VALUE OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 323 



to have trusted to our own unaided efforts and our natural 

 progress, rather than to have fostered special industries, and 

 to have built up privileged classes, an aristocracy of wealth, 

 as objectionable as an aristocracy of land. 



The facts satisfy me that I was mistaken, and that the 

 freest commerce possible with the nations of the world, 

 would have given us, in the long run, the largest benefits as 

 a people. We do not ask for a tariff or Chinese wall of 

 prohibition between the other thirty-seven States of the 

 Union and ourselves, and the principle of free commercial 

 intercourse which we have with them would have applied 

 equally, and would have worked as well with foreign coun- 

 tries. We should be laughed at if we were to ask Congress 

 to protect ns against Western grain, pork, butter, apples, 

 and the like, but we know well that they are brought to the 

 doors of our manufacturing neighbors, and that they will 

 pay no more for our products than for them. We even 

 know that Western produce goes to depress the value of 

 what we raise. 



In spite of this, however, let our aim be to extend our 

 markets, while we lighten the burdens of taxation, and 

 thus cheapen the cost of our living, and of production. 

 Let us approach the subject, not in the spirit of partisan- 

 ship or sectionalism, but as patriots, and intelligent, thinking 

 men. 



Let us try to cast aside prejudice and inherited notions 

 and look at the things around us by the light of facts, and 

 broaden our views, and endeavor to bring it about that there 

 shall be no favored classes, but that we shall all stand on 

 the broad platform of equal rights, equal burdens, equal 

 privileges. 



Dr. Jewett reported on the Worcester Society, Mr. Herrick 

 reported on the Worcester North-west, Mr. Sessions re- 

 ported on the Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden, Mr. Ware 

 reported on the Hampshire, Mr. Buell reported on the High- 

 land, Mr. Goodrich reported on the Hampden, Mr. Farns- 

 worth reported on the Hampden East, Mr. Taft reported on 

 the Union, Mr. Damon reported on the Franklin, Mr. Slade 



