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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 SPEECH OF MS. GEORGE P. MARSH, OF VERMONT, 
 
 O X THE TARIFF BILL. 
 
 'DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE U. STATES, APRIL 30, 1844. 
 
 ie House being in Committee of the Whole, on the bill reported by Mr. McKay, from the 
 Committee of Ways and Means, to modify and amend the Tariff law of 1842 — 
 
 Mr. Marsh, of Vermont, addressed the committee as follows: 
 
 We have cause, Mr. Chairman, to congratulate the House and the 
 untry upon the temper in which this debate has been in general con- 
 cted. The gentlemen who have participated in it have confined 
 enaselvcs nioie ciosely than is usual to the real question at issue, 
 ley have maintained their respective positions with a cool earnestness 
 tone indicative of honest difference of opinion, and no discussion of 
 e session has called forth greater ability or exhibited more successful 
 bor of preparation. 
 
 The controversy is indeed momentous — momentous both in its direct 
 aring on all the great interests of the American people, and because 
 has already become the means of determining conclusively a point 
 no small importance, and hitherto much disputed. It has been as- 
 rted at the North, with confident vehemence, that this is no party but 
 ectional issue; and that the Democrats of the eastern and middle 
 ates are as staunch supporters of the doctrine of legislative protection 
 domestic industry as their political opponents. But the authoritative 
 position of the views of the party in the majority in this House, from 
 e Committee of Ways and Means, settles this question forever. Hos- 
 ity to the principle of designed protection, whether direct or incident 
 , is openly avowed, and spite of the disclaimers of rebellious individ- 
 ls, it must hereafter be regarded as an established article of faith in 
 creed of the party assuming to be emphatically Democratic. It is 
 longer the question, whether the dominant party on this floor is or 
 not friendly to the industrial interests of their country, but whether 
 rtain of its refractory members can be constrained by the force of po- 
 ical discipline to bow the knee, and prefer the supremacy of their 
 rty to their own solemn convictions of what belongs to their country’s 
 od. It is a test of the stringency of paity organization ; and if, with 
 majority of more than two-thirds, you fail to pass this bill, you will 
 ply a new proof of what the world already more than half suspects, 
 at the wand of the magician i3 broken, and that the spell hath lost 
 power to charm. American industry will begin to feel that it rests 
 on a surer basis than the shifting sands of party ascendancy, and the 
 damental policy of our country will come to be regarded as, for a 
 e at least, res jadicata. We of the North shall cease to fear that the 
 >ffcious South, having now outgrown the need of that protection 
 ich bus done its office for her great staple, will a second time be 
 le to subvert the course of our trade, and change the occupations of 
 r laboring co^rn unity. 
 
 It has been made matter of boast that the citizens of a certain southern 
 te, which has been at different periods within one generation most 
 
 rinted at Gideon’s office, Ninth street, Washington. 
 
 P tT 
 
conspicuous on both sides of this great question, are the French of 
 America. Gallant they may be, and, for aught I know, gallant al^> 
 as Frenchmen ; but if we award them this praise, they must pardon us 
 for hinting that they are also, like the French, un peu volages , some- 
 what fickle. Fickleness, in a certain sex, and under certain circum- 
 stances, may be even graceful, but in legislators and statesmen it is, at 
 best, but an equivocal attribute; and the people of the South must even 
 bear with our more phlegmatic tempers, if we now relish the diet they 
 prescribed for us, and persist in acknowledging the value of doctrines 
 which we first imbibed from their superior wisdom. 
 
 That this is a question upon which sectional interests and sectional 
 feeling have a very strong bearing I am not disposed to deny. Nor do 
 I pretend that I can divest myself of their influence. Sir, I should be 
 ashamed if I could. I dare not assume to be above the partialities 
 which belong to humanity; and were I insensible to such considera- 
 tions I should be beneath them. I cannot, nay, sir, I will not, shut 
 my eyes to the interests, the claims, of my own region, of my own 
 humble State. While I conscientiously believe that the policy of pro- 
 tection is demanded by the best interests of all her sisters, to her I 
 know it is vital; and so deeply rooted is this conviction among those 
 whom I, with my colleagues, have the honor to represent, that the very 
 agitation of this question — a question supposed to have been settled by 
 the great contest of 1840, when the nation, with unparalleled unanim- 
 ity, pronounced upon it in a voice of thunder — has already produced 
 a panic, whose influence upon the price of our only staple will cost the 
 wool growers of Vermont not less than half a million. 
 
 We of the extreme North, Mr. Chairman, are obliged to contend with 
 physical difficulties to which the more favored South and West are 
 strangers. Our territory is mountainous — our soil rugged and compar- 
 atively unthankful. The bushel of corn, which the labor of minutes 
 produces for the western farmer, costs us the toil of hours. Our climate 
 is of even fearful severity; the thermometer rises to ninety-five degree s 
 above zero, and falls to the congealing point of mercury. In summer 
 we swelter under the sun of the tropics, in winter we shiver amid Si- 
 berian snows. Even now, while we have been for weeks luxuriating 
 beneath an Italian sky, my constituents are but just emerging from 
 polar frosts, and even the broad bosom of our noble lake is scarcely yet 
 free from its bonds of almost perennial ice. For a great portion of the 
 year our highways are rendered almost impassable by drifted mountains 
 of snow, or the alternate frosts and thaws of an early autumn and a 
 tardy spring. Our summer seed time is not yet past when the south 
 begins her harvest, and the plough is often frozen in the furrow before 
 the winter grain can be committed to the earth. Yet such are the in- 
 dustry, the enterprise, the untameable energy of our hardy people, 
 that, in spite of these accumulated difficulties and discouragements, 
 Vermont stands, in point of production, as compared with population, 
 if not first, very near the head of the list. But the wants of man and 
 beast in so rude a climate are so much greater, and their variety of 
 supply so much less, that almost the whole produce of the soil is re- 
 quired for domestic consumption, and little surplus is left for the pur- 
 chase of necessaries of foreign growth. Domestic animals must be both 
 fed and sheltered for half the year; and this involves not only time, 
 labor, and direct expense to the farmer, but the outlay of costly ar- 
 
3. *08 Commerce. ^ 
 
 3 
 
 rangements for storing and preserving the various articles of food re- 
 quired for the consumption of his stock. So the quantity and variety 
 of clothing needful to meet the changing seasons, the greater necessity 
 for nutritious and stimulating diet, the supply of fuel, expensive modes 
 of building to ward off the rigors of winter, and to preserve for long 
 periods a stock-of vegetable food; all these impose additional burdens 
 upon the farmer. On the other hand, his season of productive labor is 
 short, the variety of his products narrow, and the obvious result is, that 
 the diligent and persevering toil of summer scarcely suffices to accu- 
 mulate a supply for the consumption of a long and unproductive win- 
 ter. A few horses and cattle, a little of the produce of the dairy, a 
 small and yearly decreasing quantity of lumber, and the fleeces of our 
 sheep, are all we have to spare. It is upon these products that the 
 northern farmer relies for the means to pay his taxes, educate his chil- 
 dren, and give them a slender outfit when they abandon the paternal 
 fireside, and commence their pilgrimage to the sunny South or the 
 mighty West. Prostrate our manufactures, deprive us of this one re- 
 source, and you plunge us into absolute, hopeless, irretrievable ruin. 
 
 The subject, Mr. Chairman, is one of such vast comprehension and 
 extent, it admits of such an infinite variety of argument and illustration, 
 and involves such a mass of details, that not a single hour only, but days 
 •would be required for its adequate discussion; and I find myself enforced 
 by the narrow limits prescribed by the parliamentary law of this House, 
 eithertocontentmyself with presenting some verygeneralconsiderations, 
 or to confine myself to a very partial view of the question. I ought not 
 to complain of the one hour rule, both because I voted for its adoption, 
 and because in a deliberative assembly of two hundred members, all of 
 whom aspire to be heard, while none is content to listen, the exuberance 
 of eloquence must somehow be checked, and such a rule may be consid- 
 ered as a necessary evil. But for this evil, if such it be, there is a ready 
 remedy by appealing to our Caesar — the people — through the press; and 
 it is happily no breach of privilege to print as a speech that which never 
 was spoken. Moreover, gentlemen who want the stentorian power of 
 lungs required to fill the echoing void of this vast Hall, may find consola- 
 tion in the reflection, that the still small voice of the press will penetrate 
 to nooks and corners where the tones of the speaker are never heard. 
 
 I shall, then, make no effort to compass an impossibility, by essay- 
 ing a full discussion of the tariff question within the space of a single 
 hour, and I shall limit myself , to some remarks of a general character. 
 I beg, however, not to be understood as undervaluing the importance 
 of minute examination and precise detail. None could have listened 
 to the instructive speech of the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Weth- 
 ered,) so replete with sound sense and practical knowledge, without 
 being convinced of the value of such accurate statistics. But, sir, it 
 has been my fortune to have had even a better instructor. I have 
 been schooled in this matter by dear bought experience. Myself un- 
 happily a manufacturer, I know too well the indispensable necessity 
 of the most rigorous exactness in the calculation of the numerous ele- 
 ments of profit and loss. I have learned how disastrously an apparently 
 insignificant change in the arrangement of duties may affect a large 
 establishment, and that a trivial modification of the tariff, which shall 
 not perceptibly vary the amount of revenue, and shall scarcely save a 
 penny to any individual consumer, may work utter ruin to the manu- 
 
4 
 
 facturing capitalist, and the hundreds who depend upon him. But, after 
 all, this experimental knowledge makes me suspicious of the accuracy 
 of statistical detail, and the reasonings founded on it, and I know not 
 whether I have been more strongly moved to ridicule or to contempt, 
 by the ignorant assumptions and the puerile calculations to which I 
 have listened upon this floor. 
 
 Figures, it is said, cannot lie; but this aphorism, a mere truism in its 
 proper sense, is in its popular use a mischievous falsehood. In the rage 
 for what are called facts in this calculating age, it is astonishing how 
 eagerly supposed facts and half truths are caught at, to the neglect of 
 the most obvious principles; and how readily these facts, by a Procrus- 
 tean process, are forced into accordance with preconceived theories. 
 So far has this gone that it is time for reaction. Men are in danger of 
 running into the contrary extreme of despising all statistical knowledge ; 
 and in all probability, u to lie like the multiplication table ” will soon 
 pass into a proverb. 
 
 In fact, the uncertainty of speculative estimates in matters of politi- 
 cal economy is such, that we are authorized only to form general 
 conclusions from a 'priori reasoning. We may infer, in general, that 
 the protection of domestic industry is, or is not, advantageous to the 
 interests of a nation ; but it is impossible to determine, even approxi- 
 mately, the effect of a given duty upon either revenue or home pro- 
 duction, otherwise than by experiment. But the interests involved in 
 these questions are of such vast magnitude, that experiments are al- 
 ways in the highest degree dangerous; and when you have a tariff 
 which satisfies at once the demands of the revenue, the producer, and 
 the consumer, it is the very acme of madness to adventure upon exten- 
 sive changes, except upon such cogent evidence as, in the nature of 
 things, is hardly attainable. An alteration of the tariff, which shall add 
 but a few thousands to the revenue may not improbably destroy a 
 branch of business in which millions are invested. You may safely 
 amend your tariff by the gradual and cautious change of the duties on 
 single items, or narrow classes, but the sudden subversion of a com- 
 plete system, a passage per saltum from protection to warfare, is an act 
 of absolute political revolution. 
 
 Sir, as I have said, there is in the speculations of political economists 
 a most remarkable uncertainty. The calculations of the keenest and 
 most sagacious publicists have been more frequently disappointed than 
 verified; and there is no branch of human knowledge in which the 
 results of experience have so frequently and so flatly contradicted the 
 theories of the closet. The causes which affect trade and manufac- 
 tures are numerous, and oftentimes obscure ; and the reciprocal action 
 of these causes upon each other, and upon commerce and industry, 
 complicated as it is by unknown and ever changing influences, consti- 
 tutes a problem harder of solution than that of the perturbations of the 
 planets. 
 
 Were we without the light of experience, it would seem to be a very 
 obvious truth, that you must increase the cost to the consumer of every 
 imported article, by the amount of both the duty and the profit and 
 commissions on the capital required to be advanced for the payment of 
 the duty. But experience is to the contrary, and you can scarcely cite 
 an instance i ri the history of any country, whose industry is unshackled 
 and unrestricted by Government, where a protective duty has not beea 
 
5 
 
 speedily followed by an improvement in the quality?-, and a reduction 
 imthe price, of the articles protected; and of this you have had nume- 
 rous illustrations in the course of this debate. The immediate effect of 
 such duties seems in general to be a reduction in the price of the ma- 
 nufactured article at the place of production, the foreign manufactu- 
 rer submitting to a diminution of his profits, for the sake of retaining 
 the market. At the same moment, domestic establishments are grow- 
 ing up, and by the double competition of these with each other and 
 the foreign producer, a further reduction of prices, accompanied by 
 an improvement in quality, soon follows. Various causes concur to 
 produce this improvement in the quality of American manufactures, 
 besides the competition to which I have just alluded. The scrutinizing 
 habits of the consumer, great mechanical ingenuity in the artisan, his 
 better knowledge of the tastes and wants of his countrymen, and above 
 all the readiness with which he seizes upon and appropriates every 
 improvement in his art. In Europe, all changes are slow. New ma- 
 chines or mechanical combinations are for a long' time used only in 
 new establishments, and the fixed habits of the people, whether labo- 
 rers or employers, render the introduction of new processes difficult 
 and tardy. The American loves change for its own sake, and is keen 
 in the appreciation of improvements; and a new machine is no sooner 
 patented and tested, than the old process is abandoned, thrown aside, 
 and supplanted by the new. The consequence is that every manu- 
 factory is, at all times, near the highest attained point of excellence, 
 and there is an incessant struggle for precedence in the march of im- 
 provement. 
 
 It is extremely hazardous to argue from European precedents, and 
 perhaps there is no country from whose condition it is more unsafe to 
 draw conclusions than from that one which is, unhappily, almost the 
 only one ever referred to in our debates, for the obvious reason that 
 community of language, frequency and facility of intercourse, and the 
 extent of our commercial relations with England make us more fami- 
 liar with that country than with others, from which we might draw 
 quite as valuable lessons of practical wisdom. The apparent analo- 
 gies between our national character and institutions and those of Eng- 
 land are so numerous and striking, as quite to conceal from the view 
 of the superficial observer those less obvious but more deeply rooted 
 and most important features in which they differ. Sir, in genius, ha- 
 bits, and condition, the American people, and I thank Heaven for it, 
 are as diverse from the people of England, as they are from any Chris- 
 tian nation. Our most cherished and valued institutions are based on 
 principles fundamentally opposite to those of the civil and political 
 systems of England; and apart from community of speech and histori- 
 cal recollections, and those habits of thought which a similarity in the 
 forms of language necessarily implies, we are a radically distinct peo- 
 ple. We, sir, are the genuine representatives of that glorious race 
 who overthrew the Stuart dynasty in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, and the principles of Cromwell and Milton, which have now 
 become extinct in their native soil, and no longer mark the English 
 character, flourish here in their full vigor. For these reasons, argu- 
 ments from English practice are as inapplicable as if drawn from the 
 policy of the Celestial Empire. There is, therefore, no force in that 
 argument which would dissuade us from protecting our own industry, 
 
6 
 
 because England, which protects hers, exhibits so fearful an amount of 
 ignorance, pauperism, and crime. There is no parallel between the 
 cases. You find the same abandoned vice, the same unenlightened 
 ignorance, and the same abject poverty, in every European country 
 cursed with a hereditary aristocracy, a law of primogeniture, an esta- 
 blished church, and to crown all, a national debt of such magnitude 
 as to weigh like a millstone about the neck of the people. 
 
 So vast is the public debt of England, that, for the payment of its 
 interest alone, a population but once and a half as large as our own is 
 taxed annually a sum equal to the total amount of the debt of all the 
 American States; and in order that the burden may not fall too heavily 
 on the rich, the entire body of lands, in which the poor have no di- 
 rect interest, is taxed but five millions of dollars, while the other taxes,, 
 which press most heavily on the poor, amount to no less than fifty 
 times that sum, or two hundred and fifty millions of dollars per annum. 
 This is independent of tithes and church rates, parish charges, and the 
 thousand other Government exactions, which crush the operative to the 
 very dust. The British laborer is followed by the tax-gatherer from the 
 cradle to the grave. His food, his physic, his fuel, his clothing, the 
 implements of his trade, the humble furniture of his cottage, his win- 
 dows, his chimneys, the very air and light, and even his shroud, all 
 these are subject to direct taxation. His bread he divides with his tem- 
 poral and spiritual lords, and the ruler takes the lion’s share. His 
 children are pinched and starved, that the younger sons of the aristo- 
 cracy may be pensioned, and he toils, and shivers, and suffers, that the 
 self-styled successors of the Apostles may roll in gilded chariots, and 
 dwell in sumptuous palaces. 
 
 It is not, then, the protective system of England that oppresses her 
 people; no, sir, on the contrary, it is that system, and that alone, which 
 enables her laboring classes to bear up staggering under such a load as 
 was never elsewhere laid upon the shoulders of humanity. Her pro- 
 tective system is not the burden, but it is the elastic spring which alone 
 renders that burden supportable. Let England abandon that system, 
 and adopt the insane doctrine of free trade, would her humble classes 
 gain by the exchange? Admit that their bread stuffs might cost them 
 less, would their taxes be lightened by the loss of a hundred millions 
 in duties? Would their wages be raised, or their opportunities of em- 
 ployment be multiplied, by the destruction of her industrial establish- 
 ments? Would other nations supply them with manufactured goods 
 at cheaper rates than they obtain them now? Sir, it needs no (Edipus 
 to answer such questions as these; and the man must be mad who 
 traces the wretchedness of England’s enslaved laborers to the protec- 
 tion of her industry, or supposes that their miseries would be relieved 
 by its sacrifice. 
 
 Again, sir, the British statesman may confidently calculate, where 
 the American can but hazard a guess. The extent and relative capa- 
 cities of the agricultural and manufacturing interests are known with 
 great exactness of detail, and the sudden extension, or essential modi- 
 fication of either is difficult, if not. impracticable. Changes are slow; 
 new manufactures will not spring up like Jonah’s gourd in a single 
 night; and capital is so abundant, that those already established will 
 not be ruined or suspended on account of a trifling fluctuation in the 
 demand for goods, or in the cost of the raw material. It is quite safe 
 
7 
 
 to assume, that my lord will not give up to cultivation so much of his 
 forest as is required to breed a covey of partridges, barely to save from 
 starvation some half a dozen families who pine for the bread which 
 those few acres would yield. This would both curtail his lawful and 
 laudable sports, and moreover injure the grain-growing interest by in- 
 creasing the supply. Such destructive policy is not to be apprehended 
 from the prudent and patriotic landholder, and the extension or modi- 
 fication of rural husbandry is very slowly and cautiously permitted. 
 
 It is, then, known what quantity of land will be cultivated, what 
 grain, or pulse, or roots, will be grown from year to year, and the 
 amount of produce is subject to no uncertainty but that of the seasons. 
 
 So the manufacturing establishments are precisely guaged, and, though 
 these are progressive in themselves, yet they may be regarded as sta- 
 tionary and constant when contrasted with our own ever changing in- 
 dustry. Unwearied pains are taken to ascertain the extent of demand 
 for British goods abroad, and the quantity and probable cost of the sup- 
 ply of the raw material. With all these elements an approximate cal- 
 culation may be made. The effects of a given policy may be to some 
 extent foreseen, and the causes being known, it is safe to argue that 
 like causes will produce like effects. 
 
 With us the picture is reversed. Our statistical details are loose, 
 slovenly, and unreliable, not to say faithless, to the very extreme of 
 inaccuracy. The modes and objects of our husbandry, and all our in- 
 dustrial employments, are incessantly fluctuating. New sources of 
 production are opening every hour. The amount of any given article 
 produced in one year scarcely furnishes ground for a plausible conjee- y 
 ture as to the quantity to be expected the next ; and the most saga- 
 cious statesman must throw down his pen in despair, whenever he 
 attempts to reduce his anticipations of the future to even approximate 
 calculation. 
 
 I repeat then, sir, with us all experiment is but a leap in the dark. 
 Let us be content with present prosperity, and suffer not ourselves to 
 be bewildered by the fear of evils, which may be fancied but cannot be 
 foreseen. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, while on this point, that, whatever the prac- 
 tice of England may be, the teachings of her popular writers tend to 
 the very doctrines inculcated by this report. Authors are subsidized 
 to manufacture free-trade theories for the foreign market, and large 
 sums are raised to carry on this new missionary enterprise of dissemi- 
 nating through the world those doctrines of political economy which 
 England is wise enough to repudiate at home. 
 
 England spares no pains to acquire an influence here. She aims to 
 dictate our economical theories, our commercial system, our legislation. 
 She commends herself to the North, by boasting of her achievements 
 in the great cause of the abolition of human slavery ; and to win favor 
 at the South, she holds out the delusive hope that her influence will be 
 thrown into the scale of universally free and unrestricted trade. 
 
 But, sir, are we never to be in fact, what near threescore and ten 
 years ago our fathers declared us to be of right, independent of Eng- 
 land! Have we, in that long space, learned nothing from our own 
 experience, and is the utmost period of the life of man too short to 
 teach anything to a nation ! Are not the counsels of the wise and 
 good, the dead and the living of our own land, sufficient for our gui- 
 
8 
 
 dance? Forme, sir, the examples and the teachings of our fathers 
 suffice. I look for no instruction in the science of government to Brit- 
 ish writers at home, or to British renegades, or alienated Americana 
 here ; and I prefer the palpable prosperity that I can see and feel to 
 the airy visions of the most persuasive theorist. 
 
 But it is time to look a little more closely at the bill under considera- 
 tion, and to inquire into its real character and purposes. It is scarcely 
 possible to cast a glance at it, without discovering that both its argu- 
 ments and its facts are derived from sources unfriendly to American 
 interests, and more disposed to color, distort, or suppress, than candidly 
 to disclose the whole truth. You are hearing the arguments and as- 
 sumptions of British importers from the mouths of American statesmen. 
 The hostility of the bill to domestic labor is so thinly disguised, if, in- 
 deed, there be any attempt at concealment, that it seems a work of 
 supererogation to point it out; but so far as the policy it inculcates can 
 be referred to any intelligible principle, it is this : to make a show of 
 protection to the raw material, by a slight reduction, or, as in the case of 
 wool not grown in this country, a slight increase of the duties imposed 
 by the existing law, and then to neutralize this protection, by admit- 
 ting the manufactured article at a much lower rate. The manufactu- 
 rer can be induced to purchase the raw material only by the hope of 
 profit on the manufactured goods. But if you admit the goods at such 
 rates that the foreign manufacturer can undersell him in our market, 
 he will suspend his operations, and buy the raw mateiial no longer. 
 It avails nothing to the American producer to protect his wool by a 
 duty of thirty per cent., if you admit woollen goods at the same, or a 
 lower rate of duty. You destroy his market, by destroying the induce- 
 ment of the domestic manufacturer to buy. This is too palpable to 
 require any elucidation beyond the simple statement. Indeed, so 
 unequivocally is the bill characterized by unrelenting hostility to 
 American industry, that it in general reduces the duties imposed by the 
 tariff of 1842 on foreign manufactures just in proportion to the amouut 
 of foreign labor expended upon them. This is a point of so great im- 
 portance that I desire to draw to it the special attention of the Committee. 
 By the tariff of 1842, the highest duties were imposed on those wares 
 in which the value of the raw material bore the lowest proportion to 
 the amount of the labor required for their fabrication, and so far the 
 duty operated as a tax on foreign and a bounty upon domestic labor. 
 The bill now under consideration proposes to abolish this just and salu- 
 tary discrimination, and in effect to give a premium to the foreign 
 laborer. Thus, the duty on raw silk is reduced three and a half per 
 cent.; the duty on silk goods from five to forty per cent. The duty on 
 iron four per cent., on manufactures of iron from four tc one hundred 
 and seven per cent. The duty on common wool, three cents per 
 pound, on woollen goods from five to fifty-seven per cent. The duty 
 on the simpler glass wares, one per cent.; if partially cut, sixty-two 
 per cent. ; if cut from one-third to one-half the length, one hundred 
 and fifty-six per cent., and upon the larger sizes of crown glass two 
 hundred and thirteen per cent. To what principle, but hostility to 
 domestic labor, can w r e refer a system of duties which favors the ad- 
 mission of foreign wares, in proportion as their value has been increased 
 by the employment of foreign capital and foreign labor? 
 
 The avowed principle of the bill, that, namely, of providing for 
 
9 
 
 revenue alone, is not merely opposed to the doctrine of legislative pro- 
 tection — it goes beyond this, and wars directly upon those interests 
 which most require protection. A revenue duty must be so framed as 
 to invite importation. If you discourage the importation of a particular 
 article, you diminish or destroy your revenue from it, and if you aim 
 to draw the greatest amount of revenue from each description of goods, 
 you must so regulate your tariff as to induce the greatest importation of 
 those goods. This you can do only by giving the foreign producer a 
 preference over the domestic in our own market. A revenue tariff, 
 then, is such an arrangement of duties as will enable the foreign manu- 
 facturer to compete successfully with the native, and is consequently 
 antagonistic, not only to that which is imposed for the specific purpose 
 of protection, but to that more rational system so happily exemplified 
 in the tariff of 1842, which, with singular felicity, combines increase of 
 revenue with competent protection to most branches of domestic in- 
 dustry. 
 
 I am aware that northern democrats, in general, dare not openly 
 avow hostility to home labor. Like the chief priests and scribes of old, 
 they u fear the people, 55 and even profess friendship for the cause. 
 But this bill comes from the democratic oracles. Soothsayers, of higher 
 rank than the magi of this House, have been taken into council, and a 
 mighty astrologer has pronounced upon the horoscope. Doubtless the 
 report speaks the real sentiments of the party ; and its policy is des- 
 tined to be carried out, if the scattered and dispirited legions of the de- 
 mocracy can yet be rallied in sufficient strength to wrest the victory from 
 the growing and gathering forces of u that army with banners, 55 which 
 has already smitten them with panic terror. It is in vain to deny that 
 the bill is both calculated and designed to overthrow the whole pro- 
 ductive industry of our people; and the friendship of the self-styled 
 democrat for the laborer is that of the Quaker skipper for the enemy’s 
 captain who boarded his vessel. u Friend, 55 said Ichabod, flinging his 
 brawny arms around him, “I will not hurt thee, but I presume thee 
 can swim, 55 and, so saying, threw him overboard. 
 
 I do not propose to inquire into the constitutional power of Congress 
 to legislate with a view to protection; for I have not observed that 
 constitutional scruples oppose any very serious obstacles in gentlemen’s 
 way, when a favorite project is to be carried. Besides, these scruples 
 are particularly rife among the very same class of politicians who en- 
 tertain no doubt of the right of this single House to exercise a power, 
 in restricting the right of petition, which the express words of the 
 Constitution deny to Congress, and who, in the case of the four recu- 
 sant States, maintained the power of the House of Representatives to 
 nullify a solemn act of the national legislature, passed in strict con- 
 formity with the letter of the Constitution. Sir, I have no fear that 
 gentlemen who swallowed those camels will ever be strangled by so 
 email a gnat as this. The constitutional cholic, is indeed, a grievous 
 complaint, oftentimes an excruciatingly painful disease, but, happily, 
 it is never mortal. Gentlemen are frequently attacked by it, they 
 sicken, they suffer. In the words of the law, they languish and lan- 
 guishingly do live, but die never. In the long rows of our departed 
 predecessors, in yonder cemetery, you find the monuments of those 
 who have fallen a prey to death in all his varied shapes. Gout, apo- 
 plexy, consumption, fever, and even the hand of violence, each hath 
 
10 
 
 had its victims, but constitutional scruples, none. For such a disorder, 
 it would seem superfluous to prescribe. Besides, the very vis medica- 
 trix of nature sometimes originates milder forms of disease, by whose 
 action the peccant humors of the system are carried off, and dangerous 
 organic or chronic complaints are prevented or healed. Who knows 
 but this constitutional malady may serve some like prophylactic or 
 medicative purpose in our political system 1 These scruples are often 
 of excellent use, by way of apology for voting with our party, and 
 against the plainest reasons of general good, or the interests of our own . 
 constituents. Moreover, in debate, they are a good tub for the whale, 
 and serve in a party siege to divert the attack from the weaker points, 
 the salient angles, of the fortress. It would therefore be hardly fair, 
 were it practicable, to deprive gentlemen of so convenient a retreat 
 when pressed by arguments which they are unable to answer. 
 
 But however serious gentlemen may be in insisting on constitutional 
 objections, it can hardly be expected that the country will now abandon 
 as unconstitutional a system sanctioned by the very framers of the Con- 
 stitution in the Congress of 1789, and approved by every President, 
 from Washington down to the immortal successor of his own cc illus- 
 trious predecessor,” who has been, and is, on both sides of every sup- 
 posable question but two — the abolition of slavery in this District, 
 namely, and the expediency of the selection of a certain favorite son, 
 a certain northern man with southern principles, who shall at present 
 be nameless, as the next Democratic candidate for the Presidency. On 
 the former of these points I believe he is committed; and I rather think 
 there are gentlemen hereabouts, who, if they saw good cause, could 
 tell how and why he became so. As to the other question, I have never 
 understood that he entertained any hesitation, unless it may be a trifling 
 doubt, whether the people, upon “sober second thought,” would con- 
 firm the nomination which the convention ought to make; and whether 
 they would not, under the influence of ancient prejudice or new delu- 
 sion, reject the cashiered pilot who asks to be reinstated, and prefer 
 rather a more experienced and trusty helmsman. 
 
 There are certain kinds and branches of industry which, as all men 
 agree, lawfully may be, and as matter of expediency ought to be, pro- 
 tected. You secure to the author the copy-right in the coinage of his 
 brain, and you guarantee to the inventor of a new process, or machine, 
 the exclusive right to his invention against every competitor, whether 
 native or foreign. Here is protection, in the odious form of an abso- 
 lute monopoly; yet no man questions its justice or its expediency. I 
 am well aware that, in the case of the celebrated cotton gin, southern 
 chivalry thought fit practically to nullify the patent law, and to deny 
 to the meritorious inventor all substantial reward for his valuable ma- 
 chine; but in general the policy of the law is approved. 
 
 [Mr. Holmes here interposed, and observed, that South Carolina had 
 purchased the right to the use of the cotton gin. And Mr. Rhett added, 
 that the same State had afterwards made a voluntary grant of $20,000 
 to the inventor. It was also suggested that North Carolina had acquired 
 the right for the use of her citizens by fair purchase.] 
 
 Protection has, as I have before remarked, already done its work for 
 the great staple of the south ; and no man familiar with the history of 
 manufactures, and particularly of mechanical invention, can doubt that 
 legislative protection has been the indispensable condition of the great 
 
11 
 
 prosperity and extended amount of the cotton trade. The encourage- 
 ment early afforded to the growth and working of cotton, induced in- 
 vestments in this branch of manufacture, and it soon attained a con- 
 siderable degree of importance. The mechanical ingenuity of this 
 country, and of England, now began to exert a reciprocal influence; 
 The admirable construction of our machinery, copied and improved from 
 that of England, and the advantages enjoyed by our manufacturer in 
 the abundance and cheapness of water-power, compelled the English 
 to improve their spinning and weaving apparatus. This improvement 
 reacted upon us, and, in like manner, led to new contrivances; and 
 the whole process of converting cotton into cloths has been more than 
 once completely revolutionized. The consequence has been a vastly 
 facilitated and cheapened production of cotton goods, and of course a 
 proportionally increased use of them. Cotton has, to a great extent, 
 supplanted linen, which is more costly of production, and far less ca- 
 pable of elaboration by machinery. Cottons have also been largely 
 substituted for woollens, in the shape of cotton flannels, and other thick 
 fabrics; and they are interwoven with linen, with silk, with wool, with 
 the fleece of the cashmere goat, and in fact with every textile sub- 
 stance. Cotton is used in vast quantities for batting and padding, for 
 canvass, and innumerable other purposes, to which none thought of 
 applying it until within the last few years. Hence there is a demand 
 for this product almost without limit, and the planter both buys cheaper 
 the manufactured article, and sells a vastly increased quantity of the 
 raw material. 
 
 Such are the effects of protection ; and I cannot forbear to notice in 
 this connexion a remarkable instance of the interdependence between 
 different branches of industry, and of the unforeseen collateral benefits 
 which flow from this eminently wise and paternal system. The en- 
 larged consumption, and wear of cotton goods, has proportionally in- 
 creased the supply of rags for the paper maker, and the raw material 
 for the most important of all manufactures — the handmaid of that art 
 which is the conservator of all art and all knowledge — is furnished in in- 
 exhaustible abundance, and at greatly reduced cost. Illustrations of 
 this sort might be multiplied without limit, for there exists between the 
 various branches of productive industry the same common bond, which, 
 according to an ancient philosophical orator, unites the entire body of 
 the liberal arts into one harmonious whole. 
 
 „ But, sir, is not this very bill designed to protect a particular branch 
 of capital and industry, and that at the sacrifice of all others! It is 
 hinted that foreign trade is largely interested in the overthrow of our 
 protective system, and for that very trade protection is demanded. But 
 in whose behalf is this protection asked, and for whose benefit are we 
 called upon to sacrifice our own productive classes! We learn from 
 unquestionable sources, that of the importations from Great Britain 
 sixty-five per cent, is on British account. Of those from France, and 
 other continental countries, not less than eighty-three per cent, is on 
 foreign account; and of course nearly the whole profit on this enormous 
 proportion of our trade goes into the hands of foreigners. Shall we le- 
 gislate for the subjects of Great Britain and of France! Shall the foreign 
 importer himself determine the duty which he will condescend to pay! 
 Are his interests to be chiefly regarded in the legislation of this Halil 
 But were it otherwise — were the advantages of this great commerce the 
 
12 
 
 proper gain of our own citizens — is this object of the promotion of foreign 
 trade worth not only its present cost, but all the sacrifices which are 
 asked for it? In 1836, ail men abandoned their regular occupations, 
 and set themselves to buy, sell, and get gain; and such was the neglect 
 of agriculture, that even oats were imported from the banks of the Elbe 
 to feed the horses that pastured in the valley of the Mohawk. The 
 excessive trade of 1836 was followed by the convulsion of 1837, and 
 there has been no lack of lectures from our Democratic brethren upon 
 the causes of that convulsion. The crisis of 1837, said they, was not 
 owing to the specie circular, to the removal of the deposits, to the re- 
 fusal of the Government to recharter the United States Bank, to the 
 multitude of State banks chartered by Democratic legislatures to fill the 
 place of that dead monster, to the derangement, in fine, of the currency 
 of the country by the action of Government. No, it was none of these 
 things, nor the combined action of all these things, but it was the 
 
 EXCESSIVE IMPORTATION — THE SPIRIT OF OVERTRADING which Caused all 
 
 that ruin. Is then the spirit, which in 1836 was a spirit of darkness, 
 now become an angel of light? If the foreign importations of 1836 in- 
 volved the whole land in bankruptcy, ruin, and shame, is it now wise 
 to stimulate importation to the highest extent to which legislation can 
 carry it? 
 
 Again, sir, is not the maintenance, protection, and accommodation 
 of this foreign trade one of the heaviest items in the cost of our national 
 Government? To what other end do you maintain a navy, at the ex- 
 pense of six millions per annum, to display your protecting flag in every 
 sea ? For what other purpose are your foreign embassies, your costly 
 custom-house establishment, and a vast proportion of your civil list? 
 Sir, I argue not against these things as unnecessary, but to draw atten- 
 tion to the fact, that trade too has its protection, and to suggest the in- 
 quiry how much more we can afford to pay for its promotion. . 
 
 Every gentleman who has studied the history of the origin of this 
 Government, knows that the protection of property, as well as life and 
 personal liberty, against both the violence and the policy of foreign 
 powers, was the chief end sought to be attained by the establishment 
 of the confederacy. The power of granting such protection as domestic 
 industry requires, has been surrendered by the individual States, and 
 unless it has lodged in the people of the Union, to be by them exer- 
 cised, through us, their representatives, it is irrecoverably gone. The 
 surrender is valid to pass the power out of the hands of the grantors, 
 the States, but not good to vest it in Congress, the grantee. Strange 
 anomaly — and yet to this reductio ad absurdum you are inevitably 
 brought, if you deny the power of Congress to impose a protective duty. 
 But if Congress may legislate for the protection of capital invested in 
 trade, why not also for that of capital invested in manufactures ? The 
 buildings, the machinery, the stock, in its various stages of elaboration, 
 the lands, whose value depends upon the successful employment of the 
 capital thus invested, all these are property, as much as the stocks of 
 the capitalist, the ships of the merchant, the lands of the planter, and, 
 viewed simply as property, without regard to higher considerations of 
 national policy, are just as much entitled to legislative favor and pro- 
 tection. The American capital invested in manufactures and the me- 
 chanic arts, is believed to amount to no less a sum than four hundred 
 millions of dollars ; and one-fourth of our population is dependent for 
 
13 
 
 bread on the prosperity of those arts. To this vast sum, add the in- 
 creased value of lands in the vicinity of flourishing manufactories, and 
 you have an aggregate scarcely inferior to any of the items which make 
 up the sum total of our national wealth. 
 
 Destroy the protective system, and you annihilate at a blow this 
 great accumulation of wealth, this immense proportion of our national 
 resources. In regard to the property invested in manufactures, it is to be 
 observed, that the destruction involved by its sacrifice has no compensa- 
 tion. It is annihilation, not transfer. Thousands are impoverished, 
 none are enriched. You make your country poorer, by the amount 
 both of the capital directly invested, and the difference in value of the 
 lands and other property affected. Let a flourishing factory spring up, 
 with its capital of $100,000, and it adds to the saleable value, and ac- 
 tual productiveness of the lands in its vicinity, at least as much more. 
 Destroy it, and all this wealth has evaporated. In the case of the re- 
 moval of public buildings, and the construction of works of internal 
 i m prove me nt, there is often an apparent loss, w T hich is, however, bal- 
 anced by a compensation in the increased value thereby given to prop- 
 erty elsewhere. Construct a canal, passing three miles from a flourish- 
 ing country village, instead of through it. Its prosperity is destroyed. 
 One by one, its most enterprizing inhabitants desert it, and the aged 
 and the poor alone are left. The cheerful din of its industry is hushed. 
 The grass grows in the streets, its cottages are no longer the home of 
 man, and the fox looks out at the window. Here is ruin, here is deso- 
 lation — melancholy enough no doubt — but there is another side to the 
 picture. On the banks of that canal there arises a new village, which, 
 in its rapid growth and improvement, far outstrips all that the most san- 
 guine fancy had ever hoped for its older rival. Here is indeed a destruc- 
 tion, but there is also a creation of wealth. It is a transfer, not an an- 
 nihilation of prosperity, and though individuals may suffer, the sum 
 total of national wealth is undiminished, and even increased. On the 
 other hand, strike down a great branch of national industry, and where 
 is your compensation 'l Do southern gentlemen imagine that the ruin 
 of the manufacturers of Massachusetts will raise the price of cotton 1 
 Do the forgemen of Pennsylvania hope to sell more iron, when the 
 busy industry of New England shall be still, and the clang of the anvil 
 and the hum of the wheel shall no more mingle with the roar of the 
 waterfall 1 Does the western farmer suppose that he shall increase the 
 price of his lands, or the profits of his husbandry, by compelling his 
 eastern brethren to devote to the growing of grain and the feeding of 
 cattle the millions of acres which they now occupy for sheep-walks, 
 and for the cultivation of the teazle and other vegetable products re- 
 quired for the use of the manufacturer'? New England is able abun- 
 dantly to supply her own population with bread-stuff3 and meats. Her 
 soil, though inferior to the prairies of the West in fertility, is superior 
 in variety. Sir, the West can produce nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 which the soil of New England cannot also be made to yield in super- 
 fluous abundance. Even in fertility, the difference between the East 
 and the West has been greatly exaggerated. Sir, on this subject I do 
 not speak without book. I have seen the principal grain-growing 
 Slates of the West in their harvest, and being practically familiar with 
 agriculture, I claim «o be able to judge of their productiveness. The 
 western people, with all their virtues, and I accord them many, are a 
 
14 
 
 little prone to talk in Ercles’ vein ; and I have heard on the prairies 
 some gasconading about crops, which would have done no dishonor to 
 Ancient Pistol. We of the East, as manufacturers and shepherds, are,, 
 to some extent, dependent on you of the West. Destroy our industry, 
 compel us to exchange the loom for the plough, the sheep for the ox, 
 turn us from consumers into producers, and you have lost your best 
 customer-— we buy of you no longer. Of the forty millions of the pro- 
 duce of other States which Massachusetts consumes, she will require 
 not a dollar. Add to this the supplies demanded for the manufactures 
 of other States, and you have not less than one hundred millions of 
 American produce, for which a market will no longer exist. Where 
 do you look for compensation for this loss'? You have not the smallest 
 reason to expect that the British corn laws will be repealed — no other 
 European nation will take your produce, and when you are ready to 
 sell, none will be found to buy. 
 
 Let the western farmer examine this bill, and calculate the saving 
 which he supposes he would make by the operation of this anti-labor 
 tariff. How many dollars would he save on his cloths, how many on 
 Ins ironware, how many on his glass, his groceries, and other imported 
 goods'? Even admitting the truth of the false principle assumed by 
 the report, that a reduction of duty is a reduction of price to the con- 
 sumer, he will find that few families would save fifty dollars, the la- 
 borer, probably, not ten. But, on the other hand, would not this gain 
 be more than overbalanced by the inevitable reduction in the price of 
 his produce, resulting from the loss of a market which consumes, an- 
 nually, $100,000,000 of the products of the non-manufacturing States'? 
 Sir, where the western States would save one million, they would lose 
 ten. But, I repeat it, it is not true that a diminution of the duty lowers 
 the price. Reduce them so as to destroy domestic manufactures, and 
 do you think that the British artisan, when relieved from American com- 
 petition, will sell you his wares as cheaply as now? Will he not rather 
 take advantage of his monopoly of the market, and compel you both 
 to buy and to sell at his own price ? 
 
 Attempts have been made to excite the jealousy of the South and 
 West, by inflated statements in regard to the profits of the manufactur- 
 ers. It has been proved, by calculations, omitting only the use of cap- 
 ital, wear and decay of machinery, fixtures, and buildings, taxes and 
 insurance, and the numerous contingencies to which these establish- 
 ments are pre-eminently liable, that the eastern manufacturers must 
 have cleared not less than twenty or thirty per cent, per annum for a 
 series of years. We have the best authority for saying, that the profits 
 of the cotton manufacturers have for years not exceeded an average of 
 six per cent. ; and as to woollen mills, it is within my personal know- 
 ledge, that there is scarcely a woollen factory in New England, which 
 has not lost a sum equal to its entire capital, since 1837. Under the 
 tariff of 1842, these establishments can live, but they can never be a 
 means of the rapid accumulation of wealth. 
 
 I wish to present another general consideration. I refer to the im- 
 portance of domestic manufactures, as an essential element in a system 
 of national independence and defence. Gentlemen need not to be told, 
 that during the late war with Great Britain, the Government was forced 
 to connive at an illicit trade with, the enemy, as the only means of sup- 
 ply of such articles as neither Government nor people could live with- 
 
15 
 
 out. Shall we again subject ourselves to the inconvenience and shame 
 of smuggling from a hostile country the very blankets which cover our 
 soldiers; and while slacking fire, that the smoke of our guns may clear 
 away, shall we negotiate with the enemy for the purchase of powder 1 
 I am sorry to say, Mr. Chairman,, 1 that I am not among those who dis- 
 cern in the signs of the times sq/e tokens of abiding peace. The age 
 of conquest, it is said, has passed away ; but at a moment when our own 
 administration is meditating a war of conquest, and has already virtually 
 declared hostilities in that unholy cause, it lies not in our mouths to 
 say, that such wars are no longer possible. Sir, I have too much re- 
 spect for the cool judgment of our statesmen, and too much confidence 
 in the regard of our people for the principles of justice, and the integ- 
 rity of the Union, to believe that they will assent to the consummation 
 of a project, which, under the circumstances, can only be characterized 
 as supremely unwise, and pre-eminently flagitious, and which must 
 necessarily result, not in dissension, but in disruption. I do not there- 
 fore apprehend a conflict with Mexico, or its necessary corollary, an 
 immediate war with England ; but I cannot be blind to the fact, that 
 we are in constant danger of a lupture with the most formidable power 
 upon earth. Great Britain, sir, holds Canada on the North, her fleets 
 command the Atlantic on the East; on the South, she has extensive pos- 
 sessions in the West Indies and on the continent; and she occupies, to 
 say the least, an equivocal position on the West. But this is not all. 
 Her ships are traversing every sea, and seizing upon every advantage- 
 ous position, which is either unoccupied, or whose possessors are too 
 feeble to resist her encroachments ; and an American whaler can scarcely 
 bring off a keg of water, or a boatload of cocoanuts, from a coral reef 
 in the wide Pacific, without paying tribute to the outposts of England. 
 I know, indeed, that she has disclaimed that atrocious outrage, the for- 
 cible seizure of the sovereignty of the Sandwich islands, but I have not 
 yet heard, that she has hung, at the yardarm of his own ship, the pirat- 
 ical lordiing who perpetrated it. Sir, I charge not Great Britain with 
 cherishing dreams of widespread conquest, or aiming at universal em- 
 pire : but he must be blind, who does not see that she is striving for no 
 less a prize than the control of the commerce of the w T orid. America 
 too is ambitious. She disputes with England the sovereignty of the 
 northeastern shore of the Pacific — we are rivals in the same branches of 
 trade, and the red cross and the stars and stripes float side by side in 
 every harbor of every sea. With all these points of contact, dare we 
 hope that we shall always escape collision ; and is it wise tg doflf our 
 armor while our adversary is lacing his helmet? 
 
 Sir, on this subject let me not be misunderstood. No man can more cordially 
 detest the practice, or deplore the necessity, of a resort to arms ; none can more 
 deeply abhor the hellish passions, the awful crimes, that constitute the very being 
 of war, than myself ; and I am not prepared to say, that any, or even all, of the 
 pending or adjourned questions between us and Great Britain are worth a war. 
 But, sir, I know that England is regarded with angry and inflammable jealousy 
 along the whole frontier, and a small spark may at any moment kindle that tinder 
 to an appalling flame. Thus situated, I hold it to be the part of wisdom to foster 
 and strengthen our own domestic resources, rather than to cherish and reward 
 the industry of the alien and the stranger. But I am wandering from the sub- 
 ject, and I will only pause to express my surprise, that gentlemen of the South, 
 who dread the interference of England with Texan slavery, and fear the conta- 
 gion of her example in her West India possessions, should yet advocate a policy* 
 
16 
 
 which necessarily implies much more intimate relations with that formidabl 
 rival-, and probable enemy. Destroy our manufactures, and subvert that revenu 
 system which has, from our national infancy, been the soul of our finance, an 
 we are at once practically reduced to a state of colonial dependence upon ou 
 ancient oppressor. Sir, it was not for this that our fathers fell at Bunker Hill 
 at Bennington, and at Saratoga, and that yours bit the dust in the hundred parti 
 zan conflicts which, at a later period of the war of independence, dyed your sand 
 with the best blood of the South. 
 
 There is another point of far deeper, though .less obvious, interest than th 
 mere question of revenue, or the present pecuniary gain or loss to the consumer 
 and which is most worthy the profound consideration of the philosophical states 
 man. I refer to the influence of such manufactures as are carried on by m~ 
 chinery, upon the progress of mechanical improvement, and the consequent mul 
 tiplication and diffusion of both the physical comforts and elegancies, and th 
 higher refinements of life. The encouragement which inventive genius hire re 
 ceived at the hands of the manufacturer, is the principal source of the astoundiri 
 r-.dvan^es it'tat haK a century h is witnessed in practical mechanics and mai# 
 lions, in the application of science to the arts, and even in the progress and dis 
 semination of the physical sciences themselves. 
 
 The wants of the dyer, the bleacher, the sugar-refiner, have led to, curious in 
 vestigations and most important results in scientific analysis ; the necessities o 
 the machinist have prompted improvements in smelting, refining, casting, an 
 forging metals, and to a better knowledge of their ores, constitution, and proper 
 ties ; the demands of British manufactures are the parent of improvements 
 mining, mineralogical research and geological science; to them we owe the in- 
 vention of the reciprocating steam-engine, and the introduction of railroads, b~ 
 means of all which, not only are all the operations of government immensely 
 facilitated, but the conveniences of life are so multiplied and cheapened, that, a 
 has been well said, the humble cottager enjoys more comforts than an empero 
 of Rome in the days of her greatest splendor. Knowledge, too, literally run 
 down the streets like a river. The power press sends forth its sheets by thou 
 sands in the hour, and books now cost less than did the paper on which the 
 are printed within the memory of members of this House. These arts are em 
 phatically the arts of peace; these are the true philosopher’s stone, that turns al 
 to gold ; these are the means through whose aid alone the philanthropist ca‘ 
 hope to level up suffering, depressed, and debased humanity. Machinery mus 
 supply the physical wants of the indigent; the power press must furnish th 
 popular instructor with his textbooks — the missionary with his bibles. 
 
 To the improvements in the mechanic arts we have contributed our full share 
 We have then a proprietary, a paternal interest, in their prosperity. To the 
 we, of all the nations of the earth, are most deeply indebted, and from them w 
 have most to hope. Shall we lay the ax to the root of the tree which has bon- 
 such nobir fruits, and which is slid rich with the blossoms of future promise 
 What does not the South ©we to the cotton gin and the power loom? and wha 
 would now be the condition of that mighty West, to which we have so often ap 
 pealed, without canals, railroads, and steamboats, which derive both the motiv 
 and the means of their creation from the progress of manufactures ? Sir, sh 
 would still remain a howling wilderness, inhabited only by savages and wolve 
 and the game on which they prey. 
 
 Sir, let us have no more idle speculation upon the future consequences of th 
 existing tariff. Let it be judged by its fruits. Show what evil it hath done 
 Prove that it has augmented the current price or diminished the supply of an 
 foreign article of necessity or extensive use. Show that it has reduced the pric 
 or curtailed the sale of any important article of domestic production — bat terrif 
 us not with prophecies of future evil from the operation of that cause which h 
 crowned the past and the present with abundant blessings.