Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

threatens. Unconstitutional laws have been passed by Congress, and yet the pillars of the Constitution did not totter upon their base. The line which separates obedience from resistance, is often faint, and not easily definable. Perhaps it is not necessary for any practical purpose that it should be. Difficult conjunctures will bring with them their own lessons. The remedy will be indicated by the nature of the disease. Suffering from usurpations or abuses of power, we should zealously endeavor to obtain redress, through the means of Congress, or of the Judiciary, or of amendments to the Constitution. Failing in these efforts-enduring present evils, with the prospect of the future dreary and unpromising-feeling our government to be an oppression instead of a blessing-it will then be for the wise and the good to resort to that last extremity-disunion. We are very far from undervaluing a written Constitution. We admire and reverence it. We think, that although it may not save us from the whirlwind and the tornado-when the elements of political fury are let loose, sweeping away in their undistinguishing rage, all the contrivances of human skill; it yet serves as a beacon to the vessel of state, amidst the perils of ordinary danger, and as a compass, to guide the helmsman in the tract which he may navigate in safety. The conviction is, nevertheless, firmly stamped upon our minds, that the Constitution is rather to be preserved, in its purity, by the spirit which is out of it, than by the letter which is in it.

ART. X.-1. Address of the Committee, on behalf of the General Convention of Agriculturalists and Manufacturers and others, friendly to the encouragement of the Domestic Industry of the United States, assembled at Harrisburgh, on the 30th of July, 1827.

2. Report of a Committee of the Citizens of Boston and vicinity, opposed to a further increase of Duties on Importations. Boston, 1827. Charleston, reprinted, 1828.

No two productions could be selected from the inexhaustible abundance and variety of controversial essays that have been published for and against the prohibitory system, better adapted

to illustrate, respectively, the genius and character of the two opposing theories, than those which we have set down as the text of some brief and general commentaries on this most interesting and engrossing controversy. The address of the committee on behalf of the Harrisburgh Convention-written by Mr. Hezekiah Niles, of Baltimore, is, perhaps, a tolerably fair sample, as it regards staple, style and argument,—of the memorials, essays and speeches which have been circulated with untiring perseverance and never-ending repetitions, by the various societies and clubs that have been formed for the very laudable and patriotic purpose of propagating certain doctrines for their own special and exclusive benefit. Mr. Niles and his coadjutor Mr. Carey, of Philadelphia, have for the last eight or ten years, kept the country almost incessantly flooded with tracts and essays adapted to every capacity,-being of all possible dimensions, from the diminutive size of a single sheet, to the more imposing magnitude of a full grown pamphlet. Mr. Niles and Mr. Carey are, both of them, enthusiasts; but whether their enthusiasm has its origin in selfish views or more elevated purposes, it is, beyond all doubt, totally and absolutely free, from the least tincture of the inspiration of genius. Though their numerous productions-(and in a pre-eminent degree this of Mr. Niles) abound in every sort of eccentricity and extravagance, we have not been able to discover one solitary exhibition of original thought or felicitous illustration. In the address of the Harrisburgh Committee, Mr. Niles, doubtless conceiving himself engaged in the performance of an immortal labour, is constantly straining to outdo himself by some striking thought or extravagant figure. But dulness is evidently the prevailing genius, and his attempts to be profound and impressive, invariably result in the most ridiculous bathos. In groping his way darkly through a labyrinth of statistical statements, abstruse propositions and strained conceits,-like a rustic, who, for the first time, comes unexpectedly in view of the pyramids of Egypt, he seems to be overwhelmed and confounded by the incomprehensible magnitude of his own discoveries, and is incessantly striving to communicate his own impressions to his readers, by impassioned exclamations and notes of admiration. Yet, strange as it may appear, it has been by essays like this, that Mr. Niles and Mr. Carey have contributed more than any two men in the United States-we make no exceptions-to spread the delusion which prevails in certain parts of the Union, on the subject of making the nation wealthy by shackling and destroying its most profitable commerce. There is not, perhaps, an example in all history, so strikingly demonstrative of the influence which clubs

and societies are capable of exercising over public opinion.These associations, bound together and constantly stimulated by the ever active impulses of self interest, are an overmatch for one hundred times their number of agriculturalists dispersed over the country, enjoying none of the means of concert and concentration, and acting under no other impulse but a disinterested and patriotic regard for the general welfare. It was by means of similar clubs and juntos that the jacobin leaders in Paris controlled the movements of the entire population of France, during the early period of the Revolution. Indeed it may be justly said, that the power of a disciplined army in contending with an unarmed and unofficered multitude of husbandmen, will not furnish too strong an illustration of the power of these associations, combining as they do, the steady and unwavering pursuit of private gain, with all the external symbols and self-deluding professions of disinterested patriotism. Such, we believe, to be the true explanation of the singular and almost incredible phenomenon, of twelve millions of enlightened freemen patiently submitting themselves, the dupes of a most stupendous imposture, to gratify the insatiable cupidity of not so many thousands of speculating monopolists. Whatever may be the moral to be deduced from it, such is beyond all question, the melancholy example exhibited to the world, by the United States, at this moment.

The successful progress of the manufacturers and monopolists, by means of associated efforts and common funds, in diffusing their doctrines among the people of the States favourable to the tariff policy, clearly indicates to the friends of the true national policy of free and unrestricted trade, the necessity of resorting to similar means for the purpose of advancing the great cause of truth and justice. Avarice and fraud, with the activity and effort which naturally belong to them, will forever prove too strong for inactive truth and slumbering justice. Conscious of the intrinsic strength of our cause, we have been accustomed to suppose it would take care of itself, and while heretofore our adversaries have been incessantly employed in arming and training their forces long before every engagement, we, in every instance, have literally slumbered in a false and fatal security, until the battle has been actually commenced by the aggressions of the enemy. To be sure we have then stood boldly on the defensive. But what can gallantry achieve without arms suited to the contest. We have contended with arguments when it was but too apparent that the question would be decided by numbers merely. The arguments used by our members of Congress have invariably come too late. They have been addressed

to the representatives of constituents long before deluded into the support of an unjust and oppressive policy-constituents, how ever, whose very delusions we have seen, are regarded as laws to their representatives. The advocates of the true "American system" of free trade-that system, the title to which our forefathers sealed with their blood-should form themselves into societies in every part of the Union, organize committees of vigilance and correspondence, and raise common funds for circulating, extensively, in all parts of the country, well written essays in favour of the true doctrines of political economy and constitutional liberty. They should imitate the activity and vigilance of our adversaries-for in these, at least, they are worthy of imitation-and let them change the character and the theatre of the controversy, by carrying the war into the enemy's country—and boldly contend for a restoration of their "long lost" rights, resolving never to ground their arms until the incubus of the protecting system is entirely thrown off, and commerce absolutely freed from the shackles of unconstitutional and tyrannical legislation.

In connexion with the course of vigilance and activity just recommended, we cannot too highly commend, to general imitation, the example of the citizens of Boston and its vicinity, opposed to the restrictive system. The intelligent and publicspirited committee, to whom we are indebted for the justly celebrated Report which was adopted by the citizens of Boston, opposed to the tariff policy, and which is noticed at the head of this article, have imposed weighty and lasting obligations upon the people of the whole Union. Their Report contains one of the most lucid and comprehensive expositions of the subject we have any where read; and as a controversial paper, it furnishes a satisfactory and triumphant refutation of most of the prominent arguments urged by the advocates of the restrictive or prohibitory policy in favour of their system. We have only to regret that the almost unavoidable length of this interesting document is calculated to impede and limit its circulation, and to express a hope that the author of it will continue to devote his research and talents to the great cause of free trade, which is now become, at any rate to a large portion of the Union-emphatically the cause of liberty.

From those who have been conspicuous in this controversy, we now turn to examine the questions which have arisen during its discussion.

Aware of the invincible repugnance of the people to the gross injustice and oppression of extorting contributions from one portion of society, for the purpose of bestowing them as legis VOL. II.-NO. 4.

74

lative gratuities on another, the advocates of the prohibitory system maintain, that the imposition of high, and even prohibitory duties on articles of foreign merchandize, does not enhance, to the consumer, the price of domestic articles of the same description, but actually enables him to obtain them cheaper. As the whole structure of the restrictive system, rests entirely upon the foundation of this absurd and paradoxical proposition, we propose to bestow upon it, in the outset, a brief, but thorough examination. The fact to which the restrictionists habitually appeal for its verification, is the fall in the price of cotton manufactures, since the passage of the tariff in 1816, which imposed a prohibitory duty on the coarser fabrics, and a very high duty on the finer descriptions. We admit, without hesitation, the alleged fall in the nominal or money price of cotton manufactures, to the full extent that it has been asserted by the manufacturers. We concede, for example, that such cotton-shirting as sold in 1816, for twenty-five cents a yard, can now be purchased for one-half the money. But this fall in the money price of cottonshirting, has no more connexion with the tariff of 1816, than with the 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 existing demand for it, which we had in 1816; and it follows as a corollary, that one dollar of our present currency, is worth as much as two dollars of the currency of 1816. The fall, then, in the price of cotton goods, is purely nominal. The real change is in the value of money. This view of the subject is confirmed by the fact, that a corresponding fall has taken place in the price of every other article, not affected by some peculiar cause, exempting it from the general law. In the Southern portion of the Union, indeed, estates, both real and personal, have depreciated in a much greater proportion—a depreciation, in which the oppressive exactions of our entire tariff regulations, have had but too extensive an agency. Here, we admit, that the tariff policy is justly entitled to claim credit for the boasted benefaction of producing a fall in prices; not a mere fall in nominal or money prices, but a real and distressing depreciation of every species of estate, and every description of article, not sustained and nourished by the indirect bounties of the tariff system.

« AnteriorContinuar »