University of Virginia Library

TO CHARLES J. INGERSOLL.

Dear Sir I thank you, tho' at a late day, for the
pamphlet comprizing your address at New York.

The address is distinguished by some very important
views of an important subject.

The absolutists on the "Let alone theory" overlook
the two essential pre-requisites to a perfect
freedom of external commerce. I. That it be universal
among nations. 2. That peace be perpetual
among them.

A perfect freedom of international commerce,
manifestly requires that it be universal. If not so,

a Nation departing from the theory, might regulate
the commerce of a Nation adhering to it, in subserviency
to its own interest, and disadvantageously to
the latter. In the case of navigation, so necessary under
different aspects nothing is more clear than that
a discrimination by one Nation in favor of its own vessels,
without an equivalent discrimination on the side
of another, must at once banish from the intercourse,
the navigation of the latter. This was verified by our
own ante-Constitution experience; as the remedy for
it has been by the post-constitution experience.

But to a perfect freedom of commerce, universality
is not the only condition; perpetual peace is another.
War, so often occurring & so liable to occur, is a
disturbing incident entering into the calculations
by which a Nation ought to regulate its foreign
commerce. It may well happen to a nation adhering
strictly to the rule of buying cheap, that the rise of
prices in Nations at war, may exceed the cost of a
protective policy in time of peace; so that taking the
two periods together, protection would be cheapness.
On this point also an appeal may be made to our
own experience. The Champions for the "Let alone
policy" forget that theories are the offspring of the
closet; exceptions & qualifications the lessons of
experience.