COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 441 



culture to support commerce. And when government has ex- 

 hausted its invention in these modes of legislation, it finds the 

 result less favorable than the original and natural state and 

 course of things. I can hardly conceive of anything worse than a 

 policy which should place the great interests of this country in hos- 

 tility to one another, a policy which should keep them in constant 

 conflict, and bring them every year to fight their battles in the 

 committee-rooms of the House of Representatives at Washington. 



"An appeal has been made to the patriotic feelings of the 

 nation. It has been said we are not independent so long as we 

 receive these commodities from other nations. He could not see 

 the force of this appeal. He did not perceive how the exchange 

 of commodities between nations, when mutually and equally ad- 

 vantageous, rendered one dependent on the other, in any manner 

 derogatory to its interest or dignity. A dependence of this sort 

 exists everywhere, among individuals as well as nations. Indeed, 

 the whole fabric of civilization, all the improvements which dis- 

 tinguish cultivated society from savage life, rest on a dependence 

 of this kind. He thought the argument drawn from the necessity 

 of providing means of defense in war had been pressed quite too 

 far. It was enough that we had a capacity to produce such 

 means when occasion should call. The reasoning assumes that in 

 war no means of defense or annoyance can be probably obtained, 

 or not without great difficulty, except from our own materials or 

 manufactures. He doubted whether there was much ground for 

 that assumption. Nations had hitherto obtained military means 

 in the midst of war, from commerce. But, at any rate, as it was 

 acknowledged on all hands that the country possessed the ca- 

 pacity of supplying itself whenever it saw fit to make the sacrifice ; 

 and he did not see why the necessity of making it should be 

 anticipated ; why should we now change our daily habits and 

 occupations, with great loss and inconvenience, merely because it 

 is possible that some change may hereafter become necessary ? 

 We should act equally wise, he thought, if we were to decide that 

 although we are now quite well, and with very good appetites, 

 yet as it was possible we might one day be sick, we would there- 

 fore now sell all our food and lay up physic." 



In another part of this great speech Webster, with prophetic 

 insight, foretold how the whole face of New England industry 

 and society would be changed for the worse if this high tariff 

 policy were forced into effect by sectional votes. Two generations 

 have passed since Webster's prophetic words in Faneuil Hall in 

 1820. This speech was given just seventy years ago. Do we not 

 now witness the representatives of different industries fighting 

 their battles in the committee-rooms of the House of Representa- 

 tives at Washington ? Do we not to-day witness agriculture 



