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engage in the business of manufacturing which it was the purpose of the tariff to encourage. Then he took up one by one the many objections which in the course of the long debate had been urged against the tariff; that it would diminish exports, injure American shipping, reduce foreign commerce, cut down the revenue and force a resort to internal taxation, and drive capital and labor into new and untried fields; that when manufactures were needed they would arise of themselves; that the protection already afforded was great enough; that the policy of protection had been condemned by the experience of all Europe; that manufacturing was dangerous to true democracy, as it tended to concentrate capital in the hands of a few; that the Constitution did not authorize the passage of the bill; and ended with an impassioned appeal "to the South, to the high-minded, generous, and patriotic South," and with a prayer to God " in his infinite mercy to avert from our country the evils which are impending over it, and, by enlightening our councils, conduct us into the path which leads to riches, to greatness, to glory."

Two days later Webster replied. "Allow me, sir, in the first place," said he, "to state my regret, if, indeed, I ought not to express a warmer sentiment, at the names or designations which Mr. Speaker has seen fit to adopt for the purpose of describing the advocates and the opposers of the present bill. It is a question, he says, between the friends of 'an American policy and those of a foreign policy.' This, sir, is an assumption which I take the liberty most directly to deny. Indeed, it is a little astonishing if it seemed convenient to the Speaker for the purpose of distinction to use the terms' American policy' and 'foreign policy' that he should not have applied them in a manner precisely the reverse of that in which he has in fact used them. Names should in some measure be descriptive of the things to which they are given, and since Mr. Speaker denominates the policy which he recommends 'a new policy in this country,' since he speaks of the present measure as a new era in our legislation, since he invites us to instruct ourselves by the wisdom of others, and adopt the policy of the most distinguished foreign States, one is a little curious to know with what propriety of speech he denominates this imi

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tation of foreign states an American policy,' and a preference for our own established system as it now exists and always has existed a foreign policy.' This favorite American policy is what America has never tried, and this odious foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign states have never pursued."

With this sarcasm Webster passed to Clay's picture of the distressed state of the country, and declared he did not know where the reality existed. Exports had not fallen below the average; the foreign market was not lost; the means of subsistence and enjoyment had not been limited. The progress of internal improvements, the investment of capital in roads, bridges, canals; the amount paid by parents for the education of their children; the endowment of public charities; the contributions to objects of general benevolence; the munificence of individuals toward whatever promised to benefit the community, were all so many proofs of national prosperity, were all evidence that there was a surplus of profits which the generation then living was wisely vesting for the good of the generation yet to come.

The real condition was a considerable depression of prices and curtailment of profit, and in some parts of the country an inability to pay debts contracted when prices were high. This fall in the prices of commodities, this stagnation of business, this diminution of exports on which Mr. Speaker had laid so much stress was, in truth, the necessary result of circumstances. No government could prevent them, and no government could altogether relieve the people from their effects. We had enjoyed a day of extraordinary prosperity, we had been neutral while all the world was at war, and had found an extraordinary demand for our products, our navigation, and our labor. We had no right to expect that such a state of things would continue always. With the return of peace foreign nations began to supply themselves and to compete with us, and, connected as we are with all the commercial nations of the world, we must of necessity feel the serious effects of such a change. What, then, was the remedy? What the course of policy suited to our actual condition?

Webster now passed in review the arguments of the

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Speaker. Clay had cited the prosperity of Great Britain as an example of the benefit of the protective system. Webster asserted and labored to prove that Great Britain was every day growing more and more in favor of free trade, and that if we adopted protection we should "show our affection for what others had discarded, and be attempting to ornament ourselves with cast-off apparel." Clay had cited the rate of exchange to prove that we were on the downward road to ruin. Webster claimed that a rise in price of London exchange meant nothing more than that money was wanted in England for commercial purposes to be carried on there or elsewhere. Clay argued the question as if all domestic industry were confined to the production of manufactured industry." Webster held that catching fish and whales, building ships and sailing them were as emphatically domestic industry as any other occupation, and just as deserving of protection. Clay had argued as if his "American system was something new, as if manufactures had never been protected. Webster reminded the House that they were already protected by the tariff of 1816, and that the purpose of the bill under debate was to greatly increase that protection. Clay held up the policy of protection as the only policy that could make American industries prosperous. Webster described the doctrine of prohibition as preposterous.

Turning to the details of the bill, Webster took them up one by one and argued that it would afford no relief to the varied interests Clay had described as languishing; that it would lay new and crushing burdens on the shipping interests; that heavy duties were laid on certain articles absolutely necessary to certain classes of the people, as raw wool, iron, hemp, which could not then be produced at home in sufficient quantity to supply the demand; and that this duty was an oppressive tax imposed on those who used the articles for the benefit of the few who manufactured them. Webster closed his speech with the words: "There are some parts of this bill which I highly approve, there are others in which I should acquiesce; but those to which I have now stated my objections appear to me so destitute of all justice, so burdensome, and so dangerous to that interest which has steadily enriched, gal

lantly defended, and proudly distinguished us, that nothing can prevail upon me to give it my support.'

Long ere the debate closed and the vote was taken, it was clear that the commercial States and the planting States were bitterly hostile to the bill, and the manufacturing and graingrowing States were as strong in its favor. Yet the appellation of the American system was a happy one. It counted for much. It outweighed argument, and the bill passed the House by five votes and the Senate by four, and the policy of protection was firmly established in the United States for many years to come.

For a while all went well under the new tariff. The manufactories it was the desire of Clay to establish sprang into existence. Money hitherto invested in ships and foreign commerce was withdrawn and was used to erect cotton mills and woollen mills, and to build villages composed entirely of factories and the homes of operatives. But this over-prosperity, combined with defects in the tariff and with conditions beyond the power of our Government to regulate, soon laid prostrate the wool and woollen industries. At home the competition produced by the multiplication of mills would of itself have been sufficient to bring down prices. But to this was now added an immense importation of woollen goods from Great Britain, an importation due to four causes: One was the reduction by Great Britain of the duty on imported wool from twelvepence to one penny a pound, thereby enabling English manufacturers to sell more cheaply than ever before. Another was the overstocking of her markets and an industrial crisis which forced her manufacturers to push their goods into foreign markets, and even sell them at a loss. Another was the ad valorem duty on woollen cloth, which enabled the British maker to break down the tariff by falsely valuing his goods. The fourth was the package-sales at auction.

Against such conditions the American manufacturer could not contend. About one half the wool needed by the mills was of domestic growth. The other half must be imported at a cost made up of the price abroad and a duty of thirty per cent. in our ports, to which freight charges, exchange, commissions, and insurance added twenty-five per cent. more.

This

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regulated the price of wool grown at home, so that the manufacturer of cloth paid fifty per cent. more for his raw material in the United States than in England, and, as the wool constituted one half the value of the cloth it produced, he lost one half the benefit of the duty of thirty-three and one third per cent. on imported cloth. More than this, he was taxed heavily for the olive oil and castile soap, which were not produced at home, yet must be used in his business, and saw the tariff rates greatly reduced by false valuations at the CustomHouse. Cheap labor, cheap wool, a pressure to sell, undervaluation and the auction system on the one hand, dear labor and costly wool on the other made the struggle short and decisive, and by 1826 woollen manufactures were prostrate.

So complete was the depression that meetings of manufacturers of wool from different parts of New England were held in Boston in the autumn of 1826, where a memorial to Congress was framed and a circular ordered to be sent to each maker of woollen goods in the United States, appealing to him to aid in sustaining American industries. The circular set forth the depressed state of the business in which they were engaged, reviewed the causes, suggested a remedy, and marked out a method of procedure.

The remedy was the imposition of a minimum duty on each square yard of cloth imported, and such an increase in the ad valorem duty as would afford the protection intended. To secure this tariff change manufacturers must be united; meetings must be held, memorials must be prepared, members of Congress must be informed and urged to visit woollen mills; committees of correspondence must be appointed; delegations must be sent to Washington, subscriptions to defray expenses must be started, and all honorable means used unstintingly.* Massachusetts was now the great seat of woollen manufactures, and under the influence of such agitation public sentiment changed rapidly. The State whose delegation in the House did not cast one vote in favor of the tariff of 1824 now sent a long memorial to Congress praying for a more adequate pro

The circular is printed in full in Niles's Weekly Register, November 25, 1826, pp. 200, 201. The memorial to Congress is in the Register, November 11, 1826, pp. 185, 186.