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JAN. 26, 1833.]

The Tariff Bill.

[H. OF R.

cost us 12,000,000 dollars less, is it certain that we shall barriers: the one is their power to consume, the other expend this amount in such importation? This sum will is their power to pay. Quantity, no matter how much, not be in the hands of importing merchants. They now thrown into the market, cannot, when that quantity has import, we will suppose, 85,000,000 dollars in commodi- reached either of these limits, increase value or market ties suitable to our market. They add to this amount, price.

say 24,000,000, being the amount of duties under the law

Nature has fixed a limit to our power to consume, both of 1828. To this whole amount they add, first, the cost of needful food and of needful clothing. We may render of importation, and then their profits. They secure the our food more costly and luxurious, but we cannot so payment of the duties at the custom-house, by their bonds, distend our animal organs as to very much increase the at six, eight, and twelve months' credit. The whole quantity. It is, in a great measure, so with our clothamount, including duties, is then sold to wholesale mer-ing-the quantity cannot be increased, though the qualichants, at a like credit, of six, eight, and twelve months. ty may be rendered more expensive. The great mass of These wholesale dealers sell to retail merchants, on a consumers, the labor, and industry, and economy of the similar credit; and these retail merchants sell and distri- world, are limited in their wants, both by the prudence of bute the whole to their customers, the ultimate consum- their necessities, and by the amount of their means of ers of these imported commodities. The consumer pays payment. the whole amount, profit, importation, and impost; and Vanity-it need not be called human vanity, for, of all each dealer, in the whole succession, pays his creditor, animals, it is said none but our race are comforted by this until the money secured at the custom-house by the im- distinguishing attribute of vanity-vanity has no limit to porter, and charged by him upon this merchandise, comes its capacity for dress and ornament. The dandies and to his hands, from the consumers, and he pays the amount belles of the world would consume, on the adornment of into the custom-house, and takes up his bond. their persons, the labor of the universe, the wealth of all

The next year these goods will be charged, for duties, generations. We are told, I believe, by Tacitus, that with 12,000,000 less in amount. Importers will give the daughter of a Roman proconsul attended a levee bonds for 12,000,000 less; they will sell for 12,000,000 of Tiberius, adorned at a cost of 500,000 pounds sterling. less; and consumers will pay 12,000,000 less for their im- Have we not seen, and that frequently, the very affecported commodities. This amount, this 12,000,000, will tionate daughters of very indulgent fathers enter the ball not come into the hands of importers as a capital, to be room, and waltz, and cotillon, ornamented with several used in importation, but will remain in the hands of all hundred bales of cotton in each sleeve of their dress? the millions of consumers, in all parts of the United States, These ornaments are, almost exclusively, the labor of the to be reserved by them out of that part of their revenue, human hand. One pound of Flanders flax, worth twelve and set apart by them the last year, for consumption, and cents, is often worked up into a commodity equal, in will be added, if they choose to do so, to their productive market value, to 200 pounds sterling; and one pound of capital. A part of this reserved 12,000,000 will be in the sea island cotton, worth thirty cents, may, when wrought hands of agricultural, a part in the hands of mechanic, a into laces or lawns, bring 60 pounds. England expart in the hands of manufacturing consumers. A por-ports 70,000,000 yards of lace; but four ounces of cotton tion will belong to those who work the forests, a portion are manufactured into thirty yards of it. The dress of to the laborers in the fisheries, and another portion will the beauty, the fashion, and the vanity of our race is remain with all those who move the coasting and internal often as filmy, as immaterial, and as translucent as the trade of the whole country. A portion, it is true, will be same quantity of summer moonshine. Your cotton exin the hands of the importing merchants; but that portion portation may not be very much benefited by this kind of will be, in respect to the whole, as the consumption of consumption. those importers is in respect to the whole consumption If the twelve millions received from the consumption of the nation in such imported commodities. The por- of foreign imports, by this measure, should be added to tion of the importing merchant may be used in importa- the capital of the country, and employed in domestic protion, but the portions of all others will, most probably, be duction of all kinds, about three-fifths parts of it would employed as capital, in some kind of domestic production. be fixed in the instruments of labor; and the other remain It is, therefore, very improbable that $12,000,000 saved, circulating, and to be annually consumed and reproduced if it should be saved, from imported consumption, will with, as it may be, some profit. What part of this conbe employed in foreign importation, and thereby increase sumption would be of foreign, what of domestic products? and what part of this production would be made for ex

your revenue.

Suppose, however, the attempt were made to extend port, and what for the domestic market? At most, not our foreign importation to the amount of $12,000,000. If more than three millions of dollars could be exported and you import, you must export, to pay for your imports. exchanged for commodities paying a duty when importWhat would you send abroad, and to whom would you ed. On this, under the act of July 14, 1832, at a duty of send it? Who wants, or who will buy of you any more twenty-one per cent. on such as would be dutiable, you of your products of the seas, or of the forests, or of your might realize four hundred thousand dollars of additional fields, for food, either animal or vegetable? Can you sell revenue. According to the statement made at the treamore tobacco? Sir, this crop is at its maximum. No sury, on the 26th of July last, the bill of the 14th of the quantity sent out will bring home any more money. same July will, on an importation of seventy million eight Would you, if you could sell it, push the culture one acre hundred thousand dollars, yield a revenue of twelve milfurther? It is, of all plants, most exhausting to the land. lion one hundred and one thousand dollars. Add this last The march of an army of locusts, described in the lan-item to that statement, and you will realize under the law, guage of inspiration, most of all resembles the progress of enacted after so much labor and deliberation at the last this deleterious plant: "Before it, is a fruitful field; be- session, just twelve million five hundred and one thousand hind it, barrenness and desolation." dollars; a fraction more than the amount which, in adWill you export more cotton? Can you get more mo- dition to the land revenue of two million five hundred ney for it, if you send out more millions of pounds? Per- thousand, it is said, will be wanted by the Government, haps for a few years you may; but this product, also, has Where, then, is the want of a further reduction of the nearly reached the maximum of price which the consump-rate of impost? It is idle to pretend it. If this bill tell tion of the world will give, or, indeed, can give, for any truth in its title, and really will reduce the rate of duties quantity whatever. on imports, there will be a deficiency, unless we have an The wants of nations are limited by two impassable over importation. The bill before us must, therefore, be

H. OF R.]

The Tariff Bill.

[JAN. 26, 1833.

predicated on the continuance of the over importation of six years now immediately to come, 30,000,000 dollars the two last years. It is true, we may import one hun- more than was imported and consumed in 1830? Where, then, is the wisdom of settling our scheme of revenue on the hope of such ruinous importation?

dred millions of dollars, but it must be for re-exportation,
and not for consumption in the country. What does the
domestic market require? The importation and exporta-
tion of 1830 completely answer the question.
In that year, we exported
Of that amount, were exported
Of which exports— `

Cottons were

Woollens

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Iron and steel, and fabrics

of each

Teas
Coffee

$1,500,000
250,000

150,000

892,807

1,046,542

$3,839,349

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If our consumption do not require more foreign commodities, and such are imported to the amount of $70,876,920 12,000,000 dollars, these commodities, if consumed in the 14,387,470 country, and not exported, must ultimately displace and exclude from our national consumption and market 12,000,000 of domestic productions. Suppose our market require 48,000,000 of cotton and woollen fabrics annually, and, when fairly supplied, afford a profit of 7 per cent. equal to 3,360,000 dollars. Then let foreign fabrics, of those kinds, be imported, equal in amount to 12,000,000 more, and crowded into the same market for sale. Will not price fall in proportion to the over supply? That over supply amounts to one-fifth part. Price must, therefore, fall one-fifth part, or 20 per cent. The In 1830, therefore, your market was over supplied in whole 60,000,000 will bring no more than 48 would have cottons, woollens, iron, steel, hardware, tea, coffee; and brought, for 48,000,000 was all the cotton and woollen you exported more than three million seven hundred goods which were wanted. That amount of money was thousand dollars of these commodities, paying the high-all which the nation would or could pay for their supply est rate of duties. Besides all this, you exported in that of those fabrics; and they would give precisely as much year, of

Domestic cottons

Total,

Domestic iron, and manufactures of it, and of steel,

Total,

money for enough, as they would give for any quantity $1,300,000 more than enough. If the keeper of an inn informs a traveller that he will furnish him with one good dinner for 300,000 one dollar, but, as he has plenty of provision, he will sell him two for one dollar and twenty-five cents; the traveller $1,600,000 wants but one dinner, can eat but one dinner; and if the keeper put twenty dinners on the table, he will pay but for one. If, therefore, 12,000,000 of cottons and woollens, in foreign fabrics, be added to your market, a loss must take place equal to that amount. This would fall on the domestic and foreign producers, according to the supply furnished by them respectively; 2,400,000 to the foreign, and 9,600,000 to the domestic producer. Would this increase or diminish domestic production? and what effect would it have on our power to import and consume foreign commodities?

Twelve millions lost the first year, and this loss repeat

What, sir, in future years, will increase our disposition or capacity to consume, or our power to pay for foreign commodities? If, therefore, importation over and above the amount made in 1830 has been, or shall hereafter be made, it has been done for exportation, and to increase our carrying trade for other nations; because they cannot work so cheap, or will not work for so small profits as our navigators and merchants. Will demand be made during the next six years by the increase of population for any further increase of importation? Sir, be pleased. to look at the over importations of 1831 and 1832. In ed, by a yearly over import of twelve millions of dollars, the first, 38, and in the second, $30,000,000; and in both during six years, and you will find seventy-two millions years, $63,000,000 over and above the import of 1830. of dollars have been lost by this war of importation, made In that year you exported $14,000,000 only; but in 1831 against the manufacturing labor of the country. One-fifth, you exported $20,000,000; and in 1832, $24,000,000. or fourteen million four hundred thousand dollars, is This is $17,000,000 over the average export of 1830. lost by foreigners; and four-fifths, or fifty-seven million Still, after all this, a surplus is left in the country, over six hundred thousand dollars, by Americans. This would and above the consumption of that year; a surplus equal dispose of the whole, if not more than the whole, circuto $43,000,000. This is more than $6,000,000 a year lating capital now employed in those two branches of our for the next coming six years, and will more than cover domestic production. Is this to be the effect? Was it any demand, yearly to be made, by the increase of popu- the final cause of this bill? Does it, by reduced duties, lation. There can surely be no new demand for increas- tempt men to make excessive importations in any other ed importation of cottons and woollens; for $17,000,000 commodities? Look at the provisions of it. On cotton of the excessive importations of those two last years were yarns, a duty of ten per cent.; on woollen yarns, a duty made in those fabrics. Let it not be forgotten that the of fifteen; on coarse woollen cloths, five per cent.; on import of 1831 was $103,000,000; the export $81,000,000; all other woollens, and on all cottons, twenty per cent. and thus there was left in the country an unpaid for ex- impost. Last summer, we were told that impost on cotcess of $22,000,000. In 1832, the import was $100,000,- tons and woollens was sixty-three per cent.; but more 000, and the export $87,000,000; and thus, also, was left than twenty-seven millions in those commodities were a balance unpaid for, of 13,000,000. In both years, the total imported in 1831. Was not this bill, with these reduced balance unpaid was $35,000,000. Some part of this, and pitiful rates of duty, calculated and fitted to increase perhaps $5,000,000, might be profits and freights; but a those importations up to twelve millions of dollars more, very large part was, and is, a debt outstanding against and thereby secure the utter ruin of those productions in the future exportation of the country. We must, there- the United States? fore, undoubtedly produce and send to England, where Do not inquire after the paternity of such a measure; this debt is almost wholly due, at least 5,000,000 dollars for who would declare its generation? It is of dark and a year for the next six years, to liquidate the principal demoniac origin, and was named at no holy fount. It reof this debt, if we say not any thing whatever about the ceived a foul baptism in "the abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate." Why this glozing title, "a bill to reduce Where, then, is the statesman, who looks quite through and otherwise alter the duties on imports?" In the form all the great interests of this nation; and who, with all of its enactments, it is as classically British as at and after these facts under his eye, can believe that the American the rate of five dollars for every one hundred dollars vapeople can import and consume in each year, during the lue thereof. In its cotton and woollen provisions, Man

interest.

JAN. 26, 1833.]

The Tariff Bill.

[H. of R.

chester and Leeds themselves could not have devised ductions of the mines and forges of foreign nations, as well measures more purely English. Let it be entitled a bill as of our own country? Sir, New England annually conto aid Old in the ruin of New England, to avenge those sumes twenty times as much iron and steel as all the sebrave men slain by Yankees at Lexington and Bunker ven anti-protection States. Massachusetts, nay, the little Hill, and for certain other purposes. State of Rhode Island, uses up, in farming, in manufacIf diminished impost increase importation and consump-turing, and in navigation and commerce, ten times as much tion of foreign commodities, and thereby diminish the con- iron and steel annually as is consumed in all her labors by sumption of domestic products, then this diminished rate the great nullification State of South Carolina. What are of impost is a regulation of commerce for the discourage- the duties on iron? At what a rate of taxation does New ment of American, and the encouragement of foreign in- England get her supply of this commodity? By this bill, dustry. Twelve millions of dollars more are to be used the tax on hammered bar iron, and on all the fabrics made for imports. This excludes the products of twelve mil- from of it, is thirty per cent. On cast iron it is fifty per lions of American, and brings into our market those of cent., and on rolled bar iron it is eighty-one per cent. English labor and capital to an equal amount. "The Where does the labor of our country consume sugar? neighboring powers" of the South tell us that all con- In the same devoted land of New England. What is the gressional enactments for the encouragement of Ameri-rate of tax on sugar? If it cost abroad, as much of it does, can labor and capital are utterly unconstitutional; but to one cent a pound, the tax is 200 per cent.; if two cents, this bill they neither express nor feel any such objections; 100; if three cents, 75; if four, 50; and if five, 30 per because, though it is a bill for encouragement, yet does it cent. transfer that encouragement from American labor and What is the tax on tea? Thirty per cent.; and the capital, where it was originally placed by the Hamiltons, laborer of New England is the great consumer and payer the Madisons, and the Ellsworths, the great founders of of this tax. What is the tax on coffee? Ten per cent.; our system; and, under the advisement of the Coopers and the wealth and leisure, not the labor of the South, and Calhouns of these degenerate days, it gives that same are the great consumers. Sir, I do remember a widow encouragement to the labor and capital of England. in New England, now of more than threescore and ten - Must we indeed make this sacrifice to the Moloch of years; the husband of her youth fell at the battle of disunion, now blowing his fires, and heating his furnace, Eutaw, by the side of Green. Her only son, as brave a in the distant South? Barbarian and ruthless god! Will seaman as ever gave canvass to the wind, was one of he not spare his own devotees? The State of Maine those gallant men who rowed Perry from the wreck of holds three millions of dollars in cottons, in wool, and in the Lawrence, and placed him on that deck which bore woollens; while all her foreign import trade does not ex-him successfully and in triumph through that war on the ceed five hundred and eighty thousand dollars. New waters of Erie. Here he received a ball in his breast, Hampshire has five million five hundred thousand dollars which, fixed in his side, finally carried him to his grave, in cottons, and two millions in wool and woollens; and all whither his bereaved mother followed him, and his wife her foreign commerce of importation hardly equals two also, in 1824. They left two little orphans, a son and a hundred thousand dollars annually. How many men, wo- daughter, one of them now twelve and the other fourteen men, and children, in these two States, earn their bread years old. These affectionate and grateful children now and clothing, and shelter themselves from the winter work in a factory, and feed and support their aged grandstorms of New England, by their daily labor in these manu, mother. Look into her cottage, sir, as I have done: it is facturing vocations? All these must not only be sacri- the abode of neatness, humble comfort, and pious resigficed to this consuming deity of disunion, but he demands nation and hope. She will offer you the hospitality (it is that their own neighbors and familiar friends, placed all she can) of her frugal table. Her bread is coarse, but here for their preservation by their unsuspecting confi-sweetened by the affection of those who have earned it dence, the congressional delegation from those two States, for her; her tea is brown bohea, but she has paid a tax of shall bind the victims, and with their own hands lift the 30 per cent. upon the humble beverage; her sugar is of sacrificial knife; and, as a devoted priesthood, da all other the darkest shade and the cheapest quality, but she has barbarous rites of his altar. paid a tax of 200 per cent. on its cost in the West Indies. She will, after the humble repast, present to you, if you will receive it, the clean, white, sociable pipe, and the Virginia weed prepared in the best style of Richmond; but this indulgence has come to her use under a protecting tax of 125 per cent.

Sir, we are sometimes told that this is a mere revenue measure an assessment of taxes on the people of the United States. If so, it should have exercised care and honest diligence, and, by its provisions, equalized the burdens of those people. Examine those provisions: look at iron. Where is that commodity in the greatest abundance You, sir, have also seen the Southern planter served consumed? In New England. First, in our agriculture; with his evening coffee at a tax of ten per cent., with suthe rocks of our region, when they do not rise above, come gar, double refined, at but one-fourth the tax paid on the nearly up to the surface. That surface is, in most parts cheapest brown; and each utensil, with its rich contents, of that region, thickly set with chip stone. Our hoes presented to the wealthy master by a separate slave, and can rarely strike a blow, or our ploughs or harrows move all dressed by their owner in fabrics at a tax of but five a foot, without encountering either a solid rock, or some per cent. Are you not ready to exclaim, as the Saviour fragment of flint, quartz, or granite. The feet of our of the world exclaimed in a like case, "Verily this poor working cattle and horses are, from necessity, continually widow hath cast more into the treasury than they all!" covered with iron and steel; and in winter this must often Notwithstanding this, sir, you have heretofore, and that be removed, sharpened, and replaced, to sustain these right often, heard this hall echo with the voice of comlaborious animals on their feet in their movements over plaint made here by those very men, and, as we were asthe ice. You, of the South, call New England" the land sured, for the benefit of the poor; nor could Iscariot himof ships." What, like a ship, is so nailed, and spiked, self, should he come to a resurrection, and call to us from and bolted, and cabled, and anchored, with iron? Our the foot of the gallows, be either more loud or more sinfactories, from the water-wheel to the card, the spindle, cere in their behalf.

and loom, are not only fastened and covered, but literally Sir, is there no protection in this bill? Yes, in truth is fabricated from iron and steel. Our mechanics-But I there. Iron, the product of the mines and the forges of forbear. Who does not know that we cannot move in Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, and New York, and New our labors in the forests, the fields, the workshops, or on Jersey, is perfectly protected in all those markets of the the ocean, unless armed, from head to heel, in these pro United States where it can come in competition with the

H. OF R.]

The Tariff Bill.

[JAN. 26, 1833.

She will do more. She will raise a monument more lofty, if not more enduring, than that of Washington, to her favorite son, once the ardent advocate, now the remorseless enemy of protection; the successful wielder, if not the discoverer of nullification; and the second illustrious founder of Southern supremacy.

foreign commodity. Sugar, the product of Louisana and Orleans. She nullifies; and then she, by her parade of Southern Georgia, is also protected; and, by this provi-war and menace, compels him to recommend this bill; and sion of the bill, the cotton, rice, and tobacco production you, by enacting it, to repeal your tariff, and abolish your of all the South is protected against all the capital and la- whole system of protection. bor now employed in the production of sugar. Wool, She may then look from her own desolate fields on the woollens, and cottons, the productions of New England, kindred desolation of her whole country. She will, as she are left at the mercy of foreign competition. In nothing hopes, be avenged on New England prosperity; and pay is the hostility of this measure against New England so the debt of gratitude due from the tories of 1782, to the conspicuous as in the reduction of the duty on nails from memory of Green by the ruin of his native State. five to three cents the pound. Making cut nails is a New England, a Rhode Island invention. I well knew the man who invented the machine, which, after many improvements, now performs this work so perfectly, that our market is supplied with nails at five and a half cents per pound, where, before this art was invented, their cost was not less than fifteen cents. Jeremiah Wilkinson, of Cumberland, was the inventor, an honest man, of infinite industry. He was never idle, never stood still, when any thing of use could be done. He was as untiring as the little insect, that pattern of industry, which you sometimes see running up and down in the morning on the fore-stick of your fire. This man planted more trees than any other man of his time, and has left to his sons his farms, his fruit trees, and, more than all, his excellent character, and his excellent habits of life.

What matter for the overthrow of his country! Did not chaos exclaim, "Havoc, and spoil, and ruin are my gain?” And did not the lust of power respond, "Toreign, though in hell, is worth ambition?"

What have you done, sir, chairman of the Committee of Ways and Weans, what have you done for New England? New England, the landing place of the pilgrims; the cradle of American independence; New England, the blood of whose sons has fertilized so many Southern, and consecrated so many Northern fields. What, I demand of you, have you done, in all your wise provisions, for New England? You have left undemolished-what could you else?-her rivers and rocks, her mountains and winter storms; and, O how courteous! you have not taken away from her the curse of exterior influence, and interior treachery.

You may triumph, you cannot subdue; New England labor, like New England valor, can never be subdued.

This trade of nail making is carried on with ceaseless labor in Rhode Island, and in that part of Massachusetts which once was the colony of Plymouth. Foreign iron has been mostly used, but lately these men have brought iron from the mineral region of Tennessee, by the way of New Orleans; and a hope was entertained that, if they were thus relieved from the duty on foreign iron, they could afford their nails, perhaps, for four cents a pound. They knew their invention had been pirated from the You of the South have essayed every scheme and shift Patent Office, and sold in England; but they never dream- of policy. Your embargo lashed our ships to the wharves ed that Congress would aid the English purchasers of their until their shrouds fell from the masts. Your non-interpatent by such a measure as this bill has furnished, for course and war locked up in warehouse the staple of our the encouragement of British labor and capital. The re- commerce, which had been purchased, and long paid for venue had no concern in this matter. No importation of to you; and even New Orleans was defended by the cotnails, unless for exportation, could be made, when the ton of New England. By your tariff of 1816, you called duty was five cents, and the American nails were sold for on New England to sacrifice the rich East India commerce five and a half. This reduction of the duty to three cents of Salem, of Boston, of Rhode Island, and Connecticut, to could answer no other purpose than to enable the Eng- what then you denominated a much greater interest-the lish to make cut nails from their cheap, coarse rolled iron; national independence and the common welfare. and thus ruin this New England trade, by the importation Nor have our primary interests alone excited your hos of a flood of this foreign article, so brittle that they will tility. Every blight of calumny has been blown over the almost break by the wind of the blow, before the ham-character of New England, by Southern slander. For our mer can reach the end of them; and yet so cheap, that the market for New England nails may be ruined by their importation. This measure was not placed in this bill to reduce the revenue, but to destroy the American product, and make room for the English.

attachment to Washington, and the principles and policy of Washington, we have been calumniated and denounced as monarchists, English partisans, and tories.

Plots, the vile brood of malice, have been hatched under Southern incubation, and fledged for flight, and, What will the nation, what will the world, what will with our own money, bought up and sent out into the history and posterity say, concerning these arrangements world, like flocks of harpies, that by their impurities they and set-offs? They will say, unless she reject this bill might make foul the good name and untarnished patriwith scorn, that Pennsylvania is purchased by the protec-otism of New England.

tion on her iron, to aid in the ruin of New England. They The low, vulgar abuse of the employments, the trades, will say, unless she set her foot on the bill, that New York and character of Yankees, is consecrated, and sent abroad has been paid by the electoral vote of Virginia, North in the world, in the posthumous publications of the sucCarolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. cessor and political rival of Washington. In tenpenny They will moreover say, (and who can contradict the say-pamphlets, lately published by one of the great men of ing?) that Virginia has been purchased by a patent to ma- that rival, New England is again set down as traitorously nufacture bituminous coal, pigtail and negro head tobacco. trading, during the last war, with the enemy in English What does this destroying and reconciling measure ef- Government bills. fect for South Carolina? South Carolina, instructed by Sir, let me tell these men, the genius of New England her English oracle ten years ago, believes now, as he told is not thus to be overthrown. You may, if I may allude her then, that cotton will never be imported into Charles- to the wrestling ring, you may, by some trick, foil, you ton until coals shall be imported into Newcastle. What may bring him to a knee, but never will you have power does she gain? She gets her will; and what termigant to lay him on the back. would not be satisfied by such a boon? Her war of free Place New England on a region of rock, without earth trade, secured behind the bales of her great staple, like or water, our labor shall drill the solid stone, and, like that of New Orleans, is triumphant; and, what is still more the staff of the prophet, let out the gushing stream. Our delightful, is triumphant against the hero himself of New perseverance shall beat the flint into small dust, and cover

JAN. 26, 1833.]

The Tariff Bill.

[H. of R.

the whole surface with soil. The dews, and the rain, Sir, the fabric of law, which this House wrought at the and the sunshine of heaven, the only creatures of God last session with so much care and labor, cannot now be left by you, in amity with us, shall give to our new earth unravelled by us, without self-rebuke and self-reproach. moisture and fertility; and time, and labor, and God's To call on us to do so, is requiring of us to enact, and blessings, shall cover the whole region with verdure, with put on the legislative archives of the nation, a perpetual plants and trees, with cornfields and gardens, pastures record of our own dishonor. and meadows.

What has all this perpetually labored and cunningly devised trans-Potomac policy benefited its votaries? This system of change and vacillation? This cotton and tobacco economy? This toil for perpetual exportation of the sweat of your goaded labor, and the fertility of your hard driven lands? Look into your own speeches, both on this floor and elsewhere; are they not filled with fields scourged down to barrenness, and slaves multiplied, and worked up to the very point of insurrection?

Will this measure, if it succeed, and ruin us, place you in better condition? If it fail, and you nullify, or secede, will our ruin, or your separation from us, restore virgin freshness to your lands, or give to your midnight slumbers one moment more of quietness?

Nor would the repeal of the law of July, by the enactment of this bill, be regarded by the nation as more derogatory to the honor than the integrity of this Congress. For that law, though not technically in force until the 3d of next March, has, in fact, gone into operation in hundreds of thousands of instances. How many contracts, in all parts of the country, have been made in every branch of employment? By these contracts, what terms of labor are to be done? what quantities of goods, wares, and merchandise are to be produced and delivered, both in this and other countries? what amounts of money are promised to be paid at home and abroad? This law is a part of every contract; for when two men draw out and execute a contract, in writing, the law is as much a part of it as if it were transcribed and placed on the paper or parchment. Sir, the provisions of this bill would never, by my voice, Shall we, the legislators, the guardians of the rights of be passed into a law; but if ever, surely not on this day, the people, put our hand upon these millions of agreeor in this year of our redemption. We did, at the very ments, solemnly written, signed, sealed, and delivered, last session, and not more than six months ago, regulate and binding on our fellow-men? Shall we dare to seize and settle this whole question; and that, too, after long upon these contracts, and tear out the law embodied in and solemn debate, protracted deliberation, and unwca- their pages? It were a deed, sir, which, if done by any ried labor. Are we half a year wiser, now, as we are individual in the nation, would, by law, be punished as a scarcely so much older, than we were at that session? felony. Who, then, can advise, can require, can urge us Who has received a revelation? for not one of us can have to be the perpetrators of such a deed, dishonorable to ouron this question, by human agency, more knowledge than selves, and ruinous to the nation? when we voted for the law of last July. Then a compro- For another reason, I would not do this act at this time. mise, as it was said, and settlement, were made. What Seven States in this Union, after forty years of use and pledges were given, God knows; but can greater be given occupation, after a time almost "whereof the memory of at this time? Settle the question again; who will be man runneth not to the contrary;" these seven States do bound by the law? What can we enact, which, if nulli- now allege that our great and glorious system of encoufication do not demolish, another, and the next Congress, ragement and protection is unconstitutional. Repeal it at cannot repeal? Examine the statement made at the trea- their demand, and you establish their doctrine. Let them, sury on the 26th of July last, twelve days after the law if they can, establish their theory by the constitutional triwhich goes into operation on the 3d of March next, was bunal. Let them try the question, as New England tried approved by the President. At the rate of duty under the constitutionality of the embargo, by courts of the that law, the amount of merchandise imported in the year United States. Nay, let them show the evils of our sys1830, being in round numbers $70,800,000, will yield tem, by showing the injuries done by its operations to $12,101,000. At that time, it was believed at the trea- their interests. Are they overtaxed by its provisions? It sury that no more than that amount would be imported can, if so, be easily demonstrated. I call, I challenge during the next year. What was the ground of this opi- them to the examination. I have laid a system of inquiry nion? The excess in importation of the preceding year, on the table. Let them put it in operation. If truth be 1831. Is not that argument strengthened by another of on earth, it can, by that scheme, be sought out and discoequal weight-the excessive importation of last year? If vered. Is there capital, under our system, less profitable the treasury believed that the importation of 33,000,000 than that employed by the whole free labor of the nation? more than was wanted would prevent a like excess the No, far otherwise. If the system were abolished, would next year, then, indeed, when another importation of that capital be thereby rendered more profitable? Surely 30,000,000 has followed, and the country is crowded with not; but, if it would, shall we destroy the general, to enan excess of 63,000,000, what reason can the Secretary hance some special welfare; the many for the few; the or Congress now have to expect 100,000,000, or even so labors and prosperity of the free, to multiply the toils and much as 70,000,000, will be imported the next year? increase the value of slaves? That amount, with the excess, not yet exported, but still on hand in the country, will be 30,000,000 more than we can consume at home, or sell abroad, or pay for by our own export of domestic production. If we pass this bill, which, as we are told, will reduce the revenue $6,000,000 below what the law of July last will produce, and our importations of foreign merchandise do not this year exceed 70,000,000, we shall lack at least 4,000,000 in our supply of the wants of Government. It would be a singular for- to South Carolina; to admit, adopt, and incorporate her tune for the same man to pay off the old national debt during his first Presidential term, and be compelled to begin a new debt in the first year of his second. If his friends will not save him from this inglorious condition, I trust, sir, that those who have never arrogated to themselves that title will rejoice to do it, while, at the same time, they, by the same prudent measure, preserve the best interests of the nation.

VOL. IX.-89

For a third, and still more irresistible reason, I would not now pass this bill into a law. South Carolina has announced to the world that any State holds, under the constitution, the right to nullify any law made by Congress; and has abolished, by ordinance, and by law, not only your whole revenue system, but the whole power of the United States courts, concerning that system, in that State. This bill calls for concession, nay, for submission ordinance and her law into our system of legislation. Will this preserve or destroy your constitution, cement or dissolve our Union? Sir, mingle nullification with the pure principles of your enactments, and, were your constitution strong and impenetrable as iron or adamant, this vile alchymy will dissolve into impalpable gas every link in the chain of your Union. The chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means says to us, "be just and fear not."

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