To obey the behests of the democratic question of the tariff and internal revenue caucus of this body, whose leadership on lawsthis floor, whose representative national authority-the one here and the other elsewhere have championed the cause of the Bourbon-funder party in Virginia, would be an obsequious surrender of our State policy and self-condemnation of our independent action. The desire of our people for cordial relations with all sections of a common country and the people of all the States of the Union, their devotion to popular education, their efforts for the free enjoyment of a priceless suffrage and an honest count of ballots, their determination to make Virginia, in the public belief, a desirable home for all men, wherever their birthplace, whatever their opinions, and to open her fields and her mines to enterprise and capital, and to stay the retrograde movement of years, so as to bring her back from the fifteenth in grade to her original position among the first in the sisterhood of States, forbid that my action here should be controlled or influenced by a caucus whose party has waged war upon my constituency and where party success is held paramount to what I conceive to be the interests of Virginia and the welfare of the whole country. The readjusters of Virginia have no feeling of hostility, no words of unkindness for the colored man. His freedom has come, and whether by purpose or by accident, thank God, that among other issues which so long distracted our country and restrained its growth, was concluded, and I trust forever, by the results of the sanguinary struggle between the sections. I have faith, and it is my earnest hope, that the march of an enlightened civilization and the progress of human freedom will proceed until God's great family shall everywhere enjoy the products of their own labor and the blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty. The colored man was loyal to Virginia in all the days of conflict and devastation which came of the heroic struggle in the war of sections that made her fields historic. By no act of his was either the clash of arms provoked or freedom secured. He did not solve his duty by considerationr of self-interest. Mr. MORRILL said: I have brought this subject to the early attention of the Senate because, if early legislative action on the tariff is to be had, obviously the measure proposed by Senator Eaton and passed at the last session of the Senate is a wise and indispensable preliminary, which cannot be started too soon. The essential information needed concerns important interests, vast in number and overspreading every nook and corner of our country; and when made available by the ingathering and collocation of all the related facts, will secure the earliest attention of Congress, as well as the trust and confidence of the country, and save the appropriate committees of both Houses weeks and months of irksome labor-possibly save them also from some blunders and from final defeat. An enlargement of the free list, essential reductions and readjustments of rates, are to be fully considered, and some errors of conflicting codifications corrected. If a general revision of the Bible seems to have been called for, it is hardly to be wondered at that some revision of our revenue laws should be invited. But changes in the frame-work of a law that has had more of stability than any other of its kind in our history, and from which an unexampled growth of varied industries has risen up, should be made with much circumspection, after deliberate consideration, by just and friendly hands, and not by illinformed and reckless revolutionists. When our recent great army was disbanded, war taxes were also largely dismissed, and we have now, and certainly shall have hereafter, no unlimited margin for slashing experiments. THE TARIFF OF 1861. The tariff act of 1861, which, by a nickname given by baffled opponents as an echo to a name so humble as my own, it was perhaps hoped to render odious, was yet approved by a democratic President and gave to Mr. Buchanan a much-needed opportunity to perform at last one official act approved by the people. If I refer to this measure, it will not be egotistically nor to shirk responsibility, but only in defense of those who aided its passage such as the never-to-be-forgotten Henry Winter Davis, Thad. Stevens, and, William A. Howard, and, let me add, the Speech of Hon. Justin S. Morrill, of Ver- names of Fessenden and Crittenden-and, mont, (Author of the Tariff Bill of 1861), delivered in the Senate of the United States, December 8, 1881, on the Bill to Appoint a Tariff Commission. The Senate, being as in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration the bill (S. No. 22) to provide for the appointment of a commission to investigate the without the parliamentary skill of one (Mr. SHERMAN) now a member of this body, its success would not have been made certain. And yet this so-called "Morrill tariff," hooted at as a "Chinese wall" that was to shut out both commerce and revenue, notwithstanding amendments subsequently piled and patched upon it at every fresh demand during the war, but retaining its vertebræ and all of its specific characteristics, has been as a financial measure an unprecedented success in spite of its supposed patronymical incumbrance. Transforming ad valorem duties into specific, then averaging but 25 per cent. upon the invoice values, imposing much higher rates upon luxuries than upon necessaries, and introducing compound duties* upon woolens, justly compensatory for the duties on wool, it has secured all the revenue anticipated, or $198,159,676 in 1881 against $53,187,511 in 1860, and our total trade, exports and imports, in 1860, of $687,192,176, appears to have expanded in 1880 to $1,613,770,633, with a grand excess of exports in our favor of $167,683,912, and an excess in 1881 of $259,726,254, while it was $20,040,062 against us in 1860. A great reduction of the public debt has followed, and the interest charged has fallen from $143,781,591 in 1867 to about $60,500,000 at the present time. If such a result is not a practical demonstration of healthy intrinsic merits, when both revenue and commerce increase in a much greater ratio than population, what is it? Our imports in the past two years have been further brilliantly embellished by $167,060,041 of gold and silver coin and bullion, while retaining in addition all of our own immense domestic productions; and it was this only which enabled us to resume and to maintain specie payments. Let the contrast of 1860 be also borne in mind, when the excess of our exports of gold and silver was $57,996,004. As a protective measure this tariff, with all its increasing amendments, has proven more satisfactory to the people and to various industries of the country than any other on record. The jury of the country has so recorded its verdict. Agriculture has made immense strides forward. The recent exports of food products, though never larger, is not equal by twenty-fold to home consumption, and prices are every where more remunerative, agricultural products being higher and manufactures lower. Of wheat, corn, and oats there was produced 1,184,540,849 bushels in 1860, but in 1880 the crop had swelled to 2,622,200,039 bushels, or had much more than doubled. Since 1860 lands in many of the Western States have risen from 100 to 175 per cent. The production of rice, during the same time, rose from 11,000,000 pounds to 117,000,000. The fires of the tall chim neys have every where been lighted up; and while we made only 987,559 tons of pig iron in 1860, in 1880 we made 4,295,414 tons; and of railroad iron the increase *The dominion of Canada has since imposed compound duties upon a large number of articles. was from 235,107 tons to 1,461,837 tons. In twenty years the production of salt rose from 12,717,200 bushels to 29,800,298 bushels. No previous crop of cotton equalled the 4,861,000 bales of 1860; but the crop of 1880 was larger, and that of 1881 is reported at 6,606,000 bales. The yield of cotton from 1865 to 1881 shows an increase over the fifteen years from 1845 to 1861 of 14,029,000 bales, or almost an average gain of a million bales a year. The giant water-wheels have revolved more briskly, showing the manufacture of 1,797,000 bales of cotton in 1880 against only 979,000 bales in 1860, and this brought up the price of raw cotton to higher figures than in 1860. Thirteen States and one Territory produced cotton, but its manufacture spreads over thirty States and one Territory. The census of cotton manufacture shows: In New England and some other States sheep husbandry has fallen off, and in some places it has been replaced by the dairy business; but in other States the wool-clip has largely increased, especially has the weight of the fleece increased. The number of sheep has increased about 80 per cent. and the weight of wool over 400 per cent. The discovery that the fine long merino wools, known as the American merino, are in fact the best of combing wools and now used in many styles of dress goods has added greatly to their demand and value. Many kinds of woolen goods can be had at a less price than twenty years ago. Cashmerets that then brought forty-six cents per yard brought only thirtyeight and one-fourth cents in 1880, and muslin de laines dropped from twenty cents to fifteen, showing that the tariff did not make them dearer, but that American competition caused a reduction of prices. Among the branches of manufactures absolutely waked into life by the tariff of 1861, and which then had no place above zero, may be named crockery and china ware. The number of white-ware factories is now fifty-three, with forty decorating establishments; and the products, amounting to several millions, are sold at prices 25 to 50 per cent. below the prevailing prices of twenty years ago. Clay and kaolin equal to the best in China have been found east, west, and south in such abundance as to promise a large extension of American enterprise, not only in the ordinary but in the highest branches of ceramic art. Steel may also here claim its birth. No more of all sorts than 11,838 tons were made in 1860, but 1,397,015 tons were made in 1880. Those who objected to a duty on steel have found they were biting something more than a file. Silks in 1860, hardly unwound from the cocoon, The length of our railroads has been were creeping along with only a small trebled, rising from 31,185 miles in 1860 to showing of sewing-silk and a few trim94,000 miles in 1881, and possibly to one- mings, but now this industry rises to nahalf of all in the world. For commercial tional importance, furnishing apt employpurposes the wide area of our country has ment to many thousand women as well as been compressed within narrow limits, and to men; and the annual products, sharply transportation in time and expense, from competing with even the Bonnét silks of New York to Kansas, or from Chicago to Lyons, amount to the round sum of $34,Baltimore, is now less formidable than it 500,000. Notwithstanding the exceptionwas from Albany or Pittsburgh to Phila- ally heavy duties, I am assured that silk delphia prior to the era of railroads. The goods in general are sold for 25 per cent. most distant States reach the same mar-less than they were twenty years ago. kets, and are no longer neighbors-in-law, Plate-glass is another notable manufacbut sister States. The cost of eastern or ture, requiring great scientific and mechawestern bound freight is less than one-nical skill and large capital, whose origin third of former rates. Working-men, including every ship-load of emigrants, have found acceptable employment. Our aggregate wealth in 1860 was $19,089,156,289, but is estimated to have advanced in 1880 to over forty billions. Further examination will show that the United States are steadily increasing in wealth, and increasing, too, much more rapidly than free-trade England, notwithstanding all her early advantages of practical experience and her supremacy in accumulated capital. The increase of wealth in France is twice as rapid as in England, but in the United States it is more rapid than even in France. These are monumental facts, and they can no more be blinked out of sight than the Alleghanies or the Rocky Mountains. They belong to our country, and sufficiently illustrate its progress and vindicate the tariff of 1861. If the facts cannot be denied, the argument remains irrefutable. If royal cowboys" who attempted to whistle down American independence one hundred years ago ingloriously failed, so it may be hoped will fail royal trumpeters of free-trade who seem to take sides against the United States in all commercial contests for industrial independence. bears date since the tariff of 1861. It is made in Missouri and in Indiana, and to a small extent in Kentucky and Massachusetts; but in Indiana it is made of the purest and best quality by an establishment which, after surmounting many perils, has now few equals in the magnitude or perfection of its productions, whether on this or the other side of the Atlantic, and richly merits not only the favor but the patronage of the Government itself. Copper is another industry upon which a specific duty was imposed in 1861, which has had a rapid growth, and now makes a large contribution to our mineral wealth. The amount produced in 1860 was less than one-fifth of the present production, and valued at $2,288,182; while in 1880 the production rose to the value of $8,849,961. The capital invested increased from $8,525,500 to $31,675,096. In 1860 the United States Mint paid from twentythree and one-half to twenty-five cents per pound for copper; but has obtained it the present year under a protective tariff as low as seventeen cents. Like our mines of inexhaustible coal and iron, copper is found in many States, some of it superior to any in the world, and for special uses is constantly sought after by foreign governments. Many American productions sustain the character they have won by being the best in the world. Our carpenters and joiners could not be hired to handle any other than American tools; and there are no foreign agricultural implements, from a spade to a reaper, that an American farmer would accept as a gift. There is no saddlery hardware nor house-furnishing, equal in quality and style to American. Watches and jewelry and the electric gold and silver plated ware of American workmanship as to quality have the foremost place in the marts of the world. The superiority of our staple cotton goods is indisputable, as is proven by the tribute of frequent counterfeits displayed abroad. The city of Philadelphia alone makes many better carpets and more in quantity than the whole of Great Britain. These are noble achievements, which should neither be obscured nor lost by the sinister handling and industrious vituperation of free-trade monographists. The vast array of important and useful inventions recorded in our Patent Office, and in use the world over, shows that it is hardly arrogance for us to accept the compliment of Mr. Cobden and claim that the natural mechanical genius of average Americans will soon appear as much superior to that of Englishmen as was that of Englishmen one hundred years ago to that of the Dutch. THE TARIFF SHIELDED US IN 1873. If we had been under the banner of free trade in 1873, when the wide-spread financial storm struck our sails, what would have been our fate? Is it not apparent that our people would have been stranded on a lee shore, and that the general overproduction and excess of unsold merchandise everywhere abroad would have come without hindrance, with the swiftness of the winds, to find a market here at any price? As it was the gloom and suffering here were very great, but American working-men found some shelter in their home markets, and their recovery from the shock was much earlier assured than that of those who in addition to their own calamities had also to bear the pressure of the hard times of other nations. In six years, ending June 30, 1881, our exports of merchandise exceeded imports by over $1,175,000,000-a large sum in itself, largely increasing our stock of gold, filling the pockets of the people with more than two hundred and fifty millions not found in the Treasury or banks, making the return to specie payments easy, and arresting the painful drain of interest so long paid abroad. It is also a very conclusive refutation of the wild free-trade chimeras that exports are dependent upon imports, and that comparatively high duties are invariably less productive of revenue than low duties. The pertinent question arises, Shall we not in the main hold fast to the blessings we have? As Americans we must reject free trade. To use some words of Burke upon another subject: “If it be a panacea we do not want it. We know the consequences of unnecessary physic. If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." FREE-TRADE PROSPERITY ON THE WANE. It gives me no pleasure to notice retrograde steps in the prosperity of Great Britain; and, if some evidence of this sort is brought out, like that of the five thousand houses now marked "To let" in Sheffield and ten thousand in Birmingham, it will have no other purpose than to show that free trade has failed to secure the promised supremacy to English manufactures. The avowal of Mr. Gladstone that the additional penny to the income-tax produces less revenue than formerly indicates a positive decrease of wealth; and the steady diminution of British exports since 1873, amounting in 1880 to one hundred and sixty million dollars, with a diminution in the total of exports and imports of two hundred and fifty million dollars, is more conclusive proof as well of British decadence as of the advancement of other nations. COMMERCIAL PROTECTION. The sum of our annual support bestowed upon the Navy, like that upon the Army, may be too close-fisted and disproportionate to our extended ocean boundaries, and to the value of American commerce afloat; yet whatever has been granted has been designed almost exclusively for the protection of our foreign commerce, and amounts in the aggregate to untold millions. Manufacturers do not complain that this is a needless and excessive favor to importers; and why, then, should importers object to some protection to a much larger amount of capital, and to far greater numbers embarked certainly in an equally laudable enterprise at home? THE FREE-TRADE PROPAGANDISTS OF ENGLAND. For the last thirty-five years England has been making extraordinary efforts, political, industrial, legislative, diplomatic, social, and literary, all combined, to persuade mankind to follow her example of reversing that policy of protection, supreme in her Augustan age, or from Queen Anne down throughout the Georgian era, and the policy maintained by Chatham, by the younger Pitt, and by Canning with an energy that created and sustained the most | mended that some of the farmers should varied and extensive workshops of the emigrate-five millions, I believe, he proworld. Already mistress of the ocean and posed-and those who might remain, said abounding in wealth, the sea-girt Island he, will then be able to farm on better aspired to a world-wide monopoly of trade. terms. Penetrated with this later free-trade ambition, and not infrequently accused of trying to make all England tributary to Manchester, and all the rest of the world tributary to England, the eloquent Mr. Bright, who grandly rejected any idea of a new nation in America, resorts even to the infelicitous language of passion when he denounces his opponents, as he does, by declaring that any looking toward protective legislation anywhere in the world is proof either of " congenital depravity or defect of judgment." Let us be thankful it is no worse, for what would have happened if the wrathful Englishman had said "total depravity?" FIRST. It was their belief that their skill and great capital gave them that superiority which would secure them against all competition except that arising from cheaper food. True enough; but what a cold, sunless, and desperate remedy is that! If not Roman decimation, at least a sentence of banishment, crushing out the sweetest affections planted in human hearts, their love for their birthplaces, the homes of their fathers! But if these ill-fated men have barely supported life by the pittances daily earned, by what means, at whose cost, can they be transported to better and more welcome homes? The advice of Lord Derby is like that of the children of Marie Antoinette when the populace of Paris were clamoring for bread. Said the children: "Why don't they buy cake?" Equally "child-like and bland" is Lord Derby. It would seem, when over 40 per cent. of their yearly imports must be of food, that the British Islands are too small for the foundations of the empire. The grand pyramid stands upon its apex reversed. English statesmen have not forgotten the reservation of Sir Robert Peel, the author of the free-trade bill in 1846: “I reserve to myself," said he, "distinctly and unequivocally the right of adapting my conduct to the exigencies of the moment and to the wants of the country;" and that is all protectionists ever claim to do. Already Sir Stafford Northcote, the leader of the Tory opposition in the House of Commons, is on the fence, and only ventures to favor "universal free trade." That is surely a horse of another color, not Wellington's "Copenhagen," but like Sancho Panza's "Dapple." more SECOND. The cheaper-fed workmen of Germany, France, and America presented the only competition not to be resisted, and it had to be at once squarely met. Protection was abandoned, and abandoned possibly forever, but abandoned because the laboring British population had become too great and too hungry, with over a million and a half of paupers, when measured by the supply of home-grown food. Some of the little Benjamins must go to Egypt for corn. Starving men do little work, but occasionally do too much. The sole conditions to the continuance of the dense population and the grand scale of British manufactures in competition with modern nations appeared to be parsimony and privation, or lower-priced bread and lowestpriced labor. With these partially secured there came a season of temporary relief, but, unfortunately, with no increase of wages. It was barely success at the cost of an alliance with the discontent of un-pagating free-trade principles, even supderpaid workmen, with strikes and organized expatriation. Free trade, it is found, grinds labor to the bone, and forces it to fly, with muscles and machinery, to more inviting fields. The recent reaction or change in many organs of British opinion shows that this right of adaptation to the exigencies of the moment is neither surrendered nor obsolete. Let me cite an extract from an influential paper, called the Observer: There is no obligation upon us to incur industrial martyrdom for the sake of pro posing their truth to be as self-evident as we fondly imagined. Moreover, to speak the honest truth, we are beginning to doubt how far the creed to which we pinned our faith is so self-evident as we originally conceived. If we can persuade other nations to follow our example, then free trade is unquestionably the best thing for England. It does not follow, however, that it is the best thing for us, if we are to be left the sole adherents of free trade in the midst of a community of nations de British agriculture, long depressed and chronically exposed to bad harvests, is now threatened with ruin by foreign competition, and British manufactures also seem almost as destitute of sunshine as their agriculture, though still owning a reluctant allegiance to the laws of the universe and to the exact science of the garrulous voted to protection. Bonamy Price. Lord Derby, in a late The Observer does not say, as will be speech to the Lancashire farmers, recom- I seen, that it is best for other nations, but |