PRELECTION. THE friends of "the American System" in the United States having resolved to hold a National Convention at the Capital of Pennsylvania, in the year 1827, for consulting as to the most prudent platform of protection by a tariff, a local Convention in Kentucky, in July of the same year, appointed JOHN HARVEY, THOMAS C. HOWARD, JAMES COWAN, RICHARD H. CHINN, and GEORGE ROBERTSON, as delegates to represent Kentucky in the Harrisburgh Convention. All of them, except Mr. HOWARD, attended that Convention, and, after its adjournment, made the following report to the people of Kentucky. The principles therein illustrated-had they not been superseded by the Compromise of 1852-3-would, as many statesmen believe, have established, before this time, a degree of national prosperity and independence which would have commended, to general approval, the proper policy of protection prudently applied to Young America. The report presents an outline of the principles and policy of Mr. ROBERTSON, who-though he always advocated the power and expediency of protection, properly discriminating as to subjects, and time, and degree-never voted for any tariff bill while he was in Congress, only because all of them were, in his judgment, so framed as to operate unjustly and rather destructively to the proper ends-that is, national wealth, economy and equality. Reviewing the past and contemplating the present, many wise men believe that the compromise with nullification was barren and unfortunate to conservatism, and still more think that had any Compromise been proper, a paralysis of American protection was too high a price. TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY FELLOW CITIZENS: We were not insensible of the honor conferIn undertaking to fulfil the expectations of red on us, nor unmindful of the responsithose by whom we were appointed to represent bility incurred by its acceptance. If longer Kentucky in the convention lately held at time could have been allowed for a more genHarrisburgh, we were certainly influenced by eral expression of your approbation of the obno other consideration, than a sincere desire jects of the convention, and the choice of your to contribute, as far as we were able, to the ad- delegates, we would have been gratified. But vancement of a cause, which is essentially feeling the necessity of a representation from identified with the future welfare of our coun- our state, and believing that you could not be try. To ameliorate the condition of the far- otherwise than favorable to the invitation of mer and excite domestic industry generally, Pennsylvania, we did not hesitate, at the hazwere the only objects of the convention. It was an able and venerable body of 100 men, from 13 states of the Union, who had assembled on the 30th of July, and adjourned on the 5th of August. One of our colleagues, (Mr. Howard) did not attend. ard of personal inconvenience and pecuniary loss, to repair, without delay, to the scene of deliberation, and co-operate with distinguished fellow-citizens from other states, in devising and recommending such measures, as should be deemed most suitable for the relief of our suffering industry, and the useful application states. Has not congress all the power on that of our vast and dormant resources. subject which each and all of the states The power to protect agriculture, commerce possessed before the adoption of the federal and manufactures, the three great elements of constitution? And did not each of them ever national prosperity, has been exercised by con- have the plenary power to regulate commerce, gress and acquiesced in by the people, ever by duties, in such a mode as to protect their since the first session of the national legisla-own industry and capital against foreign moture in 1789. And the policy of its applica- nopoly or even competition? The general govtion to many of the branches of those three in-ernment is now the trustee of all that state terests, had not been questioned. Gen. Wash-power. And the people have a right to expect ington, Mr. Adams, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madi- and require that the great trust will be faithison, Mr. Monroe, Gen. Hamilton, and most of fully fulfilled to the full extent of their interour distinguished statesmen, have urged the est and proper independence. exercise of this protective power, and the ben- The legislature of our parent state (Virginia) eficial results of its judicious application, are however, at its last session, influenced by senpractically exemplified. To the provident ex-timents inexplicable by us, but animated, as ertion of this benificent power of protection we believe, by a misguided patriotism, denied by a tariff, the United States are indebted for to congress this necessary and familiar power, the prosperity of many branches of American and denounced its exercise for the last 37 years, enterprise-naval, agricultural and manufac-by every congress and under every administuring. tration, as usurpation and tyranny. The chamOur tonnage has been protected by a dis- ber of commerce of Charleston, as if by concriminating duty of 700 per cent. The growth cert, cotemporaneously, or nearly so, announof cotton and tobacco, and the manufacture of ced similar sentiments in a manner intended sugar, have been encouraged by high and (to to rouse the opposition of the south to the printhe consumer of the latter particularly) sin- ciple of a domestic tariff. And about the same gularly heavy duties, with the avowed object time a distinguished senator of the south, and of protecting the domestic article. The man- others of his party, spoke of the probable sucufacture of glass and salt has been encour-cess of the Woollen's bill, as “a calamity more aged by duties unusually high; and to the afflictive than war;" and to defeat the passage wholesome protection of a tariff our success, in of the bill, or if ever passed, "to RESIST" its many manufactures in which we are now un-enforcement, they recommended conventions rivalled, is justly ascribable. in the south, to defend what they seemed erroneously and unfortunately to regard as "southern interests." Our cotton manufactories have attained their present maturity and surprising success, in a few years, under the cover of "a judicious tar- The friends of the woollens and other doiff;" and now supply not only our own con-mestic interests in Pennsylvania, (than which sumption with better and cheaper fabrics, by at least 50 per cent., than we ever bought from abroad, but export to foreign countries to the amount of $4,000,000; thereby, to that extent, enriching our own people, and advancing our own commerce. no state is more peaceful or patriotic,)surprised and somewhat alarmed at all this unexpected procedure, considered it proper to endeavor to adopt some pacific and rational measures for counteraction and self defence. And for this purpose, and this only, the people of Pennsylvania recommended and solicited a convention, at their capital, of delegates from such of the states as were favorable to what, by a new and appropriate nomenclature, is styled "the American system." Such portions of. Kentucky as had time to deliberate on this invitation, determined to accept it, and chose us to represent your interests. Deplorable indeed would be the condition of the Union, if after the people of the states have forbidden their local legislatures to impose duties on imports, or to regulate commerce, either foreign or among the states, and have delegated those powers to congress, there should be no lodgment of power anywhere, to protect their agricultural and manufacturing industry and capital, by laws regulating the importation of foreign products, and counter-ment. The only compensation which we have acting foreign legislation. The states have only surrendered, they have not annihilated this power. It is inherent in every government, and has been translated by the people, in the federal constitution, to congress, a safer depository of such power than the state legislatures, because its legislation will be more uniform, comprehensive and effective. Congress is expressly vested with the power to regulate commerce, and to lay and collect taxes, and to impose duties. Regulate commerce" for what purpose? No other or more circumscribed than the general welfare, subject only to the qualification of uniformity among the ports of the respective We neither solicited nor desired this employ received for six week's service, has been the individual pleasure and improvement which we derived from the interesting incidents with which our travel was replete, and the advantage of a cordial intercourse with men distinguished for their intelligence and love of country, from twelve of our sister states. And all the reward we expect or would receive, is your approbation, and our own consciousness of having faithfully endeavored, at the expense of some toil and money, and much domestic comfort, to promote your best interests. We have no fear that we have been guilty of any incivism. The objects of the convention were those only which have been avowed by its friends. And those objects have been fully accomplished-as far as the moral influence of the unanimous opinion of such a body of men, can be expected or should be allowed to operate on public sentiment or national legislation. Our time, while in session, was sedulously and exclusively devoted to the consideration of the best means of relieving national distress, and advancing national industry. Our deliberations were characterised by moderation, liberality and harmony; and marked, as the result will shew, by no local interest or predilection. They were -as they should have been-in their manner temperate and decorous, and in their aims, impartial and national. Whatever was done, was done openly; and the best vindication of the convention would be a publication of all that was said and done, and attempted to be done, by the body collectively or its members individually. Twine, pack-thread, and seine Total, $2,757,080 929,946 48,900 $3,764,781 1,781,188 60,827 06,599 $1,928,614 In the same year, raw hemp and flax were more. Total, $551,757 72,000 $623,757 We will not commit our own dignity, nor insult yours, by noticing (for the purpose of gravely defending ourselves from their application) the opprobious epithets which have been uttered and published in reference to the convention, by some individuals of morbid sensibility and of more morbid taste. Nor will we notice, for any other purpose than to shew, that they have not escaped our observation, the reckless prophecies of dire calamity, with For the manufacture of hempen and flaxen which others, not more enviable for their tem- articles imported, 21,880,615 lbs. of hemp per or sagacity, have essayed to alarm your and flax would be necessary-which would be fears and awaken your prejudices. If such worth $1,500,000—requiring for their growth names as Jeremiah Morrow, Hezekiah Niles, about 51,500 acres of land, and giving employMathew Carey, Joseph Ritner, the venerable ment, in manufacturing them alone, to at least Judge Huston, the patriarchal Tibbets and 700 persons, and indirectly to a great many Payne, and others which might be mentioned, cannot rescue the convention of which they Within the last six years manufactories have were members, from unjust reproach, we could been established in the United States, which offer nothing to still the tongue of slander. already supply one half of our sail cloth; but We shall only add, on this subject, that we it is believed that they cannot be sustained have done nothing but what every citizen of much longer, against foreign capital and comthe United States has the constitutional right petition and legislation, without some further to do, peaceably and without annoyance or re- support from government. The duty now imbuke; and we have done what we were called posed on the raw material is 15 per cent, ad to do, in a manner becoming the dignity of the valorem, and is no higher on the manufacturAmerican people, and free from just exception.ed article. Add to this the fact, that England It is not treasonable or even presumptuous, grants a bounty of 25 per cent. on the expor to petition congress for a redress of grievances. tation of linen. And we shall only ask those who have ventured to question our candor or purity of motive, to be careful lest, by the temper and object of their denunciations, they subject themselves to a more just and disastrous recrimination. How easy, from these facts, would it be for us to supply ourselves with the hempen and flaxen fabrics from our own factories? A small additional duty on the raw material and on The convention, as many of you will have cure to us our own market; the necessary effect cordage, canvas and cotton bagging, would seheard, concurred unanimously in a memorial of which would be, a greater diversity and to congress, soliciting additional protection to productiveness of labor, some relief to our dethe growth of hemp and flax, and to the man-pressed agriculture-and more security, and ufactures thereof the manufacture of iron, independence to our citizens in seasons of and fine cottons, and the growth and manufac-scarcity and of war. ture of wool. The house of representatives of the United The capacity of our country to produce hemp States in 1824, passed a bill to allow a duty of and flax, is almost infinite: and no statesman 42 cents on cotton bagging, but by the unwho will carefully examine the statistics bear- lucky secession of a western senator, of high ing on this subject, can doubt that, with a very name and pretensions, it was unfortunately little additional protection, a domestic market reduced to 334. It is believed that the immewill be secured, which will enable us to in-diate representatives of the people spoke their will in passing this bill, and that it will not be long, under favorable auspices, before it is reiterated with more success, and shall become, as it should have done in 1824, the law of the land. ports was not given at the treasury before 1803, since which, we are enabled by the treasury reports, to exhibit the following tabular contrast: 1803, flour exported $9,300,000; 1824, flour exported $5,759,000; 1803, beef and pork, $4,125,000; 1824, beef and pork $2,628, of progressive deterioration in the value of our exports, while our population has in the mean time increased 100 per cent. The prosperity of the grain growing states, has been declining ever since the peace of 1815. 000. The intermediate years exhibit a ratio We are deprived of our accustomed foreign markets, and have not substituted others at home. The consequences, as might have been foreseen, are languor and distress in the The foregoing facts are sufficient to show fairest and most prolific regions of the middle the consequences of depending on a foreign and western states. The remedy is obvious market, which we neither control nor regulate: and natural. It is two fold-1st. Increase the and they indicate the necessity of a home marratio of the home demand to the supply, by ket, stable and sure. We should not depend, encouraging home manufactures, which will as much as we have done, on foreign caprice certainly multiply the number of non-produ- and British legislation. We should buy more cing consumers-augment the demand for from our own citizens, and that will enable breadstuffs at home, the only sure and steady them to buy more of us in return. This kind market-and, in a corresponding degree, re- of interchange will be mutually advantageduce the relative number of grain-growers, now ous. It will make us feel (what we really are, oppressively redundant, and enhance the or should be,) as one people; and will promote value of their productions. 2d. Increase the our prosperity and real independence. duty on imported spirits, so as to make it the The capacity of the United States to supply interest of our people, as it should be their in-their own market with iron, is indisputable. clination aud pride, to consume less of foreign, Iron ore is abundant in the east, west, north and consequently more of our domestic liquors and south, and immense quantities of it are distilled from grain. useless, for want of a demand, whilst we imThe foreign demand for our breadstuffs has, port largely from abroad. The convention, since 1818, not only been very limited, but in-therefore,-influenced by the same doctrine juriously precarious and fluctuating. The en- which governed all its determinations, (viz) forcement of "the corn laws," virtually inter-that when we can supply the raw material ourdicts the sale of our corn and flour in England; and by her recent policy England menaces the occlusion of her colonial ports against the admission of our vegetable products. Before the colonial interdict (viz:) in 1825, the exports of flour from the United States to all the British colonies did not exceed 223,000 barrels, none could be sold in England! During the same year, our grain growing population bought of England manufactured articles to the amount of $7,500,000! And it should not The complete and signal success of our be forgotten, that in the same year, the New manufactories of coarse cottons, and the conEngland manufacturers bought and consumed viction resulting from satisfactory information, 625,000 barrels of American flour, and large that the like protection by the government, quantities of our corn. Here is a domestic will produce the like success to the efforts now market already opened to us, 100 per cent. bet-making to manufacture the finer cottons, inter than that of England, before her new co- fluenced the convention to ask the attention of lonial system was announced, and this market congress to this branch of domestic enterprise. is created by the growth of American manu- We can now buy at a New England or Pennfactories under the genial and vivifying influ-sylvania factory, cotton cloth for ten cents a ence of "a judicious tariff." This is an impor-yard, of finer texture and more durable than tant fact, when it is recollected that the grazing the imported cotton, which, before our factoand grain growing states contain about three-ries existed, cost us at least thirty cents. And fourths of the population of the United States. we can now buy a very useful article of AmerIn 1793 our entire population was about 4,-ican manufacture, to-wit, good casinetts, for 500,000; in 1824 it was 12,000,000. Yet in the fifty cents, better and nicer than any coarse former year the value of our animal and veg- British cloth at $2. Yet we know that, when etable exports exceeded that of the latter year the last duty was imposed on the importation —thus: 1793, 1,074,639 barrels of flour; 1824, of coarse cottons, many plausible objections 996,702 barrelf of flour, 75,106 barrels of beef, were vehemently and honestly urged against and 38,563 barrels of pork. In 1824, 66,074 it, by speculative cosmo-politico-economists; barrels of beef and 67,229 pork. In 1791-2-3, such as the following: "Let trade regulate itwe exported 373,352 tierces of rice, and in self—we are taxing the many for the benefit of 1822-3-4, only 301,683 tierces. The money a favored few-you will enhance the price of value of the foregoing exports in 1793 exceed- the manufactured article-diminish the reveed that of 1824 as 100 to 50. The value of ex-nue-encourage monopoly." But the experi selves, we should also supply the manufactured the article, in all grades, even to its highest elaboration,-recommended a slight additional duty on foreign iron and steel. If this duty should be imposed, and have its contemplated effect, it will augment our intrinsic resources in peace and in war, and in a short time diminish to the consumer the price of articles which to all classes of society are indispensable, fully in uniting in the entire memorial as it was presented. To such as may say-"the rates are too high"-we reply, congress can make them lower; and to such as may insist that the subject should not be touched, we an we hope all others will do,) in whatever course the wisdom and patriotism of congress shall finally adopt. We did not expect nor desire that our opinions should have more than their just share of influence. ment refutes all such abstract doctrines. "The many" have been benefitted as well as "the few"-the price to the consumer has been wonderfully diminished-there has been no smuggling-and the revenue has been augment ed. These objections were then more impos-swer: we shall acquiesce, very cheerfully, (as ing than now. They were sustained by mutilated scraps of authority from Adam Smith Say, and Ricardo, who wrote for Europe, and were unfortunately misapplied, by our theoretic politicians, to America. But if there were no other facts to shew the fallacy of these In regard to the propriety of increasing the old-fashioned abstractions of closet econo- duties on wool and woollens, however, there mists, (and there are many more) the cotton were some prominent considerations influenexperiment is most triumphant. In the suc-cing the convention, which should not, even in cess of that, we find theory overturned by this imperfect outline, be entirely pretermitpractice and speculative opinions refuted by an array of simple facts which are irresistible in the confirmation of the maxim of our Washingtons, Hamiltons and Jeffersons, expressed in the following oracular language:"When a domestic manufacturo has attained to perfection, and has engaged in the prosecution of it, a competent number of persons, IT INVARIABLY BECOMES CHEAPER. The internal competition which takes place, soon does away everything like monopoly; and by degrees reduces the price of the article to the minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital employed. This accords with the reason of the thing and with experience." The chief object of the convention, and that which was, more than any other, the occasion of its meeting, was to encourage and protect the growth and manufacture of wool. And the result was an unanimous recommendation to congress of the following rate of duties, viz: on all foreign wool over the value in a foreign port of 8 cents per pound, a duty of 20 cents per pound, with the addition annually of 22 cents, until it shall each fifty cents. On the woollen goods (with the exception of worsteds and bombazetts, flannels and blankets,) 40 per cent., with the addition of 5 per cent. annually, until it shall reach 50 per cent. -with this additional qualification, to-wit: that in estimating the ad valorem, all woollens (subjected to the above duty) of less value than 50 cents the square yard, are to be valued at 50 cents; those between 50 cents and $2 50 at $250; those between $2 50 and $4 at $4; and those between $4 and $5 at $6. There is no essential difference between the rate of duties here recommended, and those proposed in the Woollen's bill of last session of congress, except in the article of wool. We inclined to the opinion that it would be better to invite the attention of congress generally to the subject, without any specific recommendations. But a large majority of the convention being of a different opinion, and insisting that it would be proper to suggest, respectfully, the rates which the convention deemed most suitable, leaving congress, when possessed of the advantage of such suggestion, to adopt such a system of protection as its superior wisdom, on a more extensive survey of facts, might ascertain to be most fitting, we concurred cheer ted. By the tariff of 1824, the duty on foreign woollens was raised from 25 to 33 per cent. This was found necessary to sustain the labor and capital employed in the woollen manufacture, and was deemed sufficient. In faith of the law of 1824, investments were made by some of our fellow-citizens in other states, in buildings, machinery and materials for woolen manufacture to the amount of at least $20,000,000. These investments promised to be productive for some time, and no doubt would have been, if they could have been protected from the disatsrous effects of two unforseen causes: 1st. The distress of the manufactures in England in 1826, induced them to export large quantities of their woollens to the United States, and sell them at reduced prices, to avert the ruin which hung over their own heads, and to crush our rival establishments, so as to keep open the usual demand in this country for their fabrics. 2d. To aid in relieving their own manufacturers, and in prostrating ours. England reduced the duty on wool to be imported for their manufactories, from 6 pence sterling per pound, to one penny, and on the coarser wool of less value than one shilling per pound, to a half penny per pound! and on other articles to be imported for the manufac ture of cloths, there were corresponding reductien; for instance, that on olive oil was reduced from £15 13s the ton (252 gallons) to £7; on rape seed from £10 to 10s; on logwood from 98 4d sterling, to 1s 6d; and on indigo there was a reduction of 20 per cent. All which were estimated to reduce the cost of manufacturing 16% per cent., (viz:) the reduction on wool 142-and that on the other articles 2 per cent. The avowed object of these reductions, was to enable the British manufacturer to undersell the American, in our own market, and thereby, in the parliamentary declaration in favor of the reductions, open to England in North and South America, "an immense market for our (English) low priced cloths!" And shall this announcement be prophetic? It must be so without some countervailing rega lations by our own government. The British Parliament has virtually reduced our duty of 33% per cent. to 16-more than one-half less than it was before the tariff of 1624! These |