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pounds; in 1826, two hundred and four millions; and in 1830, near three hundred millions! The ground of greatest surprise is that it has been able to sustain even its present price with such an enormous augmentation of quantity. It could not have been done but for the combined operation of three causes, by which the consumption of cotton fabrics has been greatly extended in consequence of their reduced prices: first, competition; second, the improvement of labor-saving machinery; and thirdly, the low price of the raw material. The crop of 1819, amounting to eighty-eight millions of pounds, produced twenty-one millions of dollars; the crop of 1823, when the amount was swelled to one hundred and seventy-four millions (almost double of that of 1819), produced a less sum by more than half a million of dollars; and the crop of 1824, amounting to thirty millions of pounds less than that of the preceding year, produced a million and a half of dollars more.

If there be any foundation for the established law of price, supply, and demand, ought not the fact of this great increase of the supply to account satisfactorily for the alleged low price of cotton?

* * *

Let us suppose that the home demand for cotton, which has been created by the American system, should cease, and that the two hundred thousand bales which the home market now absorbs were now thrown into the glutted markets of foreign countries; would not the effect inevitably be to produce a further and great reduction in the price of the article? If there be any truth in the facts and principles which I have before stated and endeavored to illustrate, it cannot be doubted that the existence of American manufactures has tended to increase the demand and extend the consumption of the raw material; and that, but for this increased demand, the price of the article would have fallen possibly one-half lower than it now is. The error of the opposite argument is in assuming one thing, which being denied, the whole failsthat is, it assumes that the whole labor of the United States would be profitably employed without manufactures. Now, the truth is that the system. excites and creates labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates additional ability to consume, which acts on all the objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. The amount of cotton imported into the two ports of Boston and Providence alone during the last year (and it was imported exclusively for the home manufacture) was one hundred and nine thousand five hundred and seventeen bales. * * *

I could extend and dwell on the long list of articles-the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and other items for which a demand is created in the home market by the operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of the Senate. Where, where should we find a market for all these articles,

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if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of prime necessity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in the price of all these articles, but for the home market? And allow me, Mr. President, to say, that of all the agricultural parts of the United States which are benefited by the operation of this system, none are equally so with those which border the Chesapeake Bay, the lower parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and the two shores of Maryland. Their facilities of transportation, and proximity to the North, give them decided advantages.

But if all this reasoning were totally fallacious; if the price of manufactured articles were really higher, under the American system, than without it, I should still argue that high or low prices were themselves relativerelative to the ability to pay them. It is in vain to tempt, to tantalize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than our own, if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them. If, by the home exchanges, we can be supplied with necessary, even if they are dearer and worse, articles of American production than the foreign, it is better than not to be supplied at all. And how would the large portion of our country, which I have described, be supplied, but for the home exchanges? A poor people, destitute of wealth or of exchangeable commodities, have nothing to purchase foreign fabrics with. To them they are equally beyond their reach, whether their cost be a dollar or a guinea. * I conclude this part of the argument with the hope that my humble exertions have not been altogether unsuccessful in showing: First, that the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to be regarded as the genuine American system.

** *

Secondly, that the free-trade system, which is proposed as its substitute, ought really to be considered as the British colonial system.

Thirdly, that the American system is beneficial to all parts of the Union,

and absolutely necessary to much the larger portion.

Fourthly, that the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld, and a decline averted, by the protective system.

Fifthly, that if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished, the diminution has been more than compensated in the additional demand created at home.

Sixthly, that the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition among ourselves, and between American and European industry, reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured objects.

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Seventhly, that, in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of protection have greatly fallen in price.

Eighthly, that if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be much more extensively felt.

Ninthly, and finally, that the substitution of the British colonial system for the American system, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactories, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin. * * *

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The Education of the People.

By EDWARD EVERETT, of Massachusetts.

(Born 1794, died 1865.)

*

T is usual to compare the culture of the mind to the culture of the earth. If the husbandman relax his labors, and his field be left untilled, this year or the next, although a crop or two be lost, the evil may be remedied. The land, with its productive qualities, remains. If not plowed and planted this year, it may be the year after. But if the mind be wholly neglected during the period most proper for its cultivation, if it be suffered to remain dark and uninformed, its vital power perishes; for all the purposes of an intellectual nature, it is lost. It is as if an earthquake had swallowed up the uncultivated fallows, or as if a swollen river had washed away, not merely the standing crop, but the bank on which it was growing. When the time for education has gone by, the man must, in ordinary cases, be launched upon the world a benighted being, scarcely elevated above the beasts that perish; and all that he could have been and done for society and for himself is wholly lost.

Although this utter sacrifice of the intellectual nature is rarely made in this part of the country, I fear there exists, even here, a woeful waste of mental power, through neglect of education. Taking our population as a whole, I fear that there is not nearly time enough passed at school; that many of those employed in the business of instruction are incompetent to the work; and that our best teachers are not sufficiently furnished with literary apparatus, particularly with school libraries. If these defects could be supplied, I believe a few years would witness a wonderful effect upon the community; that an impulse, not easily conceived beforehand, would be given to individual and social character.

I am strongly convinced that it behooves our ancient commonwealth to look anxiously to this subject, if she wishes to maintain her honorable standing in this Union of States. I am not grieved when I behold on the map the

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