I plant myself upon this fact, of cheapness and superiority, as upon impregnable ground.  Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity, and produce a thousand speculative solutions of the fact, but the fact itself will remain undisturbed.  Let us look into some particulars.  The total consumption of bar-iron in the United States is supposed to be about 146,000 tons, of which 112,866 tons are made within the country, and the residue imported.  The number of men employed in the manufacture is estimated at 29,254, and the total number of persons subsisted by it at 146,273.  The measure of protection extended to this necessary article was never fully adequate until the passage of the act of 1828; and what has been the consequence?  The annual increase of quantity since that period has been in a ratio of near twenty-five per centum, and the wholesale price of bar-iron in the Northern cities was, in 1828, $105 per ton; in 1829, $100; in 1830, $90; and in 1831, from $85 to $75—­constantly diminishing.  We import very little English iron, and that which we do is very inferior, and only adapted to a few purposes.  In instituting a comparison between that inferior article and our superior iron, subjects entirely different are compared.  They are made by different processes.  The English cannot make iron of equal quality to ours at a less price than we do.  They have three classes, best-best, and best, and ordinary.  It is the latter which is imported.  Of the whole amount imported there is only about 4,000 tons of foreign iron that pays the high duty, the residue paying only a duty of about thirty per centum, estimated on the prices of the importation of 1829.  Our iron ore is superior to that of Great Britain, yielding often from sixty to eighty per centum, while theirs produces only about twenty-five.  This fact is so well known that I have heard of recent exportations of iron ore to England.

It has been alleged that bar-iron, being a raw material, ought to be admitted free, or with low duties, for the sake of the manufacturers themselves.  But I take this to be the true principle:  that if our country is producing a raw material of prime necessity, and with reasonable protection can produce it in sufficient quantity to supply our wants, that raw material ought to be protected, although it may be proper to protect the article also out of which it is manufactured.  The tailor will ask protection for himself, but wishes it denied to the grower of wool and the manufacturer of broadcloth.  The cotton-planter enjoys protection for the raw material, but does not desire it to be extended to the cotton manufacturer.  The ship-builder will ask protection for navigation, but does not wish it extended to the essential articles which enter into the construction of his ship.  Each in his proper vocation solicits protection, but would have it denied to all other interests which are supposed to come into collision with his.