He then went on to show the injustice which would be done to all
manufacturers of unprotected articles, and ridiculed the idea of the
connection between home industries artificially developed and national
independence. He concluded by assailing manufacturing as an occupation,
attacking it as a means of making the rich richer and the poor poorer; of
injuring business by concentrating capital in the hands of a few who
obtained control of the corporations; of distributing capital less widely
than commerce; of breeding up a dangerous and undesirable population; and
of leading to the hurtful employment of women and children. The meeting,
the resolutions, and the speech were all in the interests of commerce and
free trade, and Mr. Webster's doctrines were on the most approved pattern
of New England Federalism, which, professing a mild friendship for
manufactures and unwillingly conceding the minimum of protection solely as
an incident to revenue, was, at bottom, thoroughly hostile to both. In 1820
Mr. Webster stood forth, both politically and constitutionally, as a
free-trader, moderate but at the same time decided in his opinions.

When the tariff of 1824 was brought before Congress and advocated with
great zeal by Mr. Clay, who upheld it as the "American system," Mr. Webster
opposed the policy in the fullest and most elaborate speech he had yet made
on the subject. A distinguished American economist, Mr. Edward Atkinson,
has described this speech of 1824 briefly and exactly in the following
words:--

"It contains a refutation of the exploded theory of the balance of
trade, of the fallacy with regard to the exportation of specie, and
of the claim that the policy of protection is distinctively the
American policy which can never be improved upon, and it indicates
how thoroughly his judgment approved and his better nature
sympathized with the movement towards enlightened and liberal