latter article, the gentleman from South Carolina was mistaken in
supposing that I complained that, under the existing duty, the Kentucky
manufacturer could not compete with the Scotch. The Kentuckian furnishes
a more substantial and a cheaper article, and at a more uniform and
regular price. But it was the frauds, the violations of law, of which I
did complain; not smuggling, in the common sense of that practice, which
has something bold, daring, and enterprising in it, but mean, barefaced
cheating, by fraudulent invoices and false denominations.

I plant myself upon this fact, of cheapness and superiority, as upon
impregnable ground. Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity, and produce a
thousand speculative solutions of the fact, but the fact itself will
remain undisturbed. Let us look into some particulars. The total
consumption of bar-iron in the United States is supposed to be about
146,000 tons, of which 112,866 tons are made within the country, and
the residue imported. The number of men employed in the manufacture is
estimated at 29,254, and the total number of persons subsisted by it at
146,273. The measure of protection extended to this necessary article
was never fully adequate until the passage of the act of 1828; and what
has been the consequence? The annual increase of quantity since that
period has been in a ratio of near twenty-five per centum, and the
wholesale price of bar-iron in the Northern cities was, in 1828,
$105 per ton; in 1829, $100; in 1830, $90; and in 1831, from $85 to
$75--constantly diminishing. We import very little English iron, and
that which we do is very inferior, and only adapted to a few purposes.
In instituting a comparison between that inferior article and our
superior iron, subjects entirely different are compared. They are made
by different processes. The English cannot make iron of equal quality to
ours at a less price than we do. They have three classes, best-best,
and best, and ordinary. It is the latter which is imported. Of the whole