Daily National Intelligencer

COMMUNICATIONS.

FOR THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER:

To the author of an address to "The President and Members of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society," signed "A Philadelphian," and published in the National Intelligencer, of the 22d of last month.

Sir: Your late address was sent to me a few days ago, by a friend, and as some reply seems due, both to your professions and your arguments, I shall endeavor to make one, as fully as the limits of a letter will allow.

That you are a Republican, sir, I shall neither deny nor doubt; for, not having the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I am destitute of the only true test—a knowledge of your general conduct—by which to ascertain the fact. Republicanism is a term of such infinite flexibility and virtue, as to comprehend a vast multitude of claimants, who differ as widely in their respective tenets as truth differs from error.

Like the Abracadabra charm for the ague, but of far superior efficacy, it can remedy any disease of opinion whatever, and nearly every defect of practice, provided the public can only be induced to think that this all-potent medicine is in our possession. Believing all this, as I do, it is not my way to attempt to exclude any man from the pale of the Republican church, merely because he avows this, that, or the other speculative opinion upon any subject on which he may choose either to speak or write; although a certain corresponding committee, deputed by your manufacturers, appear to think differently. Experience of some duration, (for which I have paid the customary price of much mortification and disappointment,) has convinced me that no two things in nature can be more opposite than we not unfrequently find profession and practice.

Thus have I seen, in thousands of instances, sots preach against inebriety, gamblers against gaming, prodigals against profusion, misers against parsimony, profligates and infidels against sensuality and irreligion, and the veriest tyrants that God in his wrath, has ever created, have been the loudest declaimers against injustice, cruelty, and oppression. Believe me, sir, I design no personal allusion whatever, having not the least suspicion of your real character. But as I myself mean to refrain from the profession of any particular political creed, I thought it best, in the outset, to assign some reason for the non-compliance with a custom which seems to have grown almost into a law with all men who venture to exhibit their opinions in any of our public journals. Such a propitiatory sacrifice for the purpose of procuring a favorable hearing, I confess myself somewhat too proud to offer. It is a practice against which I have always protested for some twenty or thirty years back, and therefore hope to be excused for not following your lead in this particular.

That every native born American should be deemed a Republican, until the contrary is proven, has ever been a favorite opinion with me, which I have not yet seen any good reason to change. If the principles and sentiments already maturely considered and deliberately expressed by the individuals to whom you have addressed yourself, be insufficient to enable the public to decide whether we are good or bad citizens—at least, so far as mere profession goes—we must content ourselves to leave this matter still in doubt, until the new method, which I have talked of, shall get into operation—of distinguishing them by parallels of latitude. We have maintained that the many ought not be taxed for the benefit of the few; that it is best to purchase where we can buy cheapest: that if equal protection be due to all, the burdens of taxation should be equally borne by all; that, consequently, no one class has any right, either in law or equity, to be either wholly or partially supported by the other classes of society, without paying a full equivalent; and, finally, that government cannot rightfully meddle either with the investment and direction of individual capital, or with the losses and gains of its citizens or subjects. If you choose to deny these fundamental truths, as they appear to us, be it at your peril, and let the public decide between us.

You commence with asking our indulgence while you submit for our consideration a few observations—not that you have the vanity (I use your own words) to say in answer to our Remonstrance, but as exhibiting, &c. Now whether you design this for compliment or sarcasm, I have not sagacity enough to discover, but can only say that if you mean it for the first, we disclaim all pretensions to superiority in the powers either of persuasion or ratiocination; and if you intend it for the last, our sensibilities, like the soils which many of us cultivate, are too hard to feel the edge of any such implement. In republicanism and modesty, by implication, we cheerfully surrender all our claims in your favor.

If the charge of self-interest, which you make against us, at the first blush, be a sufficient answer *This committee; as if we had not already had enough of party spirit, poisoning all our social enjoyments, lacerating and rending asunder even our domestic ties, and at one time, as many thought, endangering the Union itself, has lately come forward to invite the citizens of this happy country to renew these hopeful times, by forming two other parties. These the committee are pleased to designate "the friends of the colonial policy," by which they mean all who differ from them in opinion; and "the friends of real independence," by which they very wrongly mean themselves and their supporters. Now, if the term "colonial policy" has not entirely changed its meaning; it is precisely that of which they are the advocates. Take the exemplification from the case of Great Britain and the old United States. Great Britain aimed to make us (although at that time a part of the same empire) tributary solely to her: our manufacturers, a part of Federal America, aim to make us, who are another part, tributary to them. Great Britain wished to compel us to purchase even our "hob nails" from her work-shops only: the manufacturers of the North and East are using every effort to make us purchase everything we want from their manufacturing establishments alone. Great Britain attempted to restrict our trade to the mother country, as she most unnaturally called herself: our manufacturers are attempting, as far as practicable, to confine it all as effectually to those states where they hope to be established. It is true, they have not yet asked us to shut up so many doors, that all our foreign commerce should be abolished at one stroke; for such measure would not yet suit their interests: but they certainly have restricted the avenues to a considerable portion, and day by day, in a constitutional way, any thing more than a mere nose of wax, as it has been contemptuously called, Congress have no larger right to destroy a part, than they have to annihilate the whole. Shall our importing merchants too, who have been heretofore so extensively and beneficially engaged in transporting our products to almost every part of the civilized world—shall this highly useful and honorable class of our citizens, as well as the agriculturists, be sacrificed to our manufacturers? Is this the true recipe for promoting national industry?

pretensions to at least an equal share of disinterestedness with the rest of our fellow citizens. You, I presume, cannot pretend to claim all for the manufacturers; nor shall I for the agriculturists, as nobody would believe either of us. This weapon, then, neither of us need attempt to wield, unless we should think it important to endeavor to convince every body of what they already knew in regard to the universality of the selfish principle in regulating the conduct of most individuals, and of all classes, without exception.

Either you, sir, or the Edinburgh Reviewers, and Mr. Ricardo, do not understand Dr. Smith, whom you quote, as estimating the value of all articles by the amount of labor bestowed on their fabrication. For, although the Doctor does say that in that early and rude state of society which precedes the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, (a state, by the way, which we never have, and I hope never shall see,) the proportion between the quantities of labor necessary for acquiring different objects, was the only circumstance which could afford any rule for exchanging them, one for another; yet he expressly maintains, that as soon as capital had been accumulated, and rent was paid for land, the circumstance which in a rude state of society, had determined the exchangeable value of commodities, would be altered; that the profits of stock, and the rent of land would then enter as component parts into price; and that the real price of commodities, or the cost of their production, would be increased by every increase in the ordinary rate of profits, in the rate of wages, and in the rent of land. This last position Mr. Ricardo, and with him the Edinburgh Reviewers, deny, and, as I think, disprove. See Wealth of Nations, vol. 1st, pages 70 & 74; also the Edinburgh Review, No. 59, from page 59 to 87; which last I beg leave to recommend to your particular attention, as containing a most able and luminous exposition of certain principles in political economy, materially variant from yours—at least in their application.

But as I agree with you in the assertion, that the real value of all articles depends upon the labor bestowed in their production, it shall break no squares between us whether Dr. Smith or Mr. Ricardo was the discoverer and demonstrator of the universality of this principle. The drift of your illustration I confess I do not so clearly see, unless you aim to persuade the public that we have denied the truth of the principle itself. To what other purpose is your long explanation of the term "cheapness"—a term which we had considered so well understood as to require no definition? Do you mean to assert that either the real or exchangeable value of commodities, is a matter which government ought to regulate and control? If you do, we contend that the less government attempts to meddle with either, the better; and that both should be left, as much as possible, to regulate themselves. When competition is free, it tends constantly to equalize the profits of capital, in whatever way employed. Hence those inequalities of supply and demand, which influence the exchangeable value or money price of commodities, so as to produce frequent fluctuations, that are full as often for as against us, can never last sufficiently long to occasion any permanent injury to nations, whatever they may do to individuals.

If, as you suppose, (and by supposition you may prove any thing,) one half of our whole people were to be employed in making flour, and the other half tobacco, (a style of farming which never did, and we will venture to say never can happen,) so much of these two articles would most probably be made as to lower their exchangeable value, or money price, in all our usual markets, even more than you have conjectured. The difference between 6 and 8 dollars, the one laid out in London, and the other in Philadelphia, I hope you will admit that we agriculturists may be capable of understanding, nearly as well as you do yourself; or at least that the arithmetical process by which this singular fact is established, is not so very abstruse but that with a little study our understandings may master it.

You claim to comprehend our interests so much better than we do ourselves, that I cannot withhold my thanks for the pains which you have taken to enlighten us on this very knotty subject; and beg leave to assure you that we have all long since determined to deal constantly at home, when we can make no advantage in dealing abroad.

But permit me to ask what would occur, admitting that the extraordinary state of things which you have imagined, could be realized? Why, according to our principles, every citizen being free to pursue his own way to wealth, as soon as it was found, that to employ capital in agriculture, was a losing business, the proprietors of it would voluntarily seek some other occupation: for neither individuals nor nations will long pursue a losing business, unless Government interferes in some way or other to control their choice. Your scheme, if I understand it, is to prevent the possibility of these occasional losses, which an infinite variety of circumstances, beyond the power of any Government to regulate, must render sometimes unavoidable. And your favorite plan is, that Congress should remedy the present evils of low prices, and guard against similar ones in future, by imposing additional duties upon all that the agriculturists buy, so as to render agriculture still less profitable than it is, and thereby compel the cultivators of the soil to become manufacturers. Your legislative machine for equalizing profits, would prove no better, I fear, than the bed of Procrustes for equalizing the corporeal dimensions of men. And truly, sir, the method by which you have endeavored to persuade us agriculturists to fall in love with your scheme, is not less extraordinary and captivating, than the project itself.

After your compulsory division of the whole American people into producers of flour and tobacco—having first destroyed, (by supposition, I mean,) all those manufacturers who have grown up and flourished in the country in spite of foreign competition, and who say they want no additional duties—you make us not only overstock all our markets abroad with these two commodities, but insist upon our continuing to send them to the same places, although we can get only half paid for our labour. And then, you come out with a grave calculation to prove to the American planters and farmers, thus disciplined for your hopeful purpose, that it is better to make one barrel of flour and one hhd. of tobacco, than two of each; inasmuch as they will thereby save the additional cost of the extra labor bestowed upon the largest quantity!! Noodles as we are, we had always supposed before, that the lower the price of our crops, the larger it was necessary to endeavor to make them, in order, (as we say,) "to make both ends meet." But this same business called "book learning," is a glorious affair, and discovers some truly marvellous things, when in the hands of very wise men.

After getting thus far in ameliorating the condition of our people, by arithmetical calculation, (a very inadequate method, I fear,) you seem still so much afraid of this redundant quantity of flour and tobacco, or at least of the difficulty of persuading us clodhoppers that half crops are better than whole ones, that you propose to make the business of reduction sure, by converting, with the assistance of the Government, so large a portion of our cultivators into manufacturers, as would make the exchangeable value, or money-price, here, of one barrel of flour and one hhd. of tobacco, equal to two of each. Perhaps, sir (although I will not promise positively,) if you could satisfy us that this exchangeable value would never change again, so as to produce a necessity for other balancing interferences on the part of the Government, and also that raiment manufactured wood, glass, hardware and crockery ware, &c. could be substituted ad libitum, for food, without the animal, man, being materially the worse for it, we might become converts to your wool, cotton, and iron system; but until all this is done, I apprehend you are giving lessons to very unteachable scholars.

I once heard of a project for proving that a plain crust of bread was meat, drink, and clothing; but it was said not to take very well. Whether your scheme for demonstrating that clothing and other indigestible substances, are meat, drink, and bread, will succeed any better, must be left to time, that never-erring instructor, to discover. In my humble judgment, both inventions are sufficiently startling; at least to all those who are in any danger of being made the subjects of either experiment.

Your attempt to refute what we have urged in favor of competition, and against monopoly, does not, to my apprehension, prove any thing, but what we had previously asserted. The difference between us here, is, that additional duties, as you contend, would very soon create a sufficient home competition among our manufacturers, to prevent monopoly, to which you say that you are opposed, as well as ourselves. We have maintained that these duties will not have that effect, because no home market could be formed by any government process whatever, of the restrictive kind, so extensive as that which we already have, and the foreign markets taken together. And moreover, that whilst the home market, to be formed by your scheme, was growing to its utmost attainable height, the agriculturists would unavoidably suffer all the inconveniences of a monopoly—diminishing, it is true, by degrees, but existing in a very oppressive degree, to the end of any such system of restriction, as you wish to see established.

We cannot perceive that your "coarse muslin" case disproves this assertion. Let our manufacturers, (as we have said before,) make commodities as good and as cheap as we can buy them from abroad, and we shall always give them the preference; for we assure you, sir, that we have as few foreign partialities as you, or any other man can possibly have. If we are partial to cheap foreign goods, rather than to dear domestic ones, such partiality you must excuse; as I believe it an incurable malady common to all mankind, except the gnostics and illuminati of your school.

We shall always protest against being compelled to deal even with our brothers; because we most conscientiously believe that both fraternal and patriotic love, have many other, and far better modes of manifesting themselves, than by pecuniary contributions extorted by the Government.

Your next paragraph, I think, sir, is an entire misconception of our meaning. If we have said any thing in our remonstrance which will justify a belief that we designed to represent our manufacturers as greater extortioners than other people, we beg your pardon. We meant nothing more than to say, that the manufacturers would always demand as much for their commodities as the circumstances of the case would admit; and so would every body else; but this was said in support of our objection to additional duties; because as they would enable the manufacturer to demand more for his goods, than he could do, without them, there could be no doubt that this extra demand would be made. As to the right of the Government to compel us to pay it, by prohibiting or heavily taxing foreign goods of a similar kind, we confess ourselves still in the dark.

The liberality you invite, we shall always be willing to reciprocate; but the "reciprocity" which has been (unjustly, we believe,) called "Hibernian," is not at all to our taste.

With respect to what you assert of England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and the strong desire you express that our Government should imitate their example, I can only remark, that I should be the better disposed to join, both in your wishes and opinions, were it not for two difficulties. I have not seen a Fourth of July speech, since I was a boy, nor a newspaper essay, except from the manufacturers, which have not represented the situation of our own dear country as immeasurably superior to that of any other country in the world. These agreeable visions, I for one, am unwilling to surrender; not only because they are pleasant, but because, after making all due allowance for those exaggerations which are the natural ebullitions of national pride and vanity, I believe, from the bottom of my heart that they have for the ground-work of the picture, much incontrovertible matter of fact.

The other difficulty is, that ever since the war, and indeed before it also, thousands of individuals from the very countries you have named, have been flocking to our shores to avoid, if we are to credit their own story, misery and ruin at home. These two things, my dear sir, are insuperable obstacles to the adoption of any new faith, which would lead us to prefer the policy of any other country upon earth to our own; at least in those particulars where you invite imitation. The cases you mention of emigrants to this country returning home soon after they had come here, ought neither to create any surprise, nor to furnish any argument in support of your project; for, encourage domestic manufactures as you please, I will venture to assert, that if all the emigrants from foreign countries continue to crowd, as they have done, only to our large cities, without seeking employment in the country, and in the southern as well as the middle and northern states, they will necessarily overstock the market, and be disappointed. But, we say, let them go back if they choose; the quality of our late importations of this kind of national stock, with many honorable exceptions I admit, in various trades, professions, and callings, has not been such as to make us covet any more of them. What addition either of physical or moral power, we can expect to receive from the jails, the military hospitals, and lazarettos of Europe, I have never been able to conceive. And yet these are the laboratories from which we have unquestionably been furnished with at least a considerable portion of would-be residents in our country.

This applause of yours, so lavishly bestowed upon foreign policy contrasted with our own, creates, I must confess, some little surprise; especially as it regards England, that country, whose policy above all others, our newspapers have been so well employed for many years past in vilifying, and holding forth, as an object not only of avoidance, but execration. And yet, we are invited to imitate even her too! although it seems highly probable, that at this moment, the fearful and portentous Revolution with which she has been for some time threatened, may have actually commenced:—a Revolution to which we are disposed to believe, her manufacturing system has contributed to bring her, as much, or more, than any other cause whatever. This, and the poor-laws have acted and reacted upon each other so long—the last creating a hive of pauper drones, tempted by manufacturing rapacity, to furnish machines of flesh and blood, for manufacturing industry to wear out, and then to return to the poor houses, bankrupts in property, health and morals, thereby aggravating their misery, as much as it increases their numbers; until at last, nearly one-eighth part of the whole population have, literally, gone upon the Parish. And yet, this is the country, whose manufacturing policy, above all others, we are most importunately urged to imitate! But, perhaps you will say, our manufacturers would guard against all these evils: only tax consumption a little more, and that would do: their forbearance, moderation, humanity, and pious principles, would operate as a Catholicon, or universal medicine, to counteract the tendencies to corruption both physical and moral, which the manufacturing system has invariably manifested wherever it has been adopted to any extent.

Let us admit for a moment, that all these liberal, philanthropic, and moral feelings, are possessed by our manufacturers in a greater degree, than by any other class in our country, and that they would always indulge them, happen what might. I would humbly ask, how it would be possible under such circumstances, that they could expect to compete with a nation, where children labor from thirteen to seventeen hours in the twenty-four, and the wages of labor are from ten shillings, (the highest) to one and six-pence, (the lowest) per week; (see the Debates of the House of Commons, April 9th, 1818, and 13th of March and 25th May 1819, as quoted by Mr. Walsh, page 409)—where many of the manufactures, are necessarily made in rooms kept to so high a temperature, that the women who conduct them (I have the fact from an eye witness) are compelled by the heat, to work naked, nearly to the waist; and where, "in the road in which the British laborer must travel, the poor house is the last stage to the grave." Mr. Brougham states, in regard to the weavers, that "they struggled on with hunger, and want of sleep at nights, fall, upon the calculations, that if they worked an hour or two later, they might indeed earn three half-pence more, one of which must be paid for a candle; but then the clear gains of a penny would be too dearly bought, and leave them less able to work the next day. To such a frightful nicety of reckoning are human beings reduced, treating themselves like mere machines, and balancing the produce against the tear and wear, so as to maintain the maximum that their physical powers can be made to yield!": And yet,—this is the effect of the policy, which we are invited to imitate! But you will say probably that our manufacturers will not act thus; they will not push—and God forbid they should—the system to an extreme, so destructive at once to the lives and the morals of those who are engaged in executing it. What then is to be done?

That you cannot manufacture commodities for so low a money price as they do, I think must be perfectly obvious, even if your own petitions for additional taxes did not prove it. Can you be so unreasonable then, as to expect our government to go on imposing tax upon tax on foreign goods, wares, and merchandize, until these at present cheap articles, are brought up to a price, at which our manufacturers can afford to make them? Can you possibly believe the members of our national legislature—a great portion of them agriculturists, too—so utterly ignorant of the most simple principles of political economy, as to adopt such a policy at your suggestion, who are the only persons to be benefitted by it? Can you think it credible, that these same gentlemen will be disposed to gratify your wishes, immediately upon the back of the information received from the Secretary of the Treasury in his letter of the 27th of January last, wherein he tells Congress that "if the importation of cotton and woollen manufactures, and iron, be prohibited—it is probable that the deficiency (in the Revenue) for a number of successive years, would amount to the average sum of six millions of dollars;" which deficit, if created, must be made good by "a system of internal duties or direct tax?" And all this too, when the public treasury is threatened with a deficiency of not less than five millions, with every existing source of revenue to aid it!

In whatever way then, your projects are contemplated, it seems to us that they are equally repugnant to the soundest principles of reason, justice and policy. With an empty Treasury, to cutoff a source of Revenue worth several millions—to create thereby, a necessity for direct taxes upon agriculture; and at the same time to endeavor to diminish her capacity to pay these direct taxes, by first indirectly draining her of all her profits through the instrumentality of additional duties upon all such articles as agriculturists purchase, forms a climax of credulity, folly, and injustice, which I will never believe our Congress can reach, until I both see and feel it.

You must pardon me, sir, if I have said any thing which may indicate a doubt in regard to your motives. I am bound to believe, that they are as pure as ours, until the contrary is proven. If I have appeared to treat your arguments with somewhat less civility, it has been because they seemed to me to deserve it much less. That I have endeavored to reply to your address first, must be ascribed to the circumstance of receiving it before I knew that any other of your friends had condescended to notice us. Since I have began this letter, however—in which I have met with so many unavoidable interruptions as to delay it longer than I wished—I have been favored with the sight of several attacks upon our Remonstrance from different quarters, to all of which I would willingly make such a return as their respective merits may seem to require. These various, and, as it would appear, interminable newspaper honors, so gratuitously bestowed upon our Society, shall not, with the blessing of God, go without a full requital in due season. You, sir, as well as sundry others, have treated us with sufficient urbanity—such as, I hope, is here returned, measure for measure. But, there is a certain gentleman who has lately honored us with some seven or eight numbers in the Aurora, only two of which I have seen, under the signature of "Res," who has been so profuse in his favors that it will take some time to settle our accounts: for I fear he has not yet finished. The cool contempt, the boundless pretension, and ineffable self-sufficiency with which this writer treats us all, so far as I have seen what he has written, imposes upon us a debt of gratitude that cannot be so speedily paid especially if it be required in similar coin: because we are inclined to believe that nearly the whole stock of this currency, except what he possesses himself, was carried out of the country by a certain political Projector, who, as it is said lately left the United States on the singular project of making a great revolution by means of a human skeleton.

One of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society
February 9, 1820.

P.S. Have you manufacturers no writer among you whom you consider the Ajax Telamon of the party? If you have, it would be a matter of great accommodation to us, by way of saving time, that you should confide your writing interests to him—to Res, for example, who appears thoroughly to have secured his own consent to play that character, whether you choose it or not. My motive for making this request is, that, although you manufacturers may all have abundance of leisure to write, and abundance of presses to publish for you, we have not; and, rash as it may seem would greatly prefer encountering the fearful odas of such a redoubtable champion as Mr. Res himself, to the still more fearful expenditure of time in writing fifty or an hundred separate answers to as many different attacks. Should you all go on in the way that you have begun, pouring in your grape and cannister from so many different points, and expecting to receive shot for shot we planters and farmers shall have nothing else to do but to drive the quill, instead of the plough and the axe, and this, at so busy a season, would suit neither our inclinations nor interests.