The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-08-11
THE TWO FRBE-TRADB ooNFEDERAoIEs.

called government and the helplessness and
dependence of the people under that confed-
eracY. The government was a mere rope Of
sand. The Congress had very little power.
Certain duties were imposed on it, but it had
no power to perform them. 1t could not pun
ish offenses against its own laws. It could de-
clare war, but could not raise troops. 1t could
ascertain the needed amount of revenue, but
could not levy taxes to raise it. 1t could bor-
row money, but had no power to repay. 1t
could make treaties with foreign nations, but
commerce, foreign and domestic, was
subject to regulation by the States. 1t
was a period when the modern Democratic
dogma Of State sovereignty found its fullest
development. Congress had no authority to
enact a general tariff on imports without the
consent of every one of the thirteen States,
and as that consent was never given, no tariff
was enacted. So far as the national govern
ment was concerned there was free trade pure
and simple, but as each State was looking out
for its own interest, ard trying to take care
of its own trade. there were all sorts of queer
regulations. Pennsylvania established a duty
of 2 IL per cent. ION her own hook" but
New Jersey opened a free port at Burlington,
where the Philadelphia merchants entered the
goods and took them clandestinely across the
river to Pennsylvania without paying any
duty. New Jersey voted to allow Congress to
enact a tariff law, while New York refused to
do so. Then New Jersey, to annoy New
York, established a free port opposite New
York city, where New York merchants got
their goods duty free. And so it went on-a
cut-throat policy all around. This was Eng
lands harvest. British manufactures poured
in free, and as We could not main
tain any without protection, we
were compelled to purchase goods of foreign
manufacturers at their own prices. We were
in a state of complete commercial vassalage
to Great Britain-the state she always tries to
enforce against other countries. Three or
four years of this sort of thing impoverished
the country. The few manufacturing indus
tries that we had were destroyed. A writer
of that period says: 1--WE are poor, with a
profusion Of material wealth in our posses
sion. That we are poor needs no other proof
than our prisons, bankruptcies, judgments.
executions, auctions, mortgages, ETC., and
the shameless quantity of business in our
courts of law" In 17S4-S5 our imports from
Great Britain were $4,000, 600, while our
exports to her were only 50, 600, 900, a fright
full balance on the wrong side. There was
little or no demand for labor, and it COM
manded no reward. The people were
far worse off than they had
been in colonial times or during
the revolution. Mobs and instructions were
not ~unfrequent, and it looked as if the people
who had conquered their independence from
England would become helpless victims of
her commercial policy. This state of things
demonstrated the necessity for a different
form of government, and our present national
| Constitution was the result. That gave the
people for the first time a government. It
must be said to the credit of free trade that
it did contribute largely to the adoption of the
Constitution. The first act of the first Con-
gress after its adoption was to pass a tariff law
in which the principle of encouragement and
protection of American manufactures was
expressly recognized. This, very briefly, was
the history and effect of free trade under the
first confederacy. Every approach to free
trade since that time has been marked by a
repetition of or an approach to the SAM dis
astrous conditions.
The second confederacy was that Of jeff
Davis & Co., whose constitution declared that
"no bounties shall be granted from the treas
ury, nor shall any duties or taxes on importa-
tons from foreign nations be laid to promote
or foster any branch Of industry" The differ
encs between the two confederacies was that
the first fell under the ban of free trade
through inexperience and inability to control
the situation; the second adopted it de-
Eberately. The Southern Confederacy,
based on raw cotton and slavery, did not want
free labor nor manufactures, and adopted free
trade to prevent them. From a confederate
standpoint it was wise policy. Owing to the
vigilance of Uncle Sans blockading SQUAD
rons they did not succeed in having much
free trade, but at the end of the war they
were about as badly off as if they had. Not
the least of blessings due to the suppression of
the rebellion is the rescue of the Southern
States from the baneful effects of free trade,
enacted by tie JEFF Davis constitution, and
the establishment of protection, under which
the South has enjoyed a degree of prosperity
and material development never dreamed of
before the war. It would be amazing, in
deed, if the American people, with the facts
of history before them, and in spite of the
teachings of commercial experience and COM
mon sense, should determine to re-enact the
disastrous experience of the two confeieracies.
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