Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade
By John Codman
()
Related to Free Ships
Related ebooks
The Justice and Necessity of Taxing the American Colonies, Demonstrated Together with a Vindication of the Authority of Parliament Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Building of the Panama Canal in Historic Photographs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Bondage and My Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Defenders of Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNewfoundland and the Jingoes An Appeal to England's Honor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDanger! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConservation Through Engineering: Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDanger! and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great War: Its Lessons and Its Warnings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe War in South Africa Its Cause and Conduct Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur big guns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExploring the Britannic: The life, last voyage and wreck of Titanic's tragic twin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of the Abolition of African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Abolition of the African Slave-Trade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOcean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsState of the Union Addresses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Type of Isthmian Canal Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the United States, June 14, 1906 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Congo and the Founding of its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration Vol. I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Burt Folsom's The Myth of the Robber Barons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Naval War of 1812 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Man With the Black Feather: Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrisons Over Seas: Deportation and Colonization; British and American Prisons of To-day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Free Ships
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Free Ships - John Codman
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Free Ships: The Restoration of the American
Carrying Trade, by John Codman
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade
Author: John Codman
Release Date: May 6, 2009 [EBook #28704]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREE SHIPS: AMERICAN CARRYING TRADE ***
Produced by Bryan Ness, C. St. Charleskindt and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)
FREE SHIPS.
THE RESTORATION
OF
THE AMERICAN CARRYING TRADE
BY
JOHN CODMAN.
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
182 Fifth Avenue
1878
FREE SHIPS.
The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade.
It may seem surprising that an American House of Representatives should have been so ignorant of the meaning of a common word as to apply the term commerce
to the carrying trade, when in the session of 1869 it commissioned Hon. John Lynch, of Maine, and his associated committee to investigate the cause of the decadence of American commerce,
and to suggest a remedy by which it might be restored.
But, it was not more strange than that this committee really appointed to look into the carrying trade to which the misnomer commerce was so inadvertently applied, should have entirely ignored its duty by constituting itself into an eleemosynary body for the bestowal of national charity upon shipbuilders. Its Report fell dead upon the floor of the House, and was so ridiculed in the Senate that when a motion was made to lay the bill for printing it upon the table, Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, suggested, as an amendment, that it be kicked under it. Nevertheless, the huge volume of irrelevant testimony was published for the benefit of two great home industries—paper making and printing.
The theory of this committee was that the Rebellion had destroyed another industry nearly as remote from the proper subject of inquiry as either of these. These gentlemen concluded that shipbuilding was becoming extinct, because the Confederate cruisers had destroyed many of our ships—a reason ridiculously absurd, in view of the corollary that the very destruction of those vessels should have stimulated reproduction. Since that abortive attempt to steal bounties from the Treasury for the benefit of a favored class of mechanics, Government, occupied with matters deemed of greater importance, has totally neglected our constantly diminishing mercantile marine.
By refusing to repeal the law that represses it, it may truly be said that had every ingenuity been devised to accomplish its destruction, its tendency to utter annihilation could not have been more certainly assured than it has been by this obstinate neglect.
In the session of 1876, Senator Boutwell of Massachusetts renewed the proposition of Mr. Lynch, but his Bill was not called up in the Senate. In the course of intervening years a little more light may be presumed to have dawned upon Congress, and, therefore, it is to be regretted that the Senator did not obtain a hearing, in order that the fallacy of his argument might have been exposed.
If any one cares to study the origin of our restrictive navigation laws, he can consult a concise account of it given by Mr. David A. Wells, in the North American Review, of December, 1877. It came out of a compromise with slavery. The Northern States agreed that slavery should be fostered
—that is a favorite word with protectionists—provided that shipbuilding should also be fostered, and that New England ships—for nearly all vessels were built in that district—should have the sole privilege of supplying the Southern market with negroes!
That sort of slavery being now happily at an