a discriminating tonnage duty on ships of nations having no treaty of commerce with Congress, it became a law with general acclamation.

Pennsylvania had been cheered on its way by voices from Boston. On the 18th of April the merchants and tradesmen of that town, meeting in Faneuil Hall, established a committee of correspondence with merchants of other towns, bound themselves not to buy British goods of resident British factors, and prayed Congress for the needed immediate relief. Their petition was reserved by Congress for consideration when the report of its Committee on Commerce should be taken up. The movement in Boston penetrated to every class of its citizens; its artificers and mechanics joined the merchants and tradesmen in condemning the ruinous excess of British importations. To these proceedings Grayson directed the attention of Madison.

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* Two years before, Boston, in its mandate to the men of its choice, had, in extreme language, vindicated the absolute sovereignty of the State; the town, no longer wedded to the pride of independence, instructed its representatives in this wise: Peace has not brought back prosperity, foreigners monopolize our commerce; the American carrying trade and the American finances are threatened with annihilation; the government should encourage agriculture, protect manufactures, and establish a public revenue; the Confederacy is inadequate to its purposes; Congress should be invested with power competent to the wants of the country; the Legislature of Massachusetts should request the Executive to open a correspondence with the governors of all the States; from national unanimity and national exertion we have derived our freedom; the joint action of the several parts of the Union can alone restore happiness and security.

The preamble to the Pennsylvania tariff, above mentioned, is remarkable for its detailed declaration of reasons for the passage of the act, and is in these words:

SECTION 1. Whereas divers useful and beneficial arts and manufactures have been gradually introduced into Pennsylvania, and the same have at length risen to a very considerable extent and perfection, insomuch that during the late war between the

United States of America and Great Britain, when the importation of European goods was much interrupted, and often very difficult and uncertain, the artisans and mechanics of this State were able to supply, in the hours of need, not only large quantities of weapons and other implements, but also ammunition and clothing, without which the war could not have been carried on, whereby their oppressed country was greatly benefited and relieved.

SEC. 2. And whereas, although the fabrics and manufactures of Europe and other foreign parts, imported into this country in times of peace, may be afforded at cheaper rates than they can be made here, yet good policy and a regard to the well-being of divers useful and industrious citizens, who are employed in the making of like goods in this State, demand of us that moderate duties be laid on certain fabrics and manufactures imported, which do most interfere with, and which (if no relief be given) will under nine and destroy the useful manufactures of the like kind in this country: For this purpose, etc.

This clear and deep insight into the vital connection between duties on imports and the growth of prosperous manufactures, in which the sagacity of Pennsylvania preceded all her sister States, is sufficient of itself to account for the steadfast fidelity of her people, no matter what their partisan affiliations, to the American system of protection to home industry; and also to account for the fact that she is always found "at the front" in repelling assaults upon that system. William Penn, her founder, was assiduous in cultivating ideas of the importance of industrious habits among the early settlers; and Benjamin Franklin, his successor in public esteem and influence, was equally zealous in disseminating the same views, until idleness, or whatever led to idleness, became in a peculiar degree an object of aversion. This training, at the outset of the life of the Commonwealth, and in its youthful years, no doubt gave that bent to the minds of the community which was

felt in framing the Pennsylvania tariff of 1785, and which has been felt in a similar way ever since, keeping her in the van of States on the tariff question.

In those days, however, which tried men's souls, the other States, enlightened by experience to understand the true cause of dissatisfaction and distress all over the land, were beginning to concede that the Pennsylvania idea, applied uniformly to the entire country, was the only remedy which could bring full and permanent relief. Turn where the people would, they perceived one universal sense of present or impending ruin, depressing the energies and darkening the prospects of the citizen; and they could trace it all primarily to the destructive influences of unrestricted foreign trade. It was with this knowledge impressed upon his memory that Fisher Ames said in the House of Representatives, in 1789, when debating the first tariff bill:

I conceive, sir, that the present Constitution was dictated by commercial necessity, more than any other cause. The want of an efficient government to secure the manufacturing interest, and to advance our commerce, was long seen by men of judgment, and pointed out by patriots solicitous to promote our general welfare.

Daniel Webster was brought to the same conclusion by his researches among the records of our history. This giant in intellect, whose deliberate utterances on constitutional questions carried, in his day, almost the force of judicial decisions by the highest court, said, in his remarks to the citizens of Buffalo, June, 1833:

The protection of American labor against the injurious competition of foreign labor, so far, at least, as respects general handicraft productions, is known historically to have been one end designed to be obtained by establishing the Constitution.

But he gave forth his views with more emphasis,

directness, and detail, in his speech at the Albany massmeeting, August 27, 1844. Then he said:

The term [regulation of commerce] was well understood in our colonial history, and if we go back to the history of the Constitution, and of the Convention which adopted it, we shall find that everywhere, when masses of men were assembled, and the wants of the people were brought forth into prominence, the idea was held up, that domestic industry could not prosper, manufactures and the mechanic arts could not advance, the condition of the common country could not be carried up to any considerable elevation, unless there should be one government, to lay one rate of duty upon imports throughout the Union, from New Hampshire to Georgia; regard to be had, in laying this duty, to the protection of American labor and industry. I defy the man in any degree conversant with history, in any degree acquainted with the annals of this country from 1787 to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, to say that this was not a leading, I may almost say, the leading motive, South as well as North, for the formation of the new government. Without that provision in the Constitution, it never could have been adopted.

Rufus Choate, another acknowledged master of constitutional interpretation, took exactly the same view in his speech in the United States Senate, March 14, 1842, on "the power and duty of Congress to continue the policy of protecting American labor." He said:

A whole people, a whole generation of our fathers, had in view, as one grand end and purpose of their new government, the acquisition of the means of restraining, by governmental action, the importation of foreign manufactures, for the encouragement of manufactures and of labor at home, and desired and meant to do this by clothing the new government with this specific power of regulating commerce.

Even from England comes a confirmation of the same general view. In his "Addresses " (Vol. I., page 83), Edward Everett says:

It has been, within a few years, stated by Mr. Huskisson, and with truth, that the real causes of the Revolution are to be found, not in the irritating measures that followed Mr. Grenville's plan of taxation, but in the long-cherished discontent of the colonies at this system of legislative oppression. Accordingly the first measures of the patriots aimed to establish their independence on the basis of the productive industry and the laborious arts of the country.

With such an intention guiding the attempt of the colonies to throw off the yoke of the mother country, what momentum and force that intention must have acquired when, after the war, it was learned, in the school of impoverishment and suffering, that political independence was not in itself any defense against the aggressions of Great Britain upon the manufacturing industries of the United States. Industrial independence, the necessary support of political independence and national unity, was then seen to be attainable only by enlarging and strengthening the powers of the general government, and especially by conferring upon Congress the supreme authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations. This desire to secure industrial independence was the most determinate, impelling, decisive of all the motives for the formation of " a more perfect Union," endowed with ample capacity to encourage and protect home manufactures. The historical records are explicit, numerous, positive, and marvelously concurrent on this point, leaving no room for honest doubt, and furnishing proof not to be exceeded in convincing force even by a demonstration in mathematics. No man can lay his finger upon an atom of evidence to the contrary. All the prominent and influential events, as well as those of a subordinate and auxiliary character, which either preceded or ac