"3. That the American system is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion. posed as its substitute, ought really to be con- question at once as bearing upon the harmony sidered as the British colonial system. and stability of the Union-as unfit to be pressed on that account as well as for its own demerits-avowed himself a friend to incidental "4. That the price of the great staple of cot-protection, for which he had always voted, and ton, and of all our chief productions of agricul- even voted for the act of 1816-which he conture, has been sustained and upheld, and a de-sidered going far enough; and insisted that all cline averted by the protective system. "5. That, if the foreign demand for cotton "manufacturers" were doing well under it, and has been at all diminished by the operation of did not need the acts of 1824 and 1828, which that system, the diminution has been more than were made for "capitalists"-to enable them to compensated in the additional demand created engage in manufacturing; and who had not the at home. "6. That the constant tendency of the sys-requisite skill and care, and suffered, and called tem, by creating competition among ourselves, upon Congress for more assistance. He said: and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects. "7. That, in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price. "8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be much more extensively felt. "9. And, finally, that the substitution of the British colonial system for the American system, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin.” "We have arrived at a crisis. Yes, Mr. President, at a crisis more appalling than a day of battle. I adjure the Committee on Manufactures to pause-to reflect on the dissatisfaction of all the South. South Carolina has expressed itself strongly against the tariff of 1828stronger than the other States are willing to speak. But, sir, the whole of the South feel deeply the oppression of that tariff. In this respect there is no difference of opinion. The South-the whole Southern States-all, consider it as oppressive. They have not yet spoken; but when they do speak, it will be with a voice that will not implore, but will demand redress. How much better, then, to grant redress? How much better that the Committee on Manufactures heal the wound which has been inflicted? I want nothing that shall injure the manufacturer. I only want justice. Mr. Clay was supported in his general views by many able speakers-among them, Dicker"I am, Mr. President, one of the few survison and Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; Ewing vors of those who fought in the war of the revoof Ohio; Holmes of Maine; Bell of New Hamp-lution. We then thought we fought for liberty shire; Hendricks of Indiana; Webster and Sils--for equal rights. We fought against taxabee of Massachusetts; Robbins and Knight of tion, the proceeds of which were for the benefit of others. Where is the difference, if the peoRhode Island; Wilkins and Dallas of Pennsyl-ple are to be taxed by the manufacturers or by vania; Sprague of Maine; Clayton of Delaware; Chambers of Maryland; Foot of Connecticut. On the other hand the speakers in opposition to the protective policy were equally numerous, ardent and able. They were: Messrs. Hayne and Miller of South Carolina; Brown and Mangum of North Carolina; Forsyth and Troup of Georgia; Grundy and White of Tennessee; Hill of New Hampshire; Kane of Illinois; Benton of Missouri; King and Moore of Alabama; Poindexter of Mississippi; Tazewell and Tyler of Virginia; General Samuel Smith of Maryland. I limit the enumeration to the Senate. In the House the 'subject was still more fully debated, according to its numbers; and like the bank question, gave rise to heat; and was kept alive to the last day. General Smith of Maryland, took up the any others? I say manufacturers-and why do I say so? When the Senate met, there was rate the tariff of 1828; but I now see a change, a strong disposition with all parties to ameliowhich makes me almost despair of any thing effectual being accomplished. Even the small concessions made by the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], have been reprobated by the turers. I am told they have put their fiat on lobby members, the agents of the manufacany change whatever, and hence, as a consequence, the change in the course and language of gentlemen, which almost precludes all hope. Those interested men hang on the Committee on Manufactures like an incubus. I say to that committee, depend upon your own good judgments-survey the whole subject as politicians discard sectional interests, and study only thus relieve the oppressions of the South. the common weal-act with these views-and "I have ever, Mr. President, supported the interest of manufactures, as far as it could be done incidentally. I supported the late Mr. Lowndes's bill of 1816. I was a member of his committee, and that bill protected the manufactures sufficiently, except bar iron. Mr. Lowndes had reported fifteen dollars per ton. The House reduced it to nine dollars per ton. That act enabled the manufacturers to exclude importations of certain articles. The hatters carry on their business by their sons and apprentices, and few, if any, hats are now imported. Large quantities are exported, and preferred. All articles of leather, from tanned side to the finest harness or saddle, have been excluded from importation; and why? Because the business is conducted by their own hard hands, their own labor, and they are now heavily taxed by the tariff of 1828, to enable the rich to enter into the manufactures of the country. Yes, sir, I say the rich, who entered into the business after the act of 1824, which proved to be a mushroom affair, and many of them suffered severely. The act of 1816, I repeat, gave all the protection that was necessary or proper, under which the industrious and frugal completely succeeded. But, sir, the capitalist who had invested his capital in manufactures, was not to be satisfied with ordinary profit; and therefore the act of 1828." Mr. Clay, in his opening speech had adverted to the Southern discontent at the working of the protective tariff, in a way that showed he felt it to be serious, and entitled to enter into the consideration of statesmen; but considered this system an overruling necessity of such want and value to other parts of the Union, that the danger to its existence laid in the abandonment, and not in the continuance of the "American system." On this point he expressed himself thus: preceded and followed the paragraph cited, he thought, plainly indicated his meaning, which related to evasions of the system, by illicit introduction of goods, which they were not disposed to countenance in South Carolina.] I am happy to hear this explanation, But, sir, it is impossible to conceal from our view the fact that there is great excitement in South Carolina; that the protective system is openly and violently denounced in popular meetings; and that the legislature itself has declared its purpose of resorting to counteracting measures: a suspension of which has only been submitted to, for the purpose of allowing Congress time to retrace its steps. With respect to this Union, Mr. President, the truth cannot be too generally proclaimed, nor too strongly inculcated, that it is necessary to the whole and to all the parts-necessary to those parts, indeed, in different degrees, but vitally necessary to each; and that, threats to disturb or dissolve it, coming from any of the parts, would be quite as indiscreet and improper, as would be threats from the residue to exclude those parts from the pale of its benefits. The great principle, which lies at the foundation of all free governments, is, that the majority must govern; from which there is nor can be no appeal but to the sword. That majority ought to govern wisely, equitably, moderately, and constitutionally; but, govern it must, subject only to that terrible appeal. If ever one, or several States, being a minority, can, by menacing a dissolution of the Union, succeed in forcing an abandonment of great measures, deemed essential to the interests and prosperity of the whole, the Union, from that moment, is practically gone. It may linger on, in form and name, but its vital liberate opinions, I would entreat the patriotic spirit has fled for ever! Entertaining these depeople of South Carolina-the land of Marion, Sumpter, and Pickens; of Rutledge, Laurens, the Pickneys, and Lowndes; of living and present names, which I would mention if they were not living or present-to pause, solemnly pause! and contemplate the frightful precipice which lies directly before them. To retreat, may be painful and mortifying to their gallantry and pride; but it is to retreat to the Union, to safety, and to those brethren, with whom, or, with whose ancestors, they, or their ancestors, have won, on the fields of glory, imperishable renown. To advance, is to rush on certain and inevitable disgrace and destruction. “And now, Mr. President, I have to make a few observations on a delicate subject, which I approach with all the respect that is due to its serious and grave nature. They have not, indeed, been rendered necessary by the speech of the gentleman from South Carolina, whose forbearance to notice the topic was commendable, as his argument throughout was characterized by an ability and dignity worthy of him and of the Senate. The gentleman made one declaration which might possibly be misinterpreted, "The danger to our Union does not lie on the and I submit to him whether an explanation of side of persistance in the American system, but it be not proper. The declaration, as reported on that of its abandonment. If, as I have supin his printed speech, is: 'the instinct of self-posed and believe, the inhabitants of all north interest might have taught us an easier way of relieving ourselves from this oppression. It wanted but the will to have supplied ourselves with every article embraced in the protective system, free of duty, without any other participation, on our part, than a simple consent to receive them.' [Here Mr. Hayne rose, and remarked that the passages, which immediately and east of James River, and all west of the mountains, including Louisiana, are deeply interested in the preservation of that system, would they be reconciled to its overthrow? Can it be expected that two thirds, if not three fourths, of the people of the United States would consent to the destruction of a policy believed to be indispensably necessary to their prosperity? When, too, this sacrifice is made at the instance of a single interest, which they verily believe will not be promoted by it? In estimating the degree of peril which may be incident to two opposite courses of human policy, the statesman would be short-sighted who should content himself with viewing only the evils, real or imaginary, which belong to that course which is in practical operation. He should lift himself up to the contemplation of those greater and more certain dangers which might inevitably attend the adoption of the alternative course. What would be the condition of this Union, if Pennsylvania and New-York, those mammoth members of our confederacy, were firmly persuaded that their industry was paralyzed, and their prosperity blighted, by the enforcement of the British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade? They are now tranquil, and happy, and contented, conscious of their welfare and feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home manufactures and home industry througout all their great arteries. But let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to predominate, and the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up; let New England and the West, and the Middle States, all feel that they too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of our country despair of any favorable change, and then, indeed, might we tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union!" Here was an appalling picture presented: dissolution of the Union, on either hand, and one or the other of the alternatives obliged to be taken. If persisted in, the opponents to the protective system, in the South, were to make the dissolution; if abandoned, its friends, in the North, were to do it. Two citizens, whose word was law to two great parties, denounced the same event, from opposite causes, and one of which causes was obliged to occur. The crisis required a hero-patriot at the head of the government, and Providence had reserved one for the occasion. There had been a design, in some, to bring Jackson forward for the Presidency, in 1816, and again, in 1820, when he held back. He was brought forward, in 1824, and defeated. These three successive postponements brought him to the right years, for which Providence seemed to have destined him, and which he would have missed, if elected at either of the three preceding elections. It was a reservation above human wisdom or foresight; and gave to the American people (at the moment they wanted him) the man of head, and heart, and nerve, to do what the crisis required: who possessed the confidence of the people, and who knew no course, in any danger, but that of duty and patriotism; and had no feeling, in any extremity, but that God and the people would sustain him. Such a man was wanted, in 1832, and was found -found before, but reserved for use now. The representatives from the South, generally but especially those from South Carolina, while depicting the distress of their section of the Union, and the reversed aspect which had come upon their affairs, less prosperous now than before the formation of the Union, attributed the whole cause of this change to the action of the federal government, in the levy and distribution of the public revenue; to the protective system, which was now assuming permanency, and increasing its exactions; and to a course of expenditure which carried to the North what was levied on the South. The democratic party generally concurred in the belief that this system was working injuriously upon the South, and that this injury ought to be relieved; that it was a cause of dissatisfaction with the Union, which a regard for the Union required to be redressed; but all did not concur in the cause of Southern eclipse in the race of prosperity which their representatives assigned; and, among them, Mr. Dallas, who thus spoke: "The impressive and gloomy description of the senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hayne], as to the actual state and wretched prospects of his immediate fellow-citizens, awakens the liveliest sympathy, and should command our attention. It is their right; it is our duty. I cannot of the American people; and esteem it inconfeel indifferent to the sufferings of any portion sistent with the scope and purpose of the federal constitution, that any majority, no matter how large, should connive at, or protract the oppressmall. I disclaim and detest the idea of making sion or misery of any minority, no matter how one part subservient to another; of feasting upon the extorted substance of my countrymen; of enriching my own region, by draining the fertility and resources of a neighbor; of becoming wealthy with spoils which leave their legitimate owners impoverished and desolate. But, sir, I want proof of a fact, whose existence, at least as described, it is difficult even to conceive; and, above all, I want the true causes of that fact to be ascertained; to be brought within the reach of legislative remedy, and to have that remedy of a nature which may be applied without producing more mischiefs than those it proposes to cure. The proneness to exaggerate social evils is embarrassment is sensitively apprehended to be greatest with the most patriotic. Temporary permanent. Every day's experience teaches how apt we are to magnify partial into universal dis tress, and with what difficulty an excited imagination rescues itself from despondency. It will not do, sir, to act upon the glowing or pathetic delineations of a gifted orator; it will not do to become enlisted, by ardent exhortations, in a crusade against established systems of policy; it will not do to demolish the walls of our citadel to the sounds of plaintiff eloquence, or fire the temple at the call of impassioned enthu siasm. influence on others. Incapable of adaptation to the ever-varying changes of human society and existence, it retains the communities in which it is established, in a condition of apparent and comparative inertness. The lights of science, and the improvements of art, which vivify and accelerate elsewhere, cannot penetrate, or, if they do, penetrate with dilatory inefficiency, among its operatives. They are merely instinctive and passive. While the intellectual industry of other parts of this country springs elastically forward at every fresh impulse, and manual labor is pro "What, sir, is the cause of Southern distress? Has any gentleman yet ventured to designate it? Can any one do more than suppose, or ar-pelled and redoubled by countless inventions, gumentatively assume it? I am neither willing nor competent to flatter. To praise the honorable senator from South Carolina, would be To add perfume to the violet- But, if he has failed to discover the source of the evils he deplores, who can unfold it? Amid the warm and indiscriminating denunciations with which he has assailed the policy of protecting domestic manufactures and native produce, he frankly avows that he would not 'deny that there are other causes, besides the tariff, which have contributed to produce the evils which he has depicted. What are those 'other causes?' In what proportion have they acted? How much of this dark shadowing is ascribable to each singly, and to all in combination? Would the tariff be at all felt or denounced, if these other causes were not in operation? Would not, in fact, its influence, its discriminations, its inequalities, its oppressions, but for these 'other causes,' be shaken, by the elasticity and energy, and exhaustless spirit of the South, as 'dew-drops from the lion's mane?' These inquiries, sir, must be satisfactorily answered before we can be justly required to legislate away an entire system. If it be the root of all evil, let it be exposed and demolished. If its poisonous exhalations be but partial, let us preserve such portions as are innoxious. If, as the luminary of day, it be pure and salutary in itself, let us not wish it extinguished, because of the shadows, clouds, and darkness which obscure its brightness or impede its vivifying power. "That other causes still, Mr. President, for Southern distress, do exist, cannot be doubted. They combine with the one I have indicated, and are equally unconnected with the manufacturing policy. One of these it is peculiarly painful to advert to; and when I mention it, I beg honorable senators not to suppose that I do it in the spirit of taunt, of reproach, or of idle declamation. Regarding it as a misfortune merely, not as a fault; as a disease inherited, not incurred; perhaps to be alleviated, but not eradicated, Í should feel self-condemned were I to treat it other than as an existing fact, whose merit or demerit, apart from the question under debate, is shielded from commentary by the highest and most just considerations. I refer, sir, to the character of Southern labor, in itself, and in its machines, and contrivances, instantly understood and at once exercised, the South remains stationary, inaccessible to such encouraging and invigorating aids. Nor is it possible to be wholly blind to the moral effect of this species of labor upon those freemen among whom it exists. A disrelish for humble and hardy occupation; a pride adverse to drudgery and toil; a dread that to partake in the employments allotted to color, may be accompanied also by its degradation, are natural and inevitable. The high and lofty qualities which, in other scenes and for other purposes, characterize and adorn our Southern brethren, are fatal to the enduring patience, the corporal exertion, and the painstaking simplicity, by which only a successful yeomanry can be formed. When, in fact, sir, the senator from South Carolina asserts that 'slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute, constant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which is essential to the success of manufacturing establishments,' he himself admits the defect in the condition of Southern labor, by which the progress of his favorite section must be retarded. He admits an inability to keep pace with the rest of the world. He admits an inherent weakness; a weakness neither engendered nor aggravated by the tariff-which, as societies are now constituted and directed, must drag in the rear, and be distanced in the common race." Thus spoke Mr. Dallas, senator from Pennsylvania; and thus speaking, gave offence to no Southern man; and seemed to be well justified in what he said, from the historical fact that the loss of ground, in the race of prosperity, had commenced in the South before the protective system began-before that epoch year, 1816, when it was first installed as a system, and so installed by the power of the South Carolina vote and talent. But the levy and expenditure of the federal government was, doubtless, the main cause of this Southern decadence—so unnatural in the midst of her rich staples-and which had commenced before 1816. It so happened, that while the advocates of the American system were calling so earnestly for government protection, to enable them to sus tain themselves at home, that the custom-house proved; but I do not come here to argue upon books were showing that a great many species of our manufactures, and especially the cotton, were going abroad to far distant countries; and sustaining themselves on remote theatres against all competition, and beyond the range of any help from our laws. Mr. Clay, himself, spoke of this exportation, to show the excellence of our fabrics, and that they were worth protection; I used the same fact to show that they were independent of protection; and said: admissions, whether candid or unguarded, of the proofs; and, really, sir, I have a mind to com adversary speakers. I bring my own facts and plain that the gentleman's admission about cottons has crippled the force of my argument that it has weakened its effect by letting out half at a time, and destroyed its novelty, by an anticipated revelation. The truth is, I have this fact (that we exported domestic cottons) treasured up in my magazine of material! and intended to produce it, at the proper time, to show that we exported this article, not to Canton and Cal cutta alone, but to all quarters of the globe; not "And here I would ask, how many and which a few cargoes only, by way of experiment, but are the articles that require the present high rate in great quantities, as a regular trade, to the amount of a million and a quarter of dollars, an of protection? Certainly not the cotton manufacture; for, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. nually; and that, of this amount, no less than Clay], who appears on this floor as the leading forty thousand dollars worth, in the year 1830 champion of domestic manufactures, and whose had done what the combined fleets and armies admissions of fact must be conclusive against his of the world could not do: it had scaled the rock arguments of theory! this senator tells you, and of Gibraltar, penetrated to the heart of the Britdwells upon the disclosure with triumphant exish garrison, taken possession of his Britannic ultation, that American cottons are now exported Majesty's soldiers, bound their arms, legs, and to Asia, and sold at a profit in the cotton marbodies, and strutted in triumph over the ramkets of Canton and Calcutta! Surely, sir, our parts and batteries of that unattackable fortress tariff laws of 1824 and 1828 are not in force in And now, sir, I will use no more of the gentle Bengal and China. And I appeal to all mankind man's admissions; I will draw upon my own for the truth of the inference, that, if our cottons resources; and will show nearly the whole list can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit of our domestic manufactures to be in the same without any protection at all, they can stay at flourishing condition with cottons, actually going home, and be sold to our own citizens, without abroad to seek competition, without protection, loss, under a less protection than fifty and two in every foreign clime, and contending victoriously hundred and fifty per centum! One fact, Mr. with foreign manufactures wherever they can en President, is said to be worth a thousand theo-counter them. I read from the custom-house ries; I will add that it is worth a hundred thou- returns, of 1830-the last that has been printed. Listen to it: sand speeches; and this fact that the American cottons now traverse the one-half of the circum ference of this globe-cross the equinoctial line; descend to the antipodes; seek foreign markets on the double theatre of British and Asiatic com "This is the list of domestic manufactures ex ported to foreign countries. It comprehends the whole, or nearly the whole, of that long cata logue of items which the senator from Kentucky petition, and come off victorious from the con- [Mr. Clay] read to us, on the second day of his test-is a full and overwhelming answer to all discourse; and shows the whole to be going the speeches that have been made, or ever can abroad, without a shadow of protection, to seek be made, in favor of high protecting duties on competition, in foreign markets, with the foreign these cottons at home. The only effect of such goods of all the world. The list of articles I duties is to cut off importations-to create monohave read, contains near fifty varieties of manu poly at home-to enable our manufacturers to factures (and I have omitted many minor artisell their goods higher to their own christian fel-cles), amounting, in value, to near six millions of low-citizens than to the pagan worshippers of Fo dollars! And now behold the diversity of human and of Brahma! to enable the inhabitants of the bits a list of articles manufactured in the United reasoning! The senator from Kentucky exhiGanges and the Burrampooter to wear American cottons upon cheaper terms than the inhabit-States, and argues that the slightest diminution ants of the Ohio and Mississippi. And every overwhelm the whole in ruin, and cover the in the enormous protection they now enjoy, will Western citizen knows the fact, that when these shipments of American cottons were making to country with distress; I read the same identical the extremities of Asia, the price of these same and contend victoriously with their foreign rivals list, to show that all these articles go abroad cottons was actually raised twenty and twenty in all foreign markets." five per cent., in all the towns of the West; with this further difference to our prejudice, that we can only pay for them in money, while the inhabitants of Asia make payment in the products of their own country. "This is what the gentleman's admission Mr. Clay had attributed to the tariffs of 1824 and 1828 the reviving and returning prosperity of the country, while in fact it was the mere effect of recovery from prostration, and in spite |