I feel most sensibly, Mr. President, how much I have trespassed upon the Senate.  My apology is a deep and deliberate conviction, that the great cause under debate involves the prosperity and the destiny of the Union.  But the best requital I can make, for the friendly indulgence which has been extended to me by the Senate, and for which I shall ever retain sentiments of lasting gratitude, is to proceed with as little delay as practicable, to the conclusion of a discourse which has not been more tedious to the Senate than exhausting to me.  I have now to consider the remaining of the two propositions which I have already announced.  That is

Second, that under the operation of the American system, the products of our agriculture command a higher price than they would do without it, by the creation of a home market, and by the augmentation of wealth produced by manufacturing industry, which enlarges our powers of consumption both of domestic and foreign articles.  The importance of the home market is among the established maxims which are universally recognized by all writers and all men.  However some may differ as to the relative advantages of the foreign and the home market, none deny to the latter great value and high consideration.  It is nearer to us; beyond the control of foreign legislation; and undisturbed by those vicissitudes to which all inter-national intercourse is more or less exposed.  The most stupid are sensible of the benefit of a residence in the vicinity of a large manufactory, or of a market-town, of a good road, or of a navigable stream, which connects their farms with some great capital.  If the pursuits of all men were perfectly the same, although they would be in possession of the greatest abundance of the particular products of their industry, they might, at the same time, be in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence.  The uniformity of the general occupation would preclude all exchange, all commerce.  It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members of a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges which conduce to the general prosperity.  And the greater that diversity, the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange.  Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of the interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could never profitably reach the foreign market.  But let us quit this field of theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical operation of the system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our agriculture.