ust
system here. The protective policy had been in operation in the United
States for a much shorter period, and its pernicious effects were not,
therefore, so clearly perceived and felt. Enough, however, was known of
these effects to induce its repeal.

It would be strange if in the face of the example of _Great Britain_,
our principal foreign customer, and of the evils of a system rendered
manifest in that country by long and painful experience, and in the face
of the immense advantages which under a more liberal commercial policy
we are already deriving, and must continue to derive, by supplying her
starving population with food, the United States should restore a policy
which she has been compelled to abandon, and thus diminish her ability
to purchase from us the food and other articles which she so much needs
and we so much desire to sell. By the simultaneous abandonment of the
protective policy by Great Britain and the United States new and
important markets have already been opened for our agricultural and
other products, commerce and navigation have received a new impulse,
labor and trade have been released from the artificial trammels which
have so long fettered them, and to a great extent reciprocity in the
exchange of commodities has been introduced at the same time by both
countries, and greatly for the benefit of both. Great Britain has been
forced by the pressure of circumstances at home to abandon a policy
which has been upheld for ages, and to open her markets for our immense
surplus of breadstuffs, and it is confidently believed that other powers
of Europe will ultimately see the wisdom, if they be not compelled by
the pauperism and sufferings of their crowded population, to pursue a
similar policy.

Our farmers are more deeply interested in maintaining the just and
liberal policy of the existing law than any other class of our citizens.
They constitute a large majority of our population, and it is well known
that when they prosper all other pursuits prosper also. They have
heretofore not only received none of the bounties or favors of
Government, but by the unequal operations of the protective policy have
been made by the burdens of taxation which it imposed to contribute to
the bounties which have enriched others.

When a foreign as well as a home market is opened to them, they must
receive, as they are now receiving, increased prices for their products.
They will find a readier sale, and at better