the learned professions, are overflowing with | in enumerating the causes which have brought competitors, and that the want of employment in England their manufactures to such a state

is severely felt. Now what does this bill pro- of perfection, and which now enable them, in pose? To open a new and extensive field of the opinion of the writer, to defy all competibusiness, in which all that choose may enter. tion, does not specify, as one of them, low There is no compulsion upon any one to engage wages. It assigns three: first, capital; secondin it. An option only is given to industry, to ly, extent and costliness of machinery; and, continue in the present unprofitable pursuits, or thirdly, steady and persevering industry. Notto embark in a new and promising one. The withstanding the concurrence of so many favoreffect will be, to lessen the competition in the able causes, in our country, for the introduction old branches of business, and to multiply our of the arts, we are earnestly dissuaded from resources for increasing our comforts, and aug- making the experiment, and our ultimate failure menting the national wealth. The alleged fact is confidently predicted. Why should we fail? of the high price of wages is not admitted. The Nations, like men, fail in nothing which they truth is, that no class of society suffers more, boldly attempt, when sustained by virtuous in the present stagnation of business, than the purpose and firm resolution. I am not willing laboring class. That is a necessary effect of the to admit this depreciation of American skill depression of agriculture, the principal business and enterprise. I am not willing to strike beof the community. The wages of able-bodied fore an effort is made. All our past history men vary from five to eight dollars per month, exhorts us to proceed, and inspires us with and such has been the want of employment, in animating hopes of success. Past predictions some parts of the Union, that instances have of our incapacity have failed, and present prenot been unfrequent of men working merely dictions will not be realized. At the comfor the means of present subsistence. If the mencement of this government, we were told wages for labor here and in England are com- that the attempt would be idle to construct a pared, they will be found not to be essentially marine adequate to the commerce of the coundifferent. I agree with the honorable gentle- try, or even to the business of its coasting trade. inan from Virginia that high wages are a proof The founders of our government did not listen of national prosperity; we differ only in the to these discouraging counsels; and, behold the means by which that desirable end shall be fruits of their just comprehension of our reattained. But, if the fact were true, that the sources! Our restrictive policy was denounced, wages of labor are high, I deny the correctness and it was foretold that it would utterly disapof the argument founded upon it. The argu- point all our expectations. But our restrictive ment assumes that natural labor is the principal policy has been eminently successful; and the element in the business of manufacture. That share which our navigation now enjoys in the was the ancient theory. But the valuable in- trade with France, and with the British West ventions and vast improvements in machinery, India Islands, attests its victory. What were which have been made within a few past years, not the disheartening predictions of the oppohave produced a new era in the arts. The ef- nents of the late war? Defeat, discomfort and fect of this change, in the powers of production, disgrace, were to be the certain, but not the may be estimated, from what I have already worst effect of it. Here, again, did prophecy stated in relation to England, and to the tri- prove false; and the energies of our country, umphs of European artificial labor over the and the valor and the patriotism of our people, natural labor of Asia. In considering the fit- carried us gloriously through the war. ness of a nation for the establishment of manu- are now, and ever will be, essentially an agrifactures, we must no longer limit our views to cultural people. Without a material change in the state of its population, and the price of the fixed habits of the country, the friends of wages. All circumstances must be regarded, this measure desire to draw to it, as a powerful of which that is, perhaps, the least important. auxiliary to its industry, the manufacturing arts. Capital, ingenuity in the construction, and The difference between a nation with and withadroitness in the use of machinery, and the out the arts, may be conceived by the difference possession of the raw materials, are those which between a keel-boat and a steamboat, combating deserve the greatest consideration. All these the rapid torrent of the Mississippi. How slow circumstances (except that of capital, of which does the former ascend, hugging the sinuosities there is no deficiency) exist in our country in of the shore, pushed on by her hardy and exan eminent degree, and more than counter- posed crew, now throwing themselves in vigorbalance the disadvantage, if it really existed, of ous concert on their oars, and then seizing the the lower wages of labor in Great Britain.pendent boughs of overhanging trees: she seems The dependence upon foreign nations for the raw material of any great manufacture, has been considered as a discouraging fact. The state of our population is peculiarly favorable to the most extensive introduction of machinery. We have no prejudices to combat, no persons to drive out of employment. The pamphlet, to which we have had occasion so often to refer,

We

hardly to move; and her scanty cargo is scarcely worth the transportation! With what ease is she not passed by the steamboat, laden with the riches of all quarters of the world, with a crew of gay, cheerful and protected passengers, now dashing into the midst of the current, or gliding through the eddies near the shore! Nature herself seems to survey, with astonish

ment, the passing wonder, and, in silent sub- | to repair the misfortunes of the past. Secondly, mission, reluctantly to own the magnificent triumphs, in her own vast dominion, of Fulton's immortal genius.

Seventh. But it is said that, wherever there is a concurrence of favorable circumstances, manufactures will arise of themselves, without protection; and that we should not disturb the natural progress of industry, but leave things to themselves. If all nations would modify their policy on this axiom, perhaps it would be better for the common good of the whole. Even then, in consequence of natural advantages and a greater advance in civilization and in the arts, some nations would enjoy a state of much higher prosperity than others. But there is no universal legislation. The globe is divided into different communities, each seeking to appropriate to itself all the advantages it can, without reference to the prosperity of others. Whether this is right or not, it has always been, and ever will be the case. Perhaps the care of the interests of one people is sufficient for all the wisdom of one legislature; and that it is among nations as among individuals, that the happiness of the whole is best secured by each attending to its own peculiar interests. The proposition to be maintained by our adversaries is, that manufactures, without protection, will, in due time, spring up in our country, and sustain themselves, in a competition with foreign fabrics, however advanced the arts, and whatever the degree of protection may be in foreign countries. Now I contend that this proposition is refuted by all experience, ancient and modern, and in every country. If I am asked, why unprotected industry should not succeed in a struggle with protected industry, I answer, the FACT has ever been so, and that is sufficient; I reply, that UNIFORM EXPERIENCE evinces that it cannot succeed in such an unequal contest, and that is sufficient. If we speculate on the causes of this universal truth, we may differ about them. Still the indisputable fact remains. And we should be as unwise in not availing ourselves of the guide which it furnishes, as a man would be who should refuse to bask in the rays of the sun, because he could not agree with Judge Woodward as to the nature of the substance of that planet, to which we are indebted for heat and light. If I were to attempt to particularize the causes which prevent the success of the manufacturing arts without protection, I should say that they are, first, the obduracy of fixed habits. No nation, no individual, will easily change an established course of business, even if it be unprofitable; and least of all is an agricultural people prone to innovation. With what reluctance do they adopt improvements in the instruments of husbandry, or in modes of cultivation! If the farmer makes a good crop, and sells it badly; or makes a short crop; buoyed up by hope he perseveres, and trusts that a favorable change of the market, or of the seasons, will enable him, in the succeeding year,

the uncertainty, fluctuation, and unsteadiness of the home market, when liable to an unrestricted influx of fabrics from all foreign nations; and, thirdly, the superior advance of skill, and amount of capital, which foreign nations have obtained, by the protection of their own industry. From the latter or from other causes, the unprotected manufactures of a country are exposed to the danger of being crushed in their infancy, either by the design or from the necessities of foreign manufacturers. Gentlemen are incredulous as to the attempts of foreign manufacturers to accomplish the destruction of ours. Why should they not make such attempts? If the Scottish manufacturer, by surcharging our market, in one year, with the article of cotton bagging, for example, should so reduce the price as to discourage and put down the home manufacture, he would se cure to himself the monopoly of the supply. And now, having the exclusive possession of the market, perhaps for a long term of years, he might be more than indemnified for his first loss, in the subsequent rise in the price of the article. What have we not seen under our own eyes? The competition for the transportation of the mail, between this place and Baltimore, so excited, that to obtain it an individual offered, at great loss, to carry it a whole year for one dollar! His calculation no doubt was, that by driving his competitor off the road, and securing to himself the carriage of the mail, he would be afterward able to repair his original loss by new contracts with the department. But the necessities of foreign manufacturers, without imputing to them any sinister design, may oblige them to throw into our markets the fabrics which have accumulated on their hands, in consequence of obstruction in the ordinary vents, or from over-calculation; and the forced sales, at losing prices, may prostrate our es tablishments. From this view of the subject, it follows, that, if we would place the industry of our country upon a solid and unshakable foundation, we must adopt the protecting policy, which has every where succeeded, and reject that which would abandon it, which has every where failed.

Eighth. But if the policy of protection be wise, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Barbour) has made some ingenious calculations to prove that the measure of protection, already extended, has been sufficiently great. With some few exceptions, the existing duties, of which he has made an estimate, were laid with the object of revenue, and without reference to that of encouragement to domestic industry; and although it is admitted that the incidental effect of duties, so laid, is to promote our manufactures, yet if it falls short of competent protection, the duties might as well not have been imposed, with reference to that purpose. A moderate addition may accomplish this desirable end; and the proposed tariff is believed to have this character.

Ninth. The prohibitory policy, it is confidently asserted, is condemned by the wisdom of Europe, and by her most enlightened statesmen. Is this the fact? We call upon gentlemen to show in what instance a nation that has enjoyed its benefits has surrendered it.

Here Mr. Barbour rose, Mr. Clay giving way, and said, that England had departed from it in the China trade, in allowing us to trade with her East India possessions, and in tolerating our navigation to her West India colonies.

tion, and English distillation has been protected accordingly. But suppose it were even true that Great Britain had abolished all restrictions upon trade, and allowed the freest introduction of the produce of foreign labor, would that prove it unwise for us to adopt the protecting system? The object of protection is the establishment and perfection of the arts. In England it has accomplished its purpose, fulfilled its end. If she has not carried every branch of manufacture to the same high state of perfection that any other nation has, she has succeeded in so many, that she may safely challenge the most unshackled competition in exchanges. It With respect to the trade to China, the whole is upon this very ground that many of her amount of what England has done, is, to modify writers recommend an abandonment of the prothe monopoly of the East India Company, in hibitory system. It is to give greater scope to behalf of one, and a small part of her subjects, British industry and enterprise. It is upon the to increase the commerce of another and the same selfish principle. The object of the most greater portion of them. The abolition of the perfect freedom of trade, with such a nation as restriction, therefore, operates altogether among Britain, and of the most rigorous system of the subjects of England; and does not touch at prohibition, with a nation whose arts are in all the interests of foreign powers. The tolera- their infancy, may both be precisely the same. tion of our commerce to British India, is for In both cases, it is to give greater expansion to the sake of the specie, with which we mainly native industry. They only differ in the theacarry on that commerce, and which, having per- tres of their operation. The abolition of the formed its circuit, returns to Great Britain in restrictive system by Britain, if by it she could exchange for British manufactures. The relax- prevail upon other nations to imitate her exation from the colonial policy, in the instance ample, would have the effect of extending the of our trade and navigation with the West consumption of British produce in other connIndies, is a most unfortunate example for the tries, where her writers boldly affirm it could honorable gentleman; for in it is an illustrious maintain a fearless competition with the proproof of the success of our restrictive policy, duce of native labor. The adoption of the when resolutely adhered to. Great Britain had restrictive system, on the part of the United prescribed the terms on which we were to be States, by excluding the produce of foreign graciously allowed to carry on that trade. The labor, would extend the consumption of Amerieffect of her regulations was, to exclude our can produce, unable, in the infancy and unpronavigation altogether, and a complete monopo-tected state of the arts, to sustain a competition ly, on the part of the British navigation, was secured. We forbade it, unless our vessels should be allowed a perfect reciprocity. Great Britain stood out a long time, but finally yielded, and our navigation now fairly shares with hers in the trade. Have gentlemen no other to exhibit than these trivial relaxations from the prohibitory policy, which do not amount to a drop in the bucket, to prove its abandonment by Great Britain? Let them show us that her laws are repealed which prohibit the introduc-powerful, in proportion to the population and tion of our flour and provisions; of French silks, laces, porcelain, manufactures of bronze, mirrors, woollens; and of the manufactures of all other nations; and then, we may be ready to allow that Great Britain has really abolished her prohibitory policy. We find there, on the contrary, that system of policy in full and vigorous operation, and a most curiously interwoven system it is, as she enforces it. She begins by protecting all parts of her immense dominions against foreign nations. She then protects the parent country against the colonies; and, finally, one part of the parent country against another. The sagacity of Scotch industry has carried the process of distillation to a perfection which would place the art in England on a footing of disadvantageous competi

with foreign fabrics. Let our arts breathe under the shade of protection; let them be perfected, as they are in England, and we shall then be ready, as England now is said to be, to put aside protection, and to enter upon the freest exchanges. To what other cause, than to their whole prohibitory policy, can you ascribe British prosperity? It will not do to assign it to that of her antiquity; for France is no less ancient; though much less rich and

natural advantages of France. Hallam, a sensible and highly approved writer on the middle ages, assigns the revival of the prosperity of the north of Europe to the success of the woollen manufactories of Flanders, and the commerce of which their fabrics became the subject; and the commencement of that of England to the establishment of similar manufactures there under the Edwards, and to the prohibitions which began about the same time. As to the poorrates, the theme of so much reproach without England, and of so much regret within it, among her speculative writers, the system was a strong proof, no less of her unbounded wealth than of her pauperism. What other nation can dispense, in the form of regulated charity, the enormous sum, I believe, of ten or twelve mil

extensive and more considerable. *** It offers a continual encouragement to the manufactures of other countries, and its own manufactures perish in the struggle which they are, as yet, unable to maintain.

lions sterling? The number of British paupers | tem makes, from day to day, sacrifices more was the result of pressing the principle of population to its utmost limits, by her protecting policy, in the creation of wealth, and in placing the rest of the world under tribute to her industry. Doubtless the condition of England would be better, without paupers, if in other respects it remained the same. But in her actual circumstances, the poor system has the salutary effect of an equalizing corrective of the tendency to the concentration of riches, | produced by the genius of her political institutions and by her prohibitory system.

"It is with the most lively feelings of regret we acknowledge it is our own proper experience which enables us to trace this picture. The evils which it details have been realized in Russea and Poland, since the conclusion of the act of the 7th and 19th of December, 1818. Agriculture without a market, industry without protection, languish and decline. Specie is exported, and the most solid commercial houses are shaken. The public prosperity would soon feel the wound inflicted on private fortunes, if new regulations did not promptly change the actual state of affairs.

But is it true, that England is convinced of the impolicy of the prohibitory system, and desirous to abandon it? What proof have we to that effect? We are asked to reject the evidence deducible from the settled and steady practice of England, and to take lessons in a school of philosophical writers, whose visionary "Events have proved that our agriculture theories are nowhere adopted; or, if adopted, and our commerce, as well as our manufacturing bring with them inevitable distress, impoverish-industry, are not only paralyzed but brought to ment, and ruin. Let us hear the testimony of the brink of ruin." an illustrious personage, entitled to the greatest attention, because he speaks after the full experiment of the unrestrictive system made in his own empire. I hope I shall give no offence in quoting from a publication issued from "the mint of Philadelphia;" from a work of Mr. Carey, of whom I seize, with great pleasure, the occasion to say, that he merits the public gratitude, for the disinterested diligence with which he has collected a large mass of highly useful facts, and for the clear and convincing reasoning with which he generally illustrates them. The Emperor of Russia, in March, 1822, after about two years' trial of the free system, says, through Count Nesselrode:

"To produce happy effects, the principles of commercial freedom must be generally adopted. The State which adopts, while others reject them, must condemn its own industry and commerce to pay a ruinous tribute to those of other countries.

"From a circulation exempt from restraint, and the facility afforded by reciprocal exchanges, almost all the governments at first resolved to seek the means of repairing the evil which Europe had been doomed to suffer; but experience and more correct calculations, because they were made from certain data, and upon the results already known of the peace that had just taken place, forced them soon to adhere to the prohibitory system.

"England preserved hers. Austria remained faithful to the rule she had laid down, to guard herself against the rivalship of foreign industry. France, with the same views, adopted the most rigorous measures of precaution. And Prussia published a new tariff in October last, which proves that she found it impossible not to follow the example of the rest of Europe.

"In proportion as the prohibitory system is extended and rendered perfect in other countries, that State which pursues a contrary sys

The example of Spain has been properly referred to, as affording a striking proof of the calamities which attend a State that abandons the care of its own internal industry. Her prosperity was the greatest when the arts, brought there by the Moors, flourished most in that kingdom. Then she received from England her wool, and returned it in the manufactured state; and then England was least prosperous. The two nations have reversed conditions. Spain, after the discovery of America, yielding to an inordinate passion for the gold of the Indies, sought in their mines that wealth which might have been better created at home. Can the remarkable difference in the state of the prosperity of the two countries be otherwise explained, than by the opposite systems which they pursued? England, by a sedulous attention to her home industry, supplied the means of an advantageous commerce with her colonies. Spain, by an utter neglect of her domestic resources, confided altogether in those which she derived from her colonies, and presents an instance of the greatest adversity. Her colonies were infinitely more valuable than those of England; and if she had adopted a similar policy, is it unreasonable to suppose that in wealth and power she would have surpassed that of England? I think the honorable gentleman from Virginia does great injustice to the Catholic religion, in specifying that as one of the leading causes of the decline of Spain. It is a religion entitled to great respect; and there is nothing in its character incompatible with the highest degree of national prosperity. Is not France, the most polished, in many other respects the most distinguished state of Christendom, Catholic? Is not Flanders, the most populous part of Europe, also Catholic? Are the Catholic parts of Switzerland and of Germany less prosperous than those which are Protestant?

Tenth. The next objection of the honorable

must be a most singular instrument! It seems to be made for any other people than our own. Its action is altogether foreign. Congress has power to lay duties and imposts, under no other limitation whatever than that of their being uniform throughout the United States. But they can only be imposed, according to the honorable gentleman, for the sole purpose of revenue. This is a restriction which we do not find in the constitution. No doubt revenue was a principal object with the framers of the constitution in investing Congress with the power. But, in executing it, may not the duties and imposts be so laid as to secure domestic interests? Or is Congress denied all discretion as to the amount or the distribution of the duties and imposts ?

gentleman from Virginia, which I shall briefly notice is, that the manufacturing system is adverse to the genius of our government in its tendency to the accumulation of large capitals in a few hands; in the corruption of the public morals, which is alleged to be incident to it; and in the consequent danger to the public liberty. The first part of the objection would apply to every lucrative business, to commerce, to planting, and to the learned professions. Would the gentleman introduce the system of Lycurgus? If his principle be correct it should be extended to any and every vocation which had a similar tendency. The enormous fortunes in our country-the nabobs of the land-have been chiefly made by the profitable pursuit of that foreign commerce, in more propitious times, which the honorable gentleman would The gentleman from Virginia has, however, so carefully cherish. Immense estates have entirely mistaken the clause of the constitution also been made in the South. The dependents on which we rely. It is that which gives to are, perhaps, not more numerous upon that Congress the power to regulate commerce with wealth which is accumulated in manufactures foreign nations. The grant is plenary, without than they are upon that which is acquired by any limitation whatever, and includes the whole commerce and by agriculture. We may safely power of regulation, of which the subject to be confide in the laws of distribution, and in the regulated is susceptible. It is as full and comabsence of the rule of primogeniture, for the plete a grant of the power as that is to declare dissipation, perhaps, too rapid, of large fortunes. war. What is a regulation of commerce? It What has become of those which were held two implies the admission or exclusion of the object or three generations back in Virginia? Many of it, and the terms. Under this power, some of the descendants of the ancient aristocracy, articles, by the existing laws, are admitted as it was called, of that State, are now in the freely; others are subjected to duties so high as most indigent condition. The best security to amount to their prohibition, and various rates against the demoralization of society is the con- of duties are applied to others. Under this stant and profitable employment of its mem-power, laws of total non-intercourse with some bers. The greatest danger to public liberty is nations, embargoes, producing an entire cessafrom idleness and vice. If manufactures form tion of commerce with all foreign countries, cities, so does commerce. And the disorders have been from time to time passed. These and violence which proceed from the contagion laws I have no doubt met with the entire approof the passions, are as frequent in one descrip- bation of the gentleman from Virginis. [Mr. tion of those communities as in the other. There Barbour said that he was not in Congress.] is no doubt but that the yeomanry of a country Wherever the gentleman was, whether on his is the safest depository of public liberty. In all farm or in the pursuit of that professsion of time to come, and under any probable direction which he is an ornament, I have no doubt that' of the labor of our population, the agricultural he gave his zealous support to the laws reclass must be much the most numerous and ferred to. powerful, and will ever retain, as it ought to retain, a preponderating influence in our councils. The extent and the fertility of our lands constitute an adequate security against an excess in manufactures, and also against oppression, on the part of capitalists, toward the laboring portions of the community.

Eleventh. The last objection, with a notice of which I shall trouble the committee, is, that the constitution does not authorize the passage of the bill. The gentleman from Virginia does not assert, indeed, that it is inconsistent with the express provisions of that instrument, but he thinks it incompatible with the spirit of the constitution. If we attempt to provide for the internal improvement of the country, the constitution, according to some gentlemen, stands in our way. If we attempt to protect American industry against foreign policy and the rivalry of foreign industry, the constitution presents an insuperable obstacle. This constitution

The principle of the system under consideration has the sanction of some of the best and wisest men, in all ages, in foreign countries as well as in our own-of the Edwards, of Henry the Great, of Elizabeth, of the Colberts, abroad; of our Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, at home. But it comes recommended to us by a higher authority than any of these, illustrious as they unquestionably are-by the masterspirit of the age-that extraordinary man, who has thrown the Alexanders and the Cæsars infinitely further behind him than they stood in advance of the most eminent of their predecessors-that singular man who, whether he was seated on his imperial throne, deciding the fate of nations, and allotting kingdoms to the members of his family, with the same composure, if not with the same affection, as that with which a Virginia father divides his plantations among his children, or on the miserable rock of St. Helena, to which he was condemned by the