Richmond daily Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1842-1861, 1843-08-19
RICHMOND DAILY WING.
The Phlosophy of Free Trade.
SATURDAY MORNING, AUGUST 10. is.,.

The PHILOSOPHY OF Free Trade.
o. Itscems that the Democracy is n Free Trade
party, and its founder-the Moses of its Law and
Prophets-was constitutionally opposed to Restric.
tons upon Trade. So says the party now. So
says the last Charlottesville Republican-which has
access to Herculaneum. But If the Constitution
forbids Restriction, surely il must yet more forbid
Prohibition. If it is illegal TO impose burdens on
Foreign Trade, it must be a good deal worse to cut
1t OIL altogether-as Mr.. Jefferson and the Re-
publican party did, for u series of years, by the
Embargo and Non-In,ercourse Acts. These FORM
ed a highly philosophical, but not very constitutions
al system of pacific compulsion against England.
Ii was called by him, WE believe, or some body in
that day. 'thc terrapin SYSTEM" and proved like
that animal, abundantlv slow, but not very sure.
As a military resort, ii showed itself full brother To
his other great invention for national defence
his Gun-boat Systcm-a plan by which he pro-
missed 10 change the whole face of naval warfare:
and which, when reduced To practice, was found
very like sending n fhotilla of d~idappcrs to fight
seventy-fours. The Apostles exploits in the Re-
volution had, perhaps, not given any very lofty idea
of his martial abilities; so that his military renown
was not much damaged by the ridiculous event of
his land and sea strategy. In short, his credit in
'' We. ""H w i'SN, SiliiIlN tNiu III liu never
had any. Still, as n philosopher, he should have
known for what he was ft-should have felt that
there was no p~owder-monkey on ship aboard, that
didn't know more of nautical battle than he, and,
in Il word, that he was as little a Nelson as a
Napoleon. Certainly, had he had the luck of
his renowned predecessor, Captain Lemuel
CULVER, to fall in with a Lilliputian fleet,
he might, with his lnvincible Armada of cock
boats, have smote them hip and thigh. But I'M
happily 1t pleased his genius to reverse Commo-
dore Gulliver's conception, and to match with con-
tdencc Minutencss against Might shrimp
against a shark-a mouse against a mammoth
Warfare, antient or modern, presents nothing so
ludicrous as his mistake. Ii is said, by the bye.
that whenever one OF his renowned hucentaurs
lie; off her Long-Tom loaded with ball, she dived
backwards and disappeared for Il minute or two,
during which her crew took lessons, most usefully,
in the art of treading water, and other icatS of ma
tahon. What an improving thing philosophy is
But IT the Philosopher was not bound to know
any thing of fighting, the Great Politician was
nay, should have known something OF trade into
the bargain, and not set up that most futile of all
maginatlons that ever entered a brain craZcd with
theories-his scheme OF tanning the naval domi-
Mon of England, by shutting ourselves up in our
shell, and abolishing all our foreign commerce.
As there is no precedent for his naval scheme, so
is there no parallel for his political and mercantile
one; and the Apostle, besides being that of De-
mocracy, of the Constitution, of Notification, of
Abolition, OF Bank Vetoes, of buying free Com
munities, must stand forever famous as the father
of the science of running all rival trade by having
none yourself, and the founder of an Art of War
perfectly innocuous to your adversary, and sure to
bring about your being knocked on the head.