will yield anything for a season in the prices of their own products, if they can have a chance of raising them thereafter, or if they can only preserve their markets at smaller profits. It is this great battle which reduces the prices of manufactured articles in the United States, under a protective system; and this is one of its benefits. It reduces them generally, particularly and essentially, as evinced by an exhibition of facts, in a former chapter-reduces them so much, that the whole country, and every party and person in it, are sensible of the benefit, the theory of Free Trade to the contrary notwithstanding.

As to the fact that a protective system rescues us from an enormous amount of foreign taxation, it is undoubtedly the greatest and most important one that can be named. It is the real remedythe effective and commanding influence. It is St. George's spear in the throat of the dragon. This country has yet to learn how it is taxed, and how it has ever been taxed, to support the European system of society. It will hereafter be a subject of astonishment, that this momentous element of public economy for the United States, was not more fully developed, and brought to bear upon the public mind, at an earlier date. Certainly, this has not been a defect in the instincts of the people, but only in the rulers, politicians, and statesmen of the country. Did not the American fathers feel it before the great political rupture between themselves and the mother-country; and was it not the cause of that rupture?

It was taxation, such as is described in the preceding chapter -taxation comprehensive, heavy, intolerable-taxation in the very mode now under consideration, by forbidding American manufac tures, and forcing the colonists to supply their wants of this kind through British merchants; it was such a system of taxation, which brought about the American revolution, and resulted in the establishment of American independence.

Nor was the country relieved very essentially from this system of foreign taxation by the establishment of independence, till nearly half a century had elapsed. From the peace of 1783 to the adoption of the constitution in 1789, the confederated states were under a system of perfect Free Trade, and Great Britain and Europe. drew away the money and wealth of the country as effectually as before the war of the revolution. We learn from Pitkin's Statistical View, that our imports from Great Britain, for the first year after the peace of '83, were six to one of our exports to that empire; and that the annual average proportion of our imports from,

over our exports to, Great Britain, from 1783 to 1790, was as three of the former to one of the latter. Hence we find, by the treasury documents, which give us no light beyond that year, that the excess of our imports over exports, in 1791, was $32,000,000. Nor did this country ever enjoy an effective protective system till the enactment of the tariff of 1824. Accordingly, we are not surprised however much we may be mortified-to read from Lowe, as cited by Mr. Clay, in one of his speeches, that "it is now above forty years since the United States of America were definitively separated from us; and since [that time], their situation has afforded a proof, that the benefit of mercantile intercourse may be retained, in all its extent, without the care of governing, or the expense of defending, these once-regretted colonies." How was "the benefit of mercantile intercourse retained, in all its extent"? Simply, for want of an adequate system of protection in the United States, down to that time. It was for this reason, that, according to this authority, and giving the true version of his language, Great Britain continued for nearly half a century, to tax the people of this country as effectively as she did before the revolution, and in addition to this, was saved "the care and expense" of government. There is no other intelligible explanation of this remarkable statement. The American revolution and its results, according to Lowe, were at first regretted by British statesmen; but it was afterward found, that they could still tax the United States as easily and as effectually as before, without expense and without responsibility. Such is the teaching of Lowe, and it was undoubtedly true. Our foreign commercial history, as presented in the preceding chapter, from our own public documents, proves it. It is from this enormous system of foreign taxation that the protective policy rescues the country.

It was on the basis of the principle which lies at the foundation of this system, that Henry, now Lord Brougham, said in the house of commons, as elsewhere cited, that "it was well worth while to stifle in the cradle the rising manufactures of the United States ;" and that another member said, very frankly, which is equally worthy of citing a second time, as here done: "It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called Free Trade. Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by Free Trade was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufactures, and to prevent them, one and all, from

ever becoming manufacturing nations. When the system of reciprocity and Free-Trade had been proposed to a French ambassador, his remark was, that the plan was excellent in theory, but to make it fair in practice, it would be necessary to defer the attempt to put it in execution for half a century, until France should be on the same footing with Great Britain, in marine, in manufactures, in capital, and the many other peculiar advantages which it now enjoyed."

The Edinburgh Review, in speaking of the reduction of duties by the Compromise act of 1833, said: "We have no doubt that it has given the death-blow to the American system."*. The London Spectator, in 1833, said: "More general considerations tend to show, that the trade between the two countries [the United States and Great Britain] most beneficial to both, must be what is commonly called a colonial trade,' the new-settled country importing the manufactures of the old, in exchange for its own raw produce. In all economical relations, the United States still stand to England in the relation of colony to mother-country."

These citations, certainly, may be regarded as sufficiently intelligible, and quite to the point aimed at. They are not ignorant of the nature and results of the colonial relation between themselves and the United States, and may well be excused for advocating that state of things which is tantamount, the benefits of which are all theirs, and all the disadvantages ours.

The saving and increase of national capital effected by a protective system, as before shown, are considerations of no mean importance. Take, for example, the aggregate balance of imports over exports, from 1791 to 1845, inclusive, fifty-five years, namely, $718,959,486, as exhibited in the preceding chapter; or in round numbers, $719,000,000; all which might and should have been saved to the country by a protective system. Add to this an average gain of seven millions a year, in the excess of exports over

The merits of the Compromise act, as the best possible measure for the time and circumstances, to rescue the American manufactures from the mortal blow then aimed at them by the administration, through Mr. Verplanck's bill, at that moment pending, and certain to become a law, except as the Compromise headed and subverted the plan, are not at all disparaged by this very natural remark of a foreigner. The plan of the Compromise act was to save the manufactures then from the doom pronounced, and to give time for reflection and for a re-edification of the American manufacturing system. That the Compromise ran out, and the duties and revenue ran down, was no fault of the plan, but the misfortune of the country to have remained so long in such hands. At last, however, the tariff of 1842 came to the rescue, a tardy, but exact fulfilment of the plan of the Compromise.

imports for this period, which was the average under the tariff of 1842, and which would fall much short of a reasonable gain for the United States in its foreign trade, as compared with the gains of Great Britain, before shown (the average of which, from 1700 to 1787, was upward of sixteen millions of dollars a year, rapidly increasing from this last date); and with this addition of seven millions a year, for fifty-five years, the sum of our minus quantity for this period, as compared with what we were justly entitled to, will be $1,104,000,000. This, it will be observed, does not include the losses we sustained under the confederation, which were greatly in excess of any time since; but wanting authentic documents, they can not be reckoned, and we are confined, in this calculation, within the limit of 1791. Here, then, is a positive loss to the country, in fifty-five years, of $1,104,000,000, a principal sum, without reckoning the interest on it as capital—all for want of a protective system. Consider, then, that an adequate protective system in existence all this while, after having saved this capital of $1,104,000,000 to the country, as it was due and lost from time to time in parts, would have put it to use, so as to have produced at least the usual rate of interest, six per cent.

In running the eye over the tables, any one will see that, if we reckon the interest of the entire sum for one third of this period of fifty-five years, it will without doubt be less than the result that would be obtained from an accurate calculation on each sum from the time it became due, or was lost, to 1845. Or, instead of one third, say seventeen years, which is the nearest integral number at which interest at six per cent. doubles the principal sum. By this rule, the actual loss to the country, as will be seen, for want of an adequate protective system, from 1791 to 1845, was $2,208,000,000. The principal sum of $1,104,000,000, was a loss of so much money; and the proof that six per cent. is not too high a rate of interest, is found in the facts, first, that it is the lowest rate which has usually been paid in this country; and next, that more than that could be made in the use of it, or it never would or could be paid. It would probably be nearer the truth to say, that, for the last fifty years, or even from the date of American independence, under a steady and adequate protective system, money, in the hands of the enterprising population of this country, would have been worth ten or twelve per cent.

The elements of this calculation, as will be seen, are drawn from authentic documents; and the reasoning, leading to the result, is

based on facts and principles, which, it is believed, can not be easily disturbed. It may be surprising to those who have not reflected upon the subject; but, it may be asked, in view of the premises, how can the result be otherwise? It will also be seen, that the reckoning does not stop at this point; and that, to be fully appreciated, it must be carried on, from age to age, by the same rule, swelling and rolling up the national losses, or the alternative contingent accumulations of wealth, that belong to the subject, till the powers of calculation are literally burdened with the task. There is no remedy for the past. This $2,208,000,000, and all its contingent beneficial results, by being put and kept in use, doubling itself in every seventeen years, are lost for ever. The only remedy that can be applied, is for the future.

case.

But this calculation, based on the ordinary six per cent. for the use of money, does not by any means, nor by far, comprehend the The enterprise of the people of this country, under any tolerable system of protection-take, for example, the seven years subsequent to the enactment of the tariff of 1824, and the shorter period of the influence of the tariff of 1842—has never failed to do much better, on the average, with every species of capital, than an increase of six per cent. In the first place, the average interest of money has never been less than that, to which must be added the profits of those who could afford to pay such interest, two, five, ten, and sometimes fifteen or twenty per cent., to arrive at the true result. In the next place—and by no means the least important item-the steady and firm rise in the value of every species of property, under a system of adequate protection, claims to come into this reckoning, and necessarily belongs to it. Land rises; improvements of every description, private and public, on a small or large scale, rise; stocks rise; farms in the vicinity of manufacturing villages and towns, rise; and by the increase and multiplication of these establishments, the influence extends over the whole country, to affect every farm and every farmer, every bit of property and every owner thereof, in the same way. The Hon. Mr. Ramsey, of Pennsylvania, stated on the floor of Congress, in 1846, that, since the enactment of the tariff of 1842, farms in Schuylkill county, in consequence of the encouragement given by Protection to the coal business, had doubled in value, and that farms in the adjoining counties, in proportion to their proximity to the mines and the business created by them, felt the same influence. So in the iron regions of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. So in the case