WHY I AM A WHIO. which were rushed through somehow by greatly benefited and enriched our own and noon or a little after. Can a party which other countries, I can no more doubt than I can thus fights Internal Improvement and skulks from responsibility, have any just claim to be distinguished as Democratic? ment. my own existence. I defy any of its adversaries to point out an instance wherein a branch of industry, required for the supply of our own 3. So with the question of Protection to legitimate wants, has been naturalized among Home Industry. I am tolerably acquainted us by means of Protection, where such transfer with all that has been urged on behalf of the has not decidedly conduced to the general wel policy known as Free Trade; but it has fare of our people. The reason of this is too never shaken my conviction that a tariff of plain to escape the discernment of any who duties, wisely adjusted so as to afford both with unprejudiced eyes will attempt to see. Revenue and Protection, is essential to the That our Cotton, Corn, Wheat, Beef, Pork, national growth and well-being. What do &c., come cheaper to their consumers in thi we mean by Protection? Simply the restric country than they would if we imported tion of importations of foreign manufactures them, is not more self-evident than that the to such an extent that their younger and less Cloths, Silks, Wares, Crockery, &c., which bardy American rivals may take root and we now import, would cost us less, if made flourish. How far do we propose to prosecute on our own soil than they do while imported this policy? Until our country's legitimate from Europe. For to make them, whether wants are supplied by her own labor, so far in Europe or America, requires substantially as Nature may have interposed no impedi- the same amount of labor, which, in either We never proposed nor intended to casc, must be paid for by our farmers, &c, naturalize here any branch of industry for with the fruits of their labor; but, so long as which Nature had indicated a different soil they are made in and imported from Europe. or climate than our own, such as the growing of another large amount of labor will be recoffee, or spices, or tropical fruits; but wher-quired from one class or both classes of proever Nature is as propitious to the production ducers, to pay the heavy cost of transportation on our own soil as any other, we maintain from producer to consumer, and to carry that self-interest, and the interest of Labor back our heavy staples, in which the pay universally, demand the encouragement and ment must mainly be made. It may easily fostering of Home Production, up to that point be, that the nominal or money price of our where such production shall be found to equal wares and fabrics shall be lower, while they the Home Consumption. In other words, we are mainly produced abroad, and yet their hold it the interest of Labor universally, that real cost be far higher. We say, the farmer producer and consumer should everywhere pays so many dollars for his Cloths, his Wares, be placed in as simple and direct relations as his Tea and Coffee; but practically he does possible, so as to relieve them from the neces- not pay money, but grain or meat, even though sity of paying transportation and three or he sell the latter for cash. and hands that over four profits upon the interchange of their for his goods. The vital question with him mutual products in different hemispheres, is, 'Under which policy can I buy what I when those products might with as little need, not for the least money, but for the labor have been produced in the same neigi- least aggregate of my own labor, as applied borhood. We contend that in this great to the improving and tilling of my land?` and work of bringing consumer and producer this question the money-test does not connearer each other, and thus diminishing the clusively answer. Suppose an Illinois or rost of a factitious commerce, Government Wisconsin farmer could supply his annual has an important and beneficent function as-needs of Cloths, Wares, and Groceries, for signed it, which it can not abjure without eighty dollars while we buy them mainly gross direliction and serious detriment to the abroad, while it would cost him one hundred public weal. to buy them if produced (under stringent Now that Protection, wisely directed, has Protection) at home-what then? Then ho WHIG ALMANAC, 1852. saves twenty dollars by sticking to Free ninety instead of forty or fifty per cent. of Trade,' says an advocate of that policy what the consumer of his products pays for Ah no, sir! You have answered quite too them, and is enabled advantageously to grow hastily. For the change from Free Trade to many articles which, with our workshops Protection inevitably brings markets for his in Europe. must have rotted on his hands, own products nearer and nearer to his farm. had he grown them. Every dollar thus increasing their cash value, and extending saved in the expense of needless transportahis range of profitable production. With Free tion, by drawing the manufacturers nearer Trade and our workshons in Europe,' he and nearer to the side of the farmer, is a new had no choice but to grow wheat and cattle stimulus to production; and the hundred acres for exportation, and to take such prices for which gave scanty employment as herdsmen them as the competition of all the world in and wheat growers to two or three hands, the open markets of Great Britain would afford ample employment for a dozen to allow, less the cost of transportation from his twenty, when, by reason of the neighborhood farm to Liverpool; but let Protection supplant of manufactories, wheat and grass have been Free Trade, and now he begins to feel the in great part supplanted by gardens, fruit, stimulus of near and nearer markets urging and vegetables. There is no more mystery him to produce other articles far more profit- in the increase of Production and Prosperity able than wheat growing for the English under a judiciously-directed Protective Policy, market. Should a manufactory of any kind than in the fact that a team immediately bebe established within a few miles of him, he fore a wagon will draw a heavier load than finds there a market for Wood, Vegetables, it would if fastened forty rods ahead of the Poultry, Veal, Fresh Butter, Hay, &c., &c., at load. Protection diverts Labor from .nonprices much better than he could have ob- productive to productive employments—that tained while we were buying our goods in is the whole story. By diversifying industry, Europe; his labor produces more annual it calls into active exercise a wider range of value; his farm is worth more than it was or capacities, and develops powers which would could be while we were dependent on Europe otherwise have lain dormant and unsuspected. for a market. Many things are now turned Thousands who, in a community wholly agrioff from his farm at good prices. which had cultural or wholly manufacturing, would find no money value while an ocean rolled between nothing to do, are satisfactorily employed him and his market; he becomes thrifty, and and remunerated where diverse pursuits are buy's more, far more, than formerly, because being prosecuted all around them. Protection he is able to buy far more. Instead of one or and Internal Improvement work from op two hundred dollars' worth of Wheat or posite directions to one common end-namely, Pork to sell at one particular season, he is the diminution of expense in the transportaturning off a hundred dollars worth of Milk. tion from producer to consumer. Protection Fruit, Timber, Vegetables, &c., each month, aims to bring the consumer, wherever this may keeping out of debt at the store and else- be practicable, to the side of the producer; where, and laying up money. He improves Internal Improvement essays, where that is his buildings, and thus gives a job to his not practicable, to bring the product from the neighbor, the carpenter; he fills up his house latter to the former at the least possible cost. with furniture, to the satisfaction of his neigh- Now there was a time when. out of the bor, the cabinet-maker; he sends his children narrow circle of Importing influence, these to a seminary, and thus increases the income truths were admitted and acted upon by the of the teacher. On every side, the farmer's whole American People—at least, throughprosperity overflows, and conduces to the out the Free States. Nobody pretended that prosperity of his townsmen. And the basis Protection was anti-Democratic fifty, forty. of all this is the fact that, by a benignant policy, thirty, or even twenty-five years ago. On adequate markets have been brought nearer the contrary. Pennsylvania and Kentucky, his doors, whereby he receives eighty or then ranked among the most 'Democratic' WHY I AM A WHIG States, were the earliest and most decided like tendency, which the European Democ champions of Protection, throughout the ear racy stands ready to realize whenever it shall lier decades of the struggle. Gen. Jackson, have the power. Its policy is constructive, when a candidate for President, and even after creative, and beneficent, while that of our he had been transformed from a Federal' self-styled 'Democracy' is repulsive, chilling, into the Democratic' candidate, was vaunted nugatory,—a bundle of negations, restricby his friends a sturdy Protectionist. His tions, and abjurations. Can there be a letter to Dr. Coleman, of North Carolina, was rational doubt as to which of these is the repeatedly published to sustain the claim. true Democracy? Who does not see that The Tariff of 1828 (the highest and most the fundamental ideas of our party Democracy Protective we have ever had) was framed by are as radically hostile to Common Schools, a Jackson Committee, passed by a Jackson and to tax-sustained Common Roads, as to a Congress, and boasted of as a Jackson Protective. Tariff, a National Bank, or to the measure. Party exigencies, and the supposed National Improvement of our Rivers and necessity of retaining the good-will of the Harbors, if it dare but follow where its Cotton-growing interest, have since veered principles lead? the Party' completely off the Protective 5. There is another point on which I must track, but it is none the less essentially Dem- speak frankly; and I ask you not to take ocratic on that account. Men are mutable, offense at, but earnestly ponder it. You and I prefer the society and counsel of those who walk, so far as we may judge, in the ways of Virtue, to that of the reckless, ostentatious servitors of Vice. You, I am confident, will not stigmatize this preference as but Principles are eternal. Protection is just as Democratic to-day, as if it had been endorsed and commended by five regiments of ravenous office seekers, styling themselves Democratic National Conventions. 4. There underlies the practical politics of Aristocratic, nor seek to confound Poverty our time and country a radical diversity of with Vice, in the paltry hope of making sentiment respecting the appropriate sphere capital out of the natural indigration of the of Government. On the one hand, Repub-former. The great city of my residence is, lican Government is regarded as the natural perhaps, a fair sample politically of the whole friend and servant of the People, whose country-its parties almost equal in numbers, proper function it is to lighten their burdens, and each composed of rich and poor, native and to increase their facilities of intercourse or in- foreign-born, informed and ignorant. Doubt telligence, and to contribute in all practicable less, the great mass, of whatever party, sinways to their progress, confort, and happi-cerely desire the public welfare; doubtless, ness. On the other, Government is regarded rogues and libertines are to be found in the with jealousy and distrust, as an enemy to be ranks of each of the great parties. But point watched, an evil to be restricted within the wherever you please to an election district narrowest limits. The mottoes of this latter which you will pronounce morally rottenschool are significant: The world is governed given up in great part to debauchery and vice too much, The best Government is that -whose voters subsist mainly by keeping which governs least,'-'Laissez faire' ('Let us policy-offices, gambling houses, grog-shops. alone'), &c., &c. Now these maxims seem to and darker dens of infamy,-and that district me unwisely transferred from Governments will be found at nearly or quite every elecdirected by despots to Governments controlled tion giving a large majority for that which by and existing for the People. They are styles itself the Democratic party. Thus, nowhere recognized by the Democracy of the Five Points' is the most Democratic' Europe, which plainly contemplates the insti- district of our City; The Hook' follows not tation of Governments more pervasive and very far behind it, and so on. Take all the efficient than the world has yet known. Free haunts of debauchery in the land, and you Education, Insurance by the State, the Right will find nine-tenths of their master-spirits to Labor, these are but a part of the ideas of active partisans of that same Democracy' WHIG ALMANAC, 1852. What is the instinct, the sympathetic chord, PUBLIC DEBTS AND STANDING ARwhich attaches them so uniformly to this party? Will you consider? MIES OF EUROPE. States. Debts. Army. Vesla, Guna Great Britain....$5,000,000,000 129,000 678 18,000 Spain.. 1,300,000,000 160,000 50 721 Austria. 1,000,000,000 300,000 156 6,CO Russia and Poland.733,000,000 200,000 175* 7.000 The Netherlands...781,000,000 50,000 125 2,500 Saxony Turkey. .100,000,000 48,000 .82,000.000 57,000 .80,000,000 20,000 Greece... .30.360,000 ....28,000,000 .25.000.000 ..10.000.000 City of Frankfort.....7,000,oco -Democracy is, I know full well, a word of power. I know that it has a charm for the hopeful, the generous, the lowly, and the aspiring, as well as for many darker spirits. know that he who aspires to influence. office, and honors, rather than to usefulness and an approving conscience, will naturally be led to Sardinia.. enlist under its banner, often drugging his moral Naples Bavaria.. sense with the sophistry that he who would Denn:ark.. do good must put himself in a position where the power to do good will most probably attach to him. But I know also that names must lose their potency as intelligence shall Wurtemburg.. be diffused more and more widely. I know Mech'bg Schwerin.. 10,000,000 that to be truly Democratic is of more im-Tuscany portance than to win and wear the advan-Duchy of Brunswick 6.800.000 tages connected with the name. Of that Democracy which labors to protect the feeble and uplift the fallen I will endeavor not to be wholly destitute, while of that which claims a monopoly of office and honors as the due reward of its devotion to equality, I am content to be adjudged lacking. Of that Democracy which robs the effeminate Mexican of half his Anhalt-Bernburg.....1.500,000 broad domains, and regards with a covetous eye the last of declining Spain's valuable possessions-which plants its heel on the neck of the abject and powerless negro, and hurls its axe after the flying form of the plundered, homeless, and desolate Indian-may it be written on my grave that I never was a fol. lower, and lived and died in nothing its debtor! Hesse Darmstadt.....6,200,000 City of Lubec........6,000,000 ..4,000,000 .2,000,000 .1,500,000 Hesse Homburg........860,000 Sweden..............no debt Mecklenburg Strelitz. " 66 Princip. of Reuss.... "Waldeck... - My friend, I think you now understand what are my political convictions, and why yours, New York, Üssaber: 186, 1851. HORACE GREELEY. "Lichtenstein... 25.000 220,000 66 800 66 46 745 430 Switzerland... 69,500 no urmy. The total public debt of Europe amounts to $11,897 096,000, of which Great Britain, without her colonies, owes nearly one half. The paper-money in actual circulation in Europe represents a value of $1,261,428,520. The above figures represent the military forces of the several countries in time of peace; but many of them are now on the war-footing, and cousequently much larger than here represented. The Austrian force in actual service is probably nearer 500,000 than 300,000. That of France is also much larger than the table represents it. ment or war vessels. Of these Great Britain has about two-fifths in number, and nearly one haif in The vessels referred to are of course govern force. Of the standing armies of Europe that of Russia is nearly or quite one-third in numerical force. * Also 440 gun-boats. † Annual tribute to Turkey. UNITED STATES LAWS FOR 1851. TITLES AND ABSTRACTS OF THE PUBLIC LAWS, Passed at the 2d Session of the XXXIst Congress. An Act to grant the Right of Preemption to cer- parties to the contest being present. The person tain Purchasers and Settlers on the "Maison Rouge before whom evidence may be taken has power Grant," in the event of the final Adjudication of the to require the production of papers pertaining Title in favor of the United States. This act to the contest, and is required to transmit the authorizes certain purchasera under the Maison evidence taken to the Clerk of the House of Rep Rouge Grant, or their legal representatives, in resentatives. Rules of testimony are prescribed, case of the confirmation of the title of the United and heavy penalties attached to the wilful neglect States to the track, to enter the land so purchased, of witnesses to attend and testify. prior to the 1st of March, 1849, giving the claimants twelve months, after due notice, to enter and pay for the land at the minimum price of the Government lands. To Scule and Adjust the Expenses of the People of Oregon, in defending themselves against the Cayuse Indians, in 1847-8.-Appropriates one hundred thousand dollare, to carry the act into effect. An Act to supply Deficiencies in the Appropria For the Payment of Pensions Total Deficiencies... $670,144 349,828 1,238,709 496,964 $2,755,645 Making Appropriations for the Payment of Revolutionary and other Pensions of the United States, for the year ending June 30, 1852-Appropriates $2,151,900, for carrying the act into effect. To Create Additional Collection Districts in Oregon, and for other Purposes-Creates three Collection Districts in the Territory of Oregon, with a port of entry to each, viz.: Umpqua, embracing the territory lying between 421 and 44th degrees of North latitude, with Scottsville for the port of entry and delivery: the District of Oregon, embracing that portion of the territory lying between 44th and 46th degrees of North latitude, the Indian Department, and for fulfilling Treaty Making Appropriations for the Expenses of! on the east side of the coast range of mountains, Stipulations with the various Tribes, for the year and extending to the 48th degree of North luti-ending June 30, 1852-This Act provides for the tude on the west side of said mountains, with following Appropriations, viz. : Astoria for the port of entry: and the District of Puget's Sound, extending north from the District of Oregon to the British Possessions, with Olym pia as a port of entry and delivery. Nasqually and Portland are continued as ports of delivery, with Surveyors to reside thereat. To amend an Act entitled 'An Act to establish the Territorial Government of Oregon, and An Act to establish the Territorial Government of Minnesota-Authorizes the Legislative Assemblies of Oregon and Minnesota to employ a clerk for each branch thereof. Pay of Superintendents, Agents, &c... $121,500 Other tribes, &c., &c.. 70.800 89,840 85,180 73.680 363,545 Total Indian Appropriations.. $804,545 An Act to reduce and modify the Rates of Postage in the United States, and for other Purposes. To authorize the Legislative Assemblies of Oregon and Minnesota to take charge of the School atives of the United States of America in Congress Be it enacted by the Senate and House of RepresentLands in said Territories and for other purposes assembled, That from and after the thirtieth day of Appropriates two townships of land in Minnesota June, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, in lieu of the for the support of a University in that Territory. rates of postage now established by law, there To prescribe the Mode of Obtaining Evidence in shall be charged the following rates, to wit:-For cases of Contested Elections-Provides that any every single letter in munuscript, or paper of muy person intending to contest any Election for Mem-kind, upon which information shall be asked for, or communicated, in writing, or by marks or signs, ber of the House of Representatives shall give no-conveyed in the mail for any distance between tice to his opponent of euch intention within thirty places within the United States, not exceeding days after the election is declared, and that the three thousand miles, when the postage upon such member on whom such notice may be served shall answer within thirty days thereafter. admitting or denying the facts alleged, and stating specifically any other grounds upon which he rests the validity of his election, and shall serve a copy of his answer upon the contestant. Testimony may be taken before any Judge. Justice, Mayor, or Recorder, in the Congressional District, both letter shall have been prepaid, three cents, and five cents when the postage thereon shall not have been prepaid; and for any distance exceeding three thousand miles, double those rates. For every such single letter or paper when conveyed wholly or in part by sea. and to or from a foreign country, for any distance over twenty-five hundred miles, twenty cents, and for any distance under twentyfive hundred miles ten cents, (excepting, however, |