reased since its
enactment. When cheapness comes by discoveries, by inventions, or
by new industrial processes, the people ought to share in those
benefits, but as a rule mere cheapness of things is not a benefit
to the people of the United States, especially when they are the
productions of the people of the United States. When the wheat of
a farmer is worth only fifty cents a bushel or his cotton only
seven cents a pound it is to him a calamity, not an object of desire
but a misfortune. I proceeded at some length to answer the points
made by Mr. Carlisle as I recalled them. I insisted that the
magnitude of domestic production and the opportunities to labor
were matters of greater importance than the prices of commodities.
If our needs can be supplied by American labor it is a mutual
advantage to both the laborer and producer. The larger the product
of American labor the greater is the wealth and comfort of American
citizens. If American labor is actively employed there can be no
difficulty in the laborer obtaining the necessaries of life. I
quoted the opinions of the Presidents of the United States, including
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson, as the friends and supporters
of the doctrine of the present Republican party on the subject of
protection. Mr. Jefferson, especially, announced, as among the
first and vital principles of his party, the protection of American
industries, the diversity of employment and the building up of
manufactures. Andrew Jackson repeatedly made the same declaration.
The platform upon which he was elected was "That an adequate
protection to American industry is indispensable to the prosperity
of this country; and that an abandonment of the policy at this
period would be attended with consequences ruinous to the best
interest of the nation."

I insisted that the object of protection--the employment of American
labor--was of more importance than the price of food or clothing,
though I believed, with Mr. Carlisle, that the tendency of a constant
falling of the prices of the necessaries of life would go on without
regard to the duties on imported goods, as the natural result of
invention and skill.

My speech of an hour or two was frequently interrupted, but it
contains the substance of opinions I have always entertained in
respect to protective duties. My object has always been to seek
to advance the interests of American workingmen in all kinds of
industries, whether mechani