ginal
nullifiers. Indeed, Mr. Calhoun's writings on this subject were
"protected" by their own length and dulness. No creature ever read one
of them quite through, except for a special purpose.

The leading assertions of this Exposition are these:--1. Every duty
imposed for protection is a violation of the Constitution, which
empowers Congress to impose taxes for revenue only. 2. The _whole_
burden of the protective system is borne by agriculture and commerce.
3. The _whole_ of the advantages of protection accrue to the
manufacturing States. 4. In other words, the South, the Southwest, and
two or three commercial cities, support the government, and pour a
stream of treasure into the coffers of manufacturers. 5. The result
must soon be, that the people of South Carolina will have either to
abandon the culture of rice and cotton, and remove to some other
country, or else to become a manufacturing community, which would only
be ruin in another form.

Lest the reader should find it impossible to believe that any man out
of a lunatic asylum could publish such propositions as this last, we
will give the passage. Mr. Calhoun is endeavoring to show that Europe
will at length retaliate by placing high duties upon American cotton
and rice. At least that appears to be what he is aiming at.

"We already see indications of a commercial warfare, the
termination of which no one can conjecture, though our fate
may easily be. The last remains of our great and once
flourishing agriculture must be annihilated in the conflict.
In the first instance we will[1] be thrown on the home
market, which cannot consume a fourth of our products; and,
instead of supplying the world, as we would with free trade,
we would be compelled to abandon the cultivation of three
fourths of what we now raise, and receive for the residue
whatever the manufacturers, who would then have their policy
consummated by the entire possession of our market, might
choose to give. Forced to abandon our ancient and favorite
pursuit, to which our soil, climate, habits, and peculiar
labor are adapted, at an immense sacrifice of property, we
would be compelled, without capital, experience, or skill,
and with a population untried in such pursuits, to attempt
to become the rivals, instead of the customers, of the
manufacturing States. The result is not doubtful. If they,
by superior