Year: 1866

PROTECTION TO AMERICAN LABOR.


One of the ablest speeches that have been
made in the House during this present session
of Congress, was by Hon. WILLIAM ID. KEEL
LEY, of Pennsylvania, upon the subject OF
Protection. His treatment of it is full, ex-
haustive and convincing. He dissects with a
trenchant blade and firm hand the fallacies
of Free Trade. He shows how essential is
protection and free trade not to the few, not 10
a section, but to all our people and to the
national independence and prosperity.


We have an immense national debt con-
trscted in the war, and an immense sum to
pay annually to the widows, orphans and
invalid soldiers of the Governmen., and these
are debts that must be discharged, This can
best be done not by system of free trade
that mortgages our country to Europe and
sends all our bullion abroad, but by protect
ing and developing American industry in
every department Of labor. The great want
otthe country is men, additional labor. To
make labor fully available it must be steadily
employed and generously rewarded, and to
secure these results the employment Of q
country must be largely diversified. Agricul-
ture, manufacture, commerce, all the re-
sources of a country must be developed.


The South has been strenuous advocate
of free trade. Her policy was selfish one
Southern champion of free trade said as
indicating Southern reason for defending it.
the ha4,ra tho 0f tho
late rebellion:


We must prevent the increase Of manu-
factories, force the surplus labor into agricul.
ture, promote the cultivation of our unim.
proved western lands, until provisions are so
multiplied and reduced in price that the slave
can be fed SO cheaply as to enable us to grow
our sugar at three cents pound. Then,
without protective duties, we can rival Cuba
IN the production Of that staple and drive her
from our markets.


Bat her policy was not only selfish but
unwise. II r1ined agriculture in the South
other than sugar and cotton growing, reduced
her laboring population, white and black to
the lowest stage of ignorance and poverty
destroyed the fertility OF her soil; destroyed
manufactures throughout the country. Eng
land purchased her grain elsewhere, and the
Western farmer sold his corn for few cents,
or burned it for fuel or as waste and got for
his pork and wheat the merest pittance.


Free trade keeps us under subjecton to
Great Britain She preached free trade only
when after years Of strict and rigorous pro-
lection she had so established her manufac
tures and increased her national capital as to
be abe to override manufacturing in all other
countries, and now by free trade she would
subsidize the nations and make them tributa
ry to her own wealth and greatness Yet
preaching free trade as she does, she vet rig
orousy protects her labor and manufactures
against foreign competition wherever she
deems it to her interest.


Ofour condition at the commencement of
the late war in contrast with what it has been
under our tariff system, Mr.. Kelley says:


Sir, let MS conte= plate for a moment our
condition when the champion of slavery and
free trade fired on the flag of the country.
April 1861, found us unable 10 clothe our sol
diers or furnish them with implements and
munitions of war. When the President called
for seveniy-hve thousand troops, and that
number of the flower of our couutrymen
promptly responded, they were clad, not in
our blue alone, but in gray, the chosen color
of our enemy. in black, in red, or any other
color, because we had not the proper material
with which to cothe them. We had not the
quality of iron from which to fashion a gun
barrel, nor could we make it. We had not
blankets 10 shield our men from rain or frost,
in camp or byouac and as the people
garded the base character Of the articles with
which our army was provided, many of which
had been made from American rags in the
shoddv towns Of Yorkshire, they raised a uni
versal cry Of fraud against both public off
GERS and contractors. Our mills, forges, fur
naces, and factories stood still. The frugal
laborer was living upon the earnings of past
years. Commerce, having dwindled from the
expiration Of the protective tariff OF 1872. had
ceased to animate our ports. The crops of
the West stood ungathered in the fields, and
the bankruptcy of 1853. from which we had
not yet recovered, had returned to sweep
away the few who had withstood the surge.


But the case is altered now. Necessity has
compelled us to do what reason and expert
ence long ago suggested. The fact that we
determined to pay in gold the interest on our





collecting the duties on imports in coin, has
done much to animate and Diversity our indus
try. This fact and the general result OF the
warrior the duties we lay on raw materials
and our internal taxes more than couuterbal
ance the protection afforded to many branches
ofindustry by our tariff laws-haye enabled
us to recover from our prostration and started
Us in a career Of prosperity and progress; and
if wisdom guide our legislation, the waste
lands of which have read will soon be reyig
GRATED; the ancient village will be absorbed
IL the expanding city new towns will mark
the plain and river bank; and where the mean
white and the negro have loitered listlessly
through the months, diversified and well paid
industry qackening their energies and ex.
panding tLelr desires, will employ all their
hours, and enable each to carve his way as an
American citizen should do in career that
will afford him pleasure or profit. The gen
teman from Indiana Mr. VOORHEES, may
desire to recall the idleness and misery OF
1850. but cannot believe that he is justified
IN lnhmating that President Johnson' 5 sympa-
thizes with him in this respect.


lHE Cops held johnson ratification meet