The New Century, Issues 1-10

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A.D.F. Randolph & Company, 1875 - Free trade - 216 pages

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Page 32 - Whereas it is necessary for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares, and merchandises imported: Be it enacted, etc.
Page 33 - In corroboration of the same idea, it ought not to escape remark that the West India islands, the soils of which are the most fertile, and the nation which in the greatest degree supplies the rest of the' world with the precious metals, exchange to a loss with almost every other country.
Page 45 - ... degree to its superior quality. Sir, the true explanation of this, appears to me to lie in the different prices of labor; and here I apprehend is the grand mistake in the argument of the chairman of the committee. He says it would cost the nation, as a nation, nothing, to make our ore into iron. Now, I think it would cost us precisely that which we can worst afford; that is, great labor.
Page 46 - This is not more than the price of fifty miles land carriage. Stockholm, therefore, for the purpose of this argument, may be considered as within fifty miles of Philadelphia. Now, it is at once a just and a strong view of this case, to consider, that there are, within fifty miles of our market, vast multitudes of persons who are willing to labor...
Page 79 - See also, in vol. xiii. p. 688, the remarks on the policy of William III. In 1743, Lord Hardwicke, one of the most eminent men of his time, said in the House of Lords, " If our wealth is diminished, it is time to ruin the commerce of that nation which has driven us from the markets of the Continent — by sweeping the seas of their ships, and by blockading their ports.
Page 29 - I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic. It is also a truth that if industry and labor are left to take their own course they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out.
Page 46 - Now, it is at once a just and a strong view of this case, to consider, that there are, within fifty miles of our market, vast multitudes of persons who are willing to labor in the production of this article for us, at the rate of seven cents per day, while we have no labor which will not command, upon the average, at least five or six times that amount. The question is, then, shall we buy this article of these manufacturers, and suffer our own labor to earn its greater reward, or shall we employ...
Page 32 - ... believe that the virtue of our citizens was so weak as not to resist that temptation to smuggling which a seeming interest might create. Their conduct under the British government was no proof of a disposition to evade a just tax. At that time they conceived themselves oppressed by a nation in whose councils they had no share, and on that principle resistance was justified to their consciences. The case was now altered : all had a voice in every regulation ; and he did not despair of a great...
Page 50 - England s old argument, that the Colonies should bow to imperial considerations. Thus the tariff controversy, pushed to extremes by the power of the majority, and in disregard of the pleas of the minority for justice, assailed our political system in its most delicate and most vital part — the integrity of the confederation. The attempt of South Carolina to nullify the tariff act was not open disunion and secession. It was worse. It was an attempt to remain in the Union and yet reduce the confederation...
Page 45 - protected" the merchant ships from unlawful attacks or interference, that is, it gave them the security which it is the business of government to provide, and which is analogous to the office of courts and police on land, but this protection was made a basis of argument that the government ought to interfere likewise to "protect" producers against industrial competition.

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