hich the resources are to be drawn.
And it may be well for gentlemen to reflect whether adhering to this
policy would not be acting like the man who 'killed the goose which laid
the golden eggs.' Next to the Christian religion, I consider _Free
Trade_, in its largest sense, as the greatest blessing that can be
conferred on any people."

Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war
with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes,
resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to
the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of
the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts
to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have
converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for
cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the
history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for
this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government
has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only
on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples
are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the
planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the
commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their
great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere
nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States
were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had
lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had
thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices
which our own war had created for their grain and other productions;
and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain,
owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes.
Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern
States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a
part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these
cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir--utterly
blasted--by the consuming and withering course of a system of
legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of
commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an
impious perversion of language, is called '