270 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



restrictions that is, shall be left free 

 in all their industrial and commercial 

 pursuits. Whatever may be the strength 

 of local interests, whatever the advan- 

 tages or drawbacks of States, they are 

 for ever forbidden to interfere with 

 the mutual liberties of exchange be- 

 tween citizens by tariffs, imposts, or 

 any form of trade restrictions. No pre- 

 text of developing resources, diversify- 

 ing industry, fostering weak interests, 

 or protecting labor, could be made an 

 excuse for commercial restrictions. It 

 was ordained that business shall be left 

 to voluntary enterprise, to the sponta- 

 neous impulses of private effort, and to 

 stand upon the stable basis of its natu- 

 ral laws rather than upon the artificial 

 support of regulative State legislation. 



The good effects of this policy no 

 man can now be found to question. A 

 hundred years of experience has at- 

 tested the practical wisdom and estab- 

 lished the solid and permanent be- 

 neficence of this great constitutional 

 measure. Witb trade as free as the 

 winds, the result has been an unparal- 

 leled activity in the development of all 

 resources, and a general prosperity such 

 as the world has never before seen; 

 while the open liberty of interchange, 

 resulting in active and intimate inter- 

 course, has favored political unity and 

 strengthened amicable feeling between 

 distant and diverse communities. 



One has but to picture what the 

 consequences would have been of ap- 

 plying protective theories to Northern 

 and Southern, Eastern and Western 

 States, to understand how vast has 

 been the advantage of the free-trade 

 policy. With the general ignorance 

 that prevailed in regard to economical 

 principles, the restrictive policy, if per- 

 mitted at all, would have been driven to 

 its last results. To have let State poli- 

 ticians loose upon our internal com- 

 merce would not only ha\c abolished 

 it, but would have aggravated local 

 prejudice, narrowness of feeling, rival- 

 ries and jealousies, and engendered 



alienations and irritations that would 

 have made national unity impossible. 

 The fathers built wiser than they knew, 

 and did the noblest service to human 

 freedom which it was in their power to 

 render when they united the American 

 States on the basis of free trade. 



This great lesson has not been lost, 

 though it has not yet borne its full 

 and final fruits. The policy which has 

 proved of such immense benefit at home 

 has not been trusted beyond the na- 

 tional borders. We adopt a partial 

 practice w r ith immense benefit, and 

 then repudiate the principles it involves. 

 Internal trade is free, but external trade 

 is still shackled. A New-Yorker trades 

 with a Pennsylvanian without restric- 

 tion under the principle that they are the 

 best judges of their ow r n business affairs. 

 They are free to buy and to sell as they 

 like, and for the sufficient reason that the 

 thing they will do is the best for both. 

 But if a New-Yorker undertakes to 

 trade with a Canadian, Government 

 declares that the transaction shall not 

 be free, the parties shall not do as they 

 like with their own, and this for no 

 other reason under heaven than because 

 the Canadian is a foreigner. If Canada 

 were " annexed," presto! these traders 

 would at once know their own business 

 best, and could exchange with perfect 

 freedom. 



We have here, in this surviving pre- 

 judice about the "foreigner, "an illustra- 

 tion of the vicious potency of militant 

 conceptions. The foreigner is our vir- 

 tual enemy, one whom it is our pa- 

 triotic duty to hate and not to help. 

 The term is redolent of international 

 antagonism and the pursuit of war 

 which is the curse of civilization. This 

 spirit, identified with the love of coun- 

 try, and fortified in long tradition, is 

 slow to yield to the influence of hu- 

 manizing and pacific agencies; but 

 yield it must, and it has already great- 

 ly yielded, as witness the doings at 

 Yorktown. That demonstration com- 

 memorated a military exploit ; but ev- 



