Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United StatesHarrison, Benjamin
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Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States
Harrison, Benjamin
Harrison, Benjamin, 1833-1901; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- Politics and government
The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff
discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only
planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification
of pursuit among the people which brings wealth and contentment.
The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is
spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities call for
diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural
products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the
productive capacity of the State more real and valuable than added
territory.
Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang
upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that
slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it puts
upon their communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our
protective system and to the consequent development of manufacturing
and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to
agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our
people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises,
the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the
men who work in shop or field will not fail to find and to defend
a community of interest. Is it not quite possible that the farmers
and the promoters of the great mining and manufacturing enterprises
which have recently been established in the South may yet find that
the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of race, is
needed for their defence as well as for his own? I do not doubt that
if these men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and
the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and
defend their real convictions they would not find it difficult, by
friendly instruction and co-operation, to make the black man their
efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles
in our national Administration, but in preserving for their local
communities the benefits of social order and economical and honest
government. At least until the good offices of kindness and education
have been fairly tried the contrary conclusion cannot be plausibly
urged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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