placing, then,
the navigation precisely on the same ground in the transportation of
exports and imports between the United States and other countries it was
presumed that all was offered which could be desired. It seemed to be
the only proposition which could be devised which would retain even the
semblance of equality in our favor.

Many considerations of great weight gave us a right to expect that this
commerce should be extended to the colonies as well as to the European
dominions of other powers. With the latter, especially with countries
exclusively manufacturing, the advantage was manifestly on their side.
An indemnity for that loss was expected from a trade with the colonies,
and with the greater reason as it was known that the supplies which the
colonies derived from us were of the highest importance to them, their
labor being bestowed with so much greater profit in the culture of other
articles; and because, likewise, the articles of which those supplies
consisted, forming so large a proportion of the exports of the United
States, were never admitted into any of the ports of Europe except in
cases of great emergency to avert a serious calamity. When no article
is admitted which is not required to supply the wants of the party
admitting it, and admitted then not in favor of any particular country
to the disadvantage of others, but on conditions equally applicable to
all, it seems just that the articles thus admitted and invited should be
carried thither in the vessels of the country affording such supply and
that the reciprocity should be found in a corresponding accommodation
on the other side. By allowing each party to participate in the
transportation of such supplies on the payment of equal tonnage a strong
proof was afforded of an accommodating spirit. To abandon to it the
transportation of the whole would be a sacrifice which ought not to
be expected. The demand in the present instance would be the more
unreasonable in consideration of the great inequality existing in
the trade with the parent country.

Such was the basis of our system as established by the act of 1815 and
such its true character. In the year in which this act was passed a
treaty was concluded with Great Britain, in strict conformity with
its principles, in regard to her European dominions. To her colonies,
however, in the West Indies and on this continent it was not extended,
the British Government claiming the exclusive supply of those