712 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



the market price for all the manufactures it needs. 

 It is the boon of returning with empty phips from 

 ports, at which the same things can be bought (or 

 one lourth less. It is the boon of a direct lax or 

 a system of excise, to supply the revenue, which 

 the success of the project would annihilate. 



The blessing of complete success in the plan 

 of expelling Ibreign manufactures, by raising 

 bounties upon agriculture, may be exhibited by 

 figures upon data, however conjectural in amount, 

 correct in principle. Suppose agriculture annually 

 to bring home Ibrty millions of dollars, she would 

 be annually robbed often millions, by a protecting 

 duty of 25 per centum, for the benefit of capital- 

 ists. Suppose her share of the taxes, state and 

 continental, to be 15 millions, and that out of the 

 remaining fifteen, she has five millions to pay lo 

 bankers; ten will remain, leaving her an annual 

 income per poll, of about f 1.50 lor building 

 houses, paying expenses, and improving lands 



of hands she employs than any other business, 

 and the smaller profit derived from their labor. 

 Ead our policy, mstead of assailing agriculture, 

 with the English system of quartering upon her a 

 legion of legal separate inierests (lo ree.st which 

 she had spent her blood and treasure in a long 

 war with that nation) been guided by these consi- 

 derations, she would not have been subjected lo 

 the very evils, to avoid which, she had so recently 

 and gloriously persevered through that war. 



The efiects of yoking agriculture to armies, 

 navies, paper frauds, treasury Irauds, and protect- 

 ing duty frauds eince a revolution which it labor- 

 ed for, like the ox, who tills the crop to be eaten 

 by others, are visibly an increase of emigration, a 

 decrease in the fertility of land, sales of landed 

 estates, a decay and impoverishment both in mind 

 and fortune of the landed gentry, and an ex- 

 change of that hcnest, virtuous, patriotic and bold 

 class of men, for an order of stock-jobbers in loans, 



But if we take into the account, that foreign na- banks, manulactories, contracts, rivers, roads, 



tions neither would nor could pay our agricuitu 

 riels with specie lor their produce, that they would 

 countervail upon this preposterous project, and 

 that every countervailing act of theirs, would ope- 

 rate upon our agricultural products, even this 

 ^1.50 would become the victim of retaliation, and 

 leave the farmer as fundless for purchasing manu- 

 fijctures, as for improving his land. 



This blessed scheme of shutting up its markets, 

 for the encouragement of agriculture, has been 

 wonderfully overlooked as a means for encourag- 

 ing manufactures. In the latter case, markets are 

 eagerly sought for, and barter universally allowed. 

 England takes special care not to limit the sales 

 of her manufacturers directly or indirectly to re- 

 turns in specie, knowing that the attempt would 

 destroy them. She endows them with the home 

 monopoly, and freedom to make the best bargains 

 in all the foreign markets they can get to. Manu- 

 (acturins is her staple ; agricullure is our?. 



The United States hit exucil}' upon the same 

 mode for the encouragement of our agriculture 

 after the revolution, that the English did before it, 

 for the purpose of pillaging it. Every congress 

 has adhered lo their predecessors in ihe same poli- 

 cy. The agriculturists, to get rid of it, fought Eng- 

 land, and having evinced their power to control a 

 great nation, are quieily submitting to this spectre 

 of patriotism. 



The English before the revolution, quartered 

 upon our agriculture, a necessity of buying its 

 manufactures at home, or within the empire, 

 whilst it enjoyed the equivalents of being free 

 Irom their taxation, from paying any of the in- 

 terest of their paper systems, fi-om contributions 

 for supporting their armies, navies, bishops and 

 pensioners, from the frauds of their treasury sys- 

 lem, and of sharing in the enhanced prices, pro- 

 duced by fraud which did not reach the provinces. 

 The same system inflicted by congress, is attend- 

 ed with none of these equivalents. Agriculture 

 pays and must for ever pay most of whatever is 

 collected by taxes, by charters, by protecting 

 duties, by paper systems ofevery kind, for armies, 

 for navies, and though last, not the least of its 

 losses, of whatever Ihe nation is defrauded by a 

 treasury sj-stem operating in darkness. If "the 

 taxes are diieclly laid on properly, agriculture pays 

 nearly the whole of them ; if on ronsnmptione, 

 an unequal share, bocnufP of (he greater number 



houses, ships, lotteries, and an infinite number of 

 inferior tricks lo get money, calculated lo instil op- 

 posite principles. 



All the varieles of this order receive bounties, 

 and agriculture pays them. They gain li-om six 

 to twenty per centum profit on their capitals; 

 agriculture seldom or never gains six, except in a 

 few southern instances. In fact, it very rarely 

 gains any thing, if an income, derived from an 

 impoverishment of the land, ill deserves the name 

 of profit. 



The injustice of superadding upon agricullure 

 these unnecessary burdens to those which are ne- 

 cessary, is illustrated by supposing ihe duties uj)on 

 foreign manufactures to be only five per centum, 

 and nearly or quite all our duties are above the 

 supposition. To such duties are still to be added 

 the profiis of the English and American mer- 

 chants, through whose hands the goods pass, and 

 the freight, 'i'hese duties, profits and freight, 

 vvould alone constitute an encouragement to home 

 manufactures of at least twenty per centum ; a 

 sum quite adequate to any encouragement which 

 honest policy vvould delend, or common justice 

 suffer. And as all the occasional calamities of 

 commerce, are losses to agriculture, and prizes to 

 manulHClures, her fatuity in kneeling like the 

 camel to receive burdens, under the notion that 

 she is receiving bounties, can have no antithesis 

 more perfect, than the species of dexterity which 

 inflicts them. 



Protecting duties to enrich manufactures, are 

 like banks to enrich farmers, bishops lo save souls, 

 or feudal lords to defend nations. Englsnd has 

 demonstrated the character of each member of 

 this kindred quarlumvirate. Protected by feudal 

 lords, it was conquered almost by every invader ; 

 taught by bishops, corruption, having been distilled 

 through all inferior ranks, deposites its essence in 

 this reverend order of servility and selfishness; 

 enriched by bankers, farmers flee from the cultiva- 

 tion of lands, which yield the highest nominal 

 returns lo agricultural labor of any in the world, 

 until a surplus of bread is exchanged for a defi- 

 ciency ; and fed with the endless bounties of pro- 

 tecting duties, one-sixth of the laboring manufac- 

 turers, constantly occupy prisons or poor houses, 

 whilst Ihe rest may be said lo die daily upon their 

 daily wages. 



INlonarchips and aristocracies, being founded in 



