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Thus it was that Jefferson rendered true his own saying, "We are all Federalists, we are all Republicans." Jefferson yielded, also, on the question of free-trade. There is a passage of a few lines in Mr. Jefferson's Message of 1806, the year of Henry Clay's first appearance in Washington, which may be regarded as the text of half the Kentuckian's speeches, and the inspiration of his public life.
These points were gravely debated, and became subjects of as great interest among the colonists, as ever banks, or abolitionism, or antimasonry, or free-trade, or any other of the crotchets of the day, could possibly be in America.
The triumph of the Free-Trade Democracy, if continued to another Presidential election, would make Free-Trade a certainty. The old forms of Slavery, to be sure, were dead beyond reanimation perhaps; but, in their place, were other forms of Slavery, which attracted less attention and reprobation from the World at large, and yet were quite as effectual for all Southern purposes.
With regard to free-trade and protection, the latter doctrine has been maintained in two forms. Some have regarded protection as the best permanent policy for a nation to adopt. Others have defended it as a provisional policy, to shield manufactures in their infancy, until they grow strong enough to compete, without help, with foreign products.
Liberty to ANNIHILATE rubbish and chaos, under known conditions, you may have; but not the least liberty to keep them about you, though never so fond of doing it! What shall we say? Nussler and the Soap-boiler do both live in houses more human than they once had. Berlin itself, and some other things, did not spring from Free-trade.
Yet it may not be thought inopportune to mention the transaction thus briefly, as one important step toward the establishment of free-trade, which, at the end of fifty years from the time when Pitt first laid the foundation of it, was gradually forcing itself on all our statesmen, as the only sound principle of commercial intercourse between nations.
After the British Parliament had adopted the policy and system of free-trade, the Canadian Assembly adhered to the doctrine of protection so obstinately that it actually established a tariff of import duties injurious to the commerce of the mother country, and apparently intended as a condemnation of its principles.
The triumph of the Free-Trade Democracy, if continued to another Presidential election, would make Free-Trade a certainty. The old forms of Slavery, to be sure, were dead beyond reanimation perhaps; but, in their place, were other forms of Slavery, which attracted less attention and reprobation from the World at large, and yet were quite as effectual for all Southern purposes.
To return to the question of empire. The bulk of the Conservative party would hold the colonies if possible, and pursue an imperial policy; while certainly a large portion of the Liberals not all, by any means would let the colonies go, and, with the Manchester school, hope to hold England's place by free-trade and active competition.
But that is not the only vindication of free-trade finance which is at hand. How have foreign countries stood the late depression in trade? The shortfall of the revenue from the estimates in this country was last year less than two millions, in Germany it was eight millions, and in the United States over nineteen millions. Let the House see what fair-weather friends these protectionist duties are.
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