point where foreign cheap labor comes into competition, in our own market, with American labor, whether it be labor already in action, or labor ready to go into action, under adequate encouragement. The right of chances, as remarked in another place, is as sacred as the right of possession.

It is entirely false to say, as Free Trade avers, that an American system controls labor, and forces it into unnatural channels, operating unequally and unjustly on different departments, encouraging one kind, and discouraging another. Such is neither the design, nor practical operation of the system. It is based on the principle of encouragement, not of control; of protection, not of injustice; of invitation to, not of prohibition of, home labor. It is to call out the dormant energies of the people, by opening the door to new enterprises, which can not, by any possibility, operate to the disadvantage of any other; but, on the contrary, must necessarily benefit all others, by diminishing the number engaged in each, and affording them a better chance, at the same time that it increases the demand for their products, by raising up new customers. do not mean, that the multiplication of pursuits, under such a system, as a matter of course, diminishes the number engaged in each, positively, but relatively. It prevents them from being overcrowded, to make them unprofitable, and makes each more profitable, as elsewhere shown.

We

The great error, therefore, in this branch of the general argument, as committed by the Free-Trade economists, is one of principle. They assume, that a commercial system, enacted for the protection of home industry, controls labor, and thereby operates to the disadvantage of other branches not comprehended in any specific acts of protection; whereas, the practical operation of such a system, in the United States, is a mere invitation to labor and capital, that lie dormant, or which are not so profitably employed as they might be under these new encouragements. It neither controls the labor or capital so invited into a new field, nor any other branches of them. It injures no other, but benefits all. There may, indeed, be a negative injustice done to some branches of industry, by a partial distribution of protection, which ought to be avoided; but it is impossible there should be any positive injustice in any quarter; it is impossible, indeed, that there should not be a universal benefit, by every new pursuit that is called into being, under such a system, unless it can be shown, that some parties are positively taxed by protection extended to others. But it is abundantly proved,

elsewhere in this work, that such is not the fact in the operation of an American system of Protection; but, on the contrary, with no exception that is permanently injurious to any party whatever, that the protected articles which we wish to be cheapened, such as those of manufacture, are cheapened by protection; and that those, the prices of which we wish to sustain, and if possible, to raise, such as those of agriculture, and such as labor itself, are sustained and raised by the same means.

Freedom, in the social state, is a thing of great price, because it is of great cost. Centuries rolled away, in that great strife, which terminated in the birth of American freedom. Empires were shaken and revolutionized, and thrones tottered and fell, in the long agony. And what was this for? That the rightful owners of all commercial values might hold their own, and control it. Analyze the things which men hold dear on earth, sift them to their foundation, enter the magazines of all terrestrial good, and the wheat will be found to consist in commercial values.

There is a great responsibility resting on the nation that has attained to the greatest degree of freedom, and secured to every citizen the undisturbed possession and independent control of his own —a responsibility, not only as a spectacle, an example for mankind, but as involving a trust for posterity. To throw it away, is not simply a folly, but it is a crime against the human race. The people of the United States occupy precisely this position. Their forefathers gained for them a priceless boon, in one great struggle, and by hazards and costs not to be estimated, handed it down as a charge to keep and bequeath to endless generations, or till human society should be dissolved by the fiat of Heaven, and till all its members shall come to judgment. And what is that boon? Simply, as before shown, that every man may enjoy his own commercial rights, without disturbance, and without liability to depredation; and these rights are not less, but more, in the chances of the future, than in the present.

Men

'Faith, as an attribute of man, for a better state on earth and hereafter, considered as a general sentiment, is providential. can not always tell why or how it comes; but they have it; and this faith is itself the parent of the thing which they desire. It is evident enough, that there was a strong faith in general society, that the discovery of America would open a new era in the history of the world. What specific forms these expected events would assume, was of course a secret to those who confided in their

future development. Nevertheless, such a faith existed, and had a potent influence on the minds of men-especially of those who embarked in the various enterprises of settling the new continent. This undefined expectation at last took shape and a palpable form in the achievement of American independence, which we have marked as an EPOCH, in the highest and most enlarged sense of the term a point in the progress of society, to be followed by new scenes, in a new drama, of an indefinite and inconceivable extent, as to the future, but all deriving a character from this grand We call it an EPOCH in the progress of freedom.

event.

It will be observed, that we have devoted a chapter expressly to illustrate and establish the proposition, that freedom. consists in the enjoyment and independent control of commercial values by and among those who create them, or who, by the usages of society, rightfully come into their possession as heirs. We mean chiefly those who create them; but the rights of heritage can not be denied, and in all ages, and in all states of society, have been held sacred. We are not aware, that there can be any objection to such a state of society, where all rights of primogeniture and of entail are nullified by fundamental law. By the creators of commercial values, it will of course be understood, that we mean all those, who fairly acquire property, or a valuable position, in any way, directly or indirectly, by their labor, industry, or skill, in any pursuit of life. Our object in this definition of freedom, has been to erect a wall between the rightful owners of commercial values, and the usurpers of them; and the design of our argument on this point has been to show, that freedom is not an abstraction, but the enjoyment of a valid commercial consideration. As much as freedom is supposed to be worth, there is scarcely any subject on which its advocates have more indistinct, vague, and indefinite notions, as one of speculation. Practically they are pretty sure to be right; theoretically not so much so.

What we have proposed to show in this chapter, in connexion with the numerous propositions allied to this, which we have endeavored to establish in other parts of this work—and which, therefore, we here assume as established — is, that the destiny of American freedom is not yet achieved. We might, indeed, say, with much appearance of reason, that it is scarcely begun to be achieved. As before remarked, it took centuries to establish the The ERA commencing with that date will extend, as we trust, into a long and indefinite future. It may, perhaps, be as

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sumed, that it has scarcely begun to develop itself. That three score and ten years of this era should have passed away, the people in the meantime boasting of freedom, and yet, that we should have occasion to attempt to define what freedom consists in, at this day, is a curious fact; and that that definition should be entirely new, is a very instructive fact, if it be also true. That the people of this country, under their new organization of society, with every possible chance to establish freedom on a permanent and immovable basis, should have made such mistakes as are proved in other parts of this work, in regard to the protection of their own commercial rights, which, in the present day, comprehend all rights of any consequence; that they should have gone on for seventy years, blundering, so to speak, in blind and dark ways, often overwhelmed with public and private misfortune, without having been able to determine on any system of public economy, as a permanent one, but for ever vacillating from one extreme to another; that Free Trade should be the dominant principle of one time, and that of Protection soon after, alternating as regularly as the pendulum of a clock; that opinion on this great question, on which so much depends, should still be divided, and doubtful with many what will be the end of it all; if, indeed, freedom be involved in this question, as we sincerely and profoundly believe it is, such a history goes far to prove, that the foundation on which it rests, and the pivot on which it turns, are yet but poorly apprehended.

Nevertheless, this slow progress of freedom—we assume to call it so, from what we have proved-is not so discouraging as might at first sight be supposed. It does not show, that the people of this country do not understand what freedom is practically; but only, that they have yet much to learn as to the theory of best securing its ends. It proves, too, that freedom, like all good things, on earth and in heaven, is a costly blessing, hard of attainment. The American fathers, who wasted their treasures and shed their blood for it, were, without doubt, in the right path. So were the founders and framers of our government and its institutions. So, generally, has been the march of our history; and so, above all things, are the instincts of the people. Let the people once understand, that freedom is not a vague abstraction, floating high above their heads, but a palpable thing, like cash in hand; that it consists in the enjoyment of their own commercial rights, and in the independent control of their own commercial values, such as they have fairly earned by their own hard toil, or by their skill and enterprise, or such as

they have received from their fathers, or their fathers' fathers, who obtained them in the same honest way; let them understand, that the original controversy with the British crown, on this very soil, was about these very things, and nothing else; that the occasion of that controversy was the degradation of labor in Europe, and the attempt to keep it down here; that it was the robbery of labor of its fair reward, of its rights; and that the Free-Trade system operates precisely in the same manner, and to the same effect, on the commercial rights of the American people, to rob them of their commercial values, as did that system of oppression and wrong against which the American fathers rebelled; and it will not take long, after that, for the American people to understand what freedom is. We have shown, elsewhere, that the claim of Free Trade, among us, to buy cheaper of foreigners than we can buy at home, and to sell to them on better terms, amounts to nothing; that, indeed, the argument on this point is reversed; that a protective system is more economical, to all parties, in all these respects; and that, under it, we can go forth into the market of the world, and rival those very foreigners, who, it is averred, would sell to us cheaper. How could they sell to us cheaper, if we could rival them in the foreign market? The absurdity is manifest, and the argument conclusive.

Turn which way we will, in the consideration of this subject, its aspects strike us everywhere the same. The establishment of American independence was, beyond all question, an epoch of freedom; that freedom consisted in the enjoyment of commercial rights, and in the independent control of commercial values by and among those to whom they belonged; the very fact that these rights were redeemed, proves, that, having been once usurped by wrong, and subsequently rescued, they may be again usurped, and that they require protection; and yet Free Trade has the audacity to propose, that this protection should be withdrawn. The question, therefore, between Protection and Free Trade, in the United States, is for ever and necessarily a question of freedom-a freedom acquired by force of arms, at great, expense of blood and treasure, requiring to be defended by a public policy; a freedom which Free Trade offers for sale! Or, if it can not sell it, to throw it to the winds of heaven, as if it cost nothing, and were worth nothing! > If American freedom does not consist in these things, then it is nothing; then the strifes of the American revolution, and the cost of American independence, were without excuse, and a waste; then there was no good reason for that contest, and the result is a

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