H. OF R. obtain. of promise in the tempests of our times. He has been point too distant. He feared, also, that in the interventhe hero of our tales; his deeds the argument of our dis-ing time, by reason of the reduction being so gradual, course; his glory the song of our festivals. Whose, there would be a large accumulation of surplus revenue whose name was ever so frequent in our flowing cups! in the treasury, the scramble for which was easily foreWho, like him, ever sat with us at the great political ta- seen; and the corrupting tendency of which must be obble! We have together taken salt from the same stand, vious to all. bread from the same basket; he has, with us, dipped the Mr. F. also protested against the pledge which seemed political sop in the same dish; and now he has lifted up to be contained in that part of the bill which provides his heel against us, and we are delivered into the hands that "the duties, as modified by this act, shall remain of our adversaries. These adversaries will never relent. and continue to be collected" until June, 1842. We had Our lovely land must become a desolation. The labor no power to bind our successors, and Mr. F. would not and wealth of the East must migrate to purchase and bind his constituents, or even himself, by any such enpeople the West. This is our only hope: There may be gagement as that which is alleged to be thus implied. He a country for us on the waters of the great river. Those had great difficulty in bringing his mind to the conclusion men, once our friends, who have left us to the ruthless to vote for the bill, and he voted for it solely upon the power of our and their adversaries, may then meet us ground of an adjustment of the agitating and distracting with the hand of kindness; and the father of the elder question which had brought this Union to the verge of American system, having parted with that to the States dissolution. As a compromise, he considered it far short of the South, may thus have provided for the birth of a of what the South was entitled to; but he was prepared younger son, which those States may never be able to to concede much; to make a willing sacrifice to preserve the union of these States, and to restore peace and harMr. JENIFER, of Maryland, said that nothing but ne- mony to the country. He had therefore expressed the cessity could induce him ever to differ from his honorable opinion that this object could only be effected by a spirit friend from Rhode Island, [Mr. BURGES,] young and in-of mutual conciliation and concession, and it was by this experienced as he was, in comparison to that venerable spirit that he was now actuated. In pursuing this course, and high-minded gentleman. But he could not sit and he had no doubt he represented truly the feelings and hear what he must denominate calumnious charges, opinions of his high-minded and patriotic constituents; but brought against an illustrious and honorable individual, to he had no authority to pledge them to any future course whose course the gentleman had thought fit to allude. of measures, nor would he do it. This bill he regarded Mr. J. should regret to the latest day of his life doing any as an experiment; and if, in its operation, it should be thing to mar the harmony which seemed so happily about to found to be defective, it will be subject, like all other prevail in that hall. But, believing that the individual laws, to repeal or modification. referred to would be more immortalized by the very act Mr. DENNY said that he owed thanks to the gentlewhich the gentleman had vilified, than by any other pub-man from Georgia for the frank and candid expression of lic act of his bright and useful career, he was unable to the sentiments which he had now given to the House. It remain in silence. Out of a regard to peace, and from now appeared that this bill was considered by the South a respect to his venerable friend, he would forbear to ut- as a mere experiment, which might or might not prove ter all that he felt at that moment. Suffice it to say, that satisfactory on trial. And was that House to experiment as a personal, warm, and devoted friend of the individual on the livelihood of millions of men? Were they to be assailed, he would not hear him charged with infamy with- driven into the adoption of such a course by a faction exout rising in his place to repel the cruel and unmerited isting in a single State? A gentleman from Kentucky, whom it would not be parliamentary to name, had, out of Mr. FOSTER said he did not belong to "the trading benevolent feeling, proposed the present bill as a comcommunity" of which the gentleman from Rhode Island promise of the existing duties between the North and the [Mr. BURGES] had spoken. He had broken no bargains; South. But did gentlemen from the South say that they he had made none; and he had therefore nothing to say in would accept the bill as a compromise? Not at all. reply to the two gentlemen who had preceded him. House had just heard one of those gentlemen declare that But Mr. F. rose to make an explanation, lest there he considered the proposition as a mere experiment. Had should appear some inconsistency in the vote he was it been demonstrated to the House that the South would about to give. He had, last night, moved to strike from accept the bill, and would rest satisfied with it? It had the bill a clause which he then considered unconstitu- not. Let the House pass this bill, and next year the tional; but his motion was lost. Had he remained of the Southern interest would come up and drive the House same opinion, that clause would compel him now to vote from its position. Once give them the power, and every against the whole bill; but, on further examination, he thing like compromise would depart forever. The State was satisfied he was mistaken. He had supposed that which Mr. D. represented was to be the chief sufferer in the valuation of goods, on which the assessment of duties this arrangement: it was sentenced to die. But was it was to be made after 1842, was to be regulated by the certain that they should perish by so slow a death as this existing laws: and under our present system of appraise-bill had provided for them? Was the Kentucky gentlements, there would inevitably be different rates of duties, man able to restrain and hold down the fiery spirits of the not only in the ports of different States, but in the differ- South? When they came to press the advocates of Ameent ports of the same State; thus destroying that unifor-rican industry to the wall, would it be in the power of mity required by the constitution. But on a more atten- that gentleman to hold back their fury, and rescue the tive perusal, Mr. F. found that the bill provided merely manufacturing interest from their remorseless blow? He for the assessment of the duties on the home value, as it believed not. The bill did nothing more than to hold out is called, leaving the regulations under which that assess-to foreigners all that protection and encouragement which ment shall be made, to be hereafter prescribed by law. ought to be reserved for our own citizens. If the object This, then, removed the constitutional objection. He, however, was convinced, that whenever this system of home valuation was attempted, it would be found impracticable. slander. Mr. F. said he had other objections which he would take the occasion to suggest. He considered the reduction too slow, and the period for arriving at the revenue The was to compromise with foreigners, the British themselves could propose no better terms to advance and secure their own prosperity. They would willingly take this bill, because they would see in it the slow, but certain death of the manufactures of our country. Its provisions would give vitality and strength to their own industry; it would diminish the members in their pauper houses; it would FEB. 26, 1833.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. He had, The make paupers in this country, by feeding the paupers of tleman with whom he had associated himself. Great Britain. The friends of the protective system had however, the least reason of all to expect that among his little expected such a blow from the quarter from whence bitterest assailants should be those for whom he had sacriit came. From the hand of their avowed opponents they ficed himself. Had it not been for the proud patriotism might have been prepared to meet it. If it came from from which he had been led to choose a course that threw them, however it might prostrate the best interests of the him into political association with the gentleman from country, it might be better borne; but it came with add- Rhode Island and his friends, he would, at this day, have ed force from the hand of one who had been himself the presided over the nation. When he had joined these new strongest advocate of the system. The American people friends, Mr. D. had thought he did wrong, especially in had not looked for any thing like this. They knew that disobeying the expressed will of his own State; but time a bill to reduce the tariff had just passed, and they were had proved the truth of all he had predicted, and the vote willing to wait another year to see what the effect of that he gave had been justified by the people of the United bill would be; but this was not permitted them. They States. Those who condemned him at the time, had since must here take their leave of the protecting policy. Its been the loudest in his praise. As for himself, he owned knell sounded in this bill, and he had only to regret that that he had seen his error, and so had many more. the task had not fallen to abler hands of pronouncing its present was not the first time that individual had saved funeral oration. The system of internal improvement was the nation from destruction. And what was his crime also to be murdered; and where the devastation was to now? He had saved the nation from the horrors of blood stop, who could tell? But one consolation still remained. and slaughter-from all the ruthless cruelties of civil war. The country had its own relief in its own hands. Free- This was his offence. He was charged with a coalition. men were not bound, like slaves, to work upon a planta- It was not the first that had been laid to the charge of that tion all their lives, while their masters disposed of them distinguished man. And whence had all his sufferings according to their pleasure. proceeded? From a coalition with that gentleman and his Mr. D. said he should have liked a greater opportunity political associates. But did the gentleman expect that, of expressing his views of this measure; but no time was because he had acted with them for a time, he must go allowed. The session was expiring, and the bill must be with him to destroy the principles of this Government? passed. The manufacturers must be sacrificed without He would find himself mistaken. It was possible for the even knowing for whose benefit it was to be done. One wisest and the most faithful sometimes to wander from gentleman said that he took the bill as offering the best the correct track, but, the first moment an opportunity terms he could get at present; but that he did not hold presented itself, he would return. Mr. D. would ever himself bound, by so doing, not to endeavor to get terms be for treating with the greatest kindness and indul still better hereafter. There was one provision in this gence a man who had been an original democrat. It had bill which ought to alarm every man that was interested been twice proved that he acted properly in the vote he in the American system. It proposed eventually to equal- had given. The South had seen and owned it. And what ize all duties, reducing them to twenty per cent. ad valo- were they now told? That the whole slave labor of the rem. Here was deception on the very face of the bill. southern section of the Union was to be united against the All ad valorem duties were necessarily deceptive. A spe- free white labor of the Northern States. Did the gentlecific duty was known; every body knew, at once, what man suppose that there were no poor white laboring peo they had to pay; but ad valorem duties varied continually. ple in the Southern States? There were as many as at the The bill laid a twenty per cent. duty on articles of all North, at least in that part of the country where Mr. D. sorts. All sorts of mechanical work were to be brought lived. How many were there in poor little Rhode Island, down to twenty per cent., while some of them were pro-a State that a man might put into his breeches pocket? duced by machinery, and others not. The same ma- The House had been told that cattle were fed with fish chinery worked as well here as it did in Europe, and our in Rhode Island. And what then did the people conmechanics worked at as cheap a rate; but to meet the sume? Would one man eat as much as two or three cows? European, they must work on half wages, because the fo- He presumed not. The gentleman had been telling the reign operative obtained half his living from the parish. House what Rhode Island paid for five, six, or seven Where was the discrimination under such a bill? The years past, for the support of Government. The gentleowner of a cotton mill, with his power looms, was to have man had not the custom-house book to show. This showa protection of twenty per cent. while the poor weaver ed the sophism the gentleman wished to play off on the who sat, from day to day, toiling at a hand loom, obtained people of the United States. Why, what did the gentleno more. In England, such a man obtained the residue man desire? Did he want the slaves of South Carolina to of his living out of the parish. Was this pauper system be sold, that he might put the money into his pocket, or of England to be combined with the slave system of South their masters and overseers only? Carolina, against the free labor of the United States? The gentleman said that this bill was virtually an abanMust American industry be thus nullified? Must the ma-donment of the protective system. The bill allowed the nufacturers submit, and see all their workshops closed manufacturers a little lifetime to come down to the point within ten years? Could it be expected that, with such a to which all agreed that they must at last come, viz. to a prospect before them, those who now contemplated in- revenue duty. How was it an abandonment of protecvesting their capital would continue such a purpose? It tion? He should think that any man, in seven years, with a could not. The moment the passage of this bill was an- protection of sixty per cent., might make his fortune. nounced, the whole manufacturing enterprise of the coun- What farmer made half as much? What farmer made try would at once be paralyzed. The emulation would twenty per cent. upon his capital? No, he did not make be, who should wind up their affairs the soonest. As one ten per cent., nor five either. But this bill was willing factory went down after another, the monopoly would the manufacturers should enjoy their fifty or sixty per increase, from year to year, until, at length, a few over-cent. until it was gradually reduced to a permanent tax grown establishments would be left standing in solitary upon the people of the United States of twenty per cent. opulence, melancholy monuments in the wide-spread ruin. for the support and encouragement of manufactures. It Mr. DANIEL said that he rose to perform a sacred duty really seemed to Mr. D. that no man ought to raise his to a friend who had been wantonly and maliciously slan- voice against it. It was a free gift-a mere gratuity. dered on the floor of that House. Whatever the past What had the great West to do with manufactures? course of that individual might deserve, in the way of What benefit was it to Kentucky that the manufacturers chastisement, he had most richly received from the gen- of Rhode Island should get a bounty on their industry? VOL. IX.-113 H. OF R.] The Tariff. [FEB. 26, 1833. They paid a million and a half into the treasury, and got Union is dissatisfied. The constitution and Government about six or seven hundred thousand dollars out of it, by would be by such doctrines subverted and overturned; it which they gained an annual loss of about seven hundred could not be preserved, and would not be worth it if it thousand dollars. Still they supported the tariff. They could. Our Union would be a rope of sand, a cobweb supported it because they supposed it was for the benefit to be broken by every breeze. Until South Carolina, of the country. They were not willing, however, to therefore, repealed her ordinance, and laid down her weapress the system to the separation of the Union. Rather pons of rebellion, he, for one, was opposed to all legislathan such should be the result, they were ready to aban-tion on this subject. But this objection out of the way, don it altogether. He did not believe that one-fifth of and no sufficient or even plausible reason had been asthe people of the nation would give up the Union to save signed for "posting with such dexterity" to the repeal of the tariff. The individual who had recommended this our own deliberate act. What were the reasons assigned? compromise had acted on other principles. He chose ra- Sum them all up, and they were embraced under three ther to retire than to remain in public life at any such heads: 1. To reduce the revenue; 2. To reduce taxation; cost. He did not seek any office. Mr. D. trusted the and, 3. To appease the nullifiers. That the act of the people of this country would ever continue to remember last session would produce too much revenue, was an ashim as having proved their political saviour at the two sumption, he said, unsupported by evidence. The act greatest crises the nation has yet known. Who had it has not yet gone into operation. No one could say what been that had saved the country when the Missouri ques-was to be its effect upon the revenue. He believed that, tion threatened to rend the Union; and who had now instead of a surplus, there would be a deficiency of resaved it from war and bloodshed? The same individual venue. There is no surplus now, we all know. That had effected both these deliverances. And who, he would there would be a surplus hereafter, no one could foretell. add, had carried the land bill through the other House? This argument, therefore, rested upon the assumption Who but the man so wantonly abused by the gentleman of a fact that had no existence now, and which, in his from Rhode Island? Mr. D. concluded by demanding the opinion, would have no existence hereafter a fact not previous question. proved, and incapable of proof. The second argument He withdrew the motion, however, at the request of rested entirely upon the validity of the first. If the first Mr. BURGES, who apologized for detaining the House failed, as he thought it must, the second, resting upon it, for any reply, and said, the gentleman from Kentucky has failed of course. For if there was no surplus revenue, reproached me for what I have said in allusion to a distin- no one would contend for a reduction of duties. If the guished gentleman of his State. Let me say, concerning revenue was necessary, of course the duties were also nethat reproach, that ancient wisdom has told us, "The re-cessary. This argument, therefore, went for nothing. buke of a man of one character is better than the song of As to the third and last, (the satisfaction of the nullifiers,) a character very different;" and I will leave it to the na- he had given his reasons for opposing any change of the tion to determine whether the character of the distin- law on this ground; but if it was proper to yield to the guished individual of the West may not brighten on the demands of the nullifiers, this law will not answer the page of history under my rebuke, when the eulogy of the purpose. The nullifying ordinance expressly declares gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. DANIEL] would render that they will be satisfied with nothing short of a total that character infamous. I will not reply to what he has abandonment of the protective principle; and we are told said of Rhode Island: it is all neither more nor less than on all hands that nothing of this kind is contemplated by the bray, without the inspiration of a philosopher of the the bill. Thus you fail to satisfy the nullifiers; you desame family which once reproved a prophet of antiquity. stroy your manufactures; lay waste a large portion of your Mr. STEWART said that he was opposed to all fur-country; paralyze and prostrate your industry in the fields ther legislation, at this time, on the subject of the tariff. and in the workshops, render unhappy and discontented, This Congress had already acted upon the subject. We if not hostile to your legislation, more than one-half of have passed one law, and are functus officio. If the act of your people now contented and prosperous, and you sathe last session, passed with so much unanimity as a final tisfy nobody. A measure of such universal operation, adjustment of this vexed question, is again to be disturb-affecting the labor of the whole nation, and visiting the ed, let it be by other hands-let us not be driven by a fireside of every man, even in the remotest hamlet of our handful of nullifiers into a repeal of our own legislation country; such a measure, supported by such reasons, he before it has gone into effect, and before any one can thought, could never meet the approbation of the Ameforesee whether its operation is to be beneficial or inju-rican people. Even the enemies of protection in the rious. If we degrade ourselves by such an act of incon- South friendly to the Union were decidedly opposed to sistency, the world can assign but one reason for our any reduction of the tariff under existing circumstances. course, and that will be, that a majority of two to one Their opinions to this effect were published to the world. have been compelled to surrender their own deliberate The editor of the "Charleston Patriot," a leading Union judgment to the threats of a few nullifiers, thereby re- paper in South Carolina, says: cognising and establishing nullification, not only as a "The Mercury charges the Union presses in this city peaceable, but as an efficient and constitutional remedy, with insincerity, because they do not advocate an immeproclaiming to the world that the United States is not a diate repeal of the tariff, with the ordinance hanging as Government, but a thing to be governed by the passions, an instrument of violence and menace over the deliberawhims, and caprices of each and every State in this Union. tions of the National Legislature. We should be sorry to What, sir, is our present position? Last session we pass-lend ourselves to any such purpose of coercion, in this ed a tariff, as a final compromise and settlement of the land of liberty. Our Legislature must deliberate and dequestion. South Carolina was dissatisfied, and she has cide without means and instruments of intimidation. The nullified it; she says her will, and not that of the Union, example would be fatal--the precedent destructive of all shall govern, The President says the law shall be exe-good government, if Congress should legislate with an cuted, and South Carolina shall submit-we join the nul-edict of nullification suspended over their heads. We care lifiers, repeal the law, and South Carolina triumphs; not how soon after the removal of this act Congress enRhode Island, or some other State voting against the re-gage in the reduction of the tariff. But we are not such pealing act, next nullifies, puts herself on her sovereign-incendiaries' as to wish the constituted authorities to act ty, demands the repeal of this law; and, upon the autho-under an impulse of fear from factious measures, which rity of the precedent now established, you must again are not the less factious from being organized." repeal this act, and so on, as long as any State in the The British alone would be benefited by the passage FEB. 26, 1833.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. with the head. Would he hesitate? No. He would say, begin with the head. But this system could not die; it would survive, and, like the Phoenix from its ashes, it would rise stronger and brighter from the blow, and go forth with healing in its wings--with new energy and power, spreading gladness and prosperity far and wide over the land; but if destroyed by this secret, silent, gradual process, it might never recover. The destruction would be the more certain, fatal, and ruinous, from haying been protracted and concealed. of this bill. They could not now repress their exultation have your left leg cut off the first day, your right leg the at the prospect of being enabled to crush our rising ma-second, your left arm the third, your right arm the fourth, nufactures, from which they had so much to apprehend. and your head the fifth; or, if you prefer, we will begin Their presses were breaking forth in raptures on the subject, of which the following was a specimen, from the York (Upper Canada) Reporter, of January 25: "Triumph of South Carolina, and submission of the manufacturing States. We copy an article from the Commercial Advertiser of the 12th instant, from which it is apparent how matters are to be settled. The tariff is to be reduced to meet the views of the South Carolinians, and thus is the whole of the United States to be thrown open to European manufactures, upon equitable terms. Much rejoicing will be in England upon this account, as Mr. S. said he would not trespass long on the time of well there may. We shall forever fix a high value upon the House, but begged its indulgence to say a few words the Southern character; it has been displayed in a light as to the practical operation of this measure upon the to command respect and admiration; and their struggle revenue, the capital, the currency, and the labor of the for justice has been crowned with the success such manly country. We have had calculations upon calculations, efforts seldom fail to achieve." from the treasury, from the committee, and from genBut even if legislation on the subject of the tariff was tlemen on all sides, predicated upon the strange and at this time necessary, which, however, he utterly denied, false assumption that an indiscriminate reduction of duties the plan proposed, of a gradual reduction of duties, was upon all articles, protected and unprotected, whether the very worst, and especially this blind and indiscrimi-produced at home or abroad, was to be followed, as a nate reduction upon all articles alike, protected and un-matter of course, by a corresponding reduction of revenue. protected, without inquiring whether they would or would Was not the mere statement of the proposition sufficient not bear further reduction, whether it would or would to show its fallacy? Who was so blind as not to see at not destroy our manufactures, whether it would or would a single glance, that to reduce the duties on articles now not increase revenue by increasing imports. He was op- supplied entirely at home, so as to check the home proposed to thus applying the bed of Procrustes to the tariff, duction, and let in the supply from abroad, would, instead stretching out or lopping off every thing by the same of diminishing, greatly increase the revenue? The duties measure, right or wrong. The effect of this indiscrimi- on many articles are now so high as to wholly exclude nate, hasty, panic-struck legislation, was to ruin the their importation from abroad, and no revenue whatever country, to lay its industry prostrate at the footstool of is received. Reduce the duties one-half, and import half British power. Under such a system, every thing would your supply from abroad, and will you not, by this reducbe sacrificed in the end. Rather let the blow be boldly tion of duties, add millions to your revenue? Who struck at once; let the people see and know whence it would deny it? And yet it is assumed as an axiom, that comes, and who gives it. He preferred this to a secret, reduction of duties will of course be followed by a corsilent, insidious, and gradual system of destruction, un-responding reduction of revenue! To illustrate the ardermining and sapping the foundations of the national gument-Suppose the duties on shoes, hats, cotton, and prosperity, producing desolation, decay, and death, by wool, and woollen and cotton goods, now average fifty slow poison, administered in "broken doses." Offer this per cent. (about the fact,) and that, with the existing dose of destruction naked and undisguised-tell the peo-protection, we now manufacture and produce for home ple what it is--force them to take it if you can-and they consumption one hundred and twenty millions of dollars will throw it back upon you. Repeal the tariff, and you worth of these articles, which was short of the amount: will find a recuperative energy in the people, which will suppose you reduce these duties, as is now proposed, from rise up, and cast off your unjust and injurious legislation. fifty to twenty five per cent., and thereby destroy one-half You can never destroy protection by direct means, but it of this home production, and import it from abroad, what may be undermined and destroyed by some such secret is the consequence? This addition of sixty millions to plan of operation as this. Repeal the tariff, and the re- your imports, under this reduced duty of twenty-five per medy is at hand; it would be found in the ballot boxes at cent., will add exactly fifteen millions of dollars annually the very first election. The sovereign people will take to the amount of revenue; yet we are told by the Secrecare of themselves, they will look to the yeas and nays, tary of the Treasury and the Committee of Ways and and distinguish between their true friends and the "dough Means, that inasmuch as the duties now derived from the faces," and soon again be erect in their true American importation of the abovementioned articles amount to position. twelve millions of dollars a year, under a duty of fifty per When this scheme of reduction runs down to its lowest cent., by reducing the duties to twenty-five per cent., the point, there will not remain in the whole tariff a single revenue will be reduced to six millions: assuming to be protecting duty. Every thing will be reduced to a com-true what every body knows to be false, that we would mon revenue standard. All now see and admit that our import no more wool and woollens, cotton goods, hats, manufactures are maintaining a doubtful struggle with shoes, &c. under a duty of twenty-five, than we now do foreigners for the American markets, aided by protecting under a duty of fifty per cent. It was passing strange that duties of forty, fifty, and sixty per cent.; this being the intelligent men could deceive themselves or expect to decase, who will pretend that they can stand when these ceive others by such fallacious statements; he would not duties are reduced to fifteen and twenty per cent.? Pro-follow further this fundamental fallacy upon which this tection will be gone, completely gone; not a vestige will measure rested entirely for its support, for it was embe left; and so far as manufactures are concerned, when phatically a measure to reduce the revenue to the wants you sink below the point of protection, it is immaterial of the Government. But in its practical results the opto them whether you stop at twenty or at five per cent.; posite would be its effect; instead of diminishing, it would it becomes a mere question of revenue--protection has increase the revenue on protected, though it would di nothing to do with it. The proposition contained in this minish it on unprotected articles. We now import from bill is simply this: you say to the manufacturer you must Liverpool more than a million bushels of coal, paying die--this is settled-but, as a matter of favor, we will six cents duty; reduce the duty one-half, and, the import allow you to live five days, provided you will consent to will exceed five millions next year; thus, by reducing H. of R.] The Tariff [FEB. 26, 1833. the duty one-half, you more than double the revenue on portion to the amount of the protection afforded. Supcoal, and such would be the effect in all similar cases. pose you reduce the duties as proposed, who would it Hence he had always contended, and still maintained, first affect? Not the rich, not the capitalists, but the poor, that the reverse of the course proposed was the true the laborers of the country. The effect would be to grind plan of reducing the revenue, and advancing the inde- down the wages of laborers employed in your factopendence and prosperity of the country. That, instead ries, your fields, and your workshops. This would be of gradually reducing duties, and thereby increasing im- the practical operation of the measure, and no man of ports, and, consequently, revenue, the true system was common sense or common observation could doubt it. to gradually increase duties at the rate of one or two per The capitalist would go to his factory and turn his key; to cent. per annum, on articles which we can and ought to his operatives he would say, "I cannot work at a loss, I manufacture, until we supply ourselves, when the reve- must turn my capital to something else, or vest it in stocks; nue on these articles would entirely cease: for instance, you know that it is with the utmost difficulty I can mainin 1831, the revenue on woollen and cotton goods alone tain the competition under the present duties of 50 per exceeded ten millions; by gradually increasing the du- cent. Congress have now reduced my protection oneties, you would stimulate capital to go to work, and you half, you must therefore make a corresponding reduction would soon not only save the twenty-eight millions of in your wages, or go idle." To the farmer he would say, dollars sent abroad to purchase these articles, but cut off "you must make a like reduction on your wool and breadthe ten millions of revenue derived from these imports. stuffs;" to the mechanic, "you must fall in the same proWhereas, by reducing the duties as now proposed, you portion;" to one, you must be without employment," will not only destroy your own manufactures, but be and to the other, " you must be without a market for obliged to send abroad fifty-six millions of dollars a year, your produce." What is the alternative? To submit or instead of twenty-eight, to pay for cotton and woollen starve, take half or nothing. The laborer must take 25 goods, and also increase the revenue, on this article instead of 50 cents a day. The farmer must take 15 inalone, more than five millions of dollars per annum. 66 stead of 30 cents for his wool, 50 cents instead of a dollar for his wheat, or it must rot on his hands. Thus the evils of your legislation will fall upon the poor and dependent, and upon the farmers of the country; wealthy capitalists could take care of themselves; and it was for gentlemen representing farmers and mechanics to say whether they were prepared to strike such a blow, to gratify British cupidity and Southern rebellion. He would now say a word or two as to the effect of this system upon capital. As to capital already invested, its effect would be immediate destruction to all small and young establishments; the large and wealthy capitalists might, by pressing down the wages of labor, and the price of agricultural produce, manage to live till they could turn their capital to something else; but as to the capital afloat, what dollar, under this system of gradual, We are told that the protective system is a system of but certain destruction, would ever go into manufactures? monopoly, calculated to make "the rich richer, and the Not a dollar. The further progress of capital in this di- poor poorer." If the proposition were reversed, it would rection would come at once to a full stop. Under this be much nearer the truth. The destruction of this sysbill, or any other based upon similar principles, manu- tem would not only reduce the laborer of this country to a facturing would soon be at an end. Seeing nothing but level with the paupers of England, and the serfs and final destruction before them, those who were out would slaves of Russia and the Indies, but the money of our counkeep out of the business, and those who were in would try being exported to pay for foreign imports, the laborer get out as fast as they could, and no one would be willing having lost his accustomed employment, and compelled to take their place. to work for sixpence a day, what would become of the It is a received theory that high protecting duties ope- poor man, and of every man in debt? Their property rate for the benefit of moneyed capitalists, and to the pre- would be sacrificed for little or nothing, and bought up judice of the laboring and agricultural portions of the by whom? By the rich, who alone could purchase. This community. Such is the theory, but the practical opera- was no fancy sketch; for the reality of it, it was only netion of the system is exactly the reverse. The great cessary to refer to the heart-rending scenes of ruin and effect of the tariff is to benefit the poor man-it is empha- distress that followed the reduction of the tariff in 1816. tically the poor man's law; it is a law to bencfit labor, whe- Upon this subject, Mr. S. said, there was another theother employed in the fields or in the workshops. The ry, adopted too generally by the friends as well as enemies wages of labor and the price of agricultural produce, which of the tariff; a theory quite as false as the one to which together constituted the foundation of the national pros- he had just adverted. He meant the theory which asperity, would prosper or decline precisely as the protec-serted that duties were taxes imposed upon and paid by tion afforded to the national industry was increased or the consumers. This he denied. Wherever, he said, diminished. This was as susceptible of demonstration as the duty had produced an increase of price, this was any problem in Euclid. There is a perpetual contest ex- true; but in no other case. With regard to articles not isting between the labor of our own and foreign countries; produced or manufactured in the country, this theory and those who can work cheapest will have the market, might be generally correct; though he believed experiunless we interpose to give our own labor the preference, ence had not proved that a reduction of duty even upon by imposing discriminating duties and taxes upon foreign non-protected articles had always been followed by a corproductions, which taxes the foreigner must pay for the responding reduction of price. But where duties had privilege of selling in our markets. This must be the been increased on articles extensively manufactured at case so long as competition is between the foreign and home, and where the price was regulated and established American producers; but when the foreigner is conquer-by home competition, an increase of price had never foled and driven out, then a new contest springs up between lowed an increase of duty. He made the general asserthe American manufacturers, and from that moment this tion, and he made it without fear of contradiction; not a new struggle will reduce the price by increasing capital, single instance could be cited to the contrary. skill, economy, and machinery, to a point greatly below other hand, the prices had been generally reduced by the what it had ever been before. increase of capital and skill, and the increased quantity Such was, and always would be, the practical operation of the articles made and thrown into the market. Duties, of protection upon the industry of the country; the effect in the first instance, all know, are levied on foreign goods, was to increase our national independence and national and are paid by the importer. If the price of these goods wealth; to give the preference to our own over foreign is not increased in consequence of the increase of the duty, labor, and that preference would always be in exact pro- then it is clear the consumer pays nothing, and the duty On the |