Excerpt from Speech of Mr. Choate, of Massachusetts, on the Power and Duty of Congress to Continue the Policy of Protecting American Labor: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 14, 1842 Mr. Choate observed that he had wished to say something on one branch of one of the subjects to which. The resolutions extended; he meant that of the readjustment of the tariff, as it might affect domestic industry. In his view, it was the great subject of the session and of the day. I agree, Ire said, with the Pennsylvania memorialists, whose petition has just been read, that the subject of the currency, difficult, delicate, and important as iti s, and creditable as it will be to my friend from New York (mr. T'all madge) and useful to the country to adjust it, bears no comparison, in point of importance, with this. We are coming, whether we Will or not, by the progress of the compromise act, to an era in the history of the na tional industry and the national prosperity. We have it in our power to mark this era by the commission QT a stupendous mistake, or by the reali zation of a splendid felicity and wisdom of policy. This ery tariff which we are about to construct may, on the one hand paralyze American labor, drive it from many of its best fields of employment, arrest the develop ment of our resources of growth and wealth, and even the development of the mind and genius of America, our main resource, turning back the rur rent of our national fortunes for an age; or it may, on the other hand, com municate an impulse, that shall be felt after we are in our graves, to that harmonized agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial industry, which alone can fill the measure of this or of any country s glory. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

An orator of great renown, a congressman, senator, and colleague of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate was a strong proponent of protective tariffs to assist domestic industry.