dation for "additional protection," and was intended to show how erroneous were the opinions prevailing in this country. It treats of "the premature attempts which have been made to establish cotton manufacture in the United States," and criticises our protective policy, and its ultimate influence, entirely from an English standpoint. On this account it is specially worthy of reproduction to the extent of showing the main points of the English free-trade arguIt says:

ment.

"The American Government has evinced great anxiety for the accomplishment of this object [establishing cotton manufactures] without considering that manufactures are valuable to a country, only in so far as by their means the people can be supplied with the article cheaper than they are able to procure it elsewhere. When a manufacture requires the support of bounties, or of laws prohibiting the importations of similar articles, it is the consumption of the national wealth to encourage the prosecution of a branch of industry incapable of maintaining itself. There is no greater error in policy than this; and yet we see it every day committed by young nations forcing manufactures, before the circumstances of the country admit of such undertakings; and by old nations persisting in the manufacture of articles which, from natural disadvantages, they cannot produce at so low a price as that at which they might purchase them from others.

"The favorite system of a country supplying everything within itself is alike adverse to individual advantage, and to the increase of national riches. . . . It is not by a nation manufacturing everything it consumes that it is to be made rich, but by its people being profitably employed; and this can only be accomplished by the industry which every individual practices, being what he can, with advantage to himself, exchange with the industry practiced by others. ... If these principles be just, it must be a misapplication of American capital and industry to withdraw them from their present employment, in extending the cultivation of the soil, and in circulating its products-undertakings which the people find

profitable to force them into manufacturing concerns supported by monopolies and bounties.

"Before America can be in a state to carry on manufactures in competition with those of Europe, her vast tracts of unoccupied land, into which the growing population of her older settlements is regularly flowing, must be stocked. Until this is the case, her supply of laborers will be kept below the demand, and the wages above those paid in the better peopled countries of Europe. Besides the effect which this state of the supply of labor has in increasing the cost of the article, it is adverse to the proper and advantageous execution of the work. The workmen are too independent, and in conseqence too unsettled, to submit to that discipline and course of training from which alone excellence of quality, and a steady production of quantity, are to be obtained."

This author did not understand our system of protection, for it has never been carried to the extent of sustaining manufactures either by prohibitory laws or by bounties. But he was doubtless sincere in his exertion to prove to us that it would be better for us if we were all cultivators of the soil, and compelled to buy our manufactured goods from Great Britain, than to undertake to manufacture them at home. He wrote as a citizen of Great Britain-a rival nation-being fully competent to understand that, if we should adopt the policy of free trade, we would be kept in a condition of inferiority and dependence. His effort, to a certain extent, was successful for his arguments, almost as soon as made, were adopted by the enemies of protection in the United States, and have ever since furnished them with the materials of agitation. There is, however, this difference: that, in this country, they are less frank than the English author, in concealing one of the strong points in favor of free trade;

which is, that manufactures in this country will increase the wages of labor far above those paid in Europe, and tend to build up a large class of independent laborers and artisans. He desired to prove that, because of the low wages paid for labor in Great Britain, manufactures could be conducted there much cheaper than here, which would lower the price to the consumer; whereas, they accept as true only that part of his theory, and are ready to give the preference to British over American fabrics, notwithstanding such a policy would tend to keep down the wages of labor here to the pauper standard of Europe. An accurate tracing of the growth and effect of these ideas in this country, would make a most instructive chapter in our national history. Our present inquiries lead only to general allusions to them.

CHAPTER XIX.

PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1824 — ALL THE CANDIDATES FAVOR PROTECTION-JACKSON VOTED FOR TARIFF OF 1824 - CLAY FOR THAT AND TARIFF OF 1816-JACKSON'S LETTER TO COLEMAN-NO FARM PRODUCTS EXCEPT COTTON HAVE MARKETS NECESSITY FOR HOME MARKETS-WE MUST BECOME AMERICANIZED LABOR MUST BE DISTRIBUTED-JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ELECTED BY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - FIERCE CONTROVERSY ENSUED-ADAMS FAVORED PROTECTION JACKSON AGAIN A CANDIDATE-HE FAVORED PROTECTION – MURMURINGS IN SOUTH CAROLINA AGAINST PROTECTION.

E have now reached a new and most important era

WE

in our political history some of the events of which will be remembered by persons yet living. It is a period which should not be lightly passed over, for it witnessed the inauguration of a contest not yet fully ended, although it has thus far resulted in consequences which have caused millions of hearts to bleed. It is not now referred to for the purpose of reviving any of the old antagonisms and fierce animosities to which it has given birth, but only in order that we may profit by experience, and avoid everything in the future that could, by possibility, disturb our national harmony. "Errors cease to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them." And when we learn that they have borne bitter fruits, it will be worse than criminal to repeat them.

The second term of Mr. Monroe closed in March, 1825

after the tariff law of 1824 had been passed in response to his recommendation for "additional protection." This made it necessary to elect a new President in 1824, and with that view the several candidates were put in nomination early in the year. At that time there existed, throughout the whole country, such hearty approval of the policy of protection to manufactures, and it had become so well established, that the candidates were chosen with reference to their willingness to preserve it. The fact is—as the history of that period well establishes that no man, however distinguished for the highest qualities of statesmanship, could have had the slightest possible chance of election without the distinct understanding that he was in favor of protection. There was no man of special prominence who was not so; or, at all events, there were none who, at that time, advocated its abandonment. The candidates were John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford. Mr. Adams, who was Secretary of State under Mr. Monroe, had been so identified with the interests of a manufacturing community that no doubt was entertained about his views. eral Jackson was a member of the United States Senate, and had voted for and earnestly supported the tariff law just passed. Mr. Clay had also voted for and supported that law, as he had previously the law of 1816. Mr. Crawford was also a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, as Secretary of the Treasury, and was fully committed to the recommendation for "additional protection." All of them, therefore, were in favor of protection, and the whole country so understood it.

Gen