en man and man, would cover earth and sea with robberies and
piracies, merely because strong enough to do it with temporal impunity,
and that under this disbandment of nations from social order, we should
have been despoiled of a thousand ships, and have thousands of our
citizens reduced to Algerine slavery. Yet all this has taken place. The
British interdicted to our vessels all harbors of the globe, without
having first proceeded to some one of hers, there paid a tribute
proportioned to the cargo, and obtained her license to proceed to the
port of destination. The French declared them to be lawful prize if they
had touched at the port, or been visited by a ship of the enemy nation.
Thus were we completely excluded from the ocean. Compare this state
of things with that of '85, and say whether an opinion founded in
the circumstances of that day, can be fairly applied to those of the
present. We have experienced, what we did not then believe, that there
exist both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of
interchange with other nations. That to be independent for the comforts
of life, we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the
manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist. The former question
is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The grand inquiry now is,
Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a
foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture,
must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation,
or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens
and caverns. I am not one of these. Experience has taught me that
manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort;
and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with
me in purchasing nothing foreign, where an equivalent of domestic fabric
can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be
our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equal to our demand,
and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has so long
wantonly wielded it. If it shall be proposed to go beyond our own
supply, the question of '85 will then recur, Will our surplus labor be
then more beneficially employed, in the culture of the earth, or in the
fabrications of art? We have time yet for consideration, before that
question will press upon us; and the axiom to be applied will depend
on the circumstances which shall then