Ninthly, and finally, that the substitution of the British colonial system for the American system, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactories, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin. * * * The danger of our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the American system, but on that of its abandonment.  If, as I have supposed and believe, the inhabitants of all north and east of James River, and all west of the mountains, including Louisiana, are deeply interested in the preservation of that system, would they be reconciled to its overthrow?  Can it be expected that two thirds, if not three fourths, of the people of the United States would consent to the destruction of a policy, believed to be indispensably necessary to their prosperity?  When, too, the sacrifice is made at the instance of a single interest, which they verily believe will not be promoted by it?  In estimating the degree of peril which may be incident to two opposite courses of human policy, the statesman would be short-sighted who should content himself with viewing only the evils, real or imaginary, which belong to that course which is in practical operation.  He should lift himself up to the contemplation of those greater and more certain dangers which might inevitably attend the adoption of the alternative course.  What would be the condition of this Union, if Pennsylvania and New York, those mammoth members of our Confederacy, were firmly persuaded that their industry was paralyzed, and their prosperity blighted, by the enforcement of the British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade?  They are now tranquil and happy and contented, conscious of their welfare, and feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home manufactures and home industry, throughout all their great arteries.  But let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to predominate, and the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up; let New England and the West, and the Middle States, all feel that they too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of our country despair of any favorable change, and then indeed might we tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union!

And need I remind you, sir, that this dereliction of the duty of protecting our domestic industry, and abandonment of it to the fate of foreign legislation, would be directly at war with leading considerations which prompted the adoption of the present Constitution?  The States respectively surrendered to the general government the whole power of laying imposts on foreign goods.  They stripped themselves of all power to protect their own manufactures by the most efficacious means of encouragement—­the imposition of duties on rival foreign fabrics.  Did they create that great trust, did they voluntarily subject themselves to this self-restriction, that the power should remain in the Federal government inactive, unexecuted, and lifeless?  Mr. Madison, at the commencement of the government, told you otherwise.  In discussing at that early period this very subject, he declared that a failure to exercise this power would be a “fraud” upon the Northern States, to which may now be added the Middle and Western States.