Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-04-18
Free trade between the States chief eanse
Of their prosperity.

From one of the able articles entitled
"Needs of the Nation contributed by Sena-
tor z. B. Vance, of N. c.. to the Baltimore
Sun, we quote the following, which deserves
confederation
s'But another cause, and perhaps the
greatest one of ovr prosperity, is free trade
between the States. Without this all OF
our advantages, all of our energy, would
suits. 1t does not perhaps, occur to these
protectionists who use the words free
trader as term of reproach that America
Is the greatest free trade country in the
civilized world, and that free trade is
peculiarly American idea. Long before
England ever conceived such thing our
fathers established it between the states OF
this Union by special provision in our fun
damental law. Mr.. Webster said in the
Senate that it was an American idea, and
that protection was European. 1t was
half century later than our constitutional
establishment of it before British statesman
ship adopted it. 1t is now absolute in this
county among sixty millions of people, be-
tween thirty eight States. 1t operates in
Great Britain only over about thirty mil
lions of people, for the dependencies levy
their own tariff duties. So far from this
absolute freedom of trade existing between
the States being looked upon as injurious
and spoken of with opprobrium, the most
greedy protectionist alive acknowledges its
manifold blessings and would 60 to war be-
fore North Carolina and Georgia should be
given the power to protect their infant manu-
features against the 'pauper labor of
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. A pro-
tective tariff against the latter would no
doubt enable few men in the former States
to get rich, just as it has done everywhere
else; but every one confesses it would be
highly detrimental to the public welfare.
Nobody desires it, and yet, if a State is for
hidden to buy where she can buy cheapest,
no man could say it would be unjust in that
State to forbid its citizens from buying of
those who thus restrain them. As any re-
straint whatever upon Interstate commerce
is readily admitted to be undesirable and in
furious, 30 it is equally true that restrictions
upon international trade are harmful. 1t
cannot be otherwise than true in one case if
it be true in the other, for the principal is
precisely the same. That principal has long
been established as eternal truth by the
people of our race-that all laws are i'm
polite and injurious that forbid or hinder
absolute freedom in the alienation and trans
fer of property. It took centuries of bitter
struggling with ignorance and prejudice to
accent this great truth; and seeing how
splendidly it has approved its own verify
in the vast internal trade of sixty million
people, the Vonder is to me how any man
who is either wise or patriotic can consent
to see his country's commerce weighted
down with a single dollar of taxation be-
yond the absolute necessities of the gov
eminent. If foreign commerce Is indeed
not desirable; if distant lands contain no.
thing that we want, and our ambition is to
make nothing which they want, but only to
supply ourselves, then the forbidding or
hampering of that trade may be right. But
the merest tyro in economy knows that peo-
pie get rich by their surplus products-not
by supplying their own immediate wants
and if they cannot sell or exchange that
suplus they will not make it. Therefore
free trade between the States up to the point
of the home supply is Indispensable, and
therefore, again, for the disposal of the ag-
gregate surplus, freedom Of trade with
foreign countries is equally Indispensable
to the national prosperity. How can it be
otherwise unless principle is false to itself?
How can it be true that it is absolutely
necessary to my individual welfare that
shall sell my surplus products to my neigh
Dor freely and without restraint, and after
my neighbor is supplied and wants no more,
it is not necessary for my welfare or that of
the public that should sell the remainder
to a man across the river who does want it
and offers me good price? Common sense
and common justice alike declare that I
should have the utmost liberty to sell to
both. subject only to Snch charges on thu
transaction as the government may lawful
ly impose for it's necessities, and not those
of one man or set of men upon the EARTH"