by what is out of it. The overtures which passed between the parties respectively, prior to the conclusion of the treaty, can neither restrict nor enlarge its meaning. Moreover, when Mr. Madison occupied, in 1811, the country between the Mississippi and the Perdido, he declared, that in our hands it should be, as it has been, subject to negotiation.

It results, then, that we have given for Florida, charged and incumbered as it is,

First, unincumbered Texas;

Secondly, five millions of dollars;

Thirdly, a surrender of all our claims upon Spain, not included in that five millions; and,

Fourthly, if the interpretation of the treaty which he had stated were well founded, about a million of acres of the best unseated land in the state of Louisiana, worth perhaps ten millions of dollars.

The first proposition contained in the second resolution, was thus, he thought, fully sustained. The next was, that it was inexpedient to cede Texas to any foreign power. They constituted, in his opinion, a sacred inheritance of posterity, which we ought to preserve unimpaired. He wished it was, if it were not, a fundamental and inviolable law of the land, that they should be inalienable to any foreign power. It was quite evident, that it was in the order of providence; that it was an inevitable result of the principle of population, that the whole of this continent, including Texas, was to be peopled in process of time. The question was, by whose race shall it be peopled? In our hands it will be peopled by freemen, and the sons of freemen, carrying with them our language, our laws, and our liberties; establishing, on the prairies of Texas, temples dedicated to the simple, and devout modes of worship of God, incident to our religion, and temples dedicated to that freedom which we adore next to Him. In the hands of others, it may become the habitation of despotism and of slaves, subject to the vile dominion of the inquisition and of superstition. He knew that there were honest and enlightened men, who feared that our confederacy was already too large, and that there was danger of disruption, arising out of the want of reciprocal coherence between its several parts. He hoped and believed, that the principle of representation, and the formation of states, would preserve us a united people. But if Texas, after being peopled by us, and grappling with us, should, at some distant day, break off, she will carry along with her a noble crew, consisting of our children's children. The difference between those who might be disinclined to its annexation to our confederacy, and him, was, that their system began where his might, possibly, in some distant future day, terminate; and their's began with a foreign race, aliens to every thing that we hold dear, and his ended with a race partaking of all our qualities.

The last proposition which the second resolution affirms, is, that it is inexpedient to renew the treaty. If Spain had promptly ratified it, bad as it is, he would have acquiesced in it. After the protracted negotiation which it terminated; after the irritating and exasperating correspondence which preceded it, he would have taken the treaty as a man who has passed a long and restless night, turning and tossing in his bed, snatches at day an hour's disturbed repose. But she would not ratify it; she would not consent to be bound by it; and she has liberated us from it. Is it wise to renew the negotiation, if it is to be recommenced, by announcing to her at once our ultimatum? Shall we not give her the vantage ground? In early life he had sometimes indulged in a species of amusement, which years and experience had determined him to renounce, which, if the committee would allow him to use it, furnished him with a figure shall we enter on the game, with our hand exposed to the adversary, whilst he shuffles the cards to acquire more strength? What has lost us his ratification of the treaty? Incontestably, our importunity to procure the ratification, and the hopes which that importunity inspired, that he could yet obtain more from us. Let us undeceive him. Let us proclaim the acknowledged truth, that the treaty is prejudicial to the interests of this country. Are we not told, by the secretary of state, in the bold and confident assertion, that don Onis was authorized to grant us much more, and that Spain dare not deny his instructions? The line of demarcation is far within his limits? If she would have then granted us more, is her position now more favorable to her in the negotiation? In our relations to foreign powers, it may be sometimes politic to sacrifice a portion of our rights to secure the residue. But is Spain such a power, as that it becomes us to sacrifice those rights? Is she entitled to it by her justice, by her observance of good faith, or by her possible annoyance of us in the event of war? She will seek, as she has sought, procrastination in the negotiation, taking the treaty as the basis. She will dare to offend us, as she has insulted us, by asking the disgraceful stipulation, that we shall not recognise the patriots. Let us put aside the treaty; tell her to grant us our rights, to their uttermost extent. And if she still palters, let us assert those rights by whatever measures it is for the interest of our country to adopt.

If the treaty were abandoned; if we were not on the contrary signified, too distinctly, that there was to be a continued and unremitting endeavor to obtain its revival; he would not think it advisable for this house to interpose. But, with all the information in our possession, and holding the opinions which he entertained, he thought it the bounden duty of the house to adopt the resolu tions. He had acquitted himself of what he deemed a solemu duty, in bringing up the subject. Others would discharge their's, according to their own sense of them.

ON THE PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 26, 1820.

[ON the twenty-second of March, Mr. Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, from the committee on manufactures. reported a tariff bill, embracing provisions of great importance, particularly as a measure of protection to home industry, and the same being under consideration in committee of the whole, Mr. Clay (speaker) renewed his efforts in support of the American system, in the following speech. The bill passed the house by a vote of ninety to sixty-nine, but was postponed in the senate twenty-two to twenty-one.]

MR. CHAIRMAN,

Whatever may be the value of my opinions on the interesting subject now before us, they have not been hastily formed. It may possibly be recollected by some gentlemen, that I expressed them when the existing tariff was adopted; and that I then urged, that the period of the termination of the war, during which the manufacturing industry of the country had received a powerful spring, was precisely that period when government was alike impelled, by duty and interest, to protect it against the free admission of foreign fabrics, consequent upon a state of peace. I insisted, on that occasion, that a less measure of protection would prove more efficacious, at that time, than one of greater extent at a future day. My wishes prevailed only in part; and we are now called upon to decide whether we will correct the error which, I think, we then committed.

In considering the subject, the first important inquiry that we should make is, whether it be desirable that such a portion of the capital and labor of the country should be employed in the business of manufacturing, as would furnish a supply of our necessary wants? Since the first colonization of America, the principal direction of the labor and capital of the inhabitants, has been to produce raw materials for the consumption or fabrication of foreign nations. We have always had, in great abundance, the means of subsistence, but we have derived chiefly from other countries our clothes, and the instruments of defence. Except during those interruptions of commerce arising from a state of war, or from measures adopted for vindicating our commercial rights, we have

experienced no very great inconvenience heretofore from this mode of supply. The limited amount of our surplus produce, resulting from the smallness of our numbers, and the long and arduous convulsions of Europe, secured us good markets for that surplus in her ports, or those of her colonies. But those convulsions have now ceased, and our population has reached nearly ten millions. A new epoch has arisen; and it becomes us deliberately to contemplate our own actual condition, and the relations which are likely to exist between us and the other parts of the world. The actual state of our population, and the ratio of its progressive increase, when compared with the ratio of the increase of the population of the countries which have hitherto consumed our raw produce, seem, to me, alone to demonstrate the necessity of diverting some portion of our industry from its accustomed channel. We double our population in about the term of twenty-five years. there be no change in the mode of exerting our industry, we shall double, during the same term, the amount of our exportable produce. Europe, including such of her colonies as we have free access to, taken altogether, does not duplicate her population in a shorter term, probably, than one hundred years. The ratio of the increase of her capacity of consumption, therefore, is, to that of our capacity of production, as one is to four. And it is manifest, from the simple exhibition of the powers of the consuming countries, compared with those of the supplying country, that the former are inadequate to the latter. It is certainly true, that a portion of the mass of our raw produce, which we transmit to her, reverts to us in a fabricated form, and that this return augments with our increasing population. This is, however, a very inconsiderable addition to her actual ability to afford a market for the produce of our industry.

I believe that we are already beginning to experience the want of capacity in Europe to consume our surplus produce. Take the articles of cotton, tobacco, and bread-stuffs. For the latter we have scarcely any foreign demand. And is there not reason to believe, that we have reached, if we have not passed, the maximum of the foreign demand for the other two articles? Considerations connected with the cheapness of cotton, as a raw material, and the facility with which it can be fabricated, will probably make it to be more and more used as a substitute for other materials. But, after you allow to the demand for it the utmost extension of which it is susceptible, it is yet quite limited-limited by the number of persons who use it, by their wants and their ability to supply them. If we have not reached, therefore, the maximum of the foreign demand, (as I believe we have,) we must soon fully satisfy it. With respect to tobacco, that article affording an enjoyment not necessary, as food and clothes are, to human existence, the foreign demand for it is still more precarious, and I apprehend that we have already

passed its limits. It appears to me, then, that, if we consult our interest merely, we ought to encourage home manufactures. But there are other motives to recommend it, of not less importance. The wants of man may be classed under three heads; food, raiment, and defence. They are felt alike in the state of barbarism and of civilization. He must be defended against the ferocious beasts of prey in the one condition, and against the ambition, violence, and injustice, incident to the other. If he seeks to obtain a supply of those wants without giving an equivalent, he is a beggar or a robber; if by promising an equivalent which he cannot give, he is fraudulent; and if by commerce, in which there is perfect freedom on his side, whilst he meets with nothing but restrictions on the other, he submits to an unjust and degrading inequality. What is true of individuals is equally so of nations. The country, then, which relies upon foreign nations for either of those great essentials, is not, in fact, independent. Nor is it any consolation for our dependence upon other nations, that they are also dependent upon us, even were it true. Every nation should anxiously endeavor to establish its absolute independence, and consequently be able to feed, and clothe, and defend itself. If it rely upon a foreign supply, that may be cut off by the caprice of the nation yielding it, by war with it, or even by war with other nations, it cannot be independent. But it is not true, that any other nations depend upon us in a degree any thing like equal to that of our dependence upon them for the great necessaries to which I have referred. Every other nation seeks to supply itself with them from its own resources; and, so strong is the desire which they feel to accomplish this purpose, that they exclude the cheaper foreign article, for the dearer home production. Witness the English policy in regard to corn. So selfish, in this respect, is the conduct of other powers, that, in some instances, they even prohibit the produce of the industry of their own colonies, when it comes into competition with the produce of the parent country. All other countries but our own, exclude by high duties, or absolute prohibitions, whatever they can respectively produce within themselves. The truth is, and it is in vain to disguise it, that we are a sort of independent colonies of England -politically free, commercially slaves. Gentlemen tell us of the advantages of a free exchange of the produce of the world. they tell us of what has never existed, does not exist, and perhaps never will exist. They invoke us to give perfect freedom on our side, whilst, in the ports of every other nation, we are met with a code of odious restrictions, shutting out entirely a great part of our produce, and letting in only so much as they cannot possibly do without. I will hereafter examine their favorite maxim, of leaving things to themselves, more particularly. At present, I will only say that I too am a friend to free trade, but it inust be a free trade of perfect reciprocity. If the governing consideration were cheapness;

But