298 [AssEitfBi^Y 



higher impost on tlie raw material than on the goods made from 

 it, is such as we require. A tariff for the protection of the 

 labor eTy not one which is enriching the capitalist by crusliing the 

 feebler operative, is what the exigencies of the times demand. 

 Capital requires no aid; it can protect itself. The American 

 laborer needs protection against the competition of famished 

 Europe. 



Crush our manufacturers — break down those smiling villages 

 which are circling every mill-site in America with images of 

 peace and plenty — sow our fields with salt, and let our ships lay 

 rotting in the docks — prostrate every form of industry till the 

 voice of joy and gladness is lieard no more, and the wail of want 

 and wretchedness shall fill the land — and still, capital will sur- 

 vive the cruel stroke. It will seek otlier forms of investment. 

 It will cross the sea, and under some more cautious government, 

 less fond of rash experiments in finance than our own, it will 

 find a place to expand and multiply. 



But where will the laborer be 1 He must stay behind ; too 

 poor to move and deprived of the power to work, he must drag 

 out his days in indigence and sorrow ; or he may till his little 

 acre and earn a bare subsistence, the citizen of a country depend- 

 ent on all other lands for all but bread, a country where the few 

 are rich and the many are poor — the invariable fate of states re- 

 lying solely on agriculture for support. 



Away then with the insensate jargon which rails about " your 

 lordly manufacturers." All that is " lordly " in them is what 

 every American in a fair field, and industry and skill to aid him 

 may secure — the wealth and distinction which pertains to " the 

 nobility of labor,^^ and the character which adds lustre to " the 

 long pedigree of ioil?^ 



How much have wo achieved in commerce under the genial 

 inflilence of former tariffs. With our cheap cottons v e have 

 driven England in a good measure from her own East India mar- 

 ket. We have secured the trade of the Levant beyond the rival- 

 ry of France or England. In the bazaars of Upper Egypt, in 

 the Thebaid, I have seen our cotton fabrics bearing the marks 



