The effect which so long continued a monopoly, followed by a preëmption, and then by partial preferences supported by power, must necessarily have in weakening the mercantile capital, and disabling the merchants from all undertakings of magnitude, is but too visible.
Burke describes the detrimental effects of monopolies and preferential treatment on mercantile capital.
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They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
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