ble conveniences, while America attends only to commerce and agriculture. France will make our shoes, Italy our religion and our summer hats, Germany supply our thoughts, and Africa furnish out our sympathies. Thus will this jolly round ball of earth be no longer several ant-hills, but rather one vast formicary. This is all the purpose we have been able to discover in a free trade argument, that occupations should be restricted to particular nations. What benefit is to come from the arrangement it requires the mind of a mystic to perceive. But if the fancied advantages of free trade are hypothetical and hard to be appreciated, the arguments against its contrary are no less so: While England is raising a hundred, and this nation twentyfive millions of dollars through tariffs laid on by free trade theorists, we are entertained by our long-haired philosopher with the following thesis: "That a tariff is unjust, because it taxes one class to enrich another." These two hypotheses, first, that each nation should produce some one commodity, or set of commodities, proper to itself; and the other, that a protective tariff is unjust "because it taxes one man to enrich another," include the whole free trade argument; they are at once, theory, arguments and premises. If it were true, that a tariff affording protection, enriches one man to the loss of another, then would those free trade legislators who proceed to raise half the revenue of England, and the whole of that of America by tariffs, be proved guilty of inflicting a great wrong upon their respective countries; but as matters now stand with them, they are charged, not with the error of imposing tariffs, but with having imposed them in such a manner and in such a form as to do with them the greatest possible amount of injury. Thus, while they cry out against discriminating duties, and argue for the ad valorem, they discriminate in favor of particular articles, such as tea and coffee, and bread stuffs, in the very teeth of that favorite maxim of free trade, that "if a tariff is laid it must be for revenue." In times of scarcity, an ad valorem duty upon articles of food, yields a better revenue, the duty rising with the price, but no sooner was there a scarcity of food in England, the duty was lowered to a rate merely nominal. The policy was advocated as a just and necessary policy, and the ministry were praised for it, but it threw down and forever annihilated the doctrine, that "revenue alone is to be regarded, in the adjustment of duties;" it proved that if tariffs are used at all, it is necessary to discriminate, lest in raising revenue, we depress and injure the people. The English ministry were bound by a maxim of free trade, as their economists teach it to our democracy, to have kept on the duties, and to have realized all the revenue possible from the rise of the prices of bread stuffs, and the consequent increase of ad valorem duties. Though this single instance is an effectual demolition of the maxim of which our free trade speculators make such an efficient use, it may not be a waste of time to add another for the sake of clinching the nail. Revenue, then, is the sole thing to be thought of when we are laying duties: admit it, and your ad valorem-your duty measured by the price becomes absurd. Suppose a certain class of imported articles -coarse woollen cloths, for example-are in common use by all the people, and are counted among the necessaries of life, as they would be were there no manufactures of them in the country. Through excessive importation the price has fallen and the duty with it; the market is supplied and all the people are using the goods. The state wants revenue : by doubling, or trebling, or quadrupling the duty on these cloths, it will raise additional revenue; the people must have the cloths, and will pay double for them; the additional duty must, therefore, be laid, for "revenue alone is the thing to be considered in laying duties.” Thus it appears from both instances, not only that your ad valorem principle is an absurdity, for to raise a proper revenue you must neglect it, but that the "largest revenue principle" is inhumane, and takes advantage of the hunger and nakedness of the poor. So it appears that these two maxims stand in a ridiculous opposition to each other, and are equally contemptible, the " ad valorem" for its having no meaning at all, and the "largest revenue" principle, for its being both weak and wicked. Once more, let us admit the maxim, that revenue alone is to be regarded in laying duties, why then are they not laid upo exports as well as upon imports? trade economists tell us that the consumers of imported articles pay the duties, and not the producers, or the wholesale purchasers. If this be true, what more necessary or proper than duties upon exports also, and so double your revenue? If you laid export duties upon Ohio corn, not the farmer, nor the corn dealer, would pay them-say you-but the consumers in other parts of the world. Is it then your excessive tenderness for consumers in other parts of the world, that keeps you so silent on the policy of export duties? "O no! we know very well that it is not possible for us to regulate the price of corn in the European markets, and if the price were raised artificially by imposts here, the producers would suffer." What of that? what of that, my sage economist ? your duty is to raise the revenue by the most efficient and convenient means, and you are not to go about protecting-odious word! !these Ohio farmers, by laying all your duties on imports, and allowing them to go scot free, paying not a dollar of revenue! It is an outrage on humanity, when you know that Ohio farmers wear homespun and pay no revenue, to discriminate for them, and lay your duties upon other men. This is taking money out of his pocket who wears English broadcloth, to put it into the Ohio farmer's, who is content with homespun-a discrimination quite intolerable and oppressive: the Democracy should look to it. But no, we have not seen the picture in all lights yet, for now it grins a fool, and now stares a knave; in a third view it will perhaps show a mixture of both. 66 “ In laying duties," say our economists, we are to discriminate, not for protection, but for revenue." Instance that an ad valorem duty is laid upon foreign manufactured cloths, and all articles of wear, be they light summer fabrics or heavy and costly broadcloths; nothing of the kind shall escape, for now we are broaching a new war and must raise a great revenue. Discriminate, however, we must, for our object is revenue and nothing else. Here, on our list, is the article of foreign silk fabrics: a vast quantity is yearly imported; they are evidently a necessary of life, and will bear an enormous duty; for the people are attached to their use, and will pay double rather than rive them up; and if we find them dis posed to give up the silks, and substitute linen and cotton because the duty is high, then up with duties on linen and cotton, and so force the people to buy. All goes on well for a year or so, and we are raising a large revenue, with duties carried to the top of endurance, when suddenly, to our amazement and sorrow, the goods cease to be bought, and the revenue falls off. Certain traitorous capitalists, conspiring against the revenue, and thus rendering aid and comfort to the enemy, have erected mills, and manufactured articles of silk, cotton and linen to undersell the imported. The country is all at once supplied with silk manufactures of admirable quality-but the revenue! the revenue! what are we to do? The process is easy: lower your duties suddenly, ruin all the manufactures, and when they are well out of the way, and their mills converted to other uses, raise the duties again as soon as you please, and I will insure you as large a revenue as ever. You may repeat this process as often as you choose, and realize a great deal of revenue by it. The whole art is to find out the commodities which are most necessary to the people, and lay on heavy duties; your principle is to discriminate for revenue, and not for protection. When you saw that high duties on certain articles, which your discrimination marked for revenue, operated to protect them, you were astonished to find that there was no discrimination for revenue which was not also one for protection. If you taxed one import heavily, you were obliged to tax all others which could be substituted for it, else it was of no avail. Your ad valorem principle made high prices advantageous, and, as the goods rose, your profits rose in proportion, notwithstanding the falling off of buyers; till, on a sudden, the whole vanishes, and while you were thinking to discriminate for revenue only, you protected manufactures, and so far, were guilty of the sin of protecting the industry of your countrymen. You knew of no better way to mend this error than by ruining those whom your protection had enriched, and then starting anew with your ad valorem and discriminating duties. Unfortunate economists! compelled, as it were, by the very laws of nature, to violate your own maxims!-for, if you taxed the farmer's grain, then that wrathful and intelligent person would eject you from office; and, if you use high tariffs, so | euphonious and pleasing were the words graduated as to raise a great and constant "incidental protection.' revenue, then you protect not only the pernicious manufacturer, but the farmer too, allowing his produce to go free; when you were striving, with a laudable zeal, to avoid protection of all kinds, as a policy hateful to you, you are compelled to create a host of enemies by breaking down all the manufactories, and are thus again in danger of ejectment! But the economist is not so easily balked. His forgetive brain teems with expedients. He invents a new phrase-Incidental Protection. When this became stale, our economist took a new start. It had not yet occurred to him, that every profitable duty on imports, however small, is protective to an extent proportioned to its weight; because it causes in some degree the substitution of home-made articles if low, and of home manufactured, or of other articles, if high. The economist conceived in his imagination a certain happy medium of duties which should not be quite sufficient to create home manufactures, and should yet yield a good revenue; which should not be so The economist, laying down his maxim, heavy as to stop importation, nor so light that the revenue should be so raised that as to yield less than might be got from no one class or body of men should be them. Now, having attained this point, enriched at the expense of the rest, ad- (for the experiment was tried,) he observed vanced, in the same breath, this other, that that it coincided most unluckily with the duties should be collected with a view to point at which manufactures began to revenue only, and not to protection. The spring up. If the duties were raised to first required him to regard, and the this point of greatest yield, then manufacsecond not to regard, the effects of differ- tures began; for this point was found to ent modes of taxation. The first was be itself determined by the beginning of universally a protective, the second a manufactures; and it would soon become universally indifferent and selfish maxim. necessary to lower the duty. In short, the To reconcile these two incompatibles, he point itself was one at which in the nature forges a new phrase, "incidental protec- of things you could not remain. It was tion." He told the people that he was found that it would be necessary to keep for incidental protection. He was for pro- the duties just below the point where protection, but it must be incidental. He tection would begin, and so the tariff, with would raise the revenue as he best could, its ad valorem affix, could never be made and if any protection followed he had no to yield as much as it was desired and objection-this was incidental protection. ought, without giving a protection which Some persons, not of the wisest, mistook undermined it. this for a patriotical testimony; others said, that there could be no such thing-that a tariff for revenue was directly opposite to a tariff for protection; for, after the first treasury harvest from a high tariff on imports, manufactures would spring up, and the duties fall off. That then, to raise any revenue, it would be necessary to lower the duties so as to break down the home manufactures again, and reap another harvest on imports. That a protective was therefore the opposite of a enue policy; that the protection which was incidental to high and profitable duties was the plague of the treasury, and continually lessened its receipts; and that, if revenue was the sole purpose of a tariff, and of its discriminations, it was the mortal enemy of protection. These arguments, however, had but little weight, so rev A word now upon ad valorem, an adjustment of duties according to the value of the commodity imported. This is an application of a very necessary rule of taxation to the collection of tariffs: lands, houses, valuable furniture, slaves, cattle, in brief, all kinds of real estate and chattels, must in general be taxed according to their appraisement, or their market value at the time; it would be gross injustice to tax a house just so much, because it was a house, or a clock because it was a clock. But in the case of duties this ad valorem principle (admired by the ignorant for its Latin name) often works great injustice. In times of scarcity, when there are large importations of food into a country, it is an inhumanity to suffer duties to rise with prices; this is to aggravate the public distress, and voluntarily to assume the sion. There was a time when legislators regarded the wealth and happiness of the people, but now their whole attention is directed upon increasing the revenue: to get money is all their thought; their understandings are corrupted, and emit only contradictions and absurdities. To be good economists for a nation it is necessary for legislators to be just men; without a good conscience and a good heart, the greatest ingenuity produces nothing of permanent value to mankind. of an avenging angel. In all such in- | surdity, and in its effects a gross oppresstances it should be a rule of political economy to keep the duties at a moderate rate, and lay them by the quantity, and not by prices. But the ad valorem works equal injustice when prices fall, as in the case of railroad iron at this moment: as the English economists were obliged to lower the duty on bread stuffs, to save the operatives from ruin, it is equally the duty of Congress to raise the duty on railroad iron to save the industrious Germans in the iron factories of Pennsylvania from ruin. By the operation of the ad valorem duty, the price of iron has been unnaturally lowered of late, and our valuable factories of iron are failing under the influx of English iron, thrown into this market at unnaturally low prices, through the distresses of the railroad companies in England. To be sure, we mean not to compare the distresses of our own operatives thrown out of employment, with those of the English, at the point of starvation; but if an action of government was right to prevent a great injustice in the one case, it was equally so to prevent a less one in the other: right and wrong are not measured by less and more; he is as truly an oppressor who does a little wrong, as he who does a great one; as our ancestors well knew when they refused to concede Great Britain the right to tax us even in the value of a sixpence. The justice lies in doing all for the good of the nation, with an eye to its present necessities; and he is but a pedant who mistakes adherence to a maxim through thick and thin for a mark of virtue. The ad valorem applied to tariffs, works injustice in every way; not only when prices fall, but when they are excessive; in the one case diminishing the duty absurdly, and in the other increasing it absurdly. But it not only does evil to producers, but also impairs the revenue. For when there is a great importation and prices fall, the treasury, by keeping its duties at a medium, would reap a good harvest and the people be never the worse for it. And when the prices of imports rise, the duties rise with them, and so force the people to manufacture for themselves. In the one case the revenue is impaired, in the other there is an unnatural stimulus upon production, which the fall of prices will soon abate and bring ruin upon the new manufactories. In fine the ad valomplied to imports, is in theory an ab | In this cultivated and reasoning age the great qualities of the soul are skillfully imitated by the moral theorist; instead of patriotism we have a grand philanthropy embracing the whole human race;-persons infected with this bloating of the heart, lose all the pith and power of affection; their own family, city, or country is too small for them; they must be citizens of the universe, and fraternize with the Calmucks, the Lunary people, and the devil himself. All things must be free-not only trade but the nether limbs of women; and in one breath they propose one universal peace and a masculine costume for ladies. Observe the dullness of these metaphysical sots, who propose a policy for all the world in regard of the condition of men in general, and apply the same to their own nation without regard to its condition in particular. The greatest mark of folly in a man, is to engage in any business on an hypothesis without an eye to conditions. None but madmen will try experiments in business affairs. He who wishes to benefit himself inquires first into all matters concerning himself, and then proceeds by his knowledge of them, and not by any theory of free trade between John and Thomas. On the contrary, John will take good care to give Thomas no advantages; he will have all fair, and make as few affectionate proposals as possible, lest Thomas judge him to be a cheat. Nothing could better exemplify the necessity of a strict regard to circumstances in a business transaction, or a policy, than the policy of the present Administration in adopting the free trade maxims put forth by British economists. Without entering now upon the question whether the private motives of those English statesmen who have carried the late policy of the English gov ernment into effect-for, if it were possible to discover those motives, the knowledge of them would not help us in deciding whether the measures which they advocate will or will not benefit the nationwe may at least inquire into the present condition of England and of the interests which predominate there, in order to find some practical reasons, such as men of business will appreciate, for the adoption of the so-called free trade policy in that country. England has usually taken care that every great interest shall be protected and flourish in her dominions; her commerce by navigation laws--her agriculture by corn laws, and by scientific cultivation--her manufactures, by the strictest protective policy, have grown up to their present perfection and importance, under the care of government. She is the great example of the fruits of protection; the strongest, richest, wisest, and just at this time, the most powerful monarchy on the globe. Whatever be her errors, her defects or her miseries, there she stands, a witness to the world and to all time, of the fruits of foresight and wisdom. More than that,-England by her example, and by cherishing the seeds of liberty, protecting and encouraging all rightful industry, whether of the hand or of the head, has made herself the patroness and protector of human liberty; and sending colonies into remote regions, carrying with them her laws and principles, has made herself the mother of future empires. And what is this policy that has made England so great? what has it always been, and what will it constantly be? To feed her children from their own soil-to clothe them with their own hands-to hold for them the freedom of their own commerce-to educate them in their own language, literature and religion-protect them with their own proper laws and customs, and govern them by their own free opinions. Such has been the policy of England, always protective, always patriotical. We are not writing a history of her errors, to enter here upon those exceptions to her general policy, which have impeded, though they could not hinder, her greatness: it is enough for present purposes that we know the course which she has commonly pursued. Coming now to the example so much quoted by our new philanthropists, as an instance of departure from her general system, namely, the so-called Peel policy, alluded to at first; it is well understood that the manufacturing interest in England, through causes which need not now be dwelt upon, has come to predominate over the commercial and agricultural in a very great degree. Of the great interests of a nation, namely, the manufactures, the commerce, the agriculture, and the mines, the first named is dependent upon the others, for it is always important to manufacturers, that the products of mines and farms should be rendered to them as cheaply as possible, not only that they may be able to procure the raw products of mines, forests and farms at the least price, to be worked up into articles of trade and of use, but that the workmen, procuring bread, clothing and lodging at an easy rate, may find their wages more than sufficient for maintenance. And let theories of political economy be invented never so refined and unanswerable, it is as certain as the sunrise, that manufacturers will aim at producing such a condition of things as will bring down the price of bread stuffs and raw materials of manufacture to the lowest rates. They will not only buy in the cheapest, and sell in the dearest market, but they will, if possible, use such an influence with government as to cheapen the commodities which they wish to buy. They, therefore, desire a free navigation; for by the competition of foreign vessels with those of one's own country, the rates of transportation are brought down to the lowest possible. Should it happen at any time, that the manufacturing interests of a nation which depends in great part upon a foreign market for its products, should predominate in the national councils, either through want of talent and foresight, or want of capital and energy in the other great interests, doctrines of free trade will naturally spring up and be cherished, just so far as they favor the manufacturing interest, and no farther. The duty on bread stuffs will be lowered to content the operatives with less wages; the duty on raw materials for manufacture, to content the owners of the mills, and foreign shipping be admitted to competition with one's own, to lower the rates of transportation. Hence the present Peel |