National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1884-01-08
Protection md Prosperity.


tunes to it twenty years after it has been
exploded but falsehoods are like weeds and
Canada thstles, they grow after they are
dug up and killed. The moral and physical
laws are much alike. If you desire stock
for speed and endurance you must cross tho
breeds; then the results are secured. IL is so
in the moral world; mount tho body of q
monstrous falsehood on tho slender and
shaky legs of half truth. and on its back
one may ride to the devil at speed equal to
the fight of n comet. This was what CAL
houn did, and the world sees whore he rode
to and what came of his attempt to lead his
fellow mon.
All the time Calhoun was denouncng the
tariff the tariff was ready to work for his
section in many ways, and was working in
some. 1t strove to build up great sugar in
terest, in which the north could not directly
share and succeeded 1t melted and devcl-
opod inventive genius, which resulted in
magnifying and extending the cotton manu-
facture far beyond the dreams Of tho widest
planter, Spectator, and the most prophetic
statesmen OF the cotton region. Before the
tariff tempted Whitney to study machinery
one of Mr.. Calhoun's constituents, by working
vigorously, could gin seventy-fve pounds a
day; now man can gin four hundred pounds
an hour and four thousand day. The
shuttles which passed in the early looms
twenty-five times a minute now fly almost or
quite two hundred times minute. The i'm
provements SO cheapened cotton goods that
everybody could afford to buy cotton cloth
and did. This made great market for cot
ton and made cotton king, If he ever was
king. This enabled Mr.. Calhoun to buy
osnaburgs at 12h cents per yard to clothe his
slaves that before had cost him 20 cents per
yard, and that now can be had for about 6
cents per yard probably. The tariff en-
larged his market to sell in beyond all
calculation, and chcapened his market
to buy in, thus blessing him at
both ends of his enterprise as a planter.
The tariff protected wool, and thus there
grew up the great interest of sheep husbandry,
and all the mountains of Virginia, West
Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas grew
white with docks, and hundreds Of thousands
of husbandmen turned their grass into wool
and their wool into money as fast as the
shearers could clip it. The tariff caused
cities and villages to spring up everywhere,
and thus the building Of houses, stables, and
factories created demand for southern pine,
and enabled the owners Of forests, worthless
before, to turn their trees into gold, at the
same time furnishing new industry to en-
ploy labor before idle, and mako the axman's
music resound from the Potomac to the ever
glades of Florida.
All this was done. More would have been
donei but for the asinine stupidity of the
southern leaders, who denounced manu-
featuring and set their faces like flint against
them, thus allowing the great waters of
southern streams to loaf their idle, inconse-
quental way to the sea without turning a
wheel or spindle, moving a shuttle, or whirl-
ing a saw. Then all through the south are
great mountains, almost bursting with their
wealth of coal and iron, which the tariff
would gladly have developed and transmitted
into gold had it not been SO persistently de-
nounced and threatened and endangered.
1t is sickening recital, but every WORD
true. But the southerners had their recrea
ton in cussing the tariff and their joy in
hugging the forty-bale theory till they, were
nearly smothered and ruined. 1t is molan
choly to think that statesmen Of the calibc,
of Carlisle and the fine ability and promis,
of Morrison should tie themselves to tn,
wreck of an exploded system while in plain
sight are the bleached bones Of who'll
generation of dead statesmen who wer,
aboard the miserable hulk which it went OIL
the rocks and whose friends were left in sucl
poverty that decent burial became i'm
possible.
Another strange thing comes in sight nov
and demands notice at our hands. MI
Calhoun saw and recognized the prosperity o
tho north, and denounced it as unrighteou
and ungodly. 1t was the fruit of robbery, h
said-nevertheless it was fruit. Cody O
goddess, il wqS prosperity, and it was caused
no said, by the tariff. Now his successor
como up and demand the abandonment of tn
system which created the prosperity, and asl
us 10 return to the free.trade system, or a
near as we con get to ii, which Mr.. Calhoun
+ wanted. Calhoun wanted tho tariff destroyed
because he thought he was robbed. II
couldn't account for so much prosperity as h
f saw on any other theory than great steal, an
they who enjoyed the prosperity were tn
thieves. Manifestly it belongs to those VIII
now demand the overthrow of tn
tariff to show free-trade commu
, nifty or non-protection country tina
compares in prosperity with our tariff-ridde
nation. When they do that they will be a
right. We show prosperity unexampled i
tho history of the world. We have the wor
of tho great auti-tariff leader that it is due
the tariff. Walk up, gentlemen, and give I
: an example to match. We appreciate III
f moral tenderness Of the free-trade statesme
49, H. - -