The

has been done to disseminate useful information. liberty of the press has indeed met with some occasional checks; but in Buenos Ayres alone, as many periodical works weekly issue from the press as in Spain and Portugal put together."

It is not therefore true, that the imputed ignorance exists; but, if it do, I repeat, I dispute the inference. It is the doctrine of thrones, that man is too ignorant to govern himself. Their partisans assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations; if they cannot command universal assent to the proposition, it is then demanded to particular nations; and our pride and our presumption too often make converts of us. I contend, that it is to arraign the dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that he has created beings incapable of governing themselves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self-government is the natural government of man, and for proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. Were I to speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to human liberty, my speculations should be founded rather upon the vices, refinements, or density of population. Crowded together in compact masses, even if they were philosophers, the contagion of the passions is communicated and caught, and the effect too often, I admit, is the overthrow of liberty. Dispersed over such an immense space as that on which the people of Spanish America are spread, their physical, and I believe also their moral condition, both favor their liberty.

With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God with us. Their prayers are offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer whose intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there anything in the Catholic religion unfavorable to freedom. All religions united with government are

more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty. If the people of Spanish America have not already gone as far in religious toleration as we have, the difference in their condition from ours should not be forgotten. Everything is progressive; and, in time, I hope to see them imitating in this respect our example. But grant that the people of Spanish America are ignorant and incompetent for free government, to whom is that ignorance to be ascribed? Is it not to the execrable system of Spain, which she seeks again to establish and to perpetuate? So far from chilling our hearts, it ought to increase our solicitude for our unfortunate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire the redemption of the minds and the bodies of unborn millions from the brutifying effects of a system whose tendency is to stifle the faculties of the soul and to degrade man to the level of beasts. I would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. Was it for yourselves only that you nobly fought? No, no! It was the chains that were forging for your posterity that made you fly to arms, and, scattering the elements of these chains to the winds, you transmitted to us the rich inheritance of liberty.

"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" AND THE HOME MARKET

DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, FEBRUARY 2, 1832-GIVEN BY BENTON AS AN UNABRIDGED REPORT

E

IGHT years ago it was my painful duty to present to

the House of Congress an unexaggerated picture of

the general distress pervading the whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We all know that the people were then oppressed and borne down

by an enormous load of debt; that the value of property was at the lowest point of depression; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were every where made of real estate; that stop laws and relief laws and paper money were adopted to save the people from impending destruction; that a deficit in the public revenue existed, which compelled the government to seize upon, and divert from its legitimate object, the appropriation to the sinking fund, to redeem the national debt; and that our commerce and navigation were threatened with a complete paralysis. In short, sir, if I were to select any term. of seven years since the adoption of the present Constitution, which exhibited a scene of the most widespread dismay and desolation, it would be exactly that term of seven years which immediately preceded the establishment of the tariff of 1824.

I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended, the arts flourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity, contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready though not extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gambolling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied; the rivers

of our interior animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steamboats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of seven years were to be selected of the greatest prosperity which this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present Constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.

This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity has been mainly the work of American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry. The foes of the American system, in 1824, with great boldness and confidence, predicted: First, The ruin of the public revenue, and the creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation.. The gentleman from South Carolina-Mr. Hayne—I believe, thought that the tariff of 1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight millions of dollars. Second, The destruction of our navigation. Third, The desolation of commercial cities. And fourth, The augmentation of the price of objects of consumption, and further decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every prediction which they made has failed-utterly failed. Instead of the ruin of the public revenue, with which they then sought to deter us from the adoption of the Ameri can system, we are now threatened with its subversion, by the vast amount of the public revenue produced by that system.

Every branch of our navigation has increased. As to the desolation of our cities, let us take, as an example, the condition of the largest and most commercial of all of them, the great northern capital. I have in my hands the assessed value of real estate in the city of New York, from 1817 to 1831. This value is canvassed, contested, scrutinized, and adjudged, by the proper sworn authorities. It is, therefore, entitled to full credence. During the first term, commencing with 1817, and ending in the year of the passage of the tariff of 1824, the amount of the value of real estate was, the first year, $57,799,435, and, after various fluctuations in the intermediate period, it settled down at $52,019,730, exhibiting a decrease, in seven years, of $5,779,705. During the year 1825, after the passage of the tariff, it rose, and, gradually ascending throughout the whole of the latter period of seven years, it finally, in 1831, reached the astonishing height of $95,716,485! Now, if it be said that this rapid growth of the city of New York was the effect of foreign commerce, then it was not correctly predicted, in 1824, that the tariff would destroy foreign commerce and desolate our commercial cities. If, on the contrary, it be the effect of internal trade, then internal trade cannot be justly chargeable with the evil consequences imputed to it. The truth is, it is the joint effect of both principles, the domestic industry nourishing the foreign trade, and the foreign commerce, in turn, nourishing the domestic industry. Nowhere more than in New York is the combination of both principles so completely developed. In the progress of my argument I will consider the effect upon the price of commodities produced by the American system, and show that the very reverse of the prediction of its foes, in 1824, has actually happened.