There is no doubt a considerable depression of prices, and,
in some degree, a stagnation of business. But the case presented by Mr.
Speaker was not one of _depression_, but of _distress_; of universal,
pervading, intense distress, limited to no class and to no place. We are
represented as on the very verge and brink of national ruin. So far from
acquiescing in these opinions, I believe there has been no period in
which the general prosperity was better secured, or rested on a more
solid foundation. As applicable to the Eastern States, I put this remark
to their representatives, and ask them if it is not true. When has there
been a time in which the means of living have been more accessible and
more abundant? When has labor been rewarded, I do not say with a larger,
but with a more certain success? Profits, indeed, are low; in some
pursuits of life, which it is not proposed to benefit, but to _burden_,
by this bill, very low. But still I am unacquainted with any proofs of
extraordinary distress. What, indeed, are the general indications of the
state of the country? There is no famine nor pestilence in the land, nor
war, nor desolation. There is no writhing under the burden of taxation.
The means of subsistence are abundant; and at the very moment when the
miserable condition of the country is asserted, it is admitted that the
wages of labor are high in comparison with those of any other country. A
country, then, enjoying a profound peace, perfect civil liberty, with
the means of subsistence cheap and abundant, with the reward of labor
sure, and its wages higher than anywhere else, cannot be represented as
in gloom, melancholy, and distress, but by the effort of extraordinary
powers of tragedy.
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