es on
imports, and the habit of the government of collecting
almost its whole revenue, in that mode, will enable us,
without exceeding the bounds of moderation, to give great
advantages to those classes of manufactures which we may
think most useful to promote at home."

One of his happy retorts upon Mr. Clay was the following:--

"I will be so presumptuous as to take up a challenge which
Mr. Speaker has thrown down. He has asked us, in a tone of
interrogatory indicative of the feeling of anticipated
triumph, to mention any country in which manufactures have
flourished without the aid of prohibitory laws.... Sir, I am
ready to answer this inquiry.

"There is a country, not undistinguished among the nations,
in which the progress of manufactures has been more rapid
than in any other, and yet unaided by prohibitions or
unnatural restrictions. That country, the happiest which the
sun shines on, is our own."

Again, Mr. Clay had made the rash remark that it would cost the
nation, _as_ a nation, nothing to convert our ore into iron. Mr.
Webster's reply to this seems to us eminently worthy of consideration
at the present moment, and at every moment when the tariff is a topic
of debate.

"I think," said he, "it would cost us precisely what we can
least afford, that is, _great labor_.... Of manual labor no
nation has more than a certain quantity; nor can it be
increased at will.... A most important question for every
nation, as well as for every individual, to propose to
itself, is, how it can best apply that quantity of labor
which it is able to perform.... Now, with respect to the
quantity of labor, as we all know, different nations are
differently circumstanced. Some need, more than anything,
work for hands; _others require hands for work_; and if we
ourselves are not absolutely in the latter class, we are
still, most fortunately, very near it."

The applicability of these observations to the present condition of
affairs in the United States--labor very scarce, and protectionists
clamoring to make it scarcer--must be apparent to every reader.

But this was the last of Mr. Webster's efforts in behalf of the
freedom of trade. In the spring of 1825, when it devolved upon the
House of Representatives to elect a President, the few Federalists
remaining in the House became, for a fe