the
interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could
never profitably reach the foreign market. But let us quit this field
of theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical operation of the
system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our
agriculture.

In considering this staple, the first circumstance that excites our
surprise is the rapidity with which the amount of it has annually
increased. Does not this fact, however, demonstrate that the cultivation
of it could not have been so very unprofitable? If the business were
ruinous, would more and more have annually engaged in it? The quantity
in 1816 was eighty-one millions of pounds; in 1826, two hundred and
four millions; and in 1830, near three hundred millions! The ground of
greatest surprise is that it has been able to sustain even its present
price with such an enormous augmentation of quantity. It could not have
been done but for the combined operation of three causes, by which the
consumption of cotton fabrics has been greatly extended in consequence
of their reduced prices: first, competition; second, the improvement of
labor-saving machinery; and thirdly, the low price of the raw material.
The crop of 1819, amounting to eighty-eight millions of pounds, produced
twenty-one millions of dollars; the crop of 1823, when the amount was
swelled to one hundred and seventy-four millions (almost double of that
of 1819), produced a less sum by more than half a million of dollars;
and the crop of 1824, amounting to thirty millions of pounds less than
that of the preceding year, produced a million and a half of dollars
more.

If there be any foundation for the established law of price, supply,
and demand, ought not the fact of this great increase of the supply to
account satisfactorily for the alleged low price of cotton? * * *

Let us suppose that the home demand for cotton, which has been created
by the American system, should cease, and that the two hundred thousand
bales which the home market now absorbs were now thrown into the glutted
markets of foreign countries; would not the effect inevitably be to
produce a further and great reduction in the price of the article?
If there be any truth in the facts and principles which I have before
stated and endeavored to illustrate, it cannot be doubted that the
existence of American manufactures has tended to increase the demand
and extend the consumption of the raw material; and th