progress during my reign. The application of chymistry to the manufactures, caused them to advance with giant strides. I gave an impulse, the effect of which, extended throughout Europe.

"Foreign trade, which, in its results, is infinitely inferior to agriculture, was an object of subordinate importance in my mind. Foreign trade is made for agriculture and home industry, and not the two latter for the former. The interests of these three fundamental cases are diverging and frequently conflicting. I always promoted them in their natural gradation, but I could not and ought not to have ranked them all on an equality. Time will unfold what I have done, the national resources which I created, and the emancipation from the English which I brought about. We have now the secret of the commercial treaty of 1783. France still exclaims against its author; but the English demanded it on pain of resuming the war. They wished to do the same after the treaty of Amiens, but I was then all-powerful; I was a hundred cubits high. I replied, that if they were in possession of the heights of Montmartre, I would still refuse to sign the treaty. These words were echoed through Europe.

"The English will now impose some such treaty on France, at least, if popular clamor and the opposition of the mass of the nation, do not force them to draw back. This thraldom would be an additional disgrace in the eyes of that nation, which is now beginning to acquire a just perception of her own interests.

"When I came to the head of the government, the American ships, which were permitted to enter our ports on the score of their neutrality, brought us raw materials, and had the impudence to sail from France without freight, for the purpose of taking in cargoes of English goods in London. They, moreover, had the insolence to make their payments, when they had any to make, by giving bills on persons in London. Hence the vast profits reaped by the English manufacturers and brokers, entirely to our prejudice. I made a law that no American should import goods to any amount, without immediately exporting their exact equivalent. A loud outcry was raised against this: it was said that I had ruined trade. But what was the consequence? Notwithstanding the closing of my ports, and in spite of the English, who ruled the seas, the Americans returned and submitted to my regulations. What might I not have done under more favorable circumstances?

"Thus I naturalized in France the manufacture of cotton, which includes

"First, spun cotton. We did not previouly spin it ourselves; the English supplied us with it, as a sort of favor. "Secondly, the web. from abroad.

"Thirdly, the printing.

We did not yet make it; it came to us

This was the only part of the manufac

ture that we performed ourselves. I wished to naturalize the first two branches; and I proposed to the council of state, that their importation should be prohibited. This excited great alarm. I sent for Oberkamp, and I conversed with him a long time. I learned from him, that this prohibition would doubtless produce a shock, but that, after a year or two of perseverance, it would prove a triumph, whence we should derive immense advantages. Then I issued my decree in spite of all; this was a true piece of statesmanship.

"I at first confined myself merely to prohibiting the web; then I extended the prohibition to spun cotton; and we now possess, within ourselves, the three branches of the cotton manufac ture, to the great benefit of our population, and the injury and regret of the English; which proves that, in civil government, as well as in war, decision of character is often indispensable to suc

cess.'

"I will trouble the committee [said Mr. Clay] with only one other quotation, which I shall make from Lowe; and from hearing which, the committee must share with me in the mortification which I felt on perusing it. That author says: It is now above forty years since the United States of America were definitely separated from us, and since, their situation has afforded a proof that the benefit of mercantile intercourse may be retained, in all its extent, without the care of governing, or the expense of defending, these once-regretted provinces.' Is there not too much truth in this observation? By adhering to the foreign policy, which I have been discussing, do we not remain essentially British, in everything but the form of our government? Are not our interests, our industry, our commerce, so modified as to swell British pride, and to increase British power ?"

The above remark, cited by Mr. Clay from Lowe, a British authority, discloses a grave and momentous truth, that is indeed humiliating to an American citizen. So feeble was the protection of American industry previous to 1824, that the advantages which accrued to Great Britain from her trade with the United States, were regarded by British statesmen and economists as greater than if the colonies had never severed, but retained their connexion with the crown! The American revolution and its results were regretted by the British government and people. They are now no longer regretted. And why? Because they are saved the expense of government, and still have the market on terms as favorable as if they had the entire control! They could not legislate better for themselves, than the Americans have done! They have discovered it, they avow it, they boast of it! Such was the actual

state of things down to 1824-embracing nearly fifty years from the declaration of independence. From the peace of 1783, to the adoption of the constitution in 1789, it was much better for Great Britain to have the United States independent of her politically, as she was able, in the absence of a protective system under the confederated states, to make them entirely dependent upon her commercially. It was not her concern, that the United States thus consented to be ruined, and again enslaved. They were getting deeper and deeper in debt, and would soon have lost their political standing, if they had not adopted the new form of government under the constitution, to save themselves—the professed and main object of which was to establish a protective system, and rescue the country. But this was very imperfectly done, and still left to Great Britain and other foreign powers the greatest benefit. The European wars gave some chances to the United States, but no protection to home industry. And the pursuit of these chances brought them into a collision with the belligerents, and finally into a war with Great Britain, inducing with it a protracted period of suffering and sacrifice, ending with a national debt of one hundred and sixty-eight millions! The war of 1812 was itself a protection to home industry, but purchased with the expenses and hazards of the contest. Peace came, but no protection. The nation was still in the power of Great Britain and of other nations. The tariff of 1816 came late, and when it did come, was inadequate. The tariff bill of 1820 failed, in the midst of great national distress arising from the want of it. The nation was a victim of free trade. The tariff of 1824 brought relief and prosperity, which continued till the Jackson regime broke it all down again.

During the whole history of the country, therefore, down to 1842, with only one breathing spell for a few years subsequent to 1824, the commercial connexions of Great Britain with the United States, excepting the brief period of the war, have been more advantageous to her, and more ruinous to them, than if she had retained them as dependent colonies. Compare the facts stated on pages 169, 191, and 192, of this volume, with Lowe's statement as above. There never has been a time, since the establishment of independence, when the United States were not in debt to Great Britain, and the debt was never so great as at this moment. But this could never be under a fair and equal commercial system.

The tariff bill of 1824 became a law by a vote of 107 to 102 in the house, and 25 to 21 in the senate.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PROTECTIVE POLICY.

The Opening of a New Era.-Control of Moral Causes over the Destiny of Nations.-General Jackson's Jealousy of Mr. Clay.-The Effect of this Jealousy on the Protective Policy.-Nations Foot-Balls to Kings.-First Demonstration of an Attack on the Protective Policy:-Mr. Clay comes to the Rescue.-Proposes a Resolution in the Senate for the Reduction of Duties on Unprotected Articles.-Who responsible for the Tariff of 1828.-Parliamentary Advantage of Mr. Clay's Resolution.-Notice of his Speech upon it.-His Reply to Mr. Haynes, of South Carolina.-Two Great Cycles of National Poverty and Wealth. -One of the Greatest Efforts of Mr. Clay in defence of the Protective Policy.

NOTWITHSTANDING the truly astonishing results of the tariff of 1824, in restoring the prosperity of the country, replenishing the national treasury, and enabling the government rapidly to liquidate the public debt, diffusing everywhere private happiness, along with private thrift, hostility to the protective policy, seemed rather to augment than abate, and the astounding doctrine of nullification began to open its demonstrations on the public mind. Though President Jackson, by reason of a private feud, was by no means friendly to the great southern leader of nullification, his jealousy of the father of the American system was not less productive of a personal aversion in that quarter. He knew well by what means he had supplanted his hated rival, and what means were necessary to maintain his ascendency. Having succeeded, as developed in a former part of this work, in accumulating and concentrating public opprobrium, to a great extent, on the head of Mr. Clay, for a falsely-alleged attempt at bargain and corruption, in an official station, for other official honors, the glory which Mr. Clay was rapidly acquiring for the success of the protective policy, may, perhaps, without presumption, be supposed a sufficient motive to a mind that had done a former injustice, of such a flagrant characterand for the same reasons still existing in all their force, and even with greater energy-to endeavor to pluck these clustering plumes from the cap of his opponent. It is indeed not a very bright side

of the destiny of states and nations, to be obliged to observe that they are in such ways liable to be made the sport of the bad passions of prominent and influential individuals-that nations are footballs to kings, and that this class of persons is not confined to the denomination composed of the alphabetical elementsK—I—N—G—S ; but may be found under the various names of tribunes of the people, protectors of commonwealths, first-consuls, and PRESIDENTS of republics. But the true philosophy of history, in its most important, and sometimes momentous, epochs, can never be exposed, independent of the consideration of MORAL CAUSES. These are often the most influential, and most potent. There may, and doubtless will be a difference of opinion, in the passing, though not probably in a future age, in a case like that now under consideration, and each one will be at liberty to have his own. But such a remarkable state of things, the remarkable manner in which it was treated, and the remarkable results which were forced out of it, can not escape the scrutiny and the judgment of mankind; and the rules of judgment will be those which are usually applied to men under given influences.

There are the FACTS: a nation rescued from a long career of adversity, and established in an unexampled course of prosperity, by a system of measures chiefly devised by one mind, and put in operation chiefly by the influence of the same individual. As it can not be concealed, he will of course have the credit of it; and where will the gratitude of the nation, so benefited, find scope to express itself, in honoring such a benefactor? Nothing is plainer: That policy must be BLASTED, or its author will be crowned with unfading laurels and that too early for those who have long been, not unsuccessfully, engaged in supplanting him, and who are only half-way advanced, in their victorious career, to his complete subjection, and to their own uncontrolled supremacy in the state.

Whatever may have been the motives-every man will judge for himself—it is certain, that General Jackson had scarcely warmed the seat of chief magistrate of the republic, before strong and decided symptoms were manifested in his own will, and in the counsels by which he was surrounded, to break down that beneficent system of policy, for the establishment of which Mr. Clay had consecrated his life, and bestowed, without remission his untiring energies, in which he was successful, and which had now begun to shower, over the length and breadth of the land, its manifold blessings.

VOL. II.-12