128 PROTECTIONIST DOCTRINES. [CHAP. IX 



has contracted very little debt, it being thought advisable to 

 leave the execution of almost every kind of public work to pri 

 vate enterprise and capital. 



In many of the southern and western states, the commercial 

 policy of Massachusetts was represented to me as eminently 

 selfish, the great capitalists wishing to monopolize the manufac 

 turing trade, and by a high tariff to exclude foreign capitalists, 

 so as to grow rich at the expense of other parts of the Union. 

 In conversing with the New Englanders, I became satisfied that, 

 in spite of the writings of the first political economists in Europe 

 and America, and the opinion of Channing, and some other of 

 their own distinguished men (not excepting Daniel Webster him 

 self in the early part of his career), they have persuaded them 

 selves that the doctrines of free trade are not applicable to the 

 present state of their country. The facility with which every 

 people conscientiously accommodate their speculative opinions to 

 their local and individual interests, is sufficiently demonstrated 

 by the fact, that each of the other states, and sections of states, 

 as they successively embark in the manufacture, whether of cot 

 ton, iron, or other articles, become immediately converts to pro 

 tectionist views, against which they had previously declaimed. 



There is a general feeling of self-respect pervading all classes 

 in the New England states, which enables those who rise in the 

 world, whether in political life, or by suddenly making large for 

 tunes in trade, if they have true gentility of feeling, to take their 

 place in good society easily and naturally. Their power of ac 

 commodating themselves to their new position is greatly facilitated 

 by the instruction imparted in the free schools to all, however 

 humble in station, so that they are rarely in danger of betraying 

 their low origin by ungrammatical phrases and faulty pronun 

 ciation. 



English critics are in the habit of making no allowance for 

 the slightest variations in language, pronunciation, or manners, 

 in any people descended from the Anglican stock. In the Ger 

 mans or French they may think a deviation from the British 

 standard odd or ridiculous, but in an American they set it down 

 at once as vulgar ; whereas it may be one of those conventional- 



