A SHORT 
 
 Tariff History of the United States 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 PART I.-1783 TO 1789. 
 
 WITH A PRELIMINARY VIEW. 
 
 Disastrous outcome of the only trial of nearly absolute Free Trade between 
 
 the United States and foreign countries. Nature and extent of 
 
 the Protecting Power, with proofs that the Power, as 
 
 conferred in the Constitution, was alien to 
 
 every purpose of raising a revenue. 
 
 EACH PART COMPLETE IN ITSELF. 
 
 BY DAYID H. MASOK 
 
 1 1 
 
 Late Tariff Editor of the Chicago INTER OCEAN. 
 
 Author of " How WESTERN FARMERS ARE BENEFITED BY PROTECTION,' 
 
 "TREATY TARIFFS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL," Etc. 
 
 PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD."-! Z7ie<W., cll.V.,21. 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 460 WEST RANDOLPH STREET, 
 
 1884 r 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 IS,-}, 
 BY DAVID H. MASON. 
 
 f 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, 
 CHICAGO, 
 
TO 
 
 C. G. HUSSEY, ESQ., 
 
 of Pittsburgh, 
 One of the most unselfish and devoted friends of 
 
 Thi* work is inscribed as a formal expression of the Autfwr'% respect, 
 admiration and regard. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE. 9-10. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. Propositions to be proved. Prosperity 
 always coincident with reign of protective principles; hard times 
 always coincident with reign of free- trade principles. 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY VIEW. Great Britain's tyrannical policy toward 
 American colonies. Henry C. Carey's condensed statement of 
 oppressive restrictions. Thomas Jefferson's scathing arraignment 
 of those measures. Policy denounced by Adam Smith. Colonial 
 resistance to slavish dependence on mother country. Efforts of 
 Continental Congress to encourage home production. Industrial 
 freedom an object no less than political liberty. 11-17. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. Trade and industry of the 
 States. Free-trade provision in Constitution of Confederation. 
 Mathew Carey witnesses that ports were open, with scarcely any 
 duties. Other testimony to same effect. Free ports in New Jer- 
 sey. State jealousy and retaliation. Inundation of foreign mer- 
 chandise and its disastrous consequences. All classes involved in 
 calamity. Corroboratory views of Chief-Justice Marshall and 
 Daniel Webster. British merchants monopolize trade of import- 
 ing cities. Dutch Minister's dispatch to his government on this 
 subject. Intelligence thereon from New York City. 18-26. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION Continued. Bankruptcy, ruin, 
 distress, and apprehension. Sample pamphlet of those times; its 
 contents: False notions about value of foreign trade; influx of 
 manufactures from Europe and Asia; in debt to other nations; 
 exhaustive drain of specie; impoverished people; willful neglect 
 of home resources; domestic manufactures clear gain to com- 
 munity; prosperity to be restored by restricting imports and 
 encouraging native production. 27-32. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION Continued. Wild mania for 
 speculation. Spread and increase of pecuniary entanglement. 
 Attributed to heavy excess of imports over exports. People 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 deprived of opportunity to engage in productive industry. 
 Farmers without remunerative market. Community divided into 
 hostile factions of debtors and creditors. 33-40. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION Continued. Embarrassment 
 and suffering universal. Due to great scarcity of money resulting 
 from exports of specie to liquidate unfavorable balances of foreign 
 trade. Growing discontent of the people. Clamor for State 
 issues of paper money, funded on real estate. Cattle and other 
 property made legal tender under appraisement. Legislative 
 attempt to encourage importation of gold and silver. Matters 
 going from bad to worse. Disposition to resist the laws becoming 
 common. Hundreds of farms under execution to pay arrears of 
 taxes. Debtors ruined without paying fourth of demands of 
 creditors. Interest two to three per cent per month. Real estate 
 scarcely salable. Popular threats of suspending administration of 
 justice by private violence. Summary of proofs. 41^8. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION Concluded. Gloom, despond- 
 ency, adversity, and apprehension become chronic afflictions. 
 Spirit of insubordination to State authority. Outbursts of tumult- 
 uous resentment. Tendency to disintegration of the Union. 
 Armed force surrounds Legislature of New Hampshire, and holds 
 the members prisoners. Mobs assemble in Connecticut, and are 
 dispersed by military. Insurrection and rebellion in Massa- 
 chusetts. Three counties of North Carolina secede and set up 
 State of their own. A county of Virginia attempts to join that 
 secession. Wyoming settlers rise in insurrection against Pennsyl- 
 vania authorities. Maine undertakes to establish an independent 
 commonwealth. Testimony of French Minister, British Consul- 
 General, and various other eye-witnesses. An awful crisis. Free 
 trade the starting-point; perilous edge of anarchy the outcome. 
 Imperious necessity of protective system for deliverance. 49-59. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHY "A MORE PERFECT UNION" WAS FORMED. " A Hoop 
 for the Barrel." Necessity for regulating commerce immediate 
 impulse to new government. Object sought, industrial self- 
 defense. Free-trade notions purged away by long and painful 
 experience. Pennsylvania enacts protective tariff for herself . Re- 
 markable preamble to Pennsylvania tariff. Testimony of Fisher 
 Ames, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, and Mr. Huskisson that in- 
 dustrial independence was main object of American Revolution. 
 60-6. 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE NEW PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. Con- 
 fidence at once inspired. General prosperity expected. Relief 
 experienced by all classes. Looking forward to protective 
 measures. Action taken by industrial organizations. Public 
 rejoicing. Formal assemblies to celebrate adoption of Federal 
 Constitution. Description of Philadelphia procession. Stimu- 
 lated home manufactures. Dispatch thereon to British Govern- 
 ment by Lord Dorchester. Correspondence between public men 
 in America on improved state of affairs. New political structure 
 itself a form of protection. 70-81. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PETITIONS TO CONGRESS FOR PROTECTION. Baltimore trades- 
 men and mechanics ask for laws to countervail foreign compe- 
 tition. Shipwrights of Charleston, S. C., appeal for regulation of 
 trade and a navigation act. Citizens of New York pray for 
 legislation to arrest excessive importations. Inhabitants of Boston 
 urge tariff for protection, with revenue made secondary object. 
 How these petitions were received by Congress. Power to protect 
 home industry universally conceded. Statements thereon by 
 Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate. 83-89. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER, Various 
 constitutional provisions natural outgrowths of certain lesson- 
 teaching experiences. Meaning of phrase, "to regulate com- 
 merce," fixed by historical usage. Derivative source of protecting 
 power. Preparatory events. Distinction between duties for rev- 
 enue and duties for regulating trade. Controversy between colonies 
 and mother country on that subject. British coercion and Amer- 
 ican resistance. Widening differences.- Non-importation agree- 
 ments. British restraints on colonial manufactures declared 
 infringements of natural right. Excitement and resentment in, 
 New England. Tendency of colonists at first to free trade. 
 Bitter experience with it under 'political independence reverses that 
 tendency. Protecting power, as adopted in Constitution, purified 
 from its British spirit of aggressiveness, and confined to simple 
 defense. 90-103. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NATURE AND* EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER Con- 
 tinued. Status of question previous to and during Revolutionary 
 war. Radical difference between duties for revenue and duties for 
 regulating trade fully recognized in both Great Britain and 
 America. Franklin's famous examination before House of Com- 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 mons. Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke lay great stress on 
 distinction between revenue and protecting powers. Origin of pro- 
 posal to tax America. Extracts from speeches. Preamble to 
 British Act of Navigation. Preambles to all principal acts to regu- 
 late trade between colonies and mother country. Not one of these 
 acts attempted to levy duties to raise revenue. Preamble to Act 
 of Parliament imposing port duties. Prompt and energetic oppo- 
 sition in the colonies. The odious Stamp Act. Conflagration 
 of excitement. Preamble to act imposing duties on glass, paper, 
 painters' colors, and tea. These acts for single purpose of obtaining 
 revenue from America, Summons to protracted discussion. 
 Celebrated views of John Dickinson. Proceedings of Congres* of 
 Independence. British government formally offers not to impose 
 any duty or tax for purpose of raising revenue in colonies. Pre- 
 dicament for anti-protectionists. 104-120. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING PowER-Contimied.- 
 Discussions on the subject under Confederation. Rufus Choate's 
 exposition of those discussions. Familiarity with them essential 
 to understand vocabulary of Constitution. What was demanded 
 in newspaper and pamphlet literature of that day. Trade left to 
 regulate itself as disastrous as war left to regulate itself. Regula- 
 tion of trade by duties on imports widely advocated as effectual 
 means of protecting American manufactures. General demand 
 for new government clothed with such power. Many extracts 
 from writings in various States. Proof that pow r er to regulate 
 commerce, as inserted in Constitution, included power to impose 
 protecting duties on imports. 121-133. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OP THE PROTECTING POWER Con- 
 cluded. Opinions of distinguished statesmen and lawyers. James 
 Madison's letter to Joseph C. Cabell. Gillian C. Verplanck's letter 
 to Colonel William Dray ton. Extract from Andrew Jackson's 
 second annual message to Congress. Various passages from 
 speeches of Daniel Webster. Rufus Choate's summing up of 
 proofs that protecting power was put in Constitution in pursuance 
 of set purpose to put it there. That power not granted to slumber 
 in lethargy, or to decay by neglect, or to die out through disuse. 
 Condensed statement of points. "A tariff for revenue only" a 
 defeat of one of principal objects in forming present Union. 
 134-157. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE subject of this work is a matter of controversy, 
 and the object is to convince the popular mind; hence, 
 the usual form of history that is to say, simple narra- 
 tive is obviously unsuited to the purpose now in view. 
 I have chosen, therefore, the form of a trial before the 
 High Court of Public Opinion, of which Truth is Chief 
 Justice, and Eeason and Common Sense are the Asso- 
 ciate Justices a case in which Protection appears as 
 plaintiff, and Anti-protection, alias Free Trade, as 
 defendant; and in which the principal witnesses exam- 
 ined are the children of Experience, while the author 
 acts as counsel for the plaintiff. The American people 
 constitute the jury, and will determine their verdict by 
 ballot. 
 
 This, the first part of the work, embraces the most 
 important period in our tariff history, because it was 
 then that the United States, for the first and only time, 
 made a practical trial of free trade of a free trade with 
 foreign nations so nearly absolute as to make the exist- 
 ing custom house policy of England seem, by contrast, 
 the very soul of restriction. The disastrous outcome of 
 that experiment is set up in these pages as a solemn 
 warning to the present and to the future. 
 
 In addition, copious proofs are offered to show that 
 the Federal Convention, in framing the Constitution, 
 granted to Congress both the revenue power and the 
 protecting power; and that the purpose of revenue was 
 alien to the latter power, as then understood, practiced 
 
 9 
 
10 PBEFACE. 
 
 and conferred; so much so, indeed, that "a tariff for 
 revenue only" would be a defeat of the meaning and 
 intent of that power. 
 
 I have undertaken this history after wide, tedious, 
 painstaking research, extended through as many years 
 as there were colonies joined in the revolutionary war; 
 and I have written this part of the work with conscien- 
 tious and vigilant regard for the exact truth. So far 
 as I am aware, not a fact has been overstated, not a 
 consequence has been exaggerated. Instead, I think I 
 can justly claim, metaphorically, to have dug down to 
 the original protecting power through nearly a century 
 of eruptive overflow from the volcanic discussions of the 
 tariff question; and to have laid bare the distinct out- 
 lines of that buried and forgotten Herculaneum of the 
 Constitution, which was as familiar as their own door- 
 steps to. the first generation of American statesmen. 
 
 But entire unanimity of views is not to bo realized 
 on any subject whatever. I expect to find readers who 
 will continue unconvinced, despite the heavy array of 
 proofs; yet I shall be much gratified to have such per- 
 sons, each and all, communicate to me direct the ground 
 of objection; also, to have all printed criticisms mailed 
 to my address given below. No one can be more 
 anxious than myself to be convicted of error, if error 
 can be pointed out; for I have been at the utmost pains 
 
 to avoid -esoR 
 
 DAVID H. MASOST, 
 
 460 West Randolph St., Chicago, Illinois. 
 
A Short Tariff History tf the United States 
 the Earliest to the Present Time, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 This history, of which the following chapters con- 
 stitute the first part, is intended to prove conclusively 
 the following propositions, which the reader is urged to 
 keep constantly in mind, as the central object of the 
 whole record: 
 
 All the prosperity enjo} r ed by the American people 
 absolutely all the prosperity, without any reservation 
 whatever from the foundation of the United States 
 government down to the present time, has been under 
 the reign of protective principles; and all the hard^ 
 times suffered by the American people, in the same 
 period, has been preceded either by a heavy reduction 
 of duties on imports, or by insufficient protection, thus 
 refuting all free-trade theories on the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY VIEW. 
 
 The alienation of the American colonies from the 
 mother country was very largely due to her tyrannical 
 policy of refusing to them permission to manufacture 
 their own raw materials for their own uses. She passed 
 restrictive laws of the most sweeping kind, enforced by 
 
 11 
 
12 PRELIMINARY VIEW. 
 
 severe penalties, with the avowed design to reduce the 
 colonists to abject dependence on the parent state for 
 their necessary supplies of manufactured articles, and 
 with the result of subjecting the victimized people to 
 industrial bondage. The inevitable tendency of this 
 system was to constitute Great Britain the almost sole 
 buyer of America's raw produce, and the almost sole 
 seller of the fabrics to be given in exchange for it, with 
 increasing power to fix the prices of both. A thorough 
 understanding of this self -aggrandizing scheme is essen- 
 tial to a thorough understanding of the American 
 system of legislative protection to home industry its 
 aim, its mode of operation, its present attitude. With- 
 out such comprehension it is impossible to find the key 
 which will unlock all the meaning of the tariff problem. 
 Marked prominence is therefore given to an exhibit of 
 the animus which actuated the colonial policy of the 
 British government- its tremendous self-seeking, its 
 ^vile disregard of the commonest principles of equity, 
 its trampling under foot of the rights of labor; all to 
 feed fat an unscrupulous greed for gain, and glut- 
 tonously to satisfy a voracious appetite for power and 
 dominion. 
 
 Henry C. Carey (in his work, " The Slave Trade, 
 Domestic and Foreign," page 95) has condensed into 
 a single paragraph the main points of the principal 
 measures to subordinate the interests of the colonies on 
 this continent and elsewhere to the interests of the 
 mother country. He says: 
 
 The first attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the 
 North American provinces produced a resolution on the part of 
 the House of Commons (1710) that the erecting of manufactories 
 in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great 
 
PRELIMINARY VIEW. 13 
 
 Britain. Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament 
 that the colonists were establishing manufactories for themselves, 
 and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report 
 on the subject, which was done at great length. In 1732 the 
 exportation of hats from province to province was prohibited, and 
 the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters was limited. In 
 1750 the erection of any mill or other engine for splitting or rolling 
 iron was prohibited; but pig iron was allowed to be imported into 
 England duty free, that it might be there manufactured and sent 
 back again. At a later period Lord Chatham declared that he 
 would not permit the colonists to make even a hobnail for them- 
 selves; and his views were then and subsequently carried into 
 effect by the absolute prohibition, in 1765, of the export of artisans; 
 in 1781 of woolen machinery; in 1782 of cotton machinery and 
 artificers in cotton; in 1785 of iron and steel making machinery 
 and workmen in those departments of trade; and in 1799 by the 
 prohibition of the export of colliers, lest other countries should 
 acquire the art of mining coal. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, commenting on the parliamentary 
 legislation repressive of colonial industry, and intended 
 to aggrandize Great Britain at the expense of her de- 
 pendencies, expressed himself boldly and emphatically 
 thus: 
 
 That to heighten still the idea of parliamentary justice, and to 
 show with what moderation they are likely to exercise power 
 where themselves are to feel no part of its weight, we take leave to 
 mention to his Majesty certain other acts of the British Parliament, 
 by which we were prohibited from manufacturing for our own 
 use the articles we raise on our own lands with our own labor. 
 By an act passed in the fifth year of the reign of his late Majesty, 
 King George II., an American subject is forbidden to make a hat 
 for himself of the fur which he has taken, perhaps, on his own 
 soil an instance of despotism to which no parallel can be pro- 
 duced in the most arbitrary ages of British history. 
 
 By one other act, passed in the twenty-third year of the same 
 reign, the iron Which we make we are forbidden to manufacture ; 
 and heavy as that article is, and necessary in every branch of hus- 
 
14 PRELIMINARY VIEW. 
 
 bandry, besides commission and insurance, we are to pay freight 
 for it to Great Britain, and freight for it back again, for the pur- 
 pose of supporting, not men, but machines, in the island of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 What Adam Smith, the father of the science of 
 political economy, thought of such measures in relation 
 to colonies is thus stated (book IV., chap. VII.) in his 
 famous work on "The Wealth of Nations/' first pub- 
 lished in 1776: 
 
 To prohibit a great people, however, from making all they 
 can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their 
 stock and industry in a way that they judge most advantageous to 
 themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of 
 mankind. 
 
 The slavish dependence forced in this arbitrary and 
 heartless way upon the colonists was very galling. 
 When, after many unsuccessful efforts, they discovered 
 that their various attempts to obtain redress led only to 
 additional and cumulative restraints, they yielded to 
 feelings of insubordination; and, as their resentment at 
 the injustice and monopoly control of the mother coun- 
 try became more and more exasperated, a growing dis- 
 position was manifested to retaliate for the wrongs 
 suffered at her hands, by refusing to buy or consume 
 British goods. At the outset, this patriotic resolve was 
 limited to voluntary associations, which pledged their 
 members to non-importation agreements. But, when 
 the Continental Congress assembled (September 5, 1774) 
 in Philadelphia, this mode of resistance had assumed, 
 in the popular mind, the aspects of a principle of na- 
 tional action. A brief sketch of the proceedings of that 
 body appears in the first volume of Elliot's "Debates 
 on the Federal Constitution/ 5 in a preliminary paper, 
 
PRELIM IN All Y VIEW. 15 
 
 entitled "Gradual Approaches toward Independence," 
 from which the following detached passages are quoted: 
 
 On the nineteenth of September (1774) it was unanimously 
 resolved that the Congress request the merchants and others, in the 
 several colonies, not to send to Great Britain any orders for goods, 
 and to direct the execution of all orders already sent to be delayed 
 or suspended until the sense of the Congress on the means to be 
 taken for the preservation of the liberties of America should be 
 made public. 
 
 On the twenty-seventh of September the Congress unanimously 
 resolved that, from and after the first of December, 1774, there 
 should be no importation into British America, from Great Britain 
 or Ireland, of any goods, wares, or merchandise exported there- 
 from ; and that they should not be used or purchased if imported 
 after that day. On the thirtieth of September it was further 
 resolved that, from and after the tenth of September, 1775, the 
 exportation of all merchandise, and every commodity whatsoever, 
 to Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies ought to cease, 
 unless the grievances of America should be redressed before that 
 time. 
 
 On the sixth of October (1774) it was resolved to exclude from 
 importation, after the first of December following, molasses, coffee, 
 or pimento from the British plantations, or from Dominica ; 
 wines from Madeira and the Western Islands ; and foreign indigo. 
 
 On the twentieth day of October (1774) the non-importation, 
 non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement was adopted 
 and signed by the Congress. This agreement contained a clause 
 to discontinue the slave trade, and a provision not to import East 
 India tea from any part of the world. In the article respecting 
 non-exportations, the sending of rice to Europe was excepted. 
 In general, the association expressed a determination to suppress 
 luxury, encourage frugality, and promote domestic manufactures. 
 The agreement was dated the twenty-fourth of October. 
 
 On the seventeenth of May (1775) it was unanimously resolved 
 that all exportations to Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Island of St. 
 John's, Newfoundland, Georgia (except the parish of St. John's), 
 and to East and West Florida immediately cease, and that no pro- 
 vision of any kind, or other necessaries, be furnished to the British 
 
16 PRELIMINARY VIEW. 
 
 fisheries on the American coasts until it be otherwise determined 
 by the Congress. 
 
 At the same time (July 31, 1775), it was made the duty of a 
 committee, in the recess of Congress, to inquire into the cheapest 
 and easiest methods of making salt in the country, and to make 
 inquiry after virgin lead and leaden ore, etc. 
 
 On the first of August Congress adjourned to the fifth of 
 September, 1775, having first passed a resolution declaring the 
 non-exportation and non-importation association to comprise the 
 islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, and Man, and every 
 European island and settlement within the British dominions, as 
 well as all the West India Islands, British and foreign, to whatever 
 state, power or prince belonging, or by whomsoever governed; 
 and also Somers's Islands, Bahama Islands, Herbicia, and Surinam, 
 on the Main, and every island and settlement within the latitude 
 of the southern line of Georgia and the equator. 
 
 On the twenty-first of March (1776) Congress recommended to 
 the several provincial assemblies to exert their utmost endeavors to 
 promote the culture of hemp, flax, and cotton, and the growth of 
 wool, in the United Colonies; to take the earliest measures for erecting 
 and establishing, in each colony, a society for the improvement of 
 agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce; and forthwith to 
 consider of the ways and means of introducing and improving the 
 manufactures of duck, sail-cloth, and steel. 
 
 These extracts show very distinctly that industrial 
 independence and political independence were regarded, 
 even at that early day, as the vital halves of a consistent 
 whole. The Revolutionary war was not fought out for 
 the sole purpose of gaining political independence. 
 Industrial considerations entered into that contest quite 
 as fully as political considerations, and substantially 
 involved the idea expressed by Thomas Jefferson in his 
 letter to Benjamin Austin, in 1816: "Experience has 
 taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to 
 our independence as to our comfort." It was the strong 
 desire of the colonists to be set free from their helpless 
 
PRELIMINARY VIEW. 17 
 
 and debasing reliance on Great Britain for their manu- 
 factured supplies, so that they might manufacture their 
 own raw materials without hindrance, and enjoy to the 
 full the development of their native resources, which 
 lay at the bottom of the great struggle. Here is to be 
 found the germ of our protective system a germ which 
 became the creative principle in forming "a more per- 
 fect Union," and in enacting the tariff of 1789, as 
 measures of deliverance from industrial bondage to 
 Great Britain. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 The foreign trade of the American colonies had been 
 almost entirely with Great Britain and her West India 
 possessions, and consisted, with very few exceptions, in 
 the exportation of raw materials and the importation of 
 manufactures. Shipbuilding, however, had become an 
 established and thrifty industry, in consequence of the 
 abundance and cheapness of suitable timber in the new 
 world. A considerable amount of tonnage had been 
 sold every year in Europe. But the Revolutionary war, 
 by arresting commercial intercourse with other coun- 
 tries, radically changed the former circumstances, and 
 threw the colonists very largely upon their native re- 
 sources for their necessary supplies. This long inter- 
 ruption of foreign trade operated with the force and 
 effect of a protective tariff in developing the manufact- 
 uring powers of the people, so that, at the close of 
 hostilities, the manufacture of indispensable articles 
 had expanded to a remarkable degree in such of the 
 States as possessed the requisite materials and skilled 
 labor. Those great instrumentalities in science and 
 mechanism which have revolutionized the industrial 
 processes of the world had not then been discovered or 
 invented. Machinery, therefore, was scanty in quantity 
 and crude in kind. Almost all of the manufacturing 
 was confined to the household, in the various branches 
 of spinning, weaving, knitting, and dyeing. But, in 
 addition to this diversified aggregate of fireside manual 
 industry, there was a long list of the mechanic arts 
 
 18 
 
U.NDER THE COXFEDEKATI 
 
 carried on generally in small establishmenl 
 
 factories, rolling mills, and workshops, such as are 
 
 plentiful to-day, then had no existence in America. 
 
 The peace of 1783 swept away the stimulating influ- 
 ences exerted by the war, and precipitated on the then 
 independent States the multiform evils of unrestrained 
 foreign competition. By the fourth article of the 
 Articles of Confederation, ratified in Philadelphia by 
 delegates of the thirteen colonies, July 9, 1778, it was 
 stipulated as follows: 
 
 The people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to 
 and from every other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privi- 
 leges of trade and commerce subject to the same duties, imposi- 
 tions, and restrictions, as the inhabitants thereof respectively, 
 provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent 
 the removal of property imported into any State to any other State, 
 of which the owner is an inhabitant. 
 
 As Congress had no authority to enact a general 
 tariff on imports without the consent of every one of 
 the States, and as this authority was steadily refused, 
 the result of the above provisions was that virtual free 
 trade prevailed with foreign countries, from the peace 
 of Paris until August 1, 1789, when the first tariff act 
 under "the more perfect Union " went into effect. Each 
 State thought itself competent to regulate its own com- 
 merce, external and internal; sought by its own separate 
 import laws and navigation acts to serve its own par- 
 ticular interests, without at all considering the interests 
 of the other States; and they in this way impeded or 
 defeated one another's measures. Matthew Carey, in 
 "The New Olive Branch" (page 32), says: 
 
 At the close of the Revolutionary war the trade of America 
 was free and unrestrained in the fullest sense of the word, accord- 
 
20 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 ing to the theory of Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, the Edinburgh 
 Reviewers, and the authors of the Encyclopaedia. Her ports were 
 open, with scarcely any duties, to the vessels and merchandise of 
 all other nations. 
 
 The rate of duties in Pennsylvania was only two and a half 
 per cent. Even these were nugatory, because there was a free 
 port established at Burlington by the State of New Jersey, where 
 goods intended for Philadelphia were entered and conveyed over 
 to this city clandestinely. The same fraudulent scenes were 
 enacted in other States, and thus trade was, as I have stated, 
 wholly free. 
 
 Bancroft, in his " History of the Formation of the 
 Constitution" (Vol. I., p. 175), says: 
 
 The harbor at the mouth of the Hudson was at that time [1784] 
 the most convenient port of entry for New Jersey and Connecticut, 
 and the State of New York, through its custom house, levied on 
 their inhabitants as well as on its own an ever increasing revenue 
 by imports. The collector was a stubborn partisan. 
 
 The irritating persistency in seeking local advantage, 
 and this spirit of retaliation, increased with the lapse 
 of time. Otto, the French minister at New York, wrote 
 home to his government, under date of March 17, 1786, 
 what follows: 
 
 While the different States are active in granting the requisition 
 of last September, and also a duty of five per cent upon all impor- 
 tations, Congress has been informed that New Jersey had sud- 
 denly recalled the powers which it had already given, and that it 
 had refused to levy its contingent for the expenses of the Confed- 
 eration. The motive for this revolting conduct was jealousy, on 
 the part of New Jersey, of New York, which by its position 
 enjoys an advantage on a great part of its commerce, and which, 
 by means of its customs duties, levies a sort of impost upon New 
 Jersey and Connecticut. New York, not having acceded to the 
 resolutions of Congress, derives a great advantage from its customs, 
 and obliges its neighbors, which have no large commercial towns, 
 to pay a part of the expenses of its government. * * * The 
 
UNDEE THE CONFEDERATION. 21 
 
 Assembly of New Jersey has just repealed its resolutions ; and, to 
 force New York to submit to the wish of Congress, it establishes 
 a free port at Paulus Hook, lying to the west of the mouth of the 
 North river, opposite New York. This port can do great 
 damage to the commerce of that State, and it is hoped that a 
 measure so decisive, the appeals of the members of the Union, 
 and the activity of Congress, seated in that city, will finally pre- 
 vail in changing its system. 
 
 On the same subject and the evil results Young says, 
 in his "National Economy " (p. 15): 
 
 Although the States were politically independent, it was im- 
 possible to countervail the policy of other nations. Each State 
 having, under the Confederation, the right to regulate its own 
 trade, it imposed upon foreign productions, as well as those of its 
 sister States, such duties as its own interests seemed to dictate. 
 The States attempted, by their separate navigation laws, to secure 
 their trade to their own vessels ; and the selfish policy of some 
 States counteracted the efforts of others. As the Congress had no 
 power to lay duties or regulate trade, and as the States could not 
 agree upon a uniform rate of duties, foreign nations passed such 
 laws as they judged most likely to destroy our commerce and 
 extend their own. 
 
 Especially was this the policy of Great Britain. Our trade 
 with her West India colonies was prohibited ; and, by the enforce- 
 ment of her navigation acts, our navigation was nearly destroyed. 
 Foreign vessels and goods being freely admitted into the States, 
 while ours were burdened with heavy duties in foreign ports, both 
 the prices of goods imported and the prices of our exports were 
 subject to the will of foreigners ; and the money of our citizens 
 was rapidly passing into the pockets of British manufacturers and 
 merchants. In describing the state of the country at that time, a 
 distinguished American statesman thus remarks : 
 
 "In the comparative condition of the United States and Great 
 Britain, not a hatter, a boot or shoemaker, a saddler, or a brass 
 founder could carry on his business, except in the coarsest and 
 most ordinary productions of their various trades, under the 
 pressure of this foreign competition. Thus was presented the 
 
22 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 extraordinary and calamitous spectacle of a successful revolution 
 wholly failing of its ultimate object. The people of America had 
 gone to war, not for names, but for things. It was not merely to 
 change a government administered by kings, princes, and minis- 
 ters for a government administered by presidents, and secretaries, 
 and members of Congress. It was to redress their own grievances, 
 to improve their own condition, to throw off the burden which 
 the colonial system laid on their industry. To attain these 
 objects, they endured incredible hardships, and bore and suffered 
 almost beyond the measure of humanity. And when their inde- 
 pendence was attained, they found it was a piece of parchment. 
 The arm which had struck for it in the field was palsied in the 
 workshop ; the industry which had been burdened in the colonies 
 was crushed in the free States ; and, at the close of the Revolution, 
 the mechanics and manufacturers of the country found themselves, 
 in the bitterness of their hearts, independent and ruined." 
 
 The inundation of foreign goods wliich took place 
 under these circumstances, and the deplorable conse- 
 quences wliich followed, are thus described by Matthew 
 Carey, in the "New Olive Branch" (p. 34): 
 
 From almost every nation in Europe large shipments were 
 made to this country many of them of the most ludicrous kind, 
 which implied an utter ignorance of the wants, the situation, and 
 the resources of the United States. Among the rest the recesses 
 of Monmouth street, in London, and Plunket street, in Dublin, 
 the receptacles of the cast-off clothes of the two metropolises, were 
 emptied of a portion of their contents; for it was supposed that 
 the war had rendered the nation destitute of everything, even of 
 covering. Happy was the man who could send " a venture," as it 
 was called, to this country, which the misguided Europeans sup- 
 posed an El Dorado, where everything was to be converted into 
 gold with a cent per cent profit at least. Goods often lay on the 
 wharves for many days for want of store-room. House rent rose 
 to double and treble the former rates. The importers and con- 
 signees at first sold at great advances, and believed they were rap- 
 idly indemnifying themselves for the deprivations and sufferings . 
 of the war. 
 
DNDEK THE COXEEDEKATIOX. 23 
 
 But these glorious times soon came to a close, like those of 
 1815. From "day-dreams" and delusive scenes of boundless 
 wealth, the citizens awoke to pinching misery and distress. " The 
 nation had no mines to pay her debts. And industry, the only 
 legitimate and permanent source of individual happiness, and 
 national wealth, power, and resources, was destroyed, as it has 
 recently been by the influx, and finally by the depreciation of the 
 price, of the imported articles; for, the quantity on hand being 
 equal to the consumption of two or three years, of course the 
 great mass of goods fell below cost often to half and one third. 
 All our citizens were at once converted into disciples of Adam 
 Smith. They purchased every species of goods " cheaper than 
 they could be manufactured at home." Accordingly domestic 
 manufactures were arrested in their career. The weaver, the shoe- 
 maker, the hatter, the saddler, the sugar-baker, the brewer, the rope- 
 maker, etc., were reduced to bankruptcy. Their establishments 
 were suspended. Their workmen were consigned to beggary. 
 The payment for the foreign rubbish exhausted the country of 
 nearly the whole of its specie, immense quantities of which had 
 been introduced to pay the French armies, and likewise from the 
 Spanish colonies. Two thirds, probably, of the specie then in the 
 country were composed of French crowns. 
 
 He further emphasizes his recital of the lamentable 
 condition of affairs thus (p. 45) : 
 
 The ports of this country, I repeat, were open to the commerce 
 of the whole world, with an impost so light as not even to meet 
 the wants of the Treasury. The consequences followed which 
 have never failed to follow such a state of things. Our markets 
 were glutted. Prices fell. Competition on the part of our manu- 
 facturers was at an end. They were beggared and bankrupted. 
 The merchants, whose importations had ruined them, were involved 
 in the calamity. And the farmers, who had felicitated themselves 
 on the grand advantage of "buying foreign merchandise cheap," 
 sunk likewise into the vortex of general destruction. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall, in his well-known " Life of 
 
24 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 Washington" (Vol. V., p. 75), thus confirms the state- 
 ments made by Carey and others: 
 
 On opening their ports an immense quantity of foreign mer. 
 chandise was introduced into the country, and they were tempted 
 by the sudden cheapness of imported goods, and by their own 
 wants, to purchase beyond their capacities for payment. Into 
 this indiscretion they were in some measure beguiled by their own 
 sanguine calculations on the value which a free trade would 
 bestow on the produce of their soil, and by a reliance on those 
 evidences of the public debt which were in the hands of most of 
 them. So extravagantly, too, did many estimate the temptation 
 which equal liberty and vacant lands would hold out to emigrants 
 from the Old World, as to entertain the opinion that Europe was 
 about to empty itself into America, and that the United States 
 would derive from that source such an increase of population as 
 would enhance their lands to a price heretofore not even con- 
 jectured. 
 
 Daniel Webster, whose speeches and addresses show 
 that he had made a very thorough study of our early 
 history, found the same state of facts as that described 
 by the earlier witnesses. In his address delivered to 
 the citizens of Pittsburgh, July 8, 1833, he said: 
 
 From the close of the war of the Revolution, there came on a 
 period of depression and distress, on the Atlantic coast, such as 
 the people had hardly felt during the sharpest crisis of the war 
 itself. Ship-owners, shipbuilders, mechanics, artisans, all were 
 destitute of employment, and some of them destitute of bread. 
 British ships came freely, and British ships came plentifully; 
 while to American ships and American products there was neither 
 protection on the one side, nor the equivalent of reciprocal free 
 trade on the other. The cheaper labor of England supplied the 
 inhabitants of the Atlantic shores with everything. Ready-made 
 clothes, among the rest, from the crown of the head to the soles 
 of the feet, were for sale in every city. All these things came 
 free from any general system of imposts. Some of the States 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 25 
 
 attempted to establish their own partial systems, but they failed. 
 Voluntary association was resorted to, but that failed also. 
 
 In some of the States the whole merchant class was 
 engulfed, no less than the manufacturers and their 
 workmen, by the augmenting flood of inpouring foreign 
 goods, which seemed about to overwhelm every material 
 interest of the country. Proof of this is presented by 
 Bancroft, in the appendix to his "History of the Forma- 
 tion of the Constitution" (Vol. L, p. 432), where he 
 cites the following extract from an official dispatch of 
 Van Berckel, American minister of the United Nether- 
 lands, to his government, under date of April 27, 
 1785: 
 
 The latest news from Boston which have arrived here announce 
 that the merchants at that place are extremely dissatisfied; that a 
 number of English factors and agents settling there have made a 
 sort of monopoly of all the goods imported from England, whereby 
 the trade of that town must fall entirely into English hands. The 
 merchants have resolved to petition Congress to adopt such meas- 
 ures regarding the trade of the United States as shall be advanta- 
 geous ; that, until the necessary resolutions shall be taken by 
 Congress, the merchants resolve solemnly to have no direct or 
 indirect commercial relations with these factors or agents, and, 
 for this object, neither to sell nor to rent houses or warehouses to 
 them; further, they have resolved to address the supreme executive 
 of each State to adopt the necessary measures to prevent the 
 unloading of all goods on English account consigned to such 
 factors or agents. It is certain that the English have the trade of 
 these States almost wholly in their hands, whereby their influence 
 must increase; and a constantly increasing scarcity of money 
 begins to be felt, since no ship sails hence to England without 
 large sums of money on board, especially the English packet- 
 boats, which monthly take with them between forty and fifty 
 thousand pounds sterling. 
 
 On page 439, in the appendix, Bancroft cites the 
 
26 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 following intelligence from New York, under date of 
 June 4, 1785: 
 
 There is no trade with any but the British, who alone give the 
 credit they want, and draw off all the bullion they can collect. 
 They see no prospect of clothing themselves, unless they had the 
 circuitous commerce they formerly enjoyed with Great Britain, 
 which many think a vain expectation, now they are no part of the 
 empire. The scarcity of money makes the produce of the country 
 cheap, to the disappointment of the farmers and the discourage- 
 ment of husbandry. Thus the two classes of merchants and 
 farmers, that divide nearly all America, are discontented and 
 distressed. Some great change is approaching. 
 
 Less than three years of practical free trade with 
 foreign nations had sufficed to bring about this revulsion, 
 and to fill the land with ruin and suffering, so that the 
 melancholy spectacle was presented of a people, who 
 rose in war, sinking in peace. Those days of severe 
 trial and bitter experience teach precious lessons, worthy 
 the attention of such of our statesmen as are disposed 
 to trace national calamities to their proper causes, in 
 order to guard against their return at a future period. 
 
 In the events under the Confederation which remain 
 to be narrated we shall see the gloom thickening, the 
 depression more widely diffused, the embarrassments 
 more afflictive, the difficulties of the situation more 
 complex and dangerous. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 UKDEE THE CONFEDERATION CONTINUED. 
 
 The six years after the peace of 1783 cover the only 
 period in which the experiment of virtual free trade 
 with other countries has been tried by the United 
 States. It is Great Britain's boast a false boast that 
 she has banished the protective principle from her 
 tariff, and that she levies duties on imports with the 
 sole object of procuring revenue; but her present cus- 
 tom-house system embodies the very soul of restriction 
 when compared with the low,, scant, feeble barriers to 
 the entrance of foreign merchandise that were set up 
 separately by the various American States which com- 
 posed the Confederation. For the first and only time 
 in the history of this country, a full and fair trial was 
 given to the policy of practically unrestrained importa- 
 tions. So disastrous was the outcome so overwhelm- 
 ing are the proofs of the failure in practice of the doc- 
 trines of the free traders that the frightful demoral- 
 ization which took place, involving all classes of the 
 people, and even threatening the safety of political 
 liberty, should be made conspicuous in these annals, as 
 a solemn warning to the present and the future. 
 
 Before the close of 1786 bankruptcy, distress, and 
 apprehension had spread throughout the various States, 
 with domestic violence in several of them. Many 
 pamphlets, designed to elucidate the situation and to 
 point out the remedy, began to be published. These 
 were mainly of two distinct sorts, those which discussed 
 the proposed emission of paper money under State 
 
 27 
 
28 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 authority, as the true plan of ameliorating the public 
 troubles, and those which advocated the regulation of 
 foreign trade for the development of home manufact- 
 ures, as the only method which could eradicate tho 
 existing evils. One of the latter " The Commercial 
 Conduct of the United States of America Considered, 
 and the True Interests thereof, attempted to be shown 
 by a Citizen of New York " (1786), for gratuitous cir- 
 culation may be taken as a sample of its class. In his 
 preface the author says: 
 
 The profession of a merchant .is trade, they consult their own 
 interest; but it is the Legislature only which can check and pro- 
 hibit an intemperate, impolitic, and luxurious commerce, and 
 therefore, for the exertion of such power and authority, the fol- 
 lowing sheets are inscribed to the Legislatures of the respective 
 States. 
 
 He begins by pointing out how the prisons are 
 crowded with debtors; how the estates of many are 
 sold by execution from under their feet, to satisfy very 
 trifling debts; how the cries of all ranks of the people 
 are for money; and how the result is a complication of 
 misfortune and misery. Then he proceeds to designate 
 the parent cause and the needed remedy, as follows: 
 
 I would observe that it is generally laid down as a self-evident 
 proposition that trade is the road to and fountain of riches. Of 
 this very few among us ever so much as doubted, and therefore 
 every man that has it in his power turns merchant; but whether 
 in such their commercial pursuits they serve themselves or their 
 country, or whether it has not a direct contrary effect, is what I 
 also mean to consider in the following pages. 
 
 We have many merchants whose trade is altogether to Europe, 
 from whence they import every kind of its manufactures, of 
 which I have often known above fifty thousand pounds sterling 
 arrive in a single ship, the greatest part of which are foreign 
 
UNDEK THE CONFEDERATION. 29 
 
 linens and Asiatic manufactures; but, taking in all the ports of 
 Great Britain, and those of foreign countries, this continent did, 
 for several years before the war, import above three millions 
 sterling per annum, and, since the conclusion of peace, our 
 importation has been greater than ever, for now all Europe pours 
 in like a flood her luxuries upon us. In this vast importation 
 the people rejoice upon the same principle that the Portuguese do, 
 who think that their great importation is a mark of their riches, 
 when it is exports alone that make a country rich, and imports 
 that impoverish it; and that all our bread and flour, beef, pork, 
 horses, fish, lumber, fur, potash, rice, indigo, etc., are not able to 
 keep us out of debt, I think the Legislature and every merchant 
 must be fully convinced of, or we should not be millions in debt 
 to Europe as we at present are; and this is the reason that we are 
 not able to keep any money among us, for silver and gold 
 imported for our provisions and productions cannot stay here 
 whilst there is so great a balance in Europe against us. It, not 
 being ours, is therefore no increase of our wealth. The only way 
 of keeping gold and silver in these States is by consuming less of 
 foreign commodities than what our own commodities will amount 
 to, for then, whatever the balance is, it certainly is our own, and 
 will stay in the States, but, our provisions and other produce not 
 being by any means equal to our vast imports, our money must 
 go, and this is the real and only cause of our distresses which we 
 have and do now labor under. 
 
 * * * Foreign commodities, which by us ought to be 
 looked on as luxuries, must certainly impoverish these States by 
 being brought in; but that is the fault of our importation, and 
 there the mischief ought by wholesome laws to be cured; vanity 
 and luxury spend them, and our merchants having imported and 
 vended them, our money must go to pay for them; but, as that 
 alone will not do, our lands have been and are every day sold to 
 make up the deficiency. 
 
 * * That Britons who planted themselves here, and 
 brought with them arts and sciences, should not be able in one 
 of the best countries, situated in the most desirable climate under 
 heaven, whose very forests abound with natural plenty, whose 
 luxuriant soil refuses not to yield any fruits that its owner demands, 
 and is actually capable of any productions that any pan of the 
 
30 UNDEK THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 world is known to afford, and which in great measure experience 
 has demonstrated for this we can venture to assert, that whatever 
 has been introduced here from Europe, or from under the tropic, 
 to this continent, flourish here that such a country, then, should 
 have recourse to Europe, and even to the most despicable corners 
 of it, and through them to Asia, in order to clothe themselves, is 
 such a conduct of its inhabitants that a stranger unacquainted 
 with these facts would pronounce them incredible; but would he 
 not be astonished when he was told that the United States of 
 North America were, according to the best calculations, above five 
 millions sterling in debt to Great Britain, not only for useful 
 goods (which we want), but for silks, chintz, calicoe, muslin, tea, 
 etc., from Asia; and even for linen from Silesia and Austria via 
 London and Amsterdam; hemp, diaper, sheeting, and other linens 
 from Russia, and even from Archangel, when they have under 
 their feet a country whose natural fertility surpasses any in the 
 world? 
 
 But they prefer ploughing the ocean, from the torrid to the 
 frigid zone, rather than our fields, and to supply a whole kingdom 
 with flaxseed, and afterward involve themselves in debt to that 
 very people for linen a people oppressed by their lords with 
 extreme heavy rents, whilst the inhabitants of these States pay no 
 rents at all. But, notwithstanding this, they choose to be in debt, 
 and to have their lands taken from them, rather than to make 
 their own linen. 
 
 Men being brought up with the notions of an ex- 
 tended foreign trade, they think there is no way to fortune but 
 that; and therefore, more particularly since our declared independ- 
 ence, they, in pursuit of commerce, are exploring the whole globe, 
 even from (Greenland north to Falkland's Island south, and from 
 lake Superior west to China east; all this in pursuit of imaginary 
 wealth, whilst they have a redundancy of real wealth in their own 
 soil; but, by means of their search after it in Europe, they import 
 such immense quantities of goods that they have thereby not only 
 stripped us of every farthing of our money, but have and are 
 daily reducing us to the greatest distress. 
 
 * * * We are poor with a profusion of natural wealth in 
 our possession. That we are poor needs no other proof than our 
 prisons, bankruptcies, judgments, executions, auctions, mortgages, 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 31 
 
 etc., and the shameless quantity of business in our courts of 
 law. * * * Great Britain, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, 
 sent the wool of England to Flanders, there to be manufactured, 
 and then the cloth returned and sold to the English, whose true 
 interest was not understood or pursued till the persecution in the 
 Low Countries by the Duke of Alva; in consequence, thousands 
 of manufacturers fled to England, where they were received with 
 open arms, from which time manufactures increased, improved, 
 and drew wealth from all other parts of the world. Let us, then, 
 avoid the former ignorance of Great Britain, as well as her 
 modern mistakes, and adopt that part of her present policy which 
 gives protection, countenance, and encouragement to arts and 
 sciences. 
 
 But we are not without many persons among us who assert that 
 we can import goods from France, Holland, Hamburgh, India, 
 etc., cheaper than we can make them; and therefore conclude 
 that it is our interest to encourage such importation; but, in order 
 to convince them of their dangerous mistake, I will suppose a 
 piece of Dutch or Irish linen costs in Europe forty shillings, which 
 must be paid for either in our money or produce; but if a piece of 
 equal quality be our own manufacture, and although it costs 
 more per yard, it nevertheless is so much clear gain to the State, 
 because the flax and labor of which it is composed is our own; 
 but, in the first case, neither one nor the other; and this being 
 equally true in all other goods, most of which are made or pre- 
 pared by women and children, it is therefore so much clear gain. 
 
 * * * To conclude, if, from what has been said, it appears 
 that we have in our commercial pursuits been very much mis- 
 taken; and if we choose to continue to indulge ourselves in the 
 luxuries and expensive goods of China, India and Europe, only 
 because they come from far, and at dear rates, nothing but 
 inevitable ruin will be the consequence; in order to avoid which 
 we have no other effectual means or remedy for all those evils but 
 that of reducing our imports and increasing our exports. 
 
 These descriptive and argumentative statements well 
 deserve the space given to them here, because they 
 vividly portray the feelings which colored the circum- 
 
32 UNDEK THE CO^FEDEKATION. 
 
 stances of the time; because they exhibit in a clear 
 light the diverse opinions which agitated the popular 
 mind; because they outline the new current into which 
 men's thoughts were tending in search of relief; because 
 they convey a distinct impression of the societary paral- 
 ysis and of the monetary pressure which characterized 
 those critical days, in consequence of practicing free 
 trade principles; and because they embody the matured 
 views of an eye-witness, watchful of events, intelligent 
 in observation, detailed in his record, and corroborative 
 of the outcome under allied conditions in subsequent 
 periods. Other proofs remain, however, which will 
 show that our hapless country was in the throes of 
 greater sufferings than even those set forth in the above 
 recital. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION CONTINUED. 
 
 As the central object of these early chapters is to 
 establish, beyond cavil or dispute, the fact that free 
 importations precipitated upon the country a multitude 
 of evils, among which were private and public bank- 
 ruptcy, followed by internal disorder, confusion, and 
 accumulating dangers, it is worth while to multiply the 
 proofs, and to exhibit them in every point of view, in 
 order that the present may be enabled to look back 
 intelligently from the vantage summit which experience 
 has toilsomely reached, and, with true historical insight, 
 study profitably the lessons taught by the vicissitudes of 
 that distant past. 
 
 From lack of proper stimulus to home production, 
 the chief opportunity for the employment of capital was 
 in trade, which constantly tended to degenerate in its 
 methods ; hence, the period immediately succeeding the 
 Revolutionary war was, in a peculiar sense, an age of 
 speculation. Trafficking in soldiers' certificates, in the 
 public lands, and in the various evidences of the public 
 debt, was the business of many who had money, and of 
 many who had not. When the specie, brought in by 
 the British and the French armies, and by the foreign 
 loans to the United (States, had largely flowed out to 
 pay for excessive importations of European and Asiatic 
 merchandise, a monetary stringency took place which 
 amounted almost to a deprivation of a circulating 
 medium. At length it became impossible to settle 
 3 33 
 
34 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 contracts with anything satisfactory to the creditor. 
 Depreciation seized upon every species of property. 
 Legal pressure to enforce the payment of debts caused 
 alarming sacrifices of both personal and real estate; 
 spread distress wide and far among the masses of the 
 people; aroused in the hearts of the sufferers the bit- 
 terest feelings against lawyers, the courts, and the 
 whole creditor class; led to a popular clamor for stay 
 laws, installment plans, property-tender acts, and 
 various other radical measures of supposed relief; and 
 finally filled the whole land with excitement, apprehen- 
 sion, a sense of weakness, and a tendency to despair of 
 the republic. Inability to pay even necessary taxes 
 became general, and often these could be collected only 
 by levy and sale of homesteads. All these evils came 
 in direct course from the excessive importations, which 
 absorbed and carried out of the several States nearly all 
 the coin, without which society seemed about to fall 
 to pieces. 
 
 Let historical witnesses, most of them eye-witnesses, 
 be called to substantiate these averments. The follow- 
 ing extracts are taken from the third volume of Hil- 
 dreth's "History of the United States": 
 
 One large portion of the wealthy men of colonial times had 
 been expatriated, and another part had been impoverished by the 
 Revolution. In their places a new moneyed class had sprung up, 
 especially hi the Eastern States, men who had grown rich in the 
 course of the war as sutlers, by privateering, by speculations in 
 the fluctuating paper money, and by other operations not always 
 of the most honorable kind. Large claims against their less fort- 
 unate neighbors had accumulated hi the hands of these men, 
 many of whom were disposed to press their legal claims to the 
 utmost. The sudden fortunes made by the war had introduced a 
 spirit of luxury into the maritime towns, and even the taste and 
 
UNDEfi THE COJN'EEDEKATIOtf. 35 
 
 manners of the rural inhabitants had been tainted by the effects of 
 military service, in which so large a part of the male population 
 had been more or less engaged. The fisheries, formerly a chief 
 resource of New England, broken up by the war, had not yet 
 been re-established. The farmers no longer found that market for 
 their produce which the French, American, and British armies 
 had furnished. The large importation of foreign goods, subject to 
 little or no duty, and sold at peace prices, was proving ruinous to all 
 those domestic manufactures and mechanical employments which the 
 non-consumption agreements and the war had created and fostered. 
 Immediately after the peace, the country had been flooded with im- 
 ported goods, and debts had been unwarily contracted for which there 
 was no means to pay. The imports from Qreat Britain in the years 
 1784 and 1785 had amounted in value to thirty millions of dollars, 
 while t?ie exports thither had not exceeded nine millions. The 
 lawyers, whose fees were thought enormous, and who were fast 
 growing rich, from the multiplicity of suits with which all the 
 courts abounded, were regarded with no very favorable eyes by 
 the mass of the citizens, impoverished by the same causes to which 
 they owed their wealth. There was an abundance of discontented 
 persons more or less connected with the late army, deprived by the 
 peace of their accustomed means of support, and without oppor- 
 tunity to engage in productive industry. The community, from 
 these various causes, was fast becoming divided into two embit- 
 tered factions of creditors and debtors. The certificates of the 
 public debt, parted with at a great discount by the officers and 
 others to whom they had been given, were fast accumulating in 
 the hands of a few speculators able to wait for better times. With 
 the example of the old tenor paper before their eyes, an opinion 
 gained ground among the people, oppressed by taxes to meet the 
 interest on these debts, that the holders of certificates by pur- 
 chase were only entitled to receive what they had paid an opinion 
 which tended to still further depreciation. Others of the debtor 
 party had more extensive views. Stop and tender laws were 
 called for, and in some States were passed. New issues of paper 
 money were demanded, which, by their depreciation, might sweep 
 off the whole mass of debt, public and private. Such issues were 
 made in New York and Rhode Island, in which latter State John 
 Collins had just been elected Governor. The Rhode Island paper 
 
36 UKDEK THE COKFEDEKATION. 
 
 soon depreciated to eight for one. Laws were enacted to enforce 
 its circulation; but, though similar to those formerly recommended 
 by Congress to support the credit of the Continental money, 
 they were now generally denounced as oppressive and unjust, and 
 obtained for Rhode Island an unenviable notoriety. 
 
 Even those States which issued no paper money were far from 
 enjoying a sound currency. The excessive importation of foreign 
 goods had drained tJie country of specie. The circulating medium 
 consisted principally of treasury orders on the State tax collectors, 
 and depreciated certificates of State and federal debt. Even 
 among those in favor of meeting the public liabilities by taxation, 
 there was a lack of agreement as to the way in which taxes should 
 be raised. The excessive importation of foreign goods, and the con- 
 sequent pressure upon domestic manufactures, had diminished a good 
 deal of the old prejudice against customs duties. A party had sprung 
 up in favor of raising a large part of the public revenue in that way, 
 thus reviving tlie old colonial schemes for the protection of domestic 
 industry by duties upon foreign goods. This, however, was opposed 
 by the merchants as injurious to tJieir interests. They came forward 
 as the champions of free trade, and insisted upon the old system of 
 direct taxation. A large part of the people seemed quite disinclined 
 to submit to either method. 
 
 The weakness, for some years so evident in Congress, had 
 begun to extend to the States. Not only was the idea in circula- 
 tion of separating into two or three confederacies, but some of the 
 principal States seemed themselves in danger of splitting into frag- 
 ments. pp. 465, 466, 467 and 468. 
 
 Discussing the insurrections in Massachusetts in 
 1786, the same author says: 
 
 The real difficulty was the poverty and exhaustion of the 
 country consequent upon the war ; the want of a certain and remu- 
 nerative market for the produce of the farmer ; and the depression 
 of domestic manufactures by competition from abroad. p. 472. 
 
 It is plain from these statements that the primary 
 cause, back of all the troubles, was the free trade system 
 
UNDER THE COXFEDERA 
 
 then in prapticc. There was a sufficient 
 rency in the country at the close of the war. Had 
 gress been empowered to lay duties on imports, and 
 had a thoroughly protective tariff been enacted, no 
 flood of foreign goods could have poured in to demand 
 an exhaustive export of specie. Manufacturing indus- 
 tries would have sprung up; the farmer would have 
 obtained a steady market at home for his surplus, then 
 denied to him abroad; capital would have sought the 
 profits of a stable business rather than the uncertainties 
 of pure speculation; the national government would 
 have derived an ample revenue for its current expendi- 
 tures, and for the payment of interest on the public 
 obligations, if not more than that; taxpayers would 
 have experienced no distress in satisfying the demands 
 of the several States; production in its various branches 
 would have expanded and flourished with the local 
 increase of wealth, skill, and enterprise; and prosperity 
 with contentment would have spread over the land, 
 instead of the sufferings actually endured. Nothing is 
 more remarkable than the rapidity with which a country 
 usually recuperates after the close of a long war, and 
 sometimes rises visibly above its condition previous to 
 hostilities, if only the population is not greatly reduced 
 in number and in effective producing power. This fact 
 is elaborately pointed out by John Stuart Mill, in the 
 fifth chapter of his work on "The Principles of Polit- 
 ical Economy." What prevented the rapid recuperation 
 of the United States, after the peace of 1783, was the 
 system of free foreign trade, allowed to add its devas- 
 tations upon industry to those of the Revolution. 
 
 Minot says, in his "History of the Insurrections in 
 Massachusetts," beginning on page 11: 
 
38 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 The usual consequences of war were conspicuous upon the 
 habits of the people of Massachusetts. Those of the maritime 
 towns relapsed into the voluptuousness which arises from the 
 precarious wealth of naval adventurers. An emulation prevailed 
 among men of fortune to exceed each other in the full display of 
 their riches. This was imitated among the less opulent classes of 
 citizens, and drew them off from those principles of diligence and 
 economy which constitute the best support of all governments, 
 and particularly of the republican. Besides which, what was 
 most to be lamented, the discipline and manners of the army had 
 vitiated the taste and relaxed the industry of the yeoman. In 
 this disposition of the people to indulge the use of luxuries, tJie 
 merchants saw a market for foreign manufactures. The political 
 character of America, standing in a respectable view abroad, gave 
 a confidence and credit to individual citizens heretofore unknown. 
 This credit was improved, and goods were imported to a much 
 greater amount than could be consumed, or paid for. The evils of 
 this excess of importation were greatly aggravated by the decayed 
 condition of the commerce, and the little attention which had 
 been paid, during the war, to raising of articles for exports. The 
 fisheries, which may be called the mines of Massachusetts, had 
 been neglected, or but feebly improved, from the want of ship- 
 ping and other causes. The whale fishery, which, from trifling 
 beginnings in the year 1701, at length brought into the late 
 Provinces no less a sum than 167,000 pounds sterling, annually, 
 through the island of Nantucket alone, and which employed 150 
 sail of vessels, with near 2,500 seamen, was, at the opening of the 
 peace, reduced to be the object of nineteen sail only. A great, if 
 not a proportionable diminution, was visible in other articles of 
 exportation. In addition to this, what few could be obtained 
 were rendered almost useless by one of the severest effects of the 
 Revolution the loss, of many markets to which Americans had 
 formerly resorted with their produce. Thus was tJie usual means 
 of remittance by articles of the growth of the country almost annihi- 
 lated, and little else than specie remained to answer the demands in- 
 curred by importations. The money, of course, was drawn off; and 
 this being inadequate to the purpose of discharging the whole amount 
 of foreign contracts, the residue was chiefly sunk by the bankruptcies 
 of the importers. The scarcity of specie, arising principally from 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 39 
 
 this cause, was attended with evident consequences ; it checked com- 
 mercial intercourse througlwut the community, and furnished reluct- 
 ant debtors with an apology for withholding their dues both from 
 individuals and the public. 
 
 Here again it is apparent that the parent source of 
 the deteriorated condition of affairs was the enormous 
 influx of foreign goods, with its necessary sequence, the 
 exhaustive draining away of specie. Under the pro- 
 tective system, the large capital embodied in metallic 
 money would have remained at home sufficiently to 
 have established domestic manufactures on a firm foot- 
 ing; to have supplied earnings and purchasing power 
 to the people kept idle by the free trade policy; to have 
 created a profitable market for the farmer's produce; 
 to have facilitated all the transactions of business; and 
 to have served as a solid basis for a paper currency, had 
 that become needful. The wild mania for speculation, 
 which characterized those early days, was the natural 
 offspring of the precarious nature of what, under differ- 
 ent circumstances, would have been remunerative invest- 
 ments in reproductive industry. Capital assumes risks 
 only when security is unattainable, as it then was. 
 This evil would have vanished, had appropriate laws been 
 passed to secure to the people the full advantages and 
 benefits of their home market. As this history advances, 
 it will be seen that a craze for rashly adventurous spec- 
 ulation was a salient feature of every period cursed with 
 free trade principles, and that its extent was greatest 
 when the amount of protection was least. When the 
 avenues to solid business enterprise are obstructed or 
 closed, the restless activity of the human mind seeks a 
 vent in all other directions; for it will sink down into 
 stagnation only through compulsion. So soon as the 
 
40 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 government provides it with the bulwarks of safety, it 
 turns with zeal, vigor, and persistence to legitimate 
 undertakings. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION CONTINUED. 
 
 In every quarter of the Confederation the same 
 scenes of distress and demoralization were to be wit- 
 nessed. A common cause of disaster had produced a 
 common affliction. The newspapers in all the States 
 teemed with discussions of proposed remedies for the 
 destructive consequences which had fallen upon the 
 character of the country, and upon the prosperity and 
 happiness of its citizens. One writer in the New Hamp- 
 shire Gazette, July 20, 1786, bitterly complained of 
 "the bondage of the people of New Hampshire; 'for, 
 in the midst of life, they are in death/ death of the 
 worst kind, penury and want of the common blessings 
 of Providence. How long, freemen of New Hampshire, 
 can ye bear the yoke of oppression ! " Belknap, in the 
 second volume of his "History of New Hampshire," 
 swells the general emphasis of the testimony. Begin- 
 ning on page 352, he thus details the process by which 
 the people had been brought into such depths of 
 universal embarrassment, distress, and wretchedness. 
 
 A large debt, accumulated by the war, remained to be dis- 
 charged. For this purpose, requisitions were made by Congress, 
 as well as by the State government. Silver and gold, which Jiad 
 circulated largely in the latter years of the war, were returning, by 
 the usual course of trade, to those countries whence large quantities of 
 necessary and unnecessary commodities had been imported. HAD 
 
 ANY GENERAL SYSTEM OF IMPOST BEEN ADOPTED, SOME PART OP 
 THIS MONEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN RETAINED, AND SOME PART OF 
 
 THE PUBLIC DEBT DISCHARGED; but the power of Congress did not 
 extend to this object; and the States were not united in the expediency 
 
 41 
 
42 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 of delegating new and sufficient powers to tJtat body. TJie partial 
 imposts, laid by some of the States, were ineffectual as long as others 
 found their interest in omitting them. Recourse, therefore, was had 
 to the usual mode of taxation on polls and estates, by which 
 means a heavy burden was laid on the husbandman and the 
 laborer. Those who were punctual in their payments saw no 
 probable end of their exertions, whilst the negligence of others 
 occasioned repeated demands. Private creditors, who had suffered 
 by long forbearance, were importunate for their dues, and the 
 courts of law were full of suits. 
 
 The people who felt themselves distressed held conferences 
 with a view to devise means of redress. The remedy which 
 appeared to many of them most easy was a new emission of paper 
 bills, funded on real estate, and loaned on interest. To effect 
 this, petitions were addressed to the Legislature; and, to remedy 
 the grievance, as far as it was occasioned by a debt of the State, 
 an act was passed to draw into the Treasury all notes issued by 
 the State, and give certificates for the interest, and for fifteen per 
 cent of the principal, annually; which certificates were to be 
 received by the Treasurer for taxes, " in lieu of and equal to silver 
 and gold." By this means it was expected that the debt would 
 gradually be extinguished, and that the people would easily be 
 enabled to pay at least one species of their taxes. 
 
 Beginning on page 355, Belknap particularizes some 
 of the extreme measures which popular clamor and the 
 severity of the emergency compelled several of the 
 Legislatures to adopt, in an attempt to alleviate the 
 intolerable situation of the community. He says: 
 
 Similar difficulties, at the same time, existed in the neighbor- 
 ing State of Massachusetts, to remedy which, among other pallia- 
 tives, a law was passed called a tender act, "by which it was pro- 
 vided that executions issued for private demands might be satisfied 
 by cattle and other enumerated articles, at an appraisement of im- 
 partial men under oath." For such a law the discontented party 
 in New Hampshire petitioned ; and to gratify them, the Legisla- 
 ture enacted, that "when any debtor shall tender to his creditor, in 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 43 
 
 satisfaction of an execution for debt, either real or personal estate 
 sufficient, the body of the debtor shall be exempt from imprisonment, 
 and the debt shall carry an interest of six per cent, the creditoi' being 
 at liberty either to receive the estate, so tendered, at a value estimated 
 by three appraisers, or to keep alive the demand by taking out an 
 alias, within one year after the return of any former execution, and 
 levying it on any estate of the debtor which he can find." At the 
 same time an act was made, enlarging the power of Justices of the 
 Peace to try and determine actions of debt and trespass to the 
 value of ten pounds. These laws were complained of as uncon- 
 stitutional ; the former as being retrospective, and changing the 
 nature of contracts ; the latter as depriving the creditor, in certain 
 cases, of a right to trial by jury. But so strong was the clamor 
 for redress of grievances, and so influential was the example of the 
 neighboring State, that some of the best men in the Legislature 
 found it necessary to comply, whilst another part were secretly in 
 favor of worse measures. 
 
 These large concessions to the debtor class did not 
 bring the expected relief, because they did not touch 
 the real cause of the universal distress. Matters went 
 from bad to worse in New Hampshire, as they did in all 
 other parts of the Confederation. Then additional 
 efforts were made to stem the rising current of disaster. 
 Several of these are outlined by Belknap on page 357, 
 as follows: 
 
 The scarcity of money was still a grievance which the laws 
 had not remedied, but rather had a tendency to increase. To 
 encourage its importation into the country, the Legislature 
 exempted from all port duties, except light-money, every vessel 
 which should bring gold and silver only ; and from one half of 
 the duties, if a sum of money equal to one half of the cargo should 
 be imported. But it was to no purpose to import money, unless 
 encouragement were given for its circulation, which could not be 
 expected whilst the tender act was in force ; for every man who 
 owned money thought it more secure in his own hands than in 
 the hands of others. 
 
44 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION 
 
 The clamor for paper money increased, and, like a raging 
 fever, approached toward a crisis. In every town there was a 
 party in favor of it, and the public papers were continually filled 
 with declamations on the subject. It was said that an emission of 
 bills of credit would give a spring to commerce, and encourage 
 agriculture ; that the poor would be able to pay their debts and 
 taxes ; that all the arguments against issuing paper were framed 
 by speculators, and were intended to serve the wealthy part of the 
 community who had monopolized the public securities, that they 
 might raise their value and get all the good bargains into their own 
 hands ; that other States in the Union had issued paper bills, and 
 were rejoicing in the happy effects of their currency without any 
 depreciation; that the people had a right to call upon their Repre- 
 sentatives to stamp a value on paper, or leather, or any other sub- 
 stance capable of receiving an impression ; and that, to prevent 
 its depreciation, a law should be enacted to punish with banish- 
 ment and outlawry every person who should attempt by any 
 means to lessen its value. 
 
 While these scenes of bankruptcy, ruin and demoral- 
 ization were taking place in the northern end of the Con- 
 federation, similar ones were occurring in the southern 
 end. Ramsay, in the second volume of his "History 
 of South Carolina," beginning on page 428, thus details 
 the situation in that State: 
 
 The little of gold and silver that was in circulation soon found its 
 way to Great Britain. The people of Carolina had been but a 
 short time in the possession of peace and independence, when they 
 were brought under a new species of dependence. So universally 
 were they in debt beyond their ability to pay, that a rigid enforcement of 
 the laws would have deprived tliem of 'their possessions and their personal 
 liberty, and still left them under incumbrances ; for property when 
 brought to sale under execution, sold at so low a price as frequently 
 ruined the debtor without paying the creditor. A disposition to resist 
 the laws became common. Assemblies were called oftener and 
 earlier than the Constitution and laws required. The good and evil 
 of representative government became apparent. The Assemblies 
 were a correct representation of the people. They had common feel- 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 45 
 
 ings, and their situations were in most cases similar. These led to 
 measures which procured temporary relief, but at the expense of the 
 permanent and extended interests of the community. Laws were 
 passed in which property of every kind was made a legal tender in 
 the payment of debts, though payable according to contract in gold or 
 silver. Other laws installed the debt, so that, of sums already due, 
 only a third, and afterward only a fifth, was annually recoverable in 
 the courts of law. 'Numbers were clamorous for large emissions of 
 paper money armed with the sanction of legal tender. This old 
 resource in cases of extremity had been so overdone in the Revo- 
 lutionary war, that many doubted the possibility of attaching 
 credit to anything in the form of bills of credit. After some time, 
 an emission of 100,000 sterling, secured by a mortgage of land, 
 or a deposit of plate, was risked. The smallness of the sum, and 
 the ample security of the fund on which it was emitted, together 
 with the great want of some circulating medium, and an agree- 
 ment of the merchants to receive it in payment at its nominal 
 value, gave it credit and circulation. 
 
 The effects of these laws, interfering between debtors and 
 creditors, were extensive. They destroyed public credit and con- 
 fidence between man and man ; injured the morals of the people , 
 and, in many instances, insured and aggravated the final ruin of 
 the debtors for whose temporary relief they were brought forward. 
 The procrastination of payment abated exertions to meet it with 
 promptitude. In the meantime, interest was accumulating, and 
 the expenses of suits multiplied by the number of installments. 
 At no time, before nor since, were the fortunes of attorneys so 
 rapidly or so easily made. At no period has an equal number of 
 planters been involved in embarrassments from which they were 
 never extricated, or only extricated by more than ordinary sacrifices. 
 
 The eight years of war in Carolina were followed by eight 
 years of disorganization, which produced such an amount of civil 
 distress as diminished with some their respect for liberty and inde- 
 pendence. Several apprehended that the same scenes which had 
 taken place in England in the seventeenth century, after a long 
 and bloody civil war, would be acted over in America by a fickle 
 people, who had neither the fortitude nor the wisdom to govern 
 themselves. 
 
46 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 Equally disintegrating influences were at work in 
 Connecticut. Under date of Sept. 20, 1786, Otto, the 
 French Minister in New York, wrote home to his 
 government, as follows: 
 
 In the small State of Connecticut alone more than five hundred 
 farms have been offered for sale to pay the arrears of taxes. As 
 these sales take place only for cash, they are made at very low price, 
 and the propi-ietors often receive not more than one tenth of the value. 
 The people feel the deadly consequences of this oppression, but, 
 not being able to discover its true cause, it turns upon the judges 
 and the lawyers. In the States which have paper money, the 
 rigor of the laws is less desolating for the farmer, since he can 
 always get paper enough to satisfy his engagements; and, besides, 
 the creditors are less urgent. 
 
 Affairs in Pennsylvania were no better. Beginning 
 on page 35 of "The New Olive Branch/' Mathew 
 Carey says: 
 
 I have in 1786 seen sixteen houses to let in two squares of 
 about eight hundred feet in one of the best sites for business in 
 Philadelphia. Real property could hardly find a market. The 
 number of persons reduced to distress, and forced to sell their 
 merchandise, was so great, and those who had money to invest 
 were so very few, that the sacrifices were immense. Debtors were 
 ruined without paying a fourth of the demands of their creditors. 
 There were most unprecedented transfers of property. Men worth 
 large estates, who had unfortunately entered into business, were 
 in a year or two totally ruined; and those who had a command of 
 ready money quadrupled or quintupled their estates in an equally 
 short space. Confidence was so wholly destroyed that interest 
 rose to two, two and a half, and three per cent per month. And 
 bonds and judgments and mortgages were sold at a discount of 
 twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty per cent. In a word, few countries 
 have experienced a more awful state of distress and wretchedness. 
 
 Chief-Justice Marshall, taking a general survey of 
 the situation throughout the Confederation, says, in the 
 
UNDEE THE COXEEDEKATIOX. 47 
 
 fifth volume of his "Life of Washington," beginning 
 on page 88: 
 
 In many of those States which had repelled every attempt to 
 introduce into circulation a depreciated medium of commerce, or 
 to defeat the annual provision of funds for the payment of the 
 interest, the debt sunk in value to such a degree that those cred- 
 itors who were induced by their necessities, or want of confidence 
 in their rulers, to transfer their public securities, were compelled 
 to submit to a loss of from ten to sixteen or seventeen shillings in 
 the pound. However unexceptionable might be the conduct of 
 the existing Legislature, the hazard from those which were to 
 follow was too great to be encountered without an immense pre- 
 mium. In private transactions, an astonishing degree of distrust 
 also prevailed. The bonds of men whose competency to pay their 
 debts was unquestionable, could not be negotiated but at a discount of 
 thirty, forty, and*fifty per centum: real property was scarcely vend- 
 ible; and sales of any article for ready money could be made only at 
 a ruinous loss. The prospect of extricating the country from these 
 embarrassments was by no means flattering \ Whilst everything else 
 fluctuated, some of the causes which produced this calamitous 
 state of things were permanent. The hope and fear still remained 
 that the debtor party would obtain the victory at the elections; 
 and, instead of making the painful effort to obtain relief by indus- 
 try and economy, many rested all their hopes on legislative inter- 
 ference. TJie mass of national labor, and of national wealth, was 
 consequently diminished. In every quarter were found those who 
 asserted it to be impossible for the people to pay their public or 
 private debts; and, in some instances, threats were uttered of 
 suspending the administration of justice by private violence. 
 
 The testimony so far presented establishes conclu- 
 sively the following points: 1. That only very low 
 duties on imports (scarcely to be dignified by the name 
 of restriction) were levied by any State, and that these 
 duties were rendered nugatory by the counteracting 
 laws and practices of other States. 2. That, in conse- 
 quence, the system of free trade with foreign nations 
 
48 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 existed with hardly any impediment whatever. 3. That 
 the country was inundated with the influx of European 
 and Asiatic merchandise. 4. That manufacturing estab- 
 lishments in the Confederation were crippled, prostrated, 
 or utterly ruined by the overmastering competition from 
 abroad. 5. That an exhaustive drain of specie for export 
 speedily followed, until the American people, from New 
 Hampshire to Georgia, were left almost completely with- 
 out a circulating medium. 6. That property, real and 
 personal, depreciated to a frightful degree. 7. That, 
 in absence of ability to engage in legitimate enterprises, 
 a craze for speculation seized upon the community, 
 mainly taking the form of traffic in public and private 
 securities. 8. That bankruptcy became general, the 
 courts were crowded with suits, the prisons overflowed 
 with debtors, the lawyers fast acquired wealth by the 
 multiplicity of fees, and the farms, houses, and 
 personal property of the unfortunates were sacri- 
 ficed to clear off trifling obligations. 9. That even 
 necessary taxes often could not be collected without 
 levy and sale. 10. That relief was sought in stay laws, 
 installment of debts, property-tender acts, suspension of 
 the operation of the courts, emission of paper money, 
 and various like expedients. 11. That all the supposed 
 palliatives served only to intensify the universal distress. 
 12. That the movement of events was steadily from bad 
 to worse, until perplexity and foreboding became the 
 predominant feelings of the time. 13. That the parent 
 cause of this brood of evils was the free-trade system, 
 which led, by a succession of cumulative consequences, to 
 greater and still greater calamities. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION CONTINUED. 
 
 At length a crisis arrived which no temporizing 
 measures could avert or postpone. The involvement, 
 perplexity, and actual distress of a very considerable 
 part of the people had been steadily accumulating until 
 the galling load of troubles could be scarcely endured. 
 Every expedient had failed to bring relief. Debtors 
 were daily becoming less able to meet their contracts. 
 Numerous families, although industrious and careful, 
 had lost under execution the great bulk of their prop- 
 erty, and were sorely pressed to find the means of a 
 respectable living. Multitudes of others were threat- 
 ened with the same harsh misfortune. Confidence 
 between man and man was at an alarmingly low ebb. 
 Gloom, despondency, adversity, and apprehension were 
 chronic afflictions in tens of thousands of households. 
 No prospect of better times cheered those who sought 
 to penetrate the veil of the future. To many minds, 
 wrought upon by a sense of being wronged by the laws 
 and the courts, government itself appeared transformed 
 into a grievance, since the very taxes essential to keep 
 the machinery of authority in motion could be collected, 
 in frequent instances, only by proceeding to a legal 
 extremity which sacrificed the estate of the citizen, and 
 which was felt as an oppression. 
 
 Soon the growing desperation found vent in out- 
 bursts of tumultuous resentment. In New Hampshire, 
 an armed force marched to Exeter, surrounded tlie 
 meeting-house where the Houses of Assembly were hold- 
 4 49 
 
50 UNDER THE CONFEDEBATIOtf. 
 
 ing a conference, placed sentries at the doors, held the 
 members prisoners, and threatened death to any person 
 who should attempt to escape before the demands made 
 upon the Legislature had been granted. This violence 
 continued until the malcontents were dispersed by 
 companies of militia summoned from a distance. "With 
 like intent, mobs made a tumult in Connecticut, but 
 they were overawed by the prompt action of the Gov- 
 ernor, and restrained from any overt act. In Massa- 
 chusetts, however, where a third of the inhabitants 
 were thought to be disaffected toward the government, 
 actual insurrections took place, followed by what is 
 known as Shay's rebellion, which was not fully subdued 
 until the spring of 1787, after some bloodshed and 
 large expense. Indeed, the spirit of insubordination 
 and a tendency to disintegration was spreading rapidly 
 throughout the Confederation. Three western counties 
 of North Carolina declared their independence, and set 
 up a State named Franklin or Frankland. There was 
 a movement in the county of Washington to secede 
 from Virginia for the purpose of becoming part of this 
 new State. The Connecticut settlers at Wyoming, 
 greatly dissatisfied by the refusal of Pennsylvania to 
 confirm their titles, rose in insurrection against the 
 Pennsylvania authorities, and openly aimed at forming 
 a State of their own. A convention of the people of 
 Maine was held at Portland to consider the expediency 
 of erecting that division of the country into an inde- 
 pendent commonwealth. Thus lawlessness, generated 
 by universal suffering and discontent, seemed about to 
 destroy the peace, liberty, and safety gained by the 
 patriotic exertions and heavy sacrifices of many years. 
 Otto, the French Minister at New York, writing 
 
UNDER THE COXFEDERATIO 
 
 home to his government, under date of September 20, 
 1786, gives the following description of the disorgan- 
 izing tendencies in New England: 
 
 The want of energy in the separate government of the States 
 had till now occasioned few commotions to the repose and tp the 
 security of the citizens, and it was hoped that Congress would 
 insensibly take the stability that was supposed to be observable in 
 the interior organization of the States; but the licentiousness of a 
 greedy populace has just shaken the basis of the government 
 which had hitherto been regarded as the most solid and the most 
 perfect of the whole Confederation, and it is seen too late that the 
 American constitutions, so generally admired, are far from being 
 exempt from defects. 
 
 The common people of Massachusetts, indignant at not having 
 obtained the emission of paper money, ran together in certain 
 districts, with arms in hand, to suspend the courts of justice and 
 to prevent the recovery of debts. Governor Bowdoin having neg- 
 lected instantly to assemble the militia, the insurgents went so far as 
 to disperse the judges and the advocates. They demanded with 
 loud cries the abolition of courts of justice, the holding of the 
 sessions of the legislative assembly in any other town but Boston, 
 the reduction of salaries granted to public officers, a new emission 
 of paper money, the liberation of those imprisoned for debt, the 
 settlement of the accounts of the United States, the prohibition of 
 every object of luxury imported from abroad, the diminution of 
 taxes, the absolute liberty of the press, and the abolition of the 
 Senate or upper chamber. 
 
 * * * The courts of justice are at present protected by 
 troops and by several companies of artillery. Congress being 
 informed that the seditious had drawn near to Springfield, and 
 that the arsenals of the United States were in danger, General 
 Knox, Minister of War, received orders to go there immediately, 
 and to order a respectable corps of militia to march there. The 
 proclamation of the Governor of Massachusetts; the circular letters 
 of the town of Boston, and other principal towns; the pro- 
 ceedings of the different municipal assemblies; and the measures 
 taken by the seditious to disperse the courts of justice, are to be 
 
52 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 found in the gazettes that I have the honor to send you. To 
 these details I will only add the reflections of the most enlightened 
 patriots on this factious event. They perceive that, in forming 
 the different constitutions, they had too great need of the assist- 
 ance of the common people not to grant to them much more than 
 the repose of the republic, the security of the citizen, and the 
 energy of the government can sustain; that an entire and unlimited 
 liberty is a phantom which has never been able to exist but at the 
 expense of public tranquility; that the theory of the three powers 
 equally distributed is sublime, but that practice offers a thousand 
 difficulties which ought to have been foreseen; that the executive 
 power is much too weak in America; that the simplicity of the 
 chiefs renders them contemptible in the eyes of the multitude, 
 which judges only by the senses; and that there is need of strokes 
 of authority, of arms, and of lictors, to make the government 
 respected. These principles are'confirmed by a scene like that in 
 Massachusetts which took place in New Hampshire. About three 
 hundred mutineers met near Exeter to break up the courts of 
 justice; but Governor Sullivan, a distinguished officer during the 
 war, instantly put himself at the head of the militia, dispersed the 
 insurgents, and dispersed the chiefs of the revolt. The people of 
 Connecticut have equally made some efforts for the abolishment 
 of debts and breaking up of the courts of justice, but the vigilance 
 of the Governor has thus far prevented any overt act. It must be 
 agreed that these insurrections are in a great part due to the scarcity 
 of specie. 
 
 The last sentence in the above extract is equivalent 
 to saying that the insurrections were largely attributable 
 to the free-trade system, under which specie flowed out 
 as foreign merchandise flowed in; for events, in one 
 relation of their existence, are effects; in some further 
 relation, these effects become causes of other effects. 
 Thus the motions of the planets are the effects of ascer- 
 tained causes, and these complex motions are, in their 
 turn, the causes of eclipses, and of other phenomena, 
 such as daylight and darkness, these effects being also, in 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 53 
 
 their turn, causes of new classes of effects. It is neces- 
 sary to go to the sun to find the source of the light of 
 the moon; and it is necessary to go to the free-trade 
 system to find the source of the scarcity of specie 
 which, in its turn, was the source of the distress, and of 
 the discontent and the demoralization which incited 
 large numbers of the people to insurrection. 
 
 Mr. Temple, the British Consul-General at New 
 York, wrote to Lord Carmarthen, in London, under 
 date of Oct. 4, 1786, as follows: 
 
 Mobs, tumults, and bodies of men in arms are now on tiptoe in 
 various parts of this country, all tending to the dissolution of not 
 only what is called the supreme power (Congress), but to bring 
 into contempt and disregard the Legislatures and governments of 
 the several States. At this hour, while I am writing, I have 
 undoubted intelligence that at Springfield (a county town in the 
 State of Massachusetts) more than fifteen hundred men in arms 
 are there assembled to stop the proceedings of the courts of justice 
 until the constitution of government be altered and reformed to 
 their approbation! and that about one thousand militia (horse and 
 foot), by order of the Governor, are there also assembled to 
 support government against the said insurgents! In the meantime, 
 the Governor of that State hath, by special proclamation, called 
 the Legislature to meet as upon last Thursday; and upon the 
 proceedings and doings of that Legislature it seems to depend 
 whether or not arms shall decide the matter between the con- 
 tending parties! Public affairs are much the same in the State of 
 New Hampshire. The whole legislative body of that State were, 
 for four hours, prisoners in the hands of a tumultuous assembly 
 in arms! Indeed, dissatisfaction and uneasiness prevail more or 
 less throughout this country; the greater part of the people poor, 
 and many in desperate circumstances, do not, it seems, want any 
 government at all, but had rather have all power and property 
 reduced to a level, and it is more than probable that general con* 
 fusion will take place before any permanent government be 
 established in this unhappy country. 
 
54 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 Minot, in his " History of the Insurrections in 
 Massachusetts," page 27, summing up the causes of 
 public disorder, proceeds as follows: 
 
 From the short view which we have taken of the -affairs of the 
 Commonwealth, sufficient causes appear to account for the com- 
 motions which ensued. A heavy debt lying on the State, added 
 to burdens of the same nature upon almost every incorporation 
 within it; a decline, or rather an extinction, of public credit; a 
 relaxation of manners, and a free use of foreign luxuries; a decay 
 of trade and manufactures, with a prevailing scarcity of money; 
 and, above all, individuals involved in debt to each other, are 
 evils which leave us under no necessity of searching further for 
 the reasons of the insurrections which took place. 
 
 Chief-Justice Marshall says, in the fifth volume of 
 his "Life of Washington," page 112: 
 
 This disorderly resentment was cherished by unlicensed con- 
 ventions, which, after voting their own constitutionality, and 
 assuming the name of the people, arrayed themselves against the 
 Legislature, and detailed at great length the grievances by which 
 they alleged themselves to be oppressed. Its hostility was princi- 
 pally directed against the compensation promised to the officers of 
 the army, against taxes, and against the administration of justice; 
 and the circulation of a depreciated currency was required, as a 
 relief from the pressure of public and private burdens which had 
 become, it was alleged, too heavy to be borne. Against lawyers 
 and courts the strongest resentment was manifested; and to such a 
 dangerous extent were these dispositions indulged, that, in many 
 instances, tumultuous assemblages of the people arrested the course 
 of law, and restrained the judges from proceeding in the execution 
 of their duty. The ordinary recourse to the power of the country 
 was found an insufficient security, and the appeals made to reason 
 were attended with no beneficial effect. The forbearance of the 
 government was attributed to timidity rather than to moderation, 
 and the spirit of insurrection appeared to be organized with a regular 
 system for the suppression of the courts. 
 
 Testimony to the same general effect is obtainable 
 
UHDER THE CONFEDERATION. 55 
 
 all the sources cf information which have been 
 preserved. Everywhere throughout the Confederation 
 were to be seen centrifugal tendencies in powerful oper- 
 ation, threatening in the end to disrupt the Union, tind 
 even to split some of the States into fragments, with 
 the result of antagonistic governments, mutual antip- 
 athies, discordant relations, and dangerous disputes 
 among petty, weak, jealous States, whereas a commu- 
 nity of reciprocities and a recognized interdependence 
 were essential to secure efficacy and permanence to the 
 objects of the Eevolution. The correspondence between 
 the public men of that day abounds with expressions of 
 foreboding, alarm, and almost of despair. Henry Lee, 
 Jr., wrote to Washington, October 17, 1786: 
 
 General Knox has just returned, and his report, grounded on 
 his own knowledge, is replete with melancholy information. A 
 majority of the people of Massachusetts are in opposition to the 
 government. Some of the leaders avow the subversion of it to be 
 their object, together with the abolition of debts, the division of 
 property, and a reunion with Great Britain. In all the Eastern 
 States the same temper prevails more or less, and will certainly 
 break forth whenever the opportune moment may arrive. The 
 malcontents are in close connection with Vermont, and that district, 
 it is believed, is in negotiation with the government of Canada. In 
 a word, my dear General, we are all in dire apprehension that a 
 beginning of anarchy, with all its calamities, is made, and we have 
 no means to stop the dreadful work. 
 
 William Grayson wrote to Monroe, November 22,1786 : 
 
 The disturbances in Massachusetts bay have been considerable, 
 and absolutely threaten the most serious consequences. It is sup- 
 posed the insurgents are encouraged by emissaries of a certain nation, 
 and that Vermont is in the association. How it will end, God only 
 knows; the present prospects are, no doubt, extremely alarming. 
 
 David Eamsey wrote to Jefferson, April 7, 1787: 
 
56 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 Our governments in the Southern States are much more quiet 
 than in the Northern, but much of our quiet arises from the tem- 
 porizing of the Legislature in refusing legal protection to the 
 prosecution of the just rights of the creditors. Our eyes now are 
 all fixed on the Continental Convention to be held in Philadelphia 
 in May next. Unless they make an efficient federal government, I 
 fear that the end of the matter will be an American monarchy, or 
 rather, three or more confederacies. 
 
 Washington, in numerous letters to his friends, showed 
 how keenly he felt solicitude and apprehension, as may 
 be seen in the following extracts: 
 
 To Thomas Johnson, November 12, 1786: 
 The want of energy in the federal government; the pulling of 
 one State and parts of States against another; and the commotions 
 among the eastern people, have sunk our national character much 
 below par, and have brought our politics and credit to the brink of 
 a precipice. Liberality, justice, and unanimity in those States 
 which do not appear to have drunk so deep of the cup of folly may 
 yet retrieve our affairs, but no time is to be lost in essaying the 
 reparation of them. 
 
 To David Stuart, November 19, 1786: 
 
 However delicate the revising of the federal system may appear, 
 it is a work of indispensable necessity. The present constitution is 
 inadequate; the superstructure is tottering to its foundation, and 
 without helps will bury us in its ruins. 
 
 To Edmund Eandolph, November 19, 1786: 
 
 Our affairs seem to be drawing to an awful crisis; it is necessary, 
 therefore, that the abilities of every man should be drawn into 
 action in a public line, to rescue them, if possible, from impending 
 ruin. 
 
 To John Jay: 
 
 What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! 
 I am told that even respectable characters speak of. a monarchical 
 form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds 
 speaking, and thence to acting is often but a single step. 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 57 
 
 To Colonel Humphries: 
 
 For God's sake tell me what is the cause of all these com 
 motions? Do they proceed from licentiousness, British influence 
 disseminated by the Tories, or real grievances which admit of re- 
 dress? If the latter, why was redress delayed until the public mind 
 had become so much agitated? If the former, why are not the 
 powers of government tried at once? It is as well to be without, 
 as not to exercise them. Commotions of this sort, like snow-balls, 
 gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to 
 divide and crumble them. 
 
 To Colonel Humphries: 
 
 It is but the other day that we were shedding our blood to 
 obtain the constitutions under which we now live constitutions 
 of our own choice and making and now we are unsheathing the 
 sword to overturn them. 
 
 Such were throughout the Confederation, and such 
 always have been in other countries, the results of free- 
 trade principles in the culminating stages of their opera- 
 tion. Step by step the movement of the country was 
 constantly retrograde, proceeding through ruinously 
 excessive importations to a pinching shrinkage of home 
 industry and of employment for domestic labor; then 
 to an exhaustive draining away of specie, until the 
 people were almost entirely without a circulating 
 medium; then to sore and exasperating distress for 
 lack of money, and to unendurable pressure in the 
 relation of debtor and creditor, with widely extending 
 impoverishment; then to resentful discontent, weak- 
 ened respect for the law and its tribunals, decay of 
 allegiance, loss of confidence between man and man, 
 and an unloosening of societary ties; then to tur- 
 bulence, open antagonism to the constituted authori- 
 ties, insurrectionary commotions, and an appeal to arms 
 
58 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 
 
 in search of unattained redress. Had there been no 
 free trade, there would have been no inundation of 
 foreign goods; had there been no inundation of foreign 
 goods, there would have been no drain of specie; had 
 there been no drain of specie, there would have been no 
 distress from lack of a circulating medium; had there 
 been no such distress, there would have been no impulse 
 toward insubordination to the State. As the first drink 
 leads on to a settled habit of tippling, and thence, unless 
 arrested by reform, to penury, disease, and a drunkard's 
 grave, so free trade led on, by a succession of down- 
 ward stages, to the finality of open revolt. The start- 
 ing-point was free trade; the outcome was rebellion, 
 and an imperious necessity to resort for deliverance to 
 the protective system. Had no radical corrective been 
 speedily applied, the centrifugal tendencies must soon 
 have become so much stronger than the centripetal or 
 unifying ones, that the Confederation would have been 
 shattered into fragments into a number of distinct, 
 discordant, petty, weak, poverty-stricken States, and 
 there would have been a most inglorious end to the 
 once promising experiment of political liberty. As 
 there was the closest approach to absolute free trade ever 
 tried by this country, so there was the largest harvest of 
 calamities and dangers ever experienced by the Ameri- 
 can people. That awful crisis, at the outset of our 
 career as an independent nation, should be regarded as 
 a monument erected by the sufferings of our forefathers 
 to warn posterity against the delusive and mischievous 
 plausibilities of the free-trade policy. Had the lesson 
 taught by the almost fatal experience of those early 
 years been duly appreciated, instead of being forgotten 
 or ignored, the United States would have been kept out 
 
UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 59 
 
 of the vortex of bankruptcies, distresses and miseries 
 into which unprotective tariffs plunged the people, as 
 will be seen, at various subsequent periods. Nor is it 
 now less needful to ponder those solemn teachings of 
 our history, when Peter-the-Hermit doctrinaires, emerg- 
 ing from their retirement amid theoretic book lore, 
 are organizing a crusade to recover the desolate and 
 accursed Jerusalem of unrestricted commerce. The 
 sorrows drank by our revolutionary sires to the very 
 dregs, under that system, should be to all following 
 generations what the red signal-light is to a place of 
 peril. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 During the Revolutionary war, the armies sufferer 
 scarcely endurable hardships on account of the lack of 
 power in Congress to enforce its requisitions upon the 
 States for needed supplies. At the close of the strug- 
 gle, the disbanding soldiers, with an acute recollection 
 of the dangerous consequences of inadequate authority 
 in the national government, had a favorite toast "a 
 hoop for the barrel." As the years rolled away, the 
 wisdom of this sentiment was made manifest in an illu- 
 mination of universal distress, amid which " the barrel," 
 for want of "a hoop," seemed about to fall to pieces, 
 and become scattered staves. At length the people, 
 educated by their dreadful experiences to a clear knowl- 
 edge of what was essential to preserve the Confederation 
 from a fatal catastrophe, called the Federal Convention 
 of 1787, for the express purpose of obtaining "a hoop 
 for the barrel." 
 
 Bancroft, in his " History of the Formation of the 
 Constitution " (Vol. I, page 146), enumerates the agen- 
 cies which exerted the most powerful tendency toward 
 the establishment of a new organization of government 
 fully endowed with the powers essential to a vigorous 
 nationality. He says: 
 
 Of many causes promoting union, four above others exercised 
 a steady and commanding influence. The new republic as one 
 nation must have power to regulate its foreign commerce; to colonize 
 its large domain ; to provide an adequate revenue ; and to establish 
 justice in domestic trade by prohibiting the separate States from 
 
 60 
 
ILNIOK WAS FORMED. 61 
 
 impairing the obligation of contracts. Each of these causes was 
 of vital importance ; but the necessity for regulating commerce gave 
 the immediate impulse to a more perfect Constitution. 
 
 On the next page, he enters into the following details 
 of the commercial problem: 
 
 The States could not successfully defend themselves against 
 the policy of Great Britain by separate legislation, because it was 
 not the interest of any one of them to exclude British vessels from 
 their harbors unless the like measure should be adopted by every 
 other ; and a union of thirteen distinct powers would encounter 
 the very difficulty which had so often proved insuperable. But 
 while every increase of the power of Congress in domestic affairs 
 aroused jealousy between the States, the selfish design of a foreign 
 government to repress their industry drew them together against a 
 common adversary. 
 
 It was only after the several States had ascertained 
 by experimental knowledge, full of the bitterness of 
 invariable failure, how it was impossible to counteract 
 the aggressions and encroachments of the British trade 
 policy by the different and clashing measures of the 
 individual Legislatures, that they began to tame their 
 prejudices and jealousies into submission to the vital 
 requirements of the general welfare. It was then seen, 
 at least by the better class of minds, that home indus- 
 try could not thrive, and the navigation interests of 
 America could not be shielded, unless controlling 
 authority should be lodged with Congress to frame 
 commercial regulations obligatory upon every member 
 of the Confederation. To reach that conclusion, the 
 people had to make a tedious and wearisome journey 
 from one extreme to another of belief. The bulk of 
 mankind are too much engaged in private concerns to 
 anticipate the operation of national causes. Before 
 
62 AVIIY A MOKE PEBFECT 
 
 they will clearly perceive, they must deeply feel, suffer- 
 ing thus becoming the schoolmaster of their convic- 
 tions. It was by long and painful experience with the 
 restrictions placed by the mother country upon the 
 productive resources of the colonies, that the popular 
 masses learned to regard those restrictions as serious 
 evils to be resisted as fatal to civil liberty. When the 
 colonies became independent States, they could not 
 conceive that it would be politic or right to imitate, in 
 their own behalf, the system which was repugnant to 
 their notions of justice while practiced by Great Britain. 
 Her persistence in the same exclusive and self-aggran- 
 dizing system of commercial regulations, so far as the 
 altered circumstances would permit, after the close of 
 the war, had been so greatly injurious to the maritime 
 and exporting interests of America, that the belief was 
 reinforced that the system was founded upon inher- 
 ently wrong principles; hence, public sentiment inclined 
 to the opposite extreme, which was free trade. On 
 this point, Minot says, in his "History of the Insur- 
 rections in Massachusetts," page 7: 
 
 Their honest prejudices were averse from duties of impost and 
 excise, which were, at that time, supposed to be anti-republican by 
 many judicious and influential characters. These measures, there- 
 fore, could be adopted, at first, but partially and to small effect. 
 
 Some four years of actual contact with the evils 
 caused by unrestricted foreign commerce were requisite 
 to fully purge from the minds of the people their predi- 
 lections in favor of the free-trade policy, and to reveal 
 to them the necessity of warding off European encroach- 
 ment by means of navigation laws and protective duties 
 on imports, at the hands of the general government. 
 In several of the States, however, a movement in that 
 
UNION WAS FORMED. 63 
 
 direction, but under local authority, began to take 
 practical shape as early as 1785. Bancroft says, in the 
 first volume of his " History of the Formation of the 
 Constitution," beginning on page 186: 
 
 The country began to be in earnest as it summoned Congress to 
 change its barren discussions for efficient remedies. The ever 
 increasing voice of complaint broke out from the impatient com- 
 mercial towns of the northern and central States. On the llth of 
 January, 1785, the day on which Congress established itself in 
 New York, the artificers, tradesmen, and mechanics of that city, 
 as they gave it a welcome, added these brave words: "We hope 
 our representatives will coincide with the other States in aiig- 
 menting your power to every exigency of the Union." The New 
 York Chamber of Commerce in like manner entreated it to make 
 the commerce of the United States one of the first objects of its 
 care, and to counteract the injurious restrictions of foreign nations. 
 The New York Legislature, then in session, imposed a double duty 
 on all goods imported in British bottoms. 
 
 On the 22d of March, 1785, a bill to " protect the manufactures " 
 of Pennsylvania by specific or ad valorem duties on more than 
 seventy articles, among them on manufactures of iron and steel, 
 was read in its Assembly for the second time, debated by para- 
 graphs, and then ordered to be printed for public consideration. 
 The citizens of Philadelphia, recalling the usages of the Revolution, 
 on the 2d of June held a town meeting; and, after the deliberations 
 of tlieir committee for eighteen days, they declared that relief from 
 the oppressions under which the American trade and manufactures 
 languished could spring only from the grant to Congress of full 
 constitutional powers over the commerce of the United States; that 
 foreign manufactures interfering with domestic industry ought to 
 be discouraged by prohibitions or protective duties. They raised a 
 committee to lay their resolutions in the form of a petition before 
 their own Assembly, and to correspond with*committees appointed 
 elsewhere for similar purposes. On the 20th of September, after 
 the bill of the Pennsylvania Legislature had been nearly six months 
 under consideration by the people, and after it had been amended 
 by an increase of duties, especially on manufactures of iron, and by 
 
64 WHY A MOKE PERFECT 
 
 a discriminating tonnage duty on ships of nations having no treaty 
 of commerce with Congress, it became a law with general acclama- 
 tion. 
 
 Pennsylvania had been cheered on its way by voices from 
 Boston. On the 18th of April the merchants and tradesmen of 
 that town, meeting in Faneuil Hall, established a committee of 
 correspondence with merchants of other towns, bound themselves 
 not to buy British goods of resident British factors, and prayed 
 Congress for the needed immediate relief. Their petition was 
 reserved by Congress for consideration when the report of its 
 Committee on Commerce should be taken up. The movement in 
 Boston penetrated to every class of its citizens; its artificers and 
 mechanics joined the merchants and tradesmen in condemning the 
 ruinous excess of British importations. To these proceedings 
 Grayson directed the attention of Madison. 
 
 * * * Two years before, Boston, in its mandate to the men 
 of its choice, had, in extreme language, vindicated the absolute 
 sovereignty of the State; the town, no longer wedded to the pride 
 of independence, instructed its representatives in this wise: Peace 
 has not brought back prosperity, foreigners monopolize our com- 
 merce; the American carrying trade and the American finances 
 are threatened with annihilation; the government should encourage 
 agriculture, protect manufactures, and establish a public revenue; 
 the Confederacy is inadequate to its purposes; Congress should be 
 invested with power competent to the wants of the country; the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts should request the Executive to open 
 a correspondence with the governors of all the States; from 
 national unanimity and national exertion we have derived our 
 freedom; the joint action of the several parts of the Union can 
 alone restore happiness and security. 
 
 The preamble to the Pennsylvania tariff, above men- 
 tioned, is remarkable for its detailed declaration of 
 reasons for the passage of the act. and is in these words: 
 
 SECTION 1. "Whereas divers useful and beneficial arts and 
 manufactures have been gradually introduced into Pennsylvania, 
 and the same have at length risen to a very considerable extent 
 and perfection, insomuch that during the late war between the 
 
UNION WAS FOKMED. 65 
 
 United States of America and Great Britain, when the importa- 
 tion of European goods was much interrupted, and often very difficult 
 and uncertain, the artisans and mechanics of this State were able to 
 supply, in the hours of need, not only large quantities of weapons and 
 other implements, but also ammunition and clothing, without which 
 the war could not haw been carried on, whereby their oppressed 
 country was greatly benefited and relieved. 
 
 SEC. 2. And whereas, although the fabrics and manufactures 
 of Europe and other foreign parts, imported into this country in 
 times of peace, may be afforded at cheaper rates than they can be 
 made here, yet good policy and a regard to the well-being of divers 
 useful and industrious citizens, who are employed in the making of 
 like goods in this State, demand of us tliat moderate duties be laid on 
 certain fabrics and manufactures impended, which do most interfere 
 with, and which (if no relief be given) will under inine and destroy the 
 useful manufactures of the like kind in this country: For this 
 purpose, etc. 
 
 This clear and deep insight into the vital connection 
 between duties on imports and the growth of pros- 
 perous manufactures, in which the sagacity of Pennsyl- 
 vania preceded all her sister States, is sufficient of itself 
 to account for the steadfast fidelity of her people, no 
 matter what their partisan affiliations, to the American 
 system of protection to home industry; and also to 
 account for the fact that she is always found " at the 
 front " in repelling assaults upon that system. "William 
 Penn, her founder, was assiduous in cultivating ideas of 
 the importance of industrious habits among the early 
 settlers; and Benjamin Franklin, his successor in public 
 esteem and influence, was equally zealous in dissemi- 
 nating the same views, until idleness, or whatever led 
 to idleness, became in a peculiar degree an object of 
 aversion. This training, at the outset of the life of the 
 Commonwealth, and in its youthful years, no doubt gave 
 that bent to the minds of the community which was 
 5 
 
66 WHY A MORE PERFECT 
 
 felt in framing the Pennsylvania tariff of 1785, and 
 which has been felt in a similar way ever since, keeping 
 her in the van of States on the tariff question. 
 
 In those days, however, which tried men's souls, the 
 other States, enlightened by experience to understand 
 the true cause of dissatisfaction and distress all over the 
 land, were beginning to concede that the Pennsylvania 
 idea, applied uniformly to the entire country, was the 
 only remedy which could bring full and permanent 
 relief. Turn where the people would, they perceived 
 one universal sense of present or impending ruin, de- 
 pressing the energies and darkening the prospects of 
 the citizen; and they could trace it all primarily to the 
 destructive influences of unrestricted foreign trade. It 
 was with this knowledge impressed upon his memory 
 that Fisher Ames said in the House of Kepresentatives, 
 in 1789, when debating the first tariff bill: 
 
 I conceive, sir, that the present Constitution was dictated by 
 commercial necessity, more than any other cause. The want of an 
 efficient government to secure the manufacturing interest, and to 
 advance our commerce, was long seen by men of judgment, and 
 pointed out by patriots solicitous to promote our general welfare. 
 
 Daniel Webster was brought to the same conclusion 
 by his researches among the records of our history. 
 This giant in intellect, whose deliberate utterances on 
 constitutional questions carried, in his day, almost the 
 force of judicial decisions by the highest court, said, in 
 his remarks to the citizens of Buffalo, June, 1833: 
 
 The protection of American labor against the injurious com- 
 petition of foreign labor, so far, at least, as respects general handi- 
 craft productions, is known historically to have been one end designed 
 to be obtained by establishing the Constitution. 
 
 But he gave forth his views with more emphasis, 
 
UNION WAS FORMED. 67 
 
 directness, and detail, in his speech at the Albany mass- 
 meeting, August 27, 1844. Then he said: 
 
 The term [regulation of commerce] was well understood in 
 our colonial history, and if we go back to the history of the 
 Constitution, and of the Convention which adopted it, we shall 
 find that everywhere, when masses of men were assembled, and 
 the wants of the people were brought forth into prominence, the 
 idea was held up, that domestic industry could not prosper, manu- 
 factures and the mechanic arts could not advance, the condition 
 of the common country could not be carried up to any consider- 
 able elevation, unless there should be one government, to lay one 
 rate of duty upon imports throughout the Union, from New 
 Hampshire to Georgia; regard to be had, in laying this duty, to tJie 
 protection of American labor and industry. I defy the man in any 
 degree conversant with history, in any degree acquainted with the 
 annals of this country from 1787 to the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion in 1789, to say that this was not a leading, I may almost say, 
 the leading motive, South as well as North, for the formation of the 
 new government. Without that provision in tJie Constitution, it never 
 could have been adopted. 
 
 Rufus Choate, another acknowledged master of con- 
 stitutional interpretation, took exactly the same view in 
 his speech in the United States Senate, March 14, 1842, 
 on "the power and duty of Congress to continue the 
 policy of protecting American labor." He said: 
 
 A whole people, a whole generation of our fathers, had in 
 view, as one grand end and purpose of their new government, the 
 acquisition of the means of restraining, by governmental action, the 
 importation of foreign manufactures, for the encouragement of 
 manufactures and of labor at home, and desired and meant to do 
 this by clothing tlie new government with this specific power of regulat- 
 ing commerce. 
 
 Even from England comes a confirmation of the 
 same general view. In his "Addresses" (Vol.1., page 
 83), Edward Everett says: 
 
68 WHY A MORE PERFECT 
 
 It has been, within a few years, stated by Mr. Huskisson, and 
 with truth, that the real causes of the Revolution are to be found, 
 not in the irritating measures that followed Mr. Grenville's plan 
 of taxation, but in the long-cherished discontent of the colonies 
 at this system of legislative oppression. Accordingly the first 
 measures of the patriots aimed to establish their independence on 
 the basis of the productive industry and the laborious arts of the 
 country. 
 
 With such an intention guiding the attempt of the 
 colonies to throw off the yoke of the mother country, 
 what momentum and force that intention must have 
 acquired when, after the war, it was learned, in the 
 school of impoverishment and suffering, that political 
 independence was not in itself any defense against the 
 aggressions of Great Britain upon the manufacturing 
 industries of the United States. Industrial independ- 
 ence, the necessary support of political independence 
 and national unity, was then seen to be attainable only 
 by enlarging and strengthening the powers of the 
 general government, and especially by conferring upon 
 Congress the supreme authority to regulate commerce 
 with foreign nations. This desire to secure industrial 
 independence was the most determinate, impelling, 
 decisive of all the motives for the formation of "a 
 more perfect Union," endowed with ample capacity to 
 encourage and protect home manufactures. The his- 
 torical records are explicit, numerous, positive, and 
 marvelously concurrent on this point, leaving no room 
 for honest doubt, and furnishing proof not to be 
 exceeded in convincing force even by a demonstration 
 in mathematics. No man can lay his finger upon an 
 atom of evidence to the contrary. All the prominent 
 and influential events, as well as those of a subordinate 
 and auxiliary character, which either preceded or ac- 
 
UNION WAS FORMED. 69 
 
 companied, or immediately followed, the change from 
 the Confederation to the new Union, urgently reinforce 
 the statement, that the people of this country demanded 
 a Union stronger than the Confederation, for the very 
 purpose of shielding home industry from the prostrat- 
 ing assaults of foreign competition, through the regula- 
 tion of commerce with other nations, so as to check or 
 to prohibit the importation of commodities interfering 
 with the growth and prosperity of domestic manufact- 
 ures, and so as to give native production an impetus 
 which would develop all the resources inherent within 
 the boundaries of the nationality, essential for the 
 supply and consumption of the population, whether in 
 times of peace or war. Gibralter's rock is not more 
 securely established than this fact. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FIEST EFFECTS OF THE NEW PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The proposed Constitution of the United States, 
 perfected and signed by the Federal Convention, Sep- 
 tember 17, 1787, was submitted to the consideration of 
 the several States by the act of September 28, in the 
 same year, passed by the Congress of the Confederation. 
 As State after State ratified, the new organic law, the 
 event was greeted with public rejoicings and enthusi- 
 astic parades in many of the towns and cities. At 
 length the present Union was completed, and made an 
 operative existence, by the assent of New Hampshire, 
 June 21, 1788 the ninth in order of sequence, and 
 fulfilling the conditions of the instrument. Everywhere 
 the popular mind turned to the new government with 
 ardent expectation that it would supply the long-felt 
 need of protection to home industry; and the chronicles 
 of the time abound with evidences that such a realiza- 
 tion was almost universally regarded as one of the most 
 important and beneficial of the consequences to follow 
 the change of political structure as the very keystone 
 of the arch. No wonder Mathew Carey was able to 
 say, in "The New Olive Branch/' page 47: 
 
 The adoption of the Federal Constitution operated like magic; 
 produced a total change in the state of affairs; and actually 
 removed no small portion of the public sufferings, by the confi- 
 dence it inspired, even before the measures of government could 
 be carried into effect. 
 
 On the same subject Bishop says, in his " History of 
 70 
 
HEW PLAN OF GOVEEHMENT. 71 
 
 American Manufactures," second volume, beginning 
 on page 14: 
 
 Hence the general enthusiasm with which the adoption of the 
 new Constitution was hailed in the principal centers of mechanical 
 industry and trade as the palladium of the future industrial inter- 
 ests of the nation. The new form of government organized under 
 it was regarded by the agricultural, manufacturing, and commer- 
 cial classes, with no vain confidence, as securing to their invest- 
 ments and labors those immunities and rewards which they had 
 sought in vain under the old Confederation. A more efficient 
 administration of affairs now took the place of the wretched system 
 of distrust, jealousy, and weakness which had paralyzed all enter- 
 prise; and new energy was infused into all departments of 
 business. Agriculture improved rapidly; commerce expanded; 
 and manufactures, which were still subordinate in importance to 
 the former, put forth bolder efforts. American labor began 
 steadily to change its form from a general system of isolated and 
 fireside manual operations though these continued for some time 
 longer its chief characteristic to the more organized efforts of 
 regular establishments with associated capital and corporate privi- 
 leges, employing more or less of the new machinery which was 
 then coming into use in Europe. * * * That the productive 
 classes regarded the Constitution of 1787 as conferring the power 
 and right of protection to the infant manufactures of the country, 
 and thus of seconding the general zeal for their increase, is mani- 
 fest from the jubilant feeling excited in various quarters upon 
 the public ratification of that instrument. Their confidence in 
 the ability and disposition of the new government formed under it 
 to aid them, as well as the extreme peril in which their interests 
 were then placed, are also apparent from the fact that the first 
 petition presented to Congress, after its first assembling in March, 
 1789, emanated from upward of seven hundred of the mechanics, 
 tradesmen, and others of the town of Baltimore, lamenting the 
 decline of manufactures and trade since the Revolution, and 
 praying that the efficient government with which they were then 
 blessed, for the first time, would render the country "independent 
 in fact as well as in name," by an early attention to the encourage- 
 ment and protection of American manufactures, by imposing on 
 
72 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE 
 
 ' ' all foreign articles which could be made in America such duties 
 as would give a decided preference to their labors." 
 
 Evidence exists in overflowing abundance to show 
 that the great body of the people burned with intense 
 anxiety, and with hot impatience, to be rid of indus- 
 trial dependence upon foreign countries, particularly 
 upon Great Britain; and that the prospect of deliver- 
 ance centered in the recently-adopted Constitution, and 
 in the strong government to which it gave existence. 
 Tucker, in his "History of the United States," first 
 volume, beginning on page 384, adds his testimony thus: 
 
 The country, now buoyant with hopes, in proportion to the 
 dangers it had recently escaped, and the evils it even then encoun- 
 tered, looked forward with impatience to the meeting of the lirst 
 Congress under the new Constitution. The officers of the army, 
 who had not made sale of their unsatisfied claims, saw in the new 
 government, provided as it was with unlimited powers of taxation, 
 the prospect of justice from their country. The other public 
 creditors, who were generally people of property and influence, 
 looked forward to have their claims doubled or even quadrupled 
 in value. The merchant and ship-owner confidently expected pro- 
 tection from the discriminating duties and navigation laws of other 
 countries; and even the small manufacturing class hoped for the 
 encouragement of a protective impost. The agricultural class, 
 without looking for any immediate benefit from legislation, 
 expected to share in the general prosperity, and to profit by an 
 improvement of the markets, both foreign and domestic. In the 
 cities, especially, where these benefits were more fully appreciated, 
 there were pompous and costly demonstrations of the general joy. 
 
 Before the new order of things could go into opera- 
 tion, means of partial relief had been sought in volun- 
 tary associations, and in an appeal to the patriotism of 
 their fellow-citizens Such a society was formed in 
 Boston in 1787 or 1788, and a circular letter was 
 addressed by its membership to their brethren through- 
 
NEW PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. 73 
 
 out the Union. The following address from the 
 " Tradesmen and Manufacturers of New York," dated 
 November 17, 1788, in answer to that circular, expresses 
 the feelings and hopes with which the laboring classes 
 of the country, particularly those engaged in the vari- 
 ous branches of mechanical industry, looked forward to 
 legislation under the new Constitution for full and 
 permanent relief: 
 
 GENTLEMEN: The mechanics and manufacturers of the city 
 of New York have long contemplated and lamented the evils 
 which a pernicious system of commerce has introduced into this 
 country, and the obstacles with which it has opposed the extension 
 and improvement of American manufactures; and having taken 
 into consideration your circular letter, wherein those evils and 
 their remedies are pointed out, in a just and striking manner, have 
 authorized us to communicate to you, in answer to your address, 
 their sentiments on the interesting subject. 
 
 It is with the highest pleasure that we embrace this opportu- 
 nity to express to you their approbation of the liberal and patriotic 
 attempt of the tradesmen and manufacturers of your respectable 
 town. 
 
 Every zealous and enlightened friend to the prosperity of this 
 country must view, with peculiar regret, the impediments with 
 which foreign importations have embarrassed the infant arts in 
 America. We are sensible that they are not only highly unfavor- 
 able to every mechanical improvement, but that they nourish a 
 spirit of dependence, which tends in some degree to defeat the 
 purposes of our late Revolution, and tarnish the luster of our char- 
 acter. We are sensible that long habit has fixed, in the minds of 
 the people, an unjust predilection for foreign productions, and has 
 rendered them too regardless of the arguments and complaints 
 with which the patriotic and discerning have addressed them from 
 every quarter. The prejudices have become confirmed and radical; 
 and we are convinced that a strong and united effort is necessary 
 to expel them. We are happy that the tradesmen of Boston have 
 led the way to a general and efficient exertion in this important 
 cause. 
 
74 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE 
 
 This impression we feel of the utility and expediency of 
 encouraging our domestic manufactures is in perfect correspond- 
 ence with your own; and we shall most cheerfully unite our 
 endeavors with those of our brethren throughout the Union, and 
 shall be ready to adopt every measure which will have a tendency 
 to facilitate the great design. 
 
 The Legislature of our State, convinced of the propriety of 
 cherishing our manufactures in their early growth, have made 
 some provisions for that purpose. We have no doubt that more 
 comprehensive measures will in time be taken by them. But on 
 the confederated exertions of our brethren, and especially on the 
 patronage of the Federal Government, we rest our most flattering 
 hopes of success. 
 
 In order to support and improve the union and harmony of 
 the American manufacturers, and to render as systematic and 
 uniform as possible their designs for the common benefit, we 
 perfectly concur with you in the propriety of establishing a recip- 
 rocal and unreserved communication. When our views, like, our 
 interests, are combined and concentrated, our petitions to the 
 Federal Legislature will assume the tone and complexion of the 
 public wishes, and will have a proportionable weight and influence. 
 
 We request you to favor us with the continuance of your 
 correspondence, and to transmit to us, from time to time, such 
 resolutions and proposals of your association as may be calculated 
 for the promotion of our mutual interests. 
 
 We are, with the highest respect, etc. 
 
 Here the power, the obligation, and the likelihood 
 of the new government to enact laws for the specific 
 purpose of encouraging domestic industry, and of de- 
 fending it from the evil effects of foreign importations, 
 excessive in quantity and prostrating to home competi- 
 tion, were taken for granted with that strong confidence 
 which can proceed only from absence of all doubt or 
 fear of contradiction. In those days the idea was undis- 
 puted that one of the principal objects in ordaining 
 and establishing the Constitution of ' ' the more perfect 
 Union " was to secure to American capital and American 
 
KEW PLAtf OF GOVE&HMEin:. 75 
 
 labor, to American skill and American enterprise, 
 immunity from the malign influences of European 
 interference, to the end that American resources might 
 be developed, American progress might be accelerated, 
 and American prosperity might be assured. Such 
 expectation and such reliance were constantly mani- 
 fested on those numerous occasions all over the country, 
 when men came together in formal assemblies to cele- 
 brate, with exultant hearts, the grand event of completed 
 ratification of the new plan of government. Rufus 
 Choate, in his speech in the United States Senate, 
 April 12 and 15, 1844, on "Protecting American Labor 
 by Duties on Imports," portrayed in glowing yet truth- 
 ful words these exhibitions of the popular joy. He said: 
 
 Sir, the Congress of 1789 might have known, by another and 
 shorter process, the public sentiment of that day the public senti- 
 ment of the age of the Constitution. There were members who 
 had witnessed and united in some one of the processions and 
 assemblies which, in so many towns and villages, had just been 
 celebrating the institution of the new government; and they might 
 have learned there what the people expected of them! Very 
 striking exhibitions they were, sir; and altogether worthy of the 
 contemplation of him who would truly and adequately know for 
 what the Constitution was created. On an appointed day, men 
 came in from the country, and mingling themselves with those of 
 the town, were arranged in order by thousands. Beneath bright 
 skies the moral and national prospect how much brighter than 
 the natural ! with banners and music, gazed on, sympathized 
 with by wives, and mothers, and daughters, and sisters, thronging 
 at windows, in balconies, and up to the house tops, the long and 
 serried files of labor, moved from street to street, and at length 
 composed themselves to unite in thanksgiving to God, and in 
 listening to discourses commemorative of the event, and embodying 
 the gratitude and the expectations with which the new government 
 was welcomed in; embodying a survey of its powers and objects, 
 and a sketch of the transcendent good of which it was full, for 
 
76 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE 
 
 that age, and for all time. Sir, in the banners of various device 
 which marked the long course of those processions; in the mottoes 
 upon their flags; in the machines, and models and figures, with 
 which the pacific and more than triumphant march was enriched 
 and enlivened; in the order of its arrangements; in the organization 
 of tradesmen and artisans, and all the families of labor which 
 swelled it; in the conversation of individuals of those ''grave and 
 anxious multitudes" one with another, in the topics and thoughts 
 of the orators of the day; in the applause of the audience; in all 
 this vast, vivid, and various accumulation and exhibition of the 
 general mind, almost as well as in the journals of the Convention, 
 the Madison papers, the debates of public bodies, or the grave dis- 
 cussions of the " Federalist " itself, you may read the Congress of 
 1789 might read what kind of government the people thought 
 they had constructed. I could almost say that the Constitution is 
 what the general belief of that age held it to be; and in these great 
 and solemn festal scenes is the expression of that general belief. 
 
 Take the Philadelphia procession for an instance, of the fourth 
 of July, 1788, and see what the readers of poor Richard's Almanac, 
 the pupils and contemporaries of Franklin, expected of the Federal 
 Constitution. It was a column of many thousands of persons, of 
 trades and callings. The more advanced figures and devices of 
 the procession were intended to represent, in a chronological 
 series, the great events which preceded the adoption of the new 
 government. There was one on horseback, representing Inde- 
 pendence, and bearing the staff and cap of liberty; next followed 
 one, riding upon a horse, formerly of Count Rochambeau, and 
 carrying a flag, with devices of lilies and stars, commemorative of 
 the French alliance, to which we owed so much; then another, 
 with a staff surmounted with laurel and olive, announcing the 
 treaty of peace; after him, another, bearing aloft the name of 
 Washington; then a herald, proclaiming with sound of trumpet 
 the NEW ERA; then a representation of the Convention which 
 framed the Constitution; and then others of the Constitution 
 itself "a lofty ornamental car, in the form of an eagle"; and 
 " a grand federal edifice, the dome supported by thirteen columns, 
 and surmounted by a figure of plenty." After these came an 
 appropriate and golden train the long line of the various labor of 
 America, for whom the new era had risen, with healing on its 
 
NEW PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. 77 
 
 wings. First, as it ought to have been, was the agricultural 
 society. Then came the manufacturing society, with spinning 
 and carding machines; looms and apparatus for the printing of 
 muslins and calicos. This bore three flags. The device on one 
 was a bee-hive, with bees issuing from it, standing in the beams 
 of a rising sun; the field of the blue flag, and the motto, "In its 
 rays we shall feel new vigor." The motto on the next was, " May 
 the Union Government protect the manufactures of America"; 
 and on the next, " May Government protect us." On the carriage 
 of the manufacturers, drawn by ten horses, were a carding 
 machine, worked by two persons, "carding cotton"; a spinning 
 machine, worked by a woman, and drawing cotton suitable for 
 fine jeans; looms on which laces and jeans were being woven; 
 a man designing and cutting prints for shawls; and "Mrs. Hewson 
 and her four daughters," in cotton dresses of their own manu- 
 facture, penciling a piece of chintz of Mr. Hewson's printing. 
 There followed then great numbers I believe there may have 
 been more than fifty bodies of tradesmen and mechanics, each 
 with its banner, devices and motto, expressive of the same hopes 
 and the same convictions, evidencing equally the universal popular 
 mind. But I need pursue the matter no further. Sir, what was 
 seen in this procession was seen, on a larger or smaller scale, 
 everywhere. The pageant is passed. The actors have retired 
 from human view. The awful curtain has dropped on them 
 forever. All the world's a stage, and this part is played! Yet 
 the spirit of philosophical history that spirit to which the half- 
 obliterated figures of a procession upon a wasting architectural 
 fragment reveal, intelligibly and instructively, some glory or 
 some sorrow of a past age will not disdain to gather up and 
 ponder these manifestations of the hopes, desires and purposes of 
 that mighty heart now hushed. I do not wish or expect to under- 
 stand the objects for which the Constitvition was framed better 
 than the generation which made it; and of their understanding of 
 them I have referred you to very vivid and very authentic proofs. 
 I cannot forbear to read to you a sentence or two, before I take 
 leave of the subject, from "Observations on the Philadelphia 
 Procession," Avritten by an eye-witness, very soon after the cele- 
 bration : 
 
 " The large stage on which the carding and spinning machines dis- 
 
78 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE 
 
 played the manufacture of cotton was viewed with astonishment and 
 delight by every spectator. On that stage were carried the emblems of 
 the future wealth and independence of our country. Cotton may be 
 cultivated in the Southern and manufactured in the Eastern and Middle 
 States, in such quantities, in a few years, as to clothe every citizen of 
 the United States. Hence will arise a ~hond of Union to the States, more 
 powerful than any article of the new Count itu1i<i. Cotton possesses sev- 
 eral advantages over wool as an article of dress and commerce. It is 
 not liable tobe moth-eaten, and is proper both for winter and summer 
 garments. It may, moreover, be manufactured in America at a less 
 expense than it can be imported from any nation in Europe. From 
 these circumstances, I cannot help hoping that we shall soon see cotton 
 not only the uniform of the citizens of America, but an article of expor- 
 tation to foreign countries. Several respectable gentlemen exhibited a 
 prelude of these events by appearing in complete suits of jeans, manu- 
 factured by the machines that have been mentioned." 
 
 Compare this with the judgment of Mr. Calhoun, in his speech 
 in the House of Representatives, April, 1816 : " Capital employed 
 in manufacturing is calculated to bind together more closely our 
 widely spread Republic. It will increase our mutual dependence 
 and intercourse." 
 
 Thus, many months before the new government 
 could be organized in its various departments, and 
 could undertake the work of passing and administer- 
 ing remedial laws, the ratified Constitution was accepted 
 everywhere, by statesmen and people alike, including 
 all classes of the population, openly, avowedly, formally, 
 without dispute, without hesitation, without distrust, 
 as a guarantee that Congress had been vested with and 
 would exercise the power of protecting and fostering 
 the agriculture, the tonnage, the navigation, the com- 
 merce, and the manufactures of the nation. It does 
 not seem to have entered into anybody's mind to sup- 
 pose to the contrary. There was only one opinion on 
 the subject. 
 
 Prospective relief became, to some extent, relief 
 itself; for confidence in the present was restored by the 
 universal trust in the future. It was like a besieged 
 
NEW PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. 79 
 
 city, reduced almost to extremity, but lifted from 
 despair to hope by sight of approaching deliverance. 
 Industry began to revive in the genial warmth of this 
 new-born confidence. Even the diplomatic agents of 
 foreign governments felt obliged to notice, in their 
 official correspondence, the favorable change which was 
 taking place. Lord Dorchester communicated the fol- 
 lowing views to the British Cabinet, under date of 
 October 14, 1788: 
 
 The manufactures of the States are in their infancy, yet the 
 enterprising genius of the people may be gathered from the great 
 exertions of individuals in this branch under all their present 
 embarrassments. In Connecticut, attempts have been made to 
 make silk, and with success; specimens are shown at New Haven 
 College, and Dr. Styles, the president, who is a man of genius and 
 perseverance, is indefatigable at present in promoting it. Nail 
 manufactories are already established; there are two in Albany 
 that supply the whole country, and the importation of nails from 
 Great Britain has ceased in that neighborhood. A white-glass 
 manufactory has lately been set on foot in Jersey, and the sale 
 is not inconsiderable. 
 
 Pennsylvania has taken the lead in various branches of manu- 
 facture ; it is said that there are at this time between two and 
 three hundred stocking looms in the city of Philadelphia and 
 different parts of the State, with full employment. Machines for 
 carding and spinning cottons have been introduced, and jeans can 
 be made on moderate terms. The culture of cotton is at present 
 much attended to in the Southern States. 
 
 Similar observations passed between the public men 
 of the United States. St. John Crevecoeur wrote from 
 New York to Jefferson, October 20, 1788: 
 
 Never was so great a change in the opinions of the best people 
 as has happened these five years; almost everybody feels the neces- 
 sity of coercive laws, government, union, industry, and labor. I 
 hope the small differences entertained by some people about the 
 
80 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE 
 
 mode of regeneration will no longer be a barrier; such will be the 
 foundations of America's future peace, opulence, and power. The 
 exports of this country have singularly increased within these two 
 years, and the imports have decreased in proportion; manufactures 
 of the most useful kind are establishing in Pennsylvania, Con- 
 necticut, and Massachusetts; in the South they begin to cultivate 
 cotton, and in the North they are erecting engines to spin it. Nails, 
 canvas, cordage, glass, woolens, linens are now making as good of 
 their kind as any in Europe. Bridges are building everywhere, 
 new communications are opening, new settlements forming; the 
 fisheries have been singularly prosperous this year; even here a 
 singular spirit of improvement is conspicuous; they are paving all 
 their streets in dos d'dne, with elegant foot-paths on each side; 
 toward the North river immense docks are filling up with the 
 adjacent banks, over which a beautiful street, sixty feet wide, is 
 already laid out, which begins at the Battery and is to extend two 
 miles, a considerable part of which is already done and paved. 
 Four thousand pounds have been subscribed for embellishing and 
 enlarging the City Hall, in order to accommodate the new federal 
 corps with more decency, and Major 1'Enfant has been appointed 
 to preside over the works, which he has planned himself. This 
 country, once consolidated, will easily pay its debts, by a wise 
 system of commercial law encourage the industry of its inhab- 
 itants, and draw forth all their genius. 
 
 D. Humphries wrote from Mount Vernon to Jefferson, 
 November 29, 1788: 
 
 The arts of peace are progressing in the old States, perhaps 
 more rapidly than they have ever before done. The spirit of 
 improvement is gaining ground. The three great bridges lately 
 erected in Massachusetts do that State vast credit. The enter- 
 prise in trade and manufactures, supported by domestic economy, 
 has, during the last year, for the first time made the exports from 
 thence considerably more valuable than the imports into it. To 
 this the trade in the East Indies has not a little contributed. 
 
 It is not difficult to point out the causes of this great 
 change for the better. Behind the people spread a 
 gloomy past, embittered with unredressed grievances 
 
NEW PLAN OF GOVERNME 
 
 and the harsh discipline of suffering; in the forward 
 distance appeared the dawn of a new era, aglow with" 
 bright promises. Cheered by that magnificent pros- 
 pect, all classes turned their faces resolutely toward the 
 future. Enterprise woke from its long sleep. Capital 
 ceased to keep aloof from industrial undertakings, and 
 took hold of ventures with both hands. Confidence, 
 leaning fondly on hope, waved her enchanted wand over 
 the scene, and industry began to ply her busy trades. 
 Satisfaction and tranquillity left no room for the fore- 
 boding and the discord which for years had disturbed 
 the American commonwealths. This was because the 
 belief had become general that liberty had been 
 strengthened, the rights of labor rescued, the destiny 
 of the republic exalted, and the happiness of mankind 
 increased, by the establishment of the new federal 
 government, which thus, even before its legislative 
 machinery could be set in motion, gave to all the 
 material interests of the country some of the effects of 
 positive protection.- The "more perfect Union" was 
 in itself alone a system of national defense, compared 
 with the feebleness and inefficacy of the Confedera- 
 tion, so that society felt in all its ramifications the 
 beneficial influence of a realization of greater security. 
 6 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PETITIONS TO CONGRESS FOR PROTECTION. 
 
 The first Wednesday in March, 1789, which was the 
 fourth of the month, had been fixed by law as the date 
 on which to inaugurate the new government; but a 
 quorum of the House of Representatives was not formed 
 until the following first of April. Within one week 
 from that day, James Madison brought forward the 
 subject of the tariff, as the most important which could 
 engage the attention of members, and as the most 
 pressing and indispensable of the measures to be acted 
 on at that session. Just three days after the discussion 
 commenced, a petition was presented from "the Trades- 
 men, Mechanics, and others of the Town of Baltimore/' 
 in which they said: 
 
 The happy period having now arrived when the United States 
 are placed in a new situation, and the adoption of the general 
 government gives one sovereign Legislature the sole and exclusive 
 power of laying duties upon imports, your petitioners rejoice at 
 the prospect this affords them; and America, freed from the 
 commercial shackles which have so long bound her, will see and 
 pursue her true interest, becoming independent in fact as well as 
 in name. And they confidently hope that the encouragement and 
 protection of American manufactures will claim the earliest atten- 
 tion of the supreme Legislature of the nation; as it is a universally 
 acknowledged truth that the United States contain, within their 
 limits, resources amply sufficient to enable them to become a 
 great manufacturing country, and only want the paironage and 
 support of a wise, energetic government. 
 
 Below is a condensed summary of this petition, 
 recorded in the House Journal, as 
 
PETITIONS TO COKGEESS FOll PKOTECTION. 83 
 
 Setting forth that, since the close of the late war and the com- 
 pletion of the Revolution, they have observed with serious regret 
 the manufacturing and the trading interest of the country rapidly 
 declining, and the attempts of the State Legislatures to remedy the 
 evil failing of their object; that, in the present melancholy state of 
 our country, the number of poor increasing for want of employ- 
 ment, foreign debts accumulating, houses and lands depreciating 
 in value, and trade and manufactures languishing and expiring, 
 they look up to the supreme Legislature of the United States as 
 the guardians of the whole empire, and from their united wisdom 
 and patriotism and ardent love of their country, expect to derive 
 that aid and assistance which alone can dissipate their just appre- 
 hensions, and animate them with hopes of success in future, 
 by imposing on all foreign articles which can be made in America, 
 such duties as will give a just and decided preference to their 
 labors, discountenancing that trade which tends so materially to 
 injure them and impoverish their country measures which, in 
 their consequences, may also contribute to the discharge of the 
 national debt and the due support of government; that they 
 have annexed a list of such articles as are or can be manufactured 
 amongst them, and humbly trust in the wisdom of the Legislature 
 to grant them, in common with the other mechanics and manu- 
 facturers of the United States, that relief which may appear proper. 
 
 Considering the long and intense and embittered 
 opposition of the South, in later years, to the protective 
 system, on the ground of its tmconstitutionality, the 
 next petition, presented the very next day, possesses 
 extraordinary significance. That petition came from 
 the shipwrights of the principal city in the State which, 
 in 1832, raised the banner of nullification against the 
 tariffs of 1824 and 1828, and threatened separation from 
 the Union unless the offensive laws should be annulled. 
 The signers begged Congress to protect them from for- 
 eign encroachment. Here is their appeal, as it exists 
 upon the records of the nation^ House of Represent- 
 atives: 
 
84 PETITIONS TO COKGRESS FOR PROTECTION. 
 
 A petition of the shipwrights of the city of Charleston, in the 
 State of South Carolina, was presented to the House and read, 
 stating the distress they are in, from the decline of that branch of 
 business and the present situation of the trade in the United States, 
 and praying that the wisdom and policy of the National Legislature 
 may be directed to such measures, in a general regulation of trade 
 and the establishment of a proper navigation act, as will tend to 
 relieve the particular distresses of the petitioners, and in common 
 with them, those of their fellow -shipwrights throughout the United 
 States. 
 
 In a similar appeal from a considerable number of 
 the citizens of New York, the same reliance on the 
 constitutional power of Congress was expressed: 
 
 Your petitioners conceive that their countrymen have been 
 deluded by an appearance of plenty; by the profusion of foreign 
 articles which has deluged the country; and thus have mistaken 
 excessive importations for a flourishing trade. To this deception 
 they impute a continuance of that immoderate prepossession in 
 favor of foreign commodities which has been the principal cause 
 of their distresses, and the subject of their complaint. 
 
 Wearied by their fruitless exertions, your petitioners have long 
 looked forward with anxiety for the establishment of a government 
 which would check the growing evil, and extend a protecting 
 hand to the interests of commerce and the arts. Such a govern- 
 ment is now established. * * * To your honorable body the 
 mechanics and manufacturers of New York look up with confi- 
 dence, convinced that, as the united voice of America has furnished 
 you the means, so your knowledge of the common wants has given 
 you the spirit to unbind our fetters, and rescue our country from 
 disgrace and ruin. 
 
 Only a few days afterward, still another petition for 
 legislative aid to home industry was presented, this time 
 from the inhabitants of Boston. Below is an extract: 
 
 Your petitioners need not inform Congress that, on the revival 
 of our mechanical arts and manufactures, depend the wealth and 
 prosperity of the Northern States; nor can we forbear mentioning 
 
PETITIOKS TO COHGRESS FOE PROTECTION. 85 
 
 to your honors, that the citizens of these States conceive the object 
 of their independence but half obtained, till those national pur- 
 poses are established on a permanent and extensive basis by the 
 legislative acts of the Federal Government. Unless these im- 
 portant branches are supported, we humbly conceive that our 
 agriculture must greatly decline, as the impoverished state of our 
 seaports will eventually lessen the demand for the produce of 
 our lands. 
 
 Your petitioners formerly experienced the patronage of this 
 State Legislature, in their act of laying duties and prohibitions on 
 certain articles of manufacture, which encourages your petitioners 
 to request that heavy duties may be laid upon such articles as 
 are manufactured by our own citizens, humbly conceiving that 
 the impost is not solely considered by Congress AS AN OBJECT OP 
 REVENUE, but, in its operation, intended to exclude such importa- 
 tions, and ultimately establish these several branches of manufacture 
 among ourselves. 
 
 Here the constitutional power "to regulate com- 
 merce with foreign nations" is assumed, with the 
 utmost confidence, to signify both authority and pur- 
 pose to leave out of sight, in levying duties on imports, 
 all considerations of revenue as the main object, so that 
 the paramount tendency may be toward the creation 
 and sustainment of domestic industry; and this position 
 is indicated as altogether beyond the realm of debate, 
 uncertainty, or contradiction as settled, fixed, unques- 
 tionable. Had there been doubt on the subject if 
 there had been room or reason for distrust and hesita- 
 tion no body of citizens would have ventured to unite 
 in formally submitting such statements to the House of 
 Representatives, with any hope of securing respectful 
 attention. The very fact that an appeal of this kind 
 could be signed by many men of intelligence, and pre- 
 sented as their deliberate act, with a serious expectation 
 of influencing the passage of laws, is in itself a strong 
 
86 PETITIONS TO CONGRESS FOH PliOTECTION. 
 
 presumption of the legitimacy of their views of Con- 
 gressional prerogative. 
 
 The petitions represented all sections of the Union. 
 Those above noted, however, embrace only a small part 
 of the number laid before Congress. Now, how were 
 these appeals received by the agents of the people? 
 Let Daniel Webster, the "Expounder of the Constitu- 
 tion," tell, in the words he spoke at the great mass- 
 meeting at Albany, August 27, 1844. He said, in 
 referring to the very records from which extracts have 
 been quoted: 
 
 Now, I ask you again, how were these petitions for protection 
 treated? Did Congress deny its power? Did it say that it could 
 not possibly give them this protection, unless it should happen to 
 be in-ci-den-tal? Did it say we have only a revenue power in 
 regard to this matter? that is, We have the clear and undoubted 
 power to take so much money out of your pockets, and apply it 
 to our own purposes; but God forbid that, in doing so, we should 
 do you any good at the same time? Were these petitioners told 
 that they must take care of themselves? that these were days of 
 free trade, and everybody must have a right to trade on equal 
 terms with everybody else? Far, far from it. In regard to the 
 subject of these petitions, we all know that the very first Congress 
 secured to the navigation of the United States that which has 
 been, from that time to this, the great foundation, not only of 
 preference, but of inonopoly the whole coasting trade of the 
 Union; and the shipwrights of America enjoy that inonopoly to 
 the present day, and I hope they will enjoy it forever. Look at 
 the coasting trade of the United States, so vast in its extent. It 
 is entirely confined to American shipping. * * * 
 
 But how did Congress treat these petitions from the cities 
 of New York and Baltimore, to extend protection to the mechanic 
 arts? It granted them. It yielded it. And except a formal act 
 for taking the oaths, the very first act passed by Congress was to 
 secure the coasting trade and protect the mechanic arts, by dis- 
 criminating duties, and thus carry out the clear, and according to 
 historical testimony, the most manifest object of the Constitution. 
 
PETITIONS TO COXGRESS FOR PROTECTION. 87 
 
 Rufus Choate, after a diligent study of the annals 
 of the country, with a strong desire to ascertain the 
 truth, took the same ground as Daniel Webster. In 
 his speech on "the power and duty of Congress to con- 
 tinue the policy of protecting American labor," delivered 
 in the Senate of the United States, March 14, 1842, 
 he said: 
 
 And who in that assembly of men many of whom sat in the 
 Convention whicli framed the Constitution, all of whom had par- 
 taken in the discussions which preceded its adoption breathed a 
 doubt on the competence of Congress to receive such petitions as 
 these, and to grant their prayer? " I conceive" (said the most elo- 
 quent of the eloquent, Mr. Ames), " I conceive, sir, that the present 
 Constitution was dictated by commercial necessity more than any 
 other cause. The want of an efficient government to secure the 
 manufacturing interest and to advance our commerce was long 
 seen by men of judgment, and pointed out by patriots solicitous 
 to promote our general welfare." But I have more to say before 
 I have done, on the proceedings of that Congress, and leave them 
 for the present. In "the meanwhile I submit to you that the proof 
 is complete that the people who adopted the Constitution, univer- 
 sally, and without a doubt, believed that it embodied this power. 
 It was for that they received it with One wide acclaim, with tears 
 of exultation, with ceremonies of auspicious significance, befitting 
 the dawn of our age of pacific and industrial glory. Even those 
 who feared its imperial character and its other powers, who 
 thought they saw the States attracted to its center and absorbed by 
 its rays, did not fear this power. 
 
 And now, sir, I wonder if, after all, the people were deluded 
 into this belief! I wonder if that heroic and energetic generation 
 of our fathers, which had studied the controversies and had gone 
 through the tasks of the Revolution; whicli had framed the Con- 
 federation, proved its weakness, proved its defects; which had been 
 trained by a long and dreary experience of the insufficiency of a 
 nominal independence to build up a diffused, and massive, and 
 national prosperity, if the trade laws of foreign governments, 
 the combinations of foreign capitalists, the necessities of foreign 
 
88 PETITIONS TO CONGRESS FOR PROTECTION. 
 
 existence, are allowed to take from the native laborer his meal of 
 meat, and from his children their school, and depress his standard 
 of comfortable life; which had been trained by experience, by the 
 discussions of its ablest minds, in an age of extraordinary mental 
 activity, and yet of great morality, sobriety, and subordination, 
 peculiarly favorable to the task trained thus to the work of con- 
 structing a new government, I wonder if such a generation were 
 deceived, after all! I wonder if it was not living water, that which 
 they supposed they saw gushing from the rock, and sparkling and 
 swelling at their feet, but only a delusive imitation, struck out by 
 the wand of an accursed enchantment! No sir, no man who 
 believes that the people of this country were fit to govern them- 
 selves fit to frame a constitution, fit to judge on it, fit to administer 
 it no such man can say that the belief, the popular belief in 1789, 
 of the existence of this power, under the circumstances, is not 
 absolutely conclusive proof of its existence. 
 
 And then, in addition to this, how do you deal with the fact 
 that all the framers of the Constitution themselves, as well as every 
 public man alive in 1789, and the entire intelligence of the country, 
 supposed they had inserted this power in it? 
 
 Did not those who made it know what they had done? Con- 
 sidering their eminent general character, their civil discretion, 
 their preparation of much study and yet more experience of 
 arduous public affairs for the task; their thorough acquaintance 
 with the existing systems, State and national, and with the public 
 mind and opinions of the day; the long, patient and solitary labor 
 which they bestowed on it; the immediate necessily 'rnposed on 
 them of explaining and defending it to the country in view of 
 this, if you find them unanimously concurring in ascribing this 
 power to the instrument, is it not the transcendentalism of unbelief 
 to doubt? Do we really think we are likely to understand their 
 own work now better than they did the day they finished it? 
 
 "Well, sir, we have satisfactory evidence that the members of 
 the Convention went, all of them, to their graves in the belief that 
 the Constitution contained this power. Mr. Madison's opinion I 
 have read. We have it on unquestionable authority that Mr. 
 Gallatin has repeatedly said that, upon his entrance into political 
 life in 1789, he found it to be the universal opinion of those who 
 framed the Constitution, and those who resisted its adoption the 
 
PETITIONS TO CONGRESS FOR PROTECTION. 89 
 
 opinion of all the statesmen of the day that Congress possessed 
 the power to protect domestic industry by means of commercial 
 regulations. 
 
 Similar testimony might be extended, if requisite, 
 to many additional pages, derived from historical docu- 
 ments, and from the concurrent views of the entire 
 generation of American statesmen contemporary with 
 the formation of the Constitution, so far as these views 
 have been preserved to the present day. Indeed, it may 
 be set down as beyond reasonable dispute, that no 
 intelligent and candid mind, divesting itself of preju- 
 dices and all preconceived notions on the subject, can 
 make an earnest and full search through our annals, 
 from 1763 to 1789, without finding a strongly marked, 
 cumulative, vigorous, and more and more direct move- 
 ment of events toward the creation and the fruition of 
 a supreme national organism, specially clothed with and 
 exercising authority to protect home industry of every 
 kind against injury from foreign aggression and en- 
 croachment, so as to secure a uniform system of com- 
 merce, of custom-house duties, and a general regulation 
 of the trade, external and internal, of the whole 
 country a movement of events which may be com- 
 pared to a river's current, beginning in weakness at its 
 source, but augmented by tributary streams at various 
 points of its progress; broadened, deepened, accelerated 
 by every new affluent; gathering majestic volume and 
 irresistible force as it nears its estuary; and fulfilling 
 its destiny as it pours forth with final impetuosity into 
 gulf or ocean. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER. 
 
 Various parts of the Constitution, when considered 
 in the light of the historical circumstances which led to 
 the formation of the new government, are seen very 
 distinctly to be the natural outgrowths the legitimate 
 and necessary offspring of certain lesson -teaching 
 experiences which had left a deep impress upon the 
 public mind. Of this sort, for instance, is the pro- 
 vision that "no State shall make anything but gold and 
 silver coin a tender in payment of debts." It is easy to 
 trace this prohibition to the manifold evils which pre- 
 vailed in some of the States in consequence of making 
 cattle and other property a legal tender for discharging 
 obligations pa} 7 able by contract in metallic money. Of 
 this sort, also, is the provision that " all duties, imposts, 
 and excises shall be uniform throughout the United 
 States" a requirement intended to obviate the diffi- 
 culty, vexation, damage, and bitterness which had 
 resulted from thirteen different tariffs in thirteen dif- 
 ferent States joined in one federal nationality. In like 
 manner, the intimate connection might be pointed out 
 between many other provisions and particular embar- 
 rassments and dangers within the remembrance of the 
 people. 
 
 But our organic law furnishes no more curious, 
 complete,, signal example of the translation of historical 
 precedent and experience into constitutional authority 
 and obligation than the nature and extent of the pro- 
 tecting power, as related to the defense of home inter- 
 
 90 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 91 
 
 ests against foreign trespass. This power is usually 
 sought, and supposed to be found, in the grant to 
 Congress "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, 
 and excises"; yet what is really conferred in that clause 
 is the power to raise revenue "to pay the debts and 
 provide for the common defense and general welfare of 
 the United States." Only incidentally that is to say, 
 through distinctly authorizing entry charges on imports, 
 or one of the principal instrumentalities by which 
 protection can be rendered effectual is the power to 
 raise revenue connected with the power to encourage 
 and foster and shield domestic industry by national 
 legislation. If there was in the organic law of the 
 Union no more direct reference to the subject, the 
 protecting power would have to be sought by implica- 
 tion, whereas it exists in express terms; and arguments 
 based on a latitudinarian construction of the Constitu- 
 tion would have to take the place of an explicit grant of 
 authority, which is to be found in the prerogative of 
 Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, 
 and among the several States, and with the Indian 
 tribes." 
 
 To fully understand the meaning of this part of the 
 Constitution, it is necessary to know the history of the 
 circumstances which determined the use of this precise 
 formula of words by the framers of our political struct- 
 ure. The expressions, commercial regulations, regula- 
 tions of trade, the power to regulate commerce, the power 
 to regulate trade, and the like, had acquired, in the 
 political and popular language of the day, a definite and 
 uniform sense, so that, according to that sense, a pro- 
 tective tariff was a form of commercial regulation, and 
 the power to regulate commerce included the power to 
 
92 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 construct such a tariff. This meaning and intent had 
 been indelibly impressed upon the minds of all classes 
 by a long train of measures of strong and palpable 
 injustice, on the part of Great Britain, toward the 
 American commonwealths, both as colonies and as 
 States a protracted and expanding series of abuses and 
 grievances, which had chafed, and harassed, and 
 humiliated, and exasperated the whole people, until 
 they were driven, as by relentless pursuit which left no 
 other outlet for escape, to seek deliverance and perma- 
 nent safety through revolution, political independence, 
 and redemption from industrial vassalage. Whoever 
 has looked deeply into the causes which produced the 
 separation of the colonies from the mother country must 
 have found the origin of the tendency to divorce in 
 England's domineering claim of right to monopolize the 
 trade of her colonial offspring, and in the latter's con- 
 tinued effort to resist or evade that monopoly, the 
 antagonism between this constantly recurring action 
 and reaction precipitating the final collision, with its 
 historical outcome. Daniel Webster, in his discourse 
 on the " First Settlement of New England," points out 
 the beginnings of this mighty movement of events 
 toward severance. He says: 
 
 For a century, causes had been in operation tending to prepare 
 things for this great result. In the year 1660 the English Act of 
 Navigation was passed; the first and grand object of which seems 
 to have been to secure to England the whole trade with her planta- 
 tions. It was provided by that act, that none but English ships 
 should transport American produce over the ocean, and that the 
 principal articles of that produce should be allowed to be sold 
 only in the markets of the mother country. Three years after- 
 ward another law was passed, which enacted, that such com- 
 modities as the colonies might wish to purchase should be bought 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 93 
 
 only in the markets of the mother country. Severe rules were 
 prescribed to enforce the provisions of these laws, and heavy 
 penalties imposed on all who should violate them. In the subse- 
 quent years of the same reign, other statutes were enacted to 
 re-enforce these statutes, and other rules prescribed to secure a 
 compliance with these rules. In this manner was the trade to and 
 from the colonies restricted, almost to the exclusive advantage of 
 the parent country. But laws, which rendered the interest of a 
 whole people subordinate to that of another people, were not 
 likely to execute themselves; nor was it easy to find many on the 
 spot, who could be depended upon for carrying them into execu- 
 tion. In fact, these laws were more or less evaded or resisted, in 
 all the colonies. To enforce them was the constant endeavor of 
 the government at home; to prevent or elude their operation, the 
 perpetual object here. 
 
 In this protracted see-saw between coercion and 
 resistance a coercion which could not be executed, 
 and a resistance which could not be repressed the 
 British policy of interference, restraint, and prohibition, 
 as applied to the maritime, commercial, and manufact- 
 uring interests of the colonies, was carried to such an 
 extreme as at length to provoke a searching inquiry 
 into the legitimacy of the principles on which that 
 policy was founded, followed by a solemn protest against 
 it as involving an assault upon the natural and inalien- 
 able rights of man. Thus it came to pass that even 
 what had been acquiesced in at first as unobjectionable 
 was finally repudiated as pernicious. David Ramsey, 
 who had been an active and decided participant in the 
 scenes of the Eevolution, devoted nearly a page of his 
 once widely read " History of the United States" 
 (Vol. I., page 334), to an exposition of the manner in 
 which the primary object of quarrel was gradually 
 supplemented, until it had added to itself an extensive 
 range of differences. His statement is copied below: 
 
94 MATURE AXD EXTENT OF 
 
 It commonly happens, in the discussion of doubtful claims 
 between States, that the ground of the original dispute insensibly 
 changes. YVhen the mind is emp^yed in investigating one subject, 
 others, associated with it, naturally present themselves. In the 
 course of inquiries on the subject of parliamentary taxation, the 
 restriction on the trade of the colonists, and the necessity that was 
 imposed on them to purchase British and other manufactures, 
 loaded with their full proportion of all taxes, paid by those who 
 made or sold them, became more generally known. While Amer- 
 ican writers were vindicating their country from the charge of 
 contributing nothing to the common expenses of the empire, they 
 were led to set off, to their credit, the disadvantage of their being 
 confined exclusively to purchase manufactures in Britain. They 
 instituted calculations, by which they demonstrated, that the 
 monopoly of their trade drew from them greater sums, for the 
 support of government, than were usually paid by an equal 
 number of their fellow-citizens of Great Britain ; and that tax- 
 ation, superadded to such a monopoly, would leave them in a 
 state of perfect uncompensated slavery. The investigation of these 
 subjects brought matters into view which the friends of union 
 ought to have kept out of sight. These circumstances, together 
 with the extensive population of the Eastern States, and their 
 adventurous spirit of commerce, suggested to some bold spirits, 
 that not only British taxation, but British navigation laws, were 
 unfriendly to the interests of America. 
 
 What, more than anything else, had prevented a 
 speedier realization of the inherent injustice of the 
 metes and bounds set up by Parliament to limit the 
 trade and industry of the colonies, was that mental 
 habit which makes anything which has long existed 
 seem appropriate and necessary. Edmund Burke, in 
 .his famous speech in the House of Commons on 
 "American Taxation," April 19, 1774, laid much stress 
 on this point, saying: 
 
 Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American revenue 
 say that the commercial restraint is full as hard a law for America 
 
THE PKOTECTING POWER. 95 
 
 to live under. I think so, too. I think it, if uncompensated, to 
 be a condition of as rigorous servitude as men can be subject to. 
 But America bore it from the fundamental Act of Navigation 
 until 1764. Why? Because men do bear the inevitable constitu- 
 tion of their original nature with all its infirmities. The Act of 
 Navigation attended the colonies from their infancy, grew with 
 their growth, and strengthened with their strength. They were 
 confirmed in obedience, even more by usage than by law. They 
 scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to 
 such restraint. 
 
 But when the colonies had much increased in popu- 
 lation, resources, and importance, and when additional 
 and more stringent requirements, by which the power 
 of self-direction was still further abridged, had sharp- 
 ened the perceptions which custom had dulled, it began 
 to be discerned that commercial and industrial servi- 
 tude was no proper mate for civil liberty. The instinct- 
 ive sense of justice, to be found in every human breast, 
 was shocked and tormented by appreciating what was 
 signified, in the last analysis, by tame obedience to such 
 prohibitions as that which stopped the sale of home- 
 made hats from province to province, or as that which 
 constituted it a nuisance to make or use certain machin- 
 ery essential to the splitting of iron for the manufacture 
 of wrought nails. Men, who for generations had been 
 accustomed to the atmosphere of political freedom, 
 recoiled at view of the ultimate consequences of an 
 unquestioning submission to such requisitions, even 
 though imposed by the British Parliament requisitions 
 which could not be satisfied without putting native 
 industry in a strait-jacket, so to speak, for the selfish 
 advantage of the mother country; without acknowledg- 
 ing Great Britain's authority to stint and dwarf the 
 productive forces in her American possessions, solely to 
 
96 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 aggrandize her own greatness; and without setting 
 dangerous precedents to encourage more radical en- 
 croachments upon colonial rights. In time, these 
 augmenting and multiplying restrictions came to be 
 regarded as gross indignities which ought to be resented 
 by self-respect, and as so many degrading marks of 
 bondage to the parent kingdom. So soon as this con- 
 viction had become seated in the brains and hearts of 
 the people, every attempt to enforce the restraints engen- 
 dered nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience. 
 
 A decisive crisis arrived in this long train of events 
 when, in 1764, George Grenville was made Prime Min- 
 ister of Great Britain. He found the public treasury 
 drained empty by the vampire appetite of war, and his 
 first care was to devise means to replenish the exhausted 
 coffers. Perceiving the capacity of the Americans to 
 pay a tax, if levied, he turned his attention to a project 
 for obtaining revenue by establishing new duties upon 
 all foreign goods imported into the colonies. These 
 were already submitting to the taxes, in the shape of 
 duties, which the Navigation Act and the Sugar Act 
 imposed; and when this new scheme was proposed to 
 Parliament, the people were at once aroused to a sense 
 of their danger; they saw clearly the design of the 
 British Ministry to impose tax upon tax, as long as for- 
 bearance would permit the wrong. Action on the 
 subject was taken in the colonial assemblies, where one 
 sentiment prevailed a denial of the right claimed by 
 Great Britain to tax her colonies without their consent. 
 The fundamental principle of a free government, that 
 "taxation and equitable representation are insepara- 
 ble," was boldly proclaimed, and petitions and remon- 
 strances from the colonies were transmitted to the King 
 
THE PKOTECTIKG POWER. 97 
 
 and Parliament. But the King, instead of heeding 
 these appeals, reasserted in his speech from the throne 
 in January, 1765, his right to tax the colonies, and 
 'recommended the adoption of Grenville's measures. 
 Emboldened by this emphatic encouragement, the Min- 
 ister proposed his famous Stamp Act in February, and 
 in March it became a law, receiving the royal signature. 
 This further attempt to raise a revenue in America, 
 which arbitrarily extended the claim of Parliamentary 
 authority so as to levy internal no less than external 
 taxes upon the colonists, fully aroused these unrepre- 
 sented and victimized British subjects to an appreciation 
 of the startling danger of enslavement by the mother 
 country, and awakened the first notes of universal alarm 
 which led to a general union of the American common- 
 wealths in defense of their imperiled rights, at length 
 resulting in the adoption of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 The ferment which this act immediately produced 
 in America, even months before the date when it was 
 to go into effect, and the violent opposition which it met 
 with from Pitt and other leading minds in Parliament, 
 caused its repeal in March, 1766. But the Repeal Act 
 was accompanied by a Declaratory Act, which contained 
 the germ of other usurpations and oppressions. It 
 affirmed that Parliament had power "to bind the colo- 
 nies in all cases whatsoever. ft Thus, by an apparent 
 retraction which deceitfully amounted to a reassertion, 
 was the seminal principle of all the encroachments upon 
 the liberties of the colonies set forth as an inalienable 
 prerogative of the British government. 
 
 Out of these circumstances of opposition arose that 
 long controversy between the colonies and the mother 
 7 
 
98 NATUKE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 country about the nature and extent of the latter's 
 power over the former, settled only by revolution and 
 independence a heated controversy which burned into 
 the memories of the American people the signification 
 of certain words and phrases, connected with taxation 
 and commerce, and employed by the framers of the 
 Constitution in formulating the powers of Congress to 
 raise revenue and to protect home industry. An abiding 
 sense of being deeply wronged; a settled conviction that 
 liberty itself was in danger; a strong belief that resistant 
 action was essential to preserve the integrity of menaced 
 rights; a diligent search for adequate means of obtain- 
 ing redress these considerations, growing more vital 
 and more urgent with the lapse of every new year, 
 concentrated the rays of intelligence in all America at 
 one focus of patriotic endeavor, and poured the intensity 
 of their combined light upon the great subjects of con- 
 troversy, until an illumination of knowledge was shed 
 upon whatever had been obscure, or uncertain, or per- 
 plexing. In this way, the minds of the people were 
 familiarized with the salient points in dispute, and with 
 the verbiage in which these were stated, so that it 
 became impossible to be mistaken about the meaning of 
 certain words and phrases, when employed in the dis- 
 cussions of the day, or to misinterpret what was intended 
 when the same words and phrases were inserted in the 
 Constitution, to embody the transfer to Congress of 
 particular powers theretofore possessed by the .several 
 States. It is not to be supposed that the members of 
 the Federal Convention, in framing a new organic law 
 for the Union, designed to give to some special formulas 
 of expression a signification different from that which 
 they had borne in State papers, in the proceedings of 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 99 
 
 public assemblies, in newspaper comments, and in 
 private conversation, during a quarter-century of con- 
 troversy. All the logical probabilities favor the con- 
 clusion that these formulas of expression were adopted 
 because they had a definite sense, precisely fixed by 
 legal as well as constant popular use a sense with 
 which all classes were conversant and because there 
 was a set purpose to plant that sense in the Constitution 
 by the employment of words and phrases about the 
 meaning of which there could not be a chance for 
 doubt. But this conclusion rests upon a firmer basis 
 than inference alone. James Madison and other eye- 
 witnesses, whose statements cannot be impeached, have 
 explicitly declared that such was the intention of the 
 Federal Convention. 
 
 When, in the progress of the widening differences 
 with the mother country, humble entreaty and patient 
 remonstrance had at length been wearied out; when 
 domineering necessity had compelled the colonies to 
 provide for their self-defense by taking a bolder stand; 
 and especially when, from the summit-level of a longer, 
 broader, more enlightened experience, the American 
 people could look back upon custom-sanctioned restric- 
 tions which had been accepted as a matter of course, 
 and could plainly see in these restraints nothing but 
 unwarrantable interferences and grievous wrongs, their 
 minds were filled with indignation, resentment, and a 
 purpose to be rid of all such oppressions. Signal ex- 
 amples of these altered feelings, which flamed out more 
 and more intensely on public occasions, as the years 
 rolled on, are presented in the following extracts from 
 Pitkin's "Political and Civil History of the United 
 States of America ": 
 
100 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 .During the summer of this year [1768] the merchants of 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York again had recourse to 
 a non-importation agreement, particularly with respect to the 
 articles on which duties were imposed. This was done, not only 
 to obtain a repeal of the late revenue act, but with a mew of encour- 
 aging manufactures in the colonies. Vol. I., p. 230. 
 
 On the motion of Samuel Adams, a committee consisting of 
 twenty-one was appointed [November 2, 1772], "to state the 
 rights of the colonies, and of this province in particular, as men, as 
 Christians, and as subjects." 
 
 This committee was, also, directed to publish the same to the 
 several towns in the province, and to the world, as the sense of 
 the town of Boston on the subject of their rights, with the various 
 infringements and violations thereof. The report made by this 
 committee was accepted on the nineteenth of that month, and six 
 hundred copies circulated through the colony, with a letter from 
 the committee to the other towns, requesting their concurrence. 
 In this report, drawn with great ability, they claimed those natural 
 and inalienable rights of man with which no government could 
 interfere without their consent. As British subjects, they claimed 
 equal rights with their fellow-subjects in England rights secured 
 to them \)y the Constitution. The Christian religion, they said, 
 not only sanctioned their views of civil liberty, but in spiritual 
 concerns secured to them all the freedom and self -direction which 
 they and their fathers had long enjoyed. * * * Nor did the 
 framers of this report confine themselves to the more recent viola- 
 tions of colonial rights, but adverted to the more ancient acts 
 of Parliament, restraining the manufactures of the colonists. The 
 act prohibiting the erection of slitting mills they declared to be 
 "an infringement of that right, with which God and nature had 
 invested them, to make use of their skill and industry in procuring 
 the necessaries and conveniences of life." The acts also, prohibiting 
 the transportation of wool by water, and for restraining the manu- 
 facture of hats, they pronounced unreasonable and grievous. Vol. 
 I., pages 248 and 21,9. 
 
 Most of the towns held meetings, appointed committees of 
 correspondence, and passed resolutions, similar to those of Boston, 
 and some of them even in bolder language. The inhabitants of 
 Petersham, as well as Boston, did not confine themselves to the 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 101 
 
 late violations of their rights, but declared, that Parliament had 
 unrighteously disturbed their trade, denied them the privilege of 
 setting up and carrying on manufactures, restricted and prevented 
 their lawful intercourse and commerce with other States and king- 
 doms, had made laws touching life and limb in deherison of the 
 ancient common law of the land, and, "in these latter times, had 
 robbed and plundered the honest and laborious inhabitants of this 
 extensive continent of their property, by mere force and power, 
 and are now draining the people of the fruits of their toil, by 
 raising a revenue from them, against the natural rights of man, 
 and in open violation of the laws of God." Vol. L, page 250. 
 
 Let it be noticed that the narrow and arbitrary 
 bounds which Great Britain had assigned, many years 
 before, to the industrial life of her American provinces, 
 and to which they had become habituated by long and 
 uncomplaining acquiescence, are above characterized as 
 despotic invasions of natural liberty, thus marking a 
 complete reversal of the view formerly held on the 
 same subject. Nothing could more strikingly illustrate 
 the radical change which had taken place in the atti- 
 tude and the sentiments of the colonists toward the 
 parent realm. A controversy carried on under such 
 feelings of exasperation, by the intelligence no less 
 than the hearts of the great mass of the inhabitants, 
 from New Hampshire to Georgia, in terms of burning 
 resentment, and with a deep-seated conviction of being 
 engaged in a righteous cause, could not have failed to 
 leave upon the minds of the people a sharply-defined 
 impress of its principal topics, including particular 
 forms of phraseology which had served as moulds to 
 give shape to particular ideas about revenue and com- 
 merce. 
 
 It was this excessive bitterness of experience which 
 led the colonists to look upon the whole system of 
 
102 MATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 commercial restriction as inherently pernicious; as an 
 aggrandizing device of the intensest, greediest, cruelest, 
 most unscrupulous selfishness; as a means of benefiting 
 one country by deliberately and perforce sacrificing 
 other countries; and as an efficient arm of tyranny. 
 Hence, when these colonies had gained their political 
 independence, they naturally turned with a decided 
 preference to the opposite extreme, or to a commerce 
 unfettered by legal restraints, except so far as might be 
 unavoidable to supply the needs of revenue. This test 
 experiment with free trade, in connection with their 
 previous experience, enabled the American people to 
 acquire a practical knowledge of both systems, and 
 understandingly to weigh the benefits and the disad- 
 vantages, the merits and the demerits, of both sides of 
 the commercial problem. Then they discerned, for the 
 first time, that, as it had been necessary to have a 
 resistant policy, in order to counteract the encroach- 
 ment of Great Britain upon their political rights, so it 
 would be essential to have an equivalent policy, in order 
 to ward off her aggressions upon their industrial and 
 maritime interests. It was in this way that they 
 learned to distinguish between the good and the bad in 
 the scheme of prohibitions and restrictions under which 
 their foreign commerce and their home industry had 
 suffered at the hands of the unnatural mother country. 
 When it became urgently requisite to adopt measures 
 suitable to develop their native resources, to shield 
 their productive enterprise against destructive assault 
 from abroad, and to resuscitate their shipping industry, 
 they found the needful means in the underlying prin- 
 ciple of the very British system which they had so 
 strongly, so unreservedly condemned the principle of 
 
103 THE PROTECTING POWER. 
 
 national self-protection. After the manner of love 
 degenerated into lust, that principle, excellent and 
 desirable in its genuine form, had lost in that perverted 
 system its noble character and its true utility, by being 
 made tributary to a rapacious appetite for dominion, 
 and by being subjected to the groveling impulses of 
 an intense selfishness. But the same principle was 
 rendered capable of executing good purposes, so soon 
 as it was divested of its spurious quality as an aggress- 
 ive force, and restored to its original nature of self- 
 defense changed from an agency with functions to tear 
 many countries down for supplying wherewith to build 
 one country up, and converted into an instrument of 
 resistance to that very cannibalism of international 
 commerce purified of its base elements, and brought 
 into cognate relations with the equitable aims and 
 objects of republican institutions. In this restored, in 
 this purified sense, the protecting power was incorpo- 
 rated in the present Constitution of the United States. 
 Thus the stone at first rejected by the builders became 
 at last the chief corner of our political structure. 
 
CHAPTEE XL 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 The radical difference between "duties for revenue" 
 and "duties for the regulation of commerce" was 
 fully understood and universally admitted, in both 
 Great Britain and the colonies, previous to and during 
 the Eevolutionary war. Revenue duties were regarded 
 as taxation, pure and simple; commercial regulations, as 
 a system of limitations and restraints on foreign and 
 colonial intercourse and traffic, with design to secure all 
 the advantages and benefits of the colonial trade to the 
 parent kingdom. Sometimes it was difficult, as several 
 occasions showed, to draw with exactness the line of 
 separation between the two different objects of revenue 
 and regulation to determine with certainty whether a 
 particular duty was imposed as a tax, or merely as 
 a regulation of trade because revenue might result 
 unavoidably when duties, instead of prohibitions and 
 other forms of restriction, were employed to give effect 
 to the commercial policy; but it never was claimed by 
 anybody that the power to regulate commerce could be 
 legitimately exercised with purpose of raising a revenue. 
 Such a purpose was alien to the whole system' of trade 
 laws, notwithstanding that some revenue might incident- 
 ally or casually arise from their practical operation; just 
 as the paramount object of fines is to deter persons 
 from violating certain statutory provisions, or from 
 committing other offenses, as contempt of court, yet 
 some revenue is inevitable when a fine is levied and 
 
 104 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 105 
 
 paid; or just as the end regarded in using a chopping- 
 axe may be to fell a tree, not to obtain the flow of sap, 
 the latter being nothing more than a fortuitous hap- 
 pening extraneous to the result aimed at. This view of 
 the subject was- accepted, in those early days, by all 
 classes of minds on both sides of the Atlantic, as defin- 
 itively settled by long established usage. . It is true, 
 many British legislators long held that the right to 
 impose duties for the regulation of commerce necessa- 
 rily involved the right to impose duties for raising a 
 revenue that these rights rested upon the same consti- 
 tutional basis, and thus were one and inseparable in 
 principle but it was not held that the exercise of both 
 rights looked to the same object; on the contrary, it 
 was freely admitted that they looked to entirely different 
 objects. Indeed, near the close of the Eevolutionary 
 war, those who maintained the identity of the two 
 rights in authority formally recognized the difference of 
 object, and offered, for the sake of peace and restored 
 allegiance, that the British government would relin- 
 quish all claim to the right which was hateful to the 
 insurgent colonies. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, in his famous examination be- 
 fore the House of Commons, in 1766, recognized, in the 
 most direct and explicit language, the distinction above 
 stated. Question and answer were as follows* 
 
 Q. What will be the opinions of the Americans on those 
 resolutions? [asserting the right of Great Britain to tax America.] 
 
 A. They will think them unconstitutional and unjust. 
 
 Q. Was it an opinion in America, before 1763, that the 
 Parliament had no right to "lay taxes and duties there? 
 
 A. I never heard any objections to the right of laying duties 
 to regulate commerce, but a right to lay internal taxes was never 
 thought to be in Parliament. 
 
106 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 Q. On what do you found your opinion, that the people of 
 America make any such distinction? 
 
 A. I know that whenever the subject has occurred in con- 
 versation, it has appeared the opinion of every one, that we could 
 not be taxed by a Parliament where we were not represented. But 
 the payment of duties, laid as regulations of commerce, was never 
 disputed. 
 
 Q. Can you name any act of assembly, or public act, making 
 such distinction? 
 
 A. I do not know that there was any. There was never an 
 occasion to make any such, till now you have attempted to tax us. 
 Tliat has occasioned the distinction in which I think every assembly 
 on the continent, and every member in every assembly has been 
 unanimous. 
 
 Only a few days after Franklin's testimony, or on Jan- 
 uary 14, 1766, Lord Chatham, in his celebrated speech 
 in the House of Commons on the "Right of Taxing 
 America," pointed out the same distinction, saying: 
 
 If the gentleman does not understand the difference between 
 external and internal taxes, I cannot help it. There is a plain dis- 
 tinction between taxes levied for the purposes of raising a revenue, 
 and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accom- 
 modation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some 
 revenue may incidentally arise from the latter. 
 
 He further said on the same occasion: 
 
 The Commons of America, represented in their several assem- 
 blies, have ever been in possession of this, their constitutional 
 right of giving and granting their own money. They would have 
 been slaves if they had not enjoyed it! At the same time, this 
 kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has 
 always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regulations and 
 restrictions in trade, in navigation, in manufactures, in everything, 
 except that of taking their money out of their pockets without 
 their consent. 
 
 And again: 
 
 Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is my 
 

 THE PROTECTING POWER. 107 
 
 opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, 
 and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, 
 viz. , because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the 
 same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the 
 colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be 
 made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that 
 we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise 
 every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of 
 their pockets without their consent. 
 
 The last two extracts from this speech exhibit, in 
 new forms of contrast, the unlike qualities of taxation 
 and regulation, as set forth in the first extract; for 
 Lord Chatham declared, in the course of his argument: 
 "It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to 
 lay a tax on the colonies"; hence, according to his 
 view, the right of Great Britain to bind, by prohibitions 
 and restraints, the trade, the navigation, and the man- 
 ufactures of America, was distinct and apart from the 
 claimed right to tax America in other words, regula- 
 tion would cease to be regulation, and be transformed 
 into taxation, on making revenue its primary and direct 
 object. 
 
 These quoted passages are important as showing 
 that, a full decade before the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, or almost at the very outset of the great contro- 
 versy between the mother country and the colonies, the 
 wide difference between " duties imposed for the regu- 
 lation of trade," and "duties imposed for raising a 
 revenue " was fully understood in England, and unequiv- 
 ocally asserted, in the most deliberate, formal, and 
 public manner, by competent British authority. More- 
 over, Lord Chatham's speech, being an able, vigorous, 
 and fearless defense of colonial rights, attracted much 
 attention in America, and was peculiarly well adapted 
 
108 NATURE AXD EXTENT OF 
 
 to make the distinctive and precise use of certain 
 phrases by the great English statesman current and 
 general, from New Hampshire to Georgia, had not such 
 use existed already. 
 
 In subsequent speeches, he reiterated and emphasized 
 his views on this subject, saying, in the House of Lords, 
 January 20, 1775, on the question of "Removing 
 Troops from Boston," what follows: 
 
 Let this distinction then remain forever ascertained; taxation 
 is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As an American, I would 
 recognize to England her supreme right of regulating commerce 
 and navigation; as an Englishman by birth and principle, I recog- 
 nize to the Americans their supreme, unalienable right in their 
 property a right which they are justified in the defense of to the 
 last extremity 
 
 Edmund Burke, who surpassed all his contem- 
 poraries in amplitude and subtlety of intellect, and 
 whose fidelity to truth and justice was above reproach, 
 fully agreed with Lord Chatham on this point. In his 
 speech in the House of Commons, April 19, 1774, on 
 "American Taxation," he said: 
 
 Permit me then, sir, to lead your attention very far back 
 back to the Act of Navigation the corner-stone of the policy of 
 this country with regard to its colonies. Sir, that policy was, from 
 the beginning, purely commercial; and the commercial system 
 was wholly restrictive. It was the system of a monopoly. No 
 trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable the 
 colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade, you 
 could not take; or to enable them to dispose of such articles as 
 are forced upon them, and for which, without some degree of 
 liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific and detailed 
 enumerations; hence the innumerable checks and counter checks; 
 hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you bind 
 together this complicated system of the colonies. This principle 
 of commercial monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine 
 
THE PROTECTING POWEE. 109 
 
 acts of Parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate period 
 of 1764. 
 
 In all those acts the system of commerce is established, as that 
 from whence alone you proposed to make the colonies contribute 
 (I mean directly and by the operation of your superintending leg- 
 islative power) to the strength of the empire. I venture to say 
 that, during that whole period, a parliamentary revenue from 
 tJience was never once in contemplation. Accordingly, in all the 
 number of laws passed with regard to the plantations, the words 
 which distinguish revenue laws, specifically as such, were, I think, 
 premeditatedly avoided. I do not say, sir, that a form of words 
 alters the nature of the law, or abridges the power of the lawgiver. 
 It certainly does not. However, titles and formal preambles are 
 not always idle words ; and the lawyers frequently argue from 
 them. I state these facts to show, not what was your right, but 
 what has been your settled policy. Our revenue laws have usually 
 a title, purporting their being grants; and the words give and grant 
 usually precede the enacting parts. Although duties were im- 
 posed on America in acts of King Charles the Second, and in acts 
 of King William, no one title of giving "an aid to his Majesty," 
 or any of the usual titles to revenue acts, was to be found in any 
 of them till 1764; nor were the words "give and grant" in any 
 preamble until the sixth of George the Second. However, the 
 title of this act of George the Second, notwithstanding the words 
 of donation, considers it merely as a regulation "an act for the 
 better securing of the trade of his Majesty's sugar colonies in Amer- 
 ica" This act was made on a compromise of all, at the express 
 desire of a part of the colonies themselves. It was therefore in 
 some measure with their consent ; and having a title directly pur- 
 porting only a commercial regulation, and being in truth nothing 
 more, the words were passed by, at a time when no jealousy was 
 entertained and things were little scrutinized. Even Governor 
 Bernard, in his second printed letter, dated in 1763, gives it as his 
 opinion, that, " it was an act of prohibition, not of revenue." This 
 is certainly true, that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, 
 and with the ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in 
 the statute book until the year I have mentioned, that is, the year 
 1764. All before this period stood on, commercial regulation and 
 restraint. The scheme of a colony revenue by British authority 
 
110 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 appeared, therefore, to the Americans in the light of a great inno- 
 vation ; the words of Governor Bernard's ninth letter, written in 
 November, 1765, states this idea very strongly; "it must," says 
 he, " have been supposed such an innovation as a parliamentary 
 taxation would cause a great alarm, and meet with much opposi- 
 tion in most parts of America. It was quite new to the people, 
 and had no visible bounds set to it." After stating the weakness of 
 government there, he says, " Was this a time to introduce so great 
 a novelty as a parliamentary inland taxation in America ? " What- 
 ever the right might have been, this mode of using it was abso- 
 lutely new in policy and practice. 
 
 In a subsequent part of his speech, Mr. Burke traced 
 this departure from long usage up to its actuating 
 motives and impelling circumstances: 
 
 Whether you were right or wrong in establishing the colonies 
 on the principles of commercial monopoly, rather than on that 
 of revenue, is at this day a problem of mere speculation. You 
 cannot have both by the same authority. To join together the 
 restraints of a universal internal and external monopoly, with a 
 universal internal and external taxation, is an unnatural union 
 perfect uncompensated slavery. You have long since decided for 
 yourself and them; and you and they have prospered exceedingly 
 under that decision. 
 
 This nation, sir, never thought of departing from that choice 
 until the period immediately on the close of the last war. Then a 
 scheme of government new in many things seemed to have been 
 adopted. I saw, or thought I saw, several symptoms of a great 
 change, while I sat in your gallery, a good while before I had the 
 honor of a seat in this House. At that period the necessity was 
 established of keeping up no less than twenty new regiments, with 
 twenty colonels capable of seats in this House. This scheme was 
 adopted with very general applause from all sides, at the very 
 time that, by your conquests in America, your danger from 
 foreign attempts in that part of the world was much lessened, or, 
 indeed, rather quite over. When this huge increase of military 
 establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to be found to sup- 
 port so great a burden. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. Ill 
 
 economy, and the great resisters of a standing armed force, would 
 not have entered with much alacrity into the vote for so large and 
 expensive an army, if they had been very sure that they were to 
 continue to pay for it. But hopes of another kind were held out 
 to them; and, in particular, I well remember that Mr. Townsend, 
 in a brilliant harangue on this subject, did dazzle them by playing 
 before their eyes the image of a revenue to be raised in America. 
 Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new colony 
 system. It appeared more distinctly afterward, when it was 
 devolved upon a person [Mr. Grenville], to whom, on other 
 accounts, this country owes very great obligations. I do believe 
 that he had a very serious desire to benefit the public. But with 
 no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, 
 at least equally, carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He 
 generally considered his objects in lights that were rather too 
 detached. Whether the business of an American revenue was 
 imposed upon him altogether; whether it was entirely the result 
 of his own speculation; or, what is* more probable, that his own 
 ideas rather coincided with the instructions he had received, cer- 
 tain it is, that, with the best intentions in the world, he first 
 brought this fatal scheme into form, and established it by act of 
 Parliament. 
 
 About eleven months afterward, in his speech in the 
 House of Commons, March 22, 1775, on " Conciliation 
 with America/' Mr. Burke again laid much stress on 
 this distinction between commercial regulations and 
 revenue laws. He said: 
 
 But I cannot agree with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet 
 from whence he seems to have borrowed these ideas, concerning 
 the inutility of the trade laws; for, without idolizing them, I am 
 sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us; and, in 
 former times, they have been of the greatest. They do confine, 
 and they do greatly narrow, the market for the Americans; but 
 my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the least to 
 discern how the revenue laws form any security whatever to the 
 commercial regulations, or that these commercial regulation^ are 
 the true ground of the quarrel, or that the giving way in any one 
 instance of authority is to lose all that may remain unconceded. 
 
112 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 One fact is clear and indisputable. The public and avowed 
 origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has indeed 
 brought on new disputes on new questions, but certainly the least 
 bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade laws. To judge which 
 of the two be the real radical cause of quarrel, we have to see 
 whether the commercial dispute did, in order of time, precede the 
 dispute on taxation. There is not a shadow of evidence of it. 
 Next, to enable us to judge whether at this moment a dislike to 
 the trade laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely neces- 
 sary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal. 
 
 The celebrated preamble to the Act of Navigation 
 itself first of the long procession of acts which fostered 
 and expanded the British colonial system clearly shows, 
 as copied below, that, at the very outset, revenue formed 
 no part of the object in regulating trade for the advan- 
 tage of the mother country: 
 
 In regard his Majesty's plantations beyond the seas are inhab- 
 ited and peopled by his subjects of this his kingdom of England, 
 for the maintaining a greater correspondence and kindness between 
 them, and keeping them in a firmer dependence upon it, and ren- 
 dering them yet more beneficial and advantageous to it in further 
 employment and increase of English shipping and seamen, vent of 
 English woolens, and other manufactures and commodities, ren- 
 dering the navigation to and from the same more safe and cheap, 
 and making this kingdom a staple, not only of the commodities of 
 those plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries 
 and places, for the supplying of them; and it being the usage of 
 other nations to keep plantations trade to themselves, etc. 
 
 All the other acts belonging to the same general class 
 bear ample testimony to the same spirit and intent. A 
 strong example of this is to be found in the twenty-fifth 
 of Charles the Second, chapter 7, made expressly "for 
 the better securing of the plantation trade/' which laid 
 duties on certain commodities exported from one colony 
 to another, and specified its object to be as follows: 
 
THE PROTECTING 
 
 Whereas, by one act passed in the twelfth year of your Maj 
 esty's reign, intituled "An act for encouragement of shipping and 
 navigation," and by several other laws, passed since that time, it is 
 permitted to ship, etc. , sugars, tobacco, etc. , of the growth, etc. , of 
 any of your Majesty's plantations in America, etc., from the places 
 of their growth, etc. , to any other of your Majesty's plantations in 
 those parts, etc., and that without paying custom for the same, either 
 at the lading or unlading the said commodities, by means whereof 
 the trade and navigation in those commodities, from one planta- 
 tion to another, is greatly increased, and the inhabitants of divers 
 of those colonies, not contenting themselves with being supplied with 
 those commodities for their own use, free of all customs (while the 
 subjects of this, your kingdom of England, have paid great cus- 
 toms and impositions for what of them have been spent here), but, 
 contrary to the express letter of the aforesaid laws, haw brought into 
 divers parts of Europe great quantities thereof, and do also vend 
 great quantities thereof to the shipping of other nations, who 
 bring them into divers parts of Europe, to the great hurt and 
 diminution of your Majesty's customs, and of the trade and navi- 
 gation of this, your kingdom; FOB THE PREVENTION THEREOF, etc. 
 
 The seventh and eighth of William the Third, chap- 
 ter 22, entitled "An act for preventing frauds, and 
 regulating abuses in the plantation trade/' recites that 
 
 Notwithstanding divers acts, etc., great abuses are daily com- 
 mitted, to the prejudice of the English navigation, and the loss of a 
 great part of the plantation trade to this kingdom, by the artifice 
 and cunning of ill-disposed persons; for REMEDY WHEREOF, etc. 
 And whereas, in some of his Majesty's American plantations, a 
 doubt or misconstruction has arisen upon the before-mentioned act, 
 made in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of King Charles II., 
 whereby certain duties are laid upon the commodities therein 
 enumerated (which by law may be transplanted from one plan- 
 tation to another, for the supply of each other's wants) as if the 
 same were, by the payment of those duties in one plantation, dis- 
 charged from giving the securities intended by the aforesaid acts, 
 made in the twelfth, twenty-second, and twenty-third years of the 
 8 
 
114 NATUEE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 reign of King Charles II., and consequently be at liberty to go to 
 any foreign market in Europe, etc. 
 
 The sixth of George the Second, chapter 13, which 
 imposes duties on foreign mm, sugar, and molasses, 
 imported into the colonies, states the reasons thus: 
 
 Whereas, the welfare and prosperity of your Majesty's sugar 
 colonies in America are of the greatest consequence and importance 
 to the trade, navigation, and strength of this kingdom; and whereas, 
 the planters of the said sugar colonies have of late years fallen 
 into such discouragements, that they are unable to improve or carry 
 on the sugar trade upon an equal footing with tJie foreign sugar colo- 
 nies, without some advantage and relief given to them from Great 
 Britain: FOR REMEDY WHEREOF, AND FOR THE GOOD AND WEL- 
 FARE OF YOUR MAJESTY'S SUBJECTS, etc. 
 
 It is not necessary to add any argumentative com- 
 ments to these extracts, in order to prove that the 
 statutes were all intended solely as regulations of com- 
 merce. That object is plainly wrought into the very 
 texture of the quoted passages. Throughout the entire 
 web and woof of the policy of these trade laws not 
 a thread of purpose to raise a revenue can be dis- 
 cerned. But all this was radically changed when 
 Parliament passed the first American revenue act the 
 act in 1764, imposing the port duties with the signifi- 
 cant preamble partly given below: 
 
 And whereas, it is just and necessary that A REVENUE BE 
 
 RAISED IN YOUR MAJESTY'S SAID DOMINIONS IN AMERICA, for 
 
 defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the 
 same; we, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, THE 
 COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN, in Parliament assembled, being 
 desirous to make some provision, in this present session of 
 Parliament, TOWARD RAISING THE SAID REVENUE IN AMERICA, 
 have resolved to GIVE and GRANT unto your Majesty the several 
 rates and duties hereinafter mentioned, etc. 
 
THE PROTECTIXG POWER. 115 
 
 This act encountered prompt and energetic opposi- 
 tion in the colonies, where it was contested on the 
 ground of right. The House of Burgesses in Virginia 
 sent an address to the House of Lords and a remon- 
 strance to the House of Commons, arguing against 
 British authority to make such a law. Eemonstrances 
 were likewise sent from Massachusetts and New York 
 to the Privy Council. Here were the actual beginnings 
 of that mighty controversy which ended in revolution 
 and independence. Early in the spring of 1765 followed 
 the odious Stamp Act, which was too gross and palpa- 
 ble a departure from old courses to deceive the meanest 
 capacity, and which kindled the rising blaze of discon- 
 tent into a conflagration of resentment. This act opened 
 with the following recital: 
 
 Whereas, by an act made in the last session of Parliament, 
 several duties were granted, continued, and appropriated toward 
 defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the 
 British colonies and plantations in America: and whereas, it is first 
 necessary that provision be made FOR RAISING A FURTHER REVE- 
 NUE WITHIN YOUR MAJESTY'S DOMINIONS IN AMERICA, toward 
 defraying the said expenses, we, your Majesty's most dutiful and 
 loyal subjects, THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN, in Parliament 
 assembled, have therefore resolved to GIVE and GRANT unto your 
 Majesty the several rates and duties hereinafter mentioned, etc. 
 
 In 17G7, notwithstanding it had become necessary 
 to concede to the colonies the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
 after a brief and ineffectual effort to execute its pro- 
 visions, another tax was imposed in the shape of duties 
 on glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea. The preamble 
 to this third measure was as follows: 
 
 Whereas, it is expedient THAT A REVENUE SHOULD BE RAISED 
 IN YOUR MAJESTY'S DOMINIONS IN AMERICA, for making a more 
 certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of tlie admin- 
 
116 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 istration of justice, and the support of civil government in such 
 provinces, where it shall he found necessary; and toward tJie further 
 defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said 
 dominions, THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN, in Parliament 
 assembled, have therefore resolved to GIVE and GRANT unto your 
 Majesty the several rates and duties hereinafter mentioned, etc. 
 
 Here,, in these three acts, may be observed an au- 
 thority expressly claimed and exerted to impose duties 
 on the colonies without their consent; not for the regu- 
 lation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion 
 of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several 
 constituent parts of the British empire, theretofore 
 the sole objects of parliamentary limitations of com- 
 merce; but for the single purpose of obtaining a revenue 
 from America. This fundamental and signal change 
 in the British policy proved to be the summons to pro- 
 tracted discussion on both sides of the Atlantic in 
 Parliament, in the colonial assemblies, in the news- 
 papers, in pamphlets, and in the fireside exchange of 
 opinions. The degree of authority which might right- 
 fully be exercised by the mother country over the 
 colonies had never been accurately defined. But the 
 controversy to which these revenue laws gave birth soon 
 greatly enlarged the extent 'of political information in 
 America, and, while rendering more diffusive among 
 the colonists a knowledge of their rights, inspired a 
 much more accurate mode of thinking, speaking, and 
 writing on the subject. It was in the course of the 
 disputes on the pending questions that the wide differ- 
 ence between duties for regulation and duties for 
 revenue, with the special formulas of words to designate 
 that difference, became indelibly impressed upon the 
 memories of the whole American people. For a 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 117 
 
 number of years there was no lack of printed as well as 
 spoken argument to keep alive the distinction in the 
 popular mind. Among the most influential publications 
 of this kind was the series of letters from the pen of 
 John Dickinson, a farmer in Pennsylvania, reprinted in 
 London in 1768, and frequently referred to by his- 
 torians. Below is a pointed extract from the second of 
 these letters: 
 
 The Parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to 
 regulate the trade of Great Britain and all her colonies. Such an 
 authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and 
 her colonies, and necessary for the common good of all. He who 
 considers these provinces as States distinct from the British empire 
 has very slender notions of justice or their interests. We are but 
 parts of a whole, and therefore there must exist a power some- 
 where to preside and preserve the connection in due order. This 
 power is lodged in the Parliament, and we are as much dependent 
 on Great Britain as a perfectly free people can be on another. 
 
 I have looked over every statute relating to these colonies from 
 their first settlement to this time, and I find every one of them 
 founded on this principle, till the stamp-act administration. All 
 before are calculated to regulate trade, and preserve or promote a 
 mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent 
 parts of the empire ; and though many of them imposed duties on 
 trade, yet those duties were always imposed with design to restrain 
 the commerce of one part, that was injurious to another, and thus 
 to promote the general welfare. The raising a revenue thereby was 
 never intended. Thus the king, by his judges in his courts of 
 justice, imposes fines, which altogether amount to a very consid- 
 erable sum, and contribute to the support of government ; but this 
 is merely a consequence arising from restrictions that only meant 
 to keep peace and prevent confusion ; and surely a man would 
 argue very loosely who should conclude from hence that the king 
 has a right to levy money in general upon his subjects. Never 
 did the British Parliament, till the period above mentioned, think 
 of imposing duties in America, FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING A 
 
 REVENUE. 
 
118 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 Among the earliest proceedings of the memorable 
 Congress of Independence, as recorded in its journals, 
 October 14, 1774, is the unanimous declaration and 
 resolve, claiming for the colonies that 
 
 They are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation 
 in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of repre- 
 sentation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and inter- 
 nal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such 
 manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed ; but, from 
 the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of 
 both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts 
 of the British Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regula- 
 tion of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the COM- 
 MERCIAL ADVANTAGES of the whole empire to the mother country, 
 and the commercial benefits of its respective members, excluding 
 every idea of taxation, external or internal, for raising a revenue on 
 the subjects in America witJiout their consent. 
 
 At length the stress of circumstances compelled 
 Great Britain herself to formally admit the legitimacy 
 of the position taken by the Continental Congress. The 
 surrender of Burgoyne's entire army to the American 
 forces at Saratoga, in October, 1777, had removed 
 every flattering hope of conquest with which the British 
 cabinet and nation had so long been deluded, and sud- 
 denly exhibited in open view the mass of resistance 
 which must yet be encountered. Soon a desire to 
 restore peace on any terms, short of the dismember- 
 ment of the empire, found its way into the ranks of the 
 ministry. In 1788, Lord North, aroused to the realities 
 of his situation, and seeking to win the insurgent colo- 
 nies from independence and from alliance with France, 
 procured the passage of a bill which offered a compro- 
 mise upon the precise basis for which they had long 
 contended. This measure of conciliation had the sig- 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 119 
 
 nificant title which follows: "A. bill for removing all 
 doubts and apprehensions conces ning TAXATION ~by the 
 Parliament of Great Britain in any of the colonies and 
 plantations of North America." The body of the bill 
 contained an offer of unconditional surrender of the 
 original ground of controversy, in these words: "It is 
 expedient to declare that the King and Parliament of 
 Great Britain will not impose any duty or tax FOR THE 
 
 PURPOSE OF RAISING A REVENUE IN THE COLONIES, 
 
 except only such duties as may be expedient to impose 
 
 FOR THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE/' But this tardy 
 
 attempt at pacification came too late. The quarrel had 
 drifted far from its starting-point, while a system of 
 insults and injuries had planted almost inextinguishable 
 hatred in the colonial bosom, where the warmest friend- 
 ship had so long been cultivated. 
 
 In the many historical records quoted in this chap- 
 ter, a safe, undoubtable foundation, massive and solid, is 
 furnished for the support of the propositions which 
 constitute the superstructure, to wit: That it was well 
 understood in both Great Britain and America, previous 
 to and during the Kevolutionary war, that duties for 
 regulation of commerce never aimed at revenue, although 
 some revenue might incidentally result therefrom; and 
 that duties for revenue never aimed at regulation in 
 any case whatsoever, even though some regulation 
 might be the unavoidable consequence. This wide 
 separation of intent was kept up and fully compre- 
 hended, as will be shown, down to the formation of the 
 Constitution, when the power "to regulate commerce 
 with foreign nations " was granted to Congress in the 
 sense of authority to impose duties on imports for the 
 advantage of home interests, and in the very words 
 
120 THE PROTECTING POWEB. 
 
 which had been used in colonial times to denote that 
 object; this, too, be it remembered, in addition to the 
 grant of the revenue power, or "power to lay and col- 
 lect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts 
 and provide for the common defense and general wel- 
 fare of the United States." Indeed, it is peculiarly 
 remarkable, as related to latter-day controversy on the 
 subject, that the colonists utterly refused to submit to 
 the British duties for revenue that is, to a tariff for 
 revenue only but yielded without question to the 
 British duties for regulation of trade that is, to a tariff 
 for protection only. Is it logically supposable that the 
 free and independent States, which had been oppressed 
 colonies, had any design, when constructing a new 
 framework of government for themselves, to limit the 
 tariff-making power of Congress solely to an object 
 which had been odious and intolerable during their 
 time of colonial vassalage, and which had been regarded 
 as such a vital encroachment upon civil liberty as to 
 justify the resistance of war? Yet this unnatural and 
 absurd assumption is exactly what must be claimed and 
 defended by all those who maintain that the Consti- 
 tution does not authorize the imposition of duties on 
 imports for the purpose of protection. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 When, under the Confederation, the enlightened 
 friends of national unity had been thoroughly alarmed 
 by the growing tendency to disorder, violence, and dis- 
 integration; and when the best intellects in the country 
 were discussing plans to prevent the threatened plunge 
 into anarchy, one of the means suggested the one most 
 frequently advocated in the pamphlet and newspaper 
 literature of the day was to confer upon Congress 
 the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. 
 The same colonial, controversial, and technical use of 
 phraseology to express this power, which had long been 
 familiar to the people, was employed in those dis- 
 cussions; hence, everybody understood that the proposed 
 grant of authority signified something very different 
 from authority to raise revenue, and included, as one of 
 its commonest exemplifications and exertions, authority 
 to make what nowadays is known as a protective tariff. 
 After the Revolution and before the Constitution, all 
 impositions of duties on imports, by any of the States, 
 for the purpose of shielding and cherishing home 
 interests, were called commercial regulations by our 
 writers and speakers, and universally considered to be 
 a legitimate as well as a customary exercise of the 
 power to regulate commerce. When that precise form 
 of speech was incorporated in the Constitution, did it 
 not mean exactly the same thing as always before it had 
 meant? Would it not have been exceedingly strange 
 
 121 
 
122 KATUKE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 extraordinary almost beyond belief, and requiring the 
 support of the very strongest evidence to make it 
 credible if the signification of a certain formula of 
 words, established by many years of documentary, 
 legislative, diplomatic, controversial, and popular usage, 
 had been suddenly and radically changed, without due 
 notice, until every trace of its former meaning was 
 taken away, so soon as the verbiage was introduced into 
 the organic law of the nation, for the purpose of grant- 
 ing and defining a particular power of government? 
 This extreme of unlikelihood represents, nevertheless, 
 the logical predicament of those who deny that the 
 power to regulate commerce with foreign nations em- 
 braces the power to protect home industry by import 
 duties which neglect revenue. 
 
 Eufus Choate so thoroughly investigated, and has so 
 exhaustively treated, this part of the subject, that his 
 exposition of it, as given in his speech in the Senate of 
 the United States, March 14, 1842, on "The Power 
 and Duty of Congress to continue the Policy of Pro- 
 tecting American Labor/' is copied below in full: 
 
 To put this matter at rest, let me ask you to look a little more 
 at large into that considerable body of writings which appeared in 
 the States, between the peace of 1783 and the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution, upon the subject of a new Constitution. A word first on 
 their general character. 
 
 You know how soon after the war an opinion began to prevail 
 that the country needed a stronger government. Suggested at 
 first, like the Revolution itself, by the intelligence of the commu- 
 nity, it spread fast and far; the events of every day gave it diffu- 
 sion and strength; it possessed itself at last of the general mind, 
 and the Constitution was the result. During the progress of this 
 opinion, it produced a great deal of discussion. These writings, 
 into which I wish you now to look, are the fruits of that discus- 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 123 
 
 sion, and embody its topics and its language. Less known than 
 the more lofty and classical controversial literature of the more 
 glorious revolutionary and ante-revolutionary time, they are to us 
 the most interesting and most instructive writings in the world. 
 No man, I could almost say, can understand the Constitution 
 without the study of them. No man can understand the nature of 
 the new remedial law until he has meditated the disease which it 
 was made to cure, in these vivid pictures of it. No man can 
 understand the vocabulary of the Constitution until he has famil- 
 iarized himself in these writings, with the current vocabulary of 
 the people, by whom and for w T hom it was composed. The defects 
 of the old Confederation; its utter insufficiency for our greatness 
 and our glory; the evils which bore the people to the earth, and 
 made their newly-acquired independence a dreary and useless 
 thing; the disordered condition of the currency: our exhausting 
 system of trade; the action of conflicting and inadequate commer- 
 cial regulations of the States; the excessive importations of foreign 
 manufactures; the drain of specie; the stagnation of labor, op- 
 pressed and disheartened by a competition with all the pauper labor 
 of all the world; the depression of agriculture, sympathizing with 
 other labor by an eternal law; the need of a system of divided and 
 diversified employments, which should leave no one overcrowded, 
 should leave no man's faculties undeveloped andunexcited; which 
 should give a market and a reward to all industry; the wants, suf- 
 ferings, fears, wishes; the universal stimulation of mind and fer- 
 mentation of opinions in which the Constitution had its birth; you 
 will find them all there, and you will find them nowhere else. 
 
 Looking with some labor into a collection of part of these 
 writings in the American Museum a work embodying the gen- 
 eral spirit of the press from 1783 to 17871 think I find conclusive 
 evidence of this fact, to wit: that a confident and sagacious and 
 salutary conviction came to be generally adopted: 1. That one 
 capital source of the evils, which oppressed us was the importation 
 of too many foreign manufactures, and the use of too few domes- 
 tic manufactures too much encouragement of the foreign laborer, 
 and too little encouragement of our own; 2. That a new and 
 more perfect union and a stronger government were required, 
 among other ends, very much for the cure and prevention of this 
 precise evil; and, 3. That, hi order to effect this end, the new 
 
124 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 government must be clothed with this specific poicer of regulating 
 trade, whereby it could check the import of foreign manufactures, by 
 duties and prohibitions, and thus bring to life and keep alive 
 domestic manufactures, and with them the entire labor of Amer- 
 ica. If this is so, it will prove at once, first, that this language 
 retained the same signification in 1787 which it had borne in 1764; 
 and, next, that it means in the Constitution just what it meant 
 everywhere else, and was inserted there because it bore that mean- 
 ing. Let me ask your attention, then, to some evidence and illus- 
 trations of the fact, to which I might add a thousand. 
 
 In the first volume of the collection I have referred to is an 
 article on American manufactures. It is continued through three 
 months of the Museum, and was written in Maryland at some 
 time after 1783, and before 1787. The proposition which the 
 essayist maintains is, that manufactures ought immediately to be 
 established in the United States. In support of this, he reasons 
 forcibly and zealously, and with much maturity and breadth of 
 view, considering the time when he wrote ; presents a vivid exhi- 
 bition of the uses of manufactures and of manufacturing industry ; 
 of the rank they hold in all civilized States ; of the division of 
 labor which they render practicable, and the influence of that 
 division in stimulating all the faculties of men and nations ; and 
 in supplying to each faculty and each mind its favorite employ- 
 ment and adequate reward ; and, above all, he urges the actual 
 evils which were weighing the country down ; its foreign debt ; 
 its ruinous consumption ; its expensive tastes ; its incomplete devel- 
 opment of industry ; its deficiency in the means of self-reliance, 
 and self-support, and self -regulation, as a decisive argument for 
 his purpose. He goes on then to inquire how manufactures may 
 be introduced and sustained ; and his scheme is, a government 
 which should have power to regulate trade, and in the exercise of that 
 power should, among other expedients, impose duties on imports of 
 articles coming in competition with the domestic labor. " I am con- 
 vinced," he says, page 212, "that to begin at this juncture the 
 establishment of manufactures will be the only way to lay the 
 foundation for the future glory, greatness, and independence of 
 America." "Well, how, then," he asks, "shall we make the 
 beginning ?" "Free trade," he argues, "Jn our situation, adopt- 
 ing the sentiment of Montesquieu, 'must necessarily lead us to 
 
THE PHOTECTLtfG POWEK. 125 
 
 poverty.'" "A State whose balance of trade is always to its dis- 
 advantage cannot grow rich." We must have regulated trade, 
 then. " But, we are told by some," he proceeds, " that trade will 
 regulate itself." Hear how he combats this proposition, and what 
 is the precise regulation of trade which he urges upon the statesmen 
 of America : 
 
 " If trade will regulate itself, why do the wisest and most prosperous 
 governments make laws in favor and support of their trade? Why 
 does the British Parliament employ so much time and pains in regulating 
 their trade, so as to render its advantages particularly useful to their 
 own nation? Why so preposterous as to abide by and enforce their 
 boasied navigation act? But so far is trade from regulating itself, that 
 it continually needs the help of the legislation of every country, as a 
 nursing father. If we Americans do not choose to regulate it, it will 
 regulate us, till we have not a farthing left in our land. Trade, like a 
 helpless infant, requires parental care, and to be well looked after ; for, 
 saya the same excellent author : ' A country that constantly exports 
 fewer manufactures or commodities than it receives will soon find the 
 balance sinking ; it will receive less and less, till, falling into extreme 
 poverty, it will receive nothing at all.' The truth is, trade regulates or 
 corrects itself just as everything else does that is left to itself. The 
 manner the late war, for instance, would have corrected itself, had we 
 supinely sat still and folded our arms together, would have been such a 
 correction as I hope no person who makes use of this flimsy argument 
 would wish to have taken place; and unless we shortly regulate and 
 correct the abuses of our trade by lopping off its useless branches and 
 establMiin<i manufactures, we shall be corrected, perhaps, even to our 
 very destruction." 
 
 "The mechanics," he continues, "hope the Legislature will afford 
 them that protection they are entitled to ; for, as the present baleful 
 system of trade and scarcity of cash occasion numbers of them to want 
 employment, though they are able and ready to furnish many articles 
 which are at present imported, and as many of their branches are fast 
 declining, and some are likely to become totally extinct, they conceive 
 that duties ought to be laid on certain imported articles in such a manner as 
 to ))lace the American manufacturers on the same footing as the manufact- 
 urers of Europe, and enable them to procure bread and support for their 
 families." And then, in further explanation, he adds: "An excessive 
 duty might be only an encouragement to the smuggler ; on the other 
 hand, let them be only so high as to enable the manufacturer to procure 
 a decent subsistence for his family." 
 
 Mark two things in this argument and these extracts: the advice 
 to encourage domestic manufacture by duties on foreign manu- 
 facture, and the use of language which calls such an impost, for 
 such an object, a regulation of trade. 
 
126 NATUKE AXJJ EXTENT OF 
 
 I should never have done, sir, if I attempted to read all the 
 proofs which I find in these papers, that the importance of estab- 
 lishing American manufactures seems, even then, to have been 
 generally apprehended; and that a powerful and an immediate 
 impulse was expected to be given to them, in some way, by the 
 new Constitution. The concurrence of opinion upon that point is 
 marvelous. It is still more marvelous, the maturity of the public 
 judgment upon the nature and' uses of manufacturing industry, 
 and the very considerable extent to which that industry already 
 had taken root, when you consider with what severity the austere 
 and long dominion of England had pressed upon it; and how 
 short and how unpropitious the time had been for the arts of 
 peace to grow after that dominion had passed away. But I must 
 confine myself closely to selections which illustrate the meaning 
 and objects of the constitutional phraseology. Let me, however, 
 read a passage or two from a series of letters, by a North Caro- 
 linian, under the signature of Sylvius. I find them in the second 
 volume of the Museum, page 107, and they appeared in August, 
 1787. His cure, too, for the oppressive indebtment, depreciated 
 currency, scarcity of money, exhausting importations, and what 
 he calls luxurious appetites of the day, is the encouragement of 
 American manufactures, and the substitution of a tax on imported 
 manufactures for all other modes of taxation. 
 
 "The more I consider [says he, page 108] the progress of credit and 
 the increase of wealth in foreign nations, the more fully I am convinced 
 that paper money must prove hurtful to this country ; that we cannot 
 be relieved from our debts except by promoting domestic manufactures; 
 and that during the prevailing scarcity of money the burdens of the 
 poor may be reMeved by altering the mode of taxation. 1 ' 
 
 Addressing himself to the second of these propositions, he 
 adverts to the appalling enlargement of the foreign debt since the 
 peace; to the fact that it has been contracted for clothing; clothing 
 for the master; clothing for the slave; furniture; " saws, hammers, 
 hoes, and axes, as if," says he, "the wolf had made war against 
 our iron as w T ell as our sheep " ; Irish butter and beef, and British 
 ale, porter, and -cheese, "as if our country did not produce barley, 
 hops, or black cattle"; hazel and oak sprouts under the name 
 of "walking sticks"; luxuries of all denominations, swelling it 
 in three years to six millions of dollars; and then exclaims: 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 127 
 
 " Let us turn our attention to manufactures, and the staple of our 
 country will soon rise to its proper value, for we have already glutted 
 every foreign market. By this expedient, instead of using fictitious 
 paper, we shall soon obtain hard money sufficient; instead of toiling in 
 the field, and becoming poor, that we may enrich the manufacturers of 
 other countries, we shall prosper by our own labor, and enrich our own 
 citizens."" Every domestic manufacture is cheaper than a foreign one, 
 for this plain reason: by the first, nothing is lost to the country; by the 
 other, the whole value is lost; it is carried away, never to return. It is 
 perfectly indifferent to this State or to the United States, what may be 
 the price of domestic manufactures, because that price remains in the 
 country." 
 
 He proceeds then to recommend a substitution of an excise on 
 foreign manufactures sold in the State for other modes of taxa- 
 tion; and, although I do not find here an illustration of the mean- 
 ing of the words which I am investigating, you will be struck 
 with the confidence with which he presses the grand elementary 
 suggestion of a tax on foreign labor for the encouragement of 
 home labor. 
 
 "All wise governments [such is his argument, page 124] have 
 thought it their duty, on special occasions, to offer bounties for the 
 encouragement of domestic manufactures; but an excise on foreign 
 goods must operate as a bounty."" I have said that an excise is more 
 favorable to the poor than a land or poll tax. I will venture an addi- 
 tional sentiment ; there never was a government in which an excise could 
 be of so much use as in the United States of America. In all other 
 countries, taxes are considered as grievances. In the United States, 
 an excise on foreign goods would not be a grievance : like medicine to 
 a sick man, it would give us strength ; it would close that wasteful drain 
 by which our honor and our wealth are consumed. What though money 
 was not wanted though we did not owe a florin to any foreign nation 
 though we had no domestic debt and though the expenses of civil 
 government could be supported for many years without a tax, still it 
 may be questioned whether an excise would not be desirable. It would 
 certainly be the best expedient for promoting domestic manufactures; 
 and the condition in which we now live, our general dependence on a 
 foreign country for arms and clothing, is dishonorable it is extremely 
 dangerous." 
 
 " It is the duty of the statesman either to check or to promote the 
 several streams of commerce by taxes or bounties, so as to render them 
 profitable to the nation. Thus it happened in Massachusetts. A tax of 
 twenty-five per cent was lately imposed on nails, and the poor of 
 Taunton were immediately returned to life and vigor." 
 
 "If any man has doubts concerning the effect of large taxes on 
 foreign manufactures, he should turn his eyes to the Eastern States. 
 
128 NATUKE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 The mechanic is generally the first who perceives the effects of a 
 pernicious commerce ; for the support of his family depends on his 
 daily labor."" Hence it is that the merchant may be profited by a 
 particular branch of commerce, and may promote it diligently, while 
 his country is sinking into a deadly consumption." 
 
 You have heard the early and the mature good sense of North 
 Carolina. Listen to a sentence or two from an essay "on the 
 advantages of trade and commerce," written at Charleston in 
 South Carolina, in 1786, and consider what inferences it suggests 
 upon the general subject of the public opinion of that eventful 
 day. It is signed "American," and breathes the very spirit of 
 commercial, political, and industrial union; of union for defense 
 against the arts as well as the arms of the world. " There are but 
 two ways to national wealth [he begins], conquest and the encour- 
 aging of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." This he 
 illustrates historically. England at first was poor; " but as soon as 
 the spirit of manufacturing raised its head, and commerce was 
 regulated by good laics" [is it not palpable that he means the pro- 
 tecting tariff, behind which that intellectual industry has so 
 splendidly developed itself?], "they rose superior to every obstacle." 
 (American Museum, 2d Vol., pages 328 and 329.) 
 
 " It is in vain [he continues, page 330] for any people to attempt to 
 be rich, or have a sufficient circulating specie among them, whose 
 imports exceed their exports ; the hand of the manufacturer in a dis- 
 tant land seems to act on gold and silver as the loadstone does on the 
 needle." 
 
 Again, after adverting to a revenue of three millions and a half 
 raised by England, and by monopolizing our trade, he proceeds 
 (page 331): 
 
 " A great part of this may be saved to these States by our becoming 
 our own merchants and carriers ; and a great part of the remaining sum 
 may be saved in a few years by encouraging our own manufactors ; and 
 even this encouragement, will be of service to our revenues I mean 
 laying a duty on our imports, and giving a small part in bounties to our 
 own tradesmen." 
 
 By tradesmen he means mechanics. And to the suggestion to 
 . turn planters into manufacturers, he answers: 
 
 " I by no means wish it. I only wish to encourage European tradesmen 
 to come to reside here. I wish to see as much as possible exported, and 
 as little imported. The planters that buy the manufactures of Americ^ 
 
THE PROTECTING POWEE. 129 
 
 stop so much money in this country, which must return again to the 
 planters' hands as long as traders eat." 
 
 Duties of encouragement, let me observe in passing, he calls 
 " restrictions on the British trade." Sir, the name of the writer of 
 this paper is unknown to me. And yet, when I compare the 
 spirit, the sagacity, the American feeling which mark his matter 
 with the language and the policy of later days, and more famous 
 names, I can hardly forbear to exclaim of his humble and for- 
 gotten speculation 
 
 " That strain I heard was of an higher mood." 
 
 I must hurry away from the accumulations of proof before 
 me, which bear on the general subject ; the formation of associa- 
 tions to encourage manufactures, the resolutions of the patriotic 
 society of Richmond, of the ladies of Halifax in North Carolina, 
 and of Hartford in Connecticut, and of the Legislature and Execu- 
 tive of Massachusetts, to effect this by individual and organized 
 exertion, and all the other indications which break from the uni- 
 versal press of that stirring and anxious time, and which show you 
 with how true an instinct the genius of America was turning 
 itself to take hold on the golden key that opens the palace of 
 national wealth and greatness I must hurry from these to call 
 your attention to some others more immediately applicable to the 
 proposition which I am maintaining. Look, then, for a moment, 
 into an address by a " Jerseyman," in November, 1787, to the 
 citizens of New Jersey, on the new Constitution. Hear him, one 
 of the people, appealing to the people with the open book in his 
 hand, speaking the language of the people hear him on the clause 
 which you are attempting to interpret : 
 
 "The great advantages [American Museum, Vol. II., page 437], 
 which would be the result of the adoption of the proposed Consti- 
 tution, are almost innumerable. I will mention a few among the 
 many. In the first place, the proper regulation of our commerce 
 would be insured the imposts on all foreign merchandise imported 
 into America would still effectually aid our continental treasury. 
 This power has been heretofore held back by some States on nar- 
 row arid mistaken principles. The amount of the duties since the 
 peace would probably, by this time, have nearly paid our national debt. 
 By the proper regulation of our commerce our own manufactures would 
 be also much promoted and encouraged. Heavy duties would discourage 
 the consumption of articles of foreign growth. This would induce us 
 
130 NATURE AND EXTENT OP 
 
 more to work up our raw materials, and prevent European manufact- 
 urers from dragging them from us, in order to bestow upon them their 
 own labor and a high price before they are returned into'our hands." 
 
 Just then, too, a Pennsylvania patriot, under the signature of 
 " One of the People," was making a similar appeal to the intelli- 
 gence of that great State on behalf of the new Constitution. And 
 how does he interpret this grant of power? 
 
 " The people of Pennsylvania, in general, are composed of men of 
 three occupations the farmer, the merchant, the mechanic. The inter- 
 ests of these three are intimately blended together. A government, then, 
 which will be conducive to their happiness, and best promote their 
 interest, is the government which these people should adopt. The 
 Constitution now presented to them is such a one. Every person must 
 long since have discovered the necessity of placing the exclusive power 
 of regulating the commerce of America in the same body; without this 
 it is impossible to regulate their trade. The same imposts, duties, and 
 customs must equally prevail over the whole, for no one State can carry 
 into effect its impost laws. A neighboring State could always prevent 
 it. No State could effectually encourage its manufactories there can be no 
 navigation act. Whence comes it that the trade of this State, which 
 abounds with materials for ship-building, is carried on in foreign bot- 
 toms ? Whence comes it that shoes, boots, made-up clothes, hats, nails, 
 sheet-iron, hinges, and all other utensils of iron, are of British manu- 
 factui-e? Whence comes it that Spain can regulate our flour market? 
 These evils proceed from a want of one supreme controlling power in 
 these States. They will be all done away by adopting the present form 
 of government. It will have energy and power to regulate your trade and 
 commerce to enforce the execution of you 1 * imposts, duties, and cus- 
 toms. Instead of the trade of this country being carried on in foreign 
 bottoms, our ports will be crowded with our own ships and we shall 
 become the carriers of Europe. Heavy duties will ~be laid on all foreign 
 articles which can be manufactured in this country ; and bounties will be 
 granted on the exportation of our commodities ; the manufactories of our 
 country will flourish ; our mechanics will lift up their heads, and rise to 
 opulence and wealth. 1 ' 
 
 And a little after this, in July, 1788, I find a "Bostonian" 
 [American Museum, Vol. IV., page 331] advising duties on English 
 importations, under the name of regulations and restrictions of 
 trade for the encouragement of our own manufactures. 
 
 " The ill policy of our commercial arrangements has served to impov- 
 erish us in our finances, by the enormous remittances of our currency, 
 occasioned an almost general bankruptcy, and has had the pernicious 
 tendency to discourage our enterprise in manufactures, and ruined 
 many of those branches which, during the war, had arisen to a flourishing 
 
THE PROTECTING POWEK. 131 
 
 state."" Our trade with that nation has been the principle source of all 
 our misfortunes. It has thrown a number of our best estates into the 
 hands of British merchants, has occasioned a most rapid decrease of 
 our medium, has ruined our manufactures, and will, if pursued, sap the 
 foundation of the best government that ever can be established in 
 America. The first object, therefore, of the Federal Government must 
 be to restrain our connection with Great Britain, unless on terms of 
 reciprocity. While they continue their duties and prohibitions, we must 
 lay similar restrictions and embarrassments on their trade, and prevent, by 
 excessive duties, the redundance of their manufactures." 
 
 Some time in the year 1783 or 1784, there were published in 
 a Virginia newspaper, " Reflections on the policy and necessity of 
 encouraging the commerce of the citizens of the United States," 
 by St. George Tucker, of Petersburg. They are written with 
 great vigor, good sense, and a true national spirit, and present a 
 powerful argument for a discrimination in favor of American 
 tonnage. Toward the close of the essay (page 274 of the 2d 
 vol. of the American Museum), he adverts to another subject 
 in the following terms: 
 
 " Before I conclude, let me call the attention of my reader for a 
 moment to the debt due from America to the subjects of Great Britain, 
 which I have heard estimated at four or five millions of pounds. This 
 debt was accumulated from a balance in trade annually accruing 1 to 
 Great Britain from the causes hereinbefore pointed out. That trade 
 must be destructive where such a balance continually arises against us. 
 Surely it is proper to guard against such an event in future. This might 
 be effected, in part, perhaps, by laying heavy duties, if not actual pro- 
 hibitions, on the importation of such articles as are the produce of the 
 United States. Is it not surprising, for example, that bar-iron, lead, 
 saltpetre, leather, train-oil, soap, malt liquors, butter, beef, pork, and 
 potatoes, should constitute a part of the annual imports from Europe 
 to America ? " 
 
 Did not this writer understand that legislation, for the purpose 
 of turning the balance of trade in our favor, was a "regulation of 
 trade," and is not the protecting tariff which he recommends 
 exactly an instance of such legislation? 
 
 I spare you, sir, the infliction of more of these superfluous 
 proofs. And yet the nature of the fact to be proved that a 
 whole people, a whole generation of our fathers, had in view, as 
 one grand end and purpose of their new government, the acquisi- 
 tion of the means of restraining, by governmental action, the 
 importation of foreign manufactures, for the encouragement of 
 
132 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 manufactures and of aU labor at home, and desired and meant to 
 do this by clothing the new government with this specific power 
 of regulating commerce required and justified a pretty wide 
 collection and display of their opinions, sufferings, expectations, 
 and vocabulary, from sources the most numerous and the most 
 scattered. 
 
 And now from the bosom of the people holding these opinions, 
 oppressed by these incommodities, nourishing these hopes, deter- 
 mined on this relief, and speaking this language, arose the Consti- 
 tution, immortal, unchangeable! In fulfillment of these hopes, it 
 embodied the great governmental instrumentality which had been 
 determined on, in the exact language which more than twenty 
 years had made familiar. I say, then, sir, that when the country 
 called the convention together which formed the Constitution, it 
 was the general design to confer the protecting power upon the new 
 government; that the governmental power to regulate trade was 
 generally understood to embrace the protecting power; and it was 
 inserted in the Constitution exactly because that was its meaning. 
 ****** 
 
 I do not think, then, sir, that anybody will deny that, in the 
 commercial, political, and general vocabulary of 1787, and of all 
 the period back to 1764, a discriminating tariff a tariff discrimi- 
 nating for the protection of domestic industry, was universally 
 called a commercial regulation. Everybody will agree that if, at 
 that time, it had been written or spoken that England, the States, 
 or any other government upon earth, had the power to make a 
 commercial regulation or to regulate commerce, it would have 
 been universally understood (such was the settled form of speech) 
 to include the power to make a strict protecting tariff, and that 
 such a tariff would have been one of the most ordinary and most 
 familiar acts in exercise of such power of regulation. But then it 
 will be said that it does not follow that the same language means, 
 in this Constitution, when applied to and asserted of this govern- 
 ment, what it meant everywhere else, when applied to or asserted 
 of any other government in the world. England, the States, under 
 the power to regulate commerce, could make a strict and technical 
 protecting tariff; Congress, under the same power, or rather, 
 under the same exact form of expression the same enunciation in 
 terms of power can do no such thing. 
 
THE PROTECTING POWEK. 133 
 
 Sir, lie who asserts this has the burden of proof heavily upon 
 him. Independently altogether of the evidence which I have 
 already presented, to show that the country looked directly to this 
 power of regulating commerce as the precise power under and by 
 which the new government was to tax or prohibit imports for 
 the encouragement of manufactures; independently of that, when 
 you admit, as you must, that, for more than twenty years 
 before the Constitution was formed, this language was uni- 
 versally current in the colonies and States; that it had acquired, 
 by force of circumstances, an unusually precise, definite, and well- 
 understood sense; that it had all that time been employed to desig- 
 nate or to include a certain known governmental function; that 
 when applied to England, the States, and all other governments, 
 it had, in the understanding of everybody, embraced a certain 
 species and exercise of power for a certain purpose when you 
 admit this, and then find it here in the Constitution of this govern- 
 ment, employed to confer a power on it, must you not admit that 
 the presumption is, that it is used in the sense which everybody 
 had understood it so long to bear, when applied to other govern- 
 ments; neither larger nor narrower; that it means to include the 
 same well-known function, and not to exclude it; that it means to 
 communicate the same extent and the same purpose of power, and 
 not less; the same in quantity, the same in object? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PROTECTING POWER 
 CONCLUDED. 
 
 The entire generation which participated, either in 
 creating or in launching the new government, have 
 uniformly testified, whenever they have expressed an 
 opinion on the subject, that the power to regulate com- 
 merce, as granted to Congress in the Constitution, was 
 well known and was designed to include what the British 
 Parliament had always claimed and exercised, and what 
 America had acquiesced in for over a century the power 
 of favoring or prohibiting particular traffics, products, 
 or fabrics, "by duties on imports. 
 
 This is the position which was taken by James 
 Madison, who, as a member of the Federal Convention, 
 as a constant sharer in the deliberations of that body, 
 and as a signer of the original draft of the Constitution, 
 must be supposed to have been thoroughly conversant 
 with the meaning and intent of that instrument, in its 
 several parts. How superlatively competent he was, in 
 Daniel Webster's estimation, to expound the Constitu- 
 tion, is thus set forth by the great Massachusetts 
 Senator, in his address, February, 1831, at the public 
 dinner tendered to him in the city of New York: 
 
 Mr. Madison, thanks to a kind Providence, is yet among the 
 living, and there is certainly no other individual living, to whom 
 the country is so much indebted for the blessings of the Constitu- 
 tion. He was one of the commissioners who met at Annapolis, in 
 1786, to which meeting I have already referred, and which, to the 
 
 134 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 135 
 
 great credit of Virginia, had its origin in a proceeding of that 
 State. He was a member of the Convention of 1787, and of that 
 of Virginia in the following year. He was thus intimately 
 acquainted with the whole progress of the formation of the Con- 
 stitution, from its very first step to its final adoption. If ever man 
 had the means of understanding a written instrument, Mr. Madison 
 has the means of understanding the Constitution. If it be possible 
 to know what was designed by it, he can tell us. It was in this, 
 city that, in conjunction with Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jay, he 
 wrote the numbers of the Federalist; and it was in this city that 
 he commenced his brilliant career under the new Constitution, 
 having been elected into the House of Representatives of the first 
 Congress. * * * 
 
 Having been afterward, for eight years, Secretary of State, 
 and as long President, Mr. Madison has had an experience in the 
 affairs of the Constitution, certainly second to no man. More 
 than any other man living, and perhaps more than any other 
 who has lived, his whole public life has been incorporated, as it 
 were, into the Constitution ; in the original conception and project 
 of attempting to form it, in its actual framing,, in explaining and 
 recommending it, by speaking and writing, in assisting at the first 
 organization of the government under it, and in a long administra- 
 tion of its executive powers in these various ways he has lived 
 near the Constitution, and with the power of imbibing its true 
 spirit, and inhaling its very breath, from its first pulsation of life. 
 Again, therefore, I ask, if he cannot tell us what the Constitution 
 is, and what it means, who can? 
 
 When such a witness states, with the utmost delib- 
 eration, and in the most formal manner, that the pro- 
 tection of home manufactures by a tariff was intended 
 to be a function of the power to regulate commerce ; 
 and especially when he cannot be contradicted by any 
 other competent witness, but is corroborated on every 
 material point, his testimony must be deemed conclu- 
 sive. In his once famous though now forgotten letter 
 to Joseph C. Cabell, under date of September 18, 1828, 
 
136 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 he entered into the following details and arguments to 
 support his views: 
 
 Your late letter reminds me of our conversation on the consti- 
 tutionality of the power of Congress to impose a tariff for the 
 encouragement of manufactures ; and of my promise to sketch 
 the grounds of the confident opinion I had expressed, that it was 
 among the powers vested in that body. * * # 
 
 The Constitution vests in Congress, expressly, "the power to 
 lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," and "the 
 power to regulate trade." 
 
 That the former power, if not particularly expressed, would 
 have been included in the latter, as one of the objects of a general 
 power to regulate trade, is not necessarily impugned by its being 
 so expressed. Examples of this sort cannot sometimes be easily 
 avoided, and are to be seen elsewhere in the Constitution. Thus 
 the power "to define and punish offenses against the law of 
 nations " includes the power afterward particularly expressed, " to 
 make rules concerning captures, etc., from offending neutrals." 
 So, also, a power "to coin money" would doubtless include that 
 of " regulating its value," had not the latter power been expressly 
 inserted. The term taxes, if standing alone, would certainly have 
 included duties, imposts, and excises. In another clause, it is 
 said, "no tax or duties shall be laid on exports," etc. Here the 
 two terms are used as synonymous. And in another clause, where 
 it is said "no State shall lay any imposts or duties," etc., the terms 
 imposts and duties are synonymous. Pleonasms, tautologies, and 
 the promiscuous use of terms and phrases, differing in their shades 
 of meaning (always to be expounded with reference to the context, 
 and under the control of the general character and manifest scope 
 of the instrument in which they are found), are to be ascribed, 
 sometimes to the purpose of greater caution; sometimes to the 
 imperfections of language; and sometimes to the imperfection of 
 man himself. In this view of the subject, it was quite natural, 
 however certainly the general power to regulate trade might 
 include a power to impose duties on it, not to omit it in a clause 
 enumerating the several modes of revenue, authorized by the 
 Constitution. In few cases could the "ex majori cautela" occur 
 with more claim to respect. 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 137 
 
 Nor can it be inferred that a power to regulate trade does not 
 involve a power to tax it, from the distinction made in the original 
 controversy with Great Britain, between a power to regulate trade 
 with the colonies, and a power to tax them. A power to regulate 
 trade between different parts of the empire was confessedly neces- 
 sary; and was admitted to lie, as far as that was the case, in the 
 British Parliament; the taxing part being at the same time denied 
 to the Parliament, and asserted to be necessarily inherent in the 
 Colonial Legislatures, as sufficient, and the only safe depositories 
 of the taxing power. So difficult was it, nevertheless, to maintain 
 the distinction in practice, that the ingredient of revenue was 
 occasionally overlooked or disregarded in the British regulations, 
 as in the duty on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies. 
 And it was fortunate that the attempt at an internal and direct tax, 
 in the case of the Stamp Act, produced a radical examination of 
 the subject before a regulation of trade with a view to revenue had 
 grown into an established authority. One thing at least is certain, 
 that the main and admitted object of the Parliamentary regula- 
 tions of trade with the colonies was the encouragement of man- 
 ufactures in Great Britain. 
 
 But the present question is unconnected with the former rela- 
 tions between Great Britain and her colonies, which were of a 
 peculiar, a complicated, and, in several respects, of an undefined 
 character. It is a simple question, under the Constitution of the 
 United States, whether " the power to regulate trade with foreign 
 nations," as a distinct and substantive item in the enumerated 
 powers, embraces the object of encouraging by duties, restrictions, 
 and prohibitions, the manufactures and products of the country? 
 And the affirmative must be inferred from the following consider- 
 ations: 
 
 1. The meaning of the phrase, " to regulate trade," must be 
 sought in the general use of it; in other words, in the objects to 
 which the power was generally understood to be applicable, when 
 the phrase was inserted in the Constitution. 
 
 2. The power has been understood and used by all commercial 
 and manufacturing nations, as embracing the object of encour- 
 aging manufactures. It is believed that not a single exception can 
 be named. 
 
 3. This has been particularly the case with Great Britain, whose 
 
138 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 commercial vocabulary is the parent of ours. A primary object 
 of her commercial regulations is well known to have been the 
 protection and encouragement of her manufactures. 
 
 4. Such was understood to be a proper use of the power by the 
 States most prepared for manufacturing industry, whilst retaining 
 the power over their foreign trade. 
 
 5. Such a use of the power, by Congress, accords with the 
 intention and expectation of the States, in transferring the power 
 over trade from themselves to the Government of the United 
 States. This was emphatically the case in the Eastern, the more 
 manufacturing members of the Confederacy. Hear the language 
 held in the Convention of Massachusetts: 
 
 By Mr. Dawes, an advocate for the Constitution, it was ob- 
 served: " Our manufactures are another great subject which has 
 received no encouragement by national duties on foreign manufact- 
 ures, and they never can by any authority in the old Confedera- 
 tion." Again, "If we wish to encourage our own manufactures, 
 to preserve our own commerce, to raise the value of our own lands, 
 we must give Congress the powers in question." 
 
 By Mr. Widgery, an opponent: "All we hear is, that the 
 merchant and farmer will flourish, and that the mechanic and 
 tradesman are to make their fortunes directly, if the Constitution 
 goes down." 
 
 The Convention of Massachusetts was the only one in New 
 England whose debates have been preserved. But it cannot be 
 doubted that the sentiment there expressed was common to the 
 other States in that quarter, more especially to Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island, the most thickly peopled of all the States, and 
 having, of course, their thoughts most turned to the subject of 
 manufactures. A like inference may be confidently applied to 
 New Jersey, whose debates in Convention have not been preserved. 
 In the populous and manufacturing State of Pennsylvania, a 
 partial account only of the debates having been published, nothing 
 certain is known of what passed in her Convention on this point. 
 But ample evidence may be found elsewhere that regulations of 
 trade, for the encouragement of manufactures, were considered 
 as within the power to be granted to the new Congress, as well as 
 within the scope of the national policy. Of the States south of 
 Pennsylvania, the only two in whose Conventions the debates have 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 139 
 
 been preserved, are Virginia and North Carolina, and from these 
 no adverse inferences can be drawn. Nor is there the slightest 
 indication that either of the two States farthest south, whose 
 debates in Convention, if preserved, have not been made public, 
 viewed the encouragement of manufactures as not within the 
 general power over trade to be transferred to the Government of 
 the United States. 
 
 6. If Congress have not the power, it is annihilated for the 
 nation; a policy without example in any other nation, and not 
 within the reason of the solitary one in our own. The example 
 alluded to is the prohibition of a tax on exports, which resulted 
 from the apparent impossibility of raising, in that mode, a revenue 
 from the States, proportioned to the ability to pay it the ability 
 of some being derived, in a great measure, not from their exports, 
 but from their fisheries, from their freights, and from commerce 
 at large, in some of its branches altogether external to the United 
 States; the profits from all which, being invisible and intangible, 
 would escape a tax on exports. A tax on imports, on the other 
 hand, being a tax on consumption, which is in proportion to the 
 abilities of the consumers, whencesoever derived, was free from 
 that inequality. 
 
 7. If revenue be the sole object of a legitimate impost, and 
 the encouragement of domestic articles be not within the power of 
 regulating trade, it would follow that no monopolizing or unequal 
 regulations with foreign nations could be counteracted; that 
 neither staple articles of subsistence, nor the essential implements 
 for the public safety, could, under any circumstances, be insured 
 or fostered at home, by regulations of commerce, the usual and 
 most convenient mode of providing for both; and that the Ameri- 
 can navigation, though the source of naval defense, of a cheap- 
 ening competition in carrying our valuable and bulky articles to 
 market, and of an independent carriage of them during foreign 
 wars, when a foreign navigation might be withdrawn, must be at 
 once abandoned, or speedily destroyed; it being evident that a 
 tonnage duty in foreign ports against our vessels, and an exemption 
 from such a duty in our ports, in favor of foreign vessels, would 
 have the inevitable effect of banishing ours from the ocean. 
 
 To assume a power to protect our navigation, and the cultiva- 
 tion and fabrication of all articles requisite for the public safety, 
 
140 KATURE AtfD EXTENT Otf 
 
 as incident to the war power, would be a more latitudinary 
 construction of the text of the Constitution, than to consider it 
 as embraced by the specified power to regulate trade a power 
 which has been exercised by all nations for those purposes, and 
 which effects those purposes with less of interference with the 
 authority and conveniency of the States, than might result from 
 internal and direct modes of encouraging the articles; any of 
 which modes would be authorized, as far as deemed "necessary 
 and proper," by considering the power as an incidental power. 
 
 8. That the encouragement of manufactures was an object of 
 the power to regulate trade is proved by the use made of the power 
 for that object, in the first session of the first Congress under the 
 Constitution; when among the members present were so many 
 who had been members of the Federal Convention which framed 
 the Constitution, and of the State Conventions which ratified it; 
 each of these classes consisting also of members who had opposed, 
 and who had espoused, the Constitution in its actual form. It does 
 not appear from the printed proceedings of Congress on that 
 occasion, that the power was denied by any of them. And it may 
 be remarked, that members from Virginia, in particular, as well of 
 the anti-federal as the federal party the names then distinguishing 
 those who had opposed and those who had approved the Constitu- 
 tion did not hesitate to propose duties and to suggest even pro- 
 hibitions in favor of several articles of her production. By one a 
 duty was proposed on mineral coal, in favor of the Virginia coal 
 pits; by another, a duty on hemp was proposed, to encourage the 
 growth of that article; and by a third, a prohibition even of 
 foreign beef was suggested, as measure of sound policy. 
 
 A further evidence in support of the constitutional power to 
 protect and foster manufactures by regulations of trade an evi- 
 dence that ought, of itself, to settle the question is the uniform 
 and practical sanction given to the power, by the General Govern- 
 ment, for nearly forty years, with a concurrence or acquiescence of 
 every State government, throughout the same period; and it may 
 be added, through all the vicissitudes of party which marked the 
 period. No novel construction, however ingeniously devised, or 
 however respectable and patriotic its patrons, can withstand the 
 weight of such authorities, or the unbroken current of so pro- 
 longed and universal a practice. * * * 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 141 
 
 And may it not be fairly left to the unbiased judgment of all 
 men of experience and of intelligence, to decide, which is most to 
 be relied on for a sound and safe test of the meaning of the Con- 
 stitution, a uniform interpretation by all the successive authorities 
 under it, commencing with its birth, and continued for a long 
 period, through the varied state of political contests; or the 
 opinion of every new Legislature, heated as it may be by the 
 strife of parties or warped, as often happens, by the eager pursuit 
 of some favorite object or carried away, possibly, by the power- 
 ful eloquence or captivating address of a few popular statesmen, 
 themselves, perhaps, influenced by the same misleading causes? 
 If the latter test is to prevail, every new legislative opinion might 
 make a new Constitution, as the foot of every new Chancellor 
 would make new a standard of measure. 
 
 But Mr. Madison had not postponed the communi- 
 cation of his views on this subject until his old age. In 
 his speech in Congress in 1789, upon the proposition to 
 combine the objects of protection and revenue in the 
 first tariff act, rendered famous by its preamble, declar- 
 atory of a purpose to encourage and protect manufact- 
 ures, he said: 
 
 The States that are most advanced in population, and ripe for 
 manufactures, ought to have their particular interests attended to 
 in some degree. While these States retained the power of making 
 regulations of trade, they had the power to protect and cherish 
 such institutions. By adopting the present Constitution, they have 
 thrown the exercise of this power into other hands ; they must 
 have done this with an expectation that those interests would not 
 be neglected here. Gales and Seatoris Debates, old series, Vol. /., 
 p. 116. 
 
 So, too, when he had become President. In his 
 second annual message, December 5, 1810, after advert- 
 ing to a " highly interesting extension of useful manu- 
 factures, the combined product of professional occupa- 
 tions and of household industry/' he observes, "how 
 
142 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 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." Thus, 
 at the beginning, in the midst, and at the close of his 
 career as constitution-maker, as chief magistrate, as 
 hoary and revered sage he held the same opinion about 
 the source, nature, and extent of the protecting power. 
 Gulian 0. Verplanck, in his once celebrated letter 
 to Colonel William Drayton, of South Carolina, Novem- 
 ber 1, 1831, piled proof upon proof to show that the 
 whole generation contemporaneous with the new gov- 
 ernment were of one mind on this question. Below is 
 part of his statement of facts and reasons: 
 
 Mr. Madison has told us, in his letter to Mr. Cabell, that the 
 objects of our present tariff laws were " the objects to which this 
 power was generally understood to be applicable, when the words 
 were inserted in the Constitution." Mr. Gallatin, one of the 
 earliest, and certainly one of the most consistent and able cham- 
 pions of free trade in this country, has stated in the conferences 
 of the free trade committee, as I am told, and repeatedly in con- 
 versation with myself, that such he found, upon his first entrance 
 into political life in 1783, to be the universal opinion of the 
 statesmen who formed and of those who opposed the Constitution. 
 In the debates of the first Congress under it, whilst the policy .of 
 laying protecting duties was strongly supported by some members, 
 all, so far as I can gather from the reports, seemed to take the 
 power for granted. Petitions for duties to foster manufactures 
 were presented, meetings held, and societies formed for effecting 
 that object; and, after diligent inquiry, I can find no trace of 
 opposition or censure from the press or from the public on con- 
 stitutional grounds, or any doubt anywhere intimated as to this 
 power of Congress. The preamble of the first act imposing 
 duties, reciting that they are laid, amongst other purposes, " for the 
 encouragement of manufactures, " has often been quoted. Merely as 
 an expression of the opinion of the First Congress on this head, it is 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 143 
 
 doubtless entitled to great weight. But a circumstance which I have 
 never seen or heard remarked upon strikes me with much greater 
 force. There is no evidence of any opposition or proposed amend- 
 ment to this assertion of power. It was not, therefore, simply the 
 expression of the Federal majority of that Congress, who might 
 on this, as on other points, be supposed to claim a liberal or 
 latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, but shows strongly 
 the general opinion of a legislature contemporary with the adoption 
 of the instrument itself, and containing a bold, a vigilant, and 
 an eloquent minority, jealous of the new Constitution, and 
 opposing every extension of the authority of any of its branches. 
 They opposed the Bank of the United States as unconstitutional; 
 they opposed the President's power of removing his officers, with- 
 out the consent of the Senate, as unconstitutional. In a succeeding 
 Congress, the same men opposed the carriage tax as unconstitu- 
 tional. On this preamble they were silent. It is, besides, 
 remarkable that, in the very next year, when the first tariff act of 
 the United States was repealed, and a higher scale of duties sub- 
 stituted, this preamble was recited and retained. 
 
 The nullification controversy, based on the claim 
 that the tariffs of 1824 and 1828 were oppressive, unjust, 
 and even unconstitutional, imposed upon the friends of 
 the Union the task of investigating the origin, the char- 
 acter, and the limitations of the protecting power. 
 Metaphorically, they had to dig down through forty 
 years of eruptive overflow from the volcanoes of partisan 
 politics, before they could lay bare the distinct outlines 
 of this buried and forgotten Herculaneum of the Con- 
 stitution, which had been as familiar as their own door- 
 steps to the first generation of American statesmen. 
 About the time of those explorations, Andrew Jackson, 
 in his second annual message to Congress, December 7, 
 1830, placed the intolerant and aggressive advocates of 
 the revenue standard in the following predicament a 
 condition of awkwardness and difficulty from which 
 they have never yet been able to extricate themselves; 
 
144 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to 
 the several States. The right to adjust those duties, with a view 
 to the encouragement of domestic branches of industry, is so com- 
 pletely identical with that power, that it is difficult to suppose the 
 existence of the one without the other. The States have delegated 
 their whole authority over imports to the general government, 
 without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable 
 reservation relating to their inspection laws. This authority 
 having thus entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise 
 it for the purpose of protection does not exist in them; and conse- 
 quently, if it be not possessed by the general government, it must 
 be extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly 
 of a people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and 
 to counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might 
 be adopted by foreign nations. This surely cannot be the case ; 
 this indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be 
 within the scope of the authority on the subject expressly dele- 
 gated to Congress. 
 
 In this conclusion, I am confirmed as well by the opinions of 
 Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who 
 have each repeatedly recommended the exercise of this right under 
 the Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the 
 continued acquiescence of the States, and the general understanding 
 of the people. 
 
 A year later, the morbid, inflammatory, dangerous 
 excitement against the protective system had become so 
 heated in South Carolina as to threaten to end in civil 
 war. It was when such were the prospects on the Rubi- 
 con of Nullification that Gulian 0. Verplanck, a Rep- 
 resentative in Congress, published his argumentative 
 letter to Col. William Drayton, who had openly stigma- 
 tized the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828 as unconstitu- 
 tional, and demanded their unconditional repeal as an 
 act of tardy justice to the South. Below are some 
 instructive extracts from this important letter: 
 
 I could never agree with many of those with whom I acted in 
 
THE PEOTECTING POWEE. 145 
 
 and out of Congress, in denouncing these measures as not only 
 impolitic and unequal, but as unconstitutional. The question of 
 the constitutionality or unconstitutionality 6f the protecting sys- 
 tem appeared to me to have no connection with the broader 
 question of the strict or liberal construction of the Constitution 
 with the admission or denial of those implied and constructive 
 powers upon which our statesmen have heretofore differed. I 
 looked upon it as a pure question on the meaning of words. 
 
 I argued thus: Congress is invested with the power "to regu- 
 late commerce with foreign nations and among the several States." 
 To regulate is to govern the action of anything by fixed rules. 
 But the authority to impose rules for the government of trade 
 cannot be confined solely to the manner of carrying it on. It 
 must include the right of designating the persons or places with 
 whom it may be allowed, and the commodities on which it is to be 
 employed. Had anything short of this been meant, the Consti- 
 tution would have said, " that Congress shall regulate the manner 
 of carrying on commerce with foreign nations"; just as, in another 
 clause, it has confined legislative power in the choice of Senators 
 in Congress to "regulating the times and manner " of election, 
 to the exclusion of farther interference. But the regulation of 
 the manner, the persons, the places, and the objects of commerce, 
 comprehends, in its widest latitude, the whole protecting power. 
 Then the imposition of duties is but the " necessary and proper 
 means " expressly authorized by the Constitution to give effect to 
 this substantive power. Those who understand the provisions of 
 the Constitution as intending anything short of this, erred, I 
 thought, by substituting in their minds a part for the whole the 
 idea of navigation simply for that of commerce for they seemed 
 to consider the laws of commerce as extending merely to shipping, 
 transportation, and international communication, without refer- 
 ence to the commodities which form the objects of trade. 
 
 When it was denied, as you have lately done, that the power 
 to regulate commerce could include the encouragement of manu- 
 factures, another and substantive part of public policy, it seemed 
 to me to be a sufficient and satisfactory answer that it is upon 
 commerce alone, not upon manufactures, that Congress has power 
 to act; but the whole power of action upon that subject being 
 given, the end or motive of such regulation is matter entrusted to 
 10 
 
146 . NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 legislative discretion wholly, whether it be with the view of 
 retaliating upon the unjust policy of other nations, or the encour- 
 agement of our own fabrics, or the preparation for war, or possibly 
 the preservation of public health. This is a power, doubtless, 
 exposed to perilous abuse, but still less so than that of war, or of 
 direct taxation, or of contracting debt, and, like those, one which 
 every nation has thought it expedient to lodge somewhere. Thus, 
 a war debt, like that of England, would require imposts as onerous 
 as any restrictive system can impose, coupled with the burdens of 
 heavy excises and oppressive internal taxes. Yet the only guard 
 against such abuse is to be found in the discretion of Congress, and 
 the watchfulness of their constituents. 
 
 When to these objections it was added (as in the address of the 
 late Free Trade Convention) that "the power to regulate could not 
 include the power to annihilate the objects it was intended to 
 protect," it seemed to me again to be a sufficient answer that no 
 tariff as yet had in view the annihilation of commerce, but either 
 the lopping off certain branches of it, or the turning them into 
 new directions the sacrifice frequently of a portion of foreign 
 commerce, to promote and increase that "between the States." 
 Nay, when I considered that great public emergencies might 
 dictate the necessity of a long and almost universal embargo, for 
 the sake of peace, or for the preservation of neutrality; for the 
 preparation for war, or for protection against foreign pestilence, I 
 hesitated even to deny the power of total prohibition, injurious as 
 the abuse of it might be. 
 
 But, without going farther into speculative reasoning, I 
 thought that the ordinary and habitual acceptation of the words 
 used in our Constitution, as they are employed, by good writers 
 and in popular use, decidedly included this disputed power. It 
 is remarkable that Adam Smith, the great father of the doctrines 
 of free trade in their widest extent, in the very chapters and pas- 
 sages of his Wealth of Nations in. which he denounces the restric- 
 tions and prohibitions of the British and other European tariffs, 
 repeatedly and throughout calls them "regulations of trade"; 
 that a similar use of the phrase is to be found in Burke, and 
 almost all the English political economists and statesmen, down to 
 our own days ; that in the official commercial digests of the rev- 
 enue laws of various countries, published both by the British 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 147 
 
 government and our own, the prohibitory and protecting tariffs 
 are classed as commercial regulations ; and that this use is so 
 fixed and incorporated in our language, that even Dr. Cooper, of 
 South Carolina, in that chapter of his work on political economy, 
 in which he has summed up, with his accustomed power of 
 lucid and condensed reasoning, all the arguments against encour- 
 agement of manufactures, by impost or restriction, expressly calls 
 such "prohibitions on importation," "governmental regulations," 
 and adopts as his own the very language of Adam Smith. 
 (Cooper's Political Economy, page 107.) 
 
 Nevertheless, the constancy and confidence with which the 
 constitutionality of these laws was denied, the high and merited 
 authority of many who maintained this doctrine, my own reluct- 
 ance to allow to the federal government a power so subject to 
 misuse ; all combined to induce me certainly not to change or 
 suspend my opinion but to prevent any confident public expres- 
 sion of it, and to keep my mind open to conviction. I could not 
 but presume that there might yet be some argument to which I 
 had not allowed its due weight, or some positive evidence of the 
 intention of the framers of the Constitution, familiar to older and 
 abler politicians, but which had not yet been stated in sufficient 
 force to be clear to my mind. It was to this last mode of proof 
 that I chiefly looked. Every day's experience had taught me that 
 words, which appear to be the clearest and most direct that could 
 be selected, may yet, from some fact or circumstance familiar to 
 those who use them, have a peculiar or limited meaning, widely 
 differing from that which they bear in general use. 
 
 It was in this disposition of mind, and whilst in search of some 
 such external evidence of the intention of the founders of our 
 Constitution, that I was accidentally led, by the perusal of the 
 early Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, lately 
 published by order of Congress, into a discursive but extensive 
 study of the history and state papers of the Revolution. 
 
 The outline of that glorious narrative is familiar to all of us 
 from our childhood; but, judging from my own observation and 
 experience, I fear our best educated citizens are more conversant 
 with the contests of Roman or Athenian politics, or with the 
 struggles of English liberty under the Tudors or Stuarts, than with 
 the details of the story of our own independence, as set forth in 
 
148 MATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 its original records those models of political wisdom and simply 
 majestic eloquence, the speeches and state papers of the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 I cannot otherwise account for the strange oblivion of a fact, 
 which I had myself hitherto overlooked, but the proof of which 
 now flashed upon me from every quarter. It is this, that the 
 words of our Constitution, conferring the several powers of 
 " laying taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," and of " the regula- 
 tion of commerce," were not accidentally selected, or used in any 
 loose and popular acceptation, but that they were the earliest 
 phrases of our independence, and had acquired, by repeated dis- 
 cussion, and legal and parliamentary use, a precise and definite 
 meaning. Such being the established meaning, in this sense alone 
 could they have been employed by the great men of the Revolu- 
 tion, who framed our Constitution; and in this sense alone they 
 must have been received by the people who adopted it. In this 
 peculiar sense, then, the imposition of duties for the restriction of 
 foreign trade and the fostering of other interests was included. 
 # * # * # * 
 
 When, then, in 1787, the Convention selected these phrases to 
 express the powers they meant to confer upon the new government, 
 in what other sense than this could they have employed them? 
 The members of that body were, all of them, men who must have 
 been conversant with the discussions of which these phrases formed 
 the watchword and the text. Many of them had themselves con- 
 ducted those discussions. There was George Washington, their 
 President; Hamilton, whose first political essay was said to have 
 been an examination of the questions at issue between Great 
 Britain and her colonies; Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, 
 and Gouverneur Morris, of whose familiarity with this subject 
 proofs have been above given. 
 
 It is worthy of observation that the chairman of the committee 
 appointed to revise the style and arrange the articles of the Consti- 
 tution, after the principles had been settled, was William Samuel 
 Johnson, of Connecticut, who was doubtless selected for that post 
 by the president of the Convention, from his union of legal emi- 
 nence with distinguished literary acquirement; and this statesman 
 had, in the Congress which met at New York, in 1765, drawn up a 
 report on the object of American rights in relation to these very 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 149 
 
 points of taxation and regulation of trade, in which very report 
 this distinction was strongly marked. 
 
 Now, to niy mind, it seems plain that such men must of course 
 have intended to use these phrases in the very same sense (neither 
 wider nor narrower) which fifteen years of discussion had given 
 them in England and America. They were familiar with the 
 well-settled distinction in principle between the power of taxation 
 for revenue, which they decried to the mother country, and that 
 of laying duties for commercial regulation, which they allowed, 
 whilst they complained of its oppressive use. At the same time, 
 knowing from experience that it was practically difficult some- 
 times to draw the precise line between duties for regulation and 
 duties for revenue, they meant to confer both powers upon the new 
 government of their formation in the broadest latitude, and thus to 
 cut off all doubt. This, therefore, they designed to do, not by 
 implication or construction, but by words to which common use 
 had then affixed the clearest sense. 
 
 They gave to Congress the authority to regulate commerce to 
 the full extent of that power, as then understood, limited only by 
 the accompanying words, ' ' with foreign nations, among the sev- 
 eral States, and with the Indian tribes," so that it might not, like 
 some of the offensive British regulations, be directly exercised 
 upon what might be strictly internal within the several States. 
 
 They gave also the power of "laying and collecting taxes, 
 duties, and imposts, to pay the debts and provide for the common 
 defense and general welfare of the United States." No disciple of 
 the strictest school of republicanism can go beyond myself in 
 opposing the unfounded and dangerous notion of "the power of 
 providing for the general welfare " having ever been granted as a 
 separate and sweeping authority of general legislation. But these 
 words must have been intended for some purpose; and the history 
 of our discussions with Great Britain seem to me to indicate clearly 
 that they meant that taxation might be imposed, not merely for 
 revenue, but to provide for the common good in relation to the 
 several specific powers specially entrusted to Congress, that of 
 commercial regulation being one of them. Thus, it might have 
 been expected that there would be no room left for any of those 
 doubts which had occasionally teen raised under the British trade 
 laws, whether any particular duty was imposed as a tax, or merely 
 
150 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 as a regulation of trade. Yet the sense of these phrases, so 
 familiar at that time, has already been clouded by the lapse of 
 forty years. So vain are the precautions of human wisdom! 
 
 Among the men with giant faculties, who made 
 thorough searches regarding the historical basis of the 
 constitutional power to protect home industry by means 
 of duties on imports, was Daniel Webster. Repeatedly, 
 on public occasions, he gave voice, in words unmistakable 
 and decided, to the conclusions which had grown out of 
 his investigations. In his remarks to the citizens of 
 Buffalo, June, 1833, he expressed his views thus: 
 
 The protection of American labor against the injurious compe- 
 tition of foreign labor, so far, at least, as respects general handi- 
 craft productions, is known historically to have been one end 
 designed to be obtained by establishing the Constitution; and this 
 object, and the constitutional power to accomplish it, ought never 
 in any degree to be surrendered or compromised. 
 
 In his address delivered to the citizens of Pittsburgh, 
 July 8, 1833, he outlined another phase of the same 
 subject, as follows: 
 
 Gentlemen, it is an historical truth, manifested in a thousand 
 ways by the public proceedings and public meetings of the times, 
 that the necessity of a general and uniform impost system, which, 
 while it should provide revenue to pay the public debt, and foster 
 the commerce of the country, should also encourage and sustain 
 domestic manufactures, was the leading cause in producing the 
 present national Constitution. No class of persons was more 
 zealous for the new Constitution than the handscraftsmen, arti- 
 sans, and manufacturers. 
 
 Ten years later his views had become still more fixed 
 and emphatic. In his address at the Whig conven- 
 tion held at Andover, November 9, 1843, he made the 
 more pointed and detailed statement given below: 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 151 
 
 There are two propositions to which I invite your attention: 
 
 1. Congress has power to lay duties of impost. No State has 
 this power. This is a most important consideration. 
 
 2. Before the adoption of the Constitution, and while the 
 States could lay impost duties, several of them had laid such 
 duties, with discriminations avowedly intended to foster their own 
 products. They now can do no such thing. It must accordingly 
 be done by Congress or not at all. 
 
 Now the power of Congress is to regulate commerce. And in 
 all English history, and all our own history, down to the Revolu- 
 tion, and to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, importa- 
 tion of some articles was encouraged, and of others discouraged or 
 prohibited, by regulations of trade. The regulation of trade, there- 
 fore, was a term of well-known meaning, and did comprehend the 
 duty or object of discriminating, with a view to favor home pro- 
 ductions. We find this to have been so, from the time of the 
 Tudors and Stuarts down; and in America, the opinion I have 
 stated was held by Otis, Adams, and the other great and eminent 
 men of the Revolution. 
 
 The whole history of the country from 1783 to 1788 proves 
 this. That history is as important as that of any period of our 
 national existence. "We see in it the then infant States struggling 
 under a load of debt incurred in the sacred cause of the Revolu- 
 tion, struggling under the extinction of commerce and prostration 
 of manufactures, and struggling all in vain. These things pro- 
 duced that strong disposition which prevailed from 1784 to 1788 
 to establish a uniform system of commercial regulations, and 
 extend also all proper encouragement to manufactures. 
 
 In his speech at the mass-meeting held at Albany, 
 August 27, 1844, he sketched the nature and extent of 
 the protecting power in these vigorous and decisive 
 terms: 
 
 Now, in the early administration of the government, some 
 trusts and duties were conferred upon the general government, 
 about which there could not be much dispute. It belonged to the 
 general government to make war and peace, and to make treaties. 
 There was no room for dispute as to these powers ; they were 
 
152 HATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 liable to no great diversity of opinion. But then comes the other 
 power, which has been, and is now, of the utmost importance 
 that of regulating commerce. What does that import ? On this 
 part of the Constitution there has sprung up in our day a great 
 diversity of opinion. But it is certain that when the Constitution 
 had been framed, and the first Congress assembled to pass laws 
 under it, there was no diversity of opinion upon it, no contra- 
 dictory sentiments. TJie poicer of regulating commerce granted to 
 Congress was most assuredly understood to embrace all forms of reg- 
 ulation belonging to those terms under other governments all the 
 meaning impleid in the terms, in the same language, employed in all 
 laws and in the intercourse of modern nations. And I consider it 
 as capable of mathematical demonstration, as capable of demon- 
 stration as any proposition in Euclid, that the power of discrimi- 
 nating in custom-house duties, for the protection of American 
 labor and industry, was understood, not by some, but by all, by high 
 and low, everywhere, as included in the regulation of trade. 
 
 These extracts embody only a part of Daniel Web- 
 ster's published utterances on the subject. He had a 
 very clear conception of the conclusiveness of the his- 
 torical method of treating this question, and he pre- 
 sented the results of his own investigations in many 
 different points of view. 
 
 Another of the eminent and gifted men, who dili- 
 gently explored the colonial, revolutionary, and subse- 
 quent sources of information, in search of the true 
 meaning of the Constitution, was Rufus Choate. When 
 he was ready to sum up his conclusions, he waved the 
 magical wand of his descriptive power over that distant 
 past, until the revived circumstances and emotions of 
 those historic times came thronging into the enchanted 
 procession of his words, saying, in his speech in the 
 United States Senate, March 14, 1842, what follows: 
 
 I hold it to be susceptible of as rigorous, moral demonstration 
 as any truth of history: 1. That, before the Constitution was pre- 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 153 
 
 sented to them, the people of this country, generally, demanded a 
 government which should have power to mould their whole foreign 
 intercourse into the most beneficial form, and, among other things, 
 should have power to mould it into such form as might bring out 
 American labor, agricultural, mechanical, manufacturing, navi- 
 gating, and commercial, into its completest development, and for 
 that end to make discriminating tariffs; 2. That when, at length, 
 the doors of the Convention were thrown open, and the Constitu- 
 tion, the object of so many hopes, of so much solicitude, was 
 presented to their eager view, they believed that they found in it 
 just the power they had looked for so long, and they adopted it in 
 that confidence; 3. That every member of the Convention itself 
 supposed it to contain the power; and 4. That the new govern- 
 ment, from its first organization, proceeded to execute it vigorously 
 and usefully by a broad policy of protection openly avowed 
 protection of agriculture, protection of navigation, protection of 
 manufactures; and that, although particular exertions of the policy 
 were vehemently resisted on grounds of expediency, and although 
 other national legislation was denied to be authorized by the Con- 
 stitution, the power to push this policy to the utmost limit of 
 Congressional discretion was never called in question for more 
 than thirty, or certainly more than twenty years. 
 
 Sir, if this be so, and yet the Constitution contains no such 
 power, vain is the search after moral truth idle the attempt to 
 embody the ideas of a people in the frame of their government, 
 and in the language of their fundamental law. You were as 
 wisely employed in writing them upon the clouds of the summer 
 evening western sky, in the dream of seeing them carried round 
 the world in the train of the next day's sun. 
 
 Well, is it not so? I have shown you already that the country 
 demanded and expected beforehand a government which should 
 possess this power; that it had done so for years; that the events 
 of every hour, from the peace to the rising of the Convention, 
 only increased the urgency of the demand, and the confidence of 
 the expectation. I proceed to show, in the next place, that when 
 at last the Constitution was given to the longing sight of the 
 people, and they threw themselves upon it as a famished host upon 
 miraculous bread, their faculties sharpened and prepared by so 
 many years of discussions, and by the more instructive discipline 
 
154 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 of suffering, stimulated to read by hope, and fear, and jealousy, 
 and curiosity, then they thought they found in it this power. 
 There it was, in the n ry language familiar to them from child- 
 hood language associated, fast and imperishably, with the story 
 of the long wrongs of England, the resistance of America, the 
 great names of heroes and wise men, the living and the dead, with 
 liberty, and with glory. 
 
 See if the fact is not so, and then see how resistless it is as 
 evidence that the power really was there. Look into the press of 
 that day that day when men were great, and events were great; 
 look into the newspaper press, and tell me if you find, anywhere, 
 a whisper of complaint of any deficiency ofpwrcr in tliixnyurd in 
 the new Constitution. You have heard, in the selections I have read, 
 something of what the people (.rjurtid; do you find, by looking 
 farther into the same source of evidence, that they were disappoi/<tl 
 in their expectations? Fears there were sickly fears, patriotic 
 fears, and loudly uttered that the Constitution was too strong; 
 too strong for liberty. But who said that, in its protecting energy, 
 it was too weak? Who complained that he did not find it clothed 
 with the whole power of defense against other nations defense 
 against their arms, their policy, their pernicious trade, their 
 extorted and pauper labor? I can only say that I have found no 
 trace of such an objection. 
 
 Any one who has the hardihood, after becoming con- 
 versant with this extended and comprehensive showing 
 of facts and authorities, to maintain that the Constitu- 
 tion does not authorize and require the protection of 
 home industry by duties on imports, must be considered 
 a person of unsound judgment, unfit to form an opinion 
 on the subject. Evidence, prodigal in quantity and 
 unexceptionable in quality, shows that, among the pre- 
 rogatives expressly vested in Congress by the Constitu- 
 tion, is the power to enact a tariff for protection 
 with incidental revenue, necessarily included in the 
 power to regulate commerce; that protection and rev- 
 
THE PROTECTING POWER. 155 
 
 enue belong to entirely different "branches of legislative 
 authority; that, although duties on imports had long- 
 been universally recognized as a form of commercial 
 regulation, protection by means of duties had never 
 been designed to be an instrument for raising revenue; 
 and that the several States had deprived themselves of 
 the power of protection in order to confer that power 
 upon the general government, with which it has 
 remained to this day, else is extinct. 
 
 What is the expressed object of this power? It is to 
 regulate commerce to produce effects upon commerce 
 by legislative action not as an end in itself, but as 
 means to an end, which is to develop, strengthen, and 
 enrich the nation. It is, therefore, a power to do some- 
 thing; it was intended to be exercised, and maintained 
 as a living principle. Since this power is prohibited to 
 the States, it must have been conferred upon the gen- 
 eral government with the view of being efficiently and 
 wisely administered so long as the Constitution should 
 last. This inherent and manifest purpose, which neces- 
 sarily implies obligation on the part of Congress, would 
 be assailed and vanquished by allowing the power to 
 slumber in lethargy, or to decay by neglect, or to die 
 out through disuse. To quote the glowing language of 
 Choate: "The power which this whole country with 
 one voice demanded to have inserted in the Constitu- 
 tion, and which they hailed as another Declaration of 
 Independence; the power by which we are able to pro- 
 tect all our children of labor, on whatsoever fields they 
 wipe the sweat from their brow; by which, as Washing- 
 ton foretold, we may hope to bind these States together, 
 to run the race of freedom, power, enjoyment, and 
 
156 NATURE AND EXTENT OF 
 
 glory with the nations', and to afford the example of a 
 people, now counted by millions, every one of whom 
 has work to do, and good pay for his work this power 
 must not be surrendered, must not sleep, till the Union 
 flag shall be hauled down from the last mast-head!" 
 
 The entire matter may be condensed into the fol- 
 lowing propositions: Power to protect home industry by 
 duties on imports was put in the Constitution by its 
 founders in pursuance of a set purpose to put it there. 
 Before the present Union was formed, the people de- 
 manded the insertion of that power; the people expected 
 to find that power in the instrument; the Federal Con- 
 vention conferred that power in words familiar from child- 
 hood to both statesmen and the people as fully express- 
 ing that power; the people adopted the Constitution, 
 believing that power was in it; and the very first Con- 
 gress, at its first session, in its first act of general legis- 
 lation, proceeded to exercise that power in express terms, 
 with avowed intent to give it practical shape. These 
 are historical facts, which it would be useless to dispute; 
 hence, the only sort of a tariff on imports, which con- 
 forms to both the letter and the spirit of the fundamental 
 law, is a protective tariff; and "a tariff for revenue 
 only" (which is a tariff for revenue without protection), 
 by leaving altogether out of view the seminal purpose 
 incorporated in the Constitution by requiring that the 
 trust therein for the benefit of home industry shall re- 
 main unexecuted, and be made a frustrated and nullified 
 and impotent provision is a kind of tariff never designed 
 nor contemplated by the great builders of our political 
 structure, and must be, therefore, a defeat of one of the 
 principal objects in forming the present Union, and, by 
 
THE PROTECTING POWEK. 157 
 
 unavoidable inference, in the nature of an unconstitu- 
 tional measure. Protection is right; it was intended to 
 be guaranteed by the organic law of the United States. 
 The right should stand erect upon its feet, demand its 
 honest dues, and fearlessly defy the wrong. 
 
, 
 
 OVERDUE.