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Subject Area: Economics
Topic: Free Trade

ESSAY No. CXI. - Condy Raguet, The Principles of Free Trade [1835]

Edition used:

The Principles of Free Trade illustrated in a series of short and familiar Essays originally published in the Banner of the Constitution, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1840).

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ESSAY No. CXI.

june 22, 1831.

Free Trade Convention proposed, to be held at Philadelphia.

Anti-Tariff Convention.—A number of gentlemen, from different states, favourable to the principles of Free Trade, having assembled at Philadelphia on the 6th of June, and taken into consideration an Address,* published in the New York Evening Post, recommending an Anti-Tariff Convention, unanimously

Resolved, That a Convention, for the purpose of securing the efficient co-operation of the friends of Free Trade, throughout the United States, in procuring the repeal of the Restrictive System, be held at the Mansion-House Hotel, in the city of Philadelphia, at 10 o’clock in the morning of Friday, the 30th day of September next; and that there be invited to attend the same, such citizens, from all the states of the Union, without distinction of party, who are favourable to the object of the meeting, as may find it convenient to attend. It was also

Resolved, That notice of the said meeting be published, and that editors throughout the United States, friendly to the cause of Free Trade, be requested to give it circulation.

The Address referred to in the foregoing article, originally published in the New York Evening Post, and subsequently in the Banner, appeared with some typographical errors. A corrected copy is this day presented, on our first page, and a reference to it will show how many reasons there are why the opponents of restrictive and prohibitory laws should exert themselves, and meet their adversaries with their own weapons. The resolution adopted at the late meeting of the Manufacturers at New York, to organize societies throughout the country, for the propagation of the fallacies of the American System, supported as it was by the raising of a fund of five thousand dollars, and the enrolling of one thousand subscribers for a daily paper in New York, must satisfy any one that no effort will be left untried to fasten upon us the yoke of the restrictive bondage. If those whose property is thus to be sported with, in order to enrich the monopolists, will not endeavour to stem the current, at least by concentrating their influence and intellectual powers, by assembling together and giving such a weight to their opinions as can never be conferred in any other mode, they must prepare to submit, or to encounter the hazard of revolution. What is chiefly wanted at the North, is, that the people should know that the complainants at the South are in earnest. The local divisions about the means of redress is construed into a diversity of sentiment as to the real operation of the protective policy upon Southern interests and feelings. Let it be once understood that the South is unanimous in her conviction that the tariff policy is oppressive and unconstitutional, and that she will not forever submit to usurpations which annihilate the liberty, for the preservation of which the Union and the Constitution were framed, and a change of policy may be looked for. The presence, at Philadelphia, at the Convention, in September next, of some of the distinguished citizens of the South and Southwest, would do more to convince our well-disposed but deluded advocates of the tariff, that the harmony of the country requires a sacrifice, than all that could be written in the very few papers which have magnanimity enough to give a hearing to the complaints of the planting states. We therefore earnestly press it upon those gentlemen who can make it convenient to attend, to do so. Amongst the farmers, planters, merchants, professors of political economy in our various colleges, lawyers, physicians, and retired gentlemen, who belong to the side of Free Trade, there exists a mass of intellect, which could be brought to bear most advantageously upon the Northern states at the present crisis. If the approaching occasion is lost, another may never be afforded, and future times may look back upon this memorable period, and say, “How possible it was for a few men to have saved that Union!” In conclusion we state, that the annual commencement at Princeton College takes place on the 28th September, and as there are amongst the alumni of that institution a great number of our distinguished citizens, whose presence at the Convention would be desirable, we mention the fact as an additional inducement for their attendance, as it would afford an opportunity for the admixture of the utile dulci.

[* ] This address was written by the late Henry D. Sedgwick, Esq. who was present at the meeting.