Where this critical point is can not be pronounced, but it is impossible to believe that there is not such a point.
And as the vicissitudes of nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that which at any time exists as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith.
Reasoning on a subject comprehending ideas so abstract and complex, so little reducible to a precise calculation as those which enter into the question just discussed, are always attended with a danger of running into fallacies. Due allowance ought therefore to be made for this possibility; but as far as the nature of this subject admits of it there appears to be satisfactory ground for a belief that the public funds operate as a resource of capital to the citizens of the United States; and if they are a resource at all it is an extensive one.
To all the arguments which are brought to evince the impracticability of success in manufacturing establishments in the United States it might have been a sufficient answer to have referred to the experience of what has been already done. It is certain that several important branches have grown up and flourished with a rapidity which surprises, affording an encouraging assurance of success in future attempts. Of these it may not be improper to enumerate the most considerable:
1. Of skins.—Tanned and tawed leather, dressed skins, shoes, boots, and slippers, harness and saddlery of all kinds, portmanteaux and trunks, leather breeches, gloves, muffs and tippets, parchment, and glue.
2. Of iron,—Bar and sheet iron, steel, nail rods and nails, implements of husbandry, stoves, pots, and other household utensils, the steel and iron work of carriages, and for shipbuilding, anchors, scale beams and weights, and various tools of artificers, arms of different kinds; though the manufacture of these last has of late diminished for want or demand.
3. Of wood,—Ships, cabinet wares, and turnery, wool and cotton cards, and other machinery for manufactures and husbandry, mathematical instruments, coopers' wares of every kind.
4. Of flax and hemp.—Cables, sailcloth, cordage, twine, and pack thread.
5. Bricks and coarse tiles, and potters' wares.
6. Ardent spirits and malt liquors.
7. Writing and printing paper, sheathing and wrapping paper, pasteboards, fullers or press papers, paper hangings.
8. Hats of fur and wool, and mixtures of both; women's stuff and silk shoes.
9. Refined sugars.
10. Oils of animals, and seeds, soap, spermaceti and tallow candles.
11. Copper and brass wires, particularly utensils for distillers, sugar refiners, and brewers; andirons and other articles for household use, philosophical apparatus.
12. Tin wares for most purposes of ordinary use.
13. Carriages of all kinds.
14. Snuff, chewing and smoking tobacco.
15. Starch and hair powder.
