CORRESPONDENCE WITH SCIENTIFIC MEN. 49 



minded people in the other Southern States will probably 

 be slow to go these lengths, and I trust you may consider 

 the country as pacified for the present. 



TO MR. WILLIAM MACLURE. 



NEW HAVEN, October 31, 1833. 



YOUR remarks on our Federal Union and political 



measures certainly deserve serious consideration, although 

 I conceive our case is not exactly parallel with that of 

 Switzerland, an inland country, without foreign commerce, 

 and composed of members, I suppose, much more discor- 

 dant than ours. I am much impressed with what you say 

 as to the tendency which the duty on sugar has to encour- 

 age slavery. I think that must be true ; but I suppose 

 nothing can alter the policy. It is, I believe, a settled 

 thing that the cultivation of sugar in Louisiana is to be 

 thus encouraged at whatever hazard; the singular incon- 

 istency seems to have been overlooked of opposing a 

 sTorthern tariff for encouraging manufactures by freemen, 

 hile a manufacture by slaves in the South is thus sus- 

 ained. For myself, however, I wish to see as little as 

 ossible of tariffs, and would prefer to have individual en- 

 I'prise and industry to work its own way with as little in- 

 Tference from Government as may be. I am glad to hear 

 lat your distracted country Mexico is in a way to 

 et sett-led in anything like permanent order and tranquil- 

 ty, ajid hope that they may eventually find out the best 

 lethod of governing themselves. At present everything 

 ppears tranquil in this country ; the high excitement in 

 Carolina seems to have subsided, and it will not be easy to 

 - et up such a state of things again very soon. Congress 

 rill soon meet again, and you will see in the annual budgets 

 f the President and his officers the state of the country. 

 Collisions and excitement must of course be expected in a 

 ountry where there is freedom ; at one time it will run on 



VOL. II. 4 



