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great interests are supposed to be involved. If this be so, it would obviously seem strange, that anybody should propose to subject this important matter, and these great interests, to the domain of anarchy, where might is the sole principle of right. One is startled at the idea, and could hardly believe, if the fact did not present itself, that such a purpose could be seriously entertained. The mind of every person naturally labors under the suggestion, and would, perhaps, fain believe, that there is no foundation for it. Let us see whether it be so.

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The essence of Free Trade is an opposition to legislation on foreign commercial intercourse. What is this but a plea for the non-existence of law, as to the subject in question, and as to the interests concerned, if there be any? And what is the non-existence of law, but a state of anarchy, so far as this negation of jurisprudence extends? It is not pretended, that Free Trade pleads for universal anarchy; for it does not assume to dictate to the commercial transactions of the domestic sphere of a nation, however it may influence them. The question is not so broad; more properly, perhaps, it is not so narrow. Though intra-mural in its influence, its appropriate domain may, perhaps with propriety, be called extra-mural, or without the bounds of national jurisdiction. It will be seen, however, that it always stands with its foot on the line of that jurisdiction, asserting rights within, as well as wielding powers without. It claims to pass this line without law, bringing in and carrying out what it pleases, without question or condition; buying and selling in both these quarters, with the same extent of privilege. So far, therefore, as its appropriate transactions are concerned, it would seem to assert the claim of being without law anywhere and everywhere, within as well as without every national jurisdiction. But it is enough for our purpose, if we allow, that this claim is confined to the passing of this line, to and fro, in its pursuits. We grant, that it does not ask to be exempted from the jurisdiction of a state, while it is within it; nor from that of the law of nations, while it is on the highway of nations; but it only claims exemption from law, as to the subject in debate, while it is passing and repassing the border lines of every national domain. It can not but be seen, therefore, that the claim is one of anarchy, so far as the question extends, which merely relates to the conditions of passing and repassing a line, with such things in hand as may suit the person or party. The conditions which he makes are, to go and return, without paying for the privilege; in other words,

free of toll. It is not law, but its non-existence. The turnpike is thrown open, and the statute is laid upon the shelf.

We are aware it may be said, it is pretty nice work to find anarchy on a line. What more can be asked, it may be demanded, than to obey the laws within a given jurisdiction, and not to violate the established code of the civilized world, when passing from one national jurisdiction to another? But reflection will show, that the argument can not be fairly concluded in this way. It will be found, that this claim to pass and repass the lines of national jurisdiction, without toll, carrying whatever may please one to trade with, on either side of those lines, affects very materially the interests, and consequently the rights, of the great and minor parties within these respective jurisdictions. Nations, as one grand community of the human family, occupy similar relations to each other, as do the individual members of a particular society, and can be injured, in the same manner as the members of a separate commonwealth in their relations and intercourse-injured in their separate wholes, and in the parts of those wholes-for want of protection in their peculiar position and interests. Each one of these nations has interests to defend against the encroachments of the other, in the same manner as private persons have in the common relations of life; and the experience of the world is, that the defensive of man's position and rights, whether in private or in public relations, is more important to him, and requires more care, generally costs more, than all his other interests. One of the chief designs of society, in all its forms, is for protection in these particulars. A man does not want society so much to prompt his actions, as to guard his acquisitions, and make his future exertions profitable. The domestic sanctuary, and the home estate of every individual, owe their security to the shield of law. It was his own agency, or that of his ancestors, which created these benefits; it is the law that makes them valuable as a future reliance. But for the law, these rights would be exposed every moment; but for this, they could not be relied upon for a single day. One rarely sees, or duly appreciates, the benefits of society, while he enjoys them. Take away the shield of law, and where and what would a man be?

The operations of a Protective system over the foreign commerce of a nation, to guard and defend the domestic rights of its citizens, are of the same invisible and inappreciable character, as those of common law, in the common relations of life. They can

not be felt, with a lively sensibility, till they who enjoy them, are deprived of them. So also, the first effects of a Free-Trade system, are so indirect and complicated, that it requires some close attention, distinctly and fully to apprehend them. They are necessarily immeasurable, because there are no palpable rules by which they can be ascertained with exactness; though the ultimate effects are not only evident enough, but overwhelmingly so. For example: It is impossible to estimate exactly how much American capital is thrown out of employment, or turned into channels less beneficial, perhaps injurious to the public, by the avalanche of products of European capital, thrown upon the country by Free Trade; or exactly how much American labor has been superseded, or how much its prices have been impaired, by this excessive importation of foreign labor; or exactly how much American arts have been put back, by this system of dependence on foreign arts; or exactly how many forms, or what extent, of profitable enterprises, employing capital aud labor, have been suppressed by it; or exactly how much the country has been impoverished and weakened, in a given time, by the same cause; or exactly how much, in the same time, under a Protective system, it would have been advanced in wealth and strength; or exactly how much individuals may have suffered under one system, or how much they would have profited under the other. All these influences are, in a manner, impalpable, and their first effects are chiefly negative. Who can exactly measure their extent and magnitude? But the ultimate effects of Free Trade are evident enough, as being very great. Our history demonstrates it, as set forth in subsequent parts of this work, in the general prostration of the business of the country; in a wide extent of commercial embarrassment and bankruptcy; in a slack demand for labor, and in its low prices; and in the general distress of all classes of the people. A half-dozen years of Free Trade, or of a defective system of Protection, have never followed each other, in this country, as our commercial history will show, without bringing with them these painful and calamitous results; and ordinarily, two or three years of Free Trade are quite sufficient to produce them all. Short crops in Europe, as in 1846 and 1847, making an extraordinary demand on America for breadstuffs, may stay this result for a season; but nothing can avert it, in an ordinary state of the world.

It is because the United States are vulnerable to all the foreign world, under a system of Free Trade, and because the foreign

world is aware of it. That vulnerability consists in the high price of our labor, and in the imperfection of our arts. Open these two points to the world, by Free Trade, and there is no escape from the consequences. Europe pounces upon us, like the bird or beast of prey upon its victim. With her cheap labor, she can break down the high value of ours; for both, on the basis of Free Trade, are in the same market; and therefore make this result a necessary consequence. It is a simple question of arithmetic, or of mathematical quantities; and there is no more certainty in figures, or in mathematical results, than in this economical problem; for both depend on figures and quantities, and are decided by the same principles. Europe, with her arts, on the basis of Free Trade, will overwhelm our arts; that is, will arrest our progress, and in some things put us back. To arrest the progress of a nation in arts, in wealth and strength, is a negative result, and therefore the measure thereof can not be easily ascertained. But is it for this reason a small thing? Where a nation is actually put back, it is more obvious. We have several times been put back, in this very way, as shown elsewhere; and it has always been the result of Free Trade.

We are aware that Free Trade still avers, that American consumers of these products of foreign cheap labor and of foreign arts, have the benefit of the cheapness of the one, and of the superiority of the other; but facts, adduced elsewhere in these pages, show that this averment is false in both particulars. As to the first, foreign producers do not descend upon us, except at points where they are sure to beat us, not only retaining to themselves, after the struggle is over, all their usurpations of the rights of labor in their own quarter, but in the end, maintaining their prices, because, we being beaten can not help it; and those prices are always higher than for the same products, furnished under an American system of protection, as we have elsewhere demonstrated by comparative statistics and tables. And as to the second, viz., the benefit of superior arts, we have also proved, that American arts, encouraged and sustained by Protection, afford us not only cheaper, but better articles, than foreign arts. On both these points, therefore, which are the chief ones-indeed, all the points of any importance-the argument for Free Trade utterly fails, and that for Protection is established.

It is not so much to drive us from the ground we have already acquired, under a Protective system, and where we may be too

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strong, in some particulars, to be ejected, that foreign producers enter the lists with us, when that system is prostrated; but it is to arrest the growth and extension of our arts, to discourage new enterprises among us, and to supply a vast field of our new and increasing wants, which we ourselves could and should supply, both cheaper and better, under a system of Protection. It is in this latter field, where we suffer most by Free Trade, which being, for the most part, a negative loss, is not so quickly or so easily perceived. Nevertheless, it is a real, a great, an immense loss-a vast and comprehensive depredation on the rights of the community. The principle elsewhere presented in these pages, that social rights extend to all the chances of the future, under an equitable system, as much as to the enjoyment and control of the acquisitions of the past, applies here. Free Trade destroys these chances, and conveys them over to foreign powers and foreign factors. It arrests American progress, cripples American enterprise, embarrasses American capital, discourages American arts, and impairs the rights of American labor. Its march is stealthy; but its aim is sure. Its work of devastation is slow; but in the end it is overwhelming. It is not till years have rolled away, that a nation, guilty of this folly, reaps its harvest of public and private misfortunes.

It requires no little knowledge and much reflection, to appreciate these negative effects of Free Trade. For example, because enterprises, well established, are not broken down by the subversion. of a Protective system, it is triumphantly proclaimed, that the change does no harm; whereas, a just view of its effects can not be had, without considering how many other important enterprises, which would have employed much labor, and brought great wealth to the country, have been strangled in the birth, the contingent benefits of which are not seen, because, not being realized, in consequence of this change of system, the negative loss can never be known, and will not be so sensibly felt as positive losses are.

Free Trade, it will be observed, demands a state of anarchy, of non-legislation, on ground where more and greater interests are at stake, than on any other in the wide domain of civilization, and where the difficulties of securing and protecting the rights involved in them, are more formidable than anywhere else, on account of the imperfection of the law of nations, and on account of the power which, in such a state of things, the commercial agencies of one nation, may have over the commercial rights of another. The

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