eastern, western, and middle portions, as well as the southern, should remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of English manufactures. The object of the tariff was not to sacrifice the south to the other sections of the country, but simply to prevent all the restof the country from being sacrificed to the south. The south complained, that, if the tariff were established, the price of certain objects of her consumption would be temporarily increased. The other parts of the union complained, that, if it were not established, they should be unable to purchase the necessary objects of consumption at any price. At most, the tariff could only be inconvenient to the south, while the want of it would be ruinous to the country. Mr. Clay believed, however, that the adoption of the restrictive policy would ultimately be beneficial to the people of the southern states, whether they engaged in manufacturing or not. Under the old system, the English manufacturers enjoyed the exclusive privilege of supplying the articles of southern consumption, and consequently supplied them at an exorbitant price. Under the operation of the tariff, manufactures would spring up in the United States to rival those of England, and there could be little doubt, that, in consequence of the competition, the south would be able, after the lapse of a very few years, to purchase the objects of its cousumption at a greatly diminished price. This position admitted of a forcible illustration. At the close of the late war, the American establishments for cotton-bagging, in Kentucky, were prostrated by the influx of the Scottish manufacture. Of course the Scotch subsequently monopolized the supply of the country. What was the effect? They immediately raised the price of bagging to a sum that would have protected the American manufacture ten years. This inoreased price of the article induced the American establish

ments to go again into operation, and the effect was to reduce the price one half.

In the second place it was objected, that the Tariff would diminish the amount of our exports; that Europe would not purchase of us unless we purchased of her. Mr. C. replied, that, as the bill before congress operated only on a few articles of foreign industry, Europe might still buy of us whatever she wanted, and pay us in articles not effected by the provisions of the Tariff. If there was any falling-off in our exports, it must be in the article of cotton to Great Britain; and, even in this, it was impossible, that the diminution should be important. Great Britain bought cotton of us annually to the amount of about five millions sterling, and sold it, in its manufactured forms, for more than twenty-one millions and a half. Of the manufactured fabrick, the United States received only to the amount of a million and a half. If Great Britain, in consequence of our Tariff, should refuse to purchase our cotton, she would lose the market for the twenty millions sterling, which she was selling yearly to foreign powers. Such a loss she would not willingly incur. The diminution, then, in the exportation of cotton to Great Britain, could only be in the proportion of one and a half to twenty—a diminution, which would be more than made up by the increased sale of the article in our own country. Besides: the new direction, given to our industry, would produce new articles of exportation-articles, which, from the labour bestowed on their manufacture, would be far more valuable than raw materials-and hence, the aggregate of our exports, instead of diminishing in value, would be greatly increased.

The next objection to the Tariff was, that it would diminish our Navigation. Mr. Clay said, in reply, that, if he was right in the supposition, that the protection of

our industry would produce new objects of exportation, our navigation would receive additional encouragement. Even if this interest, contrary to all probability, should experience a depression, the increase of the coasting trade would be more than a compensation for the injury. The orator contended, moreover, that, in settling our manufac turing and agricultural policy, the interests of navigation, though certainly worthy of attention, should be regarded as of secondary importance. The whole business of navigation is to transport the productions of the agricultural and manufacturing branches of industry; and therefore it should accommodate itself to the actual condition of these branches, instead of requiring them to be moulded to its own purposes.

Again: the opposers of the domestick policy objected, that its adoption would force capital and labour into new and reluctant employments-employments, for which we were unfitted by the high price of labour in this country. Mr. Clay remarked, in answer, that no man would enter upon the business of manufacturing unless at his own option. It was notorious, that one great cause of the distress of the country, was the almost universal want of employment. Agriculture, commerce, navigation, and all the learned professions, were overflowing with competitors. The establishment of manufactures would open a new field of business, and those who thought proper would engage in it, and none others. As to our being unfitted for manufacturing by the high price of labour, the sugges tion was absurd. So great were the want of employment and the consequent embarrassment among the working classes, that instances were frequent, in which men laboured for a bare subsistence. Besides, manual labour was but a trifling consideration in the manufacturing arts. Almost every thing had then come to be done by machinery.

In estimating the expense of English fabricks, the item of manual labour was quite too small for competition. The machine power of Britain was equal at that day to the manual power of two hundred millions of able-bodied day-labourers; or eleven times as great as the aggregate of the whole natural power of the country. In this advanced state of the arts, the circumstances most requisite for success in manufacturing, were capital, raw materials, ingenuity in the construction of machinery, and adroitness in the application of it. Our citizens were deficient in no one of these things, and hence there could be no doubt, that, with proper protection, their success would be complete.

It was further urged, that, wherever there was a concurrence of favourable circumstances, manufactures would spring up of themselves, and flourish without protection. This theory, Mr. C. said, was refuted by fact. The supposition, that manufactures, without protection, could maintain themselves in a competition with protected manufactures, was refuted by the experience of all nations. There was never one instance, in which they thus maintained themselves. The causes of their universal failure might be obvious or they might not-but the fact still remained. It would be as preposterous to reject the fact on account of our ignorance of its causes, as to decline availing ourselves of the light of the sun because we may not know of what substance it is composed.

Mr. Webster argued, that the protecting policy was condemned by the most enlightened statesmen of Europe, and that we, in adopting it, should only be decorating ourselves with the cast-off habiliments of other nations. Mr. Clay challenged any and all of his opponents to cite a solitary case, where a nation, after once enjoying the benefits of the restrictive system, had surrendered them.

He represented his opponents as rejecting the evidence of the settled and permanent policy of Europe, and asking Congress to take lessons from a few speculative writers, whose visionary theories had been nowhere adopted, or, if adopted, had brought nothing but poverty in their train. Great Britain had not relaxed from the most rigourous restrictions. She not only protected the whole of her vast dominions against the rest of the world, but protected the parent country against the colonies-and even the different parts of the parent country against each other. Supposing, however, that Great Britain should abolish all restrictions upon trade-it would by no means follow, that we could safely imitate the example. Her manufac tures had been brought to maturity-but ours were in their infancy. If a universal system of free trade were to be established, Great Britain might, by reason of the perfec tion of her arts, increase in riches and prosperity, while, at the same time, every American manufacturer would inevitably become a bankrupt. The lion may need no pro

tection-but the life of the lamb depends upon it.

It was, at length, suggested by Mr. P. P. Barbour, of Virginia, toward the close of the discussion, that the protection of domestic industry was contrary to the spirit of our constitution. It is indeed a curious fact, that this notion of the unconstitutionality of the Tariff-a notion which, within the last three or four years, has been very perseveringly and boisterously proclaimed-was never thought of during the long and able discussions of 1815 and 1820, and merely alluded to in 1824 as an incidental consideration, in the soundness of which the most violent enemies of protection had obviously no sort of confidence. Mr. Clay, in the slight notice which he thought fit to bestow upon this topic, deduced the right of taxing imported articles from that clause of the constitution, which