The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-09-25

hended. Tell the Zimmerman that the furnace
that feeds him must stop-he can only sigh and
return to his home to live upon the meagre saw
ing OF prudent industry, or stint his wife and
children in clothing and food. Turn the Amer
lean woman out of employ, because Congress
prefer to encourage the French grisette or En-
glsh seamstress, and the only remonstrance of
the discharged operative is a mute gesture of
despair. Her prayers for relief are not heard
amid the din of the national ord-factory
The manufacturing interest must suffer and
endure; it is stigmatized by its enemies as
sordid and local interest, an interest not entitled
to national protection, scarcely entitled to egs-
latve respect.
When the commercial interest seeks the
hall Of legislation for the purpose of pro-
lection, home and foreign squadrons guard it
from injury upon the ocean, whilst expensive
Notifications protect the cities with their rich
acquisitions of commercial gain. Such is the
legislative provision for the protection of great
interest, in which the national honor and inter
est are concerned.
The great agricultural and commercial
interests of the lower Mississippi ask for
national aid in protecting them from the
destructive inundation of that mighty river. 1t
is granted. There may, it is true. be ques-
ton whether the sugar planters and commission
merchants are protected by direct or incidental
legislation. This may be question of import
ance to the political gauze-weavers, but to the
planter, who cultivates his crop in safety under
the protection of a national dyke, or to the fac
tor who no longer occupies house with an al
ligator for a co-tenant, the result is precisely
the same. If the waters of the Mississippi are
excluded, they can pursue their respective avo-
cations with profit and safety. If from consti-
tutional scruples, or want Of national patriot
ism, Congress will do nothing, they must, with
the Pennsylvania iron-master, abandon their
property-probably their calling-and resort
to some pursuit less liable to be disturbed by the
chimerical scruples of metaphysical statesmen.
But another interest applies for protection at
the hands of Congress. The commerce and
agriculture Of the interior demand the passage
of the River and Harbor bill. They ask it
upon identically the same principle, that the
other great interests have done. They wish
protection for their property and for the lives
Of their citizens. They affirm that their in
vestment is scarcely inferior to that of any other
interest in the Union. They state that the
aggregate annual value of lake and river COM
steamers employed, amounts to more than four
hundred millions of dollars, all of which is at
risk from the snags of the rivers and the rock
bound coasts of the northern lakes. They
state, moreover, that not only is their property
in jeopardy to an amount scarcely inferior to that
of the slaveholding or manufacturing interests,
but that the number of persons annually afoat
upon the western rivers and lakes, whose lives
are at the risk of snags and storms, is little I'M
der half million!
The history of the River and Harbor bill is
history of continued disregard of the popular
will, and contempt of great national interest.
1t was repeatedly passed by Congress, it was
vetoed, and pocketed by a Democratic Presi-
dent. 1t was pressed upon the attention of
Congress by convention of three thousand per-
sons, amongst whom were many eminent
statesmen; all testified to the importance of the
interests involved, all united in an application
for relief. The Democratic administration was
deaf to the voice of the people; the loss of the
hard earned property Of the citizen had no eff
feet upon them. The voice of wo for the
storm or the fire wreck, or the sudden destruc-
ton by the treacherous snag, moved not the po-
litcal calculators. 1t has been reserved for a
Wing administration to encourage this import
ant measure of protection; and if Congress will
do its duty in passing the bill, we may safely
affirm that no farther impeachment from policy
alike impracticable or unfeeling may be appre-
hended.