The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1888-07-13

portation of which It Is laiA SCOTS posa:
ton, therefore, Is equivalent to saying that
though the government nigh. at the time q
duty Is laid have updoubted constitu-
tional power to lay 1t. on tea or CHINA
mon for instance, yet IL an American
sets about raising tea or cinnamon
In Florida this act, since II clearly
converts the duty on tea or cinnamon from
one for revenue only into one which pro
tects, therefore reverts back to render the
act, which before was constitutional, now q
breach Of the constitution In short, what il
constitutional and what is not is thus made
to change when a man strikes a spade into
the earth to set out tea plant.
Great Britain cannot prevent her duty on to-
bacco from protecting theraising Of tobacco
in Ireland without expressly prohibiting such
cultivation anywhere I'M the United Kingdom
Hence the government prohibits the cultiva-
ton Of the leaf while it protects the inanufac.
turer. This enables her to maintain a duty
which does not protect America, therefore,
could only arrive at duties which would not
protect by passing similar laws prohibiting
the domestic production. But the Federal
constitution vests no power in congress to
prohibit domestic production of any kind
or for any purpose And without this power
it could not prevent its duties from protect
ing something. Hence, instead of its being
true that congress has no power to pass pro
lection duties, it is, ON the contrary, true
that the constitution clothes congress with
no power to prevent duty from having a
protective effect.
Nv. A fourth class of free traders finds its
nucleus in the original Secessionists and anti
Nationalist. These from the first desired that
the present United States should be league
of sovereign states, each Of which should be
free to secede make war, maintain slavery,
run state lotteries, organize filibustering ex-
petitions, license vice, confederate with gam
bling and crime, and do every other thing
except to maintain free schools, build
roads, canals and colleges, promote industry
and emancipate slaves. This set Of men have
always wanted thirty-nine sovereign states,
all limited to about four industries, viz. rails
ing cotton, corn, hogs, wheat and capitalized
labor, otherwise known as slaves. They ac-
tually think this is the best the American
people can do Patrick Henry, John @. Cal
houn and Jefferson Davis are the exemplars
Of this school. Its free trade policy derives
its handspring and motive from its intense
hidebound bourbonism, which is but the po-
litical shell which surrounds its industrial in
dolence and lack of economic brains. Mod
ern representatives Of this school south and
north have been Robert Toombs, John B.
Floyd, l. Q. G. Lamar, Editor Watterson,
Randolph Tucker, Frank Hurd, Fernando
and Benjamin Wood, Franklin Pierce, Sunset
Cox and all the ''thick and thin" allies and
upholders Of the subjugated southern re-
bellion. All these men had bright points
about them. Their sin consists in trying to
make existing ignorance a stepping stone to
their personal aggrandizement, instead Of a
theme for rebuke and field for missionary
effort The hatred Of all this class to a
factory, an invention, any step in scientific
pApgress, or any increase in the diversified
ton of industries, is like the Indian savage's
hatred for a farm or the Texan COWBOYS
hatred for fence 1t is the true conserve
tive hatred which Bourbon who is deter
mined not to bulge, move or yield an inch to
the march of progress, feels for something
which he does not comprehend, and is in
disposed to become acquainted with. The
creed Of these men is that Americans should
farm-those in the north should raise wheat
and beef and pork; those in the south should
raise cotton. Those two industries are
enough. Foreigners will come among us
and build railroads, sell us our clothing,
sugar, salt, iron and steel. Our seaport towns
will handle these as importations This Is
the way We lived as colonies, and what was
good enough for my revolutionary forefath-
ers Is good enough for me. Niggers were
made to work, and white men were made to
boss the niggers Any man not willing to
vote this ticket should be guaranteed the in
alienable right to vote, but inspectors of
election in any well regulated communities
will see that never enough votes Of this kind
are counted to elect anybody"
This wing Of the free trade party, under
the lead Of Patrick Henry, opposed the adop-
ton of the Federal constitution and the for
nation Of this nation. Under the lead Of
Calhoun, fifty years later, it attempted to
dissolve the Union, and so far succeeded as
to secure the repeal Of the protective policy
in 1888, which made secession easy twenty
seven years later by making the Union weak
A descendant Of Patrick Henry, Of Virginia,
in the person of Mr.. Breckinridge, of Ken
lucky, was the dramatic and emotional ora
tor whose fluid economic perversity gave
tho same kind Of smart intellectually to the
recent crusade for the Mills bill which per-
vaded the general management of the free
trade rebellion in 1875. Under the lead of
Toombs, Floyd and jefferson Davis in 1860
this wing Of free trade inaugurated the re-
bellion, and in their constitution covenanted
that they would never enact protective
tariff
V. A fifth class Of free traders are the
economic dudes, who think it the true Phi
Beta Kappa "fad" to profess to believe in
free trade because it is English, you know. u
They would wear ulster overcoats, or part
their hair in the middle, or add drawing
all, at-ah, the-ah end-ah of-ah each
ali word-ah, or rip up the carpets in their
houses and substitute rugs, or build high
fence around their patch Of ground to shut
out the peering eyes of neighbors, or perpe-
trate any other insuar awkwardness, purely
and solely because it is English. To this class
it is sufficient to believe that free trade is an
English fashion, and they take it as they do
the Episcopal service or the queens birth
day.
Have any of them investigated the quality
of the arguments, and the effect of the action
of the repealers of the corn laws in England
in 1916? have been able to discover none,
either among speakers, writers or organizing
managers, who have paid any candid atten-
ton to the economic aspects of tho conflict
whose result is popularity supposed to have
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