financial measure. Its great object was to raise revenue, not to
foster manufactures.... I do not say the double duties ought to be
continued. I think they ought not. But what I particularly object
to is the holding out of delusive expectations to those concerned
in manufactures.... In respect to manufactures it is necessary to
speak with some precision. I am not, generally speaking, their
enemy. I am their friend; but I am not for rearing them or any
other interest in hot-beds. I would not legislate precipitately,
even in favor of them; above all, I would not profess intentions in
relation to them which I did not purpose to execute. I feel no
desire to push capital into extensive manufactures faster than the
general progress of our wealth and population propels it.

"I am not in haste to see Sheffields and Birminghams in America.
Until the population of the country shall be greater in proportion
to its extent, such establishments would be impracticable if
attempted, and if practicable they would be unwise."

He then pointed out the inferiority and the perils of manufactures as an
occupation in comparison with agriculture, and concluded as follows:--

"I am not anxious to accelerate the approach of the period when the
great mass of American labor shall not find its employment in the
field; when the young men of the country shall be obliged to shut
their eyes upon external nature, upon the heavens and the earth,
and immerse themselves in close and unwholesome workshops; when
they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleatings of their
own flocks upon their own hills, and to the voice of the lark that
cheers them at the plough, that they may open them in dust and
smoke and steam to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles, and