alternative.

When Congress met in December last the business of the country had
just been crushed by one of those periodical revulsions which are the
inevitable consequence of our unsound and extravagant system of bank
credits and inflated currency. With all the elements of national wealth
in abundance, our manufactures were suspended, our useful public and
private enterprises were arrested, and thousands of laborers were
deprived of employment and reduced to want. Universal distress prevailed
among the commercial, manufacturing, and mechanical classes. This
revulsion was felt the more severely in the United States because
similar causes had produced the like deplorable effects throughout the
commercial nations of Europe. All were experiencing sad reverses at the
same moment. Our manufacturers everywhere suffered severely, not because
of the recent reduction in the tariff of duties on imports, but because
there was no demand at any price for their productions. The people were
obliged to restrict themselves in their purchases to articles of prime
necessity. In the general prostration of business the iron manufacturers
in different States probably suffered more than any other class, and
much destitution was the inevitable consequence among the great number
of workmen who had been employed in this useful branch of industry.
There could be no supply where there was no demand. To present an
example, there could be no demand for railroad iron after our
magnificent system of railroads, extending its benefits to every
portion of the Union, had been brought to a dead pause. The same
consequences have resulted from similar causes to many other branches
of useful manufactures. It is self-evident that where there is no
ability to purchase manufactured articles these can not be sold, and
consequently must cease to be produced.

No government, and especially a government of such limited powers as
that of the United States, could have prevented the late revulsion. The
whole commercial world seemed for years to have been rushing to this
catastrophe. The same ruinous consequences would have followed in the
United States whether the duties upon foreign imports had remained as
they were under the tariff of 1846 or had been raised to a much higher
standard. The tariff of 1857 had no agency in the result. The general
causes existing throughout the world could not have been controlled by
the legislation of any particular country.

The p