to show that so far from the consumption of cotton goods having been diminished since 1824, the date of the first objectionable tariff, it has increased probably one-third. On reference to the reports of the Secre tary of the Treasury, it will be seen that no diminution has taken place in the importation of cotton goods since 1824. At the nominal or money value of cotton goods, the average importations since 1824 are equal to the average importations before; but taken at their exchangeable or real value, the quantity of cotton goods imported since 1824 is greater than it was before; that is, as cotton goods sell much cheaper now than before 1824, the quantity of cotton goods valued at $8,000,000 now, is greater than the cotton goods valued at $8,000,000 before 1824. If this statement be correct, the importation of cotton goods has not diminished since the adoption of the present protective system.

But on reference to the speech of the distinguished statesman already alluded to, it will further appear that $16,000,000 of cotton goods are now manufactured in the United States, which, in conjunction with the $8,000,000 imported, makes the present consumption $24,000,000. The production of our manufactures has probably doubled since 1824. If so, the consumption then must have been $8,000,000 imported and $8,000,000 manufactured at home, making in all $16,000,000; the present consumption being $24,000,000, leaves an increased consumption of one-third, or $8,000,000 in the last six years. This increased consumption is at least equal to the increased population of the United States. It does not appear then that the protective system, as far as we can follow it, has diminished the price of cotton. The price of cotton has been diminished by other and adequate causes. In the last few years we have nearly doubled our production; probably 450,000 have been added to our former production, and the increased production elsewhere has kept pace with ours. It is probable that 750,000 bales have been added in the last few years to the former supply in the Liverpool market; so great an increased production must have diminished the price of cotton wool. If the consumption had not also increased, the price would have been still more diminished. The consumption has been increasing everywhere, and must be forever checking the effects of over-production; the lower cotton is, the cheaper cotton goods become; the cheaper cotton goods become, the greater the consumption; the greater the consumption, the greater the demand for cotton; the greater the demand for cotton, the higher the price. This is the circle in which it must move, and if it be true that the consumption had been diminished by our protective system, and thus lowered the price of cotton in Liverpool for a moment, it would soon be met by increased consumption elsewhere, which would in turn raise the price of cotton wool. If we suffer no more from the protective system than do the consumers throughout the United States, can we, ought we, to complain of burthens imposed

by the representatives of all upon all? It may be impolitic to encourage manufacturers at the expense of the consumers, the great body of the people; but to the discretion of Congress, as to every other legislature, much must be trusted; they may abuse the trust; so will others; the only security we can have is the responsibility of the representative to his constituents, and a common interest between them. Are we to enlist in a crusade against the people of the United States for permitting their representatives to conform to their wishes? or are we to submit to such laws as are common to all and affecting all in like degree? I am disposed to leave Carolina where she is, the equal, not the superior of other States. When she shall be oppressed, when unequal burthens are imposed upon her, then, and not till then, let her be forced from the Union. It cannot be for the honor of South Carolina to claim for her more than an equal share in the government; and if she sometimes suffers in common with the people of the other States, we must submit, or resort to the right of revolution; one or the other is demanded by the honor of Carolina.

Honor of Carolina! who now ministers at thy altar! Who is it that points to Carter's Mountain, when to Mount Vernon we ought to go? If this must be, then have the days of her chivalry gone by; then are we recreant to the glory of our fathers.

Judge Lee being called upon by the meeting to address them, obeyed the call, unexpected as it was. He begs us to say that the call being made at a late hour, he submitted some desultory observations, which he thinks it quite unnecessary to publish. In all that he may have said he considers himself as completely forestalled by the able and eloquent orator of the day, and by many of his distinguished friends who preceded him in their addresses to the meeting at the dinner. What they said was, he thinks, so much better said by them than by himself, that he declines the publication of his speech.

SPEECH OF COL. B. F. HUNT.

Col. B. F. Hunt having been called on, without premeditation, said: Fellow-Citizens,-I feel this to be the proudest day of my life. The friends of Union and State Rights have on this day, unawed by the denunciations of political adversaries, and with feelings high above the distractions of party discord, assembled to lay upon the altars of liberty the pure sacrifice of unfeigned thankfulness for those national blessings which the valor and devotedness of our fathers have secured by their toils and hallowed by their blood I have on this day seen the men of Charleston-the republican citizens of Carolina-without distinction of birthplace, or the adventitious differences of rank or fortune, assembled together as a band of brothers, and bowing before that only throne, to which a freeman pays his homage, devoutly thanking God that we

still continue a free, united and prosperous people. In all this vast assembly I see none, no, not one, who has ever "bent his knee before created man”—not one whose blood would leave his manly cheek amid the embattled hosts of his country's foes. Yet the foul brand of "submission" has been attempted to be impressed upon such men. Does this assembly, these banners, our proud aspiration, savor of submission? Let not our adversaries calculate upon our submission. We know and appreciate the distinction between that obedience which is due to the government of our choice and what would ensue if the foundations of that government were undermined and all the securities of regulated liberty crushed under its ruins. All the licentious passions of the human breast, unrestrained and kindled to very madness by deluded leaders, would leave to our people no alternative but to submit our lives, our homes, our altars, and our little ones, to the tender mercies of a heartless, irresponsible mob. We are resolved to submit to no tyrant, whether he be a crowned emperor or a lawless demagogue. We now feel all that security for our rights which an established government affords, and contrasted with any other people on earth, we know that the career of our beloved country has been one of unexampled prosperity-and we know, too, that we owe all to that proud submission to the laws and Constitution of the Republic, without which every free government is powerless and inadequate to its ends.

We know that our federal government, like every human government, is liable to be badly administered; and when its evils overbalance its benefits, we are prepared to encounter all the vicissitudes of revolution still to be free. Experience, however, teaches us to beware how we hastily throw off a government which has been fruitful of so many blessings, to listen warily to those who would excite our jealousy against a friend that has stuck to us closer than a brother in the hour of our utmost need. The Constitution of the United States is wholly unlike treaties between independent sovereign nations. It is a frame of government, and it acts not on the sovereign bodies of the States, but upon the people of the United States. A treaty or compact between sovereign nations may be abrogated, and it still leaves each with its form of government entire-its executive, its naval, military and diplomatic establishments in perfect organization, according to the ancient constitutions of the respective countries, and recognized in the list of nations. Not so the United States of America. Their ancient general government was the monarchy of Britain, and once loose the bonds of the Constitution, and twenty-four new nations must be organized. All history warns us of the blood and misery which it would cost. And for what causes are we urged to the fearful experiment-certain abstract theories insisted upon by enthusiastic speculators, whose title to implicit confidence rests upon the facility with which they can "change sides and argue still."

We do not believe that the duties are paid by any but the consumer of the articles on which they are imposed. We know that if incidentally high duties are injurious to free trade, and we admit the fact, they have been adopted upon the very principle of latitudinary construction, which owe their success to those politicians who now so strenuously inveigh against them. We know that the tariff has not effected any one quarter of the Union exclusively, and that it was forced upon those who are now calumniated for its existence. Yet we will never cease, light as its evils are compared with the distractions and miseries of a revolution, to struggle to bring back our national legislation to the safe, simple and democratic rules of the old republican school. We trust to the virtue of that people which has hitherto been found capable of appreciating the value of our Union, without our aid of translantic arithmetic, and we shall not misplace our confidence; we will trust our whole country.

The enjoyments, the recollections and the hopes which this day brings with it we owe to the united sacrifices and the combined valor of the patriots of the Revolution from every section of our extended Republic. On this day we bear on our banners the emblems and the names of all that was profound in council, great and heroic in the field, in "those days which tried men's souls." Nor are the achievements of the second war of Independence forgotten. We see the oak of New England, the palmetto of Carolina, and the hickory of New Orleans, interwoven in that bright wreath which binds together the North, the South, and the West; long, long may they flourish in unfading verdure, affording to the aged patriot the cheering emblems of the great results of all his toils and sacrifices, and impressing on our generous youth the deep sense of gratitude which they owe to those sires who, under God, have secured for them such a rich inheritance.

Fellow-citizens, long may the services, the feelings and the resolves which we have this day performed, and experienced, and made, be preserved in our memories. They will enlighten our understandings justly to value and strengthen our hearts firmly to support the laws and the Constitution, and hand down, unimpaired, to our children, the inestimable blessings of regulated liberty.

Being called on for a sentiment, he gave

"Fort Moultrie, the glorious compeer of Bunker Hill: The unconcerted and almost simultaneous offerings of the North and the South in the great cause of National Independence."

SPEECH OF R. YEADON, JR., Esq.

R. Yeadon, Jr., Esq., having been called on to address the meeting, said:

That he had observed, with regret, strong indications that we were about to split on the very rock against which the immortal Washington, in his parting admonition, had prophetically warned us. That geo

graphical distinctions were now the watchwords of parties, distracting our once pe aceful country and causing our Union to totter on its base That the South seemed now prepared to put on its armor against the North, and the East might soon be ready to hurl its thunderbolts against the West. That feelings so dangerous to the harmony of our Union and the durability of our institutions were to be seriously deprecated, and a more generous and enlarged patriotism ought to animate the bosom of every American. He said that he had observed, with equal pain, that it had become the familiar custom of those who arrogated to themselves, exclusively, the principles and feelings of Carolinians, to heap opprobrium upon the name of Yankee, and that our youth were even taught to lisp it with execrations; that it was strange, indeed, that while in Europe the name of Yankee is identified with everything great in action and sublime in liberty, here it should be the subject of contumely and reproach. That the people of the South should remember that those who unfurled the virgin flag of liberty, and fought her first battles at Lexington and Bunker Hill were the inheritors of a common glory with those who achieved her victories at the Cowpens and the Eutaw. He added, that in language partly borrowed from the beautiful anthem composed by a minister of the gospel for this day's celebration of the holy festival of the Union, those who inhabit the “fair plains" of the South-those who dwell in the "central mountain" region-those who people New England's rock-girt strand, and those who roam prairied west"-are all one people-and let them come from what quarter of the Union they may, when once they touch the sacred and hospitable soil of South Carolina they should be hailed and welcomed as brothers. He concluded by saying that as appropriate to these remarks and to the occasion which had brought so great and patriotic a concourse together, he would offer the following sentiment:

"the

"Our Country-Our Whole Country: Not circumscribed within the narrow confines of a single State, but co-extensive with the broad expanse of our glorious confederacy."

A call having been made for the editor of the Gazette, W. Gilmore Simms, Esq., rose, and after observing to the assembly that enough of prose having been already spoken, he should take leave, with the aid of the muse of patriotism, to offer them some little verse. He delivered the National Ode which follows:

OUR UNION—A NATIONAL Ode.

I.

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land"—[SCOTT.

Who, gazing on each valley round,