A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

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The manufacturing system is not only injurious to agriculture, but, say its opponents, it is injurious also to foreign commerce. We ought not to conceal from ourselves our present actual position in relation to other powers. During the protracted war which has so long convulsed all Europe, and which will probably be succeeded by a long peace, we transacted the commercial business of other nations, and largely shared with England the carrying trade of the world. Now, every other nation is anxiously endeavoring to transact its own business, to rebuild its marine, and to foster its navigation. The consequence of the former state of things was, that our mercantile marine, and our commercial employment were enormously disproportionate to the exchangeable domestic produce of our country. And the result of the latter will be, that, asexchanges between this country and other nations will hereafter consist principally, on our part, of our domestic produce, that marine and that employment will be brought down to what is necessary to effect those exchanges. I regret exceedingly this reduction. I wish the mercantile class could enjoy the same extensive commerce that they formerly did. But, if they cannot, it would be a folly to repine at what is irrecoverably lost, and we should seek rather to adapt ourselves to the new circumstances in which we find ourselves. If, as I think, we have reached the maximum of our foreign demand for our three great staples, cotton, tobacco, and flour, no man will contend that we should go on to produce more and more, to be sent to the glutted foreign market, and consumed by devouring expenses, merely to give employment to our tonnage and to our foreign commerce. It would be extremely unwise to accommodate our industry to produce, not what is wanted abroad, but cargoes for our unemployed ships. I would give our foreign trade every legitimate encouragement, and extend it whenever it can be extended profitably. Hitherto it has been stimulated too highly, by the condition of the world, and our own policy acting on that condition. And we are reluctant to believe that we must submit to its necessary abridgment. The habits of trade, the tempting instances of enormous fortunes which have been made by the successful prosecution of it, are such, that we turn with regret from its pursuit; we still cherish a lingering hope; we persuade ourselves that something will occur, how and what it may be, we know not, to revive its former activity; and we would push into every untried channel, grope through the Dardanelles into the Black sea, to restore its former profits. I repeat it, let us proclaim to the people of the United States the incontestable truth, that our foreign trade must be circumscribed by the altered state of the world; and, leaving it in the possession of all the gains which it can now possibly make, let us present motives to the capital and labor of our country, to employ themselves in fabrication at home. There is no danger that, by a withdrawal of that portion which is unprofitably employed on other objects, and an application of it to fabrication, our agriculture would be too much cramped. The produce of it will always come up to the foreign demand. Such are the superior allurements belonging to the cultivation of the soil to all other branches of industry, that it will always be preferred when it can profitably be followed. The foreign demand will, in any conceivable state of things, limit the amount of the exportable produce of agriculture. The amount of our exportations will form the measure of our importations, and, whatever these may be, they will constitute the basis of the revenue derivable from customs.

The manufacturing system is favorable to the maintenance of peace. Foreign commerce is the great source of foreign warsThe eagerness with which we contend for every branch of it, the temptations which it offers, operating alike upon us and our foreign competitors, produce constant collisions. No country on earth, by the extent of its superfices, the richness of its soil, the variety of its climate, contains within its own limits more abundant facilities for supplying all our rational wants than ours does. It is not necessary or desirable, however, to cut off all intercourse with foreign powers. But, after securing a supply, within ourselves, of all the great essentials of life, there will be ample scope still left for preserving such an intercourse. If we had no intercourse with foreign states, if we adopted the policy of China, we should have no external wars. And in proportion as we diminish our dependence upon them, shall we lessen the danger of the recurrence of war. Our late war would not have existed if the counsels of the manufacturers in England had been listened to. They finally did prevail, in their steady and persevering effort to produce a repeal of the orders in council; but it was too late to prevent the war. Those who attribute to the manufacturing system the burdens and misfortunes of that country, commit a great error. These were probably a joint result of the operation of the whole of her systems, and the larger share of it was to be ascribed to her foreign commerce, and to the ambition of her rulers, than to any other cause. The war of our revolution, in which that ambition displayed its monstrous arrogance and pretensions, laid the broad foundation of that enormous debt under which she now groans.

The tendency of reasonable encouragement to our home industry is favorable to the preservation and strength of our confederacy. Now our connection is merely political. For the sale of the surplus of the produce of our agricultural labor, all eyes are constantly turned upon the markets of Liverpool. There is scarcely any of that beneficial intercourse, the best basis of political connection, which consists of the exchange of the produce of our labor. On our maritime frontier there has been too much stimulus, an unnatural activity; in the great interior of the country, there exists a perfect paralysis. Encourage fabrication at home, and there will instantly arise animation and a healthful circulation throughout all the parts of the republic. The cheapness, fertility, and quantity of our waste lands, offer such powerful inducements to cultivation, that our countrymen are constantly engaging in it. I would not check this disposition, by hard terms in the sale of it. Let it be easily accessible to all who wish to acquire it. But I would countervail this predilection, by presenting to capital and labor motives for employment in other branches of industry. Nothing is more uncertain than the pursuit of agriculture, when we mainly rely upon foreign markets for the sale of its surplus produce. In the first place, it is impossible to determine, a priori, the amount of this surplus; and, in the second, it is equally impossibleto anticipate the extent of the foreign demand. Both the one and the other depend upon the seasons. From the fluctuations incident to these, and from other causes, it may happen that the supplying country will, for a long series of years, have employed a larger share of its capital and labor than is wise, in production, to supply the wants of the consuming countries, without becoming sensible of its defect of policy. The failure of a crop, or the failure of a market, does not discourage the cultivator. He renews his labors another year, and he renews his hopes. It is otherwise with manufacturing industry. The precise quantum of its produce, at least, can with some accuracy be previously estimated. And the wants of foreign countries can be with some probability anticipated.

I am sensible, Mr. Chairman, if I have even had a success, which I dare not presume, in the endeavor I have been making to show that sound policy requires a diversion of so much of the capital and labor of this country from other employments as may be necessary, by a different application of them, to secure, within ourselves, a steady and adequate supply of the great necessaries of life, I shall have only established one half of what is incumbent upon me to prove. It will still be required by the other side, that a second proposition be supported, and that is, that government ought to present motives for such a diversion and new application of labor and capital, by that species of protection which the tariff holds out. Gentlemen say, we agree with you; you are right in your first proposition; but, ‘let things alone,’ and they will come right in the end. Now, I agree with them, that things would ultimately get right; but not until after a long period of disorder and distress, terminating in the impoverishment, and perhaps ruin, of the country. Dissolve government, reduce it to its primitive elements, and, without any general effort to reconstruct it, there would arise, out of the anarchy which would ensue, partial combinations for the purpose of individual protection, which would finally lead to a social form, competent to the conservation of peace within, and the repulsion of force from without. Yet no one would say, in such a state of anarchy, let things alone! If gentlemen, by their favorite maxim, mean only that, within the bosom of the state, things are to be left alone, and each individual, and each branch of industry, allowed to pursue their respective interests, without giving a preference to either, I subscribe to it. But if they give it a more comprehensive import; if they require that things be left alone, in respect not only to interior action, but to exterior action also; not only as regards the operation of our own government upon the mass of the interests of the state, but as it relates to the operation of foreign governments upon that mass, I dissent from it.

This maxim, in this enlarged sense, is indeed every whereproclaimed; but nowhere practiced. It is truth in the books of European political economists. It is error in the practical code of every European state. It is not applied where it is most applicable; it is attempted to be introduced here, where it is least applicable; and even here its friends propose to limit it to the single branch of manufacturing industry, whilst every other interest is encouraged and protected according to the policy of Europe. The maxim would best suit Europe, where each interest is adjusted and arranged to every other, by causes operating during many centuries. Every thing there has taken and preserved its ancient position. The house that was built centuries ago, is occupied by the descendants of its original constructor. If one could rise up, after the lapse of ages, and enter a European shop, he would see the same hammer at work, on the same anvil or last, and almost by the same hand. There every thing has found its place and its level, and every thing, one would think, might there be safely left alone. But the policy of the European states is otherwise. Here every thing is new and unfixed. Neither the state, nor the individuals who compose it, have settled down in their firm and permanent positions. There is a constant tendency, in consequence of the extent of our public domain, towards production for foreign markets. The maxim, in the comprehensive sense in which I am considering it, requires, to entitle it to observation, two conditions, neither of which exists. First, that there should be perpetual peace, and secondly, that the maxim should be every where respected. When war breaks out, that free and general circulation of the produce of industry among the nations which it recommends, is interrupted, and the nation that depends upon a foreign supply of its necessaries, must be subjected to the greatest inconvenience. If it be not every where observed, there will be, between the nation that does not, and the nation that does, conform to it, an inequality alike condemned by honor and by interest. If there be no reciprocity; if, on the one side, there is perfect freedom of trade, and on the other a code of odious restrictions; will gentlemen still contend that we are to submit to such an unprofitable and degrading intercourse? Will they require that we shall act upon the social system, whilst every other power acts upon the selfish? Will they demand of us to throw widely open our ports to every nation, whilst all other nations entirely or partly exclude theirs against our productions? It is, indeed, possible, that some pecuniary advantage might be enjoyed by our country in prosecuting the remnant of the trade which the contracted policy of other powers leaves to us. But what security is there for our continuing to enjoy even that? And is national honor, is national independence, to count as nothing? I will not enter into a detail of the restrictions with which we are every where presented in foreign countries. I will content myself with asserting that theytake nothing from us which they can produce themselves, upon even worse terms than we could supply them. Take, again, as an example, the English corn-laws. America presents the image of a fine, generous-hearted young fellow, who had just come to the possession of a rich estate—an estate, which, however, requires careful management. He makes nothing; he buys every thing. He is surrounded by a parcel of Jews, each holding out his hand with a packet of buttons or pins, or some other commodity, for sale. If he asks those Jews to buy any thing which his estate produces, they tell him no; it is not for our interest; it is not for yours. Take this new book, says one of them, on political economy, and you will there perceive it is for your interest to buy from us, and to let things alone in your own country. The gentleman from Virginia, to whom I have already referred, has surrendered the whole argument, in the example of the East India trade. He thinks that because India takes nothing but specie from us; because there is not a reciprocal exchange between us and India, of our respective productions, that the trade ought to be discontinued. Now I do not agree with him, that it ought to be abandoned, though I would put it under considerable restrictions, when it comes in competition with the fabrics of our own country. If the want of entire reciprocity be a sufficient ground for the total abandonment of a particular branch of trade, the same principle requires that, where there are some restrictions on the one side, they should be countervailed by equal restrictions on the other.

But this maxim, according to which gentlemen would have us abandon the home industry of the country, to the influence of the restrictive systems of other countries, without an effort to protect and preserve it, is not itself observed by the same gentlemen, in regard to the great interests of the nation. We protect our fisheries by bounties and drawbacks. We protect our tonnage, by excluding or restricting foreign tonnage, exactly as our tonnage is excluded or restricted by foreign states. We passed, a year or two ago, the bill to prohibit British navigation from the West India colonies of that power to the United States, because ours is shut out from them. The session prior to the passage of that law, the gentleman from South Carolina and I, almost alone, urged the house to pass it. But the subject was postponed until the next session, when it was passed by nearly a unanimous vote, the gentleman from South Carolina, and the two gentlemen from Virginia (Messrs. Barbour and Tyler) voting with the majority. We have now upon our table other bills connected with that object, and proposing restriction upon the French tonnage to countervail theirs upon ours. I shall, with pleasure, vote for these measures. We protect our foreign trade, by consuls, by foreign ministers, by embargoes, by non-intercourse, by a navy, by fortifications, by squadrons constantly acting abroad, by war, and by a variety of commercial regulationsin our statute-book. The whole system of the general government, from its first formation to the present time, consists, almost exclusively, in one unremitting endeavor to nourish, and protect, and defend the foreign trade. Why have not all these great interests been left to the operation of the gentlemen’s favorite maxim? Sir, it is perfectly right that we should have afforded this protection. And it is perfectly right, in my humble opinion, that we should extend the principle to the home industry. I am a friend to foreign trade, but I protest against its being the monopolist of all the parental favor and care of this government.

But, sir, friendly as I am to the existence of domestic manufactures, I would not give to them unreasonable encouragement, by protecting duties. Their growth ought to be gradual, but sure. I believe all the circumstances of the present period highly favorable to their success. But they are the youngest and the weakest interest of the state. Agriculture wants but little or no protection against the regulations of foreign powers. The advantages of our position, and the cheapness, and abundance, and fertility of our land, afford to that greatest interest of the state almost all the protection it wants. As it should be, it is strong and flourishing, or, if it be not, at this moment, prosperous, it is not because its produce is not ample, but because, depending, as we do altogether, upon a foreign market for the sale of the surplus of that produce, the foreign market is glutted. Our foreign trade, having almost exclusively engrossed the protecting care of government, wants no further legislative aid. And, whatever depression it may now experience, it is attributable to causes beyond the control of this government. The abundance of capital, indicated by the avidity with which loans are sought, at the reduced rate of five per centum; the reduction in the wages of labor, and the decline in the price of property of every kind, as well as that of agricultural produce, all concur favorably for domestic manufactures. Now, as when we arranged the existing tariff, is the auspicious moment for government to step in and cheer and countenance them. We did too little then, and I endeavored to warn this house of the effects of inadequate protection. We were called upon, at that time, by the previous pledges we had given, by the inundation of foreign fabrics, which was to be anticipated from their free admission after the termination of the war, and by the lasting interests of this country, to give them efficient support. We did not do it; but let us not now repeat the error. Our great mistake has been in the irregularity of the action of the measures of this government upon manufacturing industry. At one period it is stimulated too high, and then, by an opposite course of policy, it is precipitated into a condition of depression too low. First there came the embargo; then non-intercourse, and other restrictive measures followed; and finally, that greatest of all stimuli to domestic fabrication, warDuring all that long period, we were adding to the positive effect of the measures of government, all the moral encouragement which results from popular resolves, legislative resolves, and other manifestations of the public will and the public wish to foster our home manufactures, and to render our confederacy independent of foreign powers. The peace ensued, and the country was flooded with the fabrics of other countries; and we, forgetting all our promises, coolly and philosophically talk of leaving things to themselves; making up our deficiency of practical good sense, by the stores of learning which we collect from theoretical writers. I, too, sometimes amuse myself with the visions of these writers, (as I do with those of metaphysicians and novelists,) and, if I do not forget, one of the best among them enjoins it upon a country to protect its industry against the injurious influence of the prohibitions and restrictions of foreign countries, which operate upon it.

Monuments of the melancholy effects upon our manufactures, and of the fluctuating policy of the councils of the union in regard to them, abound in all parts of the country. Villages, and parts of villages, which sprang up but yesterday in the western country, under the excitement to which I have referred, have dwindled into decay, and are abandoned. In New England, in passing along the highway, one frequently sees large and spacious buildings, with the glass broken out of the windows, the shutters hanging in ruinous disorder, without any appearance of activity, and enveloped in solitary gloom. Upon inquiring what they are, you are almost always informed that they were some cotton or other factory, which their proprietors could no longer keep in motion against the overwhelming pressure of foreign competition. Gentlemen ask for facts to show the expediency and propriety of extending protection to our manufactures. Do they want stronger evidence than the condition of things I have pointed out? They ask, why the manufacturing industry is not resumed under the encouraging auspices of the present time? Sir, the answer is obvious; there is a general dismay; there is a want of heart; there is the greatest moral discouragement experienced throughout the nation. A man who engages in the manufacturing business is thought by his friends to be deranged. Who will go to the ruins of Carthage or Balbec to rebuild a city there? Let government commence a systematic but moderate support of this important branch of our industry. Let it announce its fixed purpose, that the protection of manufactures against the influence of the measures of foreign governments, will enter into the scope of our national policy. Let us substitute, for the irregular action of our measures, one that shall be steady and uniform; and hope, and animation, and activity, will again revive. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Lowndes) offered a resolution, which the house rejected, having for its object to ascertain the profits nowmade upon capital employed in manufacturing. It is not, I repeat it, the individuals, but the interests we wish to have protected. From the infinite variety of circumstances under which different manufacturing establishments are situated, it is impossible that any information, such as the gentleman desires, could be obtained, that ought to guide the judgment of this house. It may happen that, of two establishments engaged in the same species of fabrication, one will be prospering and the other laboring. Take the example of the Waltham manufactory near Boston, and that of Brunswick in Maine. The former has the advantage of a fine water situation, a manager of excellent information, enthusiastically devoted to its success, a machinist of most inventive genius, who is constantly making some new improvement, and who has carried the water loom to a degree of perfection which it has not attained in England—to such perfection as to reduce the cost of weaving a yard of cloth adapted to shirting to less than a cent—while it is abundantly supplied with capital by several rich capitalists in Boston. These gentlemen have the most extensive correspondence with all parts of the United States. Owing to this extraordinary combination of favorable circumstances, the Waltham establishment is doing pretty well; whilst that of Brunswick, not possessing all of them, but perhaps as many as would enable it, under adequate protection, to flourish, is laboring arduously. Will gentlemen infer, from the success of a few institutions having peculiar advantages, which form exceptions to the languishing condition of manufacturing industry, that there exists no necessity for protection? In the most discouraging state of trade and navigation, there are, no doubt, always some individuals who are successful in prosecuting them. Would it be fair to argue, from these instances, against any measure brought forward to revive their activity?

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Whitman) has manifested peculiar hostility to the tariff, and has allowed himself to denominate it a mad, quixotic, ruinous scheme. The gentleman is dissatisfied with the quarter—the west—from which it emanates. To give higher tone and more effect to the gentleman’s declamation, which is vague and indefinite, he has even assumed a new place in this house. Sir, I would advise the gentleman to return to his ancient position, moral and physical. It was respectable and useful. The honorable gentleman professes to be a friend to manufacturers! And yet he has found an insurmountable constitutional impediment to their encouragement, of which, as no other gentleman has relied upon it, I shall leave him in the undisturbed possession. The honorable gentleman a friend to manufacturers! And yet he has delivered a speech, marked with peculiar emphasis, against their protection. The honorable gentleman a friend to manufacturers! And yet he requires, if this constitutional difficulty could be removed, such an arrangement of the tariff as shall pleasehim, although every one else should be dissatisfied. The intimation is not new of the presumptuousness of western politicians, in endeavoring to give to the policy of this country such a direction as will assert its honor and sustain its interests. It was first made whilst the measures preparatory to the late war were under consideration, and it now probably emanates from the same quarter. The predilection of the school of the Essex junto for foreign trade and British fabrics—I am far from insinuating that other gentlemen who are opposed to the tariff are actuated by any such spirit—is unconquerable. We disregarded the intimation when it was first made; we shall be uninfluenced by it now. If, indeed, there were the least color for the assertion, that the foreign trade is to be crushed by the tariff, is it not strange, that the whole of the representation from all our great commercial metropolises should unite to destroy it? The member from Boston,—to whose rational and disinterested course I am happy, on this, as on many other occasions, to be able to testify,—the representatives from the city of New York, from Philadelphia, from Baltimore, all entered into this confederacy, to destroy it, by supporting this mad and ruinous scheme. Some gentlemen assert that it is too comprehensive. But its chief recommendation to me is, that it leaves no important interest unprovided for.

The same gentlemen, or others, if it had been more limited, would have objected to its partial operation. The general measure of the protection which it communicates, is pronounced to be immoderate and enormous. Yet no one ventures to enter into a specification of the particular articles of which it is composed, to show that it deserves thus to be characterized. The article of molasses has, indeed, been selected, and held up as an instance of the alleged extravagance. The existing tariff imposes a duty of five cents, the proposed tariff ten cents per gallon. We tax foreign spirits very high, and yet we let in, with a very low duty, foreign molasses, which ought to be considered as rum in disguise, filling the space of so much domestic spirits. If (which I do not believe will immediately be the case, to any considerable extent) the manufacture of spirits from molasses, should somewhat decline under the new tariff, the manufacture of spirits from the raw material, produced at home, will be extended in the same ratio. Besides the incidental advantage of increasing our security against the effect of seasons of scarcity, by increasing the distillation of spirits from grain, there is scarcely any item in the tariff which combines so many interests in supporting the proposed rate of duty. The grain-growing country, the fruit country, and the culture of cane, would be all benefited by the duty. Its operation is said, however, to be injurious to a certain quarter of the union. It is not to be denied, that each particular section of the country will feel some one or more articles of the tariff to bear hard uponit, during a short period; but the compensation is to be found in the more favorable operation of others. Now I am fully persuaded that, in the first instance, no part of the union would share more largely than New England, in the aggregate of the benefits resulting from the tariff. But the habits of economy of her people, their industry, their skill, their noble enterprise, the stimulating effects of their more rigorous climate, all tend to insure to her the first and the richest fruits of the tariff. The middle and the western states will come in afterwards for their portion, and all will participate in the advantage of internal exchanges and circulation. No quarter of the union will urge, with a worse grace than New England, objections to a measure, having for its object the advancement of the interests of the whole; for no quarter of the union participates more extensively in the benefits flowing from the general government. Her tonnage, her fisheries, her foreign trade, have been constantly objects of federal care. There is expended the greatest portion of the public revenue. The building of the public ships; their equipments; the expenses incident to their remaining in port, chiefly take place there. That great drain on the revenue, the revolutionary pension law, inclines principally towards New England. I do not, however, complain of these advantages which she enjoys. She is probably fairly entitled to them. But gentlemen from that quarter may, at least, be justly reminded of them, when they complain of the onerous effect of one or two items of the tariff.