h higher, and therefore, instead of
dealing in general commendations of the benefits of protection, the
friends of the bill, I think, are bound to make out a fair case for each
of the manufactures which they propose to benefit. The government has
already done much for their protection, and it ought to be presumed to
have done enough, unless it be shown, by the facts and considerations
applicable to each, that there is a necessity for doing more.

On the general question, Sir, allow me to ask if the doctrine of
prohibition, as a general doctrine, be not preposterous. Suppose all
nations to act upon it; they would be prosperous, then, according to the
argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolished
intercourse with one another. The less of mutual commerce the better,
upon this hypothesis. Protection and encouragement may be, and doubtless
are, sometimes, wise and beneficial, if kept within proper limits; but
when carried to an extravagant height, or the point of prohibition, the
absurd character of the system manifests itself. Mr. Speaker has
referred to the late Emperor Napoleon, as having attempted to naturalize
the manufacture of cotton in France. He did not cite a more extravagant
part of the projects of that ruler, that is, his attempt to naturalize
the growth of that plant itself, in France; whereas, we have understood
that considerable districts in the South of France, and in Italy, of
rich and productive lands, were at one time withdrawn from profitable
uses, and devoted to raising, at great expense, a little bad cotton. Nor
have we been referred to the attempts, under the same system, to make
sugar and coffee from common culinary vegetables; attempts which served
to fill the print-shops of Europe, and to show us how easy is the
transition from what some think sublime to that which all admit to be
ridiculous. The folly of some of these projects has not been surpassed,
nor hardly equalled, unless it be by the philosopher in one of the
satires of Swift, who so long labored to extract sunbeams from
cucumbers.

The poverty and unhappiness of Spain have been attributed to the want of
protection to her own industry. If by this it be meant that the poverty
of Spain is owing to bad government and bad laws, the remark is, in a
great measure, just. But these very laws are bad because they are
restrictive, partial, and prohibitory. If prohibition were protection,
Spain would seem to have had enough of it. Noth