Franklin Repository

It seems like a work of supererogation to attempt to urge upon Congress the necessity for a good, wise, protective tariff. The first principle of nature -self-preservation- should furnish the one great, powerful argument in favor of remodeling the present nominal impost laws -amounting almost to Free Trade. The fact that every branch of productive industry is completely paralyzed; that all classes of society are suffering from the effects of the ruinous policy of Federalist locofocoism -which produced the terrible panic in the financial world during the Fall of 1857, as a necessary result of destroying the manufactories of our own, to build up those of foreign countries -should open the eyes of the blindest, and shine in upon the most obtuse intellect in the lower House; as these facts set forth, unmistakably, the imperative demand for action, by that body, on this all important topic.

If, however, any further incentive were needed; any greater light required to clear away the mistiness which beclouds the brains of locofoco, Federalist politicians; if any stronger reasons are necessary to convince all men everywhere, throughout our country, of the necessity, the absolute, immediate, requirement for a thorough readjustment of the revenue laws, so as to discriminate in favor of and protect American made goods from the ruinous competition of the productions of pauper labor on the other side of the Atlantic, we think the following will suffice. If is clipped from a late number of the London Times:

"The importation of cotton into this country has, since the import duty was abolished, increased sixteen fold. Having been 63,000,000 lbs., it is now 1,000,000,000 lbs. This is one of those giant facts which stands head and shoulders higher than the crowd -so high and so broad that we can neither overlook it nor affect not to see it. It proves the existence of a thousand smaller facts that must stand under its shadow. It tells of sixteen times as many mills, sixteen times as many English families living by working those mills, sixteen times as much profit derived from sixteen times as much capital engaged in this manufacture. It carries after it sequences of increased quantity of freights and insurances, and necessities for sixteen time the amount of customers to consume, to our profit, the immense amount of produce we are turning out. There are not many such facts as these, arising in the quiet routine of industrial history. It is so large and so steady that we can steer our national policy by it; it is so important to us that we should be reduced to embarrassment if it were suddenly to disappear. It teaches us to persevere in a policy which has produced so wonderful a result; its beneficent operation makes it essential to us to deal carefully with it now that we have got it."

What a commentary on the blindness and folly of the wise-acres of locofoco federalism? England's leading organ boasts of the free importation of cotton into British ports as resulting in the increase of industry throughout Great Britain sixteen fold. The greater part of this raw material was grown upon American soil.--Its manufacture at home would have given constant employment to sixteen workmen at home, and perhaps more, for one now employed without that raw material to work up. English journalists proclaim to the world the secret of British prosperity; showing that industry promoted is the chief source of their success, and yet other nations, whose people are equally as dependent upon the labor of their country, see these statements, believe in their truthfulness, and foolishly refuse to apply the proper remedy, although suffering unheard of privations in consequence of Governmental neglect.

The policy of Great Britain, controlled as the Times says by the effects produced upon the masses of her people, is to abolish duties or increase Tariffs in proportion to the benefit thereof upon English manufactured wares seeking a market upon British soil, the law-makers lost no time in placing upon the statute Books of her majesty's realm such laws as the people demanded. Here, however, where the people are, or profess to be, the real sovereigns, the loud earnest demands and supplicating appeals of the masses to their servants, the Representatives in both branches of Congress, do not seem to weigh a feather with these dignitaries, elevated for a brief period by the votes of the thousands whom they heartlessly refuse to relieve.

We are well aware that there are noble, honorable exceptions to this rule; that there are a large number of the present Congress who are anxious to arrest the madness of the system of transporting all our raw material to foreign work shops to be made up, as is now the case, and who will vote for any fair, honest Tariff laws; but our surprise is that any American citizen; any lover of his country, can be found so blind as not to see the necessity of prompt action in the present crisis.

The disgraceful notice of the departure of a vessel for England, with a certain number of passengers, and upwards of an hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver, which meets the indignant eye of the constant reader of daily papers, almost every few weeks, will be forever disposed of if Congress makes the necessary arrangements for keeping the precious metals at home; by passing laws for the protection of home labor -which will keep the money at home also.

The descendants of the Revolutionary tories of South Carolina, who are so zealous for the breaking up of the present confederacy of States; and all their aiders and abettors, from any portion of the Union, are guilty of treason. The Congressmen, and the members of the State legislatures, who take part in the treasonable movements of the nullification State, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the U.S., are guilty of perjury, as well as treason. They all trample under their unhallowed feet the 2nd clause of the 10th section of Article 1st of the Constitution of the United States, which reads as follows:

"No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, ENTER INTO ANY ARRANGEMENT OR COMPACT WITH ANOTHER STATE, or with a foreign power, or engage in war."

What could be plainer? How could the framers of the Constitution -the document for which Southern members of Congress profess to entertain so much reverence -have more fully expressed their disapprobation of all such movements as are now on foot in the sunny South? It looks as though the founders of the great Republic, the last, lone asylum of sweet, sweet liberty, were gifted with prophetic vision which enabled them to predict, and provide for, the doings of bad men in these latter days.

To hear grave, Southern Senators declaring that the Union is only of value while the constitution is preserved; that it is the Constitution which gives power to the Union, and then witnessing their acquiescence in the wicked schemes of baseborn tories to up-turn the whole temple of American liberty; wantonly violating the Constitution (the Southern Senators' political Bible) with impunity -not one of them daring to say a word in its defense, shows most clearly the necessity for wresting the whole machinery of government from the keeping of such men in the Union is to be kept sacred. As well might we set wolves to watch sheep as such creatures to guard the temple of American liberty, of the palladium of the basis of the Union of the States.

The Democratic party has passed into the hands of the nullifiers. The little black cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, that appeared on the verge of the horizon, has spread over the whole sky -and its dark shadow is on all the land. The benignant recognition of human rights; the generous regard for progress that once distinguished the party, and compensated in some degree, for its errors and its radicalism, have given place to intolerance, despotism, nullification, and to an indifference to all the interest of the country, except slavery. To the extension and the strengthening of that institution, all its efforts are directed, and all its policy is bent. The favorite remedy which it proposes for any evil under the Constitution is to dissolve the Union, and the leaders of the party bring up that remedy on every occasion. They propose to go into the Presidential election under the form of the Constitution and the laws. If they succeed, they will claim, as they will have the right to claim, the acquiescence of the other party, and its cheerful obedience to the just authority of the new administration; if they fail, they propose to break up the Union, to prevent, by force the inauguration of the President elected by the people, and to destroy the Government when they cannot control its policy and dispense its patronage.

This is the position of the Democratic party; his is the plan which the Democrats hope to carry, and which is held up in the other States to frighten people from voting according to their own deliberate judgment. The triumph of a party on this doctrine and under this threat, would be the triumph of nullification. The government would cease to be elective, in any proper sense of the word. It would be the rule of the minority. The administration would be given, not to the party that cast the greatest number of votes, but to that which made the loudest threats and manifested the most disloyal temper. The precedents once established would be followed up; the party that could retain the government by such cheap and easy means as threatening to overthrow it, would rule as a spoiled child rules the house. Had Gen. Jackson given up to nullification under the threats of South Carolina, the authority of the government, once successfully defied, would never have been restored except by a struggle greater than the constitution has yet passed through. Far beyond all his military services stands out the firm and patriotic conduct of Gen. Jackson at that period; when he declared that the Union must and should be preserved, and followed up his declaration by preparations to enforce it, and rallied the whole country around the standard of the constitution. How different is the Democratic party of to-day from that which then responded to the patriotic summons of its chief, standing firmly by the constitution, and bearing aloft the flag of the Union.--Providence (R.I.) Journal.

Yesterday afternoon a native african was placed in charge of captain Brashears, at the central Police Station, to await the order of Dr. Hall, the agent of the Colonization Society. It appears that he was born at a point at considerable distance south of Monrovia, and where, by frequent stoppage of English vessels the people are partially civilized. Having reached the age of twenty years, Pabla, as the man calls himself, obeyed the custom of his land and took five wives, with all of whom he says he lived happily. A few months ago, the ship Exchange touched at the native town of Pabla, and having a desire to see the world, he shipped as a sailor and come to Baltimore. An idea has lately haunted him that some of his own color wanted to sell him as a slave, and having been born a free man, he became terribly excited by fear.

The custom of that part of Africa is to mark all who are born free, and Pabla was quick to exhibit his marks to all who approached him. The centre of his forehead from the hair to the nose bears the mark of the branding iron, and at the outer corner of each eye there are three distinct marks made by the same means. Besides these the iron was placed on his left arm, reaching from the wrist neatly to the elbow, leaving a corrugated surface. Those are his marks of freedom. His dialect is entirely unintelligible in this region, and the English words he has learned, are so badly spoken that it is difficult to understand what he says. He is about six feet high, of fine proportions, and his hands look as if they had been but little used to labor.--He will be taken care of and sent to the coast of Africa by a vessel which is expected to sail during the present week. Pabla expresses a great desire to return to his home, that he may again see his wives and father.--Baltimore Sun,