Southern
country, in _live stock_ of all descriptions, which they drive over the
mountains and sell for cash. This extensive trade, which, from its
peculiar character, more easily overcomes the difficulties of
transportation than any that can be substituted in its place, is about
to be put in jeopardy for the conjectural benefits of this measure. When
I say this trade is about to be put in jeopardy, I do not speak
unadvisedly. I am perfectly convinced that, if this bill passes, it will
have the effect of inducing the people of the South, partly from the
feeling and partly from the necessity growing out of it, to raise within
themselves, the live stock which they now purchase from the West. . . . .
If we cease to take the manufactures of Great Britain, she will assuredly
cease to take our cotton to the same extent. It is a settled principle
of her policy--a principle not only wise, but essential to her
existence--to purchase from those nations that receive her manufactures,
in preference to those who do not. We have, heretofore, been her best
customers, and, therefore, it has been her policy to purchase our cotton
to the full extent of our demand for her manufactures. But, say
gentlemen, Great Britain does not purchase your cotton from affection,
but from interest. I grant it, sir; and that is the very reason of my
decided hostility to a system which will make it her interest to
purchase from other countries in preference to our own. It _is_ her
interest to purchase cotton, even at a higher price, from those
countries which receive her manufactures in exchange. It is better for
her to give a little more for cotton, than to obtain nothing for her
manufactures. It will be remarked that the situation of Great Britain
is, in this respect, widely different from that of the United States.
The powers of her soil have been already pushed very nearly to the
maximum of their productiveness. The productiveness of her manufactures
on the contrary, is as unlimited as the demand of the whole world. . . . .
In fact, sir, the policy of Great Britain is not, as gentlemen seem to
suppose, to secure the _home_, but the _foreign_ market for her
manufactures. The former she has without an effort. It is to attain the
latter that all her policy and enterprise are brought into requisition.
The manufactures of that country are _the basis of her commerce_; our
manufactures, on the contrary are to be _the destruction of our
commerce_. . . . . It ca