We propose to add nearly,
or quite, fifty per cent to this amount, at the very moment that we
appeal to the languishing state of this interest as a proof of national
distress. Let it be remembered that our shipping employed in foreign
commerce has, at this moment, not the shadow of government protection.
It goes abroad upon the wide sea to make its own way, and earn its own
bread, in a professed competition with the whole world. Its resources
are its own frugality, its own skill, its own enterprise. It hopes to
succeed, if it shall succeed at all, not by extraordinary aid of
government, but by patience, vigilance, and toil. This right arm of the
nation's safety strengthens its own muscle by its own efforts, and by
unwearied exertion in its own defence becomes strong for the defence of
the country.

No one acquainted with this interest can deny that its situation, at
this moment, is extremely critical. We have left it hitherto to maintain
itself or perish; to swim if it can, and to sink if it must. But at this
moment of its apparent struggle, can we as men, can we as patriots, add
another stone to the weight that threatens to carry it down? Sir, there
is a limit to human power, and to human effort. I know the commercial
marine of this country can do almost every thing, and bear almost every
thing. Yet some things are impossible to be done, and some burdens may
be impossible to be borne; and as it was the last ounce that broke the
back of the camel, so the last tax, although it were even a small one,
may be decisive as to the power of our marine to sustain the conflict in
which it is now engaged with all the commercial nations on the globe.

Again, Mr. Chairman, the failures and the bankruptcies which have taken
place in our large cities have been mentioned as proving the little
success attending _commerce_, and its general decline. But this bill has
no balm for those wounds. It is very remarkable, that when the losses
and disasters of certain manufacturers, those of iron, for instance, are
mentioned, it is done for the purpose of invoking aid for the
distressed. Not so with the losses and disasters of commerce; these last
are narrated, and not unfrequently much exaggerated, to prove the
ruinous nature of the employment, and to show that it ought to be
abandoned, and the capital engaged in it turned to other objects.

It has been often said, Sir, that our manufacturers have to contend, not
only against the natural advan