Free trade, the interest of all nations;
protection, the occasional necessity of one. Free trade, the final and
universal good; protection, the sometimes necessary evil. Free trade,
as soon as possible and as complete as possible; protection, as little
as possible and as short as possible. The speech was delivered in
reply to Mr. Clay; and, viewed merely _as_ a reply, it is difficult to
conceive of one more triumphant. Mr. Webster was particularly happy in
turning Mr. Clay's historical illustrations against him, especially
those drawn from the history of the English silk manufacture, and the
Spanish system of restriction and prohibition. Admitting fully that
manufactures the most unsuited to the climate, soil, and genius of a
country _could_ be created by protection, he showed that such
manufactures were not, upon the whole, and in the long run, a benefit
to a country; and adduced, for an illustration, the very instance
cited by Mr. Clay,--the silk manufacture of England,--which kept fifty
thousand persons in misery, and necessitated the continuance of a kind
of legislation which the intelligence of Great Britain had outgrown.
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