management of their own affairs, they would have much surer guides in promoting the interests of the state, than the visionary speculations of theoretical writers.

The manufacturing system is not only injurious to agriculture, but, say its opponents, it is injurious also to foreign commerce. We ought not to conceal from ourselves our present actual position in relation to other powers. During the protracted war which has so long convulsed all Europe, and which will probably be succeeded by a long peace, we transacted the commercial business of other nations, and largely shared with England the carrying trade of the world. Now, every other nation is anxiously endeavoring to transact its own business, to rebuild its marine, and to foster its navigation. The consequence of the former state of things was, that our mercantile marine, and our commercial employment were enormously disproportionate to the exchangeable domestic produce of our country. the result of the latter will be, that, as exchanges between this country and other nations will hereafter consist principally, on our part, of our domestic produce, that marine and that employment will be brought down to what is necessary to effect those exchanges. I regret exceedingly this reduction. I wish the mercantile class could enjoy the same extensive commerce that they formerly did. But, if they cannot, it would be a folly to repine at what is irrecoverably lost, and we should seek rather to adapt ourselves to the new circumstances in which we find ourselves. If, as I think, we have reached the maximum of our foreign demand for our three great staples, cotton, tobacco, and flour, no man will contend that we should go on to produce more and more, to be sent to the glutted foreign market, and consumed by devouring expenses, merely to give employment to our tonnage and to our foreign commerce. It would be extremely unwise to accommodate our industry to produce, not what is wanted abroad, but cargoes for our unemployed ships. I would give our foreign trade every legitimate encouragement, and extend it whenever it can be extended profitably. Hitherto it has been stimulated too highly, by the condition of the world, and our own policy acting on that condition. And we are reluctant to believe that we must submit to its necessary abridgment. The habits of trade; the tempting instances of enormous fortunes which have been made by the successful prosecution of it, are such, that we turn with regret from its pursuit; we still cherish a lingering hope; we persuade our

selves that something will occur, how and what it may be, we know not, to revive its former activity; and we would push into every untried channel, grope through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea, to restore its former profits. I repeat it, let us proclaim to the people of the United States the incontestable truth, that our foreign trade must be circumscribed by the altered state of the world; and, leaving it in the possession of all the gains which it can now possibly make, let us present motives to the capital and labor of our country to employ themselves in fabrication at home. There is no danger that, by a withdrawal of that portion which is unprofitably employed on other objects, and an application of it to fabrication, our agriculture would be too much cramped. The produce of it will always come up to the foreign demand. Such are the superior allurements belonging to the cultivation of the soil to all other branches of industry, that it will always be preferred when it can profitably be followed. The foreign demand will, in any conceivable state of things, limit the amount of the exportable produce of agriculture. The amount of our exportations will form the measure of our importations, and, whatever these may be, they will constitute the basis of the revenue derivable from customs.

The manufacturing system is favorable to the maintenance of peace. Foreign commerce is the great source of foreign wars. The eagerness with which we contend for every branch of it; the temptations which it offers, operating alike upon us and our foreign competitors, produce constant collisions. No country on earth, by the extent of its superficies, the richness of its soil, the variety of its climate, contains within its own limits more abundant facilities for supplying all our rational wants than ours does. It is not necessary or desirable, however, to cut off all intercourse with foreign powers. But, after securing a supply, within ourselves, of all the great essentials of life, there will be ample scope still left for preserving such an intercourse. If we had no intercourse with foreign states, if we adopted the policy of China, we should have no external wars. And in proportion as we diminish our dependance upon them, shall we lessen the danger of the recurrence of war.. Our late war would not have existed if the counsels of the manufacturers in England had been listened to. They finally did prevail, in their steady and persevering effort to produce a repeal of the orders in council; but it was too late to prevent the war. Those who attribute to the manufacturing system the bur

These

dens and misfortunes of that country, commit a great error. were probably a joint result of the operation of the whole of her systems, and the larger share of it was to be ascribed to her foreign commerce, and to the ambition of her rulers, than to any other cause. The war of our revolution, in which that ambition displayed its monstrous arrogance and pretensions, laid the broad foundation of that enormous debt under which she now groans.

The tendency of reasonable encouragement to our home industry is favorable to the preservation and strength of our confederacy. Now our connexion is merely political. For the sale of the surplus of the produce of our agricultural labor, all eyes are constantly turned upon the markets of Liverpool. There is scarcely any of that beneficial intercourse, the best basis of political connexion, which consists of the exchange of the produce of our labor. On our maritime frontier there has been too much stimulus, an unnatural activity; in the great interior of the country, there exists a perfect paralysis. Encourage fabrication at home, and there will instantly arise animation and a healthful circulation throughout all the parts of the republic. The cheapness, fertility, and quantity of our waste lands, offer such powerful inducements to cultivation, that our countrymen are constantly engaging in it. I would not check this disposition by hard terms in the sale of it. Let it be easily accessible to all who wish to acquire it. But I would countervail this predilection by presenting to capital and labor, motives for employment in other branches of industry. Nothing is more uncertain than the pursuit of agriculture, when we mainly rely upon foreign markets for the sale of its surplus produce. In the first place, it is impossible to determine, a priori, the amount of this surplus; and, in the second, it is equally impossi-\ ble to anticipate the extent of the foreign demand. Both the one and the other depend upon the seasons. From the fluctuations incident to these, and from other causes, it may happen that the supplying country will, for a long series of years, have employed a larger share of its capital and labor than is wise, in production to supply the wants of the consuming countries, without becoming sensible of its defect of policy. The failure of a crop, or the failure of a market, does not discourage the cultivator. He renews his labors another year, and he renews his hopes. It is otherwise with manufacturing industry. The precise quantum of its produce, at least, can with some accuracy

be previously estimated. And the wants of foreign countries can be with some probability anticipated.

I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, if I have even had a success, which I dare not presume, in the endeavor I have been making to show that sound policy requires a diversion of so much of the capital and labor of this country from other employments as may be necessary, by a different application of them, to secure, within ourselves, a steady and adequate supply of the great necessaries of life, I shall have only established one half of what is incumbent upon me to prove. It will still be required by the other side, that a second proposition be supported, and that is, that government ought to present motives for such a diversion and new application of labor and capital, by that species of protection which the tariff holds out. Gentlemen say, We agree with you; you are right in your first proposition; but, "let things alone," and they will come right in the end. Now, I agree with them, that things would ultimately get right: but not until after a long period of disorder and distress, terminating in the impoverishment, and perhaps ruin of the country. Dissolve government, reduce it to its primitive elements, and, without any general effort to reconstruct it, there would arise, out of the anarchy which would ensue, partial combinations for the purpose of individual protection, which would finally lead to a social form, competent to the conservation of peace within, and the repulsion of force from without. Yet no one would say, in such a state of anarchy, Let things alone! If gentlemen, by their favorite maxim, mean only that, within the bosom of the state, things are to be left alone, and each individual, and each branch of industry, allowed to pursue their respective interests, without giving a preference to either, I subscribe to it. But if they give it a more comprehensive import; if they require that things be left alone, in respect not only to interior action, but to exterior action also; not only as regards the operation of our own government upon the mass of the interests of the state, but as it relates to the operation of foreign governments upon that mass, I dissent from it.

This maxim, in this enlarged sense, is indeed everywhere proclaimed; but nowhere practised. It is truth in the books of European political economists. It is error in the practical code of every European state. It is not applied where it is most applicable; it is attempted to be introduced here, where it is least applicable; and