TRADE WITH BRITISH AMERICA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. W. D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 7. 1866. 
 
 The House, as in Committee of the Whole on the 
 state of the Union, having under consideration the 
 hill CHf-R. No. 337) regulating trade with the British 
 North American possessions— 
 
 Mr; KELLEY said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman : If I had made my remarks 
 yesterday afternoon, I should have added an¬ 
 other to the many illustrations I have given 
 this session of the mistake made by the gentle¬ 
 man from Illinois [Mr. "Wentworth] when he 
 said I never took less than an hour when I got 
 the floor, for I am quite sure that twenty min¬ 
 utes would then have sufficed me. But I have 
 had a night in which to examine the provisions 
 of this bill and to reflect upon them, and I 
 shall probably ask the attention of the House 
 for a longer period this morning. 
 
 I would have been satisfied yesterday with 
 the amendment proposed by the distinguished 
 gentleman from Maryland [Mr. F. Thomas] 
 coupled with one or two others. To-day, how¬ 
 ever, this will not satisfy me. Sir, the bill 
 should be rejected. It is false in principle and 
 in detail, and will materially diminish the rev¬ 
 enues of the country by suspending several im¬ 
 portant branches of our industry. As I conned 
 its sections I became doubtful of its origin; 
 whether it was of British or American concep¬ 
 tion. There are many of its features which 
 constrain me to think that it is of foreign and 
 not of American origin. I point gentlemen to 
 the ninth section. Its authors seem to have 
 been oblivious to the fact that we are still liv¬ 
 ing under democratic-republican institutions, 
 and have not yet fallen t.nder a dictatorship. 
 
 The ninth section confides the regulation of 
 all the commerce that may grow up between 
 the United States and the British Provinces to 
 the absolute and unrestricted control of the 
 President. Let me astound gentlemen who 
 have not examined the bill by reading thpA 
 portion of the section to which I refer: 
 
 Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That the President 
 is hereby authorized to terminate or suspend the pro¬ 
 visions of this act, or any section or sections thereof, 
 and as to the whole or part of the British North Amer¬ 
 ican colonies, by giving public notice of such termina¬ 
 tion or suspension, whenever in his opinion it may 
 appear just and proper, &c. 
 
 Sir, such power may be exercised by the 
 Emperor of Russia in regard to the commerce 
 of his empire; but such power, regulating the 
 trade of this country according to his caprice, 
 has never been confided to the President of the 
 United States, or will be confided to one while 
 the American people remain free. 
 
 Mr. ROGERS. Will the gentleman allow 
 me to ask him a question? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I would rather not now. 
 The gentleman knows my time is limited. 
 
 Mr. ROGERS. I wanted to ask the gentle¬ 
 man from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] if this 
 bill gives the President any more power than 
 was proposed to be given to him by the Freed- 
 men’s Bureau bill? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I have no time for side 
 issues now. I will answer that question some 
 time when my distinguished friend has the floor 
 and kindly yields to me. [Laughter.] 
 
 Sir, this bill is of a piece with others now 
 pending before this House. It is like the loan 
 bill, which proposes to contract the business of 
 
2 
 
 the country to the narrow dimensions it filled 
 before the war, and to give the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, while he has an average balance of 
 $40,000,000 lying on deposit in the banks, the 
 power to control the currency of the country, 
 to contract or expand it as he will. It is also 
 in this respect like the postal bill, which, as an 
 inducement to the people to buy their envelopes 
 from Government employes or contractors, pro¬ 
 poses to give one free of cost to every man who 
 buys a postage stamp. 
 
 Sir, when I regard this feature of the bill, I 
 feel that its paternity may have been American, 
 that it may have emanated from the Adminis¬ 
 tration. But when I consider its provisions in 
 reference to trade, and see how well they are 
 calculated to prostrate many of the leading 
 interests of the country; the advantages it 
 secures to foreign commodities which compete 
 with the productions of our laboring people ; 
 how it stimulates the development of the re¬ 
 sources of the British Provinces, and induces 
 emigration to them, while it restricts the devel¬ 
 opment of our resources, and is calculated to 
 divert immigration from our shores; when I 
 see all this, I say, I feel that the Canadian 
 tainistry must have concocted this bill. 
 
 Mr. CONKLING. I would like to ask the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] a 
 question pertinent to what he is now saying. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I would rather not yield 
 now, having just declined to yield to the gen¬ 
 tleman from New Jersey, [Mr. Rogers.] 
 
 I know, Mr. Chairman, how hard it is to 
 break away from habit, to escape from estab¬ 
 lished usage; and I remember that for more 
 than ten years, under the fraudulently named 
 reciprocity treaty, we have had our habits, 
 usages, and modes of thought controlled by the 
 infamous provisions of that treaty; and it may 
 be that their influence has controlled the com¬ 
 mittee that presented this bill. But, sir, noth¬ 
 ing is more certain than that had we never 
 had that treaty we never would have had this 
 bill; it is its legitimate offspring, and embodies 
 many of the worst vices of its parent. 
 
 Sir, what was that treaty? It was conceived 
 in iniquity and executed in sin. It was one of 
 the master-strokes of policy of the sagacious and 
 recklessly ambitious men who had even then 
 determined to destroy our country. Its object 
 
 was to enfeeble and impoverish the North, and 
 to strengthen the Provinces of our most power¬ 
 ful enemy, that bound the whole line of our 
 northern frontier. It was the result of a delib¬ 
 erate conspiracy, the first object of which was 
 to give the American market to foreign manu¬ 
 facturers, by destroying every leading branch of 
 American manufactures; and the second was, 
 when they had attained the first, to prostrate 
 the grain-growers and provision-producers of 
 the West and North, and thus reduce the impov¬ 
 erished North to subjection to the slaveholding 
 oligarchy of the South. Its ultimate purpose 
 was to produce bankruptcy and discord in the 
 North, that they might more easily accomplish 
 their then purpose, which they expressed by 
 open action in April, 1861. 
 
 In order that gentlemen may see that I speak 
 by the record, I send to the Clerk’s desk a vol¬ 
 ume bearing the imprint of Prichard, Abbott, 
 & Loomis, Augusta, Georgia, 1860, and enti¬ 
 tled “Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Argu¬ 
 ments, comprising the Writings of Hammond, 
 Harper, Christie, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, 
 and Cartwright, on this Important Subject, by 
 E. N. Elliott, LL. D., president of Planters’ 
 College, Mississippi, with an Essay on Slavery 
 in the Light of International Law, by the Edi¬ 
 tor.” 
 
 Let one of these distinguished men inform 
 the country whether I am correct in what I now 
 say. 
 
 The Clerk read, as follows: 
 
 “Thus also was a tripartite alliance formed by 
 which the western farmer, the southern planter, and 
 the English manufacturer became united in a com¬ 
 mon bond of interest, the whole giving their support 
 to the doctrine of free trade. 
 
 “ This active commerce between the W est and South 
 soon caused a rivalry in the East, that pushed for¬ 
 ward improvements by States or corporations, to gain 
 a share in the western trade. These improvements, 
 as completed, gave to the West a choice of markets, 
 so that its farmers could elect whether to feed the 
 slave who grows the cotton or the operatives who are 
 engaged in its manufacture. But this rivalry did 
 more. Thecompetition for western products enhanced 
 their price and stimulated their more extended cul¬ 
 tivation. This required an enlargement of the mar¬ 
 kets, and the extension of slavery became essential 
 to western prosperity. 
 
 “We have not reached the end of the alliance be¬ 
 tween the western farmer and southern planter. The 
 emigration which has been filling Iowa and Minne¬ 
 sota, and is now rolling like a flood into Kansas and 
 Nebraska, is but a repetition of what has occurred in 
 the other western States and Territories. Agricul¬ 
 tural pursuits are highly remunerative; and tens of 
 thousands of men of moderate means or of no means 
 are cheered along to where none forbids them land to 
 till. 
 
 "For the last few years public improvements have 
 
3 
 
 called for vastly more than the usual share of labor 
 and augmented the consumption of provisions. The 
 foreign demand added to this has increased their price 
 beyond what the planter can afford to pay. For many 
 years free labor and slave labor maintained an even 
 race in their western progress. Of late the freemen 
 have begun to lag behind, while slavery has advanced 
 by several degrees of longitude. Free labor must be 
 made to keep pace with it. There is an urgent neces¬ 
 sity for this. The demand for cotton is increasing in 
 a ratio greater than can bo supplied by the American 
 planters, unless by a corresponding increased produc¬ 
 tion. This increasing demand must be met, or its 
 cultivation will be facilitated elsewhere, and the mo¬ 
 nopoly of the planter in the European markets bo 
 interrupted. This can only be effected by concen¬ 
 trating the greatest possible number of slaves upon 
 the cotton plantations. Hence they must be supplied 
 with provisions. 
 
 _ “This is the present aspect of the provision ques¬ 
 tion, as it regards slavery extension. Prices are ap¬ 
 proximating the maximum point, beyond which our 
 provisions can be fed to slaves, unless there is a cor¬ 
 responding increase m the price of cotton. Such a 
 result was not anticipated by southern statesmen 
 when they had succeeded in overthrowing the pro¬ 
 tective policy, destroying the United States Bank, and 
 establishing the sub-Treasury system. And why has 
 this occurred? The mines of California prevented both 
 the free-trade tariff (the tariff of 1846, under which our 
 exports are now made, approximates the free-trade 
 principles very closely) and the sub-Treasury scheme 
 from exhausting the country of the precious metals, 
 extinguishing the circulation of bank notes, and re¬ 
 ducing the prices of agricultural products to the spe¬ 
 cie value. At the date of the passage of the Nebraska 
 bill, the multiplication of provisions by their more 
 extended cultivation was the only measure left that 
 could produce a reduction of prices and meet the wants 
 of the planters. The Canadian reciprocity treaty, since 
 secured, will bring the products of the British North 
 American colonies, free of duty, into competition with 
 those or the United States when prices with us rule 
 high, and tend to diminish their cost.” 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Chairman, as the bill 
 before the House has, in my judgment, all the 
 vices of that treaty, I shall propose the following 
 as a substitute for it. 
 
 The Clerk read, as follows: 
 
 Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert 
 as follows: 
 
 That from and after the 17th of March, 1866, there 
 shall be levied, collected, and paid on all articles 
 imported from her Britannic Majesty’s possessions 
 in North America, that is to say, from Canada, New 
 Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince 
 Edward’s Island, and the several islands thereunto 
 adjacent, Hudson’s Bay Territory, British Columbia, 
 and Vancouver's Island, the same duties and rates of 
 duties which are now imposed by law on like articles 
 imported from other foreign countries. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I am not prepared to say 
 that my substitute contains all the provisions 
 it should; that it may not be amended with 
 advantage; but I do say that it is infinitely 
 preferable, for every leading interest of the 
 country, to the bill now under consideration. 
 
 Why should we have a special tariff law for 
 the British Provinces ? What have they done 
 to win our love ? Why should we sacrifice our 
 interests to protect or advance theirs? 
 
 The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Mor¬ 
 rill] said in the course of his remarks that 
 
 we should not base our action on hatred or 
 fear. I do not propose to base any of my acts 
 in this House upon any of the passions. I 
 mean to be governed by cool judgment. 
 
 But, sir, I remember when we were in a death 
 grapple with our insane brethren of the South, 
 the people of these Provinces smote us first oh 
 one cheek and then on the other; and I know, 
 sir, if we were prepared to forgive them seven 
 times' seventy, their transgressions against us 
 had exceeded that number before they organ¬ 
 ized a raiding party and sent it into the gentle¬ 
 man’s own State to rob the banks and mur¬ 
 der the citizens who attempted to defend them. 
 Backed as they are by the power of England, 
 they are our most dangerous enemies, because 
 they are our nearest; and I do not find it laid 
 down even in the Christian code of morals that 
 we shall injure ourselves and impoverish our 
 families and country to benefit those who would 
 have disseminated poison among us, who would 
 have burned our cities and towns, and who did 
 all that the devilish ingenuity of the madmen 
 of the South could suggest to injure us and 
 destroy our country. 
 
 They are foreigners to our soil, and let us 
 regard them as we do the people of other coun¬ 
 tries, as friends in peace and enemies in war. 
 Let us legislate for them, as the substitute I 
 have submitted proposes to do, precisely as we 
 do for the rest of mankind. I can understand, 
 sir, in the light of the invaluable book front 
 which I have had an extract read, why every 
 provision of the so-called reciprocity treaty was 
 adverse to our country. Both parties to it 
 meant mischief to us. But I cannot understand 
 why a bill should be reported by the Commit¬ 
 tee of Ways and Means which if adopted would 
 inevitably strike down several of the principal 
 or leading interests of. our country. It might 
 well be entitled a bill to destroy the fisheries, 
 salt-works, and lumber trade of the country, 
 and to prevent the working of bituminous coal¬ 
 beds east of the summit of the Alleghanies and 
 within the limits of the United States. Should 
 it become a law it will ruin all those great 
 branches of industry. 
 
 The gentleman from Vermont, in introdu¬ 
 cing the bill, said with great plausibility—more 
 plausibility than candor, I am sorry to say: 
 
 “ Coal is a raw material, and for every ton of iron 
 
4 
 
 made at least three tons of bituminous or two of 
 anthracite coal are consumed. It is the motive power 
 of railroads and steamboats as well as of manufactu¬ 
 ring establishments. We tax iron and all other man¬ 
 ufactures when produced and sold, and we tax rail¬ 
 roads and steamboats on their business. Can we not 
 afford to have our coal free? _ It is, too, an article of 
 universal consumption, required in our rigorous cli¬ 
 mate in large quantities by those unable to clothe 
 themselves in heavy and abundant woolens or thick 
 and costly furs; by the poor as well as the rich. 
 There are hardly more reasons for a tax on coal than 
 upon firewood. In addition to this, our own coal¬ 
 fields are unsurpassed in extent and quality by any 
 in the world. 
 
 “But our export to the Canadas of coal from Ohio, 
 Virginia, and Pennsylvania bids fair to equal in 
 amount all that we bring from the Provinces; the 
 value of our exports in 1864 being $555,332, and that 
 of our imports $883,805. So that under any circum¬ 
 stances here is one article which approaches the idea 
 of reciprocity, and an interchange effects economy 
 in long lines of freight, relieving ourselves as well as 
 others from positive loss.” 
 
 Carlyle tells us that nothing lies like figures, 
 although the general proposition is that figures 
 never lie. I say, then, the statement made is 
 as plausibly delusive as a statement each of the 
 propositions of which is in itself true can be. 
 
 Sir, is chalk cheese, or cheese chalk ? In 
 speaking about bituminous and anthracite coal 
 we speak of two distinct articles, as unlike as 
 cheese and chalk. This bill does not in any 
 way, or by any possibility, affect either advan¬ 
 tageously or disadvantageously the anthracite 
 coal trade and interests of the country. 
 
 Canada must have our anthracite coal. She 
 has none of it, nor can she obtain it elsewhere. 
 Our Pennsylvania anthracite coal-fields are a 
 God-given monopoly, as are the long-staple 
 cotton-fields of the South. Our anthracite in¬ 
 terest asks no protection so far as Canada is 
 concerned. Were it constitutional to impose 
 an export duty you might put a light one on 
 anthracite coal, and the Canadas would still 
 buy it from us. The $555,332, worth of coal 
 exported under the treaty in 1864 was anthra¬ 
 cite, and in fact, therefore, has no part in a 
 discussion relating as this does to the bitumi¬ 
 nous coal interests of the country. The article 
 bears the name of coal, and there is no other 
 reason why it should be named in connection 
 with this bill. 
 
 From what fields, and to what provincial 
 ports, have we exported bituminous coal from 
 Ohio ? I ask the well-informed gentlemen 
 who compose the Ohio delegation to tell me 
 if there be one line of steamers, or any other 
 kind of boats, employed in carrying Ohio coal 
 to the British Provinces. Why, sir, they could 
 
 not sell it at the wharf in any provincial town 
 for its cost. Virginia coal go to the British 
 Provinces ! It cannot, in the nature of things, 
 have gone there save as a curiosity for miner- 
 alogical cabinets. It never went there as an 
 article of commerce. 
 
 The gist of the gentleman’s argument is that 
 we need cheap coal. Why, then, does he not 
 propose to take the duty of a dollar and a 
 quarter per ton off British coal, so that we may 
 have it still cheaper ? Where is his logic ? 
 
 Mr. MORRILL. Does the gentleman desire 
 an answer? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. MORRILL. Mr. Chairman, in relation 
 to this subject of coal, I confess that I am not 
 clear that it is proper to protect it at all. I do 
 believe that it is one of those articles that can¬ 
 not be increased by protection, and if it is so, 
 the whole foundation of the doctrine drops out, 
 in my judgment. I think, as I stated in the 
 extracts which the gentleman has just read, that 
 it is so nearly allied to firewood that it deserves 
 perhaps no protection. 
 
 And while I am up allow me to ask the gen¬ 
 tleman if he has any statistics to show that this 
 coal that goes to Canada is not bituminous coal. 
 Do they not use it there for the purpose of mak¬ 
 ing gas ? Or do they use anthracite coal through¬ 
 out the Provinces for making gas ? I ask for 
 information. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I will answer the question 
 of the gentleman. There may have some small 
 quantity of Ohio coal gone there for experiment 
 in gas making, or occasionally a vessel may 
 have carried it as ballast to some western town. 
 It is not a recognized article of commerce, and 
 there is neither an organized company for the 
 sale or carrying of bituminous coal from Ohio, 
 Virginia, or Pennsylvania, to the Canadas. I ad¬ 
 mit that there may be special cargoes shipped 
 for gas companies in some extreme western 
 parts of Canada, but that does not touch the 
 argument. But while I admit the fact, for the 
 argument’s sake, I must say that I do not believe 
 it, for I do not see how it can be true. 
 
 The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Mor¬ 
 rill] says the quantity of coal cannot be in¬ 
 creased. Allow me to say that I am speaking 
 for no Pennsylvania interest to-day. I am 
 speaking for poor, wasted, war-trampled Vir- 
 
5 
 
 ginia, for Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, and Missouri, for Georgia, and all 
 the southern States. They all need our foster¬ 
 ing care, and all have inexhaustible beds of 
 bituminous coal that ought to be productive. 
 I am not willing that the rebellious people of 
 the South shall become my political master or 
 equal in the councils of the nation until they 
 are politically regenerated. But I desire to 
 develop their natural resources, to induce cap¬ 
 italists, laborers, and men of enterprise to go 
 and settle among them, and build up industrious 
 and peaceful Commonwealths in the hearts of 
 whose people loyalty to the Union shall dwell. 
 It is in these interests that I speak. The bitum¬ 
 inous coal interest of eastern Pennsylvania is 
 comparatively unimportant; but we have the 
 only paying bituminous coal company east of the 
 summit of the Alleghany mountains. Thirty- 
 odd millions of capital have already been in¬ 
 vested outside of my State in this branch of the 
 coal trade. Thirty millions more have been 
 invested in railroads to convey the coal from 
 the mines to market, and though it is all unpro¬ 
 ductive, or nearly so, the owners do not aban¬ 
 don it as lost. 
 
 ' They hope that, impelled by a sense of jus¬ 
 tice, or the pride of American citizenship, Con¬ 
 gress will protect them against the assaults of 
 British capital and ill-paid labor. They have 
 waited in hope for the day when the infamous 
 treaty which blasted their prospects should be 
 annulled and they be permitted to enjoy equal 
 chances with foreigners in our own markets. 
 Give them but an even chance, burdened as 
 they are by our war taxes, and all these dead 
 millions will become productive. I challenge 
 any member of the House to name another 
 bituminous coal company than the Westmore¬ 
 land Company that has paid or earned a div¬ 
 idend in the last three years on the eastern 
 slope of the mountains. Give them protec¬ 
 tion equal to the taxes, direct and incidental, 
 which you impose upon them, and you will find 
 that instead of the product of 1867 being but 
 two million tons, as it was last year, we can 
 produce ninety-five million tons, as England 
 did in that same year. Our fields are broader 
 and richer than hers and those of Nova Scotia 
 combined. They are scattered from the mount¬ 
 ain above the clouds, on the brows of which 
 
 Hooker and his brave comrades fought, east¬ 
 ward and northward and westward all over 
 our country. Give them but that measure 
 of protection which under the weight of tax¬ 
 ation they bear will secure an equal chance 
 in our markets, and they will give you an ade¬ 
 quate supply of coal, and in two or three years 
 domestic competition, while it will by patron¬ 
 izing your railroads and carrying companies 
 have filled your Treasury and enabled you to 
 reduce your scale of taxation, will bring down 
 the price of coal in all our markets. 
 
 Pennsylvania, I repeat, has no special inter¬ 
 est in this question. Her interest is that the 
 general prosperity of the country shall be pro¬ 
 moted. We want you manufacturers of New 
 England to clothe the men who dig and handle 
 our coal; we want you men of the Northwest 
 to feed the men who dig and handle our coal; 
 and Pennsylvania will rejoice in her share of 
 the general prosperity which will then bless 
 our country. 
 
 Sir, I turn to the fortieth page of the letter of 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, embodying the 
 report of the revenue commissioners, and find 
 that in the fiscal year 1865 there were imported, 
 under the reciprocity treaty, 13,025,432 bushels, 
 being 465,194 tons of bituminous coal, free of 
 duty, from the British Provinces. There were 
 imported in the same year, paying a duty of 
 $1 25 a ton, 6,131,608 bushels, being 218,986 
 tons, from England. There were exported of 
 domestic production, which, as I have said, was 
 all or nearly all anthracite, 3,708,264 bushels, 
 and there were exporfed of foreign production 
 25,536 bushels, making nearly 1,000 tons. 
 
 Sir, will it be said that the vast coal-beds of 
 this country cannot supply our wants, and that 
 we cannot increase our production ? Or will any 
 gentleman say that a duty of fifty cents is enough 
 to protect these embarrassed but important 
 interests? I ask gentlemen to mark the fact, 
 that though 465,194 tons came in under the 
 reciprocity treaty, free of duty, from her Prov¬ 
 inces, England was still able to send in, and 
 pay $1 25 duty per ton, the enormous amount 
 of 218,986 tons. Is it not apparent from these 
 facts that we will bankrupt every bituminous 
 coal company in the country if we pass this bill? 
 
 Do gentlemen say our demands in this be¬ 
 half are exorbitant, or ask why our coal can- 
 
6 
 
 not be sold cheaply as that of England and the 
 Provinces? I answer them in part by another 
 question, which is, do they wish the American 
 miner to toil for the wages given to laborers 
 in English collieries? Sir, the heartlessness 
 of the capitalists of England was never more 
 fully exposed than by the report of the parlia¬ 
 mentary commission appointed to inquire into 
 the condition of the mining population of the 
 country. England’s shame is nowhere written 
 in broader cr darker colors than in that report, 
 and I will not permit myself to believe that any 
 member of this House is anxious that we should 
 emulate that page of her history. 
 
 Our better wages for labor and our heavy 
 war taxes answer the suggestion thrown out. 
 How much England and her American Prov¬ 
 inces did to protract and aggravate the war is 
 known to all. and I am not willing they should 
 derive advantage from their treachery. On 
 this subject I quote a few lines from a letter 
 from an intelligent coal operator: 
 
 “ It is almost impossible to compute precisely the 
 amount of revenue that Government reaps from a 
 ton of bituminous coal, but the fairest way to get at 
 it will be to take the cost of putting the article on 
 board vessel before the war, (or in I860,) $3 50 per 
 ton, as compared with the present cost, seven dollars 
 per ton, maiiing an increase in the actual cost of 
 $3 50 per ton. This increase is in the main occa¬ 
 sioned by the taxes which have been levied in order 
 to support the Government, (which we pay cheer¬ 
 fully:) and they touch every article of provisions and 
 repairs about the mines and railroads, as well as the 
 two and a half per cent, upon the' gross rate of trans¬ 
 portation and five per cent, upon the net earnings 
 of the carrying companies, which, when all summed 
 together, amount to very nearly if not quite three 
 dollars per ton.” 
 
 Sir, we are in a transition age ; and here I 
 reply to the remark of the gentleman from Ver¬ 
 mont [Mr. Morrill] that coal ought not to be 
 protected. We are in a transition age in more 
 senses than one. We are passing from war to 
 peace and from the age of iron to the age of 
 steel. In a few years, if we foster our industry, 
 steel will supplant iron in almost all the uses to 
 which it is now applied. Sir, coal and iron are 
 the muscles of modern civilization; and fire— 
 ignited coal—is the material force that is impel¬ 
 ling us onward and upward. Had the southern 
 States had equal mastery with us of these ele¬ 
 ments, I doubt whether we would yet have made 
 conquest over them. I query whether the re¬ 
 sult might not have been otherwise than it was. 
 What were Vulcan and the Cyclops to an Amer¬ 
 ican mechanic handling a steam-engine or a 
 
 trip-hammer? We live in a new age. Old my¬ 
 thologies and traditions serve but to hamper us. 
 We must adapt ourselves to the agencies by 
 which we are surrounded and the exigencies in 
 which we are involved. 
 
 Sir, when the consular wreath first graced 
 the brow of Napoleon he had only conquered 
 Italy, which, in the somewhat boastful language 
 of the historian, extended “from the Alps to 
 the Papal dominions, 5 ’ And what had he done ? 
 Why, sir, all that Italy which he had conquered, 
 could it be lifted bodily, could be set down com¬ 
 fortably within the limits of the State of Maine 
 or of South Carolina. He bad never then com¬ 
 manded so many men as Burnside marched 
 through the city of Washington when taking 
 his single corps to swell the grand army of 
 Lieutenant General Grant in the Wilderness. 
 How was it that we could move such masses of 
 men, fight this war over the broadest theater of 
 international or civil war known to history, and 
 conclude it in little more than four years? It 
 was because we used coal and iron as our mus¬ 
 cles, and fire—ignited coal—as our force. These 
 gave us New Orleans, and battered down Fort 
 Fisher. 
 
 And I may add that, had there been a well- 
 stocked railroad from Moscow to the Rhine, 
 Napoleon’s retreat would have been marked by 
 fewer horrors, and the history of the nineteenth 
 century would not probably have read as it does. 
 
 And if the chairman of the Committee o^ 
 Ways and Means desires to secure us a respecta 
 ble position among the nations, he will not strike 
 down, disparage, or neglect the coal and iron 
 interests of the country, to subserve any inter¬ 
 est of his own, his State, or section. They are 
 the primordial elements of our greatness, and 
 should be cherished above all others. Look 
 at their power. Behold a woman with an iron 
 machine before her moving noiselessly; it is 
 impelled by coal and iron fashioned into an 
 engine, and is doing more work in one day 
 than one hundred such women could have done 
 in a week one century ago. Or see yonder 
 pallid little girl attending such a machine; she 
 will produce results in one day that would have 
 taxed the industry of her grandmother for a 
 year. The power of those delicate people is 
 not superhuman; it is coal and iron that pro¬ 
 duce these more than magical results. 
 
7 
 
 ♦ 
 
 The gentleman doubts whether the produc¬ 
 tion of coal can or should be stimulated, and is 
 willing we should depend on our most powerful 
 and our nearest enemies for this elemental sub¬ 
 stance. The country wall not respond to such 
 purblind patriotism. And the passage of this 
 bill will reduce us to such abject dependence. 
 
 In eleven months of 1865—I do not go back 
 to 1864, but take the first eleven months of 
 1865, of last year—sixty-six per cent, of the 
 bituminous coal consumed in the States east 
 of Pennsylvania was mined by the laborers of 
 Britain or of the British Provinces. Let me 
 prove this. The amount of bituminous coal 
 received at Boston and New York from the 
 British Provinces, free of duty, to the 1st of 
 December, 1865, was 392,158 tons. The amount 
 of English coal received at the same points 
 during the same period, which paid a tax of 
 $1 25 per ton, was 103,723; total foreign coal, 
 495,891 tons. The amount of coal produced 
 in the United States, delivered during the same 
 period at the same points, was but 287,874 
 tons ; balance in favor of foreign coal, 208,874 
 tons—one coal company in the British Prov¬ 
 inces declaring dividends of one hundred and 
 seventy-five per cent, in a year, and but one of 
 the hundreds of companies in our country able 
 to declare a dividend of one per cent., making 
 a contrast so unfavorable to us that many of 
 our enterprising people, as was shown yester¬ 
 day by the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. F. 
 Thomas,] abandoned their country and em¬ 
 barked their capital in the coal regions of Nova 
 Scotia. Can we strengthen our country by ex¬ 
 porting enterprise, industry, and capital ? 
 
 And is it not marvelous that such an exhibit 
 against us can be made, in view of the facts 
 that our bituminous coal-fields are so much 
 broader and richer than those of England and 
 Nova Scotia combined, and that we depend for 
 the support of our Government and its credit 
 upon taxes derived in great part from the forge, 
 the furnace, the foundery, the railroad, the 
 machine shop, the coal-bed, and iron mines? 
 Are gentlemen willing to perpetuate the malign 
 influence that has produced a state of facts so 
 disparaging to our intelligence, patriotism, and 
 interests? No; I believe they will agree with 
 me that the time has arrived when we should 
 develop our own resources, foster American 
 
 labor, and guard our own intei ssts. One effect 
 of the reciprocity treaty has been to send to 
 Canada one million five hundred thousand im¬ 
 migrants who, but for the advantages it gave 
 the Provinces over us, would have swelled our 
 population. Let us now, by taking care of our 
 own people, induce them to come and share 
 our burdens and blessings. 
 
 Sir, I have said that I would not legislate 
 with reference to the Provinces under the influ¬ 
 ence of fear or hate. It would indeed be unwise, 
 for these people will yet be our countrymen. 
 When British free trade, preventing, as it ever 
 does to the people of British Provinces, the 
 diversification of their industry, shall have 
 impoverished their soil and repelled immi¬ 
 gration from their shores; when that system 
 of British free trade which keeps those upon 
 whom it is inflicted at hard labor in the pro¬ 
 duction of white crops, has impoverished their 
 fields as it has those of our old States, and 
 reduced them to oft-recurring bankruptcy, as 
 it inevitably must; and when adequate protec¬ 
 tion to our labor shall have developed our 
 boundless resources, and generous wages in¬ 
 vited to our shores the skilled laborers of the 
 world, the contrast between our condition and 
 that of the people of the Provinces will impel 
 them to unite their destiny with ours, and then 
 I shall, or my posterity will, be ready to greet 
 them cordially as compatriots. 
 
 Sir, what do we get in return for the immeas¬ 
 urable degradation proposed by this bill ? Why, 
 sir, we get the right to navigate the St. Law¬ 
 rence and to patronize the canals and railroads 
 of Canada, and the right to cut lumber—mark 
 you, “the right to cut lumber or timber of any 
 kind on that portion of the American territory 
 in the State of Maine watered by the river St. 
 John and its tributaries, and when floated down 
 that river to the sea to ship the same to the 
 United States from the Province of New Bruns¬ 
 wick without any export duty or other duty.” 
 I take it, sir, that these rights will not be long 
 -withheld from us, even if we determine to give 
 the American laborer a fair field in which to com¬ 
 pete with those of England and her Provinces. 
 
 Let me pause fora moment to say to the gen¬ 
 tleman that his statement of the amount of coal 
 imported and exported is more plausible than 
 candid in a respect not yet noticed. It is ap- 
 
8 
 
 ♦ 
 
 praised at ad valorem prices, which are specie 
 prices in the land from which it is exported ; 
 while ours is calculated at currency prices. 
 This fact must be borne in mind in making the 
 calculations of relative quantities. 
 
 But to resume and conclude. Sir, to get 
 these rights we give precisely the same rights 
 in larger degree and with greater advantage 
 to the British colonists. We will therefore 
 get them without this bill. I do not wish to 
 acquire them by force. I am anxious to see 
 them granted reciprocally by our country and 
 the Provinces ; but not as this bill does it. 
 
 It can be done by treaty or by act of Con¬ 
 gress ; but be that as it may, do not let us agree 
 to destroy the fisheries of New England, the 
 salt-works of West Virginia, the lumber busi¬ 
 ness of the Northwest and of Maine, and the 
 bituminous coal-works of the whole country, 
 as the price of the privilege of yielding more 
 specifically and in kind than we get. 
 
 No, sir; let us maintain our rights, our in¬ 
 terests, and our country’ s dignity. Letus go on 
 our way as though there were no British Prov¬ 
 inces ; and the mere action of British legisla¬ 
 tion, constraining their people, as I have already 
 said, to unrequited agricultural labor, will make 
 them sigh for our prosperity. And then we 
 shall find that the American Constitution is as 
 elastic as it is grand and enduring. It has ex¬ 
 panded to embrace immense tracts of territory. 
 
 Our flag has swept from the limits of the ori¬ 
 ginal thirteen States to the Pacific, and south¬ 
 ward to the Rio Grande; and, sir, when the 
 people of Canada shall, as they will if we pro¬ 
 tect our labor, ask to unite their destinies with 
 ours, the world will receive additional proof 
 that when Providence impelled our fathers to 
 the creation of our Government, it gave them 
 the wisdom to bless us with a Constitution which ^ 
 is the fit canopy of a continent, and will yet 
 crown one. 
 
 Printed at the Congressional Globe Offiee.