the state of almost ruin from which they so recently had been redeemed.

Returning once again, as a consequence of this forgetful. ness, to the revenue tariff system, the troubles and distresses of the previous period were reproduced, the whole eight years of its existence presenting a series of contractions and expansions, ending in a state of weakness so extreme that bankruptcy was almost universal; that labor was everywhere seeking in vain for employment; that the public credit was so entirely destroyed that the closing year of that unfor tunate period exhibited the disgraceful fact of commissioners, appointed by the Treasury, wandering throughout Europe and knocking at the door of all its principal banking houses without obtaining the loan of even a single dollar. Public and private distress now compelling a return to the protective system we find almost at once a reproduction of the prosperous days of the period from 1829 to 1835, public and private credit having been restored, and the demand for labor and its products having become greater than at any former period.

Once again, however, do we find our people forgetting that to the protective system had been due the marvelous changes that were then being witnessed, and again returning to that revenue tariff system, to which they had been indebted for the scenes of ruin which had marked the periods from 1817 to 1828, and from 1835 to 1842. California gold now, however, came in aid of free trade theories, and for a brief period our people really believed that protection was a dead issue and could never be again revived. With 1854, however, that delusion passed away, the years that followed, like those of the previous revenue tariff periods, having been marked by enormous expansions and contractions, financial crises, private ruin, and such destruction of the national credit that with the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration we find the Treasury unable to obtain the trivial amount which was then required, except on payment of most enor. mous rates of interest.

Such

Once again do we find the country driven to protection, and the public credit by its means so well established as to enable the treasury with little difficulty to obtain the means of carrying on a war whose annual cost was more than the total public expenditures of half a century, including the war with Great Britain of 1812. Thrice thus, with the tariffs of 1828, 1842, and 1860, has protection redeemed the country from almost ruin. Thrice thus, under the revenue tariffs of 1817, 1835, and 1846, has it been sunk so low that none could be found "so poor as do it reverence." having been our experience through half a century it might have been supposed that the question would be regarded now as settled, yet do we find among us men in office and out of office, secretaries and senators, owners of ships and railroads, farmers and laborers, denouncing the system under which at every period of its existence, and most especially in that of the recent war, they had so largely prosperedthereby proving how accurate has been the description of them above referred to, as "the people who soonest forget yesterday."

Such being the case, it seems to me that it might be well to show what was the actual state of affairs throughout the country in the revenue tariff years immediately preceding the war, and thereby enable railroad owners to study what had been the effect upon their interests that had resulted from the cry of cheap iron; ship owners to see that the decay of their interests had been the necessary result of a system under which internal commerce had been destroyed; laborers to see why it had been that labor had then been so superabundant and so badly paid; farmers to see why it had been that their farms had then been so deeply mortgaged; secretaries to see why it had been that the public credit had then been so nearly annihilated; and all to see why it had been that the pro-slavery power had so largely grown as to have warranted the South in venturing on the late

rebellion. To that end, I shall now present two letters written in 1858, and addressed to our then president, Mr. Buchanan, respectfully asking you to remark the predictions that further continuance in the same direction must result in financial and political ruin, and in our being driven from the ocean, all of which we now see to have been so fully realized.*

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"Civilized communities-those communities, Mr. President, which have obtained that freedom of domestic intercourse which, as you have seen, we so sorely need-follow the advice of Adam Smith, in exporting their wool, and their corn, in the form of cloth, at little cost for transportation. Thus, France, in 1856, exported silks and cloths, clothing, paper, and articles of furniture, to the extent of $300,000,000; and yet the total weight was short of FIFTY THOUSAND TONS-requiring for its transport but forty ships. of moderate size, and the services of perhaps 2,000 persons. Barbarous, and semi-barbarous countries, on the contrary, export their commodities in their rudest state, at heavy cost for transportation. India sends the constituents of cloth-cotton, rice, and indigo-to exchange, in distant markets, for the cloth itself. Brazil sends raw sugar across the ocean, to exchange for that which has been refined. We send wheat and Indian corn, pork and flour, cotton and rice, fish, lumber, and naval stores, to be exchanged for knives and forks, silks and cottons, paper and China-ware. The total value of these commodities exported in 1856-high as were then the prices-was only $230,000,000; and yet, the American and foreign ships engaged in the work of transport were of the capacity of SIX MILLIONS, EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND TONS,-requiring for their management no less than 269,000 persons.†

*These letters form part of a series entitled "Letters to the President of the United States on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Union and its Effects as exhibited in the Condition of the People and the State." Phila., 1858.

+ This is the total tonnage that arrived from foreign countries, in that year. A small portion was required for the exportation of manufactured commodities, but it was so small as scarcely to require notice.

"In the movement of all this property, Mr. President, there is great expense for transportation. Who pays it? Ask the farmer of Iowa, and he will tell you, that he sells for 15 cents-and that, too, payable in the most worthless kind of paper-a bushel of corn that, when received in Manchester, commands a dollar; and that he, in this manner, gives to the support of railroads and canals, ships and sailors, brokers and traders, no less than eighty-five per cent. of the intrinsic value of his products. Ask him once again, and he will tell you that while his bushel of corn will command, in Manchester, 18 or 20 yards of cotton cloth, he is obliged to content himself with little more than a single yard-eighty-five per cent. of the clothing power of his corn having been taken, on the road, as his contribution towards the tax imposed upon the country, for the maintenance of the machinery of that 'free trade' which, as you, Mr. President, have so clearly seen, is the sort of freedom we do not, at present, need.*

"The country that exports the commodity of smallest bulk, is almost wholly freed from the exhausting tax of transportation. At Havre-ships being little needed for the outward voyage, while ships abound-the outward freights must be always very low.

"The community that exports the commodities of greatest bulk, must pay nearly all the cost of transportation. A score of ships being required to carry from our ports the lumber, wheat, or naval stores, the tobacco, or the cotton, required to pay for a single cargo of cloth, the outward freights must always be at, or near, that point which is required to pay for the double voyage; and every planter knows, to his cost, how much the price of his cotton is dependent upon the rate of freight.

"Thirty-one independent States enjoying a thousand advantages and carrying on a mutual free trade with each other. That is the 'free trade' that we really want."-BUCHANAN.

"In the first of these, Mr. President, employments become from day to day more thoroughly diversified; the various human faculties become more and more developed; the power of combination tends steadily to increase; agriculture becomes more and more a science; the land becomes more productive; the societary movement becomes more stable and regular; and the power to purchase machinery of every kind, whether ships, mills, or the precious metals, tends steadily to augment.

"In the last, the reverse of this is found, the pursuits of men becoming less diversified; the demand for human faculty becoming more and more limited to that for mere brute force, or for the craft by which the savage is so much distinguished; the power of association tending to decline; agriculture becoming less and less a science, and the land becoming more and more exhausted; the societary movement acquiring, more and more, the fitfulness and irregular.. ity of movement you have so well described as existing among ourselves; and the power to obtain machinery of any kind tending steadily to diminish.

"The first of these, Mr. President, may be found in the countries of Central and Northern Europe-those which follow in the lead of Colbert and of France. All of these are gradually emancipating themselves from the most oppressive of all taxes, the tax of transportation. All of them, therefore, are moving in the direction of growing wealth and power, with correspondent advance in civilization and in freedom.

"The last may be found in Ireland, India, Jamaica, Portugal, Turkey, and these United States-the countries which follow in the lead of England. All of these are becoming more and more subjected to the tax of transportation. All of them, therefore, are declining in wealth and power, in civilization, and in freedom.

"In the first the land yields more and more with each