the fact, therefore, that the total wealth of the country has diminished, within a few years, in a ratio of about fifty per cent. we shall at once fully comprehend the inevitable reduction, which must have ensued, in the total quantity of the circulating medium of the country. A nation is most prosperous when there is a gradual and untempting addition to the aggregate of its circulating medium. It is in a condition the most adverse, when there is a rapid diminution in the quantity of the circulating medium, and a consequent depression in the value of property. In the former case, the wealth of individuals insensibly increases, and income keeps ahead of expenditure. But, in the latter instance, debts have been contracted, engagements made, and habits of expense established, in reference to the existing state of wealth, and of its representative. When these come to be greatly reduced, individuals find their debts still existing, their engagements unexecuted, and their habits inveterate. They see themselves in the possession of the same property, on which, in good faith, they had bound themselves. But that property, without their fault, possesses no longer the same value; and hence discontent, impoverishment and ruin arise. Let us suppose, Mr. Chairman, that Europe was again the theatre of such a general war as recently raged throughout all her dominions-such a state of war as existed in her greatest exertions and in our greatest prosperity: instantly there would arise a greedy demand for the surplus produce of our industry, for our commerce, for our navigation. The languor, which now prevails in our cities, and in our seaports, would give way to an animated activity. Our roads and rivers would be crowded with the produce of the interior. Every where we should witness excited industry. The precious metals would re-flow from abroad upon us. Banks, which have maintained their credit, would revive their business; and new banks would be established, to take the place of those which have sunk beneath the general pressure. For it is a mistake to suppose that they have produced our present

adversity; they may have somewhat aggravated it, but they were the effect and the evidence of our prosperity. Prices would again get up; the former value of property would be restored; and those embarrassed persons who have not been already overwhelmed by the times, would suddenly find, in the augmented value of their property, and the renewal of their business, ample means to extricate themselves from all their difficulties. The greatest want of civilized society is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the produce of the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or both; but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and wherever it does exist it should be competent to the absorption of the entire surplus of production. It is most desirable that there should be both a home and a foreign market. But with respect to their relative superiority, I cannot entertain a doubt. The home market is first in order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill, under consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundations of a genuine American policy. It is opposed; and it is incumbent upon the partizans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any invidious intent,) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? First, foreign nations cannot, if they would, take our surplus produce. If the source of supply, no matter of what, increases in a greater ratio than the demand for that supply, a glut of the market is inevitable, even if we suppose both to remain perfectly unobstructed. The duplication of our population takes place in terms of about twenty-five years. The term will be more and more extended as our numbers multiply. But it will be a sufficient approximation to assume this ratio for the present. We increase, therefore, in population, at the rate of about four per cent. per annum. Supposing the increase of our production to be in the same ratio, we should, every succeeding year, have of surplus produce, four per cent. more than that of the preceding year, without taking

into the account the differences of seasons which neutralize each other. If, therefore, we are to rely upon the foreign market exclusively, foreign consumption ought to be shown to be increasing in the same ratio of four per cent. per annum, if it be an adequate vent for our surplus produce. But, as I have supposed the measure of our increasing production to be furnished by that of our increasing population; so the measure of their power of consumption must be determined by that of the increase of their population. Now the total foreign population who consume our surplus produce, upon an average, do not double their aggregate number in a shorter term than that of about one hundred years. Our powers of production increase then in a ratio four times greater than their powers of consumption. And hence their utter inability to receive from us our surplus produce.

But, secondly, if they could, they will not. The policy of all Europe is adverse to the reception of our agricultural produce, so far as it comes into collision with its own; and under that limitation we are absolutely forbid to enter their ports, except under circumstances which deprive them of all value as a steady market. The policy of all Europe rejects those great staples of our country, which consist of objects of human subsistence. The policy of all Europe refuses to receive from us any thing but those raw materials of smaller value, essential to their manufactures, to which they can give a higher value, with the excep-, tion of tobacco and rice, which they cannot produce. Even Great Britain, to which we are its best customer, and from which we receive nearly one half in value of our whole imports, will not take from us articles of subsistence produced in our country cheaper than can be produced in Great Britain. In adopting this exclusive policy, the states of Europe do not inquire what is best for us, but what suits themselves respectively; they do not take jurisdiction of the question of our interests, but limit the object of their legislation to that of the conservation of their own peculiar inter

ests, leaving us free to prosecute ours as we please. They do not guide themselves by that romantic philanthropy, which we see displayed here, and which invokes us to continue to purchase the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the state or prosperity of our own, that foreigners may be pleased to purchase the few remaining articles of ours which their restricted policy has not yet absolutely excluded from their consumption. What sort of a figure would a member of the British parliament have made; what sort of a reception would his opposition have obtained, if he had remonstrated against the passage of the corn law, by which British consumption is limited to the bread-stuffs of British production, to the entire exclusion of American, and stated that America could not and would not buy British manufactures, if Britain did not buy American flour?

Both the inability and the policy of foreign powers, then, forbid us to rely upon the foreign market as bcing an adequate vent for the surplus produce of American labor. Now let us see if this general reasoning is not fortified and confirmed by the actual experience of this country. If the foreign market may be safely relied upon, as furnishing an adequate demand for our surplus produce, then the official documents will show a progressive increase, from year to year, in the exports of our native produce, in a proportion equal to that which I have suggested. If, on the contrary, we shall find from them that for a long term of past years some of our most valuable staples have retrograded, some remained stationary, and others advanced but little, if any, in amount, with the exception of cotton, the deductions of reason and the lessons of experience will alike command us to withdraw our confidence in the competency of the foreign market.

[Mr. Clay here gave a detail of facts, relative to our exports of domestic produce for a series of years, from which it appeared that in most articles, the increase of the export had, by no means, kept pace with the increase of our population; that the article of

cotton alone, had proportionably advanced, but that its value had recently very much diminished. He observed, that the articles of cotton, rice and tobacco, constituted in value, more than one half of all the exports of domestic produce in 1823, and that the portion of our population, engaged in the culture of these articles, was less than one fifth of the whole population of the United States.]

Is this foreign market, so incompetent at present, and which, limited as its demands are, operates so unequally upon the productive labor of our country, likely to improve in future? If I am correct in the views which I have presented to the committee, it must become worse and worse. What can improve it? Europe will not abandon her own agriculture to foster ours. We may even anticipate that she will more and more enter into competition with us in the supply of the West India market. That of South America, for articles of subsistence, will probably soon vanish. The value of our exports, for the future, may remain at about what it was last year. But, if we do not create some new market; if we persevere in the existing pursuits of agriculture, the inevitable consequence must be, to augment greatly the quantity of our produce, and to lessen its value in the foreign market. Can there be a doubt on this point? Take the article of cotton, for example, which is almost the only article that now remunerates labor and capital. Á certain description of labor is powerfully attracted towards the cotton-growing country. The cultivation will be greatly extended, the aggregate amount, annually produced, will be vastly augmented. The price will fall. The more unfavorable soils will then be gradually abandoned and I have no doubt that, in a few years, it will cease to be profitably produced, anywhere north of the 34th degree of latitude. But, in the mean time, large numbers of the cotton-growers will suffer the greatest distress. And whilst this distress is brought upon our own country, foreign industry will be stimulated by the very cause which occasions