But, sir, the gentleman to whom I am about to allude, although long a resident of this country, has no feelings, no attachments, no sympathies, no principles, in common with our people. Nearly fifty years ago, Pennsylvania took him to her bosom, and warmed, and cherished, and honored him; and how does he manifest his gratitude? By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by a thorough conviction that it is indispensable to her prosperity. He has filled, at home and abroad, some of the highest offices under this government, during thirty years, and he is still at heart an alien. The authority of his name has been invoked, and the labors of his pen, in the form of a memorial to congress, have been engaged, to overthrow the American system, and to substitute the foreign. Go home to your native Europe, and there inculcate upon her sovereigns your Utopian doctrines of free trade, and when you have prevailed upon them to unseal their ports, and freely admit the produce of Pennsylvania and other states, come back, and we shall be prepared to become converts, and to adopt your faith.
A Mr. Sarchet also makes no inconsiderable figure in the common attack upon our system. I do not know the man, but I understand he is an unnaturalized emigrant, from the island of Guernsey, situated in the channel which divides France and England. The principal business of the inhabitants is that of driving a contraband trade with the opposite shores, and Mr. Sarchet, educated in that school, is, I have been told, chiefly engaged in employing his wits to elude the operation of our revenue laws, by introducing articles at less rates of duty than they are justly chargeable with, which he effects by varying the denominations, or slightly changing their forms. This man, at a former session of the senate, caused to be presented a memorial, signed by some one hundred and fifty pretended workers in iron. Of these, a gentleman made a careful inquiry and examination, and he ascertained that there were only about ten of the denomination represented; the rest were tavern keepers, porters, merchants’ clerks, hackney coachmen, and so forth. I have the most respectable authority, in black and white, for this statement.
[Here general Hayne asked, who? and was he a manufacturer? Mr. Clay replied, colonel Murray, of New York, a gentleman of the highest standing, for honor, probity, and veracity;that he did not know whether he was a manufacturer or not, but the gentleman might take him as one.[16]]
Whether Mr. Sarchet got up the late petition presented to the senate, from the journeymen tailors of Philadelphia, or not, I do not know. But I should not be surprised if it were a movement of his, and if we should find that he has cabbaged from other classes of society to swell out the number of signatures.
To the facts manufactured by Mr. Sarchet, and the theories by Mr. Gallatin, there was yet wanting one circumstance to recommend them to favorable consideration, and that was, the authority of some high name. There was no difficulty in obtaining one from a British repository. The honorable gentleman has cited a speech of my lord Goderich, addressed to the British parliament, in favor of free trade, and full of deep regret that old England could not possibly conform her practice of rigorous restriction and exclusion to her liberal doctrines of unfettered commerce, so earnestly recommended to foreign powers. Sir, I know my lord Goderich very well, although my acquaintance with him was prior to his being summoned to the British house of peers. We both signed the convention between the United States and Great Britain, of 1815. He is an honorable man, frank, possessing but ordinary business talents, about the stature and complexion of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, a few years older than he, and every drop of blood running in his veins beingpure and unadulterated Anglo-Saxon blood. If he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he could not make a speech of such ability and eloquence as that which the gentleman from South Carolina recently delivered to the senate; and there would be much more fitness in my lord Goderich making quotations from the speech of the honorable gentleman, than his quoting, as authority, the theoretical doctrines of my lord Goderich. We are too much in the habit of looking abroad, not merely for manufactured articles, but for the sanction of high names, to support favorite theories. I have seen and closely observed the British parliament, and, without derogating from its justly elevated character, I have no hesitation in saying, that in all the attributes of order, dignity, patriotism, and eloquence, the American congress would not suffer, in the smallest degree, by a comparison with it.
I dislike this resort to authority, and especially foreign and interested authority, for the support of principles of public policy. I would greatly prefer to meet gentlemen upon the broad ground of fact, of experience, and of reason; but, since they will appeal to British names and authority, I feel myself compelled to imitate their bad example. Allow me to quote from the speech of a member of the British parliament, bearing the same family name with my lord Goderich, but whether or not a relation of his, I do not know. The member alluded to, was arguing against the violation of the treaty of Methuen—that treaty not less fatal to the interests of Portugal than would be the system of gentlemen to the best interests of America—and he went on to say:
‘It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called ‘free trade.’ Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by ‘free trade’ was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufactures, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations. When the system of reciprocity and free trade had been proposed to a French ambassador, his remark was, that the plan was excellent in theory, but, to make it fair in practice, it would be necessary to defer the attempt to put it in execution for half a century, until France should be on the same footing with Great Britain, in marine, in manufactures, in capital, and the many other peculiar advantages which it now enjoyed. The policy that France acted on, was that of encouraging its native manufactures, and it was a wise policy; because, if it were freely to admit our manufactures, it would speedily be reduced to the rank of an agricultural nation, and therefore, a poor nation, as all must be that depend exclusively upon agriculture. America acted, too, upon the same principle with France. America legislated for futurity—legislated for an increasing population. America, too, was prospering under this system. In twenty years, America would be independent of England for manufactures altogether. * * * * * But since the peace, France, Germany, America, and all the other countries of the world, had proceeded upon the principle of encouraging and protecting native manufactures.’
But I have said, that the system nominally called ‘free trade,’ so earnestly and eloquently recommended to our adoption, is a mere revival of the British colonial system, forced upon us by Great Britain during the existence of our colonial vassalage. The wholesystem is fully explained and illustrated in a work published as far back as the year 1750, entitled ‘the trade and navigation of Great Britain considered, by Joshua Gee,’ with extracts from which I have been furnished by the diligent researches of a friend. It will be seen from these, that the South Carolina policy now, is identical with the long-cherished policy of Great Britain, which remains the same as it was when the thirteen colonies were part of the British empire. In that work the author contends:
‘First, that manufactures, in American colonies, should be discouraged or prohibited.
‘Great Britain, with its dependencies, is doubtless as well able to subsist within itself, as any nation in Europe. We have an enterprising people, fit for all the arts of peace and war. We have provisions in abundance, and those of the best sort, and are able to raise sufficient for double the number of inhabitants. We have the very best materials for clothing, and want nothing, either for use, or even for luxury, but what we have at home, or might have from our colonies; so that we might make such an intercourse of trade among ourselves, or between us and them, as would maintain a vast navigation. But we ought always to keep a watchful eye over our colonies, to restrain them from setting up any of the manufactures which are carried on in Great Britain; and any such attempts should be crushed in the beginning; for if they are suffered to grow up to maturity, it will be difficult to suppress them.’ Pages 177, 8, 9.