FARMERS' REGISTER 



711 



had not yet become euch an egregious gudgeon 

 »s to believe, llial by giving ten uiiilions oT doiUirs 

 every year lo ihe tribe oi' undertaker?-', to make it 

 rich, they would return it tweniy ; and it could 

 avail itsell" ol" all the niaiUets in ihe world, where 

 this ridiculous nolion prevailed, 'i'licse were so 

 many mines ol" wealili to the agriculiure of tiie 

 United Slates. The idle, clerical, military, bank- 

 ing, loaning, and ennobled classep, as has been 

 elated, do certainly have the effect o(" raising agri- 

 cultural prices very considerably ; l)ut the agricul- 

 turists who pay and maintain these elapses, still 

 lose more by them than they gain. Now the 

 United Stales, as a section of the commercial 

 world, might have shared in the eidiancement of 

 Mgricuiiural price, produced by such unproductive 

 orders in other countries; and paid none ol" the 

 ruinous expense of" wealth or liberty, which they 

 cost. They might have reafied the good, and 

 avoided the evil. And agriculture, lor once in its 

 ]ile, might liave done itsell justice. But the wise- 

 acre chose lo reap the evil, and avoid the good : 

 and if its situation has been occasionally tolerable, 

 it was sorely against its will, or l)y accident. In 

 the first eight years alter the revolution, being the 

 first period, in the latter ages of the world, tliat 

 agriculture could make laws, it legislated sundry 

 items of the British system lor buying markets or 

 raising prices. lu the next twelve, it nurtured their 

 growth, so as to raise up some to a large, and one 

 to a monstrous size; and also most sagaciously 

 prohibited iiselij first from sharing in the benefit 

 of the iiigh prices produced by arisiocraiical insti- 

 tutions in France, and secondly liom sharing in 

 iliose produced in the same way in England. 

 European agriculture is gulled or oppressed by 

 others; American, gulls or oppresses itsell^ The 

 first is no longer weak enough to think, that its 

 battalion ol" aristocratical items does it any good ; 

 but it is now unable to follow its judgment ; the 

 second, though al)le to follow iis own judgment, 

 has adopted the exploded errors heartily repented 

 of by the first, and liir outstrips it in the celerity of 

 its progress towards a state of absoi.-jle submission 

 to other interests, by shutting out itself li'om mar- 

 kets enhanced at the expense of other nations; 

 and at the same time by creating the English 

 items of capitalists, or masters lor manufacturers, 

 bankers, lenders, armies and navies. Oar true 

 interest was to pay nothing lor rnaikels, spurious 

 and swindling to those who buy them, and yet to 

 share in their enhancement of prices. We have 

 pursued a different course, and 1 do not recollect a 

 single law, slate or coniinental, passed in favor of 

 agriculture, nor a single good house built by it 

 since the revolution ; but I know many built be- 

 fore, which have i"allen into decay. Our agricul- 

 iure is complimented by presidput?. governor*, 

 legislators and individuals; and the Turks revir- 

 ence a particular order of" people as being also iLi- 

 vored by heaven. 



The arguments fo prove the political errors 

 under which our agriculture id groaning", may 

 suggest a suspicion, that I am an enemy to ma- 

 nufactures. The liict is otherwise : I believe that 

 protecting duties, or whatever else shall dimp 

 agricultural effort, and impoverish ilie lands ol" our 

 country, is the only real and fatal Ibe lo manufac- 

 tures ; and that a flourishinij agriculture will begel 

 and enrich manufactures, as rich pastures multiply 

 and fatten animals. He, who kilird the (voo-e to 



come at her golden eggs, was such a politician, as 

 he who burdens our expiring airriculiure, to raise 

 bounties lor our flourishing manuliictures. — He 

 kills the cause of the end he looks lor. 



J meet such an insinuation by another argu- 

 ment. Pioieciing duties impoverish and enslave 

 manuracturers themselves, and are so far from be- 

 ing intended to operate in their favor, or in fiivor 

 of a nation, that their end and effect simply is to fa- 

 vorraoneycd capilal, which will seize upon and ap- 

 propriate to iisetli, the whole profit of ihe bounty ex- 

 torted from the people by protecting duties ; and al- 

 low as scanty wages to iis workmen as it can. Mo- 

 neyed capilal drives indusiry without money out of 

 the market, and forces it into its service in every 

 case where the object of" contest is an enormous 

 inconre. The wages it allows to industry are 

 always regulated by the expense of subsistence, 

 and not by the extent of its gain. Moneyed capi- 

 talists consiiiute an essemial item ofa (government 

 modelled after the En<rli.-h form. To advance 

 this item, for the sake ol"strengthening ihegovern- 

 ment against the people, and not for the sake of 

 manufacturers, is the object of protecting duties. 

 True, will say many a reader, but that is not the 

 design here. Oh ! how reverential is the logician, 

 who can prove, that an axe will cut under a mo- 

 narchy, but not under a republic. 



Some king, I believe, requested the mercantile 

 class ol his subjects, to ask ol" him a favor. The 

 greatest, your majesty can urant us, said they, is, 

 to let us alone. Protecting duties are such fiivors 

 to manulacturers, as the pretended favors of kings 

 are to merchants. They impoverish iheir cus- 

 ton\ers, the agriculturists, and place over them- 

 selves an orderof masters called capitalists, which 

 intercepts the profit, destined, without legal in- 

 terposition, fiir industry. Many other arguments 

 might be urged to prove that protecting duties 

 beget the poverty of manufacturers, but this is not 

 my subject. To that I return. 



The bitterest pill which the English government 

 compelled our agrii'ulture to swallow before the 

 revolution was, the protecting duty pill, or an 

 equivalent drug, gilded with the national advan- 

 tage of dealing with fel'ow subjects; and, after 

 having gone through a long war to ijet rid ol" this? 

 nauseous [ihysic, we h.ave patiently swallowed if, 

 gilded also by other doctors with the national ad- 

 vantage of dealing with fellow citizens : 'J'he 

 power and wealth of the political doctors, who 

 have recommended these sell same poliiicid drugs, 

 depended considerably in both cases, on their be- 

 ing swallowed. 



1 will sup[)ose thai our prolecting duties do not 

 exceed the average amount of 25 per centum, that 

 they had expelled every article of" foreign nianu- 

 lacture, and l)estowcd on our broiher citizens a 

 complete monopoly of our manulbciural vvanlrf, 

 and an ability to supply them. I will suppose too 

 in favor of a project, which must depend on con- 

 cessions to obtain the respect of examination, that 

 the agricultural interest shall be able, after this 

 blessed desideratum ol" the protecting duty system 

 is obiained, to get at its old markets the same price 

 Ibr its products, and annually bring home the 

 whole in gold or silver, for the use of our own 

 capitalists and monopolizers. This, have said 

 many great ministers of state, who had no know- 

 ledire of agriculture, would complete i's prosperity. 



I; is the r'.rop|i(Tit\' ijf giving one fourth above 



