one sense waged "in the interests of a free trade." But it was not waged in the interests of any such free trade as Professor Perry advocates, a free trade which denies the right of a nation to place any restrictions having in view the encouragement of industries deemed necessary or useful to the whole community. On the contrary, the colonies strove for the right to regulate their own commerce and industry as they pleased, and, as soon as independent, they proceeded to exercise the right. It was found, however, that the action of Virginia was ineffectual without the co-operation of Maryland, and that those two could not act effectually without Pennsylvania, nor those three without New York, and so on. Mr. Madison, writing to Joseph C. Cabell, Sept. 18, 1828, records these facts, and adds in illustration the following:

"There is a passage in Mr. Necker's work on the finances of France which affords a signal illustration of the difficulty of collecting in contiguous communities indirect taxes when not the same in all, by the violent means resorted to against smuggling from one to another of them. Previous to the late revolutionary war in that country, the taxes were of very different rates in the different provinces. . . . The consequence was that the standing army of patrols against smuggling had swollen to the number of twenty-three thousand; the annual arrests of men, women, and children engaged in smuggling, to five thousand five hundred and fifty, . . . more than three hundred of whom were consigned to the terrible punishment of the galleys."

The colonies, then, did not go to war to deprive themselves of the right to regulate their own trade according to their own notions of what is advantageous to the whole community; and Professor Perry's labored introduction tends to produce an impression the reverse of what is true.

But this is a trifle to what follows, when he says that "no ill effects followed this general liberty to buy and sell with foreigners," &c.

The real facts are that upon the opening of the ports, after the war, an immense quantity of foreign manufactures was introduced; and the people were tempted by the sudden cheapness of imported goods to purchase beyond their capacity for

payment. The bonds of men whose competency to pay their debts was unquestionable could not be negotiated but at a discount of thirty, forty, and fifty per cent; real property was scarcely vendible, and sales of any article for ready money could only be made at a ruinous loss. Property, when brought to sale under execution, sold at so low a price as frequently to ruin the debtor without paying the creditor. A disposition to resist the laws became common. Laws were passed by which property of every kind was made a legal tender in the payment of debts, though payable according to contract in gold and silver. Other laws delayed payments, so that of sums already due only a third, and afterwards only a fifth, was annually recoverable in the courts of law. Silver and gold departed to pay for the necessary and unnecessary commodities imported.

In this condition of financial matters, the public securities fell to fifteen, twelve, and even ten cents in the dollar, ruining a large portion of the warmest friends of the Revolution, who had risked their lives and embarked their entire property in its support.

In every part of the States the scarcity of money had become. a common subject of complaint, and the difficulty of paying debts had become so common, that riots and combinations were formed in many places, and the operations of civil government were suspended.

The authorities for the above are, Dr. Hugh Williamson, Minot's "History of the Insurrection in Massachusetts," pp. 2, 13; Marshall's "Life of Washington," pp. 75, 88, 121; ' Ramsay's "South Carolina," vol. ii. p. 428; Belknap's "History of New Hampshire," vol. ii. pp. 352, 356, 429; Matthew Carey's works, and the "Questions of the Day," by Dr. Elder. But Professor Perry says that "no ill effects followed this general liberty to buy and sell with foreigners," &c.

Let the reader pause a moment over this extraordinary misrepresentation. Had it been made by one who was impelled by avarice or revenge, there would be nothing marvellous about it; but here is a very different case. A professor in a respectable college, the author of a treatise on political economy

said to be used in many universities, a gentleman whose official position makes him a trustee of the truth for the rising generation, should not be accused of wilful untruthfulness. No! it is more courteous, more agreeable, and doubtless more just, to trace the misstatement to an unfortunate habit of hastily concluding that events did actually happen in this or that manner, because, if his theories be correct, they must so have happened. He feels perfectly sure of his doctrine; and, such being the doctrine, the events must have been as stated; but, unfortunately for the deduced history, the doctrine itself cannot be maintained. Imports are not exchanged for exports. Imports are sold for money, and the money is thereafter either carried abroad or invested in exports, according to circumstances; or it may be invested in Government or other securities, and so run the country in debt. But paying in money or in securities has a limit which is speedily reached; and afterwards, imports must be limited by the foreign demand for exports, even if this pays for only a fifth or a tenth of what the country could produce and enjoy through its own labor. But before the free-trade disease reaches this chronic stage it must pass through the acute stage. There are the export of treasure; the contraction of all values as measured by treasure; the aggravation of all debts, public and private; forced liquidations; widespread bankruptcy, and a general diminution of employment to industry.

The theory which teaches that the only way in which a country can be flooded with the cheap goods of foreigners is for the natives to flood the foreigners with cheap goods in exchange is an incorrect theory; and the history deduced from it is consequently the opposite of the actual course of events,- all which proves only what common sense would have seen at once, namely, that history should not be inferred from theories, but ascertained by reference to the written and printed records of the times.

Another misstatement as to facts may be found in the alle gation that in 1789 men had not yet invented the theory that protection would benefit farmers by enlarging the home market.

In Adam Smith's lectures, afterwards published (in 1776) under the title of "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," the idea of the great advantage of the home market crops out frequently, and may be found more particularly in bk. iv. chap. ix., last paragraph but four, where he says:

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"Whatever, then, tends to diminish in any country the number of artificers and manufacturers tends to diminish the home market, - the most important of all markets for the rude produce of the land."

The same idea appears frequently in Alexander Hamilton's writings. He says:

"There appear strong reasons to regard the foreign demand for that (agricultural) surplus as too uncertain a reliance, and to desire a substitute for it in an extensive domestic market.

"To secure such a market there is no other expedient than to promote manufacturing establishments. Manufacturers, who constitute the most numerous class after the cultivators of the land, are for that reason the principal consumers of the surplus of their labor.

"The idea of an extensive domestic market for the surplus product of the soil is of the first consequence. It is, of all things, that which most effectually conduces to a flourishing state of agriculture."

Benjamin Franklin, writing home from London in 1771,

says:

“Every manufacturer encouraged in a country makes part of a home market for provisions among ourselves, and saves so much money to the country as must otherwise be exported to pay for the manufactures he supplies. Here in England it is well known that wherever a manufacture is established which employs a number of hands, it raises the value of land in the country all around it. It seems, therefore, the interest of our farmers and owners of land to encourage our young manufactures in preference to foreign ones."

Professor Perry says that this doctrine, which he calls a fallacy, had not been invented in 1789! The reader will see that he is here again in error as to matters of fact. The doctrine was well established long before the date named, and has

never been shaken. It was reaffirmed by General Jackson in his celebrated letter to Dr. Coleman in 1824, and by John Stuart Mill, in his Political Economy, thirty years later. Indeed, it is nearly self-evident; but Professor Perry denounces it as a fallacy which a few words will explode, and he gives us the few words, which are:

"Unless it can be shown that protection—that is to say, restrictionincreases the number of births or diminishes the number of deaths, it is in vain to claim that there are any more mouths to be fed by the farmers than there would be under freedom."

This is a question about which a farmer is as good a judge as any professor. In twenty-five years the population of the United States will be doubled,-it will be 100,000,000,-capable, if all employed in agriculture, of producing food and raw materials for 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 of people. Nowhere on this planet are to be found the requisite number of purchasers. In England and Scotland and Wales the people (less than 30,000,000) have been rash enough to make themselves largely dependent upon foreign food; but even their demand is liable to very great variations. Other countries pursue the more sensible policy of raising in ordinary seasons enough for themselves.

To repeat: in twenty-five years the population of the whole country will be doubled; that of the now less settled portions will be increased three, four, or five fold. Let the farmer in such portions consider whether he would prefer the increase of population to be mostly farmers or mostly people who buy and do not produce farm products. It will not take him long to make up his mind, and his judgment will be worth as much as that of all the political economists in Europe and America. His judgment will agree with the mature and deliberate opinion of such men as Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and the majority of the great statesmen who have been the pride of our country.

The article now under review contains two argumentations which it may be well to examine, coming as they do from a noted political economist.