exist, if the system, of which this bill is the foundation, shall be steadily pursued to the total destruction of foreign commerce, and the ruin of all who are connected with it. Sir, it is my most sober and deliberate opinion, that the Congress of the United States have no more power to pass laws, for the purpose of directly or indirectly compelling any portion of the people to engage in manufactures, than they have to abolish trial by jury, or to establish the inquisition. I will invoke gentlemen on the other side, while we yet pause on the brink of this mighty danger, in the name of Liberty and the Constitution, to examine this question, carefully and candidly; and if they shall search in vain, in our great charter, for power to pass this bill, they must surely suffer it to perish.
I must be permitted, while on this topic, to declare that, however this bill may be modified, still the system is one against which we feel ourselves constrained, in behalf of those we represent, to enter our most solemn protest. Considering this scheme of promoting certain employments, at the expense of others, as unequal, oppressive, and unjust,—viewing prohibition as the means, and the destruction of all foreign commerce the end of this policy,—I take this occasion to declare, that we shall feel ourselves fully justified in embracing the very first opportunity of repealing all such laws as may be passed for the promotion of these objects. Whatever interests may grow up under this bill, and whatever capital may be invested, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that we will not hold ourselves bound to maintain the system; and if capitalists will, in the face of our protests, and in defiance of our solemn warnings, invest their fortunes in pursuits made profitable at our expense, on their own heads be the consequences of their folly. This system is in its very nature progressive. Grant what you may now, the manufacturers will never be satisfied; do what you may for them, the advocates of home industry will never be content, until every article imported from abroad, which comes into competition with any thing made at home, shall be prohibited—until, in short, foreign commerce shall be entirely cut off.
Internal Improvement.—Dismal Swamp Canal.
Mr. VAN BUREN. He would not vote for the bill, for he did not believe that this government possessed the constitutional power to make these canals, or to grant money to make them. * * * If he believed in the power of the government to grant money for this purpose, the present mode would be the last one he should think of adopting. If there was any grant of money, at all, for this purpose, it should be direct. Where aid was granted in the mode now proposed, abuses would creep in, and, in nine cases out of ten, deception would be practised. In the state of New York, Mr. Van Buren said, they had had full experience of this, in the application for charters for banks. Plausible pretences were set up, that the state would be thereby benefited, till these practices became so numerous, that, in the end, public opinion was decidedly against them; and the last legislature, to their honor, had refused all applications of this description. * * * As to the question (of constitutionality) being settled, he should protest against the admission of such a doctrine; and he should resist, to all intents and purposes, the idea that the acts of this Congress were to bind him and his constituents hereafter.
Note.—Mr. Van Buren is by no means certain that, in this respect, he
