In considering this staple, the first circumstance that excites our surprise is the rapidity with which the amount of it has annually increased. Does not this fact, however, demonstrate that the cultivation of it could not have been so very unprofitable? If the business were ruinous, would more and more have annually engaged in it? The quantity in 1816 was eighty-one millions of pounds; in 1826, two hundred and four millions; and in 1830, near three hundred millions! The ground of greatest surprise is that it has been able to sustain even its present price with such an enormous augmentation of quantity. It could not have been done but for the combined operation of three causes, by which the consumption of cotton fabrics has been greatly extended in consequence of their reduced prices: first, competition; second, the improvement of labor-saving machinery; and thirdly, the low price of the raw material. The crop of 1819, amounting to eighty-eight millions of pounds, produced twenty-one millions of dollars; the crop of 1823, when the amount was swelled to one hundred and seventy-four millions (almost double of that of 1819), produced a less sum by more than half a million of dollars; and the crop of 1824, amounting to thirty millions of pounds less than that of the preceding year, produced a million and a half of dollars more.
If there be any foundation for the established law of price, supply, and demand, ought not the fact of this great increase of the supply to account satisfactorily for the alleged low price of cotton? * * *
Let us suppose that the home demand for cotton, which has been created by the American system, should cease, and that the two hundred thousand bales which the home market now absorbs were now thrown into the glutted markets of foreign countries; would not the effect inevitably be to produce a further and great reduction in the price of the article? If there be any truth in the facts and principles which I have before stated and endeavored to illustrate, it cannot be doubted that the existence of American manufactures has tended to increase the demand and extend the consumption of the raw material; and that, but for this increased demand, the price of the article would have fallen possibly one half lower than it now is. The error of the opposite argument is in assuming one thing, which being denied, the whole fails—that is, it assumes that the whole labor of the United States would be profitably employed without manufactures. Now, the truth is that the system excites and creates labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates additional ability to consume, which acts on all the objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. The amount of cotton imported into the two ports of Boston and Providence alone during the last year (and it was imported exclusively for the home manufacture) was 109,517 bales.
On passing from that article to others of our agricultural productions, we shall find not less gratifying facts. The total quantity of flour imported into Boston, during the same year, was 284,504 barrels, and 3,955 half barrels; of which, there were from Virginia, Georgetown, and Alexandria, 114,222 barrels; of Indian corn, 681,131 bushels; of oats, 239,809 bushels; of rye, about 50,000 bushels; and of shorts, 63,489 bushels; into the port of Providence, 71,369 barrels of flour; 216,662 bushels of Indian corn, and 7,772 bushels of rye. And there were discharged at the port of Philadelphia, 420,353 bushels of Indian corn, 201,878 bushels of wheat, and 110,557 bushels of rye and barley. There were slaughtered in Boston during the same year, 1831, (the only Northern city from which I have obtained returns,) 33,922 beef cattle; 15,400 calves; 84,453 sheep, and 26,871 swine. It is confidently believed that there is not a less quantity of Southern flour consumed at the North than eight hundred thousand barrels, a greater amount, probably, than is shipped to all the foreign markets of the world together.
What would be the condition of the farming country of the United States—of all that portion which lies north, east, and west of James River, including a large part of North Carolina—if a home market did not exist for this immense amount of agricultural produce. Without that market, where could it be sold? In foreign markets? If their restrictive laws did not exist, their capacity would not enable them to purchase and consume this vast addition to their present supplies, which must be thrown in, or thrown away, but for the home market. But their laws exclude us from their markets. I shall content myself by calling the attention of the Senate to Great Britain only. The duties in the ports of the united kingdom on bread-stuffs are prohibitory, except in times of dearth. On rice, the duty is fifteen shillings sterling per hundred weight, being more than one hundred per centum. On manufactured tobacco it is nine shillings sterling per pound, or about two thousand per centum. On leaf tobacco three shillings per pound, or one thousand two hundred per centum. On lumber, and some other articles, they are from four hundred to fifteen hundred per centum more than on similar articles imported from British colonies. In the British West Indies the duty on beef, pork, hams, and bacon, is twelve shillings sterling per hundred, more than one hundred per centum on the first cost of beef and pork in the Western States. And yet Great Britain is the power in whose behalf we are called upon to legislate, so that we may enable her to purchase our cotton. Great Britain, that thinks only of herself in her own legislation! When have we experienced justice, much less favor, at her hands? When did she shape her legislation with reference to the interests of any foreign power? She is a great, opulent, and powerful nation; but haughty, arrogant, and supercilious; not more separated from the rest of the world by the sea that girts her island, than she is separated in feeling, sympathy, or friendly consideration of their welfare. Gentlemen, in supposing it impracticable that we should successfully compete with her in manufactures, do injustice to the skill and enterprise of their own country. Gallant as Great Britain undoubtedly is, we have gloriously contended with her, man to man, gun to gun, ship to ship, fleet to fleet, and army to army. And I have no doubt we are destined to achieve equal success in the more useful, if not nobler, contest for superiority in the arts of civil life.
I could extend and dwell on the long list of articles—the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and other items—for which a demand is created in the home market by the operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of the Senate. Where, where should we find a market for all these articles, if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of prime necessity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in the price of all these articles, but for the home market? And allow me, Mr. President, to say, that of all the agricultural parts of the United States which are benefited by the operation of this system, none are equally so with those which border the Chesapeake Bay, the lower parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and the two shores of Mary-land. Their facilities of transportation, and proximity to the North, give them decided advantages.
But if all this reasoning were totally fallacious; if the price of manufactured articles were really higher, under the American system, than without it, I should still argue that high or low prices were themselves relative—relative to the ability to pay them. It is in vain to tempt, to tantalize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than our own, if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them. If, by the home exchanges, we can be supplied with necessary, even if they are dearer and worse, articles of American production than the foreign, it is better than not to be supplied at all. And how would the large portion of our country, which I have described, be supplied, but for the home exchanges? A poor people, destitute of wealth or of exchangeable commodities, have nothing to purchase foreign fabrics with. To them they are equally beyond their reach, whether their cost be a dollar or a guinea. It is in this view of the matter that Great Britain, by her vast wealth, her excited and protected industry, is enabled to bear a burden of taxation, which, when compared to that of other nations, appears enormous; but which, when her immense riches are compared to theirs, is light and trivial. The gentleman from South Carolina has drawn a lively and flattering picture of our coasts, bays, rivers, and harbors; and he argues that these proclaimed the design of Providence that we should be a commercial people. I agree with him. We differ only as to the means. He would cherish the foreign, and neglect the internal, trade. I would foster both. What is navigation without ships, or ships without cargoes? By penetrating the bosoms of our mountains, and extracting from them their precious treasures; by cultivating the earth, and securing a home market for its rich and abundant products; by employing the water power with which we are blessed; by stimulating and protecting our native industry, in all its forms; we shall but nourish and promote the prosperity of commerce, foreign and domestic.
I have hitherto considered the question in reference only to a state of peace; but who can tell when the storm of war shall again break forth? Have we forgotten so soon the privations to which not merely our brave soldiers and our gallant tars were subjected, but the whole community, during the last war, for the want of absolute necessaries? To what an enormous price they rose! And how inadequate the supply was, at any price! The states-man who justly elevates his views will look behind as well as forward, and at the existing state of things; and he will graduate the policy which he recommends to all the probable exigencies which may arise in the republic. Taking this comprehensive range, it would be easy to show that the higher prices of peace, if prices were higher in peace, were more than compensated by the lower prices of war, during which supplies of all essential articles are indispensable to its vigorous, effectual, and glorious prosecution. I conclude this part of the argument with the hope that my humble exertions have not been altogether unsuccessful in showing:
First, that the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to be regarded as the genuine American system.
Secondly, that the free-trade system, which is proposed as its substitute, ought really to be considered as the British colonial system.