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"We already see indications of a commercial warfare, the
termination of which no one can conjecture, though our fate
may easily be. The last remains of our great and once
flourishing agriculture must be annihilated in the conflict.
In the first instance we will[1] be thrown on the home
market, which cannot consume a fourth of our products; and,
instead of supplying the world, as we would with free trade,
we would be compelled to abandon the cultivation of three
fourths of what we now raise, and receive for the residue
whatever the manufacturers, who would then have their policy
consummated by the entire possession of our market, might
choose to give. Forced to abandon our ancient and favorite
pursuit, to which our soil, climate, habits, and peculiar
labor are adapted, at an immense sacrifice of property, we
would be compelled, without capital, experience, or skill,
and with a population untried in such pursuits, to attempt
to become the rivals, instead of the customers, of the
manufacturing States.


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