greatest foreign market for European manufactures.  It is that to which European attention is constantly directed.  If a great house becomes bankrupt there, its storehouses are emptied, and the goods are shipped to America, where, in consequence of our auctions, and our custom-house credits, the greatest facilities are afforded in the sale of them.  Combinations among manufacturers might take place, or even the operations of foreign governments might be directed to the destruction of our establishments.  A repeal, therefore, of one protecting duty, from some one or all of these causes, would be followed by flooding the country with the foreign fabric, surcharging the market, reducing the price, and a complete prostration of our manufactories; after which the foreigner would leisurely look about to indemnify himself in the increased prices which he would be enabled to command by his monopoly of the supply of our consumption.  What American citizen, after the government had displayed this vacillating policy, would be again tempted to place the smallest confidence in the public faith, and adventure once more into this branch of industry?

Gentlemen have allowed to the manufacturing portions of the community no peace; they have been constantly threatened with the overthrow of the American system.  From the year 1820, if not from 1816, down to this time, they have been held in a condition of constant alarm and insecurity.  Nothing is more prejudicial to the great interests of a nation than an unsettled and varying policy.  Although every appeal to the National Legislature has been responded to in conformity with the wishes and sentiments of the great majority of the people, measures of protection have only been carried by such small majorities as to excite hopes on the one hand, and fears on the other.  Let the country breathe, let its vast resources be developed, let its energies be fully put forth, let it have tranquillity, and, my word for it, the degree of perfection in the arts which it will exhibit will be greater than that which has been presented, astonishing as our progress has been.  Although some branches of our manufactures might, and in foreign markets now do, fearlessly contend with similar foreign fabrics, there are many others yet in their infancy, struggling with the difficulties which encompass them.  We should look at the whole system, and recollect that time, when we contemplate the great movements of a nation, is very different from the short period which is allotted for the duration of individual life.  The honorable gentleman from South Carolina well and eloquently said, in 1824:  “No great interest of any country ever grew up in a day; no new branch of industry can become firmly and profitably established but in a long course of years; every thing, indeed, great or good, is matured by slow degrees; that which attains a speedy maturity is of small value, and is destined to brief existence.  It is the order of Providence, that powers gradually developed, shall alone attain permanency and perfection.  Thus must it be with our national institutions, and national character itself.”