378 [Assembly 



changes; it may be a few millions only, but it is sufficient to produce 

 a scene of disaster and misery among the active and industrious por- 

 tions of society, more terrible than would result from the destrvction 

 of capital to ten times the amount of the excess of imports. The 

 public stand aghast at the result, and assign every imaginable rea- 

 son for it except the true one; overtrading, excessive banking, pri- 

 vate extravagance, and a multitude of similar causes which have no 

 foundation except in the imaginations of those who v/ould fain give 

 some reason for so obvious an event. 



The suspension of the banks by destroying the convertibility of 

 the currency, which however by the necessities of the case, continues 

 but imperfectly to perform its functions, prevents the further export 

 of specie, except at a cost which absorbs the profit of imports, which 

 must now be sold for an inconvertible currency, and the pressure 

 upon the market having driven down the price of our staples, they 

 become the more profitable exports. Labor has been suspended in 

 all departments of business and irretrievably lost, the poor are redu- 

 ced to more extreme poverty, the active and industrious have lost 

 the small gains of years of toil, by excessive interest paid to sustain 

 their credit, the depreciation of their stocks, or the foreclosure of 

 mortgages has sacrificed their property at half its cost. The parox- 

 ism expends its force by the extinction of business, and the transfer 

 of the property of the active and younger portion of society to the 

 wealthy, and after a year or two of wasted labor, the industrious, 

 who have weathered the storm, begin again with enfeebled energy, 

 the process of reproduction. Gradually the wrecks are cleared away 

 and the fabric of national interest is slowly reconstructed, and pro- 

 ceeds, till the same causes produce again the same results. 



The Southern States of the Union are emphatically the opponents 

 of a tariff of protection, though really more dependant upon it for 

 their prosperity than the North, yet they view it as especially oppo- 

 sed to their interest. There is a semblance only of reason in the 

 position they assume. They see the North comparatively prosper- 

 ous, increasing in wealth, while with them it is to some extent 

 otherwise, and hastily conclude that protection is the cause. While 

 it is admitted that their " peculiar institution" has an injurious influ- 

 ence upon their economical interests, yet that is not the cause of 

 their slow progress in wealth. The South are an agricultural peo- 

 ple; their business is the growing of raw produce, to be exchanged 

 for manufactures. As we have observed, it is an inevitable law of 

 the civilized world, that such a direction of industry accumulates 



