The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1832-03-27


answer, that the articles exported are
the products ofAmerican labor; that the
ship is of American manufacture and
made of American timber that the sail
ors who navigate the vessels, are Amer
leans, and iheir labor is American labor.
The whole is nm American transaction,
and an encouragement to American In
dustry. Foreigners have nothing to do
with it, except that they furnish our citi-
zens with favorable contracts, by an in
terchange of ayticles, the products or
manufactures of their respective coun-
tries, by which the wealth and prosperity
OF the United States are promoted and
enlarged,
Mr.. President, why is this protection
the medium ofhigh duties claimed by the
American manufacturers +? 1t must he
owing to one or two causes Either the
articles. can be manufactured much
cheaper in other coy 1ies, or the Amer
icap manufacturers dpinis unreasonable
profits. That many scles can be
made cheaper abroad tlfdrawthis coun-
try, there is no doubt. Laoor ischeaper.
In Russia and Sweden the wages of an
able-bodied laborer are only 6 or cents
a day; in Great Britain the price of la
Dor is very little higher. In the latter
country, with population of one hun
dred and sixty FIVE to each mile square,
more people are found ready to starve
and of course are willing to labor for
bare subsistence than in the United
States, which does not contain Z for each
mile square. This inequality in the price
of the production Of articles, arising from
the difference in the price of labor can
only be obviated in one Of two. ways.
You must either reduce the price ofla-
Dor by degrading the people ofthis coun-
try SO far as to compel them to labor for
bare subsistence, or you must tax the
community to make up the difference in
favor Of the American manufactures.
The FIRST mode hope has no advocates
here or elsewhere. The second mode is
unjust and oppressive, as will now en-
deavor to show.
N,is unjust. The Senate will indulge
me in illustrating this in plain way,
which is my habit of conducting argu-
mcnts on all subjects. Suppose ten men
engaged in agriculture, and you by your
enactments or your laws cause five of
them to abandon that and adopt some
other pursuit---manufactures if you
please and you at the same time require
that one third Of the products Of the five
remaining agrlculturalists shall be given
to them all men would at once exclaim,
this is plain, open, palpable injustice.
Now, sir, where is the difference between
this and compelling the agriculturals st
to give one third more for all the articles
for which they exchange the products of
their farms? Or when you compel them
to give one third more in the money for
which they have sold there crops, and
this for the benefit of those who have o.
bandoned their former pursuits I. For
instance planter in the neighborhood
of Nashville, whore ] live, sends his three
bales of cotton to New Orleans to pur-
chase or exchange for imported articles
for the consumption ofhis family. Now
the government takes no part of his cot
ton from him; his agent exchanges the
whole of them for the articles ordered
but in fixing upon the price of articles
received in exchange, one third is added
on account of their duties imposed. II
seems to my mind very evident, that one
third Of the mans cotton is gone as GER
tainly and effectually as if the govern
ment had taken it in the first instance
and then permitted him to purchase the
articles one third cheaper.
10 be continued.J