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H. OF R.]

The Tariff.

[MAY 10, 1830. these halls, hear its voice exhorting to reunion, and cheer-, importation of English cloths into the United States, at the ing to associated effort? Is it not drowned in the angry port of New York. These men seem to have organized roar of that torrent of malediction, which, for so many and carried into operation a system of smuggling, ruinous days, has been poured down from the stormy South on to the revenue, and, in its effects, destructive of that great the devoted region of New England! Where, sir, is the branch of national industry and production. This smugspirit of the revolution? Does it still live in our country gling is not of ordinary character, and such as is transactSir, it did not expire with Lowndes; it did not, when de-ed in Europe. It is not between nations, divided by a line serted by his associate, abandon his lovely land of the sun. of frontier, like Austria and Prussia; or by a river, as GerMen still live in that patriotic region, who make no com- many and France; or by a narrow sea, as France and Engpromise on questions of liberty and independence, and who land. The immense peril of this trade, practised under will never barter either, with any nation, for the poor pri- such hazard of detection, does, in a great degree, secure vilege of selling their cotton at a better bargain. fair and legitimate commerce. Against this new and hitherto unpractised smuggling, there is no such protection. It is transacted, through the custom-house, by frauds and perjuries, fabricated in England, and imported and put into use in this country. The custom-house of New York has been opened to this wickedness; a passage is paved through it. In the language of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. DAVIS] it is a great railroad for smuggling. Is there not in this country independence, nationality, spirit, manhood enough, to abate this nuisance, or remove it back to the nation whence it was imported?

During our revolution, Britain was deeply skilled in the trade and mystery of treason; and could, at any time, exhibit invoice accounts of all the goods and wares, and prices current of each item of treachery. Among these might be found court favors, humble offices, minor titles, and free pardons. The whigs of those times were poor customers, and never would consent to sell their country for any toys of English aristocracy. What do these transatlantic dealers offer us now? Free trade; a commodity out of fashion, and without a market in all Europe; and, in addition to this, I know not what commodity of small wares; the cast-off clothes of royal perogative, not fitted to the uncourtly limbs of American citizens. Will one American furnish his wardrobe from the shops of such fashioners! And for what? That his name may be writteu in English court calendars with Sir before it, and in all other books with traitor after it?

The amendment, sir, offered by the member from South Carolina [Mr. McDUFFIE] admits the allegations made in support of this bill, but proposes a new and hitherto unheard-of remedy; not by increased regulation; not by more officers of inspection and appraisal; not by higher integrity or more unwearied vigilance; not by heavier or more certain penalties. It proposes to abolish the law, and thereby prevent the violation of it; because, “where there is no law, there can be no transgression." Dissolve the bands of allegiance, and you take away the crime of treason. Enact thou mayest kill, and homicide is no longer murder. Repeal the whole decalogue, and moral evil will be excluded from the world."

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Men differ in opinions now, as they have in all times differed in political opinions. Many honest and patriotic men questioned and opposed the growing independence of the colonies; many honest men opposed the revolution, and sacrificed every thing to loyalty; and many honest men now most sincerely believe the American system to be hostile to the true interests of these United States. The amendment proposes to abolish the American sysDifferent from all these are those who look on their coun- tem. This is to be done, because that system, although try as made for them, not they for their country. Sir, the beneficial to the majority, is detrimental to the minority of demagogues of those and of these times, like the dema- the nation. The amendment is intended to reverse this gogues of all times, regarding political power as the great- order of things. The free trade system proposed by the est of all possible good, are always ready to sell all in ex- amendment, is to be beneficial to the minority, but dechange for this. To such men explanation is useless-trimental to the majority. On this ground the whole arargument unavailing. To men of other minds, and very gument of the member from South Carolina has been susdiverse in hope and in purpose, the measure now before tained. On this ground the repeal has been demanded. If us has been presented for consideration. Its nature and this be a good cause of repeal in this case, it must be good purpose need very little explanation. The bill offered by in all other cases. All minorities may allege this against the gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. MALLARY] provides all majorities. for the more effectual execution of the revenue laws of A minority may be one less than half, and a majority the country. Those laws form a system which, in the first may be one less than the whole. According to the place, supplies the revenue on which depends every part present argument, if one man of our twelve millions of of the public service; their next effect is encouragement people can complain that a law, highly beneficial to eleven of domestic industry, in all those arts of production which million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hunare not now perfectly established; and, last of all, they are dred and ninety-nine persons, is detrimental to him, he may designed to furnish protection to all such employments as demand a repeal; and, if refused by such majority, he may, may already supply the national consumption, but are now in the language of the member from South Carolina, deunable to resist the influence of foreign capital. This sys-nounce them as tyrants, monopolists, cannibals, and assastem is composed of all those laws, at different times enact- sins of his natural rights. What law, against what minoed, to place impost duty on imported commodities, the rity, may not work the like evils? The argument makes growth or manufacture of other countries. This union of no difference in the moral character of such a minority. It revenue, encouragement, and protection, under these laws applies equally to the honest and the dishonest, to the paof impost, forms the American system. The bill before the triot and to the traitor. committee proposes such regulations as may perfect the execution of those laws, and sustain that system, so needful for the support of Government, the payment of the public debt, and the encouragement and protection of all the various labors of the people.

The subject comprehended in this measure was recommended to the attention of Congress at the commencement of this session, by the annual message of the President. The Committee on Manufactures, to which it was referred, has received from the Treasury Department ample and detailed accounts of numerous and extensive frauds, perpetrated, under color of law, by English agents, in the

The enemy invades your frontier, and, being pressed for subsistence, offers to your citizens high prices for provisions. To furnish these supplies, might become a very profitable trade; but "to adhere to the enemy, or give him aid and comfort," is treason by the laws of the land. This law is a law of the majority. It cuts off the minority from a profitable commerce, which, but for this law, might be innocent and very productive. Assassination is, in some countries, a profitable business, to no inconsiderable minority; and, but for the oppressive laws of tyrannizing majorities, might be much more productive to those bravos, who, at great cost, have made themselves skilful

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in mingling poison, or flourishing the dagger. Pirates, who, ments on the South; or by any illustrations, drawn from always denominate themselves free traders, might drive a the diminished price, or limited market of tobacco. I will very profitable business, if the overwhelming majorities of therefore make no further allusion to either of these. all nations did not, without regard to their claim, outlaw, It is said the market price of cotton has, since 1818, and drive them from the ocean. Smugglers have the same been reduced from thirty to ten cents a pound. This statecause to complain; for honest merchauts, iu all communi- ment should have run back to 1816, because, at that time, ties, have united to expel and chase them out of society. the protecting principle was first introduced into the sysAll these laws have been enacted against these minorities tem; and because cotton was then at a lower price than by majorities mindful of their own interests, and utterly that to which speculation raised it in some succeeding regardless of all claims of such minorities. Do not tell years. It has not been alledged in this debate that the me that these men were felons or outlaws, while the mi- system has increased the cost of growing cotton. Lands nority in this question are honest and deserving citizens. have not thereby been made less fertile, or the support of It is, indeed, so. This minority is, to the full, in all quali- labor more costly. The natural price of cotton has not ties rendering men meritorious, equal to any people of been advanced, while the market price has declined. The these United States. That, however, is no part of the ar-market price has declined from thirty to ten cents. This, gument as it has been presented to us. Their claim to have it is said, is the effect of the American system; and on this the laws reversed has not been placed on their merit, but alleged fact, this objection to that system is sustained, if on their right as a minority. For the first time in the his- sustained at all. tory of popular government, it has been alleged that laws, to be just, must be equally beneficial to all; the interest of the many must submit to that of the few; no matter how few-one thousand, one hundred, ten, or one man.

It is admitted that the American system is beneficial to the nation. It is denounced, because the cotton and tobacco of certain States are, by its operations, reduced in price. Although it makes the sugar and grain-growing States rich, yet does it make the cotton and tobacco States poor. It is, therefore, a despotism, and must be repealed. Will the amendment remove that evil, this unequal operation of the general laws? You would abolish the American system. By this, the great interest of the sugar-making, the graingrowing, and manufactruing States, are overthrown. The interests of the cotton and tobacco planting States are appreciated. Will the free trade system, by this process, do less damage than the American system? Will the nation be in a more prosperous condition, if the majority be ruined, that the minority may be enriched? Shall the American system be overthrown, because ruinous to the few; and the English system established, more ruinous to the many?

Under this bill, and this amendment, the argument from South Carolina has introduced these important and vital questions. If the nature of things do indeed permit any foundation for these questions, how should a nation, wise in counsel, and patriotic in purpose, decide and settle them? Before we come to that decision, let us diligently inquire whether our nation is, in truth, placed in this miserable dilemma. Is it, indeed, so? After fifty years of union and united labors, have interests grown up among us, and that, too, under a system of laws equally patronizing and cherishing all; have great interests in this family, and brotherhood of employment, grown and flourished together in harmony until the present time; when, wonderful to be told, a native and inherent antipathy is all at once found among them, so hostile and deadly, that some of them can no longer exist without the extermination of others What, then, are the allegations brought from South Carolina against the American system, proposed to be sustained by this bill? If, under the provisions of this amendment, that system should be abolished, and the English system established in place of it, would these events be followed by a condition of national interests more prosperous than the present?

The money market price of any commodity depends not on supply, or on demand alone, but on the relative proportion of the one to the other. Whatever increases the demand for bread or cotton, while the supply or quantity in the market remains the same, will raise the price. On the contrary, whatever increases the supply, or quantity in the market, of these commodities, will, while the demand remains the same, lower the price. The supply of cotton, in the market of the world, depends entirely on the ability and on the will of the growers of that product. Though they cannot increase the quantity above a limited amount, yet they can, without question, diminish that quantity to any amount which they may choose. It is the demand, then, for cotton, in the markets of the world, over which the cotton growers have no control; and of which, if varied by the American system, injuriously to their interest, they would complain. The great question, therefore, when fairly stated, must be this: Has the American system diminished the demand for raw cotton in the markets of the world?

What has that system performed in this great business? It has introduced, encouraged, and in some degree protected, the manufacture of cotton cloth, by machinery moved by water power, in many parts of these United States. In 1789, there was, I believe, one small cotton mill, of about three hundred spindles, in the whole country. At this time there are in operation not less than one million five hundred thousand. Cotton spinning machinery has increased in France in the same or in a greater proportion. Her system of encouragement and protection is to that country what the American system is to the United States. England has, during the same time, increased her spindles in the same or in a greater ratio. This machinery is of English invention; and the people of that country, so soon as their great mystery was carried into the United States and France, were awakened by a spirit of competition. This competition must have redoubled their diligence; and not only perfected, but multiplied their machinery in at least a fourfold ratio of the amount to which it would at this time have attained, had the invention, in all its branches, been confined to England alone. Instruments of agriculture and commerce have multiplied at the same rate. Are there not more ploughs, and wagons, and ships now in the world, than there would have been, if none of them had ever been built or used on this side of the Atlantic? You might as well say the human race would, at this time, have been as numerous, if this fruitful country had never opened her bosom to the civilized wants of man. If the American system has thus multiplied cotton spinning machinery in the manufacturing world, has it diminished or increased the demand for raw cotton in the markets of the world?

I will go in to some examination of four of the effects, which, as it is alleged by the member from South Carolina, result from this system: First, it reduces cotton and tobacco in market price; second, it compels the growers of those products to pay many times more than their just proportion of the revenue; third, it secures a bounty to the sugar-making, grain-growing, and manufacturing States, on their products; fourth, it deprives the South of their natural market, the market of England. The member The increased consumption of cotton cloth has further from South Carolina has not sustained his amendment by increased that demand. This cloth has taken the place of any allusion to the deleterious effects of internal improve-linen, hempen, and, to a great extent, that of woollen

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cloths. This could never have been effected. unless ma- | about seventy millions of pounds; and make, at the above chinery and water power united had diminished the cost rate, two hundred and eighty millions of yards of cloth. Great of manufacture, and thereby driven household fabrics, made Britain will probably spin three hundred millions of pounds, from flax, hemp, and wool, out of use. In 1789, the whole and make twelve hundred millions of yards of cloth. labor of the United States was clothed in such fabrics; and cotton almost entirely excluded from consumption. Had not machinery been brought into our country, and encouraged and established here, the whole free labor of the nation would, at this time, be clothed in the same manner. South Carolina has told us, that, had this destructive system left spindles and looms to the use of England and France, cotton would now have been thirty cents a pound. If this be true, would cotton, without the aid of machinery, be able to compete, in household manufacture, with flax, hemp, or common sheep's wool, of a much lower price? Nay, sir, at its present price, cotton could not be spun, because it could not be purchased, by the grain-growing States, unless in exchange for manufactures, wrought by that machinery which owes almost its existence, in this country, to the American system.

It does not appear that, in 1789, when England consum ed about one million five hundred thousand pounds, that any cotton remained unspun at the close of that year. How has supply kept pace with demand, since that time! Why, sir, although demand has increased in England, and in the United States, since 1770, from a consumption spinning only five hundred thousand, to a consumption spinning three hundred and seventy millions of pounds, and from two millions to one thousand four hundred and eighty millions of yards of cloth, yet supply has so increased, and pressed on demand, that, in 1823. not less than ninety-two millions of pounds of cotton were left in England alone, unconsumed, at the close of that year. The surplus supply has, since that time, been constantly augmenting, by a most persevering process, which the member from South Carolina [Mr. MCDUFFIE] calls working harder and making more.”

The demand for cotton, increased by the multiplication A great case, and similar to this, occurred in this counof machinery, is not limited to the United States, France, try, during the revolutionary war. Money, a circulating and England. This demand is extended to South Ame- medium, was wanted for conducting the great and varirica, Hindostan, and China. The revolution in Southern ous business of that war. It was a new trade, and reAmerica opened the markets of that vast country to the quired a large additional money capital. The demand products of the world. The three great manufacturing for that medium was, however, limited by the amount of competitors have pushed their cotton fabrics into those labor, subsistence, clothing, and munitions of war required countries; and their cloths do, at this time, supply nearly to be bought and sold in the wise and prudent conduct the whole consumption. American merchants, in 1816, of that war. What was done? Two millions of paper imported into the United States vast quantities of cotton dollars were at first emitted. This amount was immedicloth from the East Indies. It was, to New England espe- ately absorbed by the circulation. More was wanted; ancially, a most profitable commerce. In that year, Mr. | other million was added. Demand was not satisfied. Lowndes, aided by Mr. Calhoun, and other eminent states- Prices of all commodities kept their former level. Two men of the South, placed the tariff on that trade. What millions more were emitted. The trade grew more brisk, has followed? Not only has the cotton of South Carolina and prices rose a trifle. The scale, balancing demand and excluded India cottons from the consumption of this coun- supply, vibrated: another two millions were added; and try, but our merchants now export American cotton cloths depreciation began. Instead of reducing supply by callto Calcutta, Canton, and Manilla; and, under the aid of the ing in, and retaining from circulation, the last emission, American system, the cotton of the South Carolina planters and thereby adjusting supply to demand, millions after is actually driving that of the Chinese and Hindoos out of millions were added: and this, too, in the vain hope of curtheir own markets. Where, then, is the statesman, so uning the disease by increasing the cause of it; until the mass acquainted with the state of facts on this question, or so regardless of their existence, as to contend that the American system has, by multiplying spindles and looms in this country, diminished the demand for raw cotton in the markets of the world?

amounted in number to two hundred millions of dollars, and in value to forty for one. Demand required five mil lions; and no matter to what amount you increased the quantity, the value could never be raised above that sum. In like manner, when the whole demand for cotton in the If, then, this system has not, in its operations, diminished markets of the world is supplied; when the whole mo this demand, what other course has diminished the market ney which the world will or can pay for that commodity, price of that product from thirty to ten cents? If, indeed, is laid down; bring what additional quantity you please the price of cotton be diminished, while demand has been into the market, the whole will not, it cannot, bring to the so enormously increased, that diminution must be the effect planters of all the world any additional amount of money. of increased production. What has been the progress of If pushed to a sale, it must be sold on speculation, and at this branch of agriculture? The inquiry will be confined a reduced price. Whoever will look into the progress of to the markets of the United States and England. From spinning and weaving cotton cloth by machinery, will find 1770 to 1781, England imported, from all the world, five it has, since 1789, in England and the United States tomillions of pounds of cotton; from 1781 to 1791, she import-gether, increased the demand for cotton more than seven ed eighteen millions of pounds; from 1791 to 1801, thirty. hundred fold; and, in the United States alone, five thoutwo millions of pounds; but in 1823, she imported in that sand fold. Is this the system which, by diminishing the single year one hundred and eighty millions of pounds. Her average annual import was, for the first ten years, five hundred thousand pounds; for the second, one million eight hundred thousand pounds; for the third, three millions two hundred thousand pounds; and then, in the short space of twenty-two years, her annual import rose up to one hundred and eighty millions of pounds. England, in 1770, could have spun but five hundred thousand pounds, nor, at four yards to the pound, have made more than two millions of yards of cloth. In 1823, she exported thirty millions of pounds, and spun one hundred and fifty millions of pounds; making, at a like rate, six hundred millions of yards of cloth. The United States, in 1789, spun none, for there was no American cotton; and they spun almost none from any part of the world. We shall spin this year, 1880,

demand for cotton, has reduced the money price, and injured the cotton planters of South Carolina? No, sir; had not Arkwright in England, and Slater in the United States, originated this labor-saving, this wonder-working system in the production of nations, the great capitalists of South Carolina, in place of receiving, as they do now, seven millions of dollars annually for cotton, would never have re ceived a cent.

These great planters of the South hold in their hand the cotton market of Europe. They supply nearly threefourths of the whole consumption; and can, when they choose to diminish supply, by diminishing production, raise the price to the consumers of more than half the world. While the spindles, and looms, and labor of Europe and America are in a most persevering competition

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still further to extend the demand and consumption of this progress of improvement, in reference to individual southern cotton, those very reasonable gentlemen will not or national wealth. Is the world, is our nation, the richer relieve themselves by the very easy process of working or poorer for it! "A man is, and so a nation is, rich or less and making more. poor," says Adam Smith, "according to the degree in I have pushed the inquiry into this allegation against which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, convenienthe American system, on the supposition that the price ces or amusements of life." What has been the effect of cotton has been diminished since 1816. Have we not of this system on the laborers of the country! Has it inbeen looking for the cause before we had found the effect? creased or diminished their power to "enjoy the necesHas cotton fallen in price? I do not mean in money saries, or conveniences, or amusements of life?" In price; in the number of dollars and cents for which any 1816, a day:laborer on the wharf in Providence received given quantity of that commodity may be exchanged. If in money one dollar for his day's work. The price was a planter sell one hundred bales of cotton for money now, the same, or nearly the same, in all other commercial will not that money buy him as much bread, meat, drink, towns on the Atlantic frontier. What quantity of coarse or clothing, as the money would have bought, for which cotton shirting would that dollar then buy Such cloth the same quantity of cotton was sold in 1816 Compare was then twenty-five cents a yard, and the price of his cotton with the fabric wrought from cotton. Here you day's work, his dollar, would then buy for him four yards. will learn the exact effect of machinery and the American The money price of such labor is now precisely what it system on the cotton planter. In 1816, cotton wool was was in 1816. What quantity of equally good cloth will the twenty five cents a pound; coarse cotton cloth, wrought laborer's day's work, his dollar, now purchase for him and from the wool, was twenty-five cents a yard. One pound his family? If bought at retail, ten yards; if at wholesale, of cotton wool would then purchase one yard of coarse sixteen yards. In the one case, the laborer is one buncotton cloth. At the moment I am speaking, cotton is dred and fifty per cent., and in the other he is three hunten cents a pound, and coarse cotton cloth six and a quar- dred per cent. richer than he was at the commencement ter cents a yard. Ten pounds of cotton will now purchase of this system. This, sir, is the system, the American sixteen yards of cotton cloth; but sixteen yards of cotton system, which, as we are told, is "grinding the face of the cloth would then purchase sixteen pounds of cottou. Cot-poor." ton wool has diminished in a ratio of one hundred and fifty per cent. on its present money price; but cotton cloth has diminished in a ratio of three hundred per cent. on its present money price. Who has lost or who has gained by the American system, the capitalist of the North or the capitalist of the South?

The demagogues of England and the statesmen of New York and South Carolina, tell us that this profligate system is aiding the aristocracy in waging a war of extermination against the democracy of the old and new world. Yes, sir, the systems made to protect the labor of England and the United States are, in their operations, enabling the aristocracy, the capitalists of these countries, to extermiuate the great interests of that labor. Astonishing dissystem done for the labor of this country? It has given a choice of employment, the plough, the sail, or the loom; and, while the call for labor from the great commercial interest is increased, it has created a competition for labor between the two other great interests of the world, the agricultural and manufacturing. The protection laws of England are what alone can sustain and preserve the labor, the democracy of that nation, from the overwhelming power and influence of its aristocracy.

It will be found, on minute examination, that agricultural products have fallen in money price, in the ratio of cotton wool; manufactured products in the ratio of cot-covery! wonderful wisdom! What has the protecting ton cloth. The cause of this difference may be easily explained, and this explanation belongs to this branch of the discussion. The progress of improvement in agricultural machinery, in our country, is less various and extensive than the like progress in manufacturing machinery. Passing by some minor improvements, only two capital ones in agricultural instruments have been made since 1789. These are the cast iron plough and the cotton gin. The cast iron plough saves one-third of the power necessary to move the one made of wood and What is the aristocracy of England? The great landwrought-iron, and will perform one-third more work in holding interest, whose estates are, at a money rent, unthe same time. Southern planters can, better than I can, der lease for from seven to twenty-one years-the great tell how beneficial the cotton gin may have been to south- moneyed interest, whose capital is vested in notes, bills, ern agriculture; and the very ample and liberal manner bonds, mortgages, and banking-the great stockholding inin which South Carolina rewarded the inventor of that interest, whose funds are in the various stocks, which, strument, is at once a proof of its high value, and the altogether, constitute the national debt-and the officejustice, honor, and liberality of that State. One circum-holders great and little, whether civil or ecclesiastic, nastance in the nature of agricultural labor renders it diffi- val or military. These, altogether, make about six huncult to reduce the cost of its products to a level with those dred thousand families. of manufacturing labor. The labors of the farmer and planter are incapable of the same minute division as are those of the manufacturer. They come in succession, and the same hands which plough must sow, hoe, and gather the harvest. This not only wastes some time, but prevents the laborer from acquiring that skill which manufacturing laborers are, by the minute division of their employment, enabled to acquire. On the contrary, the division of manufacturing labor, and the improvement in the machinery by which it is performed, have been astonishing since the commencement of the American revolution. These have so reduced the cost of cloth, and other manufactured products, that agricultural products are now exchanged for a much greater quantity of them, than at the time when this great improvement began. If this reduction of price be an evil, it falls with a weight twice as onerous on the manufacturer, as it does on the farmers and planters.

It may be worth our time to inquire into the effect of

What constitutes the democracy of England? The leasehold and farming interest-minor and middling proprietors, whether in land, machinery, fisheries, mines, commerce, or navigation, together with the whole labor of the nation. All these constitute about two million five hundred thousand families, and are the great producing portion of the English community. The protecting system of Great Britain, her tariff and corn laws, what is done by them for this democracy!

Suppose the bill of the gentleman from New York [Mr. CAMBEELING] should have that weight in England which it seems to want here; and the statesman of that nation, enlightened by those provisions which are utter darkness and chaos to us, should repeal their tariff and corn laws, they would, it is believed, receive one-third of their corn from abroad. One-third of the corn lands of England must thereupon be thrown out of use; this would sink so much farming capital as is vested in those lands. This capital could not go down, without carrying

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If the diminished money price of cotton cloth be, as the South Carolina statesmen say, in this Review, the effect not of the American system, but of the appreciation of money, would not that appreciation have had the same effect on cotton wool? If cotton wool be reduced in market price by the appreciation of money only, how is that reduction the effect of the tariff? If the true theory be given in the Southern review, then what is the theory given in his speech, by the member from South Carolina! I leave the speaker and the writer to reconcile himself to himself; and as al! erroneous theories are alike, and be long to the same family, the reconciliation may not be very difficult.

down with it the agricultural labor now employed by that mand for it, which we had in 1816; and it follows as a corolcapital. Manufacturing production depends on agricullary, that one dollar of our present currency is worth as tural consumptions. The shock which sinks the one, much as two dollars of the currency of 1816. The fall, must sink the other. The products of agricultural and then, in the price of cotton goods is purely nominal. The manufacturing labor must sink in money price. Labor real change is the value of money. in those employments, which is now but just fed, must then continue to be fed. It would fall in money price; but it would not fall in cost. The whole production of the democracy, the great producing class of the community, will fall one-third or one-half in its market money price. What will happen to the aristocracy? These men live on income, derived from rents, from interests, from dividends, and from salaries. Will such income be reduced or augmented? It will appreciate in value, as production declines in money price. Rents, interests, dividends, salaries, to gether with the whole national debt of nine hundred millions of pounds sterling, will, in effect, be doubled. This will indeed be a war on the democracy of England--that which destroys the labor, the people, the democracy of the country, must in its final consequences ruin the country itself. This the patriots of England know full well; and sooner than repeal her corn laws and tariff, her protecting system, they would, if it could be done, cut adrift their fast-anchored isle, and let it float down, like a vast iceberg, under the equinoctial, and so melt and mingle with the ocean, that this now delightful region of men, and wealth, and laws, and letters, science, morals, religion, and human felicity, should no longer be found in the world of waters or of land.

Sir, it has been shown that, if the money price of cot ton has fallen, it is the effect of too abundant supply, and not of any diminution of demand produced by the American system. It has also been demonstrated that, although the money price of cotton has declined, yet the real exchangeable value of it has not declined, but rather appreciated, under the operation of this system. Another statement of this question has been exhibited in the Southern Review, a work of great literary merit, and deservedly high in rank among the periodicals of the age. It is published in Charleston, South Carolina. The fourth number contains, among others, two articles, one on the Georgia question, and the other on the tariff. The first, an able paper, is attributed to the gentleman from that State, directly before me, [Col. DRAYTON.] The second, on the tariff, is attributed to another gentleman from South Carolina, if the image and superscription on the penny might refer the coinage to Cæsar. On this floor, South Carolina charges the reduced price of her cotton to the detestable operations of the American system. I beg leave, sir, to read the opinion of that State on this question, from the 585th page of the Southern Review.

To illustrate the ruinous effect of the tariff on the industry of South Carolina, it is alleged by the member from that Štate that labor is less productive there than in the North. In the South, labor is capital, and must be so considered, in any examination of its relative profits. It is said a laborer earns twelve and a half cents a day in South Carolina, while, in the manufacturing States, he earns fifty cents a day. Let the first be admitted, the last is denied.

It is then admitted that each man earns twelve and a half cents a day. This gives forty-five dollars and sixtytwo and a half cents a year. In ten years, four hundred and fifty-six dollars and fifty cents; and from twenty years of age to sixty, are forty working years, giving an amount equal to one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six dollars. This is what the slave earns for his master; but his labor, aided by that of his wife and children, does, besides this, furnish his own support, and that of his family. Now, sir, what does the day laborer in the North earn per day? What can he lay up at the end of the year? What has he at last earned, and saved for the support of his old age, when he can work no longer? I speak of ordinary, not of skilled or manufacturing labor. Take the man who was born to no other inheritance but toil. He is without house or land. His hands furnish the food, the clothing, the habitation for himself and family. I ask gentlemen from East to West, how many such laborers have they known, who laid up money at the end of the year; or left money. or goods, or lands to their children, at the end of life? They rear a family, and do not, when they leave the world, leave it less populous than when they found it. The race of toil is not diminished in their time. They, if God so permit, have a family around them; and when they can no longer labor, they look to their children for that sup"The fact to which the restrictionists habitually appeal port which those children have received from them. If it for its verification, is the fall in the price of cotton manu- be otherwise ordered by the Disposer of all things, and they factures since the passage of the tariff in 1816, which im- are alone in their age, they look to some alms-house for posed a prohibitory duty on the coarser fabrics, and a very shelter and food. When such a man has felled his last tree, high duty on the finer descriptions. We admit, without ploughed his last furrow, borne his last burden, he sits hesitation, the alleged fall in the nominal or money price quietly down, and waits for the sunset of his day. Who, of cotton manufactures, to the full extent that it has been sir, would talk of what such men can clear and lay up, asserted by the manufacturers. We concede, for exam- and leave to his children? All men know it is nothing. ple, that such cotton shirting as sold in 1816 for twenty- Indeed, the member from South Carolina seems to adfive cents a yard, can now be purchased for half the money.mit this, when he asserts that a New England man cannot But this fall in the money price of cotton shirting has no hoe so much in a day as a southern negro. It is said com. more connexion with the tariff of 1816, than with the parisons are odious; and, sir, never could one have been election of Mr. Monroe to the Presidency the year after. Every one who has the slightest knowledge of the history of our currency since 1816, and of the influence produced by its appreciation upon money prices, will at once perceive that the change which has taken place in the quantity and value of our circulating medium, is alone sufficient to account for the apparent fall in the price of cotton fabrics. We are quite within bounds when we say that we have not half the aggregate amount of circulating medium in the United States, in comparison with the de-l

made more odious than this. We all labor in the North. The youth and manhood of our best and most esteemed men have been seasoned in the toils of our various year. From boyhood to twenty-one, I myself was with the plough and the hoe, associated with such men in the culture of New England fields. We are challenged to hoe with the slaves of South Carolina! Let them put the challenge for themselves, not for their jaded and discouraged slaves. Sir, we can hoe our row with their masters.

Does South Carolina complain that her slaves can earn

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