Columbia Sdmbersitp 
 
 tntbfaitpoflftoPork 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE SELIGMAN LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS 
 PURCHASED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 I929 
 
A Protective Tariff or Free Trade. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL, 
 
 OF VERMONT, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE SENATE OE THE UNITED STATES, 
 MAT 9, 1810. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 F. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY, 
 
 REPORTERS AND PRINTERS OF THE DEBATES OF CONGRESS. 
 
 1870. 
 
 I 
 
>Q\MCiyA* 
 
 / £?<5 4 
 
 
 
 
 1 i r tik f J :r' •.••• t : >: :« s ' r n 
 
 • • or • /. .h \u 
 
 ,Y-3JIAa ./ ' ia .(, ;l 
 
 : • • : ■: - ':-U 
 
A Protective Tariff or Free Trade, 
 
 Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. I now call up 
 tlie order of the day, which is the legislative, 
 executive, and judicial appropriation bill; and 
 it being up, I wish to have it laid aside inform¬ 
 ally. I have been desirous of addressing the 
 Senate for nearly a month, but have been un¬ 
 willing to interpose myself when more import¬ 
 ant business was being considered. I should 
 not even now ask the indulgence of the Senate 
 but for the fact that as soon as this bill is dis¬ 
 posed of I shall necessarily be absent for some 
 little time and shall not be here when the bill 
 reducing taxes will be under consideration. I 
 therefore ask that for the time being the bill 
 reported by the Committee on Finance for the 
 reduction of taxation be considered. 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator 
 from Vermont asks that the bill (S. No. 890) 
 to reduce taxation may be taken up for the 
 purpose, not of action at the present time, but 
 of allowing him to make remarks in regard to 
 the finances of the country. Is there objec¬ 
 tion? The Chair hears none, and that bill is 
 before the Senate. 
 
 Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. Mr. President, 
 owing to the policy of our present Administra¬ 
 tion we shall soon be able to part with all 
 direct taxation or all internal taxes, and the 
 only subject then that will remain for serious 
 consideration will be the subject of the tariff. 
 I propose to-day to consider that subject. 
 
 Mr. President, composed as the Republican 
 party now is, of Republicans proper, and of all 
 other Union men, ready at the outbreak of the 
 rebellion to band together, and to sink or swim 
 in battling for the preservation of the Govern¬ 
 ment, it is to be expected, although heretofore 
 united in creating a comparatively high tariff 
 as a war measure, that there might be some 
 contrariety of opinion, as the danger passes 
 away, about the proper gauge of duties, pro¬ 
 tection, or non-protection, which ought to mark 
 our public policy. 
 
 I propose to explore the ground upon which 
 the Republican party, the party of the Union, 
 stands on this question, and to see whether 
 there is necessarily any such antagonism as 
 should on principle now or hereafter divide the 
 votes of its members. 
 
 First, we have to consider a tariff for reve¬ 
 nue with discriminations for the protection of 
 American industry. Second, free trade abso¬ 
 lute. Third, a tariff for revenue solely, alias 
 “revenue reform,” and showing no more favor 
 to American interests than to those of Europe 
 or Africa, or of New Zealand, or of the Tycoon 
 of Japan. Practically the first is the extremest 
 point asked for by the advocates of protec¬ 
 tion. The second is what the antagonists of 
 the first proposition commend without mean¬ 
 ing to adopt, as they extol a beauty whom they 
 would by no means wed; and they studiously 
 conceal the fact that direct taxes on land, ex¬ 
 cises, and taxes on incomes tread on the heels 
 of free trade, and would become, if that were 
 to prevail, the only source of revenue. The 
 third proposition is what is really aimed at by 
 all the most decorous supporters of free trade 
 as well as by all those who indulge in the most 
 viperous denunciations of protection. All these 
 unite in general dogmatism, as they unite upon 
 a tariff which would throw upon our own peo- 
 le all its burdens, shorn of all compensating 
 enefits, or a tariff that would leave foreign 
 free-traders nothing to ask for, and everything 
 for our own people in the way of taxation to 
 lament. 
 
 Mr. President, the importance of the subject, 
 the difference of opinion among good men, and 
 nothing in my manner of treatment will justify 
 me in taxing the patience of the Senate to listen 
 to a speech, as it may be almost assumed that 
 every Senator would rather deliver his own 
 opinion in advance than to hear an argument 
 on this vexed and grave question of political 
 economy ; but as one of the Senators coming 
 
4 
 
 from an agricultural State I may at least claim 
 in its consideration credit for impartiality, and 
 I hope, also, for truthfulness and candor. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY 
 
 Some of the opponents of protection to Amer¬ 
 ican industry have occasionally ventured to deny 
 the power of Congress to levy duties for any 
 other object than revenue. Although this denial 
 flies in the face of the fact that the power has 
 been much more broadly exercised in all our 
 history, from the first Congress to the last, by the 
 early framers of our Government and all their 
 successors, by Federalists and Republicans, 
 Whigs and Democrats, still it may not be im¬ 
 proper to stop a moment to consider the ques¬ 
 tion of constitutional authority. It is not enough 
 to remember that one of the main reasons for 
 escaping from colonial bondage was that we 
 might foster and protect the trade and com¬ 
 merce of young America; but we must exam¬ 
 ine the work of their hands, and show that they 
 did not stultify themselves by placing restric¬ 
 tions in the Constitution which would prevent 
 them from offering either direct or incidental 
 encouragement and protection to agriculture or 
 manufactures or commerce. The second act of 
 the First Congress, passed on the 4th of July, 
 1789, has in its preamble this distinct avowal 
 of its purpose: “for the encouragement and 
 protection of manufactures,” which is an inter¬ 
 pretation of the Constitution made by its found¬ 
 ers, carried into effect at the earliest possible 
 moment, that no amount of ingenious caviling 
 can reverse or confound. 
 
 Free trade is a dogma of modern growth, 
 and among the early American statesmen was 
 unknown and without a champion. It had 
 then no foothold in the legislation or policy 
 of any civilized nation, living or dead, and it 
 would be absurd to claim that the revolution¬ 
 ists of 1776 incorporated into their Constitu¬ 
 tion a policy not then begun even in Great 
 Britain, for the policy of Sir Robert Peel had 
 no legislative birth until 18461 Free trade is 
 by no means an American invention; and were 
 we to adopt it now, to use the language of 
 Franklin, experience would soon “rap our 
 knuckles.” 
 
 Great Britain had so hampered our export 
 trade, that it was deemed important expressly 
 to provide that no tax or duty should be laid 
 on articles exported from any State. This was 
 done to enable every part of our country to 
 sell whatever they produced free of tax, and 
 to compel the Government to resort to duties 
 on imports for its support, and not to an export 
 duty bearing upon one portion of the country 
 and not another. The framers of the Consti¬ 
 tution well knew that taxing imports and let¬ 
 ting exports go free tends to place the balance 
 of trade on the right side and always in our 
 favor, unless the currency is deranged. But as 
 to duties on imports, there was no limitation, 
 except that ali duties, imposts, and excises 
 
 were to be “uniform throughout the United 
 States,” and this condition, that they should 
 be uniform, was to make them more efficient. 
 The separate States, like the German States in 
 recent times, surrendered their power over for¬ 
 eign trade, and for greater advantages and 
 protection established what may be called the 
 Zolverein. The power is granted in the fol¬ 
 lowing truly national and unlimited terms: 
 
 “ The Congress shall have power to lay and collect 
 taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts 
 and provide for the common defense and general 
 welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, 
 and excises shall be uniform throughout the United 
 States.” 
 
 And, again, full power is granted— 
 
 “ To regulate commerce with foreign nations and 
 among the several States and with the Indian 
 tribes.” 
 
 These provisions only need to be once read 
 to see that the power of Congress to levy duties 
 and to regulate commerce with foreign nations 
 is commensurate with all its obligations to our 
 own people, and entirely clear of any pretended 
 and impracticable restrictions which would 
 limit its operations to the sole idea of revenue. 
 The power is sovereign and to be exercised 
 solely at the discretion of the representatives 
 of the people. They are to judge what it is 
 expedient to do to pay the public debts, pro¬ 
 vide for the common defense and general 
 welfare. We can levy duties upon twenty 
 articles or a thousand, put them in the form of 
 specifics or ad valorems, and all articles at one 
 rate or a hundred different rates, only they 
 must be “uniform throughout the United 
 States.” Under this power we have estab¬ 
 lished au embargo, non-intercourse, counter¬ 
 vailing or retaliatory duties. We have pro¬ 
 tected our shipping interests by levying higher 
 duties upon merchandise coming in foreign 
 ships than in American, and also by higher 
 duties upon the indirect trade beyond the Cape 
 of Good Hope than the direct trade, and 
 further still by giving to our own vessels the 
 monopoly of the coasting trade. 
 
 The constitutional power of Congress in 
 arranging atariff of duties plainly and palpably 
 goes far beyond the mere power of securing 
 revenue. It is too late to deny the power of 
 protection, or that power which places higher 
 duties upon luxuries than upon the necessaries 
 of life. Of course practically we shall not 
 attempt to raise more revenue than may be 
 actually required for an economical support of 
 the Government, but within that limit no friend 
 of the American Constitution, it seems to me, 
 would expunge one of its most beneficent and 
 paternal features, or deny that we have the 
 power to make our own selection of the duti- 
 able articles, and to fix the rates, discriminat- 
 mg or not discriminating, as sound policy may 
 require. That policy may change, but the Con¬ 
 stitution will forever maintain the power of 
 protection. It is for Congress alone to judge 
 
5 
 
 what is expedient. Its power is imbedded in 
 the foundation stones of the Republic. 
 
 MONOPOLY OP COLONIAL TRADE. 
 
 The Old World in the seventeenth century 
 gratified its supremest pride in the establish¬ 
 ment and maintenance of the colonial system 
 in the New World, not for the purpose of con¬ 
 ferring benefits upon man socially, politically, 
 or even religiously, but with the paramount 
 design of monopolizing trade for the advantage 
 of the mother country. To this end they built 
 navies, made wars, exterminated the abori¬ 
 gines, and enslaved the African race. Spain, 
 England, France, Holland, and Portugul were 
 all equally nefarious and equally emulous 
 rivals in their ambition, greed, and brutality. 
 
 Spain wrought out its purpose by confining 
 the whole commerce of New Spain to the flota 
 and galleons which annually departed from 
 Seville or Cadiz to Vera Cruz or Carthagena, 
 where in a fair of forty days they contrived, by 
 fixing the prices of both what they sold and 
 bought, to sell dearly their own manufactures 
 and to buy cheaply the more valuable products 
 of the New World, especially the silver brought 
 to the fair by caravans of mules, which often 
 subsequently, while on board the plate fleet, 
 became the prize of the Tortuga buccaneers. 
 
 England reached a similar result by her navi¬ 
 gation laws, only repealed in 1849, which con¬ 
 fined the trade exclusively to British ships clad 
 with British sails and manned by British sea¬ 
 men. Her colonies were made dependent upon 
 the mother country for the whole of their sup¬ 
 plies, and in return could dispose of no more 
 of their own products than were called for by 
 the mother country, and at prices fixed without 
 competition with the demands of any other 
 portion of the world. The colonists might fell 
 forests, delve in mines, raise tobacco; but, said 
 even Lord Chatham— 
 
 “The British colonist’ in North America have no 
 right to manufacture so much as a nail for a horse¬ 
 shoe.” 
 
 All true Britons still argue in the same 
 groove, and with the same purpose, though 
 since 1847 they hide it under the name of free 
 trade, but they are all thoroughly persuaded 
 that any colony, or even the United States, 
 is guilty of superlative folly when they or we 
 undertake manufactures, while Britons could 
 do it so much more profitably if others were 
 only content to supply them meantime with 
 cheap bread, as they might, and be satisfied to 
 glut their own market and Great Britain’s too 
 with that very necessary article. But Lord 
 Sheffield went further than evenLord Chatham, 
 saying: 
 
 “The only use of American colonies, or the AVest 
 India islands, is the monopoly of their consumption 
 and the carriage of their produce.” 
 
 This is still the idea of English statesmen, 
 and some of their best thinkers are striving to 
 slip away from the expense involved in the 
 
 ownership and defense of colonies, and yet 
 retain by some undefined reciprocity of good¬ 
 will and citizenship, or by a dim protectorate, 
 the same monopoly of trade. 
 
 For instance, if the Canadas will only adhere 
 to monarchical institutions they may extem¬ 
 porize peerages and parliaments in any way 
 they please; and if they will not close the 
 door to British trade, they may at any time, 
 after a little “reluctant, amorous delay,” be 
 independent; not only so, but shali have a 
 treaty guarantee, should any such burly aggres¬ 
 sors as Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan become 
 belligerent, that the ancient mother will fly to 
 the rescue. 
 
 The American soil has not, however, proved 
 favorable to the perpetuity of colonies. Eu¬ 
 ropean nations, one after another, have had 
 their names erased from the western continent, 
 and if some tattered remains of feudal con¬ 
 quests still linger, the memory of former po¬ 
 litical and commercial vassalage commends 
 neither a close nor a perpetual alliance with 
 Powers which have so relentlessly sought to 
 squeeze wealth out of their poverty, it has 
 been judicially declared that to breathe the air 
 of England makes every man a freeman. How 
 long will the same air continue to make every 
 colonist a subject of British subjects? 
 
 A recent English writer, Viscount Bury, M. 
 P., is forced to declare that— 
 
 “At the commencement of the war of independ¬ 
 ence America could import nothing except in Eng¬ 
 lish ships; she could export nothing except to Eng¬ 
 land and Scotland; she could not even send hersurplus 
 goods to Ireland, nor could she import any commodi¬ 
 ties except from Great Britain.” 
 
 Must we be blamed for lack of faith in the 
 modern economical doctrines of a nation which 
 abandoned such a commercial tyranny as her 
 own writers now confess this to have been 
 only after a seven years’ war? Disinherited 
 of their conquests, it is no marvel that they 
 should seek compensation through the subtle¬ 
 ties and strategy of some free trade specula¬ 
 tion. If the former colonies would only adopt 
 this policy all that was most desired by impe¬ 
 rial rulers, by Lord North or his master, would 
 be accomplished, and that without cost. But 
 “ doth a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill 
 his belly with the east wind?” Let us wait and 
 see. 
 
 Formerly the colonies were treated as pre¬ 
 serves, where the game was kept for the priv¬ 
 ileged classes of the mother country. Then the 
 colonists were stripped of all they earned, but 
 were allowed a frugal support. Now the 
 mother country, grown more acute by her mis¬ 
 fortunes in war, wants the same preserves, 
 whether the former colonists can support them¬ 
 selves or not. 
 
 Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of 
 Nations, printed his work at the commence¬ 
 ment of the year 1776, while the American colo¬ 
 nies were sternly refusing to contribute reve- 
 
6 
 
 nue to the support of the Government of Great 
 Britain, wherein they were not represented, and 
 the last words of that renowned work were as 
 follows: 
 
 “If any of the provinces of the British empire can¬ 
 not be made to contribute towards the support of the 
 whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain 
 should free herself from the expense of defending 
 those provinces in time of war, and of supporting 
 any part of their civil or military establishments in 
 time of peace, and endeavor to accommodate her 
 future views and designs to the real mediocrity of 
 her circumstances.” 
 
 The stinging reproach at the end of these 
 last words was intended to shame the British 
 nation into a more energetic attitude. The 
 great free-trader insisted that the colonies 
 should not have free trade, but must pay or 
 fight. The colonies must be made to con¬ 
 tribute or Great Britain must resign itself to 
 mediocrity. This shows not only that the 
 questions of 1776 survive to the present day, 
 but that the only policy which dictates the 
 rule of colonial establishments was and is 
 that of tribute, either in the direct form of 
 taxes or monopolies of trade. When these 
 cease, motherly affection vanishes, and the 
 idea of separation is debated without a pang. 
 What are moderate tariffs, compared with the 
 protection to manufactures, which has been 
 lavished and is still lavished in expenditures 
 for the maintenance and defense of colonial 
 markets ? The expenditures in India are annu¬ 
 ally from eight to twelve million dollars in 
 excess of the revenue ; but Great Britain has 
 free trade there, and her school of practice, like 
 the dissecting-rooms for students of surgery, 
 for her Clive, Hastings, and Wellington! Aus¬ 
 tralia and New Zealand, the West Indies and 
 Ceylon, Africa and the Canadas, Labrador and 
 the Cape of Good Hope, Columbia and one 
 hundred and fifty million of the rice-fed race of 
 India, are all made to minister to the power of 
 Great Britain, to maintain and retain at home, 
 though in the lowliest condition, eight to ten 
 millions more of people than it would be possible 
 to maintain but for the constrained assistance 
 of these millions of inferior foreign people who 
 are subjugated and emaciated by British free 
 trade. The protection given to British manu¬ 
 factures is measured by the cost of the motto, 
 
 ‘ 1 Britannia rules the waves, ” or of the perpetual 
 drum beat around the globe to guard these 
 colonial markets, and is dearer than any ever 
 dreamed of in any American tariff 1 . 
 
 IRELAND THEN AND NOW. 
 
 Before the union of Ireland with England 
 Irish manufactures were protected. Since then 
 protection from time to time has been removed. 
 Ireland formerly abounded in linen and carpet 
 manufactures. They wove silk, printed cali¬ 
 cos, combed wool, and the people were pros¬ 
 perous. Ever since the act of union Ireland 
 has had forced, upon her free trade with 
 and the competition of her richer and more 
 
 skilled neighbors, the English and the Scotch ; 
 and what is the result ? Irish manufactures 
 are extinguished, and Ireland, the emerald 
 gem of the ocean, is a national pauper. Its 
 land, once occupied by its owners, is now only 
 occupied by tenants. Beeves, sheep, and grain 
 are abundant, but they are shipped to England, 
 while the native-born Irish are too poor to 
 help themselves to anything but potatoes, riots, 
 rows, and revenge. This example of free trade 
 at the very doors of England I commend to 
 the study of all true Americans, and especially 
 of Irish Americans. 
 
 It is clear that our revenue must be raised 
 either by duties upon foreign importations or 
 by some system of internal and direct taxa¬ 
 tion. Internal taxes are very efficient when 
 briefly resorted to in an overwhelming emer¬ 
 gency; but for ordinary service our late expe¬ 
 rience of their onerous character will not be 
 likely to lead to their permanent retention; 
 and whenever the revenue can be safely relin¬ 
 quished the major part of such taxes will be 
 quickly abandoned. There is, then, no prob¬ 
 ability that duties upon imports as a perma¬ 
 nent source of revenue will soon be dropped. 
 Internal or direct taxes must first become 
 obsolete. The only questions remaining are 
 whether the tariff at the present time is a 
 source adequate to our wants or not, and 
 whether it shall be so husbanded as to retain 
 if not to enlarge the number of people now 
 employed in mechanical and manufacturing 
 pursuits, or otherwise. A tariff for revenue 
 alone is one that disregards all the interests of 
 labor and all investments of American capital. 
 It merely takes care of the Government, and 
 ignores the general welfare. A tariff for pro¬ 
 tection is one that levies duties upon articles 
 which to some extent are or can be produced 
 at home, and which it is desirable in larger 
 measure to have produced at home. Home 
 labor is thus protected and encouraged. A 
 tariff for protection as well as revenue makes 
 a discrimination in favor of our own people 
 against all strangers, and sometimes imposes 
 a higher rate, although securing no more rev¬ 
 enue than a lower one, because it may be 
 necessary to shield some young and struggling 
 industry from the merciless competition of the 
 world at large. Our annual importations of 
 dutiable foreign merchandise cannot be ex¬ 
 pected to go much beyond $400,000,000. Last 
 year, stimulated by a large export of bonds, 
 they were $416,718,994; and the amount of 
 revenue indispensable from the tariff is $150,- 
 000,000 to $160,000,000. It is thus apparent 
 that the average rate of duties must be not 
 less than 37£ to 40 per cent, in order to secure 
 even the lowest amount of revenue required. 
 Ihis opens a field wide enough for protection, 
 and discloses the grave of free trade. The 
 present average rate of duty upon importa¬ 
 tions is less than 42 per cent. This presents a 
 
7 
 
 narrow field of battle for the conflict of opin¬ 
 ions. Duties removed in one place must be 
 added in some other. The common sense of 
 our peoplh will only demand that we adjust the 
 tariff wisely, yielding nothing to mere class self¬ 
 ishness, but everything to the general welfare. 
 
 For some years to come the demands upon 
 the Treasury will be of such magnitude as to 
 require a large sum to be raised from duties 
 upon foreign merchandise. These duties have 
 been solemnly pledged for the payment of the 
 interest and principal of the public debt. Low 
 duties will not raise the requisite amount of 
 revenue, and these must remain at much higher 
 rates than would be necessary if protection 
 were the only object, or if only one half the 
 sum was required. And our experience now, 
 after trying the experiment, shows that every 
 increase of the tariff has brought an increased 
 revenue. The question comes up, can we with 
 propriety avail ourselves of the opportunity 
 forced upon us in raising this revenue to con¬ 
 tinue or to make some proper discriminations 
 in favor of our own people as against outside 
 nations? There is ample room to do this and 
 still keep far within the boundaries of prohibi¬ 
 tion, which may be called absolute protection. 
 If we have any duties that are practically pro¬ 
 hibitory, then let them be diminished. All pro¬ 
 tection, and no revenue, is neither demanded 
 by our circumstances nor by any portion of our 
 people. Nothing more is wanted than a chance 
 for fair competition. Let us give manufactures 
 a reasonable hope for prosperity, but no power 
 to become our masters. 
 
 PROTECTION MOST NEEDED SOUTH AND WEST. 
 
 There are many establishments started in 
 the West, and, since the close of the war, in 
 the South, in consequence of our war tariff. 
 To cut down the tariff largely at once, beyond 
 the unquestionable fact that the revenue can¬ 
 not be spared, would be to strangle in the 
 cradle these new and extensive enterprises 
 which our policy has invited. Such a course 
 would be even more unjust to the men thus 
 employed than to their employers. 
 
 The data for any statement as to the aston¬ 
 ishing development of manufactures in the 
 West and South are not obtainable; but last 
 August an exhibition of textile fabrics was 
 held at Cincinnati, representing one hundred 
 and fifty-five exhibitors from twenty States by 
 over three thousand samples of piece goods. 
 A more extensive exhibition even might have 
 been made in other departments of manufac¬ 
 tures. 
 
 Let us not rudely crush out the many thou¬ 
 sands of hopeful enterprises but just started 
 where they are as much needed as educators 
 of the people as auxiliaries of their material 
 prosperity. 
 
 The action of the States of Maine and Ver¬ 
 mont—neither of them especially manufac¬ 
 
 turing States—shows that in the judgment of 
 their respective Legislatures the encourage¬ 
 ment given to the manufacturing interests of 
 the country has not been too great, for both of 
 these States have offered and now offer, beyond 
 the protection found in the tariff, additional 
 inducements to all that may be established 
 within their limits. Maine, by statute of 
 March 8, 1864, enacts that all manufactures 
 thereafter commenced shall be exempt from 
 taxation for ten years, provided the towns in 
 which they are located consent to the same. 
 Vermont, by statute of November 21, 1867, 
 has the same provision for five years. These 
 States thus invite manufactures because they 
 know the advantages which would accrue to 
 their people. If such statutes are wise in 
 Maine and Vermont, why not in South Caro¬ 
 lina and Alabama? Other States through 
 manufactures have largely increased their 
 wealth and population, and Vermont and 
 Maine feel very much as did Themistocles 
 when he declared “ that the trophies of Milti- 
 ades would not allow him to sleep.” 
 
 The leaders of public opinion in the South 
 have heretofore persistently denounced all 
 those engaged in manufacture^ and all who 
 gave them any countenance. They had a class 
 of laborers without wages which it was neither 
 useful nor safe to advance or to protect. All 
 this is now changed. It is obvious that pro¬ 
 tection by diversifying the industry will add 
 immensely to the wealth of the southern 
 States. Self-interest will soon triumph over 
 passion, and chronic prejudices will pass away. 
 Capital will instinctively go where it is wanted 
 and safe to go, and it has no invincible repug¬ 
 nance to migrating in a direction where it 
 may find some assurance of hospitality. If 
 unjustly persecuted, it silently folds its tents 
 and departs to lands of greater promise, to 
 establish new emporiums of manufactures and 
 trade where the surroundings are tolerant and 
 congenial. The South, we may take it for 
 granted, will not long consent to sacrifice its 
 present vital interests to past theories of which 
 slavery was so long the conspicuous prop, and 
 which were ingulfed at the same moment 
 when that prop was knocked asunder. 
 
 BRITISH FREE TRADE UNPROFITABLE. 
 
 I shall make no apology for frequent refer¬ 
 ence in the course of what I have to say to 
 facts touching the history of Great Britain, for, 
 singularly enough, the patrons of free trade 
 embroider all their arguments with illustrations 
 from this source, or from the journal of a 
 nation which reached its highest point of pros¬ 
 perity and power under the rigid enforcement 
 of the principle of protection, and which cer¬ 
 tainly has not increased the prosperity of its 
 people nor added anything to its relative power 
 among nations by the adoption of later theories. 
 
 It is frequently urged that if the policy of 
 
8 
 
 free trade and direct taxation should be adopted 
 it would diminish (he expenditures of the Gov¬ 
 ernment, on the ground that taxes indirectly 
 collected are more lavishly used. Great Brit¬ 
 ain is an example coming the nearest to free 
 trade of any civilized nation, and not unfit to 
 show whether this argument is or isnot founded 
 upon any facts. The revenue of Great Brit¬ 
 ain in 1846 was £53,050,353; expenditures, 
 £49,232,713. But the expenditures of 1869 
 had increased to £75,497,816, and the revenue 
 was only £72,591,991. This shows the mar¬ 
 velous increase of expenditures since the free- 
 trade policv was adopted of over 50 per cent., 
 or £26,265" 103, or about $125,000,000, while 
 the increase of population was exceedingly 
 small and disproportionate. This fact suffi¬ 
 ciently illustrates the vaunted economy of free 
 trade, but it is not the whole of the lesson 
 taught. The debt of Great Britain is larger 
 than that of the United States, and the interest 
 and charges paid on this account last year 
 were £26,018,323, or, reckoning $5 to the 
 pound sterling, $133,091,615, being more than 
 that paid by the United States. To sustain 
 her public credit the annual income of Great 
 Britain shouTd not fall below her annual ex¬ 
 penditure. In 1846, the last year of protection, 
 it did not, as there was then an excess of 
 £3,817,640, but in 1868-69 there was a defi¬ 
 ciency of £2,905,825. This shows a balance 
 of about $19,000,000 on the right side under 
 protection, and a balance of $14,000,000 on 
 the wrong side under free trade. 
 
 This is by no means all that must be charged 
 to the account of free trade. Long years of 
 protection to agriculture had doubled the pro¬ 
 ducts of the land—that preeminence is still 
 maintained ; but even this increased yield has 
 not proved equal to the strain of free trade. 
 Other nations are snatching from her every 
 unprotected article, every undefended outpost; 
 and the trade of Great Britain, though very 
 large, yields no contentment to the working 
 class, and very little profit to the capital in¬ 
 vested. Pauperism increases much more rap¬ 
 idly than population. In the last ten years 
 indoor paupers, wholly supported, increased 
 23j 7 0 6 ff per cent.; the outdoor paupers (assisted) 
 increased per cent. The expenditures on 
 account of paupers increased 34 I 8 0 9 S per cent. 
 In London during the same time the paupers 
 increased from 68,826 to 144,469, or 110 per 
 cent. These facts are undeniable and suffi¬ 
 ciently impressive, but there is one more that 
 should not be omitted. The increase of luna¬ 
 tics in the same period has been 45 per cent. 
 For only the last ten years that would seem to 
 be enough. These are the fruits of free trade 
 in Great Britain, where that theory might be 
 expected to succeed, if anywhere; but even 
 there, in view of these facts, it is a painful 
 and humiliating failure. 
 
 Is not the fact that the increase of wealth 
 
 from 1851 to 1861 in England was only 37 per 
 cent., while that of the United States from 
 1850 to 1860 was 126 per cent., a thorn in the 
 side of English free trade? 
 
 There is still another item in this deplorable 
 account. Almost in proportion to the poverty 
 and misery of any people will be found their 
 excessive use of intoxicating liquors. Of these 
 there were consumed in Great Britain, in the 
 past year, enough to float the Royal Navy, and 
 at a cost of £89,000,500, or nearly $450,000,000. 
 How much of this was used to drown the misery 
 of free trade in merry old England who can 
 tell? Finally, there is no other nation which 
 provides on a vast scale, publicly and privately, 
 the means for her people to emigrate from their 
 homes. In 1868 the Government of Great Brit¬ 
 ain chartered ten ships to send off population 
 no longer wanted at home; but these ships were 
 equal, it will be seen, to only a fraction of the 
 immense business, for 196,325 of her people 
 departed from her shores never to return: 
 enough to load 400 ships, or more than one huge 
 steamer for every day in the year, and enough 
 to people a respectable State in our Republic! 
 And these were not confined to their Irish 
 subjects, whose departure they have ceased to 
 deplore; but the Scotch and English went in even 
 larger numbers. They did not stand upon the 
 order of their going, but went by ship-loads, on 
 deck or in the hold, and by thousands. 
 
 Need I give any more facts—and I derive 
 them all from British authority—to show up 
 the infelicities of free trade ? Can any one after 
 this expose want the American people to copy 
 this far-fetched, ill-starred experiment? 
 
 Contrast our own position with that where 
 free trade is supposed to culminate in its highest 
 perfection, which we have just been consider¬ 
 ing. Our national revenue is abundant and 
 the public debt is being rapidly diminished. 
 Free schools are maintained, and the ratio of 
 pauperism is less than that of any other people. 
 At the same time the cost of intoxicating liquors 
 consumed is only a little more than one fourth 
 part of the amount consumed in Great Britain. 
 Our country is the one toward which the eyes 
 of the world are turned. It is the magnet 
 which attracts emigration from all Europe and 
 parts of Asia. In Germany men know that 
 they can earn in the United States much more 
 than from 16^ to 24 cents a day, and women 
 believe that they can here earn much more 
 than from 8^ to 14f^ cents per day. These 
 are the rates they now receive. They know, 
 what is the fact, that our country is the one 
 before all others where the poor can get rich. 
 
 At a public meeting in Toronto,* Canada, 
 (March 25th,) it was stated by Mr. John Gor¬ 
 don that “England, with her free-trade policy, 
 had at the present time 1,500,000 able-bodied 
 
 *This meeting was called by free traders, but a 
 largo majority turned out iu favor of passing a reso¬ 
 lution for protection. 
 
9 
 
 men out of employment and 1,000,000 of pau¬ 
 pers.” With us there is plenty of work, and 
 to find willing hands is our greatest difficulty. 
 
 The American policy is boldly to invite for¬ 
 eigners, of whatever race or language, to reside 
 with us, labor with us, and become naturalized 
 citizens if they choose. While obeying our 
 laws, even resident aliens may travel all the 
 avenues of industry which are open to our own 
 citizens. We only say by our tariff laws that 
 they shall not do so except at the price of be¬ 
 coming residents. By this course we are not 
 only willing but hope to invite foreign enter¬ 
 prise, capital, and skill as a perpetual reen¬ 
 forcement to American industry and thrift. 
 
 The blood, boue, and sinew of the Old World 
 are coming to our shores mainly from the fact 
 that here labor commands respect and enjoys 
 peculiar favor. It is protected. There have 
 been landed, according to Commissioner Wells, 
 852,509 immigrants within the past year. By 
 the encouragement of manufactures we en¬ 
 courage skilled artisans, men of brains, with 
 more or less technical culture in their heads 
 and capital in their pockets, to immigrate in¬ 
 stead of those who come in the uniform of the 
 work-house, only to dig ditches or to crowd the 
 slums of cities. If the last must come let us 
 induce a reenforcement from the better classes 
 also to come. If we have room for one class 
 let us make room for all—for agriculturists, 
 artificers, merchants, and professional men. 
 Less than twenty-five per cent of all the lands 
 in the southern States have ever been rent by 
 the plow. For the coming generation the 
 profits from the products of these States must 
 eclipse all others. The young giant States of 
 the West also, with their almost illimitable 
 expanse, need only to circumscribe their swine 
 fields to make way for the half of Europe. 
 Here is cheap bread and cheap coal, and here 
 in due time will manufactures find their chosen 
 seat. 
 
 Free trade would make us not only to bear 
 our own calamities, but those of all other na¬ 
 tions. When any disaster befalls a nation, so 
 that it becomes unable to consume its own pro¬ 
 ducts, and they fall in price below the cost of 
 production, free trade opens the doors for their 
 introduction elsewhere, but at the same time 
 throws out of employment and brings ruin upon 
 those who might otherwise have enjoyed a.n 
 undisturbed prosperity. 
 
 Protection regulates trade. Where that ex¬ 
 ists only partially, as in England, and the cur¬ 
 rent of trade begins to flow adversely, the only 
 remedy seems to be to apply the torture of 
 bank contraction and to put up the rate of 
 interest until merchants can no longer obtain 
 credit on terms which permit them to import 
 foreign merchandise, or until prices of domes¬ 
 tic products are so much depressed that they 
 are worth less at home than anywhere else, and 
 therefore may be profitably exported. 
 
 Free trade grinds out its products by grind¬ 
 ing down wages. That is its first and foremost 
 mission. The lowest paid and worst fed work¬ 
 men must beat down all others and command, 
 though in an agony of sweat, the markets of 
 the world. Free trade enters into bonds from 
 the start to work for a smaller reward than all 
 the rest of the world, not excluding even the 
 breech-clothed and rice-fed Asiatics. Free 
 trade demands that the Irishman after he lands 
 here and votes the free-trade ticket shall not 
 be any better fed, clad, or housed than he was 
 in the land to which he so lately and sadly bid 
 farewell forever. When our railroads are fin¬ 
 ished, and immigrants from the Emerald Isle 
 lay down the shovel and the hoe for some other 
 avocation, our free-trade merchant princes will 
 give no more for fabrics made in America than 
 for fabrics made in Ireland. Is that the feast 
 to which our Irish fellow-citizens thought they 
 were invited? Free trade assumes that the 
 German shall not gain upon the wages which 
 doomed him to perpetual poverty in his father- 
 land and sent him to bed supperless every 
 rainy day. It assumes that all labor shall be 
 flung into one world-wide arena to contend 
 with the most wretched aud sorriest races on 
 the globe. 
 
 Wages should be high enough to induce men, 
 not cattle, to work well and regularly. Such 
 wages offer at all points a better support, and 
 workmen perform more and better labor in 
 consequence. I would not have men avoid 
 and shirk honest labor. Those who cannot or 
 will not work are, of all men, most miserable. 
 They are useless and superannuated, tormented 
 with disease and helplessness before their time. 
 But for all those who do work I would secure 
 the most ample and certain rewards. It should 
 be so liberal as to afford attraction to brains 
 as well as to stomachs. 
 
 Our form of government, our whole frame¬ 
 work of society and education, leads us from 
 inclination as well as necessity to treat work¬ 
 ingmen as men, and therefore we must shield 
 them from being reduced to the level of the 
 most unfortunate and abject of the human 
 species, or to the level of those anywhere to be 
 found, willing to remain forever, they and their 
 children, in the lowest rank of ignorance and 
 degradation. When laborers are treated as 
 men there must be protection against those 
 treated little better than slaves and serfs. 
 
 PRACTICE WISER THAX ABSTRACT THEORIES. 
 
 Political economy is promulgated as an ab¬ 
 stract science, and those who teach it seem to 
 expect their listeners will exhibit what Sidney 
 Smith called “a dropping-down deadness” 
 while in their presence ; but it is quite evident 
 that scientific men in different ages cannot be 
 in exact harmony as to what that science 
 teaches. Reasoning upou the inductive system 
 of facts, a new science might be brought forth 
 
10 
 
 in every age and every nation. Every age in 
 knowledge and skill differs from the past, and 
 every nation in its habits and traditions from 
 every other, and each from year to year with 
 itself, as in peace or war, abundance or famine. 
 Harmony can only follow the assumption of 
 the gigantic fiction that all the facts and con¬ 
 ditions of every age and of every people are 
 immutable and eternal. It is claimed that the 
 doctrine of free trade is scientific, and it is 
 funny to see the airs which smart people put 
 on when they think they are standing in the 
 reflected glory of science. They feel that they 
 are philosophers of some sort because they 
 despise the want of discernment on the part of 
 the common herd, whom they look down upon 
 from their eminence, and they know they can 
 be profound in abuse and earnest in violent 
 denunciations, as there they are acknowledged 
 experts. Free trade has never been anywhere 
 at any time more than a theory. The absolute 
 application of the doctrine among civilized 
 nations has never been witnessed, although it 
 holds an unchallenged empire in nearly all of 
 our colleges and in most of the leading news¬ 
 papers of commercial cities; and practically 
 nowhere else, except in the wig warns of savages. 
 For a hundred years some writers of great 
 industry and vigor have built up massive repu¬ 
 tations by works on free trade; but no nation 
 has built up itself on any other doctrine than 
 that of protection, whether avowed or dis¬ 
 avowed. No nation dares venture upon try¬ 
 ing the experiment of absolute free trade, and 
 hence its followers may hold up their heads 
 until it comes to grief by an actual trial. 
 Teachers remain self-deceived because they 
 never have been, and perhaps never will be, 
 subjected to the rude test of actual experiment. 
 The commercial press cannot afford to look 
 out upon the whole country, for whose rural 
 labors, manners, and opinions it has equal 
 contempt, because all of its profits from adver¬ 
 tisements are bounded by city limits. They 
 will not cut their own throats by doctrines 
 which find no sympathy in the foreign trade 
 from which their income is so largely derived. 
 Students must cling to the doctrine they have 
 been taught, or be content to abandon all the 
 so-called learning they possess ou the subject of 
 political economy, unless perchance they are 
 called into public life, where they are compelled 
 to examine the interests of the future as well 
 as of the present, of all parts and all classes 
 of their country, or unless they become en¬ 
 gaged in productive business; and then, if par¬ 
 tisan ties do not constrain them into an adher¬ 
 ence to their collegiate idols, they are soon 
 compelled to break their graven images of 
 tree trade and study a new gospel according to 
 the practical experience of the civilized world. 
 
 The cloistered sophists of our colleges and 
 schools and the peddling propagandists of free 
 trade, like-the cock who, as it has been said, 
 
 thinks “the sun rises on purpose to hear him 
 crow,” are doubtless as learned as the sophists 
 of old or as the loudest of feathered bipeds, 
 and, on this subject, practically as useless. 
 These free-trade channels of instruction need 
 to be Americanized, as they are now foreign 
 to our sentiments, hostile to our prosperity, 
 subversive of scientific truth, and dangerous 
 to independence of thought and reasoning. 
 Carey’s Social Science illustrates the prov¬ 
 erb that “a prophet is not without honor 
 save in his own country and in his own house.” 
 It is profoundly to be regretted that our ablest 
 and best teachers should have so little intel¬ 
 lectual independence as to accept, generation 
 after generation, with perpetual mental sloven¬ 
 liness, the text-books of Europe, or tame Amer¬ 
 ican copies, on a subject of such vital import¬ 
 ance to our country; but it argues well for the 
 robust, intelligence of the vast majority of our 
 people that such teachers, felt only as brakes 
 that occasionally retard our career, have borne 
 so little sway in conducting national affairs. 
 Whenever any one of these teachers has the 
 responsibility devolved upon him of dealing 
 ractically with these great national questions 
 e finds what he had vainly supposed were 
 cardinal truths only the melody of a dimly- 
 remembered fiction, and what seemed so lum¬ 
 inous in theory while being expounded by some 
 fluent professor after all groundless, without 
 home or country, and only applicable to the 
 mythical Arcadias and Utopias of romance. 
 
 CATCH-WORDS. 
 
 The school of free trade rely upon catch¬ 
 words, and of these among the most potent 
 havebeen, “Buy whereyou can buy cheapest,” 
 which doubtless have bewitched large numbers 
 of well-meaning people ; but followed up this 
 bat-eyed advice means, “ Sell whereyou must 
 sell cheapest;” and for a large portion of the 
 world it means, ‘ ‘ Buy not at all, ” or that poverty 
 which is incapable of buying anywhere. 
 
 There may have been times when the world 
 has been governed by words ; but to-day it is 
 more wont to be governed by ideas. Free men, 
 free soil, free speech, free schools, free trade, 
 form a happy alliteration; but the doctrine 
 enveloped in the huskot free trade is so hostile 
 to the general drift of all the rest of these po¬ 
 tential watch-words that a similarity of sound 
 will never impose its ill-fraught substance upon 
 an age and people like our own, eminently prac¬ 
 tical and eminently devoted to the material 
 growth and manly culture of a new world. 
 
 SELFISHNESS OF FREE TRADE. 
 
 No nation preaches free trade or sends out 
 missionaries lor the conversion of the “ al¬ 
 mighty dollar” but England, and she practices 
 it only in certain directions, as may be seen 
 in many of her legislative acts. Her agricul¬ 
 ture has been litced to surprising perfection 
 by encouragement of manufactures, but her 
 
11 
 
 colossal colonial system was built up and is 
 now maintaiued solely for the protection ofher 
 manufactures. That colonial system has now 
 no element of imperial strength. It accepts 
 free trade only from compulsion. Millions of 
 inferior people are made tributary to the lim¬ 
 ited population represented in the British Par¬ 
 liament. They subsidize great lines of steam¬ 
 ships to America, to the Mediterranean, and 
 to India for the protection of their trade. The 
 owners of the ships avow that to them it is 
 indispensable, and the nation endures the tax 
 because cheap raw materials must be sought as 
 well as markets for their manufactures. Great 
 Britain manufactures for the world, and not 
 merely for her own consumption. She must 
 have what she calls free trade to compass her 
 ends, at whatever cost or misery to her own 
 people or any others. She asks other nations 
 to adopt her example and make free whatever 
 she makes free. She does not make sugar 
 and tobacco free, because she has none to sell; 
 but whatever she has to sell her profoundest 
 moral convictions assure her that other nations 
 must refrain from taxing, and she believes it 
 a fatal mistake for them to come in conflict 
 with her policy. If, however, free trade is 
 really so beneficial, why is it that Great Brit¬ 
 ain is so discontented with her apparent mo- 
 noply of the theory? Can it be pure philan¬ 
 thropy that makes her statesmen and philos¬ 
 ophers so eager to have others share its bless¬ 
 ings? Their fanatical laudation of free trade 
 wears a sinister look. As has been observed of 
 women who get a bad husband, “ they turn 
 round and praise him, as if they wanted to 
 sell him.” 
 
 For such a name as that of Cobden and for 
 such a man as Bright I cherish a profound ad¬ 
 miration. They illustrate the mighty force of 
 earnestness and persistency when directed by 
 only even one or two strong men. But I can¬ 
 not forget, when they are quoted on this sub¬ 
 ject as authorities, that both were cotton 
 manufacturers—the latter still being one of the 
 largest—nor that their life-labor has been to 
 promote the prosperity of British manufactures, 
 on which hangs the immense commerce of 
 Great Britain, compared with which that of 
 ancient Venice, Tyre, and Carthage all com¬ 
 bined was but as a retail trade. As statesmen 
 these honored names have never been found 
 in hostility to the profits of the trade to which 
 they were bred. From the same interested 
 point of view the conversion of Sir Robert Peel 
 to free trade may be more easily explained. 
 Cobden signalized his career as a peace man, 
 as does Mr. Bright, doubtless on principle, 
 but also in entire harmony with their business 
 interests. Hence they opposed every war in 
 which their country embarked, and denounced 
 most of the wars of the past. Wars contrib¬ 
 uted nothing to the prosperity of the cotton 
 trade. I do not say these eminent men advised 
 
 their countrymen wrongly; but* is it not evi¬ 
 dent thattheir advice never seems to have been 
 at war with their private interests? 
 
 But it is urged that free trade is based upon 
 an invariable, undying, and universal princi¬ 
 ple. That must be denied, for it must be con¬ 
 ceded by all that what might be sound policy 
 for Great Britain in the year of our Lord 1870 
 would not have been so in 1770, or even in 
 1840. That country ripened into free trade by 
 the growth of many summers, even centuries, 
 of protection. This growth has not been en¬ 
 tirely beneficial, because land and capital has 
 been monopolized by a few aristocratic hands, 
 debarring all protection to labor; but free trade 
 is the ultimate goal of protection ; or, in other 
 words, it tends to cheapen commodities so that 
 protection becomes as superfluous as a steam- 
 engine on a down grade, and is no longer 
 needed. 
 
 The repeal of the corn laws by Great Britain, 
 in 1847, was in fact one of the largest measures 
 of protection to British manufactures ever 
 achieved. It was a victory of cheap bread, 
 won by workingmen and manufacturers, by 
 Cobden and Bright, over hereditary land-own¬ 
 ers, and without which any increase of English 
 operatives or extension of British manufac¬ 
 tures had become impossible. Famine prices 
 for corn could not be kept up and continue the 
 manufacture of cheap iron and cheap cloth. 
 Bread had to be cheapened, or the laboring 
 men must have emigrated or starved. 
 
 PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS. 
 
 Let me for a moment examine the selfish 
 view of the question, and consider the interests 
 of the individual apart from the interests of 
 the whole people, if that be possible. 
 
 If the farmer buys more than he sells, then 
 his interest may seem to justify him in being a 
 free trader ; but if he produces more than he 
 consumes, then he should be a protectionist. 
 Every seller is interested in having prices 
 dear ; but if all sell the same article they are 
 all competitors, and all must sell cheaply or not 
 sell at all. The theory of free trade assumes 
 that there are more consumers than producers ; 
 but this absurdity is only proven by adding both 
 classes together as consumers. If that were 
 true the world would grow poorer year by 
 year ; but directly the contrary is the fact. A 
 certain amount is annually added to the wealth 
 of the country by the excess of production 
 over consumption. The doctrine of protection 
 teaches that any civilized country is rich in pro- 
 ortion as it produces everything it wants at 
 ome, sending abroad only whatever is pro¬ 
 duced at the most profit; but free trade insists 
 that such a country is poor unless it can go 
 abroad for everything it wants, exchanging 
 therefor even what it produces without profit. 
 
 Persons living upon salaries and having 
 nothing to sell may fancy that their personal 
 
12 
 
 interests lie in the direction of free trade ; but 
 they should not forget that their salaries are 
 graduated upon the average profits of the 
 whole people, and if they should be reduced 
 a reduction of salaries must soon follow. 
 
 A FALLACY EXPOSED. 
 
 There is one fallacy which rises like an 
 Alpine peak so much above all others that it 
 deserves to be exposed, and that is the aver¬ 
 ment that a duty upon an imported article 
 adds the same amount to the price of all sim¬ 
 ilar articles produced at home; or, if we charge 
 40 per cent, on three hundred million dollars 
 of imports, we are in return charged 40 per 
 cent, by home producers on about six thousand 
 million dollars of home products, amounting 
 to twenty-four hundred million dollars actually 
 paid in order to get only one hundred and 
 twenty million dollars of revenue into the 
 Treasury! Such a wind-bag statement hardly 
 needs to be punctured, and yet it is constantly 
 paraded by free traders. We imported 78,792 
 bushels of Indian corn in 1869, upon which 
 a duty of 10 cents a bushel was paid, and 
 the argument would be that we raised the 
 price of the 830,451,707* bushels produced 
 in the United States 10 cents per bushel; 
 but the fact is that the importation of the 
 corn, if it had any effect, reduced the price of 
 the American corn, and the foreign producers 
 had to accept the market price here, less the 
 duties, which wholly fell upon the foreigner. 
 This result manifestly follows in many cases 
 with other importations. 
 
 When any country is dependent upon some 
 other for a market for any of its products 
 whatever duties are there levied fall mainly 
 upon the producers, and prices are not greatly 
 enhanced where such products are consumed. 
 If we were not among the largest purchasers 
 of fruits, Greece could not find a market for 
 her dried currants nor Spain for her raisins ; 
 and therefore, with high duties, some consid¬ 
 erable share falls upon the producers abroad, 
 or they do not realize so much as they would 
 if the duties were low or if currants and raisins 
 were admitted free. It is the same with sugar 
 from Cuba and teas from China and Japan. 
 Prices depend upon the extent of the demand. 
 If Great Britain cannot find elsewhere a mar¬ 
 ket of equal value for the products annually 
 sent to the United States or to the extent of 
 $125,000,000 it is plain she must reduce her 
 prices to retain our market, and it is a matter 
 of grave interest to her whether our duties are 
 high or low, for when these are reduced she can 
 advance home prices. But it is unnecessary 
 to demolish a falsehood so big that it crushes 
 its authors with its own weight. 
 
 MANUFACTURES INCREASE THE PROFITS OF AGRI¬ 
 CULTURE. 
 
 I have no wish to make our country a manu¬ 
 al’he produot of 1859. 
 
 facturing country exclusively if it were possi¬ 
 ble, as happily it is not. I would prefer that 
 the great bulk of our population should find 
 employment on their own land in the rural dis¬ 
 tricts, where the conditions are most favorable 
 to intelligence coupled with virtue, and where 
 the destinies of a free Government may be most 
 safely confided. But this population should 
 have the highest measure of prosperity possi¬ 
 ble. Labor and thrift should have more sub¬ 
 stantial inducements than the unreliable profits 
 of unknown foreign markets, and this can be 
 obtained only by stimulating manufactures until 
 they shall have furnished a liberal home mar¬ 
 ket for the food and raw materials produced 
 on our own soil. This once established never 
 fails, but a foreign market is always precarious. 
 American wheat finds no market abroad unless 
 offered cheaper than any other, from whatever 
 quarter of the world it may come. Its sale can 
 now or hereafter only be increased abroad by 
 diminishing its price at home. American cot¬ 
 ton is not sought until its quality or its price 
 pushes aside the cotton of Egypt and of India. 
 Even a fourth part of this crop, possibly now a 
 third, manufactured at home, has unques¬ 
 tionably raised and will continue to raise the 
 value of the whole crop from one fourth to a 
 third above what it would be if the whole had 
 to find a market at Liverpool. The cotton crop 
 of the world is to-day about as large as be¬ 
 fore the late rebellion, but England no longer 
 monopolizes its manufacture. Other nations 
 on the continent of Europe have largely and 
 successfully engaged in its manufacture. Com¬ 
 petition for the raw material has raised its 
 price, as it will of all the food and raw mate¬ 
 rials produced in America. 
 
 A proper balance of industries must be created 
 at home to secure the greatest good of the 
 greatest number. The adoption of the policy 
 of free trade beyond doubt would injure peo¬ 
 ple dependent upon manufactures, but it would 
 injure those dependent upon agriculture far 
 more seriously. Protection to one branch of 
 industry, like taxation upon one branch of 
 industry, affects all others more or less. Tax¬ 
 ation depresses and protection elevates; but 
 the distribution is inevitable. To favor manu¬ 
 factures is to favor the tillers of the soil much 
 more. To favor free trade is to build up com¬ 
 mercial cities and drain the rural districts of 
 their wealth and population. All cities, it is 
 true, are engaged more or less in manufactur¬ 
 ing and the mechanic arts, but free trade would 
 subordinate these home industries and small 
 profits of the many to the large profits of the 
 few engaged in foreign trade. It appears to 
 me more desirable to encourage the opportuni¬ 
 ties for the production of wealth and its distri¬ 
 bution athome than for the production of trade 
 and exchange abroad, which can benefit only 
 a limited number. When our own people are 
 all supplied with whatever we can produce, if 
 
13 
 
 there is any surplus, and the surplus though dif¬ 
 ferent would unquestionably be quite as great, 
 we need not fear with the American proclivities 
 to trade that there will be any lack of commer¬ 
 cial agents or middlemen willing to offer all 
 needful foreign facilities for its disposal. 
 
 POVERTY THE RESULT OF TRADE IN BREADSTUFFS 
 AND RAW MATERIALS. 
 
 Why should we permit England—a small 
 island that raises no silk, no cotton, and not 
 half the wool her mills require, and that mainly 
 long combing wool—to take home our raw 
 materials, and send them back with their value 
 so much increased as not only to cover the first 
 cost and transit twice across the Atlantic, but 
 also the cost of a multitude of cargoes of food 
 for the support of millions of her people while 
 at, work using up the raw materials obtained 
 from American soil? A large share of the 
 freighting business of the world is unnecessary 
 and a positive loss. Shops, mills, and factories 
 ought to be as much within reach as churches 
 and school-houses. Two bushels of corn ought 
 not to be wholly lost in sending one bushel to 
 market. Two and a half tons of quinine are 
 obtained from one hundred tons of Peruvian 
 bark. South America has neither the-capital 
 nor the skill required to manufacture quinine, 
 but who does not perceive the immense loss in 
 the freight of so much bark for the inconsider¬ 
 able net result ? Might it not be called a small 
 bite for so much bark? 
 
 Of cotton and wool we show a capacity to 
 produce beyond what is required for home con¬ 
 sumption. There is no reason why that portion 
 which will be ultimately consumed here should 
 not remain here from the outset and give life 
 and support, first and last, to our own people. 
 Of silk even it would seem that ere long we 
 might produce in quality and quantity such an 
 abundance as to bring fabrics made from this 
 beautiful staple within the common reach of 
 persons possessed of only moderate means. 
 
 IRON. 
 
 English iron, such as we get, is much inferior 
 in quality to American iron, whether to be 
 used by the blacksmith or the ship-builder. 
 Then why not prefer and encourage our own ? 
 The almost universal proximity of coal and 
 iron ores has long given to England preemi¬ 
 nence in the iron trade ; but this advantage is 
 already contested in the United States, aud 
 fresh discoveries daily advance our ability to 
 challenge sharper competition. The largest 
 annual product of pig iron in the United States 
 up to 1861 was 932,582 tons, having grown from 
 only 50,000 tons in 1810. But under the recent 
 large protection the product has increased 
 within the last nine years to an estimated 
 amountof 1,950,000 tons, ora greater increase 
 than in the previous half century 1 Can it be 
 doubted that this immense addition to the an¬ 
 nual stock of iron has kept the price the world 
 
 over far below what it might otherwisehavebeen? 
 The recent discovery of a mode of dispensing 
 with the process of puddling will, if it proves a 
 success, turn out malleable iron at a cost but 
 little abovethatof crude metal. Pitlsburgtakes 
 the lead! Can it be doubted that it may now 
 safely abate somewhat of its demands for pro¬ 
 tection? Protection to iron in Pennsylvania, 
 Missouri, or Kentucky assures no monopoly to 
 Pennsylvania, Missouri, or Kentucky, for the 
 peopleofMichigan,Ohio, and manyother States 
 have the power and are at full liberty to engage 
 in the same enterprise upon equal terms, and 
 are quite likely to do it. This is the surest and 
 most potent way of arousing rivalry and of 
 setting the furnace fires ablaze all over the 
 country. These fires will be on the hill-tops, 
 and cannot be hidden. If profitable, more 
 will be kindled, and other men will go and do 
 likewise. 
 
 HARMONY OF INDUSTRIES. 
 
 The commingling of many industrial branches 
 of business is the true way to organize all the 
 forces of a community so that every man may 
 follow a congenial pursuit, and thus develop 
 the entire strength of all the component parts, 
 whether skilled or unskilled, strong or weak, 
 those having genius or otherwise. Then all 
 will be harmoniously engaged in doing the best 
 they know how. The farmer does not put 
 his stoutest man about his lightest work or 
 where a boy will answer the same purpose, nor 
 does he, if wise, confine his land to a single 
 crop; but by having more he utilizes all his 
 time and help, as well as all his varieties of soil, 
 taking care of one crop after another in regular 
 progression until the whole is grown and har¬ 
 vested. Thus he takes advantage of every 
 occasion for economy, and greatly multiplies 
 the. sources and chances of profit. 
 
 Nations guided by an equally enlightened self- 
 interest follow the same policy and have never 
 yet failed and never will fail to demonstrate 
 that diversified employments prove immeasur¬ 
 ably more productive in the aggregate than 
 where they are more restricted. Such indus¬ 
 tries are mutual insurers, and when disaster 
 befalls any special branch the loss is made up 
 from the better fortune of all other branches, 
 leaving the major part always successful ; but 
 those nations confined to a single venture, 
 whether of manufacture or agriculture, of fish¬ 
 eries or of lumbering, like the farmers who 
 rely on a single crop In case of failure, are cut 
 off from all other resource or compensation 
 elsewhere. In our country agriculture tran¬ 
 scends in importance all other interests com¬ 
 bined, and always must and should take the 
 lead. Other interests derive much of their 
 beneficial power from th.e direct aid which they 
 afford to its pursuit and the indirect aid they 
 afford by increasing its rewards through the 
 consumption of its surplus products. 
 
 The greatest rulers of the world have con- 
 
14 
 
 t 
 
 firmed these truths by their example. Crom¬ 
 well, Peter the Great, Napoleon, were protec¬ 
 tionists. In England the elder and the younger 
 Pitt, and in France Colbert—ministers and 
 statesmen whose far-reaching sagacity has never 
 been impeached, and whose fame still shines 
 brightly over the civilized world—were in favor 
 of the sturdiest kind of protection, and went 
 not only to the verge of what might practically 
 prove to be prohibitory duties, but sometimes 
 to prohibition in terms. Napoleon went so far 
 as to say that duties should never be a fiscal 
 instrument, but a means of protecting indus¬ 
 try. Pitt went so far, in 1802, as to specially 
 legislate against the competition even of the 
 United States, and by protection he triumph¬ 
 antly sustained the finances of his country 
 through a long and most expensive war. 
 ‘‘Under his administration,” says the histo¬ 
 rian Allison, “the revenue, trade, and man¬ 
 ufactures of England were doubled, its colonies 
 and political strength quadrupled, and he raised 
 an island in the Atlantic, once only a remote 
 province of the Roman empire, to such a pitch 
 of grandeur as to be enabled to bid defiance 
 to the world in arms.” Macaulay styled Pitt 
 ‘‘the greatest master of the whole art of par¬ 
 liamentary government that has ever existed.” 
 And yet the polished sophists of free trade 
 would have us believe that such men as these 
 lived and died ignorant of the sound prin¬ 
 ciples of political economy. They heeded 
 not free trade. The master mind of our own 
 country, Hamilton, sought by his famous re¬ 
 port, supported by one of the first acts ol 
 Congress, for which Madison voted, to “en¬ 
 courage manufactures” by the protection of 
 American products. Our most generous states¬ 
 man, Henry Clay, and our boldest, General 
 Jackson, &s well as the coolest and most astute, 
 John Quincy Adams,'* were protectionists in 
 head and heart. The ship of State was in no 
 danger of foundering under the pilotage of 
 these men, and, if their policy was wise, time 
 has furnished no reasons for change except in 
 degree. Perfection of means and ends may 
 be so nearly reached that favor is no longer 
 required as to many articles; but others from 
 necessity lag at unequal distances in the race, 
 and still require to be nursed. 
 
 Nations which rely on the fertility of their 
 soil, or upon a single crop, with no alternative 
 means of subsistence, place even their mod¬ 
 erate prosperity in continual jeopardy, and 
 their average accumulation of profits must re¬ 
 main lean and scant forever. The same would 
 
 * This list might be indefinitely increased from tho 
 ranks of the old Republican party by such names as 
 that of Thomas Jefferson, who writes in 1815 as fol¬ 
 lows : "The proh ibitory duties we lay upon all articles 
 of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to 
 establish at home, with tho patriotic determination 
 of every good citizen to uso no foreign article which 
 can be made within ourselves, without regard to dif¬ 
 ference of prices, secures us against relapse and for¬ 
 eign dependency." 
 
 be true of a people confined to manufactures 
 exclusively. In any season of scarcity, when 
 other nations are without a surplus of bread- 
 stuffs, the dependent people are exposed to 
 starvation. A community relying upon ODe 
 branch of manufactures, though surrounded by 
 a grain and cattle-producing country, is subject 
 to severe fluctuations; but when these branches 
 are largely multiplied the unprosperous man¬ 
 ufactures form only the exception and not the 
 rule. 
 
 HOME-MADE ARTICLES BEST AND CHEAPEST. 
 
 A liberal interfusion of manufactures among 
 all agricultural communities thus appears to 
 me desirable for several reasons. First, it 
 begets a wider knowledge of general subjects, 
 especially of the practical sciences, and forms 
 a more intelligent people. Second, it increases 
 the wealth and independence of farmers by the 
 avoidance of the immense cost of shipments 
 to and from foreign lands. Fair trade—very 
 different from free trade—consists in an ex¬ 
 change of products costing an equal amount 
 of labor. If these are all produced iu the 
 same locality, all the facts are known and no 
 advantages can be long concealed, and the 
 result is fair trade. When the farmer of Illi¬ 
 nois sends wheat to England in exchange for 
 Sheffield cutlery, London watches, or Notting¬ 
 ham laces, he can form no just estimate of the 
 actual value of what he receives, and does not 
 know whether he is cheated or not; but if he 
 can exchange his wheat for such commodities 
 made in his own neighborhood he will know 
 all about it. When he buys an Illinois plow 
 or an Illinois wagon or Illinois watch he always 
 gets a prime article at a fair price. The knack 
 of machinery and the profits of trade are no 
 secret at home. The profits on foreign articles 
 are unknown, except that they are known to be 
 generally much greater than upon those of do¬ 
 mestic origin. Hence dealers have an interest 
 in handling foreign to the exclusion of Amer¬ 
 ican goods, and the greater profits thus derived 
 enable them to liberally patronize the press, 
 as well as to subsidize peripatetic philosophers 
 of free trade. A particular style of foreign 
 goods is more easily monopolized than those 
 made at our own doors, and if found salable 
 cannot at once and so easily be duplicated by 
 neighboring competitors. A domestic article, 
 however, if found salable, will at once be mul¬ 
 tiplied, and can be ordered by any-number of 
 dealers in such quantities as to cause a reduc¬ 
 tion of prices by a destructive competition. 
 American articles of a staple kind, produced in 
 large quantities, like cut nails, prints, delaines, 
 cotton cloth, white lead, shoes, and boots, are 
 usually sold at a bare commission, and often 
 without any profit at all, whether at wholesale 
 or retail. Many dealers in imported goods 
 keep and sell lines of staple American goods 
 at cost as baits to catch customers for the trade 
 iu more profitable’commodities. 
 
15 
 
 Purchasers have a fashionable partiality for 
 goods of foreign make and style, and have not 
 yet found out that American iron, cotton, and 
 wooleus are tougher, stronger, and more dura¬ 
 ble than such as are usually imported. This 
 rejudice and ignorance has to be conciliated 
 y a reduction of price, and a superior Amer¬ 
 ican article is often sold for less than an infe¬ 
 rior foreign article of the same sort readily 
 commands. It is true that the relative merits 
 of American manufactures, as compared with 
 some others, appear to be better understood 
 in some places abroad, and British manufac¬ 
 turers have been lately often detected in using 
 the stamp and brand of American manufac¬ 
 turers in order to fraudulently dispose of their 
 own goods in far-off markets. Very likely 
 our manufacturers have undervalued the artis¬ 
 tic training and culture of their workmen ; but 
 it is a vital point which cannot longer be safely 
 neglected. It is not the role of America to 
 follow, but to lead. 
 
 A LIBEL REFUTED. 
 
 It is a libel to charge, as it has often been 
 charged, that protection is always increasing 
 its demands for further legislative favors. That 
 is not the history of Eugland, nor of any land 
 where protection ever had a foot-hold, and 
 surely it is no part of our own history. The 
 facts are all the other way. Experienced 
 manufacturers are alv/ays moderate in their 
 demands. Only those unskilled, or working 
 with inferior machinery, clamor for extrava¬ 
 gant protection, and such extravagances may 
 be properly rejected, just as clamor in the 
 opposite direction may be rejected. Prudent 
 men know that large protection rouses a host 
 of wild and reckless competitors, who flourish 
 for a day and go down with a crash, carrying 
 with them even those whose more prudent 
 management deserved success. 
 
 In 1861 our tariff was largely changed to 
 specifics; not much raised, though made more 
 protective by being unchangeable; not vanish¬ 
 ing to a minimum when a maximum is most 
 needed, as ad valorems vanish upon a fall in 
 prices; but the change was not asked for, and 
 but coldly welcomed at the time by manufac¬ 
 turers, who always and justly fear instability. 
 It was, however, as favorable to their interests 
 as to those of agriculture, then more directly 
 acknowledged, or of the Government, which 
 sought a more honest method of collecting its 
 revenues by treating all importers with a fixed 
 and unalterable measure. Our recent war com¬ 
 pelled us from year to year to increase our 
 revenues immensely. Instead of one sym¬ 
 metrical law, like that of 1861, we have from 
 necessity an accumulation of amendments. 
 For revenue purposes, and not for protection 
 solely, 50 per cent, in many instances has 
 been added to the tariff, denounced as a Chinese 
 wall, to enable our home trade to bear the new 
 but indispensable burdens of internal taxation. 
 
 Already we have relinquished most of such 
 taxes, and have ceased to collect more than a 
 mere pittance on the sale of home manufactures. 
 So far, then, as protection merely is concerned, 
 if the revenue could be spared, we might safely 
 remit a percentage of the tariff on a consider¬ 
 able share of our foreign importations, but the 
 question is whether it would be wise at present 
 to diminish the receipts of the Treasury at all 
 or not; (the President and the Secretary of 
 the Treasury think not;) and if wise, whether 
 the revenue can be released on imposts or from 
 other more direct taxes with the greatest ad¬ 
 vantage to our people. It seems clear to me 
 that it will be sound policy to make our resources 
 abundant until our debt shall be funded at a 
 lower rate of interest, and that the least bur¬ 
 densome of our taxes are those imposed upon 
 foreign importations. 
 
 At the same time it is a mistake of the friends 
 of a sound tariff to insist upon the extreme 
 rates imposed during the war, if less will raise 
 the necessary revenue. Nor should the rates 
 be so high as to make smuggling with all its 
 risks a profitable business. It may be admitted 
 that these rates should only be maintained at 
 a point high enough to cover any unusual tax¬ 
 ation. Whatever percentage of duties were 
 imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal 
 taxes upon home manufactures, should not now 
 be claimed as the lav/ful prize of protection 
 when such taxes have been repealed. There 
 is no longer an equivalent. The small increase 
 ofthe tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolens, 
 and cottons cannot be maintained except on 
 the principle of obtaining a proper amount of 
 revenue. Protection has here no legitimate 
 claims, and it may be taken off whenever direct 
 taxes are repealed and less revenue is desired. 
 The war duties on tea, sugar, coffee, and salt 
 were never intended to be more than tempo¬ 
 rary. 
 
 These articles, to be sure, can be more cer¬ 
 tainly relied on for a stable revenue than any 
 others, but they are consumed by the poor 
 almost as much as by the rich ; and a repub¬ 
 lican country cannot afford to tax exclusively, 
 or even largely, that class of articles, as is and. 
 may be done in Great Britain. An aristocracy 
 will, of course, make all classes below them, if 
 they can, contribute as much per capita as they 
 do for the support ofGovernment. Republicans, 
 however, must charge the highest duties upon 
 such articles as are consumed by persons of 
 wealth and fashion. Tea, coffee, and sugar 
 are not luxuries to the American people unless 
 taxed so as to make them so, and if war has 
 made taxes a necessity, as fast as that neces¬ 
 sity diminishes just in the same ratio ought the 
 duties to be diminished. 
 
 Tea and coffee will not be grown for the pres¬ 
 ent, if ever, in the United States, and duties on 
 such articles can have no other object than 
 revenue. Sugar can be had both from the cane 
 
16 
 
 and sugar beet. That it ought to be grown to 
 the full extent of all our wants, greater per 
 capita than those of any other country, will 
 not be denied. France at first protected the 
 manufacture of beet-sugar until at last its suc¬ 
 cess was so great that the cane sugar of her 
 colonies had to be protected by the imposition 
 of an internal tax upon home-made beet-sugar. 
 Some of our people formerly objected to eat¬ 
 ing slave-grown sugar, and yet protection was 
 demanded and conceded even to slave-grown 
 sugar. Shall we now refuse it when grown by 
 freemen? Something is due, it seems to me, 
 to encourage a much larger production of cane 
 and beet sugars, and something is due to a 
 revival and multiplication of sugar plantations 
 in our southern States. 
 
 France and Russia, both adherents of the 
 doctrine of protection in the broadest sense, do 
 not go on from year to year asking for more, 
 but have each lately considerably reduced their 
 tariffs, proving conclusively that they have each 
 made an advance. Russia, some years ago, 
 was almost entirely an agricultural nation, en¬ 
 joying the so-called prosperity of free trade, 
 and British shop-keepers were almost as much 
 at home in St. Petersburg as in London ; but 
 she changed her practical relations with other 
 nations by adopting the policy of protection to 
 home industry. Her products were at first 
 rude and unsatisfactory to all except herself, 
 but she has succeeded in establishing many of 
 the staple manufactures of the world, and has 
 made more progress—there being admitted 
 room—in freedom, wealth, and general intel¬ 
 ligence than any other European nation within 
 the last twenty years. A diversified industry 
 is the natural enemy of slavery, ignorance, and 
 poverty. Russia is making rapid strides in 
 civilization, and is now reducing her tariff as 
 her ability allows, but at every point she care¬ 
 fully guards the interest of her millions of peo¬ 
 ple with the policy of protection. By giving 
 freedom to her people and by protection to 
 manufactures Russia shows that she does not 
 intend to be any longer overmatched by Euro¬ 
 pean Powers having not one tenth of her area 
 nor one half her population. 
 
 The dense population of the older civilized 
 nations; their accumulated deposits of capi¬ 
 tal from the labor of centuries, and the ages 
 of trained rivalry through which they have 
 passed, give them an advantage in nearly all 
 the industrial arts over new and younger na¬ 
 tions of the world. They have got the start. 
 The United States, though as facile to create 
 as to adopt labor-saving machines, have not 
 failed in their due proportion of contribu¬ 
 tions to the arts, as the numerous trophies 
 of American genius to be found in the Pat¬ 
 ent Office or already marching around the 
 world abundantly proves, and the time may 
 yet come when the United States, if it pleases, 
 can enter the race of free trade as to a very 
 
 large number of articles, if not as to all, against 
 all comers, regardless of their rank, history, or 
 civilization. If this were not so protection 
 would be indefensible. It is competition, equals 
 with equals, nation with nation, man with man, 
 that sharpens the wit, enforces economy, and 
 most speedily reduces the cost of all products. 
 Nations holding monopolies dictate prices and 
 regulate markets, but. the first blow of compe¬ 
 tition brings down prices as irresistibly as the 
 strong wind bends the tops of the loftiest trees. 
 
 This result is easily proven by existing facts 
 and notwithstanding the unusual load of tax¬ 
 ation which all American products have borne 
 since the commencement ofthe recent rebellion. 
 The words of Chaucer five hundred years ago, 
 applied to everybody: 
 
 “A Sheffield whitel bare he iu his hose,” 
 but no longer to the Yankees, who now both 
 use and make an American “whitel.” A recent 
 parliamentary report exhibits a list of a large 
 number of articles made in Birmingham which 
 are already largely displaced in the markets of 
 the world by productions of the United States. 
 Among them will be found shovels, hoes, axes, 
 cut nails, horse-nails, pumps, locks, latches, 
 gimlets, clocks, penknives, scissors, muskets, 
 pistols, agricultural implements, weighing-ma¬ 
 chines, sewing-machines, gas-fittings, lamps, 
 table glassware, &c. Of course all these 
 articles have passed the Rubicon of protection, 
 being bought and sold here as cheap, if not 
 cheaper, than they can be made anywhere else 
 in the world. For all time to come Americans 
 will be supplied with these articles at as little 
 cost as any other people, knowing at the same 
 time that they are of American origin and that 
 there are none better. The open-mouthed 
 calumny that protection is always increasing 
 in its demands in face of these facts should 
 shut its lips forever. 
 
 KAW MATERIALS. 
 
 As a general rule it is true that sound policy 
 requires the admission of raw materials free of 
 duty into all countries claiming any prei ensions 
 as a home for manufactures. The only excep¬ 
 tion to this rule is as to raw materials which 
 are indigenous, or such as might be easily and 
 profitably introduced and naturalized. A duty 
 on raw materials is wholly a tax on the manu¬ 
 facturer, except when produced so cheaply and 
 abundantly that there is an excess beyond what 
 is required for home consumption, rendering 
 any tariff inoperative, or when compensated 
 for by an equal or greater duty upon the for¬ 
 eign-made articles composed of the same ma¬ 
 terials. For instance, the process of manufac¬ 
 turing silk is tedious and delicate, requiring 
 consummate skill in all stages of its manipula¬ 
 tion. The wonderous colors, elegant patterns, 
 and glossy surface require a scientific- knowl¬ 
 edge of dyeing, an aptitude in the conception 
 and drawing of beautiful forms, a mastery of 
 
17 
 
 complicated machinery, and the finest touch 
 in the finishing process. Capital and labor in 
 lavish proportions are indispensable to its pro¬ 
 duction in its highest perfection. Its introduc¬ 
 tion into new and untried fields could not be 
 ventured upon at all if raw silk were to be 
 loaded with a duty. Perhaps this manufacture 
 at this time owes its partial foot-hold in our 
 country to the necessity which called for the 
 imposition of war duties upon manufactures of 
 silk. It is quite possible the manufacture may 
 yet win its way to a place among our most con¬ 
 siderable branches of industry, even though the 
 present duties, (so high as perhaps to tempt 
 illicit trade,) should be reduced. Happily the 
 raw material seems likely ere long to be supplied 
 in abundance within our own borders. The 
 climate of the Pacific coast is such as to pro¬ 
 duce, without the peril encountered elsewhere 
 from thunder and lightning, four crops of large 
 and healthy cocoons in a single season, pre¬ 
 saging a supply far beyond the wauts of our 
 own people, and no more requiring the pro¬ 
 tection of the Government than fruits in the 
 garden of Eden. 
 
 WOOL AND WOOLENS. 
 
 On the other hand, wool manufactures can 
 be successfully attempted by the rudest civil¬ 
 ization. Something can be and has been 
 achieved everywhere and in almost every age. 
 True it is that a technical knowledge of the 
 true composition of dyes, of pattern-drawing, 
 and of the most improved machinery gives 
 power to minister to something more than the 
 bare necessities of mankind, and to supply 
 some share of the more costly comforts and 
 elegancies of life; but the domestic manufac¬ 
 ture of common woolen cloth to some extent 
 has existed and must exist in nearly all coun¬ 
 tries. The coarse and cheaply-made goods 
 when not produced through the aid of modern 
 mills must be had through the simple spinning- 
 wheel and hand-loom. In northern climates 
 woolen clothing is not less vital than food 
 itself, and no country should be dependent 
 upon foreign and distant lands for either one 
 or the other. If our Government did not con¬ 
 nive at smuggling blankets from our enemy in 
 the recent war, as it did in the war of 1812, we 
 yet in point of fact obtained a considerable 
 part of our first supplies from abroad. That 
 a country continental in its dimensions, sur¬ 
 passingly rich in its broad extent of pasturage, 
 should be unequal to the production of the wool 
 it annually consumes is not for a moment to 
 be supposed. It is a fact, however, that for 
 years_ we have drawn from abroad a large 
 quantity of the wool we have consumed, as 
 well as a much larger proportion of woolens. 
 
 The amount of wool imported in 1868 was 
 26,449,321 pounds, and 49,812,392 pounds in 
 1869, valued at $7,688,348, or at an average cost 
 of 14.4 cents per pound. The value of woolens 
 
 in 1869 amounted to $35,054,407. Of carpets 
 alone we imported 3,881,830 yards, valued at 
 $4,261,258. These facts prove that the duties 
 on wool and woolens are by no means pro¬ 
 hibitory. 
 
 It is true that many classes of woolens do 
 not bring first cost, but that is true of cotton 
 goods, and is to be attributed to the general 
 depression of trade and the character of our 
 currency; and it is also true that no wool 
 produced above forty degrees north latitude 
 now brings over three fourths of its actual cost. 
 
 The policy or impolicy of a duty on foreign 
 wool has long been debatable ground both here 
 and abroad. In France the duty on wool was 
 20 per cent, ad valorem up to 1855, when it 
 was made free, but the price there for fine wool 
 in 1867 was less than 25 cents per pound. The 
 Romans at an early day introduced the spin¬ 
 ning of wool and weaving of woolen cloth to 
 the inhabitants of England, who previously 
 were only clothed in skins. Woolen manufac¬ 
 tures were firmly established in England in the 
 reign of Edward III, A. D. 1331. Only six 
 ye s thereafter the exportation of wool was 
 interdicted, and the “wear of any cloth made 
 beyond the sea” prohibited. From the reign 
 of Charles II until a recent period no one was 
 permitted to be buried unless wrapped in a 
 woolen shroud. The importation of even Irish 
 wool was prohibited in 1696, and the non- 
 exportation law, as to English wool, was not 
 repealed until 1824. The British tariff on wool 
 in modern times has been fluctuating. In 1819 
 it was raised to 6 pence per pound. In 1824 
 it was reduced to 1 penny per pound on wool 
 costing 1 shilling or over per pound, and to a 
 half penny on all costing less; but it admitted 
 colonial wool free. Prices fell; Southdown 
 wool brought Is. 4 d. in 1825, and only 0 pence 
 in 1829. In 1844 it was provided that all 
 wools should be admitted free. Surely this is 
 a checkered record of the road to free trade! 
 Very recently the-increase in the production 
 of wool the world over has been prodigious. 
 The broad, unfenced plains of South America, 
 Africa, and Australia seem to have been sud¬ 
 denly covered with flocks of sheep in untold 
 numbers, and the chief expense of raising 
 wool is reduced almost to the bare expense ot 
 washing and shearing the flocks, and lor even 
 that some machinery is resorted to. The quan¬ 
 tity outstrips the present requirements of the 
 world. Australia, according to M. Thiers in a 
 recent speech, produced last year 330,000,000 
 pounds, and could furnish 600,000,000. La 
 Plata could produce, he says, a similar quan¬ 
 tity. Commissioner Wells says, “The wools 
 of the United States are mainly the merino 
 clothing wools, which can be produced in any 
 quantity and at prices which defy foreign com¬ 
 petition;” and he mentions Texas wools as 
 having been produced at a cost only of 7 cents 
 per pound, which sold for 25 cents in gold- 
 
18 
 
 The defiance is a very bold utterance, but one 
 not likely to find any backers among wool- 
 growers. 
 
 It is possible that on the wild prairies of the 
 far West, and in California and Texas, some 
 faint competition can be maintained with coun¬ 
 tries having similar pasturage abroad; but it 
 is obvious that where any ownership to land 
 is maintained, or where it possesses any mar¬ 
 ketable value, unprotected wool cannot long 
 be grown. We might as well undertake to 
 compete with the mountains of the moon as 
 with the unclaimed tropical plains. Iowa, 
 Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois, as well as 
 Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont, 
 must abandon sheep husbandry, so indispens¬ 
 able to the continued fertility of their soil, if' 
 the wools of the unsold, unfenced, untaxed, 
 wild wastes of the southern half of the globe 
 are to be permitted to enter our markets free 
 of duty. Nor will any ad valorem duty serve 
 any good purpose. The foreign valuation is 
 at so low a figure that an ad valorem duty of 
 even 50per cent, is but a bagatelle. We have 
 tried 30, 40, and even 50 per cent., and always 
 with the same result. Nothing short of a spe¬ 
 cific duty will give any positive protection. It 
 is true that the present prices of wool are so 
 low that the number of sheep has been very 
 greatly reduced within the last year in Austra¬ 
 lia, as well as in large portions of the United 
 States. No industry there or here now pays less 
 profit than sheep husbandry, but it may legiti¬ 
 mately be expected henceforth to improve. Be¬ 
 sides this, it ought never to be forgotten that 
 the fiber of most foreign wool is exceedingly 
 tender, while that grown in the United States 
 is strong. Cloth made of American wool is 
 much more durable than that made of foreign 
 wool. The future of the American wool-grower 
 is not too bright; it has no advantages to ex¬ 
 cite envy; and it is the duty of an American 
 Congress to do all in its power to preserve one 
 of the highest forms of agricultural industry, 
 and at all hazards to save it from being crushed 
 by evasions of the law, by the patrons of free- 
 trade opinions, or by the blind selfishness of a 
 few manufacturers. The exaggerated prices 
 of wool and woolens during the war have passed 
 by, and free-traders would have us believe that 
 the present low prices are the legitimate result 
 of high protective duties. They predicted, on 
 the passage of the wool tariff, that the poor 
 man would have to pay many dollars in the 
 shape of a bounty to the wool-grower on every 
 suit of clothes bought; but it so happens that 
 the poor man never bought woolen clothes 
 cheaper than at the present moment. The 
 consumer has nothing to complain of, and has 
 not been sheared by the wool-grower. 
 
 THE COTTON TRADE. 
 
 'The price of cotton having doubled and its 
 manufacture having been extended among 
 
 many nations heretofore nearly altogether de¬ 
 pendent upon England for cotton stuffs, com¬ 
 petition is likely to maintain high prices for 
 the raw material, although the supply of the 
 world is no less than in 1860, when England 
 monopolized the crop. On the continent of 
 Europe and in India as well as the United 
 States they have begun to spin and weave for 
 themselves. Lancashire suffers. Her people 
 are out of work, and denounce free trade and 
 the reciprocity treaty with France. Thereupon 
 the London Times of September 18, 1869, 
 discourses as follows, namely: 
 
 “ Why, for example, should the Americans, who 
 used to be well pleased that we should spin cotton 
 while they grew it, resolve now to be spinners and 
 growers too? Why, again, should we be told, as 
 a correspondent did tell us plainly, that we nad bet¬ 
 ter let the Hindoos resume their old trade of cotton 
 spinning and work up the produce of their own 
 fields ? How is it that France finds it for her advan¬ 
 tage to take up this manufacture which was our 
 monopoly so short a time ago?” * * * * 
 
 “ New cotton fields have been opened, but new cot¬ 
 ton factories have been opened too, some under the 
 shelter of protection, some perhaps in a more natural 
 atmosphere. There is a more extensive demand for 
 the raw material, which rises in price accordingly, 
 and that rise in price deprives us of a condition essen¬ 
 tial to the superiority we once maintained. ’ 
 
 This is a confession from which we ought to 
 profit. The workingmen of Great Britain are 
 in distress. The guardians of charities for the 
 poor cannot relieve the sore wants of all their 
 supplicants. But her statesmen do not find 
 any relief springing from their so-called sys¬ 
 tem of free trade. That neither feeds their 
 people nor furnishes a market for their pro¬ 
 ducts, when other nations begin to assert their 
 independence and their freedom from British 
 monopoly. We may commiserate their peo¬ 
 ple, but we cannot yet afford to adopt their 
 policy. 
 
 THE NEW FORCES OF LABOR-SAVING MACHINES. 
 
 New inventions and the application of labor- 
 saving machines in modern times have greatly 
 improved the condition of laborers. They are 
 no longer slaves and serfs, nor are they treated 
 as beasts of burden, but as men responsible 
 for their acts and to whom others are equally 
 responsible. Under our free form of govern¬ 
 ment, with no hereditary estates, all or nearly 
 all of our citizens are engaged in some indus¬ 
 trial employment or business which demands 
 a chief share of their time. Age and physical 
 infirmity furnish almost the sole exceptions to 
 this rule. 
 
 In 1841, Chevalier, a distinguished French 
 author, sought numerical expressions for the 
 advance in productive power caused by modern 
 improvements, which were not only curious 
 but seem to have been unimpeachable as to 
 their general accuracy. Since that date further 
 advances have been made, but he then esti¬ 
 mated the increase of power as to manufacture 
 of iron as twenty-five or thirty to one ; of bread, 
 
19 
 
 since the time of Homer, as one hundred and 
 forty-four to one ; of cotton fabrics within the 
 last century, as three hundred and twenty to 
 one. He also found that one American in the 
 transport of goods was equal to six thousand 
 six hundred and fifty-nine of the subjects of 
 Montezuma, and that one man attending a 
 mule in England or America is equal to three 
 thousand two hundred and sixty-four natives 
 of India spinning by hand. The author of 
 Plutology says, that forty years ago three men 
 with difficulty made four thousand sheets of 
 paper per day ; now they easily produce sixty 
 thousand. Lace used to be produced by hand 
 at the rate of three meshes per minute, but a 
 Nottingham machine will now bring it forth at 
 the rate of about twenty-four thousand meshes 
 per minute. Three tons of coal, it has been 
 estimated, will give an amount of force equal 
 to a strong man working twenty years, three 
 hundred days in each year. All this is modern. 
 The present age is so much in advance of the 
 past, and this advance is for the benefit of the 
 whole race, and not for feudal chiefs, or a few 
 aristocrats, or a single nation. 
 
 The improvements in agriculture from its 
 nature could not be expected to show such 
 conspicuous strides; but it is a moderate esti¬ 
 mate to say that the agriculturist who seizes 
 hold of the best and most improved implements 
 does one half better than could his father in 
 the old way. Human labor is abridged and 
 yet brings about greater results. In the bleach¬ 
 ing of linens the work of eight months is now 
 performed in a single hour. First, sulphuric 
 acid, then chlorine, and last, chloride of lime, 
 has supplanted the ley and buttermilk and 
 green grass of Holland, and linens may be 
 bleached without much loss of time wherever 
 they are made. Obviously intelligence, not 
 mere muscle, now contends for the mastery. 
 Labor is lifted from its degradation and carries 
 no unnecessary load on its back. 
 
 In order that any country should largely in¬ 
 crease its wealth, it must increase its material 
 productiveness, and this can only be done by 
 adding to such forces as may have been be¬ 
 stowed by nature upon the country and its 
 people, the artificial forces of steam and other 
 labor-saving instrumentalities. Free trade in¬ 
 vites a trial of strength and skill on an empty 
 stomach with all the world, but extends no 
 welcome to any auxiliary power beyond the 
 naked hands. Protection, on the contrary, 
 brings out as a well-fed reenforcement all the 
 engines and marvelous contrivances of human 
 wit from the foundation of the world. It guar- 
 anhes capital at the outset against a total loss 
 n it shall venture to enlist the impassioned 
 
 a 568 ? • e an< * water - H employs the engine, 
 a dumb giant, whose hairs are not yet gray with 
 age, to do the work of a regiment of men with¬ 
 out a cry of pain or fatigue. It even aids agri¬ 
 culture. There it does not merely fret the sur¬ 
 
 face of the earth with the prong of a tree, the 
 old plow of Cincinnatus, but with a steel plow, 
 or with a gang of steam plows it plunges deeply 
 into the virgin soil, turning the whole field 
 upside down, and is rewarded by a crop of a 
 hundredfold. With the hand-sickle it no 
 longer gathers a few sheaves; but with the Amer¬ 
 ican reaper, more potent than the war-chariots 
 drawn by the elephants of Hannibal, harvests 
 acre after acre of the golden grain in a single 
 day. It does not doom the blacksmith to the 
 hard labor of earning twenty-five cents per day 
 by making 6 or 8 pounds of hob nails,* but 
 pays $1 50 per day, and with a curious Amer¬ 
 ican machine makes as many hundred pounds, 
 and crowds the market with cut nails, much 
 better for use, at a price only a little more than 
 one fourth of a cent per pound above that of 
 bar iron. Through an American machine, too, 
 almost as intelligent as appeared of old the 
 automaton chess-player, and attended by a 
 child only, the long iron wires are changed in 
 the twinkling of an eye to wood screws, supe¬ 
 rior to anything ever before seen and for much 
 less than half the former cost. 
 
 Steel, the elder brotherof iron, by the slight 
 additional protection afforded in the tariff of 
 1861, has been so far established as an Ameri¬ 
 can product as to sensibly diminish its present 
 cost. The Bessemer steel, made from pig iron, 
 is one pf the great and most beautiful triumphs of 
 science; and the new process of melting wrought 
 iron in a hot bath of pig iron, and thereby con¬ 
 verting the whole mass into steel, promises to 
 revolutionize prices, and place steel on a par 
 with iron. Protection stimulates human genius 
 and produces wonderful works, but free trade 
 relies not upon sweat of the brain, but upon 
 sweat of the brow alone, measuring its products 
 by the measure of past generations, and desires 
 to slumber and to be let alone. Protection 
 means progress, or individual and national ad¬ 
 vancement. Free trade means where no manu¬ 
 factures exist there none ever ought to exist. 
 It strikes the forge, the loom, the engine with 
 paralysis. 
 
 It must be conceded that it was not alone 
 the advantage of numbers possessed by the 
 North which enabled the Government to achieve 
 a victory over the late rebellion, but it was also 
 its mighty auxiliaries, in the shape of water- 
 moving and steam-propelling mills and machin¬ 
 ery. The force of the free States was thus 
 more than duplicated, and this gave them 
 power and vigor to conduct the prolonged con¬ 
 test with less expenditure and more assurances 
 comparatively, day by day, of ultimate success. 
 The seceding States were stronger at the first 
 shot than at any day thereafter. The loyal 
 
 *More than two hundred years ago, when hob nails 
 were just supplanting wooden pins, Fuller, in the 
 Worthies of England, says “that coin of gold and 
 silver may be better spared in a Commonwealth than 
 nails.” 
 
20 
 
 States girded up their loins year by year, and 
 at the close of the contest would have regarded 
 it almost as a holiday to have been afforded a 
 fair opportunity for a deadly grapple with one 
 or two of the first-rate Powers of Europe. For¬ 
 eign foes rather than kinsmen were hungered 
 after. Our Army and Navy were not only large, 
 butthey were in fighting order, especially if only 
 ordered to avenge national injuries, received 
 while our hands were tied, and because they 
 were tied. Our mills, founderies, and machin¬ 
 ery remedied all deficiencies almost as soon 
 as known. This additional force, beyond all 
 doubt, had been created by tariffs for revenue 
 with moderate discriminations for protection, 
 which discriminations were most opportunely 
 invigorated by the act of 1861, and, it may be 
 added, were subsequently largely increased. In 
 any contest which the future may have in store 
 for us with any foreign Power, especially a 
 maritime Power, this auxiliary force will be 
 vastly more important. If we mean to accept 
 and hold the rank of a first-rate Power among 
 nations we cannot forego the many advan¬ 
 tages of manufactures and the mechanic arts. 
 Here lies the royal road to power and inde¬ 
 pendence. During the late contest the people 
 of the South, with more coiton than all the 
 world beside, were distressed for even common 
 sewing thread. It was like the story of— 
 
 “ Water, water, everywhere, 
 
 Nor any drop to drink.” 
 
 To maintain an undoubted independence our 
 role of construction must embrace all the in¬ 
 dispensable articles, from the least to the great¬ 
 est, from a needle to an iron-clad ship. Our 
 national pride demands that we shall not now 
 nor at any time abandon the foundation of our 
 strength at home and our security abroad by 
 the imbecility of treating the doctrine of pro¬ 
 tection to American industry with legislative 
 contempt. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Shall we not, from the considerations pre¬ 
 sented, and from a proper regard for the pres¬ 
 ent position of the American people, all agree 
 to the following propositions: 
 
 First , that it is expedient to rely mainly on 
 duties upon the importations of foreign mer¬ 
 chandise for revenue to support the General 
 Government? 
 
 Secondly, that in levying these duties sue 
 reasonable protection should in all cases b 
 given as will favor the consumption of home 
 made and home-grown products? 
 
 Thirdly, that such articles as are usuall 
 grouped among the necessaries of life, and sue 
 raw materials as we do not produce, shoul 
 bear the leastamount of taxation in any form 
 
 Fourthly, that having to some extent create 
 for agricultural products a home market, : 
 ought not to be surrendered and made free t 
 foreigu rivals, near or remote, who have nevt 
 contributed to the support of such a market! 
 
 Fifthly, that American manufacturers ougl 
 not to be forced by free trade to demand sue 
 terms of workingmen as many of the latte 
 came to our country only to escape from? 
 
 Finally, the Republican party.has the dest 
 nies of the American people in its hands, an 
 it should not subordinate them to the master 
 of every other country filled with cheaper caj 
 ital and cheaper labor. Labor here is not on! 
 honorable, but here obtains its highest reward.' 
 and it should be our mission to perpetual 
 this national distinction. The marvelous a< 
 cession of force added to the productive powi 
 of nations by machinery and the archimedea 
 leverage of the mechanic arts, must not t 
 wholly abandoned to our rivals. The aptitud 
 of our people for all the useful arts ; their ir 
 ventive genius, as displayed in the past and s 
 full of promise for the future; the vast theate 
 wherein they are called to operate and fir 
 scope, deserves something more than the cd. 
 disregard and the heartless indifference of fr< 
 trade. The recently emancipated populatic 
 of the South should be furnished with grand' 
 opportunities than it has hitherto had, both t 
 profit and culture, by which its best exampl 
 of intelligence may hope to rise above tl 
 universal level of the old cotton plantation 
 Let the energies of our whole people be p 
 in motion, by making industry and enterpri 
 prosperous in all directions—of the plow, tl 
 loom, and the anvil—and thus give assuram 
 at home and abroad that the year of o 
 deliverance is not remote, when all debt 
 public and private, will have been honorab 
 discharged, and when to be an American w: 
 be to be a citizen of the happiest, freest, ar 
 foremost nation of the world. 
 

 Wwm 
 
 ■MiM 
 
 iiw 
 
 wSs^t: 
 
 «vS 4 ><tyrV‘ JfC»jit*; v 
 
 v -• V<£Tr£r.rjTV)£siri£<&(! 
 
 £ *2$ fa i»7l &J4 W z%C?. 
 
 mi 
 
 __jjp$^§s 
 
 T|;iJAji&S ^B-ViV ijPfl&'Sty. £\U 
 ■p*JW(M ^ i.i /,)^J4- x”3~ r % fa, r W 
 
 8 jm l fr\&w*xt&, -•- ^ 
 
 fit Alii 
 
 mmwmmm 
 
 $;T7 <A v iw s&wiut f&>G2&S&2 
 
 i,{/ fa ip w v^^*» - 
 
 /v^V 'xfc'£& ' $*"** £ 
 
 §$PM 
 
 fe&i