive. Individual enterprise and efforts, in the varied 
 pursuits of civil life, are crowned with corresponding successes. In 
 the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, the members of our 
 national family now have much cause for rejoicing for their multi- 
 plied blessings. 
 
 In looking about for the causes, under a kind Providence, which 
 have led to such consequences, the great question of INTERNAL IM- 
 PROVEMENTS, \hedevelopement of the resources of our Country, and a 
 just care for the employment of its Domestic Industry immediately 
 present themselves to the view and mind of the observer, exhibiting 
 in bold relief the causes and their effects. What man of middle age 
 will not recollect when our occupied country consisted of a mere 
 belt of land upon the Atlantic coast, and all beyond was interminable 
 wilderness?
 
 The South, with a soil exuberant, was prosperous in its Planter 
 condition, and its labour was successfully employed in the production 
 of its great natural staples, Cotton and Tobacco, which found a ready 
 foreign market. 
 
 The Eastern States were doomed to a soil hard and sterile, which 
 scarcely afforded to their industry a scanty subsistence. Necessity, 
 that fruitful mother of invention, taught them to adventure on the 
 ocean, and forced them to provide for their wants by their own 
 manufactures. 
 
 The soil of the Middle States, fertile and congenial to agriculture, 
 and abounding in mineral wealth, was by distance rendered unavail- 
 ing and valueless^without the means of transportation. The jeal- 
 ousy of foreign governments, interdicted the produce of our land, 
 while it was claimed as a right, to supply the wants of the country 
 with foreign fabrics. 
 
 Our currency was exhausted. The industry of the country lan- 
 guished. The enterprise of our people was depressed. The Planter 
 alone stood erect, with a ready foreign market for his staple, Cot- 
 ton. The cotton crop had been rendered of an hundred fold value, 
 by the invention of the cotton gin, by WHITNEY, of Connecticut. 
 
 Under an impending crisis oi such a character in our family con- 
 cerns, New-York entered upon her system of Internal Improve- 
 ments. She adopted her canal policy, and pledged her " fortune 
 and her sacred honour" for its consummation. Her Erie and her 
 Champlain canals have been completed. The original costs were 
 upwards of nine millions of dollars, and the tolls received for the 
 present year (1845) are two millions and a half of dollars. The 
 lands along the extended lines of her canals are made available ; as 
 also those of the whole State are greatly increased in value. Its 
 mineral wealth of Iron and Salt are now available. 
 
 The State of Vermont has the means of transportation, and a 
 market, provided for all her productions. But we must look west 
 from Buffalo, for the national and material benefits from the Erie ca- 
 nal. Transportation and a market are opened to all the upper lakes. 
 The government lands pn thousands of miles of their snores, arc 
 made accessible and available for sale and settlement. In earnest 
 of the facilities and increased value of all the upper lakes, yonder in 
 this room is a large mass of copper ore from Lake Superior, sent 
 here as a specimen in competition with other ores. Buffalo has be- 
 come the seaport for the commerce of the lakes, and has thereby 
 quadrupled its population. The villages on the line of this canal 
 have grown into towns, and the towns have become cities. 
 
 Troy and Albany have each quadrupled their population, under 
 this new commerce from the canals. An official report shows the 
 trade on the canals, in 1841, was ninety-two millions of dollars valu- 
 ation, which has now grown to more than one hundred millions. 
 The bosom of the noble Hudson is covered with vessels of trans- 
 portation, and the busy hum of man in the industrious pursuits of 
 commercial enterprise, continually resounds on every part of its 
 shores.
 
 5 
 
 This city, to which this mighty tide from the far west is setting 
 onward, and which could only claim her one hundred thousand in- 
 habitants, when the system of the internal improvements of this 
 State was adopted, can now count, including the suburb villages ap- 
 pended to her, a population of four hundred and fifty thousand in- 
 habitants. May it not be said within the limits of truth, that the 
 nine millions of dollars expended for the Erie and Champlain canals, 
 if extended in the estimate of public benefits, to ninety and nine mil- 
 lions, would yet be short of the reality ? 
 
 Pennsylvania, our sister State, is entitled to much consideration, 
 in any consultation about our family and domestic concerns. She 
 has a district of country, estimated by geologists to equal any other 
 in the known world, in mineral and agricultural wealth. 
 
 It is stated that England has two thousand square miles of coal 
 district. Pennsylvania (not including Illinois) has ten times as much, 
 or twenty thousand square miles of coal district, and containing both 
 bituminous and anthracite coal. She, too, has a superabundance of 
 iron ore, and much of it is in juxtaposition with the coal. All this 
 boundless mineral wealth, was situated in remote districts, and from 
 its distance, was unavailable and of small value, without new means 
 of transportation. She, too, of necessity, embarked in her Internal 
 Improvements, and has succeeded to open canal and rail-road commu- 
 nication for transportation to tide-water. 
 
 She has this year (1845) brought out, two millions of tons of an- 
 thracite, and upwards of six hundred thousand tons of bituminous 
 coal. 
 
 Her struggles have been great, and her trials severe in the ac- 
 complishment of this great state and national object. The anxious 
 advocates of Foreign Importations foreboded her failure, and croak- 
 ed her ruin, in that great undertaking ; which, united with the run- 
 ning down of the ever-memorable and execrable Compromise Act, 
 aided to alarm capitalists, and for a time did impair her credit, and 
 cast a shade on her reputation. 
 
 She has survived the occasion. The great work is accomplished. 
 The coal delivered this present year has enabled her to pay the in- 
 terest on the canal debt, and wipe ofF the stain of defalcation and 
 imputed fraud. The state and this nation, have much cause to rejoice 
 in the consummation of this great work, so replete with benefits to 
 agriculture, commerce and manufactures, and so essential to the fu- 
 ture means for our national defence. 
 
 In vain did our FULTON study to adapt steam-power to the 
 purposes of navigation in vain has American genius provided 
 propellers for its better use; in vain will America attempt to hold 
 in competition, her place upon the ocean, without adequate arrange- 
 ments being made for the production and use of domestic coal. 
 (Great applause.) This people, as one family, owe a debt of gra- 
 titude to Pennsylvania, for the trials she has endured, and the noble 
 work she has achieved for herself and for the common welfare.
 
 Before and while this great work in opening avenues for the 
 procuring domestic coal was in progress, who will not remember, 
 and what householder does not know and bear witness, that the 
 price paid for the imported coal consumed in this city, in our dwell- 
 in^s and in our workshops, varied from fifteen to twenty-two dol- 
 lars per chaldron? It has already mostly given place to the Penn- 
 sylvania coal, at $5 per ton, and has occasioned a corresponding 
 reduction in the price of wood. Without estimating for the future, 
 on the two millions and a half tons of coal brought out this year, 
 the saving must be to the public upwards of ten millions of dollars, 
 aside from the employment of domestic labour. The whole work 
 is American, and its costs have been kept at home. 
 
 With such facts before us, who can endure the disease of desiring 
 foreign importations ! who does not spurn the thought of continuing 
 dependent on foreign importations for our necessary domestic sup- 
 plies, and omitting the just developement of our internal resources ? 
 (Great applause.) 
 
 Of the iron of Pennsylvania it must at present suffice to say, she 
 has an indefinite supply for home consumption and exportation; and 
 the same means for transportation provided for her coal, is equally 
 ready and available for her iron. She has numerous furnaces, and 
 takes the lead in iron. In 1843 she had only two Anthracite fur- 
 naces. She now has twenty-seven in active operation, and using 
 500,000 tons of coal per annum. 
 
 New- York is next in order. She has in active operation about 
 two hundred furnaces using charcoal, and employing about four 
 thousand labourers. 
 
 It is said in the public prints, about two million tons of iron is the 
 yearly consumption of the world. This total estimate is believed 
 to be far too low. The United States already produces one quarter 
 of that amount; and with iron ore and coal to answer for the whole 
 amount on demand. The present yearly consumption of the United 
 States is equal to 42,000,000 of dollars of which about one-fifth is 
 yet imported. 
 
 Steam, as a motive power in war and in peace ; in navigation 
 and on rail-ways, added to the hitherto requirements of society, is 
 working a revolution in its wants and demands; and promises an 
 importance and a value to coal and iron which has never before 
 been given to them. 
 
 Individual and associated enterprise for the production of domestic 
 supplies, has been crowned with most prosperous and signal success. 
 The resources of our country, are found to develope, as new mines 
 of wealth. Manufactures have prospered, converting the raw mate- 
 rial into fabrics of more than a hundred fold increased value. They 
 have not only supplied the domestic consumption, but they have 
 called Commerce into active employment, and are successfully ex- 
 porting their wares to Calcutta and the East Indies; and to the 
 Brazils and South America. So entirely successful, have American 
 manufacturers been in acquiring preference in those foreign markets,
 
 from the superior excellence of their goods, that Europeans now 
 often label their goods with American marks, to obtain a ready market. 
 
 Mr. T. said the extraordinary success which had attended the 
 varied manufacturing pursuits, had occasioned them not only to 
 give active employment to the industry of the country, but had 
 also created consumers for the produce of our abundant agriculture. 
 
 Agriculture profited largely, in the market from our public works, 
 and yet more extensively in the establishment of manufactures. He 
 had taken from a recent paper this notice : 
 
 " GROWTH OF A MANUFACTURING TOWN. A single School District in the 
 town of Manchester, N. H., which eight years ago contained but one hundred 
 and twenty-five inhabitants, all told, now has within its limits a busy population 
 of nearly ten thousand. The whole amount of cash disbursed by manufacturing 
 establishments is not far from seventy-five thousand dollars per month sixty-four 
 thousand dollars of which are paid to the operatives alone ! Who can point us to 
 an instance on record of similar thrift, rapid increase, and substantial prosperity ?" 
 
 Mr. T. said he would ask what farmer, or what mechanic, was 
 the poorer, for this sudden growth of the town of Manchester? 
 Nay, he would even ask, what farmer, what mechanic in all the 
 surrounding country, or what inhabitant of the State, was not the 
 richer for the collection of a population, and the disbursements of 
 capital in such an interior district? This notice will illustrate very 
 many like notices in substance, which might be produced. 
 
 But turn your thoughts to Lowell ; a yet stronger case. There 
 the water power which had run wild for ages, has been subjected 
 to work for man. Its once desert banks, now show the investment 
 of twenty millions of capital, much of it created by its own work ; 
 and with a population of upwards of thirty thousand inhabitants, all 
 with prosperous employment. 
 
 What farmer, or what mechanic is the poorer for all this ? The 
 agriculturists of Ohio and Illinois will tell you, their droves of cat- 
 tle and stock are driven out, re-fatted in Pennsylvania and Western 
 New- York, and come to their market in Philadelphia, New- York 
 and Boston. The grain and provisions from Michigan find their 
 way to the same markets. The Rail-Road eastward from Albany, 
 in addition to its other freights, have cars for fatted bullocks and 
 other animals, as passengers, on their way to Boston and Lowell. 
 
 Such are some of the causes which have so suddenly and so 
 greatly augmented the wealth, and increased the population of the 
 Eastern and Middle States ; and given vitality to the far West, by 
 affording it supplies and a ready market, for all the productions of 
 its exuberant soil. 
 
 Virginia and the Carolinas have steadily adhered to their planter 
 condition. The production of cotton and tobacco as their only 
 staples, with a ready foreign market, was the fixed boundary of their 
 enterprise. They would not manufacture, or attempt the introduc- 
 tion of any other staple production. That their tobacco was charged 
 with a foreign duty of nearly three thousand per cent., stimulated 
 them only to increased production. That the amount of their sales
 
 was returned to them in fabrics manufactured from their own cot- 
 ton, at an increased cost of from four to four hundred fold, occa- 
 sioned no doubts with them, of the expediency of continuing such a 
 foreign trade. When information was given, that the Manchester of 
 England, with two hundred thousand inhabitants, and abounding in 
 wealth, had been built up, and was supported on the profits of the 
 manufacture of their cotton, it awakened no intention to become 
 their own manufacturers, to employ their own labour, and to keep 
 those profits at home. Early prejudices stood immovable in sup- 
 port of colonial habits. Their Joshuas, who had succeeded the men 
 of the Revolution, had commanded the sun and the moon of their 
 prosperity to stand still. 
 
 New states had been added, and greatly augmented the quantity 
 of cotton produced, while the price has steadily fallen from thirty- 
 seven to four cents a pound, the lowest possible point of produc- 
 tion ; and with the worn out tobacco plantations of Virginia, tell the 
 story of their advancement in this age of self-reliance on our do- 
 mestic industry, internal improvements and labour-saving machinery. 
 
 But we inform you, with much delight, the charm has broken the 
 spell has passed away. Rail-Roads are penetrating into every part 
 of the South. Emigrants from other states, have gone in and re- 
 deemed the worn out lands by better cultivation, and manufactures 
 have there successfully commenced their career. [Great applause.] 
 
 The returns of the last census showed two hundred and sixty-one 
 establishments in the Southern States for manufacturing cotton 
 upwards of one hundred have since been added numerous others 
 are being erected, and on a more extended scale. Some now ex- 
 port their yarns to the north, and to Europe. [Great applause.] 
 
 Will you look at these specimens of cut glass, brought here from 
 remote districts, in competition for the premium of the American 
 Institute? They are all of superior quality and excellence ; their 
 varied works, having attained much perfection, now furnish do- 
 mestic supplies, and have checked foreign importations. Yonder 
 specimen, a magnificent vase, has borne off the palm, and won the 
 premium. Do you ask from whence it came? From Wheeling. 
 Yes, one of the four glass establishments of Virginia, has this day 
 won the premium on these manufactures. [Loud applause.] 
 
 A revolution in public opinion at the south, in regard to manufac- 
 tures, is rapdily moving onwards. 
 
 The advocates of foreign importation, often point to the annual 
 export to England from the southern states, of fifty-six millions value 
 ot cotton, and three millions of tobacco, in contrast with only between 
 four and five millions value, in all other productions exported to Eng- 
 land, from all the United States. This is too true. It proves the 
 tone of the measures, which have prevailed. The paralysis of 
 some of our stand still politicians, and their measures, have worked 
 such results. The partiality and injustice will be apparent, when it 
 is remembered that the yearly productions of Rhode Island alone, 
 in her agriculture, commerce and manufactures, equal in amount the 
 boasted fifty-six millions of cotton from all the south.
 
 The annual production of Massachusetts amounts to one hundred 
 and thirty millions of dollars. The production of New- York is equal 
 in amount, other than the trade on her canals. That of Pennsylva- 
 nia is of nearly like amount. Ohio, an unsettled wilderness when 
 the Constitution of the United States was adopted, is now, by her 
 liberal policies, grown to be the third state in the Union. Virginia 
 had then double the population of New- York, and a greater excess 
 of wealth. New- York now has doubled the population of Virginia. 
 What a demonstration of the consequences of their respective lines 
 of policy ! 
 
 When business is successful, when the industry of the country is 
 fully employed, how can better evidence be afforded of the pros- 
 perity of a people? The wages of this country furnish ample sub- 
 sistence, and elevate the condition of the labourer. In Europe the 
 price of labour will not average above ten cents a day. It explains 
 its depressed condition, in subsistence, in habits and intelligence. 
 We urge you to make the contrast, and remember, our duty is to 
 provide for our own household. We have no sympathies with those 
 who desire foreign importations. 
 
 Away with all idea of importation for our necessary supplies, or 
 articles for which we have the material and can manufacture ! [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 It is unjust to our own artisans and labourers, it is bad faith to the 
 emigrants who have come among us, that the productions of the la- 
 bour of the depressed sufferers from among whom they had fled, 
 should be admitted here to glut the market, ruin their business, and 
 throw them out of employ. Who does not rejoice in the triumph of 
 domestic industry and art exhibited in the numerous articles of Ame- 
 rican production which now surround us. 
 
 The American Institute holds emphatically to the doctrine of self- 
 preservation that this country should create its wealth, its inde- 
 pendence, its supplies, and consequently secure its own happiness. 
 We are now exporters of articles, of which, a few years ago, we 
 imported large quantities. 
 
 To repel accusations, the views of the American Institute in re- 
 lation to protection, free trade and a tariff, had been explained on a 
 former occasion. They are again stated, as follows : 
 
 " We are not the advocates of a high Tariff. 
 
 We advocate the encouragement 
 
 Of Domestic Industry Of Domestic Production. 
 
 We maintain the expediency of high wages, and an improved condition for our 
 Home Labour, over the depressed labour of Europe. 
 
 As means to accomplish these great objects 
 
 We claim that the measures of this country should be defensive, and to counter- 
 vail the encroachments of other countries, so as to secure to our own citizens 
 EQUALITY in commerce, in rights and privileges; and by a just distinction between 
 the raw material and the manufactured articles imported, to lay duties for revenue. 
 on the manufactured articles, so as to encourage our own labour, in the production 
 of like articles, and thus to PROTECT the Domestic Industry of onr own people, 
 and develope the resources of our country. 
 
 Agriculture depends for its prosperity on production and a market. Encourage- 
 ment induces the one ; home manufactures aud commerce will provide the other." 
 
 2
 
 10 
 
 A reference to a few cases will illustrate the preceding explanation. 
 
 In the commercial regulations established between independent 
 countries, it is just and usual that regard should be had in the rights 
 and privileges granted by the one; to the rights and privileges allowed 
 by the other. This is the relative " EauALrry" which we claim to be 
 regarded. To give where we get and get where we give. 
 
 American flour sent to Cuba is subjected to a duty of 810 per bar- 
 rel ; at Rio Janeiro the duty is $6, and at Venezuela it is $4. Other 
 cases can be added to these examples. In return for this, by our 
 commercial arrangements we receive their staple (coffee) free of 
 duty. This is " Free Trade !" 
 
 Under an act of Congress, a duty is levied on coffee imported, 
 and which is paid by American vessels, while Dutch vessels have a 
 treaty, made under a former administration, allowing them to bring 
 cargoes including coffee duty free. 
 
 Mr. Secretary BIBB determined, the treaty and the law must each 
 have their operation ; and so administered the treasury. 
 
 Mr. WALKER, to correct this, has recently issued an order, " de~ 
 daring that it could not have been the INTENTION to put foreign ves- 
 sels on better terms in our ports than our own vessels," and directing 
 the duty to be levied. The Dutch insist his order cannot repeal their 
 treaty. This is not only Free Trade, but " a little more so" It is 
 said, there is " another" and " another" like treaty. 
 
 The duty under the present Tariff of England on total articles 
 which she actually receives from the United States, is an average 
 of 49 per cent. The discrimination between the raw material and 
 the manufactured article made by her, occasions a wide difference. 
 Deduct the cotton she takes duty free, as a raw material for her 
 manufactures, and the average duty is over 300 per cent, on all ar- 
 ticles the product of the United States. 
 
 Under our Tariff of 1842, on all articles subject to duty, the ave- 
 rage rate is 32 per cent. The articles imported in 1844, duty free, 
 amounted to nearly twenty-five millions of dollars. This sum being 
 included in the amount, and the average of duty on the total import, 
 is reduced to 24 per cent. Thus our commercial arrangements with 
 England are, 24 per cent, against her 49 per cent, on all articles 
 imported or, 32 per cent, against her 300 per cent, on all articles 
 imported subject to duty that is, not including articles duty free, 
 received by either. Add to this, she has a discriminating duty in 
 favour of her colonies of 147 per cent. 
 
 This is not quite yet a case of free trade, and we are required to 
 make a further reduction of our duties. 
 
 During the war of 1812 with England, a law was passed to en- 
 courage American seamen, and giving a bounty on vessels employed 
 in ihe fisheries of four dollars per ton, and twenty cents a barrel on 
 fish cured vriih foreign salt and exported. The law has since been 
 continued, and is now in force. 
 
 England laid a duty of $6 a barrel (now $4) on foreign fish, and 
 duties on foreign timber, lumber, agricultural productions, &c., so
 
 11 
 
 high as to be prohibitory, and admitting the same articles from her 
 colonies free of duty. 
 
 Then came our new treaty of " reciprocity in trade and com- 
 merce" with Great Britain, (not including her colonies,} and by which 
 her ships are admitted into our ports on the same footing as our 
 own- They come freighted with salt ; or her manufactures ; and re- 
 load with fall, timber, lumber and sometimes the produce of our 
 agriculture, and sail not for England, where the duties are prohib- 
 itory, but for her colony of New-Brunswick, where they touch, and 
 the vessels and cargoes then go home free of duty. No American 
 vessel is allowed in this trade. 
 
 Official returns show that 2,361 British vessels were thus em- 
 ployed in the year 1844. Their crews averaged from eight to ten 
 men, showing that 20,000 British seamen were thus employed in 
 this American carrying-trade by way of New-Brunswick. 
 
 The patriotic legislation to create a carrying trade, and a nursery 
 for American seamen, has been turned the other end first by diplo- 
 matic arrangements ; and the bounty on the fisheries paid from the 
 Treasury of the United States, now serves as a nursery for British 
 seamen. 
 
 This is also a case of free-trade under a treaty of reciprocity : 
 with which all those are content, who endeavour to prevent en- 
 couragement to domestic industry, and study to retard rather than 
 develope the resources of the country. 
 
 A like circuitous trade is carried on from the Southern States, 
 touching at Jamaica, the Bermudas, or some British island, and 
 thence home from the colony, with their cargoes, free of duty. 
 
 Some of the fruits of free-trade on one side only, will appear from 
 a Report made to Congress by the Naval Committee, which states 
 that out of 109,000 seamen sailing out of the United States, only 
 9,000 were Americans. 
 
 The Ohio ship of the line sailed from New- York on a three years 
 cruise, with a crew of 1,000 men, only 182 of whom were Ameri- 
 cans. Others of our public vessels are manned in like proportion. 
 
 Complaints are making that foreign vessels are now under-bid- 
 ding and obtaining the cotton-freights, in preference to American 
 vessels. This is and ever will be so, under our present com- 
 mercial arrangements. Those vessels come out bringing foreign 
 manufactures, and in preference to returning in ballast, can afford 
 to underbid and take cotton at any freight they can get. It is the 
 same with coal, and other freight-boats coming out on the Pennsyl- 
 vania and New- York canals. Any return freight they can obtain is 
 clear gain. A Bremen ship coming out with German emigrants, will 
 bring wheat at six or seven cents a bushel, or other freight in the 
 hold at a nominal rate, in preference to buying and taking in other 
 ballast. 
 
 There is a rapid and an alarming increase recently of foreign ton- 
 nage, in the American carrying trade. A few years ago its propor- 
 tion was about one tenth ; in 1840, the proportion was over one third
 
 12 
 
 of the whole. It is rapidly getting possession, especially of that 
 branch of trade which is bulky and requires the greatest amount of 
 shipping, and is the most valuable to navigation. It is in effect, now 
 in possession of nearly one-half of the whole of the carrying trade 
 of the United States. 
 
 Facilities have been afforded in the administration of the laws, 
 for these and other like abuses. When legislation would not be 
 subordinate, then diplomatic arrangements were made to secure 
 results. It is believed the days for such things are passed. We have 
 reason to hope, the time has come when measures will be taken to 
 reclaim our lost rights, and regain that " equality" in Trade and 
 Commerce, so just to others; so essential to our country. Ameri- 
 can influences must and will prevail ! 
 
 Time, and the occasion (he said) rendered it necessary to desist 
 in this general review, and require us to give a more particular 
 attention to the splendid specimens of American genius now under 
 exhibition. All these go to prove the capability of the country to 
 supply itself with all the necessaries of life, and point out the 
 necessity of the government enabling and maintaining it in its efforts 
 to do so. 
 
 The President then alluded to the different machines in exhibition 
 for the purpose of saving labour, especially the one for the produc- 
 tion of Flax and Hemp ; and compared the facilities now thus secured 
 with the difficulties and disadvantages which, up to a late period, 
 were encountered in these productions and preparation of the raw 
 material. It would enable the west and the south successfully to 
 adopt hemp and flax as new staples for their rich soils, and furnish a 
 supply of those valuable materials as a part of their abundant pro- 
 ductions. It promises to accomplish for hemp and flax, what the 
 gin did for cotton. 
 
 He paid a fitting compliment to Mr. BILLINGS, the inventor of the 
 machine. He was a native of Massachusetts, a resident of Missouri 
 and was educated at the common school of New-England ; where 
 it is safe to read the Bible. 
 
 He paid a passing tribute to WHITNEY, the inventor of the cotton 
 gin. A traveller at the south for his health, he saw the difficulty of 
 picking the cotton from the seeds, and at once conceived the idea of 
 the cotton gin, and gave an hundred fold value to the crops of the 
 planter. 
 
 Having accidentally mentioned " common schools" he said he could 
 not refrain from adding a fitting illustration of its benefits to this 
 government and the country. Increased safety for monarchial 
 goverments is supposed to rest in the lack of education of the 
 labouring classes of their subjects. The mass of them could neither 
 read or write. Their system of the division of labour allots and 
 confines individuals to separate divisions of the same manufacture. 
 It is said they have ihirty-two divisions of labour in the manufacture 
 of a pin. The intelligence of such labourers must, of consequence, 
 be limited to the division of their employment. They can only
 
 13 
 
 work in that division, and in that alone. They are thus permitted 
 to have only the thirty-second part of an idea of the business in. 
 which they are employed. 
 
 The American labourer, starting in life with his common school 
 education, soon understands all the divisions of the manufacture. 
 His intelligence embraces the principles of the machinery, to accom- 
 plish any required result. He sees and readily improves defects, 
 and he becomes an inventor as a part of his daily occupation. It is 
 from such first causes, America is now distinguished in the civilized 
 world, as a people remarkable for their inventive capacities and 
 great readiness to furnish machinery of every kind. 
 
 The machine shops of Lowell, Rhode Island, Patterson, Glenham r 
 and other places are now engaged executing orders for Russia, 
 Germany, Belgium and Holland. 
 
 Russia has this year (1845) taken seven million pounds of Ameri- 
 can cotton to be worked up at Moscow and St. Petersburgh, on her 
 American machinery. Learning wisdom, she too, takes her cotton 
 duty free as a raw material, while she has added fifty per cent, to 
 her previous duties, on the manufactures of other countries, which do 
 not make commercial arrangements with her, on principles of equali- 
 ty in trade. 
 
 Russia learned where supplies could be had, and made her first 
 orders on America for cotton machinery in 1837. Free trade Eng- 
 land then had her laws, providing fine, and imprisonment for all con- 
 cerned with forfeiture of machinery and vessel, aiding in any at- 
 tempt to export machinery. 
 
 To countervail American enterprise in those new markets for 
 American machinery, she has since repealed those laws. 
 
 A new spinning machine or throstle frame on exhibition, for turn- 
 ing out cotton thread, was then alluded to, and the improvement it 
 has introduced explained. 
 
 Its velocity is said to be increased, and by a new arrangement of 
 the spindles a superior accuracy, quality of work, and speed are ob- 
 tained. (He here exhibited a skein of thread.) This skein of 840 
 yards, and being 300 to the pound, is equal to 143 miles of thread 
 from one pound of cotton : a signal triumph of machine over hand 
 labour. 
 
 He pointed to the Telescope in exhibition explained its proper- 
 ties of American materials and manufacture its price $500 
 equal in its powers to those imported, which cost $2,000. 
 
 He then said the machine for drilling and blasting rocks was one 
 of usefulness but pointed to the hoisting machine for lifting bur- 
 thens, especially in lading or unlading vessels, and storing goods in 
 upper lofts ; as a most signal specimen of labor-saving machinery. 
 
 Speaking of the display of cut glass, from all parts, he was led to 
 notice some recent remarkable instances of Southern awakening in 
 the cause of manufactures ; and he reasoned from the statistics of 
 Lowell, and other manufacturing towns, as to the dependence of all 
 the interests of the country upon each other ; by the way of encour- 
 agement to the south in the good work. He said agriculture could
 
 14 
 
 not prosper, till the prior prosperity of manufactures and commerce, 
 to create consumers and provide a market. The farmer and me- 
 chanic now understand their own good ; one to raise grain, another 
 to make iron, one to manufacture cloth, another leather ; and thus in 
 the various pursuits, to go on harmoniously, for the common pros- 
 perity. 
 
 He spoke of the very excellent specimens of sheet iron on exhi- 
 bition, equal to the English, and were in competition with the best 
 Russia. 
 
 He pointed to some iron castings, and said the pattern or form, 
 once obtained, the castings were made at about four cents a pound, 
 and in the whole at a cost of not many more cents than the dollars 
 asked for the imported ones. Away, said he, with the importation 
 of the necessaries of life from abroad ! (Great applause.) 
 
 Let it be here said, lest it may be forgotten, that the art of design 
 with pencil sketching, ought to be made a part of common school 
 teaching, to better fit the pupils for mechanic trades. 
 
 On the desideratum of making machinery so necessary to work 
 the raw material, alluding to the different interests thus benefited, 
 the speaker happening to mention "the pipe-layers," a great laugh 
 was raised, which the speaker took in good part. The price of the 
 articles thus made was lessened one quarter, and one half (he said) 
 since the competition commenced. (Applause.) And not only in 
 iron, but in glass manufactures and others. Certificates to this ef- 
 fect were read from different producers, of which the following is 
 one, from M. and T. SWEENEY, manufacturers of glass at Wheel- 
 ing, Va. 
 
 " They say during the years '41 and part of '42 our flint glass manufactory was 
 idle, owing to the want of business resulting from the reduction of the tariff under 
 the Compromise Act, so that our hands were idle for some eighteen or twenty 
 months. After the passage of the tariff of '42, we again put our works in opera- 
 tion, and have been since making all the glass our factory is capable of producing; 
 and we are now selling our glass at twenty-five per cent, less than we did at the 
 adoption of the tariff of '42, and we believe the deduction has been general over 
 the country." 
 
 He alluded to the raising of the Great Britain on the floating dry 
 dock in this city, which dock he said was first presented to the 
 American Institute for competition, and received its sanction. Yes ! 
 a son of the soil of Great Britain near me justly observes, America 
 has taken Great Britain in her arms, and lifted her out of trouble. 
 (Vociferous applause, long continued.) 
 
 General TALLMADGE then held up a piece of Osnaburg, manufac- 
 tured in Charleston, South Carolina, and hailed it as a proof of a 
 wakening up in the cause of manufactures even in that " free trade" 
 State of the Union. (Cheers.) 
 
 Wool and wollens next occupied his attention ; the success at- 
 tending export of this staple to England, which he hailed as a tri- 
 umphant feature of the year's production in this country. Then 
 came silk, of which he gave a very encouraging report. He men-
 
 15 
 
 tioned the $1,000 premium of MYNDERT VAN SCHAICK for the culti- 
 vation of silk, amidst much applause. Apropos of the bells of Mr. 
 MENEELY, of Troy. The speaker remarked that he did not allude 
 to those fair ones in the gallery of the bells from this foundry, the 
 largest in the United States, weighing 8,125 pounds, has just been 
 suspended in the observatory in this city, and the proprietor informs 
 us that no less than seven hundred, of various weights, made by him, 
 are now used as church bells in this state alone. 
 
 An allusion to old Kentucky drew down thunders of applause, 
 which was increased to a deafening and long protracted series of 
 cheers and shouts, when the specimen of hemp, raised on the farm 
 of HENTRY CLAY, was held up to view. On showing some silk bon- 
 nets, made by fair hands, the President said he loved the country 
 which produced the material for such works others love the girls 
 that make them. [Loud laughter and cheers.] 
 
 Miss STONE'S horsehair bonnet, invented and made by herself, 
 elicited great applause. 
 
 The steam engine by which the machinery of the Fair has been 
 carried on: the lithographs of ENDICOTT ; the fireworks of EDGE, 
 were then in turn touched on, followed by allusions to other articles, 
 in more or less detail. 
 
 He gave an interesting account of the way in which our manu- 
 facturers make cheap veneered door knobs and table tops, so as to 
 equal the costly imported ones, and explained the process by which 
 this home competition begets cheap production, and makes the article 
 cheap. So with a thousand other articles. 
 
 The display of the working bees, and of their delicious production, 
 excited a great deal of interest. The ploughing and spading matches 
 were then alluded to with great minuteness and unction. The show 
 of fruits and flowers, with the caveat that they were only to be 
 looked at, was next made, and with a just compliment to Mr. 
 WALKER, of Boston, and Mr. BRIDGEMAN, of New-York, who had 
 taken charge of the floral and horticultural department. Mr. UNDER- 
 BILL, of Croton Point, in this connection, received a fitting tribute, 
 for his splendid grapes; and a long list of horticultural productions 
 were all shown up in order, with some very pleasant remarks. 
 
 He adverted to the attacks made in some papers on the purposes, 
 conduct and management of the Institute, which he indignantly con- 
 tradicted. He then said that the Institute had awarded thirty-four 
 gold medals, amounting to $410 ; one hundred and eighty silver ones, 
 amounting to $900 ; thirty-nine silver cups, $410 ; one hundred and 
 twenty-eight volumes of books, $200 ; four hundred diplomas, $150, 
 and cash premiums $180; and then he recited the various uses of 
 the Institute for money, its great expenses, the fairness of the awards, 
 the services of the treasurer and the other responsible officers of the 
 Institute, the kindness of Dr. DEWEY'S congregation in the loan of 
 their church, the attention of the mayor and the police during the 
 Fair, and the liberality of the city in affording the Institute their rooms- 
 in the Park. Twenty-two thousand articles had been exhibited.
 
 16 
 
 The average receipts, the first week, for entrance, was $1,000 a 
 day ; this week, owing to the bad weather, a little less. 
 
 The advance in skill and improvement, over last year, was at 
 least ten per cent. 
 
 After paying a tasteful compliment to the needle-work of the 
 ladies which adorned the walls, and returning thanks for the atten- 
 tion of the audience during his remarks, the President adjourned the 
 Eighteenth Fair of the American Institute. 
 
 The address had lasted two hours, of which this report is but 
 an imperfect sketch. It had excited intense interest, and at its close 
 the audience gave three cheers, and thus ended the Fair.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 Stockton. Calif. 
 
 000 687 953