What Is Free Trade?

flectors, Snuffers, Extinguishers; and from the Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resi

and Representatives of the Unit

you little. You are entirely occupied with the interest of the producer, whom you are anxious to

han theory-your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for principles, you d

ws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of American industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have every reason to b

all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is used to penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the profitable manufactures which we flatt

on for a satire, nor to repulse us without at least he

create the necessity for artificial light, is there in the United States an industrial pur

nd sheep. Thus artificial meadows must be in greater demand; and meat, wool, leather,

thereby accrue to the numerous possessors of oil lands, who will be able to pay such a large tax that the national debt can be paid off at once. Besides that, the patent

eries, and thence would arise a navy capable of sustaining the honor of the United States, and

old the gildings, the bronzes, the magnificent crystal chandeliers, lamps, lusters, and candelabras, which will gli

idst of his pine forests, nor the miserable miner in his dark dw

there is perhaps not one American, from the opulent stockholder of Pit-Hole, down to

liged to gather from the works of the partisans of free trade. We dare challenge you to pronounce one word agai

otection, the United States will not gain, because

mpete with that of the producer, you have invariably sacrificed the first. You have done this to encourage

duction of iron, coal, corn, wheat, cloths, &c., your answer was: Yes, but the producer is interested in their exclus

f you confer upon us the monopoly of furnishing light during the day, will as a first consequence buy large quantities of tallow, coal, oil, resin, kerosene, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, crystal, for the supply of ou

t, and that to repulse gratuitous gifts is to repulse riche

is approach was more close. You have, in obeying the wishes of other monopolists, acted only from a half-motive; to grant our petition there is a much fuller inducement. To repulse us, precisely for the

ntry and climate, in every article of production. The portion of Na

one, it is because a natural and gratuitous heat does for the one, what

at we obtain it 99/100 gratuitously and 1/100 by the right of la

every thing to do, and the last is rid of nearly all the trouble, the sun taking the rest of the business upon himself? If then the 99/100 gratuity can determine you to check competition, on what principle can

in proportion as the foreign merchant requires the three-quarters, the half, or the quarter of the price. It is as complete as possible when the producer offers, as the sun does with light, the whole, in free gift. The question is, and we put it formally, whether you wish for the United States the benefit of gratuitous consumption, or the supposed advantages of laborious produ