And what are the consequences? Nations are “perplexed by fear of change.” Better stick to a bad law, than keep changing a good. The clock that stands still (to borrow a happy illustration) is sure to be right twice every twenty-four hours; while that which is always going, may always be wrong.
Let us apply this. We are now waiting and hoping for a change of the tariff: and the more general and confident the expectation of a change among business-men, whatever that change may be—up or down—higher or lower—the more certainly will it put a stop, or greatly embarrass for a time, the whole business of the country. And why? If it be generally believed that the tariff is to be lowered, the dealers everywhere begin to run off their stocks, to offer longer credits and better terms; and however unwilling, shrewd cautious men may be about over-purchasing with such a prospect before them, there will be found others, commercial gamblers, or trading adventurers, who always profit by such occasions to go ahead of their fellows; for what they gain is their own, and what they lose, is their creditors’. And universal overtrading is the consequence here—and stoppages there—till the mischief corrects itself or dies out. Business no longer flows in its accustomed channels. It has fallen into the hands of comparative stock-jobbers and lottery-dealers: and a general bankruptcy often follows.
But suppose the tariff about to be raised—and the belief to be universal. The ultimate consequences are the same, so far as the regular business of the country is concerned. Manufacturers and jobbers hold back; they refuse to sell on six months—they shorten the period of credit—and require acceptances in town—as being, on the whole, better than to demand higher rates in advance of old customers. Purchasers may be eager—but what can they do. They are obliged to wait—and live on from hand to mouth—till the question has been settled. And so with every other great leading law, affecting any great commercial, farming, or manufacturing interest of the country. The legislation of a land is a type of itself. How can our other great institutions be safe and lasting if our legislation be unstable?
That our legislation is unstable and changing and fluctuating, who will deny? What great system of national policy have we ever pursued steadily beyond the terms of two or three of our political chief-magistrates—a paragraph at most, in the long History of the World?