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 inttif(£upcifHrtu]?i>rh 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE SELIGMAN LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS 
 
 PURCHASED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 1929 
 
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THE TARIFF. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. L. Q. C. LAMAR, 
 
 OF MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATJ 
 
 Wednesday, February 7 , 1883 . 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
W\ <21'l A I 'S'S3 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. L . Q . C. LAMAR. 
 
 The Senate ns in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration 
 the bill (H. It’. 0538; to reduce internal-revenue taxation— 
 
 Mr. LAMAR said: . ... , 
 
 Mr President: I have taken no part m the debate on this bill, but 
 have listened to it with great attention and have noted the votes on the 
 various amendments which have been proposed to the measure under 
 consideration. The progress of the discussion and the votes together 
 show that it is impossible to effect any large reduction or any materal 
 reduction of the taxes and at the same time retain the system of ‘ pro¬ 
 tection for protection’s sake. ” One or the other must be given up. The 
 demand for the reduction of taxes, which has of late years become so 
 urgent, has imposed a hard and delicate task upon the party in power, 
 and they confessed their inability to perform it by creating a Tariff Com¬ 
 mission'. This expedient would have been entirely unnecessary had we 
 nothing else to do than tosettle the relat ion of taxation to revenue. In¬ 
 deed, it would seem that with a too abundant revenue no task would 
 be easier to perforin, and more agreeable and grateful in the performance, 
 than that of lilting from the people the burden of taxation which they 
 felt to be unnecessary and therefore oppressive; and I suppose history 
 does not furnish another instance of a people being heavily and needlessly 
 taxed for a long series of years for no other reason except that their 
 rulers were unable to devise a method of reduction. 
 
 But, sir, the cause of this has been manifested in the progress of this 
 measure through the Senate. This body is concerned, not with the re¬ 
 lation of taxation to revenue—that would be a simple matter—but with 
 the relation of manufactures to the method of collecting the revenue. 
 Hence it is that upon each article of taxation the rate is determined 
 here by the question, not how low a duty can be laid with a view to 
 reduce revenue, but how high a one is needed to maintain the manu¬ 
 facture of the corresponding article in this country. The Senator from 
 Maine, in an able speech at the last session, made this very clear. After 
 •declaringhimself in favor of “protection for protection’s sake,” he says: 
 
 If there was no public debt, no interest to pay, no pension-list, no Army and 
 no Navy to support, I should still oppose free-trade and its twin sister, tariff for 
 revenue, and be in favor of protective duties. 
 
 Well, sir, we have been living for twenty-three years—eighteen of 
 them years of peace—under a tariff for protection, whose duties are uni¬ 
 versally admitted to be too high with respect either to revenue or to 
 taxes. It has been retained on the statute-book and enforced upon 
 the people during that long period not because it was needed to pay the 
 public debt or the interest upon it; not because it was needed to sup¬ 
 port the Army or Navy or to defray the other expenses of government, 
 but because it was a system of protective duties which could not be dis¬ 
 turbed without also, as it was urged, disturbing the manufactures 
 
4 
 
 which it had been designed to build up and shelter from competition. 
 
 There is therefore this conflict between the public demand and the 
 convictions of the party in power. The people demand a reduction of this 
 burden of taxation, but the party in power has for twenty years insisted 
 that it is no burden at all but a blessing to the whole country. They as¬ 
 sert, and have done so repeatedly in this debate, that the duties upon im¬ 
 ported articles do not go into the price of the articles at all, but that their 
 effect is simply to put upon the market the corresponding products of 
 home manufacture at cheaper prices to theconsumer and to reduce those 
 of the imported articles also. They have insisted that this high tariff has 
 favored the working classes by reducing the money price of the most 
 important productions and at the same time by increasing the wages 
 of labor, so essential to the maintenance of our institutions and the wel¬ 
 fare of our people. They have pressed the argument that this protect¬ 
 ive system, as it now exists, by diverting labor from the unremunerated 
 pursuits of agriculture to the more productive industry of manufactures, 
 inviting capital into these more profitable investments, has increased the 
 annual product of the nation’s wealth and diffused its benefits through¬ 
 out the Republic. They have pointed to the magnificent development 
 of our varied industries, dwelling upon their benelit to all classes—farm¬ 
 ers, capitalists, and laborers alike—and claimed that it is due to the 
 existing system of protection. 
 
 The great manufacturing industries have been bound to its support 
 by the belief that their prosperity depends upon its maintenance. In 
 a word, sir, as I first remarked, they have maintained and do main¬ 
 tain that this so-called burden of taxation which the people say must 
 be reduced is no burden at all, but a blessing, which increases the 
 profits of capital, raises the wages of labor, cheapens the prices of prod¬ 
 ucts, and puts us all in funds. Its advocates, therefore, can not take 
 a step toward the reduction of tariff taxation without contravening 
 the fundamental principles upon which the protective system rests; for 
 if it confers all these blessings, if it does increase the annual product of 
 the natron’s wealth, if it does raise the wages of labor and the profits of 
 capital at the same time and eheapen the produets of consumption as 
 well, to repeal it, or to reduce it, or to modify it is simply to diminish 
 if not to destroy these great and important benefits to the country. 
 
 The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Morbill], who has in charge the 
 measure before us, in presenting it as a scheme of reduced taxation 
 did not seem to enter upon his novel role with the zeal and ardor that 
 are usual to a new convert. His introductory speech, made January 
 10, 1883, seemed to me more calculated to invite opposition than to at¬ 
 tract support to his proposed measure. Speaking of its revenue feat¬ 
 ures, he says: 
 
 But without taking into the account any ®f these contingencies, which cer¬ 
 tainly indicate their coming by the shadows visible in their front, there will be 
 a positive deficit in the estimated amount of revenue required to meet the ex¬ 
 penditures of the Government unless much larger importations shall be re¬ 
 ceived from which the revenue from customs can be largely increased. It is 
 true also that the coinage of the silver dollar is likely to continue, and this will 
 absorb at least S24,000,0(X>, or render that amount practically unavailable. 
 
 Under these circumstances the sudden reduction of so large an amount of the 
 nationnl revenues at a single blow, as proposed, is surely quite as far us prudence 
 will allow us to go, and possibly further. 
 
 But when he comes to the economical and social aspects of the meas¬ 
 ure his predictions tire almost gloomy and his words of warning are 
 almost solemn. He says: 
 
 We must not conceal from ourselves that so general a ehange to lower duties. 
 
carrying 1 a downfall in values, will seriously affect those with stocks on hand, 
 and the doors we also open to labor abroad will to some extent shut out labor at 
 home. Some industries, it is to be feared, can not lie maintained except byare- 
 duction of wages. Already some large iron establishments are shut up, and in 
 Philadelphia alone 10,000 looms arc said to be idle. 1 here has been an overpro¬ 
 duction in other articles than whisky, and nowhere more extravagant than in the 
 11 000 miles of railroad built in 1882. Storm-signals of late have been frequently 
 visible in the financial horizon. Those who believe that monetary crises are 
 periodical now fear the decennial return of that of 1873. 
 
 After such a peculiar advocacy as this, it is perhaps not so strange 
 that we should witness, as we do, a party proposing a measure purport¬ 
 ing to be a general reduction of revenue, and yet upon each separate 
 item a majority of its members protesting against the reduction, be¬ 
 cause a higher tax is a protection and a lower one an incurable wound 
 to some great industry essential to the welfare of the people. 
 
 Mr. President, I think the time has come when we should deal more 
 explicitly with the American people upon this subject. I think that 
 our friends on the opposite side of the Chamber should say—and if they 
 do not, that I should say—that protection and low taxation are not 
 compatible. You can not make the two systems blend. A protective 
 tax is a high tax; and a low tax, to the extent that it does not check 
 importations, becomes non-protectivc. Why not let the people know 
 the truth ? They are not averse to taxation. They have always been 
 ready to tax themselves willingly whenever satisfied that the object is 
 a legitimate one, and the mode of assessing and collecting the tax a 
 proper one. Why not declare to them: If you want the blessings of 
 protection; if you want our industries maintained by the aid of the 
 Government as a great symmetrical system, you must make up your 
 minds to pay the cost and make the sacrifice necessary to maintain such 
 a system and scorn the temptation of low taxes and cheap foreign goods ? 
 
 The Senator from Vermont says that this bill is based upon the re¬ 
 port of the Tariff Commission. I propose to call attention to that re¬ 
 port. The testimony taken by the commission tills two large volumes 
 of 2,600 pages. These pages certainly present a most remarkable—I 
 may say imposing—exhibit of the condition of American manufactures 
 and of the genius and capacity of our people for those mechanic arts 
 and scientific appliances which have done so much for the elevation 
 and civilization of the human race. As we read the reports made of 
 the marvelous progress and achievements of these varied industries, 
 the effect on the mind is as vivid as though it were produced by a scenic 
 representation, or as if these great industries—could such a thing be 
 possible—were passing before us in stately procession. And, sir, when 
 we take in tlie full magnitude of these interests, the number of estab¬ 
 lishments, the vast amount of productive capital, the number of per¬ 
 sons employed, the aggregate sum of wages paid out, and the value of 
 their annual product, reaching this year it is said to $5,000,000,000, 
 making this the foremost manufacturing nation of the globe, we can 
 but feel the sentiment of pride which the honorable Senator from Ver¬ 
 mont so eloquently expressed. 
 
 On the other hand, there are unfavorable indications, calculated to 
 excite grave doubts as to their healthy condition, and to cause the sus¬ 
 picion that the effect of this protective policy has been to enervate 
 and emasculate these industries, and lias perhaps obstructed a growth 
 which without such stimulus would have been not as rapid perhaps, 
 but more sure, more healthful, and more self-sustaining. According 
 to the testimony of all the accredited agents and representatives and 
 organs of these industries, their condition is, and has for years been, 
 
6 
 
 that of great depression and distress, and in many cases of impending 
 insolvency. Tills Is the uniform declaration of their associated agents, 
 and of every witness who appeared in their behalf so far as I can remem¬ 
 ber before the commission—that they were incapable of conducting their 
 business unless aided and sustained by the taxes imposed upon the people 
 through the agency of the Government. From the uniform current of 
 testimony on this subject I will cite a few instances. 
 
 THE IKON AND STEEL INTEREST. 
 
 Mr. James Park, president of the convention of iron and steel manu¬ 
 facturers, held at Cresson, Pennsylvania, September 12, testified before 
 the commission. He placed before that body a paper prepared by Mr. 
 Swank, who is known as an able defender of the system. In this paper 
 he says: 
 
 In many cases Treasury rulings adverse to the spirit of our protective laws 
 have been as fatal to our iron and steel industries asadverse legislation. Under 
 the rulings of the Treasury Department upon a provision of the present tariff the 
 duty on tin-plates has been fixed at 1.1 cents per pound, yet the tin-plate industry 
 docs not have an existence in our country to-day. The duty on iron cotton-ties 
 has been fixed by the courts at 35 per cent.; but under this ruling their manufact¬ 
 ure in this country during the past few years has entirely ceased.— Tariff Commis¬ 
 sion Report, page 2010. 
 
 It is a great fallacy to suppose that, because our leading industries have now 
 been built up under a policy of protection, they no longer need the same meas¬ 
 ure of protection that they have received in the past, livery industry in this 
 country which takes raw materials and converts them into finished products by 
 the labor of men’s hands will always need just ns much protection as will cover 
 the difference in wages between this country and Europe. The American states¬ 
 man who should theoretically evolve a tariff system that would be based upon 
 the assumed ability of domestic manufacturers to withstand sharper competi¬ 
 tion with foreign manufacturers than they now have would not only unwisely 
 and unpatriotically invite that competition, with silent American workshops 
 certain to follow, but he would also closely imitate that peculiar English phi¬ 
 lanthropy which takes no account of the rights of labor and concerns itself 
 only with the demands of capital. Our protective policy must be maintained in 
 all its original scope and vigor for the benefit of American labor.— Tariff Com¬ 
 mission Report, page 2022. 
 
 [William H. Wallace, Steubenville, Ohio—pig iron interest.] 
 
 While it is no doubt true, as Mr. Swank says in his report, “that a number of 
 furnaces always must be out of blast while undergoing repairs or waiting for 
 fuel, while others are undesirably situated or are old-fashioned in construction 
 and must eventually be abandoned,” yet it is also true that that is not the only 
 reason, and docs not apply to a large percentage of cases. Within our own 
 knowledge many furnaces have been stopped by reason of the fact that the bus¬ 
 iness was unprofitable; that the market would not absorb the product except at 
 the unretnunorative rates fixed by foreign competition. In fact, in the Ohio Val¬ 
 ley region it has become a common saying that “a furnace without a mill at¬ 
 tached to consume its product is a poor investment. ” 
 
 We think it is safe to say that there is no business in the country to-day, of 
 any magnitude, that is more uncertain anil that promises less opportunity for 
 profit than the manufacture of pig-iron, and from the protection of which from 
 foreign competition the country would derive greater benefit. 
 
 Makers of pig-iron are more fearful of the foreign manufacturer of the same 
 product than the makersof any other manufactured product in the country, and 
 watch with greater anxiety the rates of freight ana the market prices of the 
 article in the warehouses and metal yards of Great Britain.— Tariff Commission 
 Report, page 2030. 
 
 The story is an old one. While all other branches of business arc prospering, 
 and while comparatively little of the finished product of iron is imported, we 
 sco our markets constantly filled with foreign brands of pig-iron, our furnaces 
 idle, and our pig-iron producers crushed beneath the load of foreign iron made 
 with cheap labor, and brought over with low freights, or as ballast.— Tariff Com¬ 
 mission Report, page 2031. ^ 
 
 In conclusion we desire to say that we firmly believe that, with the present 
 prices for ore in this section of the country, if the tnrifl' on pig-iron should beire- 
 duced from the present rate of 87, it would cause a large proportion of our fur- 
 
naces to be blown out, and, if it is not placed nearer the old rate prevailing in 
 1870 we shall go on in the unsatisfactory way that we have been doing; our 
 furnaces leading an uncertain career of running and stopping, at times a niajor- 
 ity out of blast, at other times a majority only, not all of them, in blast.— TariJJ 
 Commission Report, page 2031. * # # * 
 
 Something is radically wrong, and it seems to us that it is the tariff. IV e protect 
 other manufactures of iron in which the workmen receive much higher wages, 
 but pig-iron which emplovs and pays the lowest rate of wages in the business, 
 is the branch which has the least proportionate protection, and which is the first 
 to suffer from any threatened change .—Tariff Commission Report, page 2032. 
 
 | John M. Stockdale etal., of Washington, Pennsylvania—wool-growing inter- 
 
 Our people allege that, taking into consideration the circumstances by which 
 they are surrounded, the increase of the price of the land, the increase of the 
 labor expended upon the production of wool, the increase of the price of food 
 which they have to give to these sheep to make their business successful, that 
 the prices they are able to command at the present are insufficient to justify con¬ 
 tinuance in the business. The production of wool has so enormously increased 
 in Australia and contiguous colonies, from 13,000,000 sheep in 1800 to seventy or 
 seventy-five millions In 1880, that competition is so great that it threatens de- 
 struct ion to the wool-producing industry in Washington County, and other coun¬ 
 ties similarly situated. Asyou know, farmers, asa rule, are very slowtochange 
 their business, and to get into a new business is also a very expensive thing, 
 such as changing from the culture of sheep to cattle, from cattle to horses, or 
 from one kind of stock to another, and it is a thing they do not like to under¬ 
 take. I have been told that within the last year the ordinary pursuits of agri¬ 
 culture in Washington County, properly followed, have been more profitable 
 than the production of wool; and many of the largest wool-producers in our 
 county are considering the propriety of changing their business to that of ordi¬ 
 nary agriculturists. I should regard a general change of this character as a pub¬ 
 lic calamity.— Tariff Commission Report, page 1989. 
 
 And we further state that the present duties levied on the importation of wool 
 of 3 cents per pound on the cheaper qualities, and 12 cents per pound and 11 
 cents per pound ad valorem on the highest grades, is wholly inadequate and 
 insufficient to nflord the protection absolutely necessary to successful produc¬ 
 tion here.— Tariff Commission Report , page 1991. 
 
 It should also be stated that the capital invested in the production of wool in 
 this county alone is more than S3,000,(XX), and in the United States approximates 
 8300,000,000, and that the business gives employment to hundreds of thousands 
 of people. For these and many reasons not here named it is the opinion of this 
 meeting that on wool that nowpays a duty of 3 cents per pound there should be 
 levied a duty of 9 cents per pound, and on all other wool a duty of 15 cents per 
 pound and 20 percent, ad valorem. Equitable and impartial legislation would 
 seem to demand that if the farmer is called upon to support and pay high pro¬ 
 tective duties on the large number of articles which lie is compelled to buy that 
 he is entitled to a protective duty on the single article of wool which he sells.— 
 Tariff Commission Report, page 1991. 
 
 We regard the business of wool-growing in this region of country, in which 
 we have l>een engaged for many years and in which a large part of our capital 
 is involved, as now in danger of being seriously or fatally crippled, and that 
 therefore the interest of the country and the welfare of the people that are en¬ 
 gaged in the business should have the immediate consideration of those who 
 influence protective legislation— Tariff Commission Report, page 1991. 
 
 [Hon. W. S. Shallenberger, of Rochester, Pennsylvania—wool-growing interest.] 
 
 In regard to the subject of wool, I may say that of all industries it is the one 
 that is purely national. We have increased the production of wool from about 
 00,000,(XX! pounds in 1860to290,000,000poundsat the present time, and that should 
 be a full demonstration of the fact that weean produce in this count rv all the wool 
 that is needed, ns in fact we do with the exception of about 13,OOO.(XX) to 15,000 000 
 pounds of fine wool—the amount imported into the country in 18-81. Out of the 
 entire importation of 55,000.000 to 00,000,000 pounds of wool—the wool which en¬ 
 tered into competition with American—amounted, as I am reliably informed to 
 notcxceeding 15,000,000 pounds. Hence I say we have demonstrated the fact that 
 under the existing tariff we have reached almost that point when we produce 
 as mneli as our manufacturers demand. 
 
 In the county which I am here to represent, as the gentlemen who arc asso¬ 
 ciated with me will tell you, the production of fine wool is rather on the de- 
 
crease. Land is too high, averaging perliaps 875 per acre. The growing of fine 
 sheep there is not found to be as profitable as it was a few years ago, and it will 
 become a serious question with the farmers very soon as to whether they shall 
 not give up raising fine sheep and producing fine wool, and allow other sections 
 of the country more favorably situated as to cheap lands and climate—I mean 
 the southern and western sections of the country—to take up the business of 
 wool growing. (Page 2107.) 
 
 There has been a vast increase in sheep-growing in Australia within the last 
 two decades, so marvelous that to-day Australia has almost double the number 
 of sheep in all her provinces that wo have in this country. She has a climate 
 in which sheep can live all the year round without shelter, ami upon pasturage 
 which is abundant. The relations of this country to Australia have changed 
 during that time, and the effect upon the price of foreign wool has been very 
 apparent, so that if the tariff were reduced now the importation, say, of 99,000,000 
 or 100.000,000 pounds of wool in 1830 and 55,000,000 or 00,000,000 pounds in 1881 
 would be probably 150,000,000 or 250,000,000 pounds annually, which would abso¬ 
 lutely destroy this industry of ours.— Tariff Commission Report, page 2108. 
 
 * * * * ’ * * * 
 
 We have 42,000,000 sheep, while Australia has 72.000,000. 
 
 We have been testing for years under the stimulus of our present tariff the 
 most favored sections of our country, and still the production is not equal to the 
 homo demand. Reduce the tariff and protection will be less, while importation 
 must be greater. If the older States, where land is high, can not afford to grow 
 wool under the present tariff, still less could they afford it under a reduced tariff. 
 If capital has not been tempted sufficiently thus far into more favored sections 
 for the purpose of growing wool at present prices, still lesswill it be tempted to 
 those sections should the tariff be reduced, and foreign wool brought in compe¬ 
 tition at still lower prices. I do not think any portion of our country can or will 
 produce wool as cheaply as other countries. Labor must be higher here because 
 it must be intelligent. Land is higher and growing higher. Climate anywhere 
 requires shelter and some feeding. 
 
 The mere question as to the cost of woolen fabrics is comparatively insignifi¬ 
 cant. Sheep husbandry can not be imperiled without great loss to the country. 
 It supplies cheap, wholesome meat, which is one of the heavy items of expense 
 in every family. All meat food is lower in price because of mutton in every 
 market; but for sheep, fresh meat would be impossible in thousandsof families. 
 An industry so general, that feeds and clothes our people os no other nation is 
 clothed, that reclaims waste lands and enriches all soil, is an industry that should 
 receive full protection from tariff legislation. 
 
 I would therefore protest against the slightest reduction in the tariff dutieson 
 wool, unless possibly on the very lowest grades of wool, which do not enter into 
 competition with that which is profitably produced in this country. —Tariff Com¬ 
 mission Report, page 2108. 
 
 I do insist that ho reduction shall be made upon clothing wool, and in doing that 
 I ask that which is in the interest, as I believe, of the whole country and not alone 
 in the interest of any particular section.— Tariff Commission Report, page 2109. 
 
 The production of wool is of infinite inmportancc to the agricultural industry, 
 by abstracting labor and capital from the production of cereals, which have been 
 produced so largely that, even with the increased consumption, we are notable 
 to consume all we raise, and have to export vast amounts.— Tariff Commission 
 Report, page 2109. * * * 0 
 
 Then, again, the price of wool to-day would not be, on the average, 20 cents a 
 pound in the foreign markets but for the fact that wo have 300,000,000 pounds of 
 wool here to compete with it. The protective tariff has enabled us to produce 
 this amount of wool, and lienee has kept down the foreign price. So with every 
 other industry. 
 
 I trust the commission will carefully consider these facts, and under no cir¬ 
 cumstances recommend a reduction of the duties upon the medium grades of 
 wool.— Tariff Commission Report, page 2109. 
 
 By Commissioner Garland : 
 
 Question. I believe the number of sheep in Washington County is put at about 
 600,000? 
 
 Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. How does that compare with the number in 1867, when the present tariff 
 was enacted ? 
 
9 
 
 A. I think there are fewer sheep now ; that is my impression.— Tariff Commis¬ 
 sion Report, page 2111. # * * * * 
 
 By Commissioner Oakland: 
 
 O Can you give us an ideaof the number of sheep in the United States that 
 produce that quality of wool; I speak of the Saxony wool ? 
 
 A I will include the Saxonv, the Silesian, and all. 1 do not think, putting all 
 together, there has been 3,000 pounds of superfine wool produced in the United 
 States for the last three years. . , „ 
 
 O. IIow many sheep of this class does W afllimgton f ounty supply ? 
 a! There are not 5,000 head of this kind of sheep hero.—Tariff Commission 
 
 Report, page -113. Qj u ]j us Le Moyne—the wool interest.] 
 
 1 have no particular statement to make except to say that our wool interest 
 here in this immediate vicinity is declining rapidly. I think in the last ten 
 years it has declined 25 per cent. These facts 1 believe are against the flguresof 
 the census, but we do not feel responsible for them. These are facts within my 
 own personal knowledge.— Tariff Commission Report, page 2114. 
 
 There is a dissatisfaction among partof our wool-growers in regard to the price 
 of wool, but my conviction is that that has arisen from the high price to be ob¬ 
 tained from other farm products.—Tariff Commission Report, 2115. 
 
 [Mr. Asa Manchester, of Washington County, Pennsylvania—wool-growing.] 
 We claim that Washington County, Pennslvania, West Virginia, and Eastern 
 Ohio produce the best wool in the world. It is a wool that we can not well do 
 without. All the finest class of goods are made from the wools that are pro¬ 
 duced here, and no such goods can probably be made from wools brought from 
 any other place. I do not think we can continue, however, to produce this wool 
 in the face of the competition we have to contend ngainst in the importation of 
 wool from Australia and other countries, hand there is cheap, and the ex¬ 
 pense of keeping sheep is much less than it is here—Tariff Commission Report, 
 page 1905. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 One-fourth of the people who were in the wool-growing business in this county 
 have already gone out of the business because they say it will not pay them; 
 and if they arc left without sufficient encouragement in the way of a protective 
 tariff nearly all the rest of them will go into some other branch of business. We 
 do not want to do this; we would rather raise wool than to raise other products, 
 because we think our county is well adapted to the raising of wool. We ask, 
 then, for an increase in the tariff rates; but if you do not think it is just and fair, 
 why, do not give it to us. The reason we ask for an increase is because there 
 are to-day large duties put upon imported goods and other things that we use, 
 and we only want to be put upon an equality with others. We think other inter¬ 
 ests in the country are better protected than ours. We ask you to look at the 
 matter in this light, and if you can give us any encouragement I hope you will 
 do so.— Tariff Commission Report, page 1996. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., October 14,1882. 
 
 Mr. T. C. Search of Philadelphia, representingthe worsted spinners, addressed 
 the commission as follows: 
 
 •‘Gentlemen, a tariff to be of value must be protective in its operations, and 
 to be protective it must insure the parties protected by preserving to them a legiti¬ 
 mate profit on the business in which they are engaged over and above their foreign 
 competitors. This is the kind of tariff needed by the worsted spinners of this 
 country. The vital question before us, then, is to haves tariff so adjusted as to 
 protect us in this profit in all the ordinary conditions of trade, and yet under 
 extraordinary conditions, such as scarcity of raw material or some unusual de¬ 
 mand for our products, one that will operate as a governor to save consumers 
 from exorbitantpricesandincrea.se of values that might otherwise prevail. The 
 worsted spinners desire a tariff’ for protection only and not for speculative pur¬ 
 poses.”— Tariff Commission Report, page 2358. . 
 
 We have passed through many periods of depression caused by the enormous 
 competition among ourselves as manufacturers, these being eventually dispelled 
 by the natural growth of our country. Since the beginning of the year 1880 we 
 have been passing through just such a trial, working on the most favored styles 
 with barelya livingprofit, and on thegreat bulk of our business with practically 
 n#nc at all, and on a very considerable portion a positive loss; and during all 
 this time the raw material values have been maintained almost without any 
 fluctuation.— Tariff Commission Report, page 2358. 
 
 The protection on this class is not sufficient for us, considering the protection 
 
on the raw material. We can not make these fine yarns in competition with the 
 foreigner; our facilities fordoing so are too limited, and the demand, by reason 
 of unequal protection, too limited to warrant the creation of plants necessary 
 for their cheap production; and yet we see 25,000,000 yards of cloth, largely of 
 this character, imported into this country. 
 
 Here is a case in which further facts and figures seem unnecessary. Manu¬ 
 facturers here have,one after another, tried to make them, and failed. Within 
 two years’ time we have seen a most successful English manufacturer send his 
 looms to this country, with skilled men to manage them, and yet absolutely fail 
 to make the goods without loss here that he is making in England and selling 
 in America at a profit. 
 
 We believe this result to be largely attributable to an unforeseen action of our 
 tariff laws. These laws say that on all goods weighing four ounces and over 
 per square yard the duty shall be 50 cents per pound and 35 per cent, ad valo¬ 
 rem; this is equivalent to 12} cents per yard and 35 percent. This protection 
 is probably sufficient, but the foreigner eludes it by making his goods weigh 
 very slightly less than four ounces per yard, and lands them here, paying only 
 8 cents per square yard and 40 per cent, duty, a loss of 50 per cent, and over of 
 the specific duty by conceding only 5 per cent, on the ad valorem .—Tariff Com¬ 
 mission Report, page 2359. ^ 
 
 We believe that instead of limiting the protection on yarns above 80 cents to 
 50 cents and 35 per cent, the duty should go on by regular increments us the 
 price on manufactured goods advances^ (Page 2359.) 
 
 Question. If they had hada purely ad valorem tariff instead of thiscompound 
 one the difficulty would not have arisen ? 
 
 Answer. No, sir; not if the tariff had been a sufficiently ad valorem tariff. 
 (Page 2300.) 
 
 [Frank I,. Bodine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—manufacturers of window-glass.]. 
 
 Question. You state, then, that the glass manufacturers of the United States 
 would be unable to stand any reduction in the present rates, if there was a gen¬ 
 eral reduction made on all articles now dutied? 
 
 Answer. 1 state that any reduction would destroy the business. I am unable 
 to indicate any point where we could stand any reduction in the duties .—Tariff 
 Commission Report, page 2007. 
 
 [N. T. De Pauw, New Albany, Indiana—glass manufacture.] 
 
 Question. Are you satisfied with the present rate of duty? 
 
 Answer. We are satisfied with the duty upon the large sizes, which is four-fifths 
 or 80 per cent, of our product, but not upon the small, say, one-fifth. 1 think my 
 father’s idea is to ask an advance of the rate of duty on small glass .—Tariff Com¬ 
 mission Report, page 937. 
 
 By Commissioner Pouter : 
 
 Q. In brief, what do you consider the advantages of your location? 
 
 A. I consider that there is no better location to be found in the United States. 
 
 Q. Explain why. 
 
 A. In t lie first place, New Albany is a healthy and desirable place to live; farm 
 and garden productsare abundant and cheap. We get our mixed sand as cheaply 
 as it can be procured anywhere else, and lime and grindings much more cheaply; 
 we can get our soda-ash as cheaply as it can be procured at any point in the 
 West.— Tariff Commission Report, page 939. 
 
 Q. You think the present rates on the smaller sizes are not adequate to pro¬ 
 tect the manufacturer, as 1 understand; can you suggest any simplification of 
 the present rates of duty? 
 
 A. 1 presume I could by a little study .—Tariff Commission Report, page 939. 
 
 Q. What would be the effect on your business of a reduction of the duty, say 
 of 25 per cent ? 
 
 A. It wouldStop us.— Tariff Commission Report, page 9-10. 
 
 Q. What would be the consequence to the consumers of a reduction of duty? 
 
 A. I presume for a year or two, probably, plate-glass would be cheaper, and 
 then it would probably go back to the old figures, for this reason: The foreign 
 manufacturers would put it down to drive us all out of the business. Every one 
 who is engaged in manufacturing recognizes the fact that nothing depreciates 
 so rapidly as manufacturing machinery when not in use. Three years would 
 put our factories in such shape that it would cost nearly half their value to put 
 them in order again. Of course if they did not put up the price we would have 
 no assurance in the world but what they would drop prices on us again, hence 
 
.1 
 
 no one would risk capital to put in order and start up the abandoned works, 
 and the foreigners would again have the monopoly they enjoyed for so long.— 
 Tariff Commission Report, page 040. 
 
 [AV. C. De Pauw, of New Albany, Indiana, page 1530, report of Tariff Commis¬ 
 sion—glass industry.] 
 
 In conclusion permit me to call your attention to the following facts: 
 
 First. That all money put into plate-glass works in America prior to 1879 had 
 been a total loss. 
 
 Second. That some of the shrewdest, most energetic, and successful business 
 men in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Saint Louis, and 
 Louisville had in the aggregate invested millions in plate-glass enterprises and 
 
 without loss to the 
 
 lost the whole of it. 
 
 Third. That no plate-glass had been made in Amen 
 maker prior to 1879. 
 
 Fourth. That I, instead of having made a large fortune in a few years as rep¬ 
 resented, have actually lost more than half a million dollars over and above all 
 small, very small, profit made since 1878. 
 
 Fifth. That after a long, earnest struggle I have succeeded in making good 
 glazing plate-glass at a small profit. 
 
 Sixth. That Americans arc paying about half as much for plate-glass to-day as 
 they paid prior to the time plate-glass was made in the United States at my works. 
 
 Sir, do not these facts create the suspicion that this protective sys¬ 
 tem, which has so long been burdening the people, has something in 
 it which defeats its own object and causes a blight to pervade the man¬ 
 ufacturing industry of the country, and threatens to blast it in all its 
 branches ? Can any advocate of protection say that the condition of our 
 manufactures, as pictured in these volumes, and reproduced by Senators 
 on this floor, realizes the promises which were made of a great diversified 
 industry, complete in all its parts and sufficient unto itself? Sir, put¬ 
 ting out of view all the millions of taxes which it is alleged—I think 
 upon good grounds—it 1ms cost our people to produce this result; put¬ 
 ting out of view the burden and obstruction to the growth and prosperity 
 of all the other great industries of the country, I ask is this present re¬ 
 lation of manufactures to the Government, which has been brought 
 about by the protective system, and which would not have existed but 
 for that system, a desirable one ? What is that result ? A vast organiza¬ 
 tion of capital and labor and product, dependent for its continued exist¬ 
 ence upon the taxes of the Government. 
 
 It seems to me that the most sanguine admirer of our system of manu¬ 
 facturing industries, in reading the accounts which the manufacturers 
 give of their own business, would tremble at the enormous proportions 
 to which they have grown with the slender and uncertain foundation 
 upon which the system rests. They will tell you, sir, themselves, that 
 they have no self-sustaining vitality; that the principle of their exist¬ 
 ence is not, like those of agriculture and commerce, in the material re¬ 
 sources and natural conditions of our country, but alone in the Govern¬ 
 ment and its taxing power. 
 
 Sir, if I am supposed to be exaggerating the effect of this I can only 
 answer that I am simply asserting of the whole system what honorable 
 Senators have said of each particular branch of it. If it be true that 
 these industries can not exist without the aid of taxes levied by the 
 Government; and if Congress, recognizing this fact, levies duties for the 
 purpose of maintaining them, they are not really industries, but Gov¬ 
 ernment manufactures, political establishments,"branches of the public 
 service; as much as are the Army and Navy and diplomatic corps or 
 any of the departments of administration. 
 
 Sir, we have had a great deal to say of late about the corruptions 
 growing out of the vast patronage of the Government. The source of 
 this evil was held by both Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster to be in the 
 
12 
 
 dependence of GO,000 people, who held employment under the Govern¬ 
 ment, upon those in power for their subsistence. They believed that a 
 power so unlimited and despotic over this numerous and powerful corps 
 of office-holders would corrupt and debase those who composed it into 
 the supple and willing instruments of power, and at the same time work 
 a fearful change in the character of the Government itself. Now, this 
 protective system produces precisely the same result that Mr. Webster 
 and Mr. Calhoun saw in the workings of official patronage.. It has ob¬ 
 tained control of the capital and labor of this entire industry, and bound 
 it, through its interest, to the support of the party in power. 
 
 According to the declarations of the advocates of high duties, the la¬ 
 borers in these manufactures built up by protection depend for their 
 bread upon the rate of taxes levied in this bill. If whatthey say is true 
 all this vast amount of capital and the operatives, amounting according 
 to their representations to over a million of persons, are hanging in sus¬ 
 pense for their food and clothing and shelter and supplies for their wives 
 and children, as well as for employment at all, upon a vote of ayes 
 and noes. A policy which has established this relation of the Govern¬ 
 ment to so large a part of the capital and labor of the country—a re¬ 
 lation of absolute control on the one hand and of absolute dependence 
 and subjection on the other—must involve many and disastrous changes 
 in our political system. I call attention to one or two. It is an in¬ 
 cubus upon the Government and obstructs the freedom of its action in 
 the adoption of any policy looking to the welfare of the whole people. 
 Suppose we should come to the conclusion that commercial freedom was 
 the true policy of this Government; why, sir, a Congress of free-traders 
 charged with the responsibility of forming a revenue system would 
 shrink from putting their own theory into operation in view of the ruin 
 and distress which it is declared would follow' upon these industries 
 under a radical change of our system of taxation. 
 
 Take another view. If there is any point on which the great body 
 of the people of this country are united it is on the desire for a reduc¬ 
 tion of public burdens. Both parties profess to favor it. Suppose that 
 we should begin art earnest effort to reduce expenditures to the lowest 
 point of an economical administration of the Government, so that the 
 taxation could be correspondingly reduced and its burden appreciably 
 lightened ? It could easily be done, sir. The payment of the public debt 
 will in a few years cease to be a charge upon the Treasury; it will either be 
 extinguished under the policy of those who wish to rid the Government 
 of its connection with banks, or it will become a permanent i und at a very 
 low rate of interest, as the basis of our national bank currency. In 
 either event it will not much longer be in the way of a reduction of taxes. 
 There are many other points in respect to which the expenses of the Gov¬ 
 ernment could be largely reduced, and the people be thus proportion¬ 
 ally relieved. But, sir, the moment we should take a step in that di¬ 
 rection we would find ourselves hampered and hindered by the necessity 
 fastened upon the Government of supporting these manufacturing in¬ 
 terests, whose prosperity, they tell us, depends upon high taxes, a pleth¬ 
 oric Treasury, and large expenditures. 
 
 Sir, why should this system of protection be kept up at such a cost 
 and such a sacrifice to the people of this country when it has produced 
 such results ? This doctrine of a protective system rests upon the as¬ 
 sumption that it is necessary to the independence of the country that 
 it should produce all the commodities essential to the use and consump¬ 
 tion of the whole people; that it gives us a diversified industry, and that 
 
13 
 
 it also builds up a consuming class for the agricultural products of the 
 country. No argument is needed to demonstrate the importance and 
 necessity of the development of manufactures as one of the elements of 
 the national strength, but, sir, can we not have the manufactures with¬ 
 out the burden of a protective tariff? Is it true that diversification of 
 industries is a thing unattainable in this country, with its almost infi¬ 
 nite variety of climate, soil, productions, and interests, except at the 
 cost and sacrifice which this system of protection entails? 
 
 Sir, there have been long periods of time in the history of this coun¬ 
 try when protective tariffs were not in operation. Did our manufact¬ 
 ures cease to exist during those periods? I have before me Bishop’s His¬ 
 tory of American Manufactures from the earliest time down to 1863. No 
 #nc can read this history—although written by a protectionist—with¬ 
 out becoming convinced that American manufactures are the natural 
 growth of this country and have demonstrated their capacity to exist 
 and grow and thrive under any kind of tariff, high or low, protective 
 per sc, or for revenue only. Sir, long before the era of protective tar¬ 
 iffs, long before we had a national tariff of any kind—indeed, from 
 the earliest Colonial period down to the Revolutionary war—manufact¬ 
 ures existed and flourished and attained a vigorous life and an ample 
 development exposed to foreign competition, unaided by the legislation 
 of the mother country, and in defiance of its hostile and prohibitory 
 enactments. Speaking of the natural tendency of settlers to indus¬ 
 tries in the direction of manufactures the author of this work says: 
 
 Gathered from the productive ranks of the most active and ingenious nations 
 of Europe, with a preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon element, their colonial 
 training was well fitted to develop habits of patient toil, self-reliance, ready in¬ 
 vention, and fertility in the use of resources. These qualities, so necessary to 
 success in all the practical arts, were conspicuous in the American character. 
 A varied and dexterous mechanical industry was almost universal. Upon this 
 basis had been long growing up a comprehensive scene of domestic household 
 manufacture from native materials of great aggregate value, which had mate¬ 
 rially lessened the annual balance against the Colonies, and had promoted the 
 comfortof allclasses.— Bishop's History of American Manufacture ,volume 1, page 13. 
 
 Again he says: 
 
 Even at the present day many countries which were reckoned elders in the 
 family of nations ere the ring of the ax was heard in the forests of America 
 are essentially less independent in regard to some products of manufacture 
 than were the American Colonies at the period of the involution. (Page 24.; 
 
 As illustrative of this tendency to arts and manufactures may be men¬ 
 tioned the fact that the first exports sent from the American Colonies 
 to Europe “consisted almost exclusively of manufactures in the strict¬ 
 est sense of the term. ’ ’ 
 
 We have heard some discussion here of the per cent, necessary to se¬ 
 cure the home market for the manufacture of glass, in which my friend 
 from North Carolina [Mr. Vance] participated with his usual ability. 
 Perhaps it may shed some light upon this subject to state that one of 
 the chief articles mentioned in the cargo of a vessel of the London com¬ 
 pany employed in the early efforts to make settlements upon the coasta 
 of North America, on her return voyage, was glass. Concerning this 
 article the author says: 
 
 The glass-houso stood in the woods about a mile from Jamestown, and al¬ 
 though very unpretending in its dimensions and appointments, it was doubt¬ 
 less the first manufactory ever erected in this country. (Page 26, volume 1.) 
 
 This was in 1608. Beverlev, in his History of Virginia, observes that 
 in 16CO- 
 
 Many of the people became veiy industrious and began to vie with one another 
 in planting, building, and other improvements. A salt-work was set up at Cape 
 
14 
 
 diaries, on the Eastern Shore, amlan iron-work at Falling Creek, in Jamestown 
 River, where they made proof of good iron ore, and brought the whole work so 
 near a perfection that they writ word to the company in London that they did 
 not doubt but to finish the work and have plentiful provision of iron for them by 
 the next Easter. (Page 28.) 
 
 The candid historian is, however, compelled to state that these manu¬ 
 facturing enterprises were not destined to a long existence in Virginia, 
 They had to succumb to competition; not the competition of foreign 
 pauper labor, Mr. President, but to a competitor then, as now, more 
 formidable than pauper labor, to wit, the superior attractions of agri¬ 
 culture. The cultivation of tobacco became profitable and all the arti- 
 sansquit their work and devoted themselves to its culture. Inassigning 
 the cause of this change of pursuit, Bishop says: 
 
 The Virginia colonists were essentially planters, and regarded commercial as 
 well us manufacturing pursuilsas less respectable than agriculture. The climate 
 and the fertility of their soil and the cheapness and abundance of the land en¬ 
 abling many to acquire estates almost manorial in extent, all concurred with the 
 native tastes of the inhabitants in fostering this sentiment. (Page 35.) 
 
 But when we come to the industrial history of the Northeastern and 
 Middle Colonies we find a people and a country to whom manufacturing 
 enterprise was more congenial. Bishop says: 
 
 With a sterile soil and a rugged climate, they early betook themselves to man¬ 
 ufacturing and commercial enterprises; and so successfully, that at the present 
 day there is scarcely a useful art of ancient or modern times that is not “natural¬ 
 ized’’among them, and scarcely a region of the globe so remote or inaccessible 
 that is not familiar with the products of their labor. (Page 36.) 
 
 He states further, that— 
 
 The first products of the industry of the Plymouth Colony, of Rhode Island, 
 and probably of others, sent to a foreign market, were manufactured from the 
 almost inexhaustible wealth of the American forests. (Ibid.) 
 
 Ship-building commenced within three years after the landing of the Plym¬ 
 outh Colony—an industry in which this country reached pre-eminence at an 
 early day and maintained it till a late period in our history, when its decadence 
 began and continued rapidly from causes about which there is controversy. 
 Just a century before the Declaration of Independence seven hundred and thirty 
 vessels were built in Boston and its vicinity. (Page 47.) 
 
 I cannot here go over all the manufactures of which this author gives 
 account; but there is not an industry whose products are enumerated 
 in the schedules of this bill but was established and in operation 
 throughout the American Colonies. Chemicals, pottery, glass; metals, 
 iron and steely woods; liquors, distilled and fermented; cotton, woolen, 
 silk, flax, paper, leather, lumber, and a long list of other fabrics. I can 
 only call especial attention to the then condition of the industries which 
 are now before us asking protection; I mean cotton and woolen, iron 
 and steel. In the earliest settlement of the Colonies, the manufacture 
 of cotton, woolen, and linen came into existence and attained vigorous 
 growth. In reference to cotton, the author from whom I am quoting, 
 after a lengthened discussion as to the precise date, makes a statement 
 which seems to me to be well supported by the facts adduced, namely, 
 that— 
 
 The use of cotton in textile fabrics has existed in this country from as early a 
 date as in England. The system pursued in the two countries ulso, and the 
 description of cloth made, were not dissimilar. (Page 309, volume 1.) 
 
 It appears from this history that Colonel Heathcote, who was a 
 member of the. council, made a report to the board of trade, in which 
 he says that he had ‘ ‘ labored to divert the Americans from going on 
 • with their linen and woolen manufactures. He says they were already 
 
*0 far advanced that three-fourths of the linen and woolen used was 
 made among them—especially the coarse sort, and if some speedy and 
 effectual ways are not found to put a stop to it they will carry on a 
 great deal further, and perhaps, in time, very much to the prejudice of 
 our manufactories at home. ’ ’ (Page 329.) 
 
 On page 330, Bishop says: 
 
 Cotton was regularly imported in email quantities chiefly from Barbadoes, 
 but occasionally also from Smyrna and other places to which trade extended, 
 and was made into fustians and other stuffs with linen thread. But linen then 
 subserved nearly all the purposes for which cotton is now employed, and hence 
 the attention given to the cultivation of the flax and hemp plants. The linens 
 made at that time were for the most part of a coarse texture. The kerseys, linsey- 
 wooisevs serges, and druggets consisted of wool variously combined with flax 
 or tow and formed the outer clothing of a large part of the population during 
 the colder seasons. Hempen cloth and linen of different degrees of fineness, 
 from the coarsest tow cloth to the finest Osnaburg or Holland, constituted the 
 principal wearing apparel, outward and inward, at other times. 
 
 On page 331, he says: 
 
 The dress of apprentices and laborers early in the last century almost invariably 
 comprised shirts of this home-manufactured “Ozenbrig,” made of hemp or flax, 
 and varying in price from 1 shilling to 1 shilling and 6 pence per yard, and vests 
 and breeches of the same or of coarse tow-cloth. Coats or doublets and breeches 
 of leather or enduring buckskin and coats also of kersey, drugget, duroy, frieze, 
 &c.. felt hats, coarse leather shoes with brass buckles and often wooden heels, 
 and coarse yarn or worsted stockings were thccommonouterhahilimentsof that 
 class, and were principally of home manufacture. 
 
 Further on the same page, he says: 
 
 About the year 1719 a considerable improvement was made in the linen man¬ 
 ufacture in this country by a number of Protestant people from the North of 
 Ireland who introduced a better knowledge of the cultivation and manufacture 
 of flax and the linen or foot-wheel for spinning flax. 
 
 I will not go on further with the details of cotton, woolen, and linen 
 manufacture. The author, speaking of the progress of it up to the Revo¬ 
 lutionary war, concludes by saying: 
 
 It may be questioned if the people of that day were not as really independent 
 of other countries for such necessaries as their descendants at present. (Page 
 416.) 
 
 I commend this statement to the consideration of Senators who are 
 insisting upon protection to this species of manufacture to-day. 
 
 There are various accounts in this volume from which I am quoting of 
 the establishments of glass manufactures in Massachusetts, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania,, and New York. They were not quite so prosperous as 
 other industries. One of the causes he mentions as a difficulty in their 
 way was the temptation to artisans to abandon their trades to become 
 agriculturists and land-owners. He says, on pages 236, 237: 
 
 In January, 1767, Sir Henry Moore, governor of New York, writing to the Lords 
 of Trade, in obedience to their circular letter of August, in the preceding year, 
 dwells on this tendency of labor to desert the factory for the field as an antidote 
 to all successful attempts at manufacture in the dependencies, liven servants, 
 imported from Europe for different trades, so soon as their indentures expired 
 quit their occupations and obtained a small piece of land. The satisfaction of 
 being land-holders prompted them to endure every privation for a few years in 
 preference to a comfortable subsistence easily procurable in their trades. He in¬ 
 forms their lordships that the master of a glass-house set up in the province a 
 few years before, then a bankrupt, assured him that his ruin was attributable to 
 no other cause than being deserted in that manner by his workmen whom he 
 had imported at great expense. Many others had suffered equally with him- 
 •self from the same cause. 
 
 But the progress of the manufacture of glass during that period was 
 
10 
 
 remarkable. An extract is given from a letter written by Mr. David 
 Kittenhou.se, speaking of a glass tube made at a factory near Philadel¬ 
 phia, where there were several iron-furnaces and glass-works. It reads: 
 
 I am obliged to you for the glass tube; it will make a pretty barometer, though 
 the bore is somewhat too small. I have compared it with an English tube, and 
 do not think the preference can with any reason be given to the latter. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the manufacture of cotton and woolen in 
 the Colonies was that of iron. As early as 1045 regular works were 
 established at various points: 
 
 On the 6th of May, 1646, Mr. Jcnks was granted by the Legislature a patent for 
 fourteen years “ for the making of engines for mills, to go by water, for the more 
 speedy dispatch of work than formerly, and for the making of scythes and other 
 edged tools with a new invented saw-mill, that things may be afforded cheaper 
 than formerly, <fcc., yet so as power is still left to restrain the exportation of such 
 manufactures, and to moderate the prices thereof, if occasion so require.” In 
 May, 1655, he was accorded another patent for an inprovement in the manufact¬ 
 ure of scythes, “ for the more speedy cutting of grass, for seven years.” The in¬ 
 novation consisted in giving greater length and thinness to the blade and in 
 welding a bar of iron upon the back to strengthen it, as in the modern scythe. 
 This was an essential improvement upon the old form of the English scythe, 
 which was a very clumsy instrument, short and thick like the bush or stub 
 scythe. Xo radical change has since been made in the form of the instrument.” 
 (Pages 476, 477.) 
 
 Furnaces, founderies, rolling-mills, blomaries, forge-hammers, nail- 
 works, wire-mills, all had a solid basis and rapid growth. Bells, fire¬ 
 arms, sheet-iron for tin-ware, wire, &c., were made in large quantities. 
 Cut and hammered nails, spades, shovels, card-teeth, swords, scythes, 
 metal buttons, cannon-balls, &c., were all at that time articles of man¬ 
 ufacture. 
 
 The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Mokrill] boasted the other day 
 about the perfection to which the American ax had been brought, and 
 I believe he said that Mr. Gladstone in making a present to some asso¬ 
 ciation, town, or city had selected an American ax for that purpose. 
 Let me convince the Senator that the perfected American ax is the off¬ 
 spring of the unprotected genius and skill of Colonial manufacture, and 
 not that of the modern protected industry. On page G30, volume 1, of 
 the author I quote, I find : 
 
 A dangerous rivalry to British iron interests was apprehended in the Ameri¬ 
 can States, not only in the production of rough iron, from the cheapness of fuel, 
 and the quality of the iron, but also in the articles of steel cutlery and other 
 finished products, from the dexterity of Americans in the manufacture of scythes, 
 axes, nails, &e. In these they exceeded the French and most European nations, 
 as well in the styloand finish as in thcqnality of their articles, being made from 
 the best iron,<fcc. 
 
 Wire-drawing is also mentioned as being an industry in the year 
 1G66 of the Colonies. 
 
 I can not go further with these details. Though exposed to the full 
 brunt of British competition, these iron industries as well as the woolen, 
 linen, and cotton industries not only maintained themselves at home, 
 hut tiiey became the aggressors—they literally ‘ 1 bearded the lion in his 
 den,” and exported their products to England. From 1728 to the Revo¬ 
 lution, pig and bar iron became articles of regular export to the mother 
 country. Here are the tables which I believe I will ask permission to 
 print as a part of these remarks. They are on page G28 of Bishop’s 
 History, volume 1. 
 
LA 2 
 
 Pig and bar iron exported from the North American Colonies from 1750 to 1756. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 New En¬ 
 gland. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Pennsylva¬ 
 
 nia. 
 
 Maryland and : 
 Virginia. ; 
 
 Carolina. 
 
 | T. c. q. lb. 
 
 ! 17 14 6 12 
 
 120 0 0 0 
 
 j 10 0 0 0 
 
 Totals. 
 
 1750. 
 
 Bar. 
 
 T. c. q. lb. 
 
 T. c. q. lb. 
 
 T. c. q. lb. 
 
 T. c. q. lb. 
 
 5 17 3 0 
 2,508 16 1 25 
 
 3 4 2 9 
 2,950 5 3 15 
 16 10 2 21 
 2,762 8 0 4 
 97 18 0 19 
 2,317 9 2 18 
 153 15 1 8 
 2,591 4 3 17 
 299 l 3 0 
 2,132 15 1 22 
 
 T. c. q. lb. 
 
 5 17 3 0 
 
 ! 2,924 O 0 20 
 
 5 4 2 9 
 
 1 3,210 13 1 0 
 
 81 7 0 26 
 
 ! 2,980 1 3 2 
 
 217 19 3 11 
 
 , 2,7:17 19 3 27 
 
 270 15 1 4 
 
 ! 3,244 17 1 23 
 
 389 18 3 20 
 
 i 3,441 2 3 8 
 
 1751. 
 
 Pig. 
 
 Bar. 
 
 21 1 2 8 
 
 75 12 1 4 
 
 2 0 0 0 
 | 33 0 3 22 
 
 318 9 3 11 
 
 
 Pis 
 
 9 16 2 13 
 
 199 15 2 22 
 64 16 2 6 
 156 8 2 26 
 147 13 2 l 
 212 15 1 0 
 
 110 9 3 24 
 ■ 512 19 3 12 
 79 5 0 20 
 836 61 0 
 
 1753. 
 
 Pig. 
 
 Bur. 
 
 2 8 o i9: 
 40 i" i : 
 
 41 5 0 0 
 
 1754. 
 
 £ S *. 
 
 97 4 3 2 
 
 6 10 0 0 
 115 16 2 0 
 
 1 11 12 0 0 
 457 8 0 14 
 
 1755. 
 
 Bar. 
 
 
 20 0 0 0 
 
 
 Pig. 
 
 
 14 13 0 0 
 
18 
 
 In addition to the foregoing there were exported to Scotland during the las* 
 sixteen years the following quantities, namely: 
 
 Period. 
 
 Bar-iron. Pig-iron. 
 
 In ten years 1739-1740 
 
 T. c. q. lb. T. c. q. lb. 
 10 13 2 11 263 18 2 0 
 
 In six year* 1750-1756 . 
 
 .... 228 13 1 10 
 
 
 
 From about this period to the Revolution there was a considerable increase in 
 the exportation, especially of bar-iron, as appears from the following table : 
 
 Amount of bar and pig iron exported from all the Continental Colonies to England 
 in each year from 17G1 to 1776. 
 
 1761 . 
 
 1762 
 1703 
 1761 
 
 1765 
 
 1766 
 1707 
 
 1768 
 
 1769 
 
 1770 
 
 1771 
 
 1772 
 
 1773 
 
 1774 
 
 Year. 
 
 Bar-iron. 
 
 Pig-iron, 
 
 39 1 0 0 
 122 12 2 14 
 310 19 3 2 
 . 1,059 18 0 0 
 . 1,078 15 0 16 
 . 1,257 14 3 9 
 . 1,325 19 0 18 
 . 1,989 11 0 6 
 . 1,779 13 1 23 
 . 1,716 8 0 21 
 . 2,222 4 3 24 
 965 15 0 23 
 837 15 0 6 
 639 0 0 23 
 ' 916 5 2 11 
 
 .! 28 0 0 0 
 
 2,7G6 2 3 12 
 1,766 16 0 2 
 2,566 8 0 25 
 2,554 8 3 21 
 3,264 8 1 22 
 2,887 5 1 15 
 3,313 2 1 19 
 2,953 0 2 14 
 3,401 12 2 2 
 4,232 18 1 18 
 5,303 6 3 13 
 3,72-1 19 2 25 
 2,937 13 0 2 
 3,451 12 2 19 
 2,996 0 2 24 
 316 128 
 
 While I am on the subject of exports, perhaps it may he as well to 
 say, for the benefit of my friend from Nebraska, that the Colonies in 1770 
 were exporting a large amount of lumber, embracing boards, plank, 
 scantling, timber for masts, spars, and buildings; staves, heads, headings, 
 hoops, poles, frames of houses, &c. (See Bishop, volume 1, page 115.) 
 
 The growth of these industries was so rapid that they excited the jeal¬ 
 ousy and apprehension of English manufacturers. Remonstrances and 
 representations from iron-masters show that Colonial iron manufacture 
 was thus early regarded as a rival to that of the mother country. 
 
 Iron-masters, tanners, and owners of coppices in the neighborhood of Sheffield 
 were alike apprehensive that the iron-works erected at great, expense would be 
 ruined ; the labordVs be rendered destitute or forced to emigrate; and the tan¬ 
 neries lie left without bark from the woods remaining uncut, or the land being 
 converted to tillage, unless the number of forges should be increased and of 
 furnaces lessened by removing the duty from pig-iron only. The plenty and 
 cheapness of wood would enable American iron to undersell the British, and 
 thus ruin the trade, while the iron manufacturers, rendered wholly dependent 
 on so distant und precarious a source for material would probably decay and 
 reduce thousands of workmen to want and misery. (Page 626.) 
 
 As a most effectual means— 
 
 Says Bishop— 
 
 of preventing such manufactures as would interfere with their own, the Parlia¬ 
 ment passed an act to encourage such crude manufactures as pig, sow, and bar 
 iron, hemp, &c. 
 
 But while the production and exportation of bar and pig iron was 
 
19 
 
 thus encouraged by having the duties repealed, the other clause, to 
 arrest Colonial manufactures, was as follows: 
 
 From and after the 24tli day of June, 1750, no mill or other engine for slitting 
 or rolling of iron, or any plating forge to work with u tilt-hammer, or any fur¬ 
 nace for making steel shall be erected, or after such erection, continued in any 
 of His Majesty’s Colonies of America. 
 
 The navigation actof 1650and 1651 confined thetrndeof theColonies 
 and all Colonial production to British ports. By the act of 1661 cotton and 
 wool grown or manufactured in the Colonies were forbidden to beshipped 
 to any port except England, and in 1669 all woolen manufactures were 
 forbidden to be exported to any place. (See Bishop, volume 1.) 
 
 This concludes what I have to say, sir, of our manufactures during 
 our Colonial period down to the devolution, during which time the 
 Colonies grew and prospered not only unaided by the legislation of the 
 mother country but in spite, as I said before, of her unfriendly and pro¬ 
 hibitory enactments. The only encouragement they received was that 
 of a few bounties and premiums from the local authorities such as our 
 own States and towns often give in these days. 
 
 All honor to the noble men in whose patient toil, self-reliance, and 
 unconquerable energy were laid the foundation of these great arts which 
 have done so much to adorn and elevate and perfect the civilization of 
 this continent. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War the growth of manufactures was greatly 
 stimulated. The effect of the close of the war was injurious to the 
 business interests of the country at first. All its industries shared in 
 the depression. The manufacturing classes being in cities and centers 
 of population could act in combination and get up petitions and memo¬ 
 rials setting forth their sufferings and thus make them more apparent 
 than could the agricultural classes, who were scattered and less able to 
 move in concert. But in truth all interests were prostrated by the 
 long and impoverishing war. Of course Mr. Bishop attributes the pros¬ 
 tration of manufactures to “ the flood of European imports which were 
 poured into the country.” He says: 
 
 Many new and important establishments had been entirely ruined by enor¬ 
 mous importations which followed the peace. 
 
 In point of fact there were, as shown from his own pages, no greater 
 importations immediately after the peace than there were for some yearn 
 beiore the war. 
 
 Mr. President, at the adoption of the Constitution there can be no 
 doubt that the founders of our Republic were profoundly impressed with 
 the necessity of preserving our manufactures. We had just emerged 
 from a war in which our existence was at stake. The nation was then 
 in its infancy, and weak in all the elements of national security. Then- 
 eyes were fixed on their relations with other countries, and they felt 
 the deep necessity of the full command by the Government of the en¬ 
 tire power and resources of the country to the preservation of the na¬ 
 tion’s independence and existence. Manufactures were regarded, and 
 very wisely, as one of these elements of the national strength. But, 
 sir, a close scrutiny of the views of these early founders of our Republic 
 will show that they regarded this fostering of manufactures as a tempo¬ 
 rary policy adapted to a nation in the infancy of its existence. Wash¬ 
 ington placed his recommendation on that ground. In his first message 
 he said: 
 
 The safety and interest of the people require that they should promote such 
 manufactures as will render them independent of others for essential—particu¬ 
 larly military—supplies. 
 
20 
 
 The First Congress in its action looked to the same result, and adopted 
 a resolution ordering the Secretary of the Treasury to report some plan 
 “ tor the promotion of such manufactures as will tend to render the 
 United .States independent of other nations for essential—particularly 
 military—supplies. 
 
 Now, sir, I wish here to call special attention to the response which 
 Alexander Hamilton, who was then Secretary of the Treasury, makes 
 to this resolution. Observe, sir, this was in 1791. His report shows 
 the condition in which manufactures were after undergoing and pass¬ 
 ing through all the prostration and distress consequent upon the return 
 of peace, ‘ ‘ against which the old Confederation could provide no remedy, 
 while the inharmonious and conflicting laws of the several States could 
 give but partial relief within their own jurisdiction.” 
 
 Sir, that report exhibited the fact that our manufactures had passed 
 through that most trying of all ordeals, transition from disorganization 
 to reconstruction, strong and vigorous. In January, 1791, Mr. Ham¬ 
 ilton made his report. Of course it advocated protection to manufact¬ 
 ures by bounties and tori IT duties; but the point to which I desire to 
 call especial attention is his report at that time as to the condition of 
 manufactures. 
 
 IRON. 
 
 Under the head of “Iron” he says: 
 
 Proofs have been received that manufactories of iron, though generally under¬ 
 stood to be extensive, were much more so than was commonly supposed. Iron¬ 
 works were carried on more numerously and more udvantagcously than for¬ 
 merly, and the price of iron had risen chiefly on that account from $6-1, the aver¬ 
 age before t lie Revolution, to about $80. In the manufacture of steel considera¬ 
 ble progress had been made, and some new enterprises on a more extensive 
 scale had been lately set on foot. The United States already in a great measure 
 supplied themselves with nails and spikes. * * * Implements of husbandry 
 were made in several States, and could be made to supply the whole country. 
 Edge-tools of different kinds were also made, and much hollow-ware. 
 
 COPPER. 
 
 Manufactures of copper were also of great extent and utility. 
 
 WOOD. 
 
 Several manufactories of this article flourished in the United States. Ships 
 were nowhere built in greater perfection, and cabinet-wares generally were 
 made little if at all inferior to those of Europe. Their extent was such as to have 
 admitted of considerable exportation, ana exemption from duty of all woods 
 used in manufacture seemed to be all that was required. 
 
 SKINS. 
 
 In the principal branches the progress was such as nearly to defy foreign 
 competition. Tanneries were carried on both as a regular business and as inci¬ 
 dental family manufacture. 
 
 SAIL-CLOTH 
 
 already employed a flourishing factory at Boston. Manufactures of paper were 
 among those which arrived at the greatest maturity, and were almost adequate 
 to the national supply. 
 
 The first tariff that was imposed certainly recognized the principle of 
 protection. So far as it can be invoked on the constitutional question it 
 furnishes a precedent, though certainly the duties were for revenue pur¬ 
 poses, and at the lowest rates which have ever existed in this country. 
 
 The Senator from Maine [Mr. Frye], in the speech to which I have 
 already referred, uses the following language: 
 
 Ilistory repeats itself. Our periods of prosperity have been the years of pro¬ 
 tection ; of adversity, those of free trade. By free trade I mean a tariff'for reve¬ 
 nue only. In 1780-1801 we had protection; in 1801-1812, free trade; in 1812-1816. 
 protection; in 1816-1821. free trade: in 1824-1833, protection; in 1838-1842, free 
 
21 
 
 trade; in 1842 - 1847 , protection ; in 1847-1861, free trade; in 1861-1881, protection 
 again. 
 
 Mr. President, was the first tariff, the tariff of 1789, a tariff for protec¬ 
 tion ? I respectfully deny it. I will show that that tariff wasa tariff for 
 revenue, with incidental protection, and that protection very slight. It 
 is here before me in Young’s Statistics on Customs-Tariff Legislation; 
 
 On cloth manufactures and textile fabrics, 7 per cent.; on iron manufacture, 
 7i per cent, ad valorem. 
 
 I can cite abundance of authority to my aid on these points. Horace 
 Greeley, in his work on Political Economy, page 34, speaking of our 
 manufactures, characterizes the first tariffs as ‘'scarcely a skirmish-line 
 of legislative defense against a powerful, determined, and often crush¬ 
 ing foreign rivalry. ’’ On page 247 he says: 
 
 Though protection to manufactures had been declared in its preamble as one 
 of the purposes of the first tariff formed and passed under the Federal Constitu¬ 
 tion. * * * it\vasnotuntill824thatameasureofexelusiveprotection * * * 
 became a law of the land. 
 
 I could quote an abundance of other authorities. Albert Gallatin 
 speaks of the growth of our manufactures as due to many causes, with 
 no other aid except the incidental protection derived from the tariff. I 
 admit, sir, it was a period of great prosperity, and that manufactures 
 prospered under that low-revenue tariff with incidental protection. 
 
 * 1801-1812. 
 
 But, sir, why does he put down the period from 1801 to 1812as a period 
 of free trade? I can not tell; for all the tariffs imposed after 1798 un¬ 
 til 1861 continued to assess higher and higher duties; but all of them 
 were low-revenue tariffs witli incidental protection. Nor do I see why 
 this period from 1801 to 1812 should he characterized by him as one 
 not only of free trade hut of adversity. It was during this period that 
 our nation, thanks to a low tariff, was enabled to avail itself of its 
 neutrality, and to obtain the large carrying trade of that period, and 
 to assume such a high and honorable position among the commercial 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 The export trade of the United States in the year 1807 reached a higher 
 value than in any other year previous to 1838. 11 had increased in six¬ 
 
 teen years to $89,331,109. The domestic exports amounted to $48,- 
 000,000, and the foreign to $09,000,000. Assuming the population to 
 have been 6,300,000, the total exports of the country averaged $17.19for 
 each individual, while the total value per capita of exports in 1790 was 
 $4.84. (SeeBishop,vol.ii, pages 120,121.) These exports embraced man¬ 
 ufactures to the value of $2,309,000. The American tonnage employed 
 in the foreign trade as compared with that of all other powers so em¬ 
 ployed was in the proportion of more than 12 to 1. There was a large 
 surplus in the Treasury, after paying a large amount of public debt. 
 It was a period of steady growth and prosperity. 
 
 Mr. SAULSBURY. Louisiana was purchased in that period. 
 
 Mr. LAMAR. Yes, sir; we were enabled not only to extend our com¬ 
 merce, but, as the Senator from Delaware suggests, also to extend the 
 area of our national territory by the purchase of Louisiana. 
 
 Speaking of the year 1807, Bishop says that “labor and capital be¬ 
 gan from this time to he more than ever directed to manufactures, and 
 small cotton factories were rapidly multiplied.” 
 
 The number of cotton factories, woolen factories, glass factories of 
 • blown and cut-glass, nail factories, breweries, copper and tin factories, 
 
 
wire-weaving and riddle factories, brass founderies. potteries, and tan¬ 
 neries is so great that I shall not take the time of the Senate or encum¬ 
 ber the Record with the account of them as chronicled by the author 
 I am quoting. Perhaps it will suffice to call attention to Mr. Gallatin’s 
 report on manufactures submitted to Congress on the 7th of June, 1808. 
 I commend it to your study and consideration. I cannot quote from it 
 at any length, but will give one or two extracts from it. He says: 
 
 The following manufactures were ascertained to be carried on to an extent 
 which might l>e considered adequate to the consumption of the United States, 
 as the value of their products annually exported exceeded that of the foreign 
 articles annually imported— 
 
 Manufactures of wood or of which wood is the principal material, 
 leather and manufactures of leather, coarse earthern-ware. and many 
 other articles. 
 
 The following branches are firmly established,supplying in several instances 
 the greater, and in all a considerable part of the consumption of the U nited States, 
 namely : Iron and manufactures of iron; manufactures of cotton, wool, and tlax; 
 hats, paper, printing-types, printed books, playing-cards, spirituous and malt 
 liquors; several manufactures of hemp, gunpowder, window-glass, jewelry, and 
 clocks; several manufactures of lead, straw bonnets, hats, and wax candles. 
 
 Progress had also been made in the following branches— 
 
 I can not go on, Mr. President, with these details, hut the whole re¬ 
 port shows that the manufacturing condition of thecountry during this 
 period which the Senator calls the period of free trade, was one of 
 abundant prosperity in all the departments of American industry. And 
 T desire to impress upon Senators that at this early day an American 
 Secretary of the Treasury had declared as “firmly established” the 
 very industries which to-day are declared to be incapable of being car¬ 
 ried on without the protection of high duties. 
 
 On May 1, 1813, a digest of the census of 1810 was submitted to Con¬ 
 gress by Mr. Tench Coxe, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. That 
 report declared that the several branches of manufacture had advanced 
 since the autumn of 1810 at the full rate of 20 per cent. I will give 
 hut one more extract from this report: 
 
 The whole population, taken at 8.000,000 of persons, will produce in the cur¬ 
 rent year an aggregate value of manufactures exclusive of doubtful articles, of 
 $ 900 , 000 , 000 . The general result furnished a gratifying comparison 
 
 with the product of English manufactures, which, in 1787, when the population of 
 England alone was about the same as that of the United .States at this time, or 
 ,500,000 were computed at $5!t56,000,00o. This state of manufactures has been in a 
 great measure attained by the United States * * * with only an incidental 
 support from Government, while England has been for hundreds of years pro¬ 
 gressing under many forms of governmental aid.” 
 
 This concludes the period of 1801 to 1812. Would any one call it a 
 period of adversity? The Senator calls it a period of free trade. Mr. 
 Gallatin and Mr. Greeley and Mr. Coxe called it a period of revenue 
 duties with a slight incidental protection. 
 
 1812-1816. 
 
 But the Senator says that from 1812 to 1816 was a period of protection 
 and prosperity. Sir, it was a period of war and of war duties and man¬ 
 ufacturers enjoyed that kind of development and prosperity which war 
 engenders. This prosperity was the result of the concurrence of many 
 causes. The exemption of manufactures from all competition by the 
 entire suspension of commerce by the war and the embargo preceding 
 it was one cause. But another was the great inflation of the currency 
 growing out of the enormous issues of paper money both by the Gov¬ 
 ernment and the numerous banks which were chartered at that time, 
 
23 
 
 each pouring out its worthless issues that were never to be redeemed. 
 Prices rose high, profits of all kinds of industry increased, and manu¬ 
 factures sharing in the profits multiplied in number and increased in 
 production. 
 
 The Senator says it was a period of prosperity. I admit it, and cite 
 it to show the continued and increasing prosperity of American manu¬ 
 factures through periods of low duties and of high duties, through 
 peace and war, up to the year 1816. 
 
 1816-1824. 
 
 I can account for the Senator’s declaration that the period froiu 1816 
 to 182-1 was a period of adversity. It was so in many respects, as I will 
 show directly. But why should he call it a “period of free trade?” 
 Why, Mr. President, the tariff of 1816 was the inauguration of the pro¬ 
 tective system in the United States. Can it be possible that I have to 
 prove this ? Hear what Mr. Webster says about it in his speech in 1824: 
 
 Wc hear of the fatal policy of the tariff of 1816; and yet the law of 1816 was 
 passed avowedly for the benefit of manufacturers, and, with very few excep¬ 
 tions, imposed on imported articles very great additions of tax, in some impor¬ 
 tant instances, indeed, amounting to a prohibition. 
 
 I cite Mr. Greeley next: 
 
 Hence— 
 
 Said he— 
 
 John C. Calhoun, though a protectionist while in the House, as he showed mi 
 framing and advocating the tariff of 1816, became an intense free-trader, &c. 
 
 Again, Mr. Greeley, on page 247 of his Political Economy', says that— 
 
 The tariff of 1816 was made undeniably and stringently protective in its duties 
 on cotton fabrics and on some manufactures of iron. 
 
 I make oue other citation, from Lossing’s History of American Arts 
 and Manufactures: 
 
 The Congress now possessing ample powers to levy taxes and to regulate the 
 commerce of the country, domesticand foreign, proceeded, under the wise lead¬ 
 ership of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the new 
 nation, to the delicate and important task of laying the foundationsof the finan¬ 
 cial and commercial policy of the United States. That policy wasdefined in his 
 report of December, 1791, on the manufactures of the country, in which he pro¬ 
 posed a tariff for revenue so high that it would operate practically as a tariff for 
 protection. It was not, however, until 1816, that a tariff was established avow¬ 
 edly for protection.- 
 
 Up to that time there had been twenty-five acts in which tariffs had been es¬ 
 tablished, all for revenue; in the spring of that year the first of a series of tariffs 
 for the protection of American manufacturers was established, under the sanc¬ 
 tion of President Madison. It was the progenitor of all the subsequent protect¬ 
 ive tariffs. 
 
 Sir, if the Senator could satisfy the intelligence of this country that 
 the tariff of 1816 was not a protective tariff he would perform a service 
 for John C. Calhoun in vindicating his name and fame from a charge 
 of having once supported a protective tariff which Mr. Calhoun when 
 living confessed upon the floor of the American Senate that he could not 
 perform for himself. In one notable debate between himself and Mr. 
 Webster, upon the subject of protection, Mr. Webster, after summa¬ 
 rizing rapidly his own reasons for supporting protection, many of which 
 were the repetitions of those which Mr. Calhoun had given in 1816, he 
 turned to that Senator and said: “Mr. President, in all this I may be 
 wrong and in error, but if so there sits my seducer.” After Mr. Clay 
 and Mr. Clayton twitted him with being the author of the protective 
 system in this country he rose and with that candor which marked all 
 his utterances declared that the state of the country immediately after 
 the war of 1812, and his desire to make our nation secure and iudepend- 
 
ent and complete in every resource of power, misled him into a policy 
 whose practical effects had convinced him of its unjust, oppressive, and 
 pernicious character. 
 
 There is no question, sir, about the distress and disaster and universal 
 depression which occurred during this period last referred to. Here, sir, 
 is what Mr. Henry C. Carey says of that period: 
 
 Protection afforded by the war caused a considerable increase in iron manu¬ 
 factures, but there exists no reliable statistics in regard thereto. Peace in 1815 
 was followed by the so-called revenue tariff of 1817, and that in turn, as is so well 
 known, by the closing of factories and furnaces; by the ruin of manufacturers 
 and merchants; by the discharge of workmen everywhere; by the stoppage of 
 banks; by the bankruptcy of States; by the transfer of the real estate or the 
 Union, and by an impoverishment of our people generally beyond all former pre¬ 
 cedent. 
 
 Mr. Mathew Carey, speaking in his New Olive Branch, thus describes 
 the condition of Pittsburgh in 1819: 
 
 This city in 1815 contained about 6,000 inhabitants; it exhibited as exhilarating 
 a scene of industry and prosperity as any place in the world ; its immense local 
 advantages seated at the confluence of two noble rivers forming the majestic 
 Ohio, its boundless supplies of coal and the very laudable enterprise of its in¬ 
 habitants had for a long time rendered it the emporium of the western world; 
 but, alas, the immoderate influx of foreign manufactures poured in there shortly 
 after the peace produced a most calamitous reverse. 
 
 I pause in this quotation a moment, sir, to remark that the influx of 
 foreign manufactures at that time was less than it was in 1807 (a period 
 of great manufacturing prosperity, as I have already shown), and could 
 not therefore have produced the calamitous reverse. But to proceed 
 with the quotation: 
 
 The operations of the hammer, the hatchet, the shuttle, the spindle, the loom, 
 ceased in a great degree. Noble establishments which reflected honor on the 
 nation were closed ; the proprietors ruined; the workmen discharged; a blight 
 and a blast overspread the face of the city; and the circumjacent country which 
 had shared in its prosperity now equally partook of its decline. 
 
 Now, sir, if these terrible scenes so vividly described by the two Careys 
 were due to the tariff of 1816, then, sir, it* must he conceded that they 
 were the results of a tariff which Mr. Webster declared “was passed for 
 the benefit of manufacturers,” and Mr. Greeley declared was undenia¬ 
 bly and strictly protective in its duties. They certainly can not be 
 ascribed to the influence of “a tariff for revenue only.” 
 
 I do not say, for I do not think, that this state of things was caused 
 by that taritV. In the recent discussions on financial questions both 
 sides agreed that the great revulsion of that period was caused by a dis¬ 
 ordered currency. 
 
 Upon the return of peace and the renewal of trade our manufact¬ 
 urers. habituated to the absolute command of the home market and 
 inflated prices, had to meet foreign competition with prices down to their 
 natural level. The currency was suddenly contracted from #145,000,000 
 to $45,000,000. A revulsion foliowe(\fearful in its extent and terrible 
 in its ravages; but it embraced in its desolating sweep all the industries, 
 agriculture, manufactures, and trade alike. Its effect upon agriculture 
 was more enduring than upon manufactures. 
 
 The farming people at such times, Mr. President, live very closely 
 and try to bear the hard times with greater self-denial and patient toil, 
 but the manufacturers clamor for legislative relief and high tariffs, 
 and, sir, not without effect. Thetariff of 1818 was passed, buttheduties, 
 though much higher than those of 1816, were not high enough to satisfy 
 the manufacturers; another still higher tariff was passed in 1819; but 
 protection begets protection, and this was followed by the tariff of 1824, 
 which Mr. Greeley styled “the tariff of unqualified protection.” 
 
But, sir, injurious as was that financial crisis upon agriculture and 
 commerce and manufactures, upon investments of capital and profits 
 of business and rewards of labor, the facts chronicled in the history 
 from which I have so often quoted prove that manufacturing as an in¬ 
 dustry was not overthrown nor its power of growth vitally impaired. 
 
 A brief account of the increase of manufacturing establishments dur¬ 
 ing this period shows that while protection could not avert the disasters 
 which caused a general overturn of all industries, there was in American 
 manufacture the same recuperative power, the same native genius, skill, 
 and capacity to adapt means to ends and develop greater resource under 
 adversity that mark the American character in all other departments of 
 human endeavor; that while the war had increased the number of mills 
 and drawn larger capital and extended the industry, it had lagged be¬ 
 hind in the improvements that had taken place else where; that the com¬ 
 petition which droveweak and unskillful establishments from the field 
 could not shake those establishments which resorted to modern improve¬ 
 ments in machinery; they show that no matter how depressing the times 
 might be. capital and skill, which in eras of cheap prices are hunting 
 for safe and profitable investments, found them in the new manufact¬ 
 ures which were being established all over the country. 
 
 1824-1833. 
 
 The Senator from Maine says that from 1824 to 1833 was a period of 
 protection and prosperity. True, so far as the protection is concerned, 
 for the tariff of 1824 was a tariff of “unqualified protection,” and that 
 of 1828 was the well known “bill of abominations. ” 
 
 I must say, however, that the picture drawn by Mr. Clay, and quoted 
 by the Senator, of the unexampled prosperity of that period was a 
 little too bright with the tints of oratory and rhetoric. In the sober col 
 ors of historical statement the effect is somewhatsubdued. Bishop says: 
 
 An unusual degree of distress prevailed at this time among the manufacturers 
 of New England, particularly in the cotton branch, producing numerous fail¬ 
 ures and great depreciation of the value of stocks. The cause was by some as¬ 
 cribed to the disappearance of specie, and by others to overspeoulation, which 
 had tempted great numbers into manufacturing with insufficient capital and 
 consequently overproduction. 
 
 Again, Bishop tells us that in consequence of the tariff of 1824, 
 a large amount of capital had, during a number of years past, been 
 attracted to the woolen manufacture. 
 
 But what was the result of this policy of diverting enterprise from 
 agriculture into this and other brandies of manufacture by the higher 
 duties of the tariff of 1824 ? It was this. “When the author comes to 
 the year 1827 (remember, sir, it was “the period of protection ”) he has 
 to state— 
 
 That the woolen interests at this time, as well as the agricultural branches 
 connected with them, found themselvessuffering under the severest depression 
 and unable to struggle with the various adverse influences by which they were 
 surrounded. (Volume 2, page 313.) 
 
 Well, sir, in 1829 another year of this halcyon period of “ protection 
 and prosperity,” the same historian has to record that: 
 
 The continued distress of the woolen manufacturers, who had been fast sink¬ 
 ing under foreign competition or, with very few exceptions, had barely sus¬ 
 tained themselves in the hopes of some permanent measures for their relief and 
 the equally depressed condition of the iron interest, produced a resolution of 
 the House empowering the. Committee on Manufactures to send forand examine 
 persons on oath concerning the present condition of manufactures, &c, (Vol¬ 
 ume 2, 321.) 
 
 So, sir, it appears that during this period of high-tariff protection dis- 
 
tress to an unusual degree prevailed among the cotton manufactures in 
 1829; that the woolen interests were suffering then, as in 1827, under 
 “ the severest depression," and that in 1828 the iron interests were “in 
 an equally depressed condition.’' 
 
 Another fact worthy ol consideration is that in that period of high 
 protection our foreign tonnage steadily decreased, and at the end of the 
 period had fallen off thousands of tons; ourcoasting tonnagefell off still 
 more, i ts effects upon the capacity of our man u lac turd's to meet the 
 competition of foreign countries were still more marked. During that 
 same period our exports of American manufactures declined steadily 
 to the close. It is also true, sir, that if in this period prosperity bloomed 
 around the manufacturing sections adversity brooded over others. Here 
 is a picture not so attractive as Mr. Clay’s, but quite as graphic and more 
 true to fact. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun says: 
 
 Desolation spread itself over the entire staple region; its commercial cities 
 were desolated. Charleston parted with her last ship and grass grew in Iter 
 once busy streets; the political condition of the country presented a prospect 
 not less dreary—a deep and growing conflict between the two great sections 
 agitated the whole country and a vast revenue beyond its most extravagant 
 wants gave the Government boundless patronage and power which were rap¬ 
 idly changing the character of the Government and spreading corruption far 
 and wide through every condition of society. 
 
 Sir, if manufactures could not prosper during that period their case 
 would indeed be a hopeless one; with seven years of embargo and war, 
 free from all foreign competition, nine more of protection, ten more 
 of extreme protection, certainly, sir, they had an opportunity to lay 
 the foundations of their prosperity broad and deep. 
 
 1833—1847. 
 
 The Senator from Maine says the period from 1833 to 1817 was one 
 of free trade and adversity. 11 was a period of compromise, of progress¬ 
 ive reduction from protective to revenue duties. What I mean is, that 
 the compromise act which passed in 1833 provided that all duties on 
 imports exceeding 20 per cent, on the value thereof should be reduced 
 after the 31st of December following one-tenth of the excess above 20 
 per cent., and that a like reduction should be made every second year 
 until 1841, when one-half of the excess remaining should be taken off 
 and the remaining half after the 30th of June, 1842. But the effect of 
 the lower or revenue standard of duties was never tested, for the com¬ 
 promise act was repealed in 1842. 
 
 This has been designated also as a period of adversity. Mr. Presi¬ 
 dent, there are many who have insisted that even in spite of the linan- 
 cial troubles which grew out of a disordered currency during that period, 
 agriculture, manufactures, and commerce all made greater progress 
 under the compromise act than they did under the high protective tar¬ 
 iffs of 1824 and 1828. 1 do not make this assertion myself, for my pur¬ 
 
 pose is not to show that manufactured were more or less prosperous at 
 any one period than at another, hut that they were able to maintain 
 themselves equally with other industries. At the same time 1 must 
 say that there are some striking facts in support of their assertion. I 
 have mentioned that the tonnage fell off under the tariff acts of 1824 
 and 1828 very largely, and the exports of manufactured products also 
 decreased. Under the compromise tariff’ the tonnage at once began to 
 increase until at the close of the period it had nearly doubled itself. 
 
 The exports of domestic products also increased under the compro- 
 
muse tariff, and t hough checked by the financial embarrassments of 1836 
 and 1837, yet in nine years the exports of American manufactures 
 greatly increased, such was the effectof low duties in enlarging the mar¬ 
 ket for our manufactured products and infusing into our manufacturing 
 industries the vigor to compete in foreign markets, and the same wa 
 true of our agricultural interests. 
 
 Under this system of progressive reduction new factories were spring¬ 
 ing up over the country and old ones undergoing large extensions. I 
 can not take up the time of the Senate in reading the account of them 
 as given by this history. I may avail myself of the privilege accorded 
 me to append a short synopsis of the most important. 
 
 Fall River. Mas.sacliu.seUs, where the first cotton-mill was erected in 1812, had 
 in this period, from 1833 to 1843, thirteen cotton factories, one satinet factory, 
 employing one hundred and fifty hands, and the Ana warn iron-works and nail 
 factories. 
 
 The Work Manufacturing Company of Saco, Maine, completed a new four- 
 story cotton-mill in the place of one destroyed by fire, and within the next four 
 years added two other large mills. They had also at this time a rolling-mill and 
 a nail factory. 
 
 The cotton manufactures exported in 1833 amounted to $2,532,567. 
 
 J n New Jersey there were sixteen extensive factories of saddlery and harness; 
 ton carriage factories having seven hundred and seventy-nine workmen, and 
 shoe factories eighteen in number; thirteen tanneries; considerable manufact¬ 
 ures of iron and brass cannon castings, and malleable-iron coach-springs, tin, 
 sheet-iron ware, and stoves, hardware manufactures and two patent leather 
 manufactories. About S200,0(X) manufactures, principally shoes, were sent to New 
 York in two days during 1833. 
 
 The Novelty Works, for the manufacture of platform scales and domestic hard¬ 
 ware, established at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 
 
 A gimlet factory at Wakely, Briekley, and Keene and Franklin Counties, 
 New Hampshire,and one in Connecticut. Thenewtwist gimlet was considered 
 as much superior to the old English gimlet as the American screw-auger was 
 to the old auger. 
 
 In 183-1 the American market was in a groat measure supplied with domestic 
 carpetings of all kinds. In that same year the foreign articles consumed in the 
 country, after deducting teas, wines, coffee, and apices, did not exceed $500,000,000 
 per annum, while tin- value of the manufactures of the United States was esti¬ 
 mated at $350,000,000 per annum. 
 
 New machinery for spinning flax and hemp forcordage introduced into New 
 York. 
 
 Great perfection at this time exhibited in the art of casting iron. Iron cast¬ 
 ings at Albany, New York, were particularly noted for excellence, and were 
 equul to any in the world. The hollow ware of Bartley, Bentz <fe Co. were 
 preferred to the best Scotch castings, and American stoves received the prefer¬ 
 ence wherever known. The recent progress in the manufacture of American 
 hardware was indicated hv the increasing number of articles of domestic pro¬ 
 duction which composed the stock of the hardware merchants. Several deal¬ 
 ers in the principal cities devoted themselves chiefly to the sale of American 
 hardware. Hammered brass kettles, or battery, begun at this time to be first 
 made in the United States. 
 
 Wood screws first made this year by machinery at Providence. Rhode Island. 
 
 The Ames Manufacturing Company commenced operations this year in an 
 establishment erected at Cabbotsville. 
 
 American axes and locks acknowledged to be the best in the world. 
 
 Oliver Ames, of Eastern Massachusetts, had at this time three extensive shovel 
 factories, one at Easton, one at Baintree, and one at East Bridgewater, and his 
 estimated profits were$15,000 per annum. 
 
 In 1835 lmir-cloth manufactures were established at Deerfield. Massachusetts. 
 
 Six companies incorporated by Massachusetts for the manufacture of india- 
 rubber goods. 
 
 Boston and Lowell Railroad opened for travel. 
 
 Several cotton factories erected. 
 
 The Newport Manufacturing Company, opposite the city, established. Em¬ 
 ployed 200 hands. Made woolen goods, cotton bagging, cotton yarn, and bale- 
 rope, to the value of $281,000. 
 
 Manufactures of Covington amounted to 3508,500, of which $200,(XX) was the 
 product of an iron rolling-mill and nail-works. 
 
The arrival of steamboats at New Orleans this year estimated at 2.300, an in¬ 
 crease of 700 since 1832. .. , 
 
 The Howe Manufacturing Company was established tins year at New \ork, 
 and another at- Derby, for spun-head pins. . .... „ 
 
 The manufacture of locomotives was begun m New Y ork by 1 horaas Kodger, 
 the eminent manufacturer of cotton machinery and railroad work. 
 
 Fourteen locomotives huiltthis year at Philadelphia and forty in 1S36. The 
 Norris Locomotive Works also in operation. One of Ins engines, the George 
 Washington, established his reputation asa builder, and he added other improve¬ 
 ments the same year. * ... .. . 
 
 Nearly 100.000 wood and brass clocks made tins year m Connecticut. 
 
 An immense number of patents taken out for all kinds of improvements in 
 machinery. , . , , 
 
 In 183<> charters were granted in Massachusetts to seventy-three manufactur¬ 
 ing companies and to thirteen railroad companies. 
 
 First manufacture of wrought-iron tubes mid httings for gas and steam works 
 in the United States began this year at the Paschal Iron \\ orks.ni Philadelphia. 
 
 One of the most extensive copper mines in this country was opened aboutthis 
 time in Bristol, Connecticut. ... 
 
 The productive value of all branches of manufacture, including raw material, 
 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was estimated at $15,575,440; sixty-one 
 6team-hoats built there this year. ... 
 
 The. celebrated Hagle Brewery of Vassar &. Co. erected at Poughkeepsie, New 
 
 India-rubber factory put up at Troy, New York. . 
 
 A large ingrain-carpet manufactory put up at Poughkeepsie. New \ ork. 
 
 Thirty-seven experiments in smelting iron with anthracite coal begun this year 
 and successfully accomplished; seventy-six furnaces in operation, thirty-seven 
 for casting iron. 
 
 The manufacture of machinists’ tools commenced at Nashua, New Hampshire. 
 
 One of the most complete wire manufactories in the country was that at Falls- 
 town. Beaver County, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Prcsscd-glass tumblers and other drinking-vessels were first made at this 
 
 Covered coat-buttons were extensively manufactured at Haydenville, Massa¬ 
 chusetts. 
 
 A large number of charters granted this year. 
 
 Rich veins of lead ore were opened at this time. 
 
 The IIowc Manufacturing Company commenced this year the manufacture of 
 solid-headed pins. 
 
 The manufacture of gold spectacles and of gold and silver thimbles was com¬ 
 menced this year at Long Meadow, Massachusetts. 
 
 The above is a mere abstract, but is taken exactly from the text of 
 Bishop’s work, though not in the order in which they appear. 
 
 It was during this period, 1837, that “experiments in smelting iron 
 ore with anthracite coal were begun and successfully accomplished,” 
 opening up a new era in the manufacture of iron. 
 
 Referring to the decade from 1830 to 1840, Bishop says: 
 
 "VVe are now approaching a period when the manufacturing industry of the 
 country, established on a solid and permanent foundation, had attained such 
 wonderful expansion that it is no longer possible to trace its progress in de¬ 
 tailed statements or isoluted facts. In spite of temporary cheeks and adverse 
 legislation the Anglo-Saxon steadily widened the circle of his enterprises until 
 the sound of his hammer rang throughout the whole extent of the populated 
 portion of the Republic. 
 
 What, Mr. President, do you suppose was the “ adverse legislation ” 
 referred to? Nothing, sir, but the gradual reduction of taxes under 
 the compromise act! It is further stated that the production of cotton 
 goods had increased in the ratio of 130 per cent. 
 
 It is also stated that “ the iron manufacture constituted one of the 
 industries of the country, which though temporarily depressed at tills 
 time in common with most branches of trade and commerce showed a 
 gratifying result in the past ten years.” 
 
 I leave this period with the .single remark that notwithstanding the 
 depressions consequent upon the financial panic of 1837, manufactur¬ 
 ing industry under the operation of this compromise tariff (whether 
 
20 
 
 you style it free trade or protection) had become vigorous, expanded, 
 and capable of entering on equal terms the field of universal competition. 
 
 1843-1847. 
 
 From 1842 to 1847 the Senator says was the period of protection and 
 prosperity. The tariff of 1842 was enacted under these circumstances: 
 In 1840 there was a great political revolution which swept the Demoo- 
 racy out of power and brought the Whigs in. Contrary to the expec¬ 
 tation of the people and in violation of their pledgesand in violation of 
 the compromise of 1832 that law was repealed and the tariff of 1842 was 
 enacted, for which the Whig party was hurled out of power in the sub¬ 
 sequent elections, and the tariff of 1842 was repealed as soon as the 
 Democracy could get the opportunity. The consequence was that it 
 was not in operation over three years and eleven months, and to attrib¬ 
 ute the impulse aiul revival of industries in this country which began be¬ 
 fore that tariff was enacted and continued after it was repealed through 
 a long period of unexampled prosperity, Is simply to make an assertion 
 which needs no reply. 
 
 1847-1861. 
 
 “The next period of free trade and adversity,” says the Senator, 
 “was from 1847 to 1861.” Sir, it was a period of revenue tariffs with 
 the incidental protection that such tariffe afford. I remember well, 
 sir, the circumstances under which that tariff was enacted; I was one 
 of a class of students who read the Congressional debates of that day ; 
 I recollect the predictions of evil and the promises of good made by 
 the opponents and advocates, respectively, of that measure; I re¬ 
 member well the prophecies of what would be its ruinous effects; they 
 predicted that American manufactures would expire under its baleful 
 operations, and that our country would become little more than a com¬ 
 mercial dependency of England. 
 
 I remember, also, the promises of good which its friends made in its 
 behalf. I am almost tempted to read to the Senate a portion of the great 
 report of Robert J. Walker, in which hcdcpicts the future grandeur and 
 glory of the country in all its interests as the effect of the revenue tariff 
 proposed by him. Sir, time has passed; which was right? Whose pre¬ 
 dictions have been verilied, the prophets of evil or the promisers of good ? 
 Did that tariff entail ruin and destruction upon manufacturing indus¬ 
 tries? On the other hand, did it not accomplish that ■which its friends 
 and advocates promised it would achieve ? Sir, we might well allow the 
 history of the effects of that tariff to be written by its strongest and most 
 uncompromising opponents. 
 
 I will, therefore, for the last time, invoke the testimony of the his¬ 
 torian, and I would say here there is not in this Senate a more intense 
 and unqualified advocate of protection than the author of the work I 
 have been quoting. There is not a chapter, and I might say hardly a 
 page of it, in which he does not dwell upon the benign influence of 
 legislative lostering upon the growth of manufactures, and upon the de¬ 
 pression and checks which they suffered from legislative neglect. It 
 has been difficult to even quote his statement of facts disengaged from 
 the political opinions with which he connects them. Speaking of the 
 immense extension of domestic manufactures in the decade from 1840 
 to 1850, he says: 
 
 The astounding fact was revealed that the capital invested in manufactures, 
 not counting any establishment that produced under $500 a year, exceeded 
 $550,000,000, and that the annual product had reached $1,019,000,000. 
 
30 
 
 He proceeds: 
 
 Vast as this production is, we find ten years later an increase of more than 86 
 per cent., and if to this amount was added the very large amount of productions 
 below the value of S500 (of which no official cognizance is taken) the result would 
 Indeed be one of startling magnitude. 
 
 1850-1860. 
 
 .Sir, from 1850 to 1800 the wealth of this country increased, as estimated, 
 120 per cent. During that same period the capital in manufactures in¬ 
 creased 90 per cent., the product80 percent., and the profits on capital 47 
 per cent. It is stated by M r. Bishop that in this period the capital in pig- 
 iron increased nearly 50 percent.. and the product over 50 per cent. In 
 bar. sheet, and railroad iron capital increased over 45per cent., products 
 over 100 per cent., and profits rose from 18 per cent, on capital to 30 per 
 cent. Steel products rose during the same period tenfold. In the 
 same decade the capital of cotton manufactures increased 29.6 per 
 cent., products nearly 80 per cent., and profits from 13i to 45 per cent. 
 In the same decade the capital of woolen and worsted manufactures 
 increased 18 per cent., products 41 per cent., and profits rose from 43 
 to nearly 50 per cent. Agriculture prospered in corresponding ratios. 
 
 I am indebted for these figures to the able and exhaustive speech made 
 by a distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. J. Randolph Tucker. 
 
 1861-1881. 
 
 This is a period, sir, which the Senator says is the period of protec¬ 
 tion and prosperity. It is the period which we are now in. I have no 
 desire to compare this period with that under the revenue tariH'. The 
 distinguished gentleman to whom I have already referred [Mr. Tucker] 
 has done that in a manner far beyond the happiest efforts of my hum¬ 
 ble powers. My object is a different one. I simply wish to show the 
 tact that through revenue duties, through the periods of so-called free 
 trade, through periods of depression, through periods of every kind, 
 manufacturers have continued to grow at a pace corresponding with the 
 wants of the country, and have taken no step backward under any cir¬ 
 cumstances and have been overwhelmed by no adverse iortunes. My 
 purpose lias been to convince Senators that if they wish to respond to the 
 demands of the people for reduced taxation, apprehension as to its effect 
 upon manufactures need not stand in the way to obstruct this popular 
 aspiration. 
 
 I might devote some of my timetothe discussion of the present condi¬ 
 tion of manufactures under the protective system now in operation. I 
 do not deny that our country has progressed. There never has been a 
 period in which we have not increased in prosperity, and that, too, in 
 advance of our increase of population. If I desired to go into the causes 
 of this grand and rapid development of our material civilization, one 
 among the chief I would say was, not our restriction upon foreign trade, 
 but the fact that we have on this continent the grandest exhibition of 
 the blessings and benefits of that absolute freedom of commerce lietween 
 the States which our Constitution has established. N owhere on earth has 
 commerce been so unrestricted, upon suchascale, and through such vast 
 sections,divided by great mountainsand rivers, and abounding in all vari¬ 
 eties of soil, climate, productions, and conditions. Suppose we had re¬ 
 versed our constitutional policy and instead of having the free trade which 
 has prevailed throughout all the States, there had been custom-houses 
 
31 
 
 erected along the boundaries of each particular State, would not the pict¬ 
 ure of our civilization be reversed? 
 
 But, sir, to return to the point from which I started in the beginning 
 of these remarks, what is the condition of your manufactures under 
 this protective system ? Why are they depressed ? Why are they tot¬ 
 tering on the verge of universal bankruptcy, according to their own 
 representations? It can not, as in 1837 and in 1817 and in 1857, be 
 attributed to financial crises, for never was our currency in a better 
 condition than it is at this time. It is perfectly sound and it is plen¬ 
 tiful. There is but oneembarrassment possible—and that is one which 
 has not yet developed itself—growing out of the overvaluation of our 
 silver. I repeat, sir, there never was a time when the currency of the 
 country was in a condition more favorable to the prosperity of indus¬ 
 tries than it is now, in its uniformity and in the steadiness of exchanges. 
 
 In 1873 there was the same sort of distress that exists at this time. 
 I do not say that it grow out of the protective tariff. It was the result 
 of the sudden contraction of the currency following an enormous inlla- 
 tion. It was one of those terrible currency disasters—not like the ones 
 to which I have just referred, violent in their outburst and brief in 
 their duration—but like some fatal epidemic it spread deep and wide, 
 desolating one community after another, until gloom and ruin settled 
 upon all. I repeat, sir, while the protective system is not to be re¬ 
 proached as the cause of this wide-spread distress, it is certainly true 
 that it could not shelter its protected industries from the devastation. 
 But, sir, this distressed condition of manufactures is not confined either 
 to the present time or the financial crisis of 1873. 
 
 In 1868, long before the catastrophe of 1873, when the protective 
 system was in its full play, what was the condition of your manufactur¬ 
 ing industries? Sir, I will not trust myself to depict that condition, 
 hut will quote from a Senator who is the leading champion here of the 
 protective system, and in that character sings annually its to triomphe 
 to the Senate. Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont, in 1868, in the Senate, 
 made the following remarks: 
 
 look atthe industries that are at the present moment unusually depressed. 
 Take for instance the entire woolen interest. There is not an establishment 
 that is not losing money to-day. Take the wool-grower; not a pound of wool 
 raised last year that will bring 10 cents per pound of its cost. Take the cotton 
 interest. The whole circle of manufactures are in no better circumstances. 
 Look at the value of their stocks. For instance, take the Bates manufacturing 
 stock, of Maine. * * * And so I might go on almost through the whole list. 
 They all sutler. Take the West—Ohio, Illinois, or Iowa. I>ook at their hog 
 crop. Why, if they had given away all their hogs, or if they had slaughtered 
 them a year ago and thrown them away, they would have been better oil'to-day. 
 They have absolutely lost their hog crop by feeding out grain to them which 
 unfed would have brought more than all their pork. 
 
 Mr. Kelley, in the House of Representatives, in a speech delivered 
 January 18, 1868, said: 
 
 The loom and the spindle, no longer able to yield a profit to their proprietors, 
 stand idle; the fires are extinguished in forge and furnace, and the rolling-mill 
 does not send forth its hum of cheerful and profitable industry. On one day of 
 last month 1,800 operatives in the glass factories of Pittsburgh were deprived of 
 the privilege of earning wages by honest toil at the trade in which they were 
 skilled; the establishments in which they worked are closed. In the absence 
 of productive employment for men or machinery, the smaller holders of bonds 
 arc selling them to save themselves from bankruptcy if they are proprietors of 
 establishmentsortofeed themselves and familie in involuntary idleness if they 
 are laborers whose hard-earned savings have been loaned to the Government in 
 its exigency. Look where we may, to any section of the oountry, we hear of 
 shrinkage in the value of manufactured goods, of reduction of wages or of the 
 
32 
 
 hours of labor, or factories running on part time or closed or to be closed. I pre¬ 
 sent no jaundiced orpartisan view of the case. 
 
 Sir, these are not the accusations of an enemy to the protective system; 
 they are the reluctant admissions and confessions which inexorable fact 
 extorts. Behold, sir, the fruits of the protective system! Depression, 
 poverty, impoverishment, and ruin in 1868; in 1873, impotent to stem 
 the tide of financial ruin that swept far and wide the wrecks of capital 
 and labor; and in 1883, the entire fabric of manufacturing capital and 
 labor resting upon the narrow and uncertain basis of Government tax¬ 
 ation. 
 
 Mr. President, I intended to discuss somewhat in full the economical 
 principles of this system, hut it has taken me so much longer than I 
 supposed it would to present the historical argument that I shall not 
 do so. There is one point, however, to which I will call the attention 
 of the Senate, for I think it is one upon which the advocates of this sys¬ 
 tem now mainly put their support. It is this: that the difference be¬ 
 tween the wages of labor in this country and in England and the rest 
 of Europe is so great that unless a tax is put upon the imported arti¬ 
 cle equivalent to that disparity of wages the American manufacture of 
 the corresponding article is unable to compete with it; that unless a 
 system of duties is arranged so as to cover by taxation this disparity the 
 American industry must perish in the unequal conflict. 
 
 I think the argument is a fallacy. The general rule is, that the na¬ 
 tion whose capitalists employ labor at highest wages has the advantage 
 in competition with those countries whoso capitalists employ labor at 
 lower wages. Who, sir, is our most formidable competitor, not only in 
 the markets of the world, but here in our own market? Is it the na¬ 
 tion that pays the lowest wages for labor ? It is England, sir, that pays 
 the highest wages for labor of any in the civilized world, our own, per¬ 
 haps, excepted. I repeat, it is England that pays wages far above those 
 of France, or Germany, or Belgium, or Russia, qnd yet occupies their 
 own markets with her products until they are driven, even with their 
 low wages and cheap labor, to throw up a wall of protective and pro¬ 
 hibitory duties against this formidable commercial rival. 
 
 The products of the higher-waged labor of English manufactures vie 
 with us on our own .soil. We, with our bulky and perishable products 
 of the field transported to the seaboard and thence across the ocean, 
 occupy and possess the markets of the world against the product of la¬ 
 borers whose wages per diem would not pay for the dinner of an Amer¬ 
 ican laborer. In the markets of England, France, and Germany our 
 cotton and cereals and meats meet in successful competition the" low- 
 waged labor of Russia, of India, of Egypt, and even the slave labor of 
 Brazil. Sir, in the face of the fact that the two highest wage-paying 
 nations of the world are the ones whose products—England with her 
 manufactures and America with her staples—undersell all others, this 
 fallacy of high wages must do disservice to the cause that relies upon it. 
 
 There is no principle better understood among political economists 
 than the distinction between the wages of labor and the cost of labor 
 in relation to profits; and in spite of the sarcasms which are so often 
 launched at this science by those whose contempt for it will not allow 
 them to study and understand its principles, I will invoke its authority. 
 I quote Fawcett’s Political Economy, page 169: 
 
 In any given case, the more that is taken in the form of profits, the less will be 
 given in wages. If wages take a larger share of the produce, profits must take 
 a smaller share. Suppose, however, that industry, by the introduction of new 
 
33 
 
 machinery, is rendered more productive 
 of produce to l.e distributed and more 
 the slightest reduction in wages. 
 
 On page 170 he says: 
 
 c. there will then W- a greater quantity 
 may be apportioned to profit* without 
 
 Ku?f^ 
 
 eic.d X U C h^ t 1 ,re <>f ‘'‘T 'vuges .‘’TitntX?^rendered more effr 
 
 cunt, it has been shown that the rate of profit will rise although the Mima 
 SoTof labo I ; a,d iD ^ The «»« ° f vroiil therefore SstveSiyfeX 
 
 Fawcett gives an illustration of this in the following language: 
 
 The worat land which is cultivated in Australia is far more fertile <)>■■» the 
 worst land cultivated in Kngkmd. Hence. .igricuUnn.J labor being nppii , to 
 a more productive soil is far more ellicicut in Australia than in Kngland The 
 Barm* amount Of labor which is employed upon tin- imerest farms in 
 would, if applied to any land which is cultivated in Australia, cause a great deal 
 more produce to be raised. Hence, in consequence of the increased efficiency 
 agricultural labor in Australia the wages of agricultural 
 lfn !V V b , h,gi l, er >n Australm than in England, and vet the cost of this 
 
 labor in Australia may be less than it is in Kngland. 
 
 Again: 
 
 The difficulty arises from confusing wage 
 be very low, and yet the labor be so ineilic 
 tremeiy high. 
 
 1 with the cost of labor. Wages may 
 ent that the cost of lnlior may lie vx- 
 
 In an excellent work recently published, Political 
 cis A. Walker, 1 find the following: 
 
 Economy, by Fran- 
 
 Nominaj. and Real Cost < 
 be observed is that between vi 
 employer may pay high wag 
 to be low by reason of the Ini 
 employer may pay wages on 
 and yet the employer be grea 
 oi his product—so poor and \\ 
 
 ok LABok—A nother distinction which requires to 
 rages and the cost of labor. It is possible that an 
 es and yet the cost of the labor to him may prove 
 •orer's superior efficiency. On the other hand the 
 which the laborer can only live most miserably 
 l)y straitened tog. t l-aclc these wages in the value 
 rasteful may he the services rendered. 
 
 And again: 
 
 * l r probably true that as a rule the highest paid labor is that which costs the 
 r.wlrtVqV"Vi "■'V s CVK |cteed by the two facts, that generally speaking em- 
 P i ,i < " Vr rc<iu , c V tlu for ““ discharge their lowest-paid laborers^first 
 
 and that generally speaking it is the countries where the lowest real wages are 
 
 paid w Inch leci the necessity of imposing commercial restrictions to keep out 
 the prod ucLs of others. r l bus India, where the cotton-spinner gets on I v Jo pence 
 
 wherL - th< - *> “Mb 
 
 Among all fully settled countries, the rule without exception, so far ns i am 
 ;' lU U ,'! lt co A ,ntry 1,1 wl . ,ich thc higher wages arc paid offersits products 
 at lower prices than flic competing products of count lies where the lower wages 
 are i>aid. (See paragraph 406. , *" 
 
 it is not high wages in the United States which hinders the successful 
 competition of American manufactures with the products of England. 
 The protective system itself interposes a much greater hinderance in 
 the increased cost of production w hich it has always brought about. 
 This has often been shown by the history of all protective tariffs. But 
 il further proof were required these two large volumes given us bv the 
 Tariff Commission are full of irresistible evidence that the whole effect 
 ol all pa- ; t protection from lhtil to IK'S'! has been to make the manu- 
 
 LA 3 
 
M 
 
 facturers more clamorous for protection Hum ever and more afraid of 
 foreign competition than ever. 
 
 I do not therefore propose to repeat the argument so often made that a 
 high protective tariff raises prices and thereby so increases the expenses 
 of manufacturing as. sooner or later, to make the cost of producing equal 
 to that of the imported articles with the duty added, thus creating a 
 necessity lor still higher duties. It has never been answered. 
 
 The Senator from Texas [Mr. Coke] so forcibly presented this point 
 in his speech last year that it answers my purpose to quote his remarks 
 here, literally: 
 
 So it was in 1789, when the first tariff law was passed, with an average ad valo¬ 
 rem duty of 81 percent., its operation limited to 1796, avowedly "to give our 
 infant industries a sturt,” and only temporary. The very next year tariff duties 
 were raised to an average of 11 percent. Tn 1792 they were raised to 13iper cent. 
 In Jsl6 tlie average rate of duties was 80 per cent, under additional legislation 
 which had been passed in the mean time. Under the drill' of 1 f>2I they were 
 raised to an average of 37 per cent., and under the act of 1828, just forty years after 
 the first tariff law had administered an aliment of 84 per cent, as a purely tem¬ 
 porary expedient to our “infant industries,” the rations of that “infant" were 
 increased to an average of 11 per cent. It is always thus with industries taken 
 out of the pure, bracing atmosphere of free competition and healthy, hardy self- 
 reliance, into the hot-house of Government protection, to he fed on the stimulus 
 of Government bounty—thecry forever is “ More! More! ” On the 14th of July, 
 1832, the tariff was again remodeled in the interest of high protection, and out of 
 this act grew the South Carolina nullification troubles. 
 
 But there is another mode by which this same result (i. <\ increased 
 cost of product ion) occurs under t he protective system, 11 is thus most 
 clearly and forcibly put by Mr. J. S. Moore in his most interesting and 
 admirable essay read before the Tariff Commission. 
 
 After showing how iusignificant would be the duty needed simply to 
 cover the difference between the wages here and in England for the 
 manufacture of woolen goods, that gentleman says: 
 
 Unfortunately protection begets protection ; the cloth is protected because the 
 wool is protected ; again it is protected because the dye-stuffs are protected; once 
 more it is protected because oil and chemicals are protected; then there is a ery 
 that machinery is protected ; in short, all and everything used to manufacture 
 woolen goods is protected. 
 
 And he expresses the opinion that if put upon an equal footing with 
 English manufactures as to free raw materials and free machinery the 
 higher wages in the United States would not be a formidable drawback. 
 
 Mr. President, there is one competition which our manufacturing in¬ 
 dustry has to encounter that is more powerful in limiting its growth 
 than perhaps any other cause. It is found in the inv iting and bounte¬ 
 ous fields of American agriculture. This was the wise in our Colonial 
 times; it is so now; and it will continue as long as we have fresh, vir¬ 
 gin soil and large areas of territory for our people. 
 
 It requires high wages, the very highest, and even they are often 
 insufficient to keep a man in workshop, mill, coal-pit, or glass foundry, 
 when within his reach is a home of his own on his own land where in 
 his double capacity of proprietor and laborer he and his family can 
 enjoy the entire fruits of his own labor. It is not that the profits of 
 farming tire greater than other avocations; they are proverbially smaller 
 at this time: but there isan instinctive tendency in the Anglo-Saxon blood 
 to land-owning. This instinct gives to agriculture a social dignity and 
 personal independence which compensate for its meager profits, and 
 very often the cares and disappointments to which it is subject. The 
 magic of the freehold is more potent than that of wages of hire. The 
 
thrilling associations of the homestead, where wife and children live in 
 security and peace and love, can not be measured by a scale of dollars 
 and cents. 
 
 It is therefore the cheapness of lands and the superior attractions of 
 agriculture which have made it the more powerful industrial competitor 
 of manufactures. 
 
 Now, sir, the avowed object of tho protective system is to counteract 
 this superior attractiveness of agricultural industry and to divert cap¬ 
 ital and labor from it into manufactures. It is not protection against 
 the competition of foreign pauper labor that the duties are levied, but 
 against the competition of our own home agricultural industry. It is 
 the competition of the industry which produces our exports, and which 
 brings back imports in exchange, against which this tariff system is 
 designed to operate, and hence its effects have never failed to arrest tho 
 increase of the production of weal t h by means of agricult ure, and to cause 
 the profits earned in the field to he paid out to the forge and the mill. 
 This point has been elaborated by other Senators. 
 
 Mr. President, if in the course of my remarks 1 have said anything 
 which has left the impression that I am in the slightest degree indiffer¬ 
 ent to the progress of manufactures in this country, I have expressed 
 myself unfortunately. If I have not impressed those who have heard 
 me with my deep sense of the importance of them as diversifying our 
 industries, as a source of national wealth, as a means of elevating and 
 advancing the human race and ennobling our civilization through those 
 great appliances of science and art by which the mighty powers of nat¬ 
 ure are made subservient to the wants of man, and if 1 have not ex¬ 
 pressed sympathy for them whenever 1 have been compelled to cast a 
 vote that seemed not tending to foster by taxation their industries, it 
 was because professions are so cheap that but little faith is attached to 
 them. 
 
 If they would listen to me I would say to them that wisdom would 
 dictate concessions material and large upon this question. I believe 
 that the movement for revenue reform and lower taxation can he largely 
 guided by them so as to cause no shock to existing interests if they will 
 deal with it in a wise and sober spirit of concession and compromise. 
 If we could on the one hand have a bill which would bring the duties 
 down to a revenue standard, arrangements in the details looking to 
 protection as an incident would find, 1 apprehend, hut few opponents. 
 
 But I would warn them (in the kindest spirit) that it is impossible 
 for any combination of capital or labor to resist a popular movement 
 animated by a strong sentiment of moral right and justice. 
 
 Macaulay in one of his speeches—I think it was on this very subject 
 of the tariff—once warned the monopolistsof Great Britain, citing two 
 signal events in history as containing for them lessons of wisdom and 
 admonition. One was the wisdom, sagacity, and forecast with which 
 the English aristocracy adapted themselves to the great popular move¬ 
 ment of parliamentary reform. By taking part in it they were enabled 
 to direct its movement safely and wisely for themselves, thereby re¬ 
 taining to thisday their moral and intellectual ascendancy. Heshowed 
 the reverse in the case of the French nobility, who, with dogged ob¬ 
 stinacy, made a vain resistance to the great popular movement, there, 
 which resulted in their overthrow and banishment, eking out the rem¬ 
 nants of their miserable existence asdaneing-nuisters and music teach¬ 
 ers in countries where they were strangers and aliens. 
 
36 
 
 I, sir, have seen something ol' this in my own experience. I savr a ' 
 great institution which was more firmly intrenched in statutes and or¬ 
 ganic law than the manufacturers are in this tariff law In come an ob¬ 
 ject of popular uprising. 1 was among those, sir, who shared in the 
 attempt to resist it, and 1 saw that institution go down with all its vast 
 capital, with all ilie political privileges which it conferred, with all the 
 constitutional rights by which it was guaranteed, go down beneath (he 
 irreversible fiat of the American people. Sir, 1 warn the manufact¬ 
 urers of this country. The handwriting is upon the wall ol' this pro¬ 
 tect! vi system, and I trust they will have the intelligence to compre¬ 
 hend its import. 
 
 c