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THE

AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. LXXXIII.

FOR NOVEMBER, 1851.

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

"To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the tract it has passed."-COLERIDGE.

A HISTORY of modern political questions, if faithfully executed,-a true account being given of the opponents and the defenders of the measures, and, if carried, their resultswhether confirming or refuting their advocates, by the undeniable facts of their operation, would be the most interesting and important of all political books.

Such a book, being written up to this present November, A.D. 1851,would, among its complicated details, contain no instance of a measure so palpably refuting, by the facts of its actual operation, the arguments and predictions of its advocates, as the tariff of 1846. It happened, by the unfortunate contrivance of the Fates, that the powerful party which executed with such heroic resolution this fearful experiment upon a prosperous country, had a leader and spokesman who, lacking the modesty which usually accompanies such greatness, and the discretion which his wisdom and station naturally demanded, proclaimed to the world, in the same manner that a veritable quack doctor would employ, the inevitable effects of his nostrum upon the body politic; tempting his victims through their imaginations and their hopes, by holding up before them the most dazzling results. The famous reports of Mr. Secretary Walker are known unto all men, and are most lamentable instances of the folly of human predictions.

In less than five years from the inaugu

VOL. VIII. NO. V. NEW SERIES.

ration of this stupendous measure for the extension of our trade and commerce, with no impediment whatever thrown in the way of its operation, but, on the contrary, two most unprecedented, uncalculated, and unlooked for helps to its operation (what "aids" they would have been to Mr. Walker's "reflections," could he also have foreseen them!)-a famine in Europe following an unprecedented crop in these States, and the discovery of an inexhaustible gold field,

the following is the result. We were to export, according to Mr. Walker

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It will be observed that the whole three | turers, merchants or farmers. We have years of actual results do not equal Mr. done this that we may have at least one Walker's estimate for one year by nearly eighty-eight millions of dollars!

How utterly absurd in the plain light of the facts does all this appear! With what confusion should it cover the advocates of a system demonstrated to be so palpably fallacious! But no; the party that applauded this report to the echo, and acted upon its suggestions, abate not one jot of their pernicious theory; but, in spite of the demonstration, and in spite of the disasters and the embarrassment they have brought upon the country, mean again to fight for the supremacy, in order to maintain the tyranny of so fatal a system.

But let us suppress our indignation, and pursue the results of this policy up to the present time. What are they? In brief this: that instead of an excess of exports, we have imports; instead of selling, we have been buying.

point, the emergency of which will be disputed by no protectionist, whether he be Whig or "Democrat." Now, whilst the ponderous evil we have been illustrating, and others that we may touch in the progress of this article, traceable directly to political causes, are so pressing, there is an unaccountable apathy of political action, organization and discussion, among those upon whom the nation depends for the rectification of those evils-the Whig party, its press and its statesmen. The enemy is looking with satisfaction upon this state of things, for in this apathy is his certain triumph. He depends more upon inaction than action. The nation aroused is always and ever his certain discomfiture.

Politics in this country is not in its nature an amateur science for the gratification of the tastes or ambitions of the few, that may be taken up or laid down as those tastes The exports of our own productions for wax or wane, or those ambitions die or the present fiscal year will amount to about receive other directions; but is the practical one hundred and sixty-four millions of dol- duty of every man in this free community. lars, whilst the imports reach about two He that is indifferent and does not take hundred and twenty millions; leaving a pains to form definite opinions upon quesbalance against us of fifty-six millions of tions of public policy, and perform those dollars. Something more than one half of acts necessary to give practical efficiency to this appears to have been paid for in specie, his sentiments, is willing to be the slave of and the rest has yet to be paid in the same other men's opinions, and submit himself way, or by anticipating our future export and his affairs to theories that he may deresources, and so merely postponing the spise, and instruments whom he detests; evening of the evil day. And now, as the and is consequently no good citizen, no natural result, our manufacturers and mer-worthy member of a State, the theory of chants are failing in all directions, our banks which is, the government of all over all. No are embarrassed, and our producers find one can say that he is not responsible for melting, or in danger of melting out of what is done because he takes no part in their hands, the profits so hardly won during politics. His negative action has positive these years of competition with foreign rivals. We are, in short, having enacted over again the frightful results of former experiments of the same kind. Thus nature and facts are too strong for us, and we must ever be retracing our steps if we attempt to follow the theories that other nations concoct for us from other circumstances and other principles than our own.

effects. If evil measures are perpetrated and evil men put into power, he has been at least half as efficient an agent in the work as any one who by his political action has carried those measures and elected those men. These are truths that no one disputes, that there are in fact no arguments against; and yet how many act contrary to until some great emergency compels them to regard them.

We have thus endeavored to bring before the minds of our readers, in the most suc- When the treasures of the nation-the cinct, matter-of-fact, and palpable manner, means by which it carries on its beneficent one of the subjects dividing the political objects of blessing and elevating humanity, parties that appeal to the "business," if not that should be regarded as sacred as the to the "bosoms," of all men, politicians or offering in the temple-are found to be not politicians, rich and poor, manufac-in the hands of thieves and robbers; when

1846 has diminished, and it will continue to diminish, the number of artificers and manufacturers; for the very reason, that, as Mr. Walker states, at lower duties it produces an increased revenue, by supplanting articles made at home with similar importations from abroad.

"An appeal to some statistics of past years may not be out of place here, and we shall refer to them with a view to show the results of extraor dinary importations beyond the power of the country to pay for.

"We commence with 1815, when, according to a table prepared by Mr. Walker accompanying his Report of December 3d, 1845, we consumed of foreign merchandise $106,457,924. In 1816, according to the same table, we consumed of imported goods $129,964,444.

they are practically being regarded as the spoils of the political victors, then are these principles for which we are appealing acted upon; the vampires, though unsatiated, are flung from their prey. But the evil cannot be undone, and we must go back and heal the mischief that our owa falseness to duty has permitted. Again, when the nation is deliberately precipitated into an unjust and unnecessary war, and the armies sacred to freedom and the rights of all men, are used to violate our own first principles by subjugating foreign territories and their people to a sway not of their own choosing, thus sanctioning the principles upon which all tyrannies restthen do the men to whom we would appeal arise in their might, and, conscience-stricken by their former supineness, emphasize their indignation and their power by placing in the seat of their recreant Executive the hero who, although laboring under the weight of a disdain for the purpose of his actions, did that only which man could do in the melancholy case, threw the shining mantle of military glory over the national crime. And now again, when the economic theories of a nation whose political yoke we once and for ever threw off, have been permitted to bind us to a commercial which we have not yet the means of resisting, draining from us the life-blood of our commerce, and the means of developing the immense latent riches of our lands, our mines, and our water-powers,-may we not with confidence again anticipate a rising which shall break those fetters that have more than once before been fastened upon us, until, galled to the quick, we could no longer bear it, but bounding from them in each case entered upon a career that, from its uniform prosperity, should have settled upon an impregnable basis the policy of the nation on this point for ever? Unquestiona-pension of specie payments which resulted, must ble as this truth is, people will in their eagerness for the future, and their absorption in the present, forget the past.

supremacy

That we may not appear to any to be without ample warrant for what we say, we will quote from our own records and predictions. In the number of this Review for March, 1847, will be found an article by Redwood Fisher, Esq., on a report of Mr. Secretary Walker, in which the following

passages occur:—

Those who are old enough must remember the disastrous effects of these excessive importations, among other evidences of the distressed condition which were not fully realized till 1819, when, of the country, a committee appointed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania reported as follows: that there were 'ruinous sacrifices of landed property at sheriffs' sales, whereby in many cases lands and houses have been sold at less than a half, a third, or a fourth part of their former value; thereby depriving of their homes and the fruits of laborious years a vast number of industrious farmers, some of whom have been driven to seek in the uncultivated forests of the West that shelter of which they had been deprived in their native State. An almost entire cessation of the usual circulation of commodities, and a consequent stagnation of business, which is limited to the mere purchase and sale of the necessaries of life, and of such articles of consumption by the season. The overflowing of our prisons as are absolutely required with insolvent debtors, most of whom are confined for small sums, whereby the community loses a portion of its active labor, and is compelled to support families by charity who have thus been deprived of their protectors'

66

By the same table of Mr. Walker, we find the consumption of foreign merchandise, in 1885, was $129,391,247. In 1836, the consumption of the same goods amounted to the enormous sum of in consequence of the inflation of the currency, $168,233,675. These immense importations were consequent upon the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States, which prompted the loans made by the pet banks, as they were called. The memorable break-down, and the sus

be fresh in the recollection of all who were in anywise conversant with the business affairs of that period.

"In 1889, the same table tells us, we consumed $144,597,607, and the results were little less ruinous. In 1841, at the close of what was called

the Compromise Act, we consumed $112,447,096. At that time the duties were so much reduced that the net revenue for the year was but $15,516,589, and the whole country groaned under the depression of home industry of every kind.

"For the fifteen years previous to 1835, the consumption of foreign imports had scarcely exceeded "Now, it is a fact well known that the tariff of $80,000,000. During the periods of the large im

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