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source of public revenue, they would so adjust and arrange the duties on foreign fabrics as to afford a gradual but adequate protection to American industry, and lessen our dependence on foreign nations, by securing a certain and, ultimately, a cheaper and better supply of our own wants from our own abundant resources. Both classes are equally sincere in their respective opinions, equally honest, equally patriotic, and desirous of advancing the prosperity of the country. In the discussion and consideration of these opposite opinions, for the purpose of ascertaining which has the support of truth and reason, we should, therefore, exercise every indulgence, and the greatest spirit of mutual moderation and forbearance. And, in our deliberations on this great question, we should look fearlessly and truly at the actual condition of the country, retrace the causes which have brought us into it, and snatch, if possible, a view of the future. We should, above all, consult experiencethe experience of other nations as well as our own, as our truest and most unerring guide.

In casting our eyes around us, the most prominent circumstance which fixes our attention, and challenges our deepest regret, is the general distress which pervades the whole country. It is forced upon us by numerous facts of the most incontestable character. It is indicated by the diminished exports of native produce, by the depressed and reduced state of our foreign navigation, by our diminished commerce, by successive unthreshed crops of grain, perishing in our barns and barn-yards for the want of a market, by the alarming diminution of the circulating medium, by the numerous bankruptcies, not limited to the trading classes, but extending to all orders of society, by a universal complaint of the want of employment, and a consequent reduction of the wages of labor, by the ravenous pursuit after public situations, not for the sake of their honors, and the performance of their public duties, but as a means of private subsistence, by the reluctant resort to the perilous use of paper money, by the intervention of legislation in the delicate relation between debtor and creditor, and, above all, by the low and depressed state of the value of almost every description of the whole mass of the property of the nation, which has, on an average, sunk not less than about fifty per cent. within a few years. This distress pervades every part of the Union, every class of society; all feel it, though it may be felt, at different places, in different degrees. It is like the atmosphere which surrounds us-all must inhale it, and none can escape it-and in some places it has burst upon our people

without a single mitigating circumstance to temper its severity. What is the cause of this wide-spreading distress, of this deep depression, which we behold stamped on the public countenance? We are the same people. We have the same country. We cannot arraign the bounty of Providence. The shadows still fall in the same grateful abundance. The sun still casts his genial and vivifying influence upon the land, and the land, fertile and diversified in its soils as ever, yields to the industrious cultivator, in boundless profusion, its accustomed fruits, its richest treasures. Our vigor is unimpaired. Our industry is not relaxed.

The causes, then, of our present affliction, whatever they may be, are human causes, and human causes not chargeable upon the people, in their private and individual relations. They are to be found in the fact that, during almost the whole existence of this Government, we have shaped our industry, our navigation, and our commerce in reference to an extraordinary war in Europe, and to foreign markets, which no longer exist; in the fact that we have depended too much upon foreign sources of supply, and excited too little the native; in the fact that, while we have cultivated with assiduous care our foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The consequence of the termination of the war of Europe has been the resumption of European commerce, European navigation, and the extension of European agriculture and European industry in all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer occasion to any thing like the same extent as that which she had during her wars for American commerce, American navigation, the produce of American industry. Europe in commotion, and convulsed throughout all her members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she is now, tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention all her own peculiar interests, without regard to the operation of her policy upon us. The effect of this altered state of Europe upon us has been to circumscribe the employment of our marine, and greatly to reduce the value of the produce of our territorial labor. The further effect of this two-fold reduction has been to decrease the value of all property, whether on the land or on the ocean, which loss I suppose to be about fifty per cent. And the still further effect has been to diminish the amount of our circulating medium, in a proportion not less by its transmission abroad, or its withdrawal by the banking institutions, from a necessity which they could not control. The quantity of money, in whatever form it may

be, which a nation wants is in proportion to the total mass of its wealth, and to the activity of that wealth. A nation that has but little wealth has but a limited want of money. In stating 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 are 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.

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.

Mr. Chairman, our Confederacy comprehends within its vast limits great diversity of interests-agricultural, planting, farming, commercial, navigating, fishing, manufacturing. No one of these interests is felt in the same degree, and cherished with the same solicitude, through all parts of the Union. Some of them are peculiar to particular sections of our common country. But all these great interests are confided to the protection of one government-to the fate of one ship, and a

most gallant ship it is, with a noble crew. If we prosper, and are happy, protection must be extended to all-it is due to all. It is the great principle on which obedience is demanded from all. If our essential interests cannot find protection from our own Government against the policy of foreign powers, where are they to get it?

Need I remind the committee of the great advantages of a steady and unfailing source of supply, unaffected alike in war and in peace? Its importance, in reference to the stability of our Union, that paramount and greatest of all our interests, cannot fail warmly to recommend it, or at least to conciliate the forbearance of every patriot bosom. Now our people present the spectacle of a vast assemblage of jealous rivals, all eagerly rushing to the seaboard, jostling each other in their way, to hurry off to glutted foreign markets the perishable produce of their labor. The tendency of that policy, in conformity with which this bill is prepared, is to transform these competitors into friends and mutual customers, and, by the reciprocal exchanges of their respective productions, to place the Confederacy upon the most solid of all foundations, the basis of common interest. And is not the Government called upon, by every stimulating motive, to adapt its policy to the actual condition and extended growth of our great Republic? Our policy should be modified so as to comprehend all and sacrifice none. And are we not encouraged by the success of past experience in respect to the only article [cotton] which has been adequately protected? Already have the predictions of the friends of the American system, in even a shorter time than their most sanguine hopes could have anticipated, been completely realized in regard to that article, and the consumption is now better and cheaper supplied with coarse cottons than it was under the prevalence of the foreign system.

The benefits of the policy are two-fold, direct and collateral, and in the one shape or the other they will diffuse themselves throughout the Union. All parts of the Union will participate, more or less, in both. As to the direct benefits, it is probable that the North and the East will enjoy the largest share. But the West and the South will also participate in them. And where the direct benefit does not accrue, that will be enjoyed. of supplying the raw material and provisions for the consumption of artisans. Is it not most desirable to put at rest and prevent the annual recurrence of this unpleasant subject so well fitted by the various interests to which it appeals to excite irritation and to produce discontent? Can that be effected by

its rejection? Behold the mass of petitions which lie on our table, earnestly and anxiously entreating the protecting interposition of Congress against the ruinous policy which we are pursuing. Will these petitioners, comprehending all orders of society, entire States and communities, public companies, and private individuals, spontaneously assembling, cease in their humble prayers, by your lending a deaf ear? Will you delay the passage of this bill while these petitioners, and others in countless numbers, contemplate their substance gradually withdrawn to foreign countries, their ruin as inevitable as death itself?

Our convictions, mutually honest, are equally strong. What then is to be done? I invoke that saving spirit of mutual concession under which our blessed Constitution was formed, and under which alone it can be happily administered. I appeal to the South-to the high-minded, generous, and patriotic South-with which I have so often coöperated in attempting to sustain the honor and to vindicate the rights of our country. Should it not offer, upon the altar of the public good, some sacrifice of its peculiar opinions? Of what does it complain? A possible temporary enhancement in the objects of consumption. Of what do we complain? A total incapacity, produced by the foreign policy, to purchase, at any price, necessary foreign objects of consumption. In such an alternative, inconvenient only to it, ruinous to us, can we expect too much from Southern magnanimity? The just and confident expectation of the passage of this bill has flooded the country with recent importations of foreign fabrics. If it should not pass, they will complete the work of destruction of our domestic industry. If it should pass, they will prevent any considerable rise in the price of foreign commodities, until our own industry shall be able to supply competent substitutes.

This bill may be postponed, thwarted, defeated. But the cause is the cause of the country, and it must and will prevail. It is founded in the interests and affections of the people. It is as native as the granite deeply embosomed in our mountains. And, in conclusion, I would pray God, in His infinite mercy, to avert from our country the evils which are impending over it, and, by enlightening our councils, to conduct us into that path which leads to riches, to greatness, to glory.

MR. WEBSTER.-Being intrusted with the interests of a district highly commercial, and deeply interested in manufactures also, I wish to state my opinions on the present measure, not as on a whole, for it has no entire and homogeneous character,

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