have been disposed of, and the financial and business derangement in a great measure, if not entirely, avoided. It is impossible for a nation to be otherwise than dependent when it permits its domestic interests to become subject to contingencies which are or can be controlled by foreign nations. At the time it may most need its strength, whether for development or self-defense, it may suit their interest to impair it.

Mr. Madison so fully realized this that, in his second message, in 1810, he thus expressed himself — enforcing his former views:

"I feel particular satisfaction in remarking that an interior view of our country presents us with grateful proofs of its substantial and increasing prosperity. To a thriving agriculture, and the improvements relating to it, is added a highly interesting extension of useful manufactures, the combined product of professional occupations and of household industry. Such, indeed, is the experience of economy, as well as of policy, in these substitutes for supplies heretofore obtained by foreign commerce, that in a national view the change is justly regarded as of itself more than a recompense for those privations and losses resulting from foreign injustice which furnished the general impulse required for its accomplishment. How far it may be expedient to guard the infancy of this improvement in the distribution of labor by regulations of the commercial tariff, is a subject which cannot fail to suggest itself to your patriotic reflections."

The sentiments and purposes of Mr. Madison were in no way concealed. He attributed the progress of interior development to "a cultivation of the materials and the extension of useful manufactures ;"—that is, to the conversion of the surplus products of labor into manufactured fabrics. In his opinion we were, by means of these,

diminishing "our dependence on foreign supplies," because we had become able to supply ourselves, or were rapidly becoming so. In this he saw evidences of our being enabled, not only to bring our internal commerce into an improved and healthy condition, but to keep it so. And, therefore, he submitted to Congress the question of so laying duties upon imports as to give proper protection and encouragement to all our diversified industrial interests. This, he well understood, could only be done by adhering to the system which had prevailed from the beginning of the Government, and throughout the administrations of Washington, Adams and Jefferson. Consequently, in his third message, in 1811, he expressed his opinion of the national advantages of manufactures in these words:

"Although other subjects will press more immediately on your deliberations, a portion of them cannot but be well bestowed on the just and sound policy of securing to our manufactures the success they have attained, and are still attaining, in some degree, under the influence of causes not permanent; and to our navigation, the fair extent of which is at present abridged by the unequal regulations of foreign governments.

"Besides the reasonableness of saving our manufactures from sacrifices which a change of circumstances might bring on them, the national interest requires that, with respect to such articles at least as belong to our defense and our primary wants, we should not be left in unnecessary dependence on external supplies."

He who is unable to comprehend the plain meaning of Mr. Madison must possess an obtuse intellect; and he who, understanding it, endeavors to pervert it with a view to mislead, is an evil and dangerous adviser. It was the fixed

conviction of his mind - as it was also of the minds of the most eminent and conspicuous statesmen of his day — that the only safe line of policy for the Government was that which would most readily lead to a development of our natural resources, and thereby prevent us from becoming dependent" on external supplies ;" that is, on manufactured articles imported from foreign countries. And so controlling did this sentiment become in the public mind that, during the war with Great Britain, under Madison's administration, the various fields and spheres of labor were steadily enlarged throughout the country. Agriculture was stimulated, manufactures were increased, and the nation so rapidly gained in strength as to surprise the world. Although that war, with the most powerful among the nations, taxed the energies of our people to the utmost, yet there were not many, out of the active military service, who did not realize the necessity of devoting their energies to such industrial pursuits as promised an increase of individual and national wealth. Mr. Madison, in his message of 1813, thus explained our condition during the

war:

"If the war has increased the interruptions of our commerce, it has at the same time cherished and multiplied our manufactures so as to make us independent of all other countries for the more essential branches for which we ought to be dependent on none, and is even rapidly giving them an extent which will create additional staples in our future intercourse with foreign markets."

How wisely and prophetically were these words spoken! The proposition that we ought not to be dependent on other countries for our manufactured fabrics, into which our

own raw materials were capable of being converted, was considered at that time incontrovertible by all thoughtful and practical minds; and it should never have been otherwise regarded at any subsequent period. Just so far as we have been led astray by the opposing theory of visionary minds, to that extent have we suffered the consequences of our own folly. What Mr. Madison said upon the subject was but the echo of public opinion - formed under influences and circumstances too palpable to mislead. And when, looking forward into the future, he expressed the belief that by the continued increase of our manufactures we should "create additional staples” — that is, create a demand not only for materials then known, but for others thereafter to be discovered - he was absolutely prophetic. His prediction has been verified with wonderful minuteness. We see this in the fact, familiar to everybody, that there is scarcely an ounce of our surplus products, of whatsoever kind, that may not be so converted by the manufacturers of our own time, as to be made useful in supplying the wants and conveniences of society. Everything—even much that is of no apparent value- can be turned to practical uses, and nothing is necessarily wasted or lost. The ingenuity and skill of our artisans have been employed in the invention of machinery of every possible variety, capable of producing almost every imaginable result. And every new invention in the unlimited field of the mechanic arts has given fresh impulse to labor, until all the avenues of commerce throughout the world are crowded with the varied productions of our industry.

CHAPTER XI.

MADISON RECOMMENDS PROTECTION AFTER THE WAR WITH ENGLAND- NECESSARY TO PAY DEBT OF THE WAR-ALSO TO ENCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE-TARIFF ACT OF 1816MADISON ON CONSTITUTIONALITY OF PROTECTION - PROTECTION DIRECT, NOT INCIDENTAL - PERTAINS TO COMMERCE, NOT REVENUE.

THE

HE close of the war with Great Britain led to the necessity of reducing the expenses of the Government to the demands of a peace establishment; but it left a large war debt for which provision had to be made. Financial problems are not always easy of solution. They were not, however, so difficult then as now, for the reason, among others, that conflicting interests were not so numerous or so sharply defined. Either the existing measures for raising revenue, by discriminating duties laid with a view to protect manufactures, upon some articles, and for revenue alone upon others, had to be adhered to, or, if abandoned, some new and untried policy had to be inaugurated. Theoretical speculations were not then so common as they now are; and it had not occurred to any considerable number of those who had claim to statesmanship, that the protective policy which had done so well could be safely abandoned. It had not then been discovered that "the balance of trade" was a "delusive phantom." The philosophic researches of Smith and of Hume were