The indecision which has heretofore characterized the conduct of the United States, with regard to manufactures, seems to have originated in the diversity of interests represented in the government. The people of the southern States are, for several reasons, averse to making concessions for procuring home-made goods. They are comparatively little devoted to mechanical pursuits, and still less acquainted with the diversified operations of workshops. Their negroes are seldom trained to any thing but agricultural and menial services, and the {240} condition of these labourers is otherwise unfavourable to the acquisition of skill in new employments. This part of the country, besides, exports large quantities of cotton, tobacco, and rice, articles that do not excite the jealousy of the landed interest in Britain; but, on the contrary, almost enjoy a monopoly of the British market. It is plain that the people who possess advantages of this kind, have it more in their power to continue traffic with England than their northern neighbours, whose produce is excluded by the corn laws of that country, which have been wisely enacted. Traders who have capital vested in ships, and in the importation of manufactured goods, form a class that is more interested in opposing an independent system than any other. Though their influence in Congress appears to be declining, some time must elapse before their funds can be directed to other pursuits. The import duties on foreign manufactures, high as in most cases they appear to be, have not the effect of protecting American artizans from competition with those of other countries, who work cheaper. This disadvantage has been produced by the profuse issues of a paper currency. Money of this sort not taking the market abroad, it remains in the country, where it operates against industry, by augmenting the nominal price of labour. Hence people are complaining of want of employment, while they depend on the labour of foreigners for almost every artificial modification of the materials raised on their own soil, or that lie unheeded under their feet. Import duties are not to be considered merely as enactments for promoting American manufactures, for they constitute the principal source of national revenue. It might be difficult to form a conception of a revenue {241} that could be collected at less expense, or of taxation raised in a more voluntary manner on the part of the people. But as moderating these duties must unquestionably, on every occasion, be injurious to home industry, and as augmenting them to the extent of the total prohibition of foreign goods would introduce smuggling, the two objects of the system are in some degree incompatible in the present state of money affairs.