316 [Assembly 



Massachusetts. What makes up the other two-thirds of this vast 

 amount? Is it not the labor of her mechanics and artisans, acting 

 mainly for themselves, with their own capital, and the labor of their 

 own hands? Suppose a blow aimed at this productive labor should 

 prove effective, and drive 152,766 hands in Massachusetts into the 

 pui suits of agriculture. Can any one doubt that an immense injury 

 will have been inflicted; not on them alone, but on the whole coun- 

 try? And when the mechanical and manufacturing industry of all 

 New-England, with New-York, Pennsylvania, and large districts of 

 other States shall be made to feel the blow, will the planting and 

 grain producing States and districts feel nothing to disturb their re- 

 pose? The benefit they may expect to derive from such a course 

 of legislation will be fleeting as a moonbeam, whilst the injury that 

 may be inflicted will endure until their day and generation has pass- 

 ed away. 



Let us ask what are the probable benefits which are to result to 

 the planting and agricultural interests? Is cotton to be benefitted 

 by lessening the home demand and increasing the quantity produced? 

 The tendency of the present tariff is to destroy all the small and 

 weak manufactures of cotton. How many may be driven into the 

 production of the raw material, we cannot say; but the cotton dis- 

 trict, under the tariff of 1842, began to show factories in success- 

 ful operation. We have specimens before us, which are a credit to 

 Georgia. Will tobacco be benefitted? Not a whit of the enormous 

 exactions upon this product has been relaxed by British free trade. 

 Is sugar to be benefitted? We all anticipate a reduction in the 

 price of this article. If so, the sugar planters may become cotton 

 planters to some extent. But the producers of bread stuffs are to 

 reap the golden harvest! The voices of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, 

 Pennsylvania, part of New- York and Ohio, have drowned all reason 

 in their clamor for free trade, and to them belong the spoils. 



On the subject of supplying Great Britain with bread stuffs, 

 enough has been said to convince the most sceptical. Our own ar- 

 gument has not been refuted; and we still maintain as the doctrine 

 of the American Institute, that with open ports in Great Britain, her 

 supply will not be obtained from the U. States, nor any considerable 

 portion of it, except in seasons when there may be a general fail- 

 ure in the crops of Europe, which will rarely occur. If Great Bri- 

 tain could have annexed the soil of one of our States to the United 

 Kingdom, I doubt whether she would have relaxed her corn laws for 

 a century to come. 



