But I have a yet stronger objection to the course of Mr. Speaker’s reasoning; which is, that he leaves out of the case all that has been already done for the protection of manufactures, and argues the question as if those interests were now for the first time to receive aid from duties on imports.  I can hardly express the surprise I feel that Mr. Speaker should fall into the common mode of expression used elsewhere, and ask if we will give our manufacturers no protection.  Sir, look to the history of our laws; look to the present state of our laws.  Consider that our whole revenue, with a trifling exception, is collected at the custom-house, and always has been; and then say what propriety there is in calling on the government for protection, as if no protection had heretofore been afforded.  The real question before us, in regard to all the important clauses of the bill, is not whether we will lay duties, but whether we will augment duties.  The demand is for something more than exists, and yet it is pressed as if nothing existed.  It is wholly forgotten that iron and hemp, for example, already pay a very heavy and burdensome duty; and, in short, from the general tenor of Mr. Speaker’s observations, one would infer that, hitherto, we had rather taxed our own manufactures than fostered them by taxes on those of other countries.  We hear of the fatal policy of the tariff of 1816; and yet the law of 1816 was passed avowedly for the benefit of manufacturers, and, with very few exceptions, imposed on imported articles very great additions of tax; in some important instances, indeed, amounting to a prohibition.

Sir, on this subject, it becomes us at least to understand the real posture of the question.  Let us not suppose that we are beginning the protection of manufactures, by duties on imports.  What we are asked to do is, to render those duties much higher, and therefore, instead of dealing in general commendations of the benefits of protection, the friends of the bill, I think, are bound to make out a fair case for each of the manufactures which they propose to benefit.  The government has already done much for their protection, and it ought to be presumed to have done enough, unless it be shown, by the facts and considerations applicable to each, that there is a necessity for doing more.

On the general question, Sir, allow me to ask if the doctrine of prohibition, as a general doctrine, be not preposterous.  Suppose all nations to act upon it; they would be prosperous, then, according to the argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolished intercourse with one another.  The less of mutual commerce the better, upon this hypothesis.  Protection and encouragement may be, and doubtless are, sometimes, wise and beneficial, if kept within proper limits; but when carried to an extravagant height, or the point of prohibition, the absurd character of the system manifests itself.  Mr. Speaker has referred to the late Emperor Napoleon,