rade in our own favor. It is shown that, during the fiscal year ending
30 June, 1860, there were imported into the United States goods, wholly
manufactured, of the value of ... $166,073,000, partially manufactured,
62,720,000.
We can dispense with two thirds of such articles during our present
national reverses, and rely upon our own domestic labor for similar
products, viz.:
Manufactures of Wool, $37,937,000
" of Silk, 32,948,000
" of Cotton, 32,558,000
" of Flax, 10,736,000
Laces and Embroideries, 4,017,000
Gunny Cloths, Mattings, 2,386,000
Clothing, 2,101,000
Iron, and Manufactures of Iron and Steel, 18,694,000
China and Earthenware, 4,387,000
Clocks, Chronometers, Watches, 2,890,000
Boots, Shoes, and Gloves, 2,230,000
Miscellaneous, 15,189,000
-----------
166,073,000
besides other articles exceeding one hundred millions in value.
Rather than send abroad thirty or forty millions in gold annually, as we
have done of late years, let us dispense with foreign woollen goods,
silk and cotton goods, laces, &c., and encourage our own mills, at least
until the war and its debt are over.
Mr. Madison said much in a few words, when he said:
'The theory of '_let us alone_' supposes that all nations concur in
a perfect freedom of commercial intercourse. Were this the case,
they would, in a commercial view, be but one nation, as much as the
several districts composing a particular nation; and the theory
would be as applicable to the former as the latter. But this golden
age of free trade has not yet arrived, nor is there a single nation
that has set the example. No nation can, indeed, safely do so,
until a reciprocity, at least, be insured to it. * * A nation,
leaving its foreign trade, in all cases, to regulate itself, might
soon find it regulated by other nations into subserviency to a
foreign interest.'
There is much good sense, too, in the views promulgated by another
president, who said, in relation to our independence of other nations:
'The tariff
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