Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)


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An excerpt from the beginning of the book:

To Henry Lee, Esquire, of Massachusetts, Colonel Clement C. Biddle, of Pennsylvania, and His Excellency Robert Y. Hayne, late Governor of South Carolina.

Gentlemen:

The conspicuous position held by you in the Northern, Middle and Southern sections of the United States, respectively, among the advocates of Free Trade, during the contest which happily terminated with the adoption of the compromise bill of March 2d, 1833, added to your claims upon the gratitude of the author of these essays for the intellectual aid which you extended to him during the prosecution of his work, have designated you as the particular friends to whom its dedication would be appropriate. To Mr. Lee is the country indebted for that most powerful and conclusive exposition of the practical operation of the Tariff upon the interests of Agriculture, Commerce and Manufactures, “The Boston Report,” which was first published in November, 1827, and to which may be ascribed the first impulse of re-action against the Restrictive System. To Colonel Biddle is it indebted for his instrumentality in disseminating sound views of public policy, through his notes appended to the six American editions of Say’s Political Economy, which have appeared under his editorial superintendence. To Governor Hayne is it indebted, whilst a member of the Senate of the United States, for a series of the most clear and scientific illustrations of the Principles of Free Trade, which have ever been presented to the American community, through the medium of public speeches. And to each of you, gentlemen, is the author indebted for much moral support through correspondence and personal intercourse, in the painful and trying situation in which he was placed for four years, whilst advocating an unpopular, and, at one time, what appeared to be a hopeless cause; and he begs you to accept of the assurance of his sincere acknowledgments, and of his best wishes for your individual health and happiness.

THE AUTHOR.
Philadelphia,August, 1835.

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An excerpt from the ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION:

In offering to the public the present volume, the author trusts that a brief sketch of the circumstances under which its contents were originally written and published, will be acceptable to the reader.
During the war which was declared against Great Britain in 1812, and which was terminated in the commencement of 1815, the wants of the government led to a doubling of the duties which had been previously imposed upon foreign commodities. This increase of duties, accompanied as it was by diminished supplies from abroad, and by an increase of the expenses of import in the charges of insurance and freight, naturally augmented the prices of foreign products, and brought into premature existence several branches of domestic manufacture, which could only be sustained by a continuance of war prices. Accordingly, when an adjustment of the Tariff, adapted to a state of peace was about to be made, the manufacturers of cottons and woollens, whose interests were dependent upon a continuance of the double duties, earnestly solicited Congress, not for their permanent retention, but for such a gradual system of reduction as would enable them to avoid the ruinous effects of a sudden repeal. This reasonable request was listened to, and granted; and accordingly, by the act of April 27, 1816, the duties on certain descriptions of cotton and woollen goods were fixed at twenty-five per cent. ad valorem, until the 30th of June, 1819, when they were to be reduced to twenty per cent. Prior, however, to the arrival of this latter period, the manufacturers applied for a postponement of the time at which the reduction should take effect, and so strong an appeal was made by them to Congress, that, on the 20th of April, 1818, a law was passed, fixing the 30th of June, 1826, as the period of reduction. On the same day, two other acts were passed, one, entitled “An act to increase the duties on certain manufactured articles imported into the United States,” comprising manufactured copper, silver-plated saddlery, coach and harness furniture, cut-glass ware, tacks, brads and sprigs, and Russia sheetings; and the other, “An act to increase the duties on iron in bars and bolts, iron in pigs, castings, nails, and allum.”