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war, for the want of absolute necessaries? | inhabitants of all north and east of James To what an enormous price they rose! river, and all west of the mountains, inAnd how inadequate the supply was, at cluding Louisiana, are deeply interested in any price! The statesman who justly the preservation of that system, would they elevates his views, will look behind, as be reconciled to its overthrow? Can it be well as forward, and at the existing state expected that two-thirds, if not threeof things; and he will graduate the policy fourths, of the people of the United States, which he recommends, to all the probable would consent to the destruction of a exigencies which may arise in the Repub- policy, believed to be indispensably nelic. Taking this comprehensive range, it cessary to their prosperity? When, too, would be easy to show that the higher the sacrifice is made at the instance of a prices of peace, if prices were higher in single interest, which they verily believe peace, were more than compensated by the will not be promoted by it? In estimalower prices of war, during which supplies ting the degree of peril which may be inof all essential articles are indispensable to cident to two opposite courses of human its vigorous, effectual and glorious prose-policy, the statesman would be shortcution. I conclude this part of the argu-sighted who should content himself with ment with the hope that my humble exer- viewing only the evils, real or imaginary, tions have not been altogether unsuccess- which belong to that course which is in ful in showingpractical operation. He should lift himself 1. That the policy which we have been up to the contemplation of those greater considering ought to continue to be re- and more certain dangers which might garded as the genuine American System. inevitably attend the adoption of the al2. That the Free Trade System, which ternative course. What would be the is proposed as its substitute, ought really condition of this Union, if Pennsylvania to be considered as the British Colonial and New York, those mammoth members System. of our confederacy, were firmly persuaded that their industry was paralyzed, and their prosperity blighted, by the enforcement of the British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade? They are now tranquil and happy, and contented, conscious of their welfare, and feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home manufactures and home industry throughout all their great arteries. But let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to predominate, and the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up; let New England and the west, and the middle States, all feel that they too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of our country despair of any favorable change, and then indeed might we tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union!

3. That the American System is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion.

4. That the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld, and a decline averted by the Protec

tive System.

5. That if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished by the operation of that system, the diminution has been more than compensated in the additional demand created at home.

6. That the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition among ourselves, and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects.

7. That in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price.

And now, sir, I would address a few words to the friends of the American System in the Senate. The revenue mustought to be reduced. The country will not, after, by the payment of the public debt, ten or twelve millions of dollars become unnecessary, bear such an annual sur

8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be much more exten-plus. Its distribution would form a subsively felt.

9. And finally, that the substitution of the British Colonial System for the American System, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin.

The danger to our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the American System, but on that of its abandonment. If, as I have supposed and believe, the

ject of perpetual contention. Some of the opponents of the system understand the stratagem by which to attack it, and are shaping their course accordingly. It is to crush the system by the accumulation of revenue, and by the effort to persuade the people that they are unnecessarily taxed, while those would really tax them who would break up the native sources of supply, and render them dependent upon the foreign. But the revenue ought to be reduced, so as to accommodate it to the fact of the payment of the public debt. And

the alternative is or may be, to preserve [attribute to us a desire to elevate the the protecting system, and repeal the du- wealthy manufacturer, at the expense of ties on the unprotected articles, or to pre- the laboring man and the mechanic. serve the duties on unprotected articles, and From my soul, I respect the laboring man. endanger if not destroy the system. Let Labor is the foundation of the wealth of us then adopt the measure before us, which every country; and the free laborers of the will benefit all classes; the farmer, the pro- North deserve respect, both for their probity fessional man, the merchant, the manufac- and their intelligence. Heaven forbid that turer, the mechanic; and the cotton plant- I should do them wrong! Of all the er more than all. A few months ago there countries on the earth, we ought to have was no diversity of opinion as to the ex- the most consideration for the laboring pediency of this measure. All, then, man. From the very nature of our instiseemed to unite in the selection of these tutions, the wheel of fortune is constantly objects for a repeal of duties which were revolving, and producing such mutations not produced within the country. Such a in property, that the wealthy man of torepeal did not touch our domestic indus-day may become the poor laborer of totry, violated no principle, offended no morrow. Truly, wealth often takes to itself prejudice.

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wings and flies away. A large fortune Can we not all, whatever may be our rarely lasts beyond the third generation, favorite theories, cordially unite on this even if it endure so long. We must all neutral ground? When that is occupied, know instances of individuals obliged to let us look beyond it, and see if anything labor for their daily bread, whose grandcan be done in the field of protection, to fathers were men of fortune. The regular modify, or improve it, or to satisfy those process of society would almost seem to who are opposed to the system. Our consist of the efforts of one class to dissisouthern brethren believe that it is injuri-pate the fortunes which they have inheritous to them, and ask its repeal. We be-ed, whilst another class, by their industry lieve that its abandonment will be preju- and economy, are regularly rising to dicial to them, and ruinous to every other wealth. We have all, therefore, a common section of the Union. However strong interest, as it is our common duty, to protheir convictions may be, they are not tect the rights of the laboring man: and if stronger than ours. Between the points of I believed for a moment that this bill the preservation of the system and its ab- would prove injurious to him, it should solute repeal, there is no principle of meet my unqualified opposition. union. If it can be shown to operate immoderately on any quarter-if the measure of protection to any article can be demonstrated to be undue and inordinate, it would be the duty of Congress to interpose and apply a remedy. And none will co-operate more heartily than I shall in the performance of that duty. It is quite probable that beneficial modifications of the system may be made without impairing its efficacy. But to make it fulfill the purposes of its institution, the measure of protection ought to be adequate. If it be not, all interests will be injuriously affected. The manufacturer, crippled in his exertions, will produce less perfect and dearer fabrics, and the consumer will feel the consequence. This is the spirit, and these are the principles only, on which, it seems to me, that a settlement of the great question can be made, satisfactorily to all parts of our Union.

'Although this bill will not have as great an influence as I could desire, yet, as far as it goes, it will benefit the laboring man as much, and probably more than any other class of society. What is it he ought most to desire? Constant employment, regular wages, and uniform reasonable prices for the necessaries and comforts of life which he requires. Now, sir, what has been his condition under our system of expansions and contractions? He has suffered more by them than any other class of society. The rate of his wages is fixed and known; and they are the last to rise with the increasing expansion and the first to fall when the corresponding revulsion occurs. He still continues to receive his dollar per day, whilst the price of every article which he consumes is rapidly rising. He is at length made to feel that, although he nominally earns as much, or even more than he did formerly, yet, from the increased price of all the necessaries of life, he cannot support his family. Hence the strikes for higher wages, and the uneasy and excited feelings which have at different January 22, 1840, which gave rise to the "ten cent" charge. periods, existed among the laboring classes. "We are also charged by the Senator But the expansion at length reaches the from Kentucky with a desire to reduce the exploding point, and what does the laborwages of the poor man's labor. We have ing man now suffer? He is for a season often been termed agrarians on our side of thrown out of employment altogether. Our the House. It is something new under manufactures are suspended; our public the sun, to hear the Senator and his friends works are stopped; our private enterprises

Mr. Buchanan's Speech on the Independent

Treasury,

of different kinds are abandoned; and, whilst others are able to weather the storm, he can scarcely procure the means of bare subsistence.

"Again, sir; who, do you suppose, held the greater part of the worthless paper of the one hundred and sixty-five broken banks to which I have referred? Certainly it was not the keen and wary speculator, who snuffs danger from afar. If you were to make the search, you would find more broken bank notes in the cottages of the laboring poor than anywhere else. And these miserable shinplasters, where are they? After the revulsion of 1837, laborers were glad to obtain employment on any terms; and they often received it upon the express condition that they should accept this worthless trash in payment. Sir, an entire suppression of all bank notes of a lower denomination than the value of one week's wages of the laboring man is absolutely necessary for his protection. He ought always to receive his wages in gold and silver. Of all men on the earth, the laborer is most interested in having a sound and stable currency.

"All other circumstances being equal, I agree with the Senator from Kentucky that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the highest wages. I do not, however, mean by the terms 'highest wages,' the greatest nominal amount. During the revolutionary war, one day's work commanded a hundred dollars of continental paper; but this would have scarcely purchased a breakfast. The more proper expression would be, to say that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the greatest reward; where one day's labor will procure not the greatest nominal amount of a depreciated currency, but most of the necessaries and comforts of life. If, therefore, you should, in some degree, reduce the nominal price paid for labor, by reducing the amount of your bank issues within reasonable and safe limits, and establishing a metallic basis for your paper circulation, would this injure the laborer? Certainly not; because the price of all the necessaries and comforts of life are reduced in the same proportion, and he will be able to purchase more of them for one dollar in a sound state of the currency, than he could have done, in the days of extravagant expansion, for a dollar and a quarter. So far from injuring, it will greatly benefit the laboring man. It will insure to him constant employment and regular prices, paid in a sound currency, which, of all things, he ought most to desire; and it will save him from being involved in ruin by a recurrence of those periodical expansions and contractions of the currency, which have hitherto convulsed the country.

"This sound state of the currency will

have another most happy effect upon the laboring man. He will receive his wages in gold and silver; and this will induce him to lay up, for future use, such a portion of them as he can spare, after satisfying his immediate wants. This he will not do at present, because he knows not whether the trash which he is now compelled to receive as money, will continue to be of any value a week or a month hereafter. A knowledge of this fact tends to banish economy from his dwelling, and induces him to expend all his wages as rapidly as possible, lest they may become worthless on his hands.

"Sir, the laboring classes understand this subject perfectly. It is the hardhanded and firm-fisted men of the country on whom we must rely in the day of danger, who are the most friendly to the passage of this bill. It is they who are the most ardently in favor of infusing into the currency of the country a very large amount of the precious metals."

Lewis Cass on the Missouri Compromise.

From a speech made on the 20th of February, 1854. Mr. President: I have not withheld the expression of my regret elsewhere, nor shall I withhold it here, that this question of repeal of the Missouri compromise, which opens all the disputed points connected with the subject of Congressional action upon slavery in the territories of the United States, has been brought before us. I do not think the practical advantages to result from the measure will outweigh the injury which the ill-feeling, fated to accompany the discussion of this subject through the country, is sure to produce. And I was confirmed in this impression from what was said by the Senator from Tennessee, (Mr. Jones,) by the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Dixon,) and from North Carolina, (Mr. Badger,) and also by the remarks which fell from the Senator from Virginia, (Mr. Hunter,) and in which

fully concur, that the South will never receive any benefit from this measure, so far as respects the extension of slavery; for, legislate as we may, no human power can establish it in the regions defined by these bills. And such were the sentiments of two eminent patriots, to whose exertions we are greatly indebted for the satisfactory termination of the difficulties of 1850, and who since passed from their labors, and, I trust, to their reward. Thus believing, I should have been better content had the whole subject been left as it was by the bill when first introduced by the Senator from Illinois, without any provision regarding the Missouri compromise. I am aware that it was reported that I intended to pro

pose the repeal of that measure, but it was an error. My intentions were wholly misunderstood. I had no design whatever to take such a step, and thus resuscitate a deed of conciliation which had done its work, and done it well, and which was hallowed by patriotism, by success, and by its association with great names, now transferred to history. It belonged to a past generation; and in the midst of a political tempest which appalled the wisest and firmest in the land, it had said to the waves of agitation, Peace, be still, and they became still. It would have been better, in my opinion, not to disturb its slumber, as all useful and practical objects could have been attained without it. But the question is here without my agency.

Clement L. Vallandigham on Slavery.

October 29, 1855.

"Slavery, gentlemen, older in other countries also, than the records of human society, existed in America at the date of its discovery. The first slaves of the European, were natives of the soil: and a Puritan governor of Massachusetts, founder of the family of Winthrop, bequeathed his soul to God, and his Indian slaves to the lawful heirs of his body. Negro slavery was introduced into Hispaniola in 1501: more than a century before the colonization of America by the English. Massachusetts, by express enactment in 1641 punishing 'manstealing' with death: -and it is so punished to this day under the laws of the United States-legalized yet the enslaving of captives taken in war, and of such strangers,' foreigners, as should be acquired by purchase: while confederate New England, two years later, providing for the equitable division of lands, goods and persons,' as equally a part of the 'spoils of war, enacted also the first fugitive slave law in America. White slaves-convicts and paupers some of them; others at a later day, prisoners taken at the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, and of Sedgemoor-were at the first, employed in Virginia and the British West Indies. Bought in England by English dealers, among whom was the queen of James II., with many of his nobles and courtiers, some of them perhaps of the house of Sutherland; they were imported and sold at auction to the highest bidder. In 1620, a Dutch man-of-war first landed a cargo of slaves upon the banks of James River. But the earliest slave ship belonging to English colonists, was fitted out in 1645, by a member of the Puritan church of Boston. Fostered still by English princes and nobles: confirmed and cherished by British legislation and

judicial decisions, even against the wishes and in spite of the remonstrances of the Colonies, the traffic increased; slaves multiplied, and on the Fourth of July, 1776, every colony was now become a slave state; and the sun went down that day upon four hundred and fifty thousand of those who in the cant of eighty years later, are styled 'human chattels,' but who were not by the act of that day emancipated.

"Eleven years afterwards, delegates assembled at Philadelphia, from every state except Rhode Island, ignoring the question of the sinfulness and immorality of slavery, as a subject with which they as the representatives of separate and independent states had no concern, founded a union and framed a constitution, which leaving with each state the exclusive control and regulation of its own domestic institutions, and providing for the taxation and representation of slaves, gave no right to Congress to debate or to legislate concerning slavery in the states or territories, except for the interdiction of the slave trade and the extradition of fugitive slaves. The Plan of Union proposed by Franklin in 1754, had contained no allusion even to slavery; and the articles of Confederation of 1778, but a simple recognition of its existence-so wholly was it regarded then, a domestic and local concern. In 1787 every state, except perhaps Massachusetts, tolerated slavery either absolutely or conditionally. But the number of slaves north of Maryland, never great, was even yet comparatively small; not exceeding forty thousand in a total slave population of six hundred thousand. In the North, chief carrier of slaves to others even as late as 1807, slavery never took firm root. Nature warred against it in that latitude; otherwise every state in the Union would have been a slave-holding state to this day. It was not profitable there; and it died out-lingering indeed in New York till July, 1827. It died out: but not so much by the manumission of slaves, as by their transportation and sale in the South: and thus New England, sir, turned an honest penny with her left hand, and with her right, modestly wrote herself down in history, as both generous and just.

"In the South, gentlemen, all this was precisely reversed. The earliest and most resolute enemies to slavery, were Southern men. But climate had fastened the institution upon them; and they found no way to strike it down. From the beginning indeed, the Southern colonies especially had resisted the introduction of African slaves; and at the very outset of the revolution, Virginia and North Carolina interdicted the slave trade. The Continental Congress soon after, on the sixth of April, 1776, three months earlier than the De

claration of Independence, resolved that ity-finds no parallel in the world's no more slaves ought to be imported into history,

as

the thirteen colonies. Jefferson, in his "Patriotic sentiments, sir, such draught of the Declaration, had de-marked the era of '89, continued to guide nounced the King of England alike for the statesmen and people of the country encouraging the slave trade, and for fo- for more than thirty years, full of prosmenting servile insurrection in the prov-perity; till in a dead political calm, coninces. Ten years later, he boldly attacked sequent upon temporary extinguishment slavery in his "Notes on Virginia;" and of the ancient party lines and issues, the in the Congress of the Confederation, MISSOURI QUESTION resounded through prior to the adoption of the Constitution, the land with the hollow moan of the with its solemn compacts and compromises earthquake, shook the pillars of the reupon the subject of slavery, proposed to ex-public even to their deep foundations. clude it from the territory northwest the "Within these thirty years, gentlemen, river Ohio. Colonel Mason of Virginia slavery as a system, had been abolished by vehemently condemned it, in the conven- law or disuse, quietly and without agitation of 1787. Nevertheless it had already tion, in every state north of Mason and become manifest that slavery must soon Dixon's line-in many of them, lingering, die away in the North, but in the South indeed, in individual cases, so late as the continue and harden into perhaps a per- census of 184C. But except in half a manent, uneradicable system. Hostile in-score of instances, the question had not terests and jealousies sprang up, therefore, been obtruded upon Congress. The Fugiin bitterness even in the convention. But tive Slave Act of 1793 had been passed the blood of the patriot brothers of Caro- without opposition and without a division, lina and Massachusetts smoked yet upon in the Senate; and by a vote of forty-eight the battle fields of the revolution. The to seven, in the House. The slave trade recollection of their kindred language, had been declared piracy punishable with and common dangers and sufferings, death. Respectful petitions from the burned still fresh in their hearts. Patriot- Quakers of Pennsylvania, and others, ism proved more powerful than jealousy, upon the slavery question, were referred and good sense stronger than fanaticism, to a committee, and a report made thereThere were no Sewards, no Hales, no on, which laid the matter at rest. Other Sumners, no Greeleys, no Parkers, no petitions afterwards were quietly rejected, Chase, in that convention. There was a and, in one instance, returned to the petiWilson; but he rejoiced not in the name tioner. Louisiana and Florida, both of Henry; and he was a Scotchman. slave-holding countries, had without_agiThere was a clergyman-no, not in the tation been added to our territory. Kenconvention of '87, but in the Congress of tucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, '76; but it was the devout, the learned, the and Alabama, slave states each one of pious, the patriotic Witherspoon; of for- them, had been admitted into the Union eign birth also, a native of Scotland, too. without a murmur. No Missouri RestricThe men of that day and generation, sir tion, no Wilmot Proviso had as yet reared were content to leave the question of its discordant front to terrify and confound. slavery just where it belonged. It did not NON-INTERVENTION was then both the occur to them, that each one among them practice and the doctrine of the statesmen was accountable for 'the sin of slave-hold- and people of that period: though, as ing' in his fellow; and that to ease his yet, no hollow platform enunciated it as tender conscience of the burden, all the an article of faith, from which, neverthefruits of revolutionary privation and less, obedience might be withheld, and the blood and treasure; all the recollections of platform 'spit upon,' provided the tender the past; all the hopes of the future: conscience of the recusant did not forbid nay the Union, and with it, domestic tran-him to support the candidate and help to quillity and national independence, ought secure the 'spoils.'

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to be offered up as a sacrifice. They were "I know, sir, that it is easy, very easy, content to deal with political questions; to denounce all this as a defence of slavand to leave cases of conscience to the ery itself. Be it so: be it so. But I have church and the schools, or to the indi- not discussed the institution in any revidual man. And accordingly to this spect; moral, religious, or political. Hear Union and Constitution, based upon these me. I express no opinion in regard to it: compromises-execrated now as cove- and as a citizen of the north, I have ever nants with death and leagues with hell'- refused, and will steadily refuse, to discuss every state acceded: and upon these the system in any of these particulars. It foundations, thus broad and deep, and is precisely this continued and persistent stable, a political superstructure has, as if discussion and denunciation in the North, by magic, arisen, which in symmetry and which has brought upon us this present proportion-and, if we would but be most perilous crisis: since to teach men to true to our trust, in strength and durabil-hate, is to prepare them to destroy, at

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