merce does, the perpetual protection of navies, 

 foreign missions and consulates, but it will re- 

 quire for tbe next ten years a protection not so 

 great in degree, considering the sliortness of its 

 duration, but different in kind ; it will require 

 that tlie fiscal regulations of the country remain 

 during that time without any material change. 

 Those men. Sir, would shrink from our propo- 

 sal, as from a most ^vicked and damnable heresy. 

 Shall we have to give them up ? Will they 

 never consent to carry on the government as it 

 is? Whatever they may say, the question of 

 power is settled as it should be, and when the 

 effect of temporarj- protection is to secure a per- 

 manent national advantage, the right to it is as 

 undeniable as that of merchants to have vessels 

 of war sent to the coast of China ; as that of 

 suitors to have courts of justice provided for 

 them. ^ 



Free trade is a good thing. Sir, but outlets are 

 good things too. They stand first in the list of 

 our wants, because v\ e must sell before we can 

 purchase. The freedom of trade, like other 

 freedom, has limits beyond which it ceases to be 

 beneficial. It would defeat its object, if it \vas 

 permitted to intertere with the paramount duty 

 of government, to enlarge by all practicable 

 means, the purchasing power of the productive 

 classes. For tlie purpose of enlarging that 

 power, new outlets are secured abroad by con- 

 quest or by treaty, and those who resort to them 

 are protected by means of embassies, of consul- 

 ates, of hghthouses, and of naval forces. For 

 the same purpose, outlets are created at home 

 for the existing products, bj- the introduction of 

 new branches of industiy, and these must for a 

 time be protected against foreign competition, 

 by reasonable duties. 



The grain and provisions raised upon our soil 

 never can have sufficient outlets abroad; it is, 

 therefore, the business of statesmen to discover 

 the new branches of industry for which the 

 country is prepared, and to convert them by ju- 

 dicious protection into home markets for those 

 superabundant products. 



The W^esteni farmers, who eveiy year descend 

 the Mississippi and its tributaries to sell us the 

 sui-plus of their crops, are on this subject much 

 iu advance of our philosophers. They produce 

 a great deal more than they consume, and they 

 have discovered that the cheapest market for 

 them to buy in, is, and ever must be, that w hich 

 most increases their power to purchase. I 

 bought, not long smce, from one of them, one 

 thousand baiTels of com at 72 cents per bairel, 

 and he took in part pa_y for a year's supply of 

 his family, three hundi'ed pounds of sugar at six 

 cents. He firmly believed that but for tlie Ta- 

 riff, he'might have obtained the sugar two cents 

 and a half per pound cheaper from Cuba ; 

 though w hen asked how he accounted for the 

 fact that much sugar had been sold here last 

 winter at 2| and 2^ cents, he admitted himself 

 to be in, ■what he termed, a rep;rilar qiiandary, 

 but that, he said, was immaterial, for he was 

 aware also, that the Spaniard would not have 

 his com, and that he could not compel me to 

 grow corn without losing at lea.st one-third of 

 Ills purchasing power. So that, giving him the 

 full benefit of the absolute free ti'ade doctrines, 

 his account would stand thus : two cents and a 

 half a pound gained on three hundred pounds 

 of sugar ; twenty-four cents a barrel lost upon 

 one tiiousand baircla of com. That man will 

 never do me harm ; he understands our relative 

 position. Let not these be called anti-democratic 

 (288) 



doctrines ; they must be democratic, because 

 they arc true. I say that the intelligent protec- 

 tion of new products promotes the general wel- 

 fare, and admit the expediency of limiting that 

 protection by the necessities of the Treasury ; I 

 assert, with Jefferson, that foreign producers 

 have the will and power to prevent the intro- 

 duction of new branches of industry in our 

 country, and that they must not be permitted to 

 do so. I maintain with Gen. Jackson that a 

 horizontal tariff' is not a judicious tariff. Those 

 men and their doctrines are sufficiently demo- 

 cratic for mo. 



If I were a,sked what certainty there is that 

 iu ten years we will be able to compete with 

 foreign producers, my first answer would be, 

 that after that time we must do so, v/hether we 

 can or not. Let no act of government check 

 the impulse now given to the cultivation of the 

 cane, and in ten yeans, more sugar will be made 

 than the United States can consume ; when this 

 happens, the surplus will have to meet foreign 

 sugars in the general market of the world ; the 

 fiscal regulations will then affect that staple as 

 they now affect cotton and rice, and revenue 

 will have to be raised upon tea and coffee. But, 

 Sir, I do not liesitate to assert that we can be 

 prepared to meet the foreign producers. 



There is a strong analogy between the culti- 

 vation of the vine in middle France, and that of 

 the cane in Louisiana. Dui-iug the first cen- 

 turies of the Christian era, there was no wine 

 produced in France, except Marseilles wine. — 

 More Southern Europe and the Isles of Greece 

 were then the wine-gro^ving regions. In the 

 course of time, the monks of Aquitaiiie, of 

 Champaign, and of Burgundy, God bless them! 

 transplanted the vine to the shelter of their con- 

 vent walls. Their efforts were for a long time 

 unsuccessful, but they persevered, and the great 

 saints of those dark ages took a conspicuous 

 part in the good work. At last their grapes at- 

 tained maturity ; they tasted the juice, and said 

 it was good. Wine was subsequently made of 

 it, and it is easy to conceive the joy of those holy 

 men, when Champaign first sparkled on their 

 board, when the vintages of Sledoc and Bur- 

 gundy replaced in their cellars the rough bever- 

 ages of Provence. The cultivation of the vine 

 continued to increase and to improve, but the in- 

 crease was so slow that wine was not exported 

 from Bordeaux to foreign countries, till some 

 time in the twelfth century. And now. Sir, the 

 great wine region of the world is that very 

 portion of France, in which the introduction of 

 the vine was the work of centuries. 



How is it with the sugar cane in Louisiana? 

 It was introduced here at an early day from the 

 West Indies, and cultivated to a small extent at 

 at Terre aux Ba?ufs, and in the neighborhood of 

 New-Orleans. Nobody at first imagined that 

 sugar could be made of it. The juice was boiled 

 into syrup, which sold at extravagant prices. In 

 1796 Mr. Bore, residing a few miles above New- 

 Orleans, a man reputed for his daring and his 

 energy, formed the desperate resolve of making 

 sugar. He increased his cultivation, put up the 

 necessary buildings and machinery, and pro- 

 cured a sugar-maker from the West ludies. — 

 The day appointed for the experiment was 

 come, and the operation was under way. The 

 inhabitants of New-Orleans and of the coast 

 had assembled there in great numbers. But 

 they remained outside of die building at a re- 

 spectable distance from the sugar-maker, whom 

 tliey looked upon as a sort of magician. The 



