" This favorite American policy is what America has never tried;
and this odious foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign states
have never pursued. Sir, that is the truest American policy which shall
most usefully employ American capital and American labor, and best
sustain the whole population. With me it is a fundamental axiom, it is
interwoven with all my opinions, that the great interests of the country
are united and inseparable; that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures
will prosper together or languish together; and that all legislation is
dangerous which proposes to benefit one of these without looking to
consequences which may fall on the others.
Passing from this, Sir, I am bound to say that Mr. Speaker began his
able and impressive speech at the proper point of inquiry,--I mean the
present state and condition of the country,--although I am so
unfortunate, or rather although I am so happy, as to differ from him
very widely in regard to that condition. I dissent entirely from the
justice of that picture of distress which he has drawn. I have not seen
the reality, and know not where it exists. Within my observation, there
is no cause for so gloomy and terrifying a representation. In respect to
the New England States, with the condition of which I am of course best
acquainted, the present appears to me a period of very general
prosperity. Not, indeed, a time for sudden acquisition and great
profits, not a day of extraordinary activity and successful
speculation.
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