sign, the earliest action of the new government, was on the question of forming and establishing a protective system. The bill, or act, which was the great object of the federal constitution, on motion of Mr. Madison, the father of that instrument, was brought forward, with the least possible delay, under the following preamble: "Whereas, it is necessary for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and for the encouragement and PROTECTION of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares, and merchandise, imported— Be it enacted," &c.; and after having been passed, was signed by President Washington, the Fourth of July, 1789-a signal coincidence, as being the birthday of American freedom, not an accident, manifestly, but expressly designed, no doubt, as a profound and emphatic historical expression of the president's and of the public sense of the affinity and identical purpose of these two great events, and that the first could not be complete, nor consummated, without the second. The same necessity which begat the revolution, was the parent of the federal constitution, and of this law-this law, or its policy, established and secured, being the end of all.

A few extracts from presidential messages and other documents, from Washington's administration down to the time when this policy was doomed to encounter an unnatural and suicidal opposition, will exhibit the prominency which this great principle has held in the counsels and legislation of the government, during the progress of our history.*

• From Washington's Messages to Congress.

"The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by all proper neans, will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I can not forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home."

"Congress has repeatedly, and not without success, directed their attention to the encouragement of manufactures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure a continuance of their efforts in every way which shall appear eligible."

From Jefferson's Messages.

"To cultivate peace, and maintain commerce and navigation, in all their lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries, as nurseries of navigation and for the nurture of man, and to protect the manufactures adapted to our circumstances — these, fellow-citizens, are the landmarks by which we are to guide ourselves in all our proceedings."-Second Annual Message.

"The situation into which we have been forced, has impelled us to apply a portion of our industry and capital to national manufactures and improvements. The extent of conversion is daily increasing, and little doubt remains, that the establishments formed and forming will, under the auspices of cheaper materials and

These extracts, in the note below, from state-papers and other documents, might be greatly extended, if it were necessary, to show,

subsistence, the freedom of labor from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and prohibitions, become permanent.”—Eighth Annual Message.

From Jefferson's Letter to Benjamin Austin, 1816.

"We have experienced what we did not then believe, that there exist both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of interchanges with other nations; that to be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place our manufacturers by the side of the agriculturist. The former question is now suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The grand inquiry now is, shall we make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation. He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us either to a dependence upon that nation, or be clothed in skins, and live like beasts in dens and caverns. I am proud to say, that I am not one of these. Experience has taught me, that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort."

From Madison's Messages.

"The revision of our commercial laws, proper to adapt them to the arrangement which has taken place with Great Britain, will doubtless engage the early attention of Congress. It will be worthy at the same time of their just and provident care, to make such further alterations in the laws as will more especially protect and foster the several branches of manufacture which have been recently instituted or extended by the laudable exertion of our citizens."-1809.

"I recommend also, as a more effectual safeguard, and as an encouragement to our growing manufactures, that the additional duties on imports which are to expire at the end of one year after a peace with Great Britain, be prolonged to the end of two years after that event."-1814.

"But there is no subject which can enter with greater force and merit into the deliberations of Congress, than a consideration of the means to preserve and promote the manufactures which have sprung into existence, and attained unparalleled maturity throughout the United States during the period of the European wars. This source of national independence and wealth I anxiously recommend to the prompt and constant guardianship of Congress."-1815.

"In adjusting the duties on imports to the object of revenue, the influence of the tariff on manufactures will necessarily present itself for consideration. However wise the theory may be, which leaves to the sagacity and interest of individuals the application of their industry and resources, there are in this, as in other cases, exceptions to the general rule. Besides the consideration which the theory itself implies of a reciprocal adoption by other nations, experience teaches that so many circumstances must occur in introducing and maturing manufacturing establishments, especially of a more complicated kind, that a country may remain long without them, although sufficiently advanced, and in some respects peculiarly fitted for carrying them on with success. Under circumstances giving a powerful impulse to manufacturing industry, it has made among us a progress, and exhibited an efficiency, which justify the belief that, with a protection not more than is due to the enterprising citizens whose interests are now at stake, it will become, at an early day, not only safe against occasional competition from abroad, but a source of domestic wealth and external commerce. In selecting the branches more especially entitled to public patronage, a preference is obviously claimed by such as will release the United States from a dependence on foreign supplies, ever subject to casual failures, for articles necessary for the public defence, or connected with the

that the protective policy had always been a special and prominent object of the government, from the adoption of the constitution down

primary wants of individuals. It will be an additional recommendation of particular manufactures, where the materials for them are extensively drawn from our agriculture, and consequently impart and insure to that great fund of national prosperity and independence, an encouragement which can not fail to be rewarded."-Seventh Annual Message.

From Monroe's Messages.

"Our manufactures will likewise require the systematic and fostering care of the government. Possessing, as we do, all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil, and industry, we ought not to depend, in the degree we have done, on supplies from other countries. While we are thus dependent, the sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into the most serious difficulties. It is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufactures should be domestic, as its influence in that case, instead of exhausting, as it must do in foreign hands, would be felt advantageously on agriculture, and every other branch of industry. Equally important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials; as, by extending the competition, it will enhance the price, and protect the cultivator against the casualties incident to foreign markets."-Inaugural Address.

"Uniformity in the demand and price of an article, is highly desirable to the domestic manufacturer. It is deemed of great importance to give encouragement to our domestic manufactures."-Third Annual Message.

"It can not be doubted, that the more complete our internal resources, and the less dependent we are on foreign powers for every national as well as domestic purpose, the greater and more stable will be the public felicity. By the increase of domestic manufactures, will the demand for the rude materials at home be increased; and thus will the dependence of the several parts of the Union on each other, and the strength of the Union itself, be proportionably augmented.”—Fifth Annual Message.

"Satisfied am I, whatever may be the abstract doctrine in favor of unrestricted commerce, provided all nations would concur in it, and it was not liable to be interrupted by war, which has never occurred, and can not be expected, that there are other strong reasons applicable to our situation and relations with other countries, which impose on us the obligation to cherish and sustain our manufactures. Satisfied I am, however, likewise, that the interest of every part of our Union, even those benefited by manufactures, require that this subject should be touched with the greatest caution, and a critical knowledge of the effects to be produced by the slightest changes."-Sixth Annual Message.

From J. Q. Adams's Messages.

"The great interest of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation, are so linked in union together, that no permanent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to the other. All these are alike under the protecting power of legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony together.

"Is the self-protecting energy of this nation so helpless, that there exists in the political institutions of our country no power to counteract the bias of foreign legislation; that the growers of grain must submit to the exclusion from the foreign markets of their produce; that the shippers must dismantle their ships, the trade of the north stagnate at the wharves, and the manufacturers starve at their looms, while the whole people shall pay tribute to foreign industry to be clad in foreign

to 1830, being a period of fifty years. That it was also sustained by popular opinion, in a quarter where it has since been repudi

garbs; that the Congress of the Union are impotent to restore the balance in favor of native industry destroyed by the statutes of any realm?"-Fourth Annual Message.

Extract of a Letter from Andrew Jackson, 1824, lo Dr. L. H. Coleman, N.C.. "Heaven smiled upon and gave us liberty and independence. That same Providence has blessed us with the MEANS of national independence. . . He has filled our mountains and plains with minerals with lead, iron, and copper- and given us a climate and soil for the growing of hemp and wool. These being the great materials of our national defence, they ought to have extended to them adequate and fair protection, that our manufacturers and laborers may be placed in a fair competition with those of Europe. . . I will ask, what is the real situation of the agriculturist? Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus produce? Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign, nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove, when there is no market at home or abroad, that there is too much labor employed in agriculture, and that the channels for labor should be multiplied? Common sense at once points out the remedy: Draw from agriculture this superabundant labor; employ it in mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for your breadstuffs - distributing labor to the most profitable account; and benefits to the country will result. Take from agriculture, in the United States, 600,000 men, women, and children, and you will at once give a market for more breadstuffs than all Europe now furnishes us with. In short, sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of British merchants. It is time we should become a little more Americanized, and instead of feeding paupers and laborers of England, feed our own; or else, in a short time, by continuing our present policy, we shall be paupers ourselves. . . The experience of the late war ought to teach us a lesson, and one never to be forgotten. If our liberty, and republican form of government, procured for us by our Revolutionary fathers, are worth the blood and treasure by which they were obtained, it is surely our duty to protect and defend them. . . It is, therefore, my opinion, that a careful and judicious tariff is much wanted, to pay our national debt, and afford us the means of that defence within ourselves on which the safety of our country and liberty depends; and last, though not least, give a proper distribution to our labor, which must prove beneficial to the happiness, independence, and wealth of the community."

From Jackson's Second Annual Message.

"The power to impose duties upon imports originally belonged to the several states. The right to adjust these duties, with a view to the encouragement of domestic branches of industry, is so completely identical with that power, that it is difficult to suppose the existence of the one without the other. The states have delegated their whole authority over imports to the general government, without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable reservation relating to the inspection laws. This authority having thus entirely passed from the states, the right to exercise it for the purpose of protection does not exist in them; and, consequently, if it be not possessed by the general government, it must be extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly of a people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and to counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be adopted by foreign nations. This surely can not be the case: this indispensable power, thus surrendered by the states, must be within the scope of authority on the subject expressly delegated to Congress. In this

ated, the remarkable conclusion of the "Address of the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, to its absent Members, and the Members of its several Branches throughout the United States, New York, 1819," found in the note below, will sufficiently evince.

The address itself is one of great interest, force, and eloquence. The cause of Protection was never advocated more earnestly, or with more lucid and effective arguments. It is also to be observed, that the letter to Dr. Coleman, cited in the other note, written by the great chief of the "Tammany Society" party, and dated five years after this address, is sufficiently clear and decided in its advocacy of a protective system, as also the extract from his message to congress, in 1830.

There are no facts of history better certified, than, that the necessity of a protective system for the states, was the main subject of deliberation at the first convention of delegates at Annapolis, in 1786, assembled to consider the question of a constitution; and at the second, in 1787, when the constitution was framed; and that, to obtain the power to establish such a system, was a leading purpose of that instrument. General Washington, the president,' conclusion I am confirmed, as well by the opinions of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each repeatedly recommended this right under the constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued acquiescence of the states, and the general understanding of the people."-1830.

• "We recommend to you, brethren, to be examples of moderation and firmness to your fellow-citizens, and to hold fast of those stern Revolutionary principles which gave, and which alone can preserve your independence.

"CLARKSON CROLIUS, Grand Sachem.

"JAMES S. MARTIN, Secretary. "Countersigned by John Woodward, Clarkson Crolius, Joseph P. Simpson, James S. Martin, Benjamin Romaine, Matthew L. Davis, William Mooney, Committee of Correspondence. New York, October 4, 1819.

"Resolutions of the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, passed October 11, 1819.

"Resolved, That as friends to our country, we recommend to our brethren of the different societies of Tammany, or Columbian Order, the necessity as well as moral duty, to our country, ourselves, and posterity, of refraining from every species of useless extravagance in our mode of living; especially in furniture, dress, the table, ostentatious equipage, and expensive amusements.

"Resolved, That we will discountenance the importation and use in our families of every species of foreign manufacture or production, which can or may be reasonably substituted by the fabrics or productions of the United States.

“Resolved, That as 'economy is wealth,' we seriously recommend to our brethren throughout the United States a strict and rigid observance of this great moral duty in their families and social intercourse."