st it be with our national institutions, and national
character itself."

I feel most sensibly, Mr. President, how much I have trespassed upon the
Senate. My apology is a deep and deliberate conviction, that the great
cause under debate involves the prosperity and the destiny of the Union.
But the best requital I can make, for the friendly indulgence which has
been extended to me by the Senate, and for which I shall ever retain
sentiments of lasting gratitude, is to proceed with as little delay as
practicable, to the conclusion of a discourse which has not been more
tedious to the Senate than exhausting to me. I have now to consider the
remaining of the two propositions which I have already announced. That
is

Second, that under the operation of the American system, the products of
our agriculture command a higher price than they would do without it,
by the creation of a home market, and by the augmentation of wealth
produced by manufacturing industry, which enlarges our powers of
consumption both of domestic and foreign articles. The importance of
the home market is among the established maxims which are universally
recognized by all writers and all men. However some may differ as to the
relative advantages of the foreign and the home market, none deny to the
latter great value and high consideration. It is nearer to us;
beyond the control of foreign legislation; and undisturbed by those
vicissitudes to which all inter-national intercourse is more or less
exposed. The most stupid are sensible of the benefit of a residence
in the vicinity of a large manufactory, or of a market-town, of a good
road, or of a navigable stream, which connects their farms with some
great capital. If the pursuits of all men were perfectly the same,
although they would be in possession of the greatest abundance of the
particular products of their industry, they might, at the same time, be
in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence. The
uniformity of the general occupation would preclude all exchange, all
commerce. It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members
of a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges
which conduce to the general prosperity. And the greater that diversity,
the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange.
Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of
our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of