tion to the same amount. If some few foreign articles in some stage are used, the demand for them is created by the manufacturer, and they are in general paid for by some article that we can export; and in this way a market is created for that article also. And thus our whole manufacturing system is but one vast national machine, not manufacturing the staple, or raw material only of which the article is composed, but converting into it all and every production of the earth which the producer chooses to bring into market. Those, therefore, who supply the stock and provisions for manufacturing labor, are alike connected with, and interested in, manufactures, with those who supply the labor and capital. The southern, western, and middle States, as far as each may supply, have a joint stock interest, and to all beneficial purposes are copartners in the whole manufacturing business of the eastern States; one supplying the labor and capital for the agricultural product, the other supplying an equal quantity of labor and capital in consuming it. Yet it is objected that the markets created by the eastern manufactories are local. They will, of course, be local, so far as means and convenience make them so. The expense of transportation will, of course, come into the account. [H. OF R. The word local, as to our markets, will soon be almost without meaning. It is not to me "too lofty a maganimity, too expensive a patriotism," even "for practical use," to consider the Louisville canal, or the improvements at the Muscle shoals, improvements for the inhabitants of Connecticut or of Maine.* They may cheapen the price of a barrel of flour, in the New York or Hartford market, to the amount of convenience yielded to the seller there. They may facilitate the transportation of a bale of domestic manufactures, going to market there, as much as the like improvements at the manufactory, or anywhere else where it may pass. When the American system shall fully prevail, internal improvements and manufactories together, and we shall be bound together by their mutual interest, assistance, and dependence, we may with assurance and significance say, with our motto, "We are one." The present is a new era in the world in all manufacturing business. Some nations are pressing on each other, not merely from national policy, or individual gain, but with the violence and frenzy of starvation and desperation; and some withdrawing, as far as may be, within their own native resources. It might be otherwise in other times; but, in the present But the present facilities for transportation, and the state of the world, our laws are our protection. The ne richer soils of other sections of the country, overcome it. cessity we have seen for the present bill, the immense The town of Providence only, calculating from years past, sacrifices of foreign goods in our markets, the distress of and the progress of things observable, will, no doubt, draw our rival, the precautionary protecting policy adopted by from the southern, middle, and western States, during most other nations, all show a desperate state of things, the present year, more than one hundred, probably more that will press in upon us like a flood where the least than one hundred and twenty-five thousand barrels of flour, barrier is removed. But, suppose the friends of the antimore than half a million of bushels of corn, and pork and tariff policy shall prevail; the barriers to the introduction grain, and other necessaries of life, in equal or greater of foreign goods be removed; the business of New England proportions, principally for the supply of the surrounding be prostrated; the manufactures of the middle States, with manufacturers, and other business connected with them. the agriculture dependent on them, be paralyzed; the marYes, sir, this one town is a greater market for the grain-kets of the western States, to half their amount, be destroygrowing States than Great Britain-buys double the quan-ed; and we begin to import from abroad for the purpose tity of their flour, and, including corn, pork, and beef, receives three times the amount of their agricultural produce, notwithstanding the millions of her manufactures we annually import from her. The demand for consumption this year, created by our eastern manufactories, and drawn from other parts of the Union, will probably exceed one million barrels of flour, two million five hundred thousand bushels of corn, with nearly an equal proportion of pork and beef; something more, probably, than we export of them to all the world beside. Sir, all the grain and provisions that England will take of us, will hardly pay for the hose and gloves she manufactures for us. . of sustaining the market of rice, cotton, and tobacco, in England, according to the demands which have been pressed upon us; half the ability of the nation to import and consume, by the process, has been taken away. Nay, more, for consumption cannot long exceed exports; and we have been toldj in the protest, and we know by the stubborn fact itself, that two-thirds of the Union supply but onethird of its exports. The very efforts, therefore, which the South are making, will, by destroying the ability of the other two thirds of the Union to consume what might be taken in exchange for their staples, prove their own ruin, to the same extent they may succeed. But, suppose, again, that the free trade system shall I have spoken of things in general terms; but statistical prevail, and the whole world become one family, we must accounts will bear me out with sufficient accuracy for this cast about over the whole to see how we may then stand general view. It has been triumphantly asked, [by Mr. with it. We have all seen the time when, with an immense MCDUFFIE] what interest has the West in manufactures drain of specie, our whole supply of coarse cottons came Is the market I have mentioned for more than half their from the Indies; and we have seen this market, by the insurplus produce, nothing? Is it not one source of their pre-vention and introduction of labor-saving machinery, wholly sent activity and prosperity; and that which renders their broken up. This machinery is now lately introduced country and their cities, their canal boats and their steam- there: and the myriads who feed on pulse, and work for life boats, one continued scene of life, and bustle, and business? merely, may again be brought into competition with EngLet our friends there look back to their situation eight land and ourselves, in our own market. With this machinor ten years ago. It is not the introduction of steamboats, ery, they now have the same comparative advantage in labor but the business for them, that makes this change. Sir, and machinery, which raised and sustained that trade. And, the whole course of the business of the East and West and chimerical as it may seem, in less time than we have seen South contradicts the idea that our markets are local. The it wholly swept away, and with a change far less extraorfacilities which nature has furnished us; the efforts of gepius and enterprise, aided by internal improvement, the handmaid of prosperity and union, are bringing all parts of our country together into familiar intercourse, into one entire market, one connected business. The rise or fall in the price of provisions in Hartford or Boston is felt in New Orleans or Cincinnati, as soon as the mail can reach there. What is passing on the Ohio canals to day, may be in our New England packets to-morrow. dinary or uncalculated, we may again see the same thing return upon us. It is now much easier to transport machinery there, or build it, than it was to invent, improve, and build up this whole system, and with an opportunity its progress could hardly be counted-less chance and prospect have changed the face of many nations. speech on Internal Improvements, repelling the idea of the nationa Expressions made use of by the Hon. P. P. Barbour, in his late lity of canals, &c. H. OF R.] The Tariff. [MAY 7, 1830. Again, sir, if the protecting system is to be abandoned, | price of manufactured productions, compared with agricul it will be no more than fair that the duty on cotton should tural productions, and the effect of domestic manufactures be repealed, and our mauufacturers have an opportunity to reduce the price in their own markets, compared with in our markets for the staples of Pernambuco and Surinam, or the finer and cheaper growth of some of the interior provinces, which enterprise and internal improvement may some time bring into the markets of the world. Great changes may produce great changes which we may not think of. Many of the great revolutions in trade and commerce which we have witnessed have been wholly uncalculated and unexpected. And, sir, there is, in this state of the world, danger of changes for the South as well as the North to consider. One depends on his manufactures, and the other on his staples; and these, if we could but see it so, are mutually dependent on each other. The western and middle States have a middle and mixed interest, can manufacture and supply the material mostly within themselves, and are in these affairs more independent. If there is any one cardinal imperative policy, never to be lost sight of by those States which either depend on supplying the agricultural products for the raw material, or support of labor, it is to create, retain, and establish, somewhere, a dense population of consumers, giving competition and stability to their market, balancing foreign fluctuation and control, secure in peace and war, joining convenience of intercourse and mutual exchange. Sir, this contest between the South and the North is most unfortunate, most unnatural; not suicidal merely, but, like two fond lovers, sacrificing each other for fancied blisses they know not where or what. I come now to my last position. The time has now arrived when we may in a great measure lay aside theory on the subject; what has been but foretold by the friends of domestic industry, has become reality. It may now be laid down, as a proposition established by our own experience, and demonstrated by existing palpable facts, and liable to fewer exceptions than most others in political economy, that those articles of domestic manufacture which are fairly protected, and have had time for experiment and maturity, now are, and can be, supplied by our own manufacturers at a lower price than those of any nation of Europe do, or can, or will supply them for us; leaving the great advantage of mutual exchange of products to be superadded. I am sensible, it will be said, that woollen manufactures, which have so long been struggling with the many and various embarrassments which have haunted them, do not come wholly within this rule. Yet it is known that many parts of most articles in this manufacture, and many entire articles, are manufactured cheaper in this country than in England or Germany, where, in some respects, as well as in France, there is now a superiority in this business, even over England. those of other nations, it may be necessary to inquire more particularly whether the price of manufactures generally has, during this general depression under which we all labor, fallen more than that of agricultural products; and whether our domestic manufactures have fallen in price below the common level of the manufactures of other nations. As to the first proposition, a bare inspection of the prices each species of product has sustained, from year to year, for some time past, and their present prices, must be sufficient. And though the proposition, particularly with respect to the extraordinary fall of coarse cotton goods, (which I have chosen for my illustration,) is ge nerally admitted, its force is attempted to be evaded, by alleging that the effect in this case has arisen from peculiar causes, not generally applicable, viz., the great improvements, of late, in cotton machinery. There is, sir, so far as I understand it, a great mistake in this suggestion. Since the tariff of 1823 or 1824, sir, and for some time before that, while cotton goods of some kinds have fallen from forty to fifty per cent, the improvements in machinery in England have not amounted to one per cent, on the manufacturer, nor has their skill in operation improved much in that time. The manufacturers used machines constructed on the same principles, the same draughts and proportions of the parts, and the same comparative speed between the several motions, and, for the most part, the same general movement, except some increase of speed in coarse work, and that not general. Weaving was perfected in the introduction of the power-loom, and perfect roving, which was for a long time a desideratum in the manufacture, was supplied in the cone-speeder, conceived and attempted by Sir Richard Arkwright, and long since perfected by others. An improved machine for cleansing and batting cotton has more lately been introduced, but used but little, except for the finer and nicer fabrics, and of no account in the present calculation. Some evident improvements, particularly applicable to coarse work, have been introduced in this country, but have been seldom and doubtingly admitted into English manufactories. And though occasional attempts have been made there at improve ments, during the general depression, they have generally been abandoned for the operations and calculations used six or eight years ago. The great reduction in price, therefore, is not attributable but in a small degree to the late improvements. Competition is the wand that has brought it low. I will next inquire whether the American manufacturer can supply the same articles at as low or at a lower price than the English manufacturer. An idea is very prevaBut it will be recollected that these embarrassments lent, that the comparative price of labor in this country were the principal cause of introducing the bill now be- and in England must be conclusive against my position. fore the committee, and the principal object of the bill is The difference is conceived to be much greater than it to remove them; and that the principal effect of the amend-really is. We know there is some difference in price bement will be to increase them, and prevent this most im- tween their and our sailors, soldiers, fishermen or farmers, portant manufacture from gaining that stand which those or ordinary mechanics; but it is also known that their more fortunate have already attained. The great struggle between England and America, at this time, is for the command of our market-not so much for present gain. England will not thank us for a market under the full operation of our own competition. Her present principal object is to worry out our manufacturers, and thus avoid our competition, and thus command our market, and thus control the price. Were it not for this state of things, which their immense capital enables them, and their state of starvation urges them, to press at all points upon us, as long as there is life or hope, the necessity for protecting duties on those articles might cease. The better to illustrate the general positions I would establish, that the effect of the establishment of manufactures generally is to reduce the foremen, overseers, and scientific mechanics, who constitute a large portion of the expense in manufacturing, command much better wages in England than in this country; and it is well known, too, that a much greater proportion of women's and children's labor is introduced into our manufactories; so that, on the whole, there is probably no great advantage on either side, in this respect. Another objection commonly urged is, that our manufactories and machinery are inferior to those of the English. On this subject, I believe a great mistake prevails. I mean to confine myself to such manufactures as have had time to be perfected. It is well known, sir, by those who are conversant with the business, that the manufactories and machinery of this country, for beauty, convenience, 1 practical calculation, and perfection, are fully equal, if not superior, to any in the world. Many English manufacturers acknowledge it; and, as satisfactory proof on this point, I may allude to the fact, that the agents of the Prussian Government, after travelling over Europe and the United States to obtain the most perfect models and machinery for the establishment of cotton and woollen manufactories in their country, selected mostly American models and machinery of American workmanship. Again, it is said the British manufacturer has more skill, and can perform more in a given time and opportunity. Sir, on this point the American manufacturer claims an advantage in vigor, activity, versatility, and perseverance. The moral and mental stay drawn from our institutions; the liberality of thought and action; the free choice of expedients; the unrestrained exertions of genius: the spirit of enterprise and ambition, which a land of freedom and independence inspires-all unite to render his exertions more effective and successful, than the dependent, monotonous, hireling labor of any despotic Government on earth. In all things, in this country, aside from manufacturing, by sea and by land, in peace and in war, a general complacent consciousness of superiority seems to prevail. In the region now embracing our southwestern States, where, under the dominion of kings and despots, population and cultivation for centuries almost were confined to contracted, isolated settlements, with little intercourse, increase, or extension. But when the banner of our constitution was spread over it, and the spirit of freedom breathed upon it, population, cultivation, activity, and improvements, and all the blessings of civilization, spread around it like enchantment. The spirit of liberty, sir, is as visible and prevalent in our youthful manufactories as in our youthful settlements. Add to these considerations, that the price of provisions, especially, and many other of the necessaries of life, is at about one-half the price in this country that it is in England; that the Englishman, for the expenses of the Government, in tithes, taxes, imposts, excise and exactions, pays about seven dollars to the American's one-amounting, for a family of common size to about seven dollars per month. To this add freight and ground rent, and all their other great expenses and embarrassments, and we may, I think, readily conceive that we can manufacture cheaper than England or any other nation of Europe. My next object will be to show this from existing facts. I proceed, therefore, to give the committee, in proof, the palpable facts I alluded to in the fore part of my ob servations. We know that coarse cotton cloths, below about No. 25, have been fairly and fully protected; from that to about No. 45 or 50, partially protected; above that, very slightly, including what are termed in our tariff, cambrics, muslins &c. And what has been the result? Why, sir, while the fine cottons, which include a greater proportion of labor, and should have fallen lower, have only fallen from fifteen to twenty-five per cent. (not so much as your agricultural produce in the same time,) coarse cotton goods have fallen from fifty to seventy-five per cent. This case I have put for the double purpose of exemplifying the effects of our protection and competition in those articles we manufacture, and to show the use the foreigner makes of our market, as far as he supplies and controls it. I will give another instance, exemplifying the same effects, more palpable and decisive probably. I mean common crockery ware, and common glass ware; both imported and sold by the same class of merchants generally. Glass and glass wares, we know, have received such protection as to excite powerful competition. While the manufacture of common, enamelled, and printed wares has as yet scarcely been attempted in this country, some brown wares and imitation Delphian wares [H. of R. have been common, and some new manufactories of porcelain are now lately promising success, But the common Liverpool ware, as it is often called, has at all times occupied, commanded, and controlled our market, and regulated its prices. And what has been the result? Much the same as in the other instance, except as this article has had no rival in this country, the effect is more perceptible. While one has hardly fallen fifteen per cent, the other has, in many branches of it, fallen seventy-five per cent. And the opposers of this system, who complained so much of its injustice and oppression, are now actually saving twenty-five per cent., or more, on their glass wares, in consequence of this protection, and losing the same amount on their earthern wares, for the want of such protection. I will illustrate the effect of protection on ourselves, and the consequence of the command of the market by others, in another way. It has been considered a paradox in trade, that the American manufacturer should be able to compete in foreign markets, in South America and the Indies, with the British manufacturer, and yet need protection against him at home. That we have done it, is evident from the fact that our trade in domestics in those countries at one time was prosecuted extensively, and the effect of it is evident from the fact that, immediately on the knowledge of this, a duty of twenty-five per cent. was laid on our domestics, to exclude them from these markets, and even this has not wholly effected the object. In the South American markets, too, the same dread of our competition is manifested in the unceasing exertions and intrigue there, by English agents and English capitalists, to procure discriminating duties and embarrassing regulations against our trade; in which it is known they have too well succeeded, and we are, in a great measure, outmanaged by them in this business, in most of the American markets except our own; and if this amendment succeeds, they will have accomplished their object here. Sir, the per centum and ad valorem worth of the passage and rejection of this bill has been already calculated from your gallery, certified and countersigned in New York, and stuck up in significant handbills in every magnanimous stall in Liverpool, when they vend political economy and manufactured patriotism (as well as flimsy wares) for importation and consumption here. But, sir, the great mystery of our competition, in foreign markets, is that the English manufacturer caunot, and, if he could, he will not, (where he can avoid it,) sell his goods at our present reduced prices, where he can command the market. The American manufacturer asks no better business than to sell his goods at the English market price, where the English manufacturer and merchant have the trade. One more instance, and I bave done. The English manufacturer, it is well known, has, for a long time, enjoyed a great and important trade in cotton yarn with the nations in the North of Europe. This is there manufactured into cloth. Any stuffing, imperfection, or deception, which might go off well enough in cloths sold here or there, must be avoided to retain this market. It is, therefore, policy for the manufacturer to make this an honest, fair article, and of course it is a fair article to compare prices upon; a fair criterion, and probably the only exact one in the whole range of our rival cotton and woollen manufactures. The English manufacturer, it is well known, is in the habit of putting the American stamp and mark on his own fabrics, from a consciousness of the difference in the value in goods of the same appearance. How then stands the comparison? I have known for some time the general fact, that we were underselling the English manufacturer in this article. I have now a statement of the market prices of cotton goods generally in Manchester and Philadelphia, and the price of yarns, collated and compared, from No. 12 to 30 inclusive, which any gentleman may examine if he please, and have evidence H. OF R.] Navigation and Imposts.-The Tariff. of its accuracy, and he will find that the difference is | nearer six than five per cent. in our favor. One thing more will appear from the examination, viz. that you can purchase one pound of good cotton cloth, of American manufacture, at about the same price that you can a pound of yarn in the English market. Sir, strange as it may seem, the American manufacturer, if he were permitted, could make a good business in sending cotton yarn and cotton goods to a British market, to Manchester itself. In the other examples I have given, a general idea of the comparative difference of prices was intended only. This permits of accuracy, and may serve as a sample of the general and comparative state of the whole business, so far as our policy has extended. Need any thing more, sir, be said to prove or demonstrate what I have proposed or asserted on this subject, viz. that the protection of domestic manufactures has had the effect to reduce the price of them in our own markets below the average of the prices of the same manufactures of other nations, and that American manufacturers do, and can furnish their fellow-citizens with all those articles, where the manufacturer is fairly protected, at lower prices than any other nation does, or can, or will furnish them for us. If these things are so, it must settle this whole question, both in principle and practice; for, however extensive or confined our reasoning, theory, or speculation on this subject may be, if the country obtains its manufactures at a reduced price, in consequence of their protection, injustice, violence, and oppression, so much talked of, have ceased. [MAY 8, 1830. Mr. EVERETT, of Massachusetts, resumed, and addressed the committee two hours in continuation and conclusion of the speech which he commenced yesterday. Mr. E. said, that, being compelled to give a vote on the question now before the committee, he felt it his duty to submit the reasons which would govern him in giving that vote. And, in the first place, [said Mr. E.] I shall make one or two remarks in reply to the observations of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. CAMBRELENG] who has just taken his seat. I cannot but acknowledge that there is a better foundation in truth, than I could wish, for a por tion of his remarks, and most assuredly to the extent in which they are so founded in truth, they show that the amendment ought not to prevail. The gentleman from New York admits that the manufacturers of New England (and of course among others, of my constituents) are in a depressed state. I thank the gentleman for the admission. In general, they are thus depressed; too many of them to the point of annihilation. What then becomes of the pictures which have been so freely drawn of our manufaeturers in this debate, representing them as hungry monopo lists, fattening on the distresses of the country, as purse proud aristocrats, who have filled their pockets with money wrung by iniquitous laws from the hard earnings of the people! The manufacturers are many of them extremely depressed. Much of this capital has ceased to be produc tive. Some establishments, conducted with seeming prodence and care, have been broken down. Prodigious losses have been encountered, and large fortunes shaken. I beg the committee to give full faith, to this extent, to the description of the gentleman from New York, and contrast it with the view taken of our manufacturing interests by almost every other gentleman who has spoken in this debate on the same side of the question. Another reflection forces itself on my mind, in conse I had, sir, intended to have taken another and more general view of the relative claims and present attitude of the opposite parties in this question; but having already, as I find, extended my remarks to a greater length than I had proposed, at this late stage of the debate and the ses-quence of the statement which the gentleman from New sion, I shall close here, satisfied that if the intimate and friendly connexion between our manufactures and the agriculture of the South, Middle, and West, is, by some, yet unappreciated-if the assistance of our manufactures in producing the present extraordinary reduction in their prices throughout the whole country, beyond all former precedent and calculation, is, by some here, treated with indifference, the system is, by its own effects, fast establishing a character for itself. Mr. CAMBRELENG followed, in a speech of the same length, in an examination of the bill, to show that it was inadequate to the object proposed; also, in reply to some of the views expressed by Mr. McDUFFIE on the one hand, and Mr. DAVIS on the other. Mr. BATES, of Massachusetts, spoke a short time in reply to some of the remarks of Mr. CAMBRELENG. York has given of the condition of our manufacturers. Is this period of great and acknowledged depression a well chosen time for throwing down the whole system of legis lation, on the faith of which these investments of capital have been made? If the manufacturers are so depressed, that they can scarce hold their heads above water, is it a moment, either kindly or wisely chosen, to strike in upon them, with a sweeping repeal, not only of the law of 1828, but of that of 1824, and, in addition to the pressure of the times, to withdraw from them the legislative protection under which, as you yourselves say, they have been forced into being? Surely not. By whatever arguments a gradual reduction of duties could be defended, the sweeping ruin of what is left of this branch of the national industry, by an act of legislation unheard of for comprehensive violence, would be wholly indefensible. Mr. EVERETT, of Massachusetts, next rose, and adThe gentleman from New York said that the laws of dressed the committee more than an hour, in reply to Mr. 1824 and 1828, imposing duties on imports, were the reMCDUFFIE and Mr. CAMBRELENG, and in a general argu-sult of political speculation, the contrivance of ambitions ment on the subject of debate. At four o'clock he gave way for a motion for the committee to rise, which prevailed. SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1830. NAVIGATION AND IMPOSTS. The House resumed the consideration of the bill reported by Mr. CAMBRELENG, respecting navigation and imposts. Mr. STRONG rose, and addressed the House against the bill, until the expiration of the hour, without having finished his remarks. THE TARIFF. The House again resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, Mr. POLK in the chair, on the bill to amend the act in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports. men, and intended to effect the election of a New England President. If this is the case, it must be admitted that the New England delegation pursued a singular course. A large majority of its members voted against the laws. [Mr. CAMBRELENG explained, that he did not apply that remark to the law of 1824, but to that of 1828; that wool complained that they suffered by the duty on the raw after the passage of the law of 1824, the manufacturers of material, and that this duty was increased by the law of 1828, which therefore must have been supported from po litical calculation.] Sir, [continued Mr. EVERETT] it needs no political calculation to lead men to take measures to preserve themselves from ruin. The manufacturers of wool found themselves in a state of great depression, after the passage of the law of 1824. What they had foreseen before its passage, had come to pass. The benefit they might have derived from the increase of the duty on cloth had been, in MAY 8, 1830.] The Tariff. various ways, rendered unavailing; and, among others, by the enhanced duty on wool. It was not their fault that it was laid on. They sought a revision of the tariff, in which this evil would be remedied. The law which was passed in 1828, was not such a one as they desired. A majority of those most interested in the woollen manufacture, (a very large majority of the Massachussetts delegation,) voted against the law. Some of the representatives who voted for it, voted for it not as a good law, but as the best law they could hope for. They knew that the interest of the farmers must be consulted, and that no law could be passed which did not reconcile that interest with that of the manufacturer. If the law of 1828 was passed from political calculations, let those who effected its passage from such motives be responsible. Those calculations are unknown to me, as forming any part of the motives of myself or those with whom I acted. On its passage through the House I voted against it. In the Senate it received some important modifications. On each of these, when the bill with its amendments came back to the House, I voted according to my opinion of its separate merits. How I should have voted had there been a question on the passage of the whole bill as amended, I will not undertake to say. The gentleman speaks of consistency; of taking up a principle one day, and laying it down the next, and this from motives of political calculation. I ask no other principle to justify me, in every vote I have given on this subject, than that which is laid down in the report lately made by the gentleman himself, as chairman of the Committee on Commerce. "In adjusting," says the gentleman in that report, a maximum and permanent rate of duty on foreign merchandise, to suit the political plan of a confederacy, and to regulate our intercourse with foreign nations, the committee are sensible of the necessity of having a just regard to the prosperity of our manufactures. The question is not now, whether we will or not establish protecting duties; that must of necessity be waived: the duties and the manufactures already exist." That is the principle on which I act. It is a sound one. It is not for us, who, proceeding on this principle, support laws necessary to save the manufactures from ruin, to defend our consistency. That must be done by gentlemen who, holding the principle, are for repealing the laws. The abstract question of free trade is not before us. The system of commercial intercourse most advantageous to be pursued by all nations, if all would agree, in good faith, to unite in it, is not under consideration. The arguments which may be adduced on the expediency of embarking, for the first time, in the protecting policy, are not pertinent to the occasion. The duties have been laid; the manufactures have been brought into being. Capital has been in many parts of the country, forced into this channel, against the known current of public sentiment. And now the question is, shall we consent to a sweeping repeal of these laws, and especially at a period which may be looked upon as a crisis in the fate of the manufactures? Shall we break down the feeble barrier left against foreign competition, and the fluctuation of foreign markets? Such is not the view which I take of my duty to the interests committed to my charge. It is the duty of every member of this House, who sees the lawful industry of his constituents in peril, especially if that industry has received its direction immediately from the legislation of the country, to take care that, under an adverse influence of the same legislation, it be not crushed. I know we are to pass laws for the whole people; and authorities of high note are quoted to us, from Great Britain, to show that we are to legislate for general and not for sectional interests. The case, however, of the British Parliament is widely different from that of the American Congress. Parliament is constituted with very little regard to geographical representation, the principle which lies at [H. of R. the basis of this House. If each member of this House But I do not find such a course in the proposition which the gentleman from South Carolina. [Mr. McDUFFIE] has brought forward, by way of amendment to the bill before the committee. His proposed measure I regard as threatening immediate and entire ruin to the manufacturers, and consequential disaster to every other branch of the industry of the country. I consider it my duty, therfore, to go, at some length, into the examination of it. In doing this, however, much that I might have attempted to say has been anticipated. The argument against the amendment of the gentleman from South Carolina, and the examination of his course of reasoning, have been so ably pursued by my colleagues, [Messrs. DAVIS and GORHAM] that it will require no little caution, on my part, not to tread again over ground which has been so ably pre-occupied. Did I agree with the gentleman from South Carolina, either as to the principles on which he proceeded, or the facts which he assumed, I should, in conscience, be obliged to go with him, and lend my aid to break down, as rapidly as possible, the protecting system of the country. The gentleman stated, that a "reference to the treasury statements of the commerce of the United States will show that the whole amount of the domestic productions of the United States, annually exported to foreign countries, taking an average of years, is something less than fifty-eight millions of dollars. It may be estimated that those portions of the southern and southwestern States, which are engaged in the production of the great agricul tural staples of cotton, tobacco, and rice, (constituting less than one-third part of the Union,) export to the amount of thirty-seven millions of dollars, and those portions of the States just mentioned, which are engaged in the production of cotton and rice, (constituting less than one-fifth of the Union,) export to the amount of thirty millions of dollars ;" and the gentleman went on to argue that the amount of imports in these parts of the Union must be equal to this amount of exports, and consequently that a proportionate amount of the duties on imports (equal to twothirds of the whole amount paid into the treasury from the duties on imports) is levied on the States growing rice, cotton, or tobacco. I have looked at the treasury statements for the last eleven years, being as far back as I have the means at hand of pushing the inquiry, and I find that the average annual export of the three staples of cotton, rice, and |