Mr. FEssexDEN] You say, however, they are not producers of this article, but mere petitioners signing petitions got at the beck of the crushers. I do not know anything about that. They do not say so on the face of the petitions. They seem to be an emanation from our respectable farming interest in the West, judging from the face of the papers. But you tell me that the few crushers got these men to send these petitions without any purpose or design on their part. I do not read them in that light. I believe it was the honest, the respectable farmers, the bone and sinew of our country, that sent you those petitions. Nor do I believe that any interest is to be affected detrimentally by all that I ask; and when you tell me that I stand here particularly for the West I say you have no right to charge me with that. When did I ever give a sectional vote on this floor? When your fishing bounties were up did I ever desert you? Whenever you had before us any proposition manifestly of a local character, particularly for the East, did I ever fail to encourage it when your proposition was right, and I was almost about to say even when you were wrong? And yet I am to be charged with selfishness and sectionalism upon this floor., Sir, you have got the wrong man. Look at the record and see how selfish I have been. I am none of that. I said nothing about the East or the West. I demand no more for the West, to which I belong, than I do for the East, to which you belong. Show me a principle that ministers to the growth and the welfare of this nation and I will not stand to inquire whether it affects particularly the West or the East. There is a principle that we touch here that does affect one any more than the other. The tax on almost any commodity does not light upon the heads of those on whom the tax is 1st placed, but it diffuses itself all over the community, and if the price is enhanced by it the consumer pays it. When you ask us to tax foreign commodities for the encouragement of eastern manufactures is it selfish in you to demand it? Do we yield to your selfishness when we vote for that? Not at all. We know that "at 1st at least, when we grant a tax upon foreign importations. competition with your manufactures at the East, we may for a moment enhance the value of these necessary coumodities that you produce, our clothing and other indispensables, that we produce but very little of and you a great deal; but, sir, does it not affect us all alike? It does not stop with your manufacturers of the East, on whom the tax 1st lights, but we, the consumers of your productions in the West, have to make it good to you, and it distributes itself all over the continent; and you, sir, ought to view it so as chairman of the ComFinance, and not view it upon this miserable, narrow principle of saying that a man is selfish because he contends for the protection of an article the product of which may enrich those engaged in it, and the benefits of which will reach into every hamlet in the nation. It is not selfishness; that is not the name. It is but the carrying out of a principle for which I have ever contended. I know very well there are gentlemen who do not agree with me on this subject. There are gentlemen who think you should open the gates of trade to the whole world, perfectly regardless of all that we have going on at home, regardless of the interests invested in manufactures and everything else, when we know as well as we know we live that the effect will only be to pour our wealth into the arms of foreign nations, without redress and without any hope thereof. Sir, if we are to carry this great debt of ours it must be on broader principles than that; and that is why I argue in favor of building up all the interests that will set everybody in the nation to work, for the product of labor, I say again, is all that there is valuable in any country, and that nation which does the most of it is the wealthiest and can bear taxation the best. Let us adopt those principles, apply them to our own productions and to our own laborers as far as we can, and we shall find very soon that this nation will rise from her depressed estate like a rocket, and be able to bear cheerfully all the taxation that you will have occasion to visit her with. I have no doubt of that. In the mean time, I am not the enemy of raising revenue from importations as much as you can. I really contend for that upon this bill. Why should I be charged with endeavoring to get rid of foreign importations when my very amendment contemplates a further taxation on a foreign importation, which I believe it can well bear; for I do not believe from all my inquiries on the subject that there is a sin gle interest in the East more profitable to those engaged in it than the importation of foreign flaxseed and working it up into oil? I believe it is an interest that has advantages over almost any other, and can afford to part with some portion of its profits to encourage labor in the same production in the West, if you will have it so, or in the East if you please, for I limit it to no section. If the eastern people could not raise other productions more profitably than they could this, I doubt not they would engage in it as quick as we would in the West; but your land is more valuable and better adapted to other products, out of which you make more than we can out of this. If it were as profitable you would engage in it as exten sively as we do. But I do not wish to prolong this argument, and I would not have said a word at present had it not been alleged that I was a very selfish man and adopted very selfish principles, and that I was for destroying all the commerce of the world. I say to the Senator again, if you want to promote commerce get something for commerce to operate upon. Have a surplus of everything that other nations want, and commerce, as I said before, will come of itself; you cannot keep it down. But many gentlemen have spoken of the depression of our foreign commerce of late as though it was incident to or consequent upon some adverse legislation here. I do not think the Senfrom Maine would like to admit that he had been a party to a kind of legislation that struck down commerce and had reduced it to its present miserable condition. He has not done so. That is not it. You have but recently emerged from a great war which drove your commerce from the ocean. 9 10thsof all your commerce was done in foreign bot toms, and your own vessels that covered the ocean before were driven from it by the pirates of the South, and thus our commerce was ruined; and our great arch enemy, taking advantage of this and encouraging the pirates upon the seas, did help to sweep us from the ocean and reduce our commerce to a very low condition compared with what it was before the war. But do not drag that in as though it were consequent upon some principle that I advo cate, when you know, and every man knows, that it sprang from a cause entirely different. Let us stand by our own labor, produce our own commodities, and the Senator's own people up in Maine will furnish the shipping and the commerce to carry all our surplus to market. There will be no trouble upon that.let us see how this matter came to us. score. Your commerce will flourish as it flourished before. But if you adopt a system that encourages foreign labor and brings it in detrimental competition with your own, I tell you as your country thus becomes impover ished your commerce will fail as quick as any other interest. You cannot have that commerce which you think belongs to a great nation unless your country is prosperous, in dependent of commerce, in o: the commodities out of which commerce grows.