State of the Union AddressesPolk, James K. (James Knox)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Polk, James K. (James Knox)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
ingenuity and skill and of their ability to compete, with increased
prospect of success, for the open market of the world. Domestic
manufactures to the value of several millions of dollars, which can not
find a market at home, are annually exported to foreign countries. With
such rates of duty as those established by the existing law the system will
probably be permanent, and capitalists who are made or shall hereafter make
their investments in manufactures will know upon what to rely. The country
will be satisfied with these rates, because the advantages which the
manufacturers still enjoy result necessarily from the collection of revenue
for the support of Government. High protective duties, from their unjust
operation upon the masses of the people, can not fail to give rise to
extensive dissatisfaction and complaint and to constant efforts to change
or repeal them, rendering all investments in manufactures uncertain and
precarious. Lower and more permanent rates of duty, at the same time that
they will yield to the manufacturer fair and remunerating profits, will
secure him against the danger of frequent changes in the system, which can
not fail to ruinously affect his interests.
Simultaneously with the relaxation of the restrictive policy by the United
States, Great Britain, from whose example we derived the system, has
relaxed hers. She has modified her corn laws and reduced many other duties
to moderate revenue rates. After ages of experience the statesmen of that
country have been constrained by a stern necessity and by a public opinion
having its deep foundation in the sufferings and wants of impoverished
millions to abandon a system the effect of which was to build up immense
fortunes in the hands of the few and to reduce the laboring millions to
pauperism and misery. Nearly in the same ratio that labor was depressed
capital was increased and concentrated by the British protective policy.
The evils of the system in Great Britain were at length rendered
intolerable, and it has been abandoned, but not without a severe struggle
on the part of the protected and favored classes to retain the unjust
advantages which they have so long enjoyed. It was to be expected that a
similar struggle would be made by the same classes in the United States
whenever an attempt was made to modify or abolish the same unjust system
here. The protective policy had been in operation in the United States for
a much shorter period, and its pernicious effects were not, therefore, so
clearly perceived and felt. Enough, however, was known of these effects to
induce its repeal.
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