And where would they find that market? In the planting confederacy? They would now have to contend against the foreign manufacturers in that market, not only without a protection of forty, or even twenty per cent., but without any protection at all. It would be our right and our duty to impose the same revenue duties upon their manufactures that we should impose upon those of other countries; thus receiving a fair revenue of ten per cent. from manufactures on which we now pay a bounty of forty. And where would this manufacturing confederacy find sources of revenue? If their domestic exports may be fairly assumed as the measure of their imports, these would hardly reach twenty millions. And a duty of even forty per cent. would yield a very inadequate revenue, if compared with that of their southern neighbor. The result would probably be, that half their revenue would have to be raised by internal taxes, repugnant as these are to the notions of the Senator from Maine; and they would probably be imposed in the shape of excise duties upon those very manufactures which would be deprived of the protection of a forty per cent. duty, which they now enjoy. But, sir, I have not yet finished the gloomy portraiture of the manufacturing confederacy, as it would be under the new order of things. The states which would compose that confederacy now receive the greater portion (probably nine-tenths) of the enormous disbursements of this wasteful and extravagant government.

This is no small matter, sir, few of the most enlightened statesmen and political economists ever realized its impor tance, till the close of the twenty years' war which grew out of the French Revolution. During that war, the financial resources of Great Britain seemed as miraculous as the military achievements of Napoleon. With an annual expenditure of $500,000,000 for several years, of which $300,000,000 was raised by taxation, the people seemed to be, and actually were, for the time, eminently prosperous. But at

the close of the war, when these vast disbursements comparatively ceased, general depression and distress followed, instead of increased prosperity anticipated. The extraordinary influence of government disbursements at home, in raising the prices of commodities and labor, and in stimulating industry, was then, for the first time, fully disclosed. And it was the opinion of able writers and statesmen, that, during the war, the disbursement of $500,000,000 annually in Great Britain, derived from loans and taxes, very nearly indemnified the people for the current burden of taxation. But this was neither more nor less than the people of the day living upon the resources of posterity-the one bloated with artificial prosperity, the other doomed to perpetual and oppressive burdens. And now, sir, to apply this example to the case before us, how perfectly do the manufacturing States now represent the people of Great Britain during the war, and the exporting States their prosperity? Under the political change I have supposed, all the present disbursements would, of course, be withdrawn from the States which now receive them.

I have thus, sir, presented a statement of the results which would take place in the manufacturing confederacy, with the same sort of historical fidelity which I endeavored to observe in the statements I made relative to the planting confederacy. I have stated nothing speculative; but, on the contrary, results which must take place. And I now leave it to the manufacturers themselves to decide whether this plain statement does not also disclose the elements and causes of a revolution in their prosperity fully equal to, but in dismal contrast with, that which I have shown would take place among the planting States. How often have they told us that the protection derived merely from a revenue tariff would be totally inadequate to protect them from total ruin; and that we had as well apply the torch to their manufactories as to reduce the duties upon imports to that standard? If these

were not false clamors what a scene of desolation would be produced by depriving them of all protection, and leaving them, like the producers of the staples of exportation, to seek out markets abroad, where they must encounter the equal-handed competition of the whole world!

Such, Mr. President, would be the opposite and striking results produced among the planting and the manufacturing States by the political change I have supposed; while the Western and Northwestern States would find a vastly extended market in the planting States for all the productions of their farms, obtaining high prices and cheap manufactures instead of the low prices they now obtain, and the high prices they are now compelled to pay to sustain the monopolies of the protective system. Now, sir, I earnestly ask the question, What is it, in the new order of things I have supposed, that would produce such extraordinary and opposite effects in the planting and manufacturing confederacies? If, after ten years from the establishment of these separate confederacies a stranger should revisit the country, who had seen it before, he would naturally inquire what had produced the mighty changes that would everywhere meet his eye. In the South and Southwest, seeing our cities thronged with a vastly increased and prosperous population; the silence of our streets succeeded by the animating hum of active indus try, and the whole country covered with tasteful and wellfurnished mansions, where venerable ruins of log cabins had stood before, he would exclaim, "What god has descended to bless this favored region, or what countries have been plundered to produce these monuments of wealth and prosperity where all was decay and poverty before?" He would be almost incredulous when informed that all this had resulted exclusively from the restoration of these States to the right of self-government, and their citizens to their natural rights. The same stranger, beholding the fallen and ruinous condition of the manufacturing States, would natur

ally ask, "What monstrous despotism, what oppressive bur. dens of taxation have destroyed the prosperity which, ten years ago, distinguished these States from all their associates?" He would probably be still more incredulous when informed "that all the changes he saw had been produced by prevent. ing those States from taxing, as they had done for twenty years, the productive industry of their southern and western associates."

Now, Mr. President, if I have not grossly exaggerated the comparative effects which would be produced upon the manufacturing and other States of the Union, by simply restoring them to the right of regulating their own several interests, how enormous must be burdens imposed upon the exporting States by the tributary vassalage to which they have been for twenty years reduced by the protective policy? I have presented this plain and practical view of the subject, in the hope of making palpable to the view of our oppressors themselves the injustice they are perpetrating. And I warn them that there is a point beyond which oppression will not be endured, even by the vilest slaves or the most loyal citizens.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TARIFF.

BY HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL OF VERMONT,

In the Senate of the United States, Dec. 8, 1881, on the Bill to establish a Tariff Commission.

MR.

R. PRESIDENT: I have brought this subject to the early attention of the Senate because if early legis lative action on the tariff is to be had, obviously the measure proposed by Senator Eaton and passed at the last session of the Senate is a wise and indispensable preliminary which cannot be started too soon. The essential information needed concerns important interests, vast in number and overspreading every nook and corner of our country; and when made available by the ingathering and collocation of all the related facts, will secure the earliest attention of Congress, as well as the trust and confidence of the country, and save the appropriate committees of both Houses weeks and months of irksome labors-possibly save them also from some blunders and from final defeat.

An enlargement of the free list, essential reductions, and readjustments of rates, are to be fully considered, and some errors of conflicting codifications corrected.

If a general revision of the Bible seems to have been called for, it is hardly to be wondered at that some revision of our revenue laws should be invited. But changes in the frame-work of a law that has had more of stability than any other of its kind in our history, and from which an unexam