in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence. The
uniformity of the general occupation would preclude all exchange, all
commerce. It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members
of a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges
which conduce to the general prosperity. And the greater that diversity,
the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange.
Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of
our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of the
interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could
never profitably reach the foreign market. But let us quit this field
of theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical operation of the
system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our
agriculture.

In considering this staple, the first circumstance that excites our
surprise is the rapidity with which the amount of it has annually
increased. Does not this fact, however, demonstrate that the cultivation
of it could not have been so very unprofitable? If the business were
ruinous, would more and more have annually engaged in it? The quantity
in 1816 was eighty-one millions of pounds; in 1826, two hundred and
four millions; and in 1830, near three hundred millions! The ground of
greatest surprise is that it has been able to sustain even its present
price with such an enormous augmentation of quantity. It could not have
been done but for the combined operation of three causes, by which the
consumption of cotton fabrics has been greatly extended in consequence
of their reduced prices: first, competition; second, the improvement of
labor-saving machinery; and thirdly, the low price of the raw material.
The crop of 1819, amounting to eighty-eight millions of pounds, produced
twenty-one millions of dollars; the crop of 1823, when the amount was
swelled to one hundred and seventy-four millions (almost double of that