Daily Inspiration Quote by Henry Charles Carey

Carey is picking a fight with the Victorian-era piety that treats “commerce” as a moral solvent: trade happens, therefore people soften, therefore civilization advances. By calling commerce “the civilizer of mankind,” he quotes the free-trade catechism in its own sanctimonious language, then snaps it in half with “Directly the reverse.” The move isn’t just argumentative; it’s rhetorical jujitsu. He doesn’t politely disagree. He implies the opposing view is not merely mistaken but upside down.

The intent is to rebrand protectionism from a grubby policy of tariffs into a theory of progress. In Carey’s American context - a young industrializing nation staring at Britain’s mature manufacturing machine - “protection” meant shielding domestic industry long enough to grow wages, build capacity, and keep the economy from being locked into exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. His subtext: so-called “free” commerce often civilizes only in the sense that empire civilizes - by reorganizing other societies around the needs of the already powerful.

That’s why the phrase “tends to destroy commerce” is doing double duty. Carey grants that protection can obstruct certain kinds of trade, then insists it creates a healthier kind: internal commerce, thick local supply chains, and reciprocal exchange among citizens rather than dependency on distant markets. He’s arguing that the real threat to “civilization” isn’t borders at the customs house; it’s an international order where one country industrializes and another stays perpetually extractive. In his framing, protection isn’t anti-commerce. It’s anti-subordination.