’The theory of ‘let us alone’ supposes that all nations concur in a perfect freedom of commercial intercourse.  Were this the case, they would, in a commercial view, be but one nation, as much as the several districts composing a particular nation; and the theory would be as applicable to the former as the latter.  But this golden age of free trade has not yet arrived, nor is there a single nation that has set the example.  No nation can, indeed, safely do so, until a reciprocity, at least, be insured to it. * * A nation, leaving its foreign trade, in all cases, to regulate itself, might soon find it regulated by other nations into subserviency to a foreign interest.’

There is much good sense, too, in the views promulgated by another president, who said, in relation to our independence of other nations: 

’The tariff bill before us, embraces the design of fostering, protecting, and preserving within ourselves the means of national defence and independence, particularly in a state of war. * * The experience of the late war (1812) taught us a lesson, and one never to be forgotten.  If our liberty and republican form of government, procured for us by our Revolutionary fathers, are worth the blood and treasure at which they were obtained, it surely is our duty to protect and defend them. * * What is the real situation of the agriculturist?  Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus product?  Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign nor home market.  Does not this clearly prove, when there is no market either at home or abroad, that there is too much labor employed in agriculture, and that the channels of labor should be multiplied?  Common sense points out the remedy.  Draw from agriculture the superabundant labor; employ it in mechanism and manufactures; thereby creating a home-market for your bread-stuffs, and distributing labor to the most profitable account and benefits to the country.  Take from agriculture in the United States six hundred thousand men, women and children, and you will at once give a home-market for more bread-stuffs than all Europe now furnishes us.  In short, sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of British merchants.  It is time that we should become a little more Americanized; and, instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of England, feed our own; or else, in a short time, by continuing our present policy, we shall be rendered paupers ourselves.’

Mr. Bigelow, in his late and highly valuable work on the tariff, says truly (p. 103): 

’Can any one question that our home production far outweighs in importance all other material interests of the nation? * * * It is the nation of great internal resources, of vigorous productive power and self-dependent strength, which is always best prepared and most able, not only to defend itself, but to lend others a helping hand.’

If our people would maintain their own national integrity,