inflated values!  It was doubtless necessary to do without gold and silver in our life-and-death struggle with the South; but it was nevertheless a misfortune, seen in the gambling operations and the wild fever of speculation which attended the immense issue of paper money after the war.  The bubble was sure to burst, sooner or later, like John Law’s Mississippi scheme in the time of Louis XV.  How many thousands thought themselves rich, in New York and Chicago, in fact everywhere, when they were really poor,—­as any man is poor when his house or farm is not worth the mortgage.  As soon as we returned to gold and silver, or it was known we should return to them, then all values shrunk, and even many a successful merchant found he was really no richer than he was before the war.  It had been easy to secure heavy mortgages on inflated values, and also to get a great interest on investments; but when these mortgages and investments shrank to what they were really worth, the holders of them became embarrassed and impoverished.  The fit of commercial intoxication was succeeded by depression and unhappiness, and the moral evils of inflated values were greater than the financial, since of all demoralizing things the spirit of speculation and gambling brings, at last, the most dismal train of disappointments and miseries.  Inflation and uncertainty in values, whether in stocks or real estate, alternating with the return of prosperity, seem to have marked the commercial and financial history of this country during the last fifty years, more than that of any other nation under the sun, and given rise to the spirit of extravagant speculations, both disgraceful and ruinous.

Equally remarkable were Mr. Webster’s speeches on tariffs and protective industries.  He here seemed to borrow from Alexander Hamilton, who is the father of our protective system.  Here he co-operated with Henry Clay; and the result of his eloquence and wisdom on those great principles of political economy was the adherence to a policy—­against great opposition—­which built up New England and did not impoverish the West.  Where would the towns of Lowell, Manchester, and Lawrence have been without the aid extended to manufacturing interests?  They made the nation comparatively independent of other nations; they enriched the country, even as manufactures enriched Great Britain and France.  What would England be if it were only an agricultural country?  It would have been impossible to establish manufactures of textile fabrics, without protection.  Without aid from governments, this branch of American industry would have had no chance to contend with the cheap labor of European artisans.  I do not believe in cheap labor.  I do not believe in reducing intelligent people to the condition of animals.  I would give them the chance to rise; and they cannot rise if they are doomed to labor for a mere pittance.  The more wages men can get for honest labor, the better is the condition of the whole country.  Withdraw