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Admitting now that it were possible for the London Times to supply, on every evening, a paper precisely similar to yours-forcing abroad the surplus, and selling "at any price, so as to relieve the domestic market," would you not be among the first to demand protection against the system? Would you not assure your readers of the entire impossibility of maintaining competition against a journal, all of whose expenses of composition and editorship were paid by the home market-leaving its proprietors to look abroad for little more than the mere cost of paper and of presswork? Would you not demonstrate to them the absolute necessity of protecting themselves against a "warfare" that must inevitably result in the creation of a "little oligarchy" of monopolists who, when domestic competition had been finally broken down, would compel them to pay ten cents for a journal neither larger nor better than they now obtain for two? Assuredly, you would.

Addressing such arguments to your British free trade friends, they would, however, refer you to the columns of the Post, begging you to study the assurance that had there been given, that-

"Whenever the course of financial fluctuation shall have broken the hold of monopolists and speculators upon the mines of iron and coal, which the Almighty made for the common use of man, and whenever there shall be men of skill and enterprise to spare to go into the business of iron-making for a living, and not on speculation, who shall set their wits at it to find out the best ways and the cheapest processes, it must be that such an abundance both of ore and fuel can be made to yield plenty of iron, in spite of the competition of European ironmasters who have to bring their products three thousand miles to find a market."

To all this you would, of course, reply, that "financial fluctuations" created monopolies, and never "broke their hold;" that men of “skill and enterprise" were not generally rich enough to compete with such rivals as the London Times; that domestic competition had already given us "cheaper ways and cheaper processes" than any other country of the world; that the freight of a sheet of paper was as nothing compared with the cost of editorship and composition; that all these latter costs were, in the case of the British journals, paid by the domestic market; that "the domestic consumers supported the British manufacturer;' "that the quantity of journals consumed at home was so very great that their producers could afford to sell abroad "at any price". thereby "relieving the market of a surplus which might depress prices at home, and compel them to work at little or no profit;" and that, for all these reasons, it was absolutely necessary to grant you such protection as would give you the same security in the domestic market as was then enjoyed by your foreign rivals?

Would not all this be equally true if said to-day of our producers of cloth and iron, coal and lead? Does the policy you advocate tend to place them in a position successfully to contend with those British manufacturers who "voluntarily incur immense losses, in bad times, in order to destroy foreign competition, and to gain and keep possession of foreign markets"? Can they resist the action of the owners of those "great accumulations of capital" which have been made at our cost, and are now being used to "enable a few of the most wealthy capitalists to over

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whelm all foreign competition in times of great depression" thereby largely adding to their already enormous fortunes, "before foreign capital can again accumulate to such extent as to be able to establish a competition in prices with any chances of success"? Can it be to the interest of any country to leave its miners and manufacturers exposed to a "warfare" such as is here officially declared? Do not they stand as much in need of protection, for the sake of the consumers, as you would do in the case supposed? Does not your own experience prove that the more perfect the security of the manufacturer in the domestic market, the greater is the tendency to that increase of domestic competition which tends to increase the prices of raw materials, while lessening the cost of cloth and iron? Do not men, everywhere, become more free, as that competition grows, and as employments become more diversified? Is not, then, the question we are discussing, one of the freedom and happiness of your fellow-men? If so, is it worthy of you to offer to your readers such arguments as are contained in the article above reprinted? Holding myself, as always heretofore, ready to give to my readers your replies to the questions I have put, I remain, my dear sir, Yours, very truly,

HENRY C. CAREY.

W. C. BRYANT, Esq.

PHILADELPHIA, March 13th, 1860.

LETTER TWELFTH.

DEAR SIR:-Thirty years since, South Carolina, prompted by a determination to resist the execution of laws that were in full accordance with both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, first moved a dissolution of the Union. Failing to find a second, she stood alone. Since then, all has greatly changed. Now, each successive day brings with it from the South not only threats but measures of disunion, each in its turn finding more persons in the centre and the North anxious for the maintenance of the Union, yet disposed towards acquiescence in the decision of their southern brethren, whatever that may prove to be. This is a great change to have been effected in so brief a period, and sad as it is great. To what may it be attributed, and how may the remedy be applied?

Before answering this latter question, let us inquire into the causes of the disease for that purpose looking for a moment into the records of our past. The men who made the Revolution did so, because they were tired of a system the essence of which was found in Lord Chatham's declaration, that the colonists should not be permitted to make for themselves 66 even so much as a single hobnail." They were sensible of the exhaustive character of a policy that compelled them to make all their exchanges in a single market-thereby enriching their foreign masters, while ruining themselves. Against this system they needed protection, and therefore did they make the Revolution-seeking political independence as a means of obtaining industrial and commercial independence. To render that protection really effective, they formed a more perfect union, whose first Congress gave us, as its first law, an act for the protection of manufactures. Washington and his secretaries, Hamilton and Jefferson, approved this course of action, and in so doing were followed by all of Washington's successors, down to General Jackson. For half a century, from 1783 to 1833, such was the general tendency of our commercial policy, and therefore was it that, notwithstanding the plunder of our merchants under British Orders in Council and French Decrees, and notwithstanding interferences with commerce by embargo and non-intercourse laws, there occurred in that long period, in time of peace, no single financial revulsion, involving suspension by our banks, or stoppage of payment by the government. In all that period there was, consequently, a general tendency toward harmony between the North and the South, in reference to the vexed question of slavery—both Virginia and Maryland having, in 1832, shown themselves almost prepared for abolition. Had the then existing commercial policy been maintained, the years that since have passed would have been marked by daily growth of harmony, and of confidence in the utility and permanence of our Union.

Such, unhappily, was not to be the case. Even at that moment South Carolina was preparing to assume that entire control of our commercial

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policy, which, with the exception of a single Presidential term, she has since maintained-thereby forcing the Union back to that colonial system, emancipation from which had been the primary object of the men who made the Revolution. With that exception her reign has now endured for more than five and twenty years, a period marked by constantlyrecurring financial convulsions, attended by suspensions of our banks, bankruptcies of individuals and of the government, and growing discord among the States.

What, you will probably ask, is the connection between financial revulsion and sectional discord? Go with me, my dear sir, for a moment, into the poor dwelling of one of our unemployed workmen, and I will show you. The day is cold, and so is his stove. His wife and children are poorly clothed. His bed has been pawned for money with which to obtain food for his starving family. He himself has for months been idle, the shop in which he had been used to work having been closed, and its owner ruined. Ask him why is this, and he will tell you to look to our auction-stores and our shops, gorged with the products of foreign labor, while our own laborers perish in the absence of employment that will give them food. Ask him what is the remedy for this, and, if he is old enough to remember the admirable effects of the tariff of 1842, he will tell you that there can be none, so long as southern commercial policy shall continue to carry poverty, destitution, and death, into the homes of those who must sell their labor if they would live. That man has, perhaps, already conceived some idea of the existence of an "irrepressible conflict" between free and slave labor. A year hence, he may be driven by poverty into abolitionism.

The picture here presented is no fancy sketch. It is drawn from life. This man is the type of hundreds of thousands, I might say millions, of persons of various conditions of life, who have been ruined in the repeated financial crises of the five-and-twenty years of British free trade and South Carolinian domination. Follow those men on their weary way to the West, embittered as they are by the knowledge that it is to southern policy it is due that they are compelled to separate themselves from homes and friends, and perhaps from wives and children. See them, on their arrival there, paying treble and quadruple prices for the land they need, to the greedy speculator who finds his richest harvest in free trade times. Mark them, next, contracting for the payment of four and even five per cent per month, for the little money they need, knowing, as they do, that we are exporting almost millions of gold per week, to pay to foreigners for services that they would gladly have performed. Watch them as they give for little more than a single yard of cotton cloth, a bushel of corn, that under a different policy would give them almost a dozen yards. Trace them onward, until you find their little properties passing into the hands of the sheriff, they themselves being forced to seek new homes in lands that are even yet more distant. Reflect, I pray you, upon these facts, and you will find in them, my dear sir, the reasons why the soil of Kansas has been stained by the blood of men who, under other legislation, would have been found acting together for the promotion of the general good.

Mr. Calhoun sowed the seeds of sectionalism, abolitionism, and disunion, on the day on which he planted his free trade tree. Well watered

and carefully tended by yourself and others, all have thriven, and all are now yielding fruit in exhaustion of the soil of the older States, and consequent thirst for the acquisition of distant territory; in Kansas murders and Harper's Ferry riots; in civil and foreign wars. It is

the same fruit that has been produced in Ireland, India, and all other countries that are subjected to the British system. Desiring that the fruit may wither, you must lay the axe to the root of the tree. That done, the noxious plants that have flourished in its shade will quickly decay and disappear.

We are told, however, that the interests of the South are to be promoted by the maintenance of the system under which Ireland and India have been ruined, and which it is the fashion of the day to term free trade. Was that the opinion of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or Jackson? Is it, even now, the opinion of those Southern men whose views in regard to the slavery question are most in accordance with your own? Are not Kentucky and Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina, Alabama and Missouri, rich in fuel and iron ore, and all the other materials required for the production of a varied industry? Did not the domestic consumption of cotton increase thrice more rapidly than the population, under the tariff of 1842? Had it continued to increase as it then was doing, would it not now absorb a million and a half of bales diminishing by many hundreds of thousands the quantity for which we need a foreign market? Under such circumstances would not our planters obtain more for two and a half million of bales than they now do for three and a half millions? Rely upon it, my dear sir, there is no discord in the real and permanent interests of the various sections of the Union. There, all is perfect harmony, and what we now most need is the recognition, by men like you, and by our southern brethren, of the existence of that great and important fact. In that direction, and that alone, may be found the remedy for our great disease.

Looking for it there, the effect will soon exhibit itself in this development of the vast natural resources of every section of the country — in the utilization of the great water-powers of both South and North-and in the increase of that internal commerce to which, alone, we can look for extrication from the difficulties in which we are now involved. Let our policy be such as to produce development of that commerce, and villages will become tied to villages, cities to cities, States to States, and zones to zones, by silken threads scarcely visible to the eye, yet strong enough to bid defiance to every effort that may be made to break them. British policy sought to prevent the creation of such threads-British politicians having seen that by crossing and recrossing each other, and tying together the Puritan of the north, the Quaker, the German, and the Irishman of the centre, and the Episcopalian of the south, they would give unity and strength to the great whole that would be thus produced. Such, too, is the tendency of our present policy, our whole energies having been, and being now, given to the creation of nearly parallel lines of communication-roads and canals passing from west to east through New York and Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina-always at war with each other, and never touching until they reach the commercial capital of the British islands. In that direction lie pauperism, sectionalism, weakness, and final ruin of our system.

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