instructive occasions of Mr. Clay's tour. Mr. Clay said, in con

clusion:

That he had but one complaint to make-it might seem very ungracious for one who had received so much kindness to complain-but he was like the countryman who could not see the town, because there were so many houses. He [Mr. Clay] had made his journey to see the country and its improvements. But the people would not let him see anything but THEMSELVES.”

Mr. Clay's reception at Albany was worthy of the place, where they drew forth a speech from him, by presenting him a cloak that had been made up in three hours. The dignitaries of the city and of the state waited upon him, and proffered, not an empty and heartless hospitality, but a cordial welcome, and good entertainThe masses of the people were all in movement to do him honor, and were heard well as seen.

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On Mr. Clay's return to New York, he visited the city of Newark, New Jersey, renowned for wealth created by its manufacturing establishments, where all were emulous to do him honor, which honored themselves. While there, Mr. Clay left orders for a carriage. It came quicker than he expected. After having been set down at his hotel in New York in the evening, from a new carriage of the same description he had ordered, drawn from Newark by six milk-white steeds, in company with a host of citizens, General Darcy made a brief address, and asked leave, with the compliments of the citizens of Newark, to send the carriage to Ashland for Mrs. Clay. The generous offer took Mr. Clay entirely by surprise. He hesitated in receiving a present so valuable, until he was persuaded that his declining its acceptance would occasion some mortification to his Newark friends. Mr. Clay returned to Washington at the opening of Congress, through Philadelphia, and Wilmington, Delaware, at which places he was honored with the usual greetings.

In a note from Mr. Clay to Judge Brooke, after he had returned to Washington, dated December 11, 1833, he speaks of the agreeable impressions he received from this journey, as follows:

"My journey was full of gratification. In spite of my constant protestations, that it was undertaken with objects of a private nature exclusively, and my uniformly declining public dinners, the people everywhere-and at most places without discrimination of party-took possession of me, and gave enthusiastic demonstrations of respect, attachment, and confidence. In looking back on VOL. II.-23

the scenes through which I passed, they seem to me to resemble those of enchantment, more than real life."

Mr. Clay has had occasion to make several journeys, north and south, during his public life, for private purposes; in all of which, it was equally impossible to repress demonstrations of popular regard, as in this of 1833, which may be taken as a specimen of the whole.

There will have been observed several allusions in this chapter to Mr. Clay's generous, disinterested patriotism-no doubt with perfect sincerity. There is one form in which this character is exemplified in Mr. Clay's history, not before noticed in this work, and never yet observed by the public, because the evidence is of a negative character. Eminent as Mr. Clay has been, long as was his public life, with numberless opportunities, and with almost boundless influence for such purposes, he has never bestowed an office, nor been the means of its being bestowed, on a family connexion, notwithstanding those connexions have been numerous; and at this time Mr. Clay has no relation or connexion holding any office whatever under the government of the United States. This is not an accident, but the result of principle; and Mr. Clay has not escaped reproach for his scrupulous observance of this rule. His son-in-law, Mr. Duralde, of New Orleans, at the instance of the Louisiana delegation in Congress, and without any aid from Mr. Clay, was appointed in 1841 to the office of surveyor of the customs; but has been dismissed by President Polk! Every one will see, that it has been in the power of Mr. Clay to provide for every family connexion living, to the remotest cousin ; but not one of them has been the better for his eminent position and commanding influence.

pose that such duties enter into the price. On unprotected articles, when imposed for revenue, generally, this rule applies, though it is not a certain and exact measure. On protected articles, it is rarely true, and never in any case can it be a reliable

measure.

The false notion, that protective duties are a TAX, in the sense of a burden, has led to all the hostility which the protective policy has encountered. To arrive at the truth, the proposition should be reversed, and read thus: Free trade, on one side, leads to a system of taxation by foreign powers and foreign factors, and the protective policy operates as a rescue from and a shield against such wrongs.

On account of the importance of this proposition, it may be well to spend a few words in illustrating it. In the first place, when a manufacturing nation, like Great Britain, has gained an exclusive market for any of its products in a foreign country, the factors are able to command their own prices. The home government, aware of this, imposes exorbitant excise and other duties on these articles, all of which, in such a case-there being no competition-enter into the prices, and are paid by the consumers. Suppose the consumers are citizens of the United States. It will follow, that these taxes, amounting to not less than 50 per cent. of the cost, are paid by American citizens, for all that they consume of such articles, to support the British government, established church, aristocracy, and all other institutions of that empire. It is a TAX-and an enormous one-without disguise or qualification. Such was the actual condition of the American colonies previous to 1776. Though the evil has been relieved since the establishment of American independence, it has never been entirely abated. The United States have always been one of the best customers of Great Britain, on such terms as to pay all the British imposts and excises on the articles consumed.

To show how the people of the United States have been taxed as customers of Great Britain, in the consumption of her manufactures, it is only necessary to exhibit, as nearly as practicable, the average amount of her imposts on the raw material of her manufactured products, and of her excises on the implements and business of manufacture, through all stages to the final act of export. The following extracts from a congressional document of the house of representatives, No. 296, 3d session, 27th Congress. pp. 500-501, may serve as a basis of this calculation:

England levies no direct taxes upon her colonies, or rarely is it done. But by indirect taxes they give four fifths of their productive wealth to the support of the mother-country. It was that support which she derived from the thirteen [North American] colonies, and it was for that alone she resisted their independence. She desired to produce, and that they should be forced to consume; and of all that they consumed, at least four fifths went into the national treasury at home, after supporting her farmers and mechanics. . . . It is generally alleged, that a man pays 15 shillings for the use of government, out of every 20 shillings he spends in England. Some have stated the public tax at 17 shillings in the pound. Let us take one instance in the article of beer. The land pays a tax; the barley, when malted, pays an excise of sixpence a bushel; hops pay one penny a pound; the beer, when brewed, pays an excise greater, in some cases, than the original value; all the persons who labor in the premises contribute to the national revenue, by their sundry consumptions, to the amount of three fourths of the whole price of their labor. It follows, then, that the people of this country contribute in like proportion to the support of foreign governments, upon all that they purchase. In 1836, we imported more than $70,000,000 worth of foreign articles free of duty. The effect was, that they who purchased these articles, paid not one cent to the support of our own government, while at least four fifths of that amount went into the treasuries of foreign governments, to support kings on their thrones, parliaments that make laws prohibiting our productions, and foreign armies and navies."

It is supposed by the writer of these pages, that the above estimates of indirect taxes paid by British colonies, and of the public domestic tax of Great Britain, may be too large. It is at any rate large enough for the purpose now in view, to reduce it to an average of fifty per cent., which could doubtless be maintained. It will be seen, that all these taxes must necessarily enter into the prices of the articles to the consumers in foreign countries, beside the profits of the manufacturer, the costs of transportation, and the charges of jobbers and retailers.

The following rhetorical sketch of British domestic taxation, ascribed to the pen of Henry Brougham, now Lord Brougham, could not have been without foundation, considering the quarter from which it comes, and though it furnishes but few specific facts, is not less instructive, than eloquent:

"Taxes on every article that enters the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the feet; taxes upon everything that is

pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on everything on the earth and the waters under the earth-on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material, and on every new value that is added by the labor and art of man; taxes on the spices that pamper man's appetite, and on the drug that is administered to his disease; taxes on the ermine that decorates the judge, and on the rope that hangs the criminal; taxes on the poor man's salt, and on the rich man's dainties; taxes on the ribands of the bride, and the brass nails of her coffin;-at bed or at board, couchant ou levant, we must PAY. The schoolboy spins his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, on a taxed saddle, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back on his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent., makes his will on a stamp that has paid eight pounds, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid one hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then taxed from two to ten per cent. in probate, and large fees are demanded for burying him in a church. His virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more."

The last is a questionable statement, judged by the preceding one. If his marble monument is taxed, he is taxed till the morning of the resurrection, if marble can last so long. It would seem, according to this, that the Englishman is taxed for the privilege of coming into the world, taxed all the way through the world, and not only taxed on his passage out of the world, but EVER AFTER! But according to the table exhibited by Mr. Clay, cited in a former chapter, he can afford it. His industry is protected by his government, and all the world, foreign to Great Britain, with which she trades, bears the chief burden of her taxes, as the result of her policy.

The taxes paid to Great Britain, in countries foreign to herself, by the consumers of the products of her manufactories, amounting to not less than fifty per cent. of the cost, will exhibit the range open for reduction of prices in the protected articles of American manufactures, and for other items of saving to the people and government of the United States, under adequate protection. It may be assumed as an average of fifty per cent. under the system of commercial intercourse now and of late existing between the two countries. Of course, though the American tariff were much higher than it is, so long as it is not prohibitory, and so long as any