t
of the constitution. The doctrine that the interests of the planter and
the manufacturer were irreconcilable, and that duties for the protection
of domestic industry operate to the injury of the Southern States, he
analyzed, illustrated, and showed to be fallacious, "striking directly
at the heart of the Union, and leading inevitably to its dissolution;" a
result to which more than one distinguished and influential statesman of
the South had affirmed that "his mind was made up." The doctrine that
the interest of the South is identified with the foreign competitor of
the Northern manufacturer, he denounced as in conflict with the whole
history of our Revolutionary War, and a satire on our institutions. If
it should prove true that these interests were so irreconcilable as to
cause a separation, as some Southern statesmen contended, after such
separation the same state of irreconcilable interests would continue,
and "with redoubled aggravation," resulting in an inextinguishable or
exterminating war between the brothers of this severed continent, which
nothing but a foreign umpire could settle or adjust, and this not
according to the interests of either of the parties, but his own. The
consequences of such a state of things he displayed with great power and
eloquence, and concluded with alluding "to that great, comprehensive,
but peculiar Southern interest, which is now protected by the laws of
the United States, but which, in case of severance of the Union, must
produce consequences from which a statesman of either portion of it
cannot but avert his eyes."

Contemporaneously with this report on manufactures, Mr. Adams, as one of
the committee to examine and report on the books and proceedings of the
Bank of the United States, submitted to the House of Representatives a
report, signed only by himself and Mr. Watmough, of Pennsylvania, in
which he declared his dissent from the report of the committee on that
subject. After examining their proceedings with minuteness and searching
severity, he asserted that they were without authority, and in flagrant
violation of the rights of the bank, and of the principles on which the
freedom of this people had been founded.

In February, 1832, Mr. Adams delivered a speech on the ratio of
representation--on the duty of making the constituent body small, and
the representatives numerous; contending that a large representation and
a small constituency was a truly republican principle, a