MAY 28, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. of R. trade were free, and of course it would require two dol- cotton, tobacco, or rice continues to be produced for exlars to purchase what ought to cost but one. If he wishes portation, this must continue to be the case. It is utterly to purchase iron manufactures, he will have to give twenty- impossible to exclude the importation of protected artiseven and a half per cent., and if shoes or hats, thirty- cles, to whatever extent you may carry your duties, until three per cent. more than they would cost him, but for you have destroyed the business of rearing staples for ex-the protecting duties. Applying this course of reasoning portation. No proposition is capable of clearer proof to the whole catalogue of protected articles, it will be than this, and yet few are so little understood. I will enfound, that, upon the grand aggregate of the purchases deavor to make it plain. When the tariff of 1828 was he has occasion to make of these articles with the money passed, almost every body believed it to be prohibitory obtained for his cotton, it will require, upon an average, as to most of those articles which were subject to as high about forty-five per cent. more than it would cost if the a duty as fifty per cent. It was, in fact, temporarily so as protecting duties were repealed. And here, sir, it is pro- to many articles. But as soon as the distribution of the per to remark that these facts clearly indicate a diminu-precious metals, or their substitutes, became adjusted and tion of the real price or exchangeable value of cotton, proportioned to this new state of things, importations were whether the planter himself actually consumes these vari- freely resumed, and as large an amount of protected artious articles which I have enumerated or not. The burden cles came in, at an average of nearly fifty per cent., as s unalterably fixed upon the planter as a producer; for he had come in before at the lower rates of the former tariff. is compelled either to import these articles himself, in The whole experience of the country has, in fact, been direct exchange for his cotton, and pay the duties on them but a practical illustration of the view I have here presented. out of his own pocket, or to receive money in exchange After the passage of each successive tariff, importations, for his cotton. have been for a time diminished, and the manufacturers! If he imports or receives money, he obtains a commo-have been satisfied. But after the lapse of a few years, dity degraded in value by the very system which compels the importations become as great as ever, and the manuhim to receive it. It is precisely the same thing to him as facturers become as clamorous for additional protection.j if he were compelled to receive any other commodity, in By a singular fatality, illustrating the pernicious connexlike manner degraded in its value. Even, therefore, if he ion between the Presidential election and the tariff, the should not wish to lay out more than one-half or one-third protection of each successive tariff has only been deemed of it in protected articles, he must either retain it barren sufficient for four years, and the necessity of increasing and unproductive in his coffers, or let some other person it has always become apparent just in the midst of the have it, by whom it would be applied to the purchase of canvass for the Presidency. But however this may be, these very protected articles. And as it would be no more certain it is that a clamorous demand for protection has valuable in the hands of this third person, for purchasing been made at every interval of four years since the tariff such articles, than it was in the hands of the planter, it is of 1816; and but for the extraordinary state of the counevident that whatever article the planter might receive for try, I think it not improbable that a similar demand would it, would be diminished in quantity in exact proportion to have been made now. These facts satisfactorily prove the degradation of the value of specie. that no rate of duties that will not prohibit the exportation of our Southern staples, can prohibit, for any length of time, the importation of those manufactures which are now imported in exchange for them. If you were to raise your average of duties to sixty per cent. to-morrow, in less than twelve months nearly the same amount of manufactures would be imported as is imported now, unless the If, when the planter exchanges his cotton in Liverpool exportation of Southern staples should be cut off or curfor money, he were permitted to exchange that money for tailed by it. How can it be otherwise? How is it possible English manufactures, as freely as he is permitted here to that cotton, tobacco, and rice can be exported, if somevelange it for Northern manufactures, he would un- thing required for our national consumption be not reoubtedly obtain a much more valuable exchange for his ceived for them from foreign nations? The nonsensical productions. In a word, money which he receives in Eng-idea of importing specie, the most absurd of all the follies and is worth forty or fifty per cent. more there than it is of the mercantile system, can now find no advocates. It here, for all the uses to which he wishes to apply it. But is neither more nor less than the old Spanish policy of you interpose your protecting duties, and thereby prevent making the nation wealthy by hoarding specie, exhibited hin from using it in England under the heavy penalty of in a different but much more efficient form than that in forty or fifty per cent., in order that he may be compelled which it was once exhibited by Spain. So that, unless it be assumed that money has an intrinsic vate, without any reference to the other commodities it will purchase, it follows that the exchangeable value of cotton is diminished by the protecting system in the exact proportion that the prices of other articles are increased by it. to bring it into the United States, and apply it to the She attempted to prohibit, by penal laws, the exportapurchase of domestic manufactures, at prices forty or tion of specie; you do that which is much more effectual, fi per cent. higher than they would cost him in Eng- by forcing its importation, and then prohibiting the impor land. However it may be disguised, therefore, by the tation of any thing which can give rise to the exportation terposition of the various agents by whom the compli- of it. cated process of the foreign exchange is performed, it is If the planters of the South should be weak enough to revertheless certain that the alternative is presented to attempt to enrich themselves and the nation by receiving the planter, either to exchange his cotton for foreign manu- the annual amount of their staples in specie, from foreign factures, and pay forty or fifty per cent. on the value of countries, they would exhibit the folly and fatuity of the em for the privilege of making the exchange, or to ex- wretched miser who perishes amidst the hoards of his lange it for domestic manufactures, and pay forty or fifty treasure for the want of food. per cent. for them beyond the price for which the same What, then, can they receive for their staples? If you ices could be obtained from England. Heavy as the exclude the protected articles, the whole of our national ally is, the planters find it to their advantage to adopt imports would not amount to more than one-half the value former branch of the alternative. Yes, sir, they find of the Southern staples; and these are principally imports ore advantageous to pay this enormous penalty, and go which are now received in exchange for the productions se natural markets from which it is the whole scope of other parts of the Union, to an amount fully equal to f your legislation to exclude them, than to go to the mise- the consumption of the country. rable domestic market to which you wish to confine them, shout I will now produce the authority of the two writers I have already quoted, to sustain the doctrine just laid down; H. OF R.] The Tariff. [MAY 28, 1832. as to the effect of commercial restrictions in changing the ney which it ought to have, money will not, indeed, be of the value of the precious metals. Professor Senior says: same value in each; for, with respect to many commodities, it may differ 5, 10, or even 20 per cent., but the exchange will be at par. 66 They cannot deny that the commodities they would exclude must be given to us gratuitously, or in exchange for our own produce, or for money. The first supposition, Here, sir, is a distinct recognition of the principles for granting we could be sufferers by it, is too absurd even for which I am contending, as it regards the distribution of the reasoners whom I am describing. If they adopt the money amongst different nations, and the changes prosecond, they must admit that the loss to the producers, duced in its value by the increase or diminution of its whose exports we indirectly prohibit, balances the gain to quantity. The cases stated by way of illustration are not those whom we forcibly encourage, leaving the loss to the precisely analogous to our case; but I feel warranted in public uncompensated. They are driven, therefore, to saying, that if this were submitted to these anthors, the maintain that the payment would be in money; and to sup- principles they have laid down would induce them to propose that such a payment could be continued, and would nounce the same opinion in relation to it which I have be an evil, is the mercantile theory." Again: "I will endeavored to present. This view of the subject furnishes a complete and satisfactory solution of a puzzling difficulty which many persons cannot get over, and which may be appropriately denominated the Pons asinorum of this great controversy. suppose that all the protecting duties with which we have It is distinctly affirmed that the accumulation of money clogged our commerce with France, are suddenly re-depresses its value; and as all commercial restrictions upon moved, and that the removal is immediately followed by imports, while exports are free, must not only cause an an increased importation of French commodities to the accumulation of money, but permanently retain it as long amount of five millions sterling. And I will suppose the as the restriction continues, it follows that the price, or, commercial restrictions, on the part of France, to remain more properly, the exchangeable value of exports, must unaltered. I will suppose, too, that the five millions in be permanently diminished in the precise degree that the question are actually remitted in money. It is admitted value of specie is depreciated. that the afflux of so large a sum from England, and its influx into France, must sink all English prices, and occasion a general rise of prices in France. Indeed, if it did not, the transaction would be one of pure benefit to England, and of pure loss to France. As money is not a source of gratification, but a mere instrument of commerce, if our prices were not affected by parting with a portion of our money, we should be insensible of our loss; or rather we should have sustained no loss whatever, and have gained the five millions' worth of French commodities without any real sacrifice, while France would have parted with those commodities, and received no sensible equivalent." The case put by the author, it will be seen, is the counterpart of that by which I have illustrated the effect of our restrictions upon the value of money. The same argument, however, which shows that the repeal of restrictions would cause money to flow out of the country, and rise in value, equally proves that the imposition of restrictions would cause money to flow in and sink in value. When it is contended that the protecting duties do not fall exclusively upon the consumers, but partly upon the producers of the exports, and partly on the consumers of the imports, every merchant's clerk is ready with the reply, that as the importing merchant must add the duty as well as his usual profits to the cost of every import, it necessarily follows that the consumer must pay the duty. Now, it is admitted that the importing merchant must increase the money price for which he sells a foreign manufacture, so as to indemnify himself for the duty paid on it; but we have seen that this enhanced money price is produced in part by the depreciation in the value of money. in whatever degree the increased price of protected arti cles arises from this depreciation in the value of money, all other commodities in the same market or commercial comMr. Ricardo, one of the most distinguished of the prac-munity will experience a corresponding increase of price. tical economists of Europe, lays down these principles: It is true, therefore, as is sometimes supposed, that the "Gold and silver having been chosen for the general Northern farmers and laborers are as much oppressed by medium of circulation, they are, by the competition of the protecting system as the people of the Southern States, commerce, distributed in such proportions amongst the other than the planters. Experience confirms the condifferent countries of the world, as to accommodate them-clusions of theory on this subject. Whatever increases selves to the natural traffic which would take place if no the prosperity and profits of the great and leading such metals existed, and the trade between countries were employments of capital in any community, has always purely a trade of barter." been found to increase the prosperity and profits of all "Now suppose England to discover a process for making subordinate employments, as well as the wages of labor. wine, so that it should become her interest rather to grow It is obvious that, in the same local community, where it than to import it, she would cease to manufacture cloth the transfer of capital and labor from one employment to for exportation, and would grow wine for herself. The another is easily effected, there cannot long continue dif money price of these commodities would be regulated ac- ferent rates of profit and wages of labor. The truth of this cordingly. Cloth would continue for some time to be ex- remark will strike the commonest observer. But the preported from this country, because its price would continue cise mode in which this equality of profits and wages is pro to be higher in Portugal than here; but money, instead of duced, is not so obvious. If, for example, protecting duties wine, would be given in exchange for it, till the accumu- enhance the money price of the various manufactures upon lation of money here, and its diminution abroad, should so which they are laid, to the fuli extent of these duties, they, operate on the relative value of cloth in the two countries, at the same time, enhance the price of all other articles that it would cease to be profitable to export it." in the manufacturing region, though not to so great anex "It is thus that the money of each country is apportion- tent, In whatever degree the rise of the price of pro ed to it in such quantities only as may be necessary to regulate a profitable trade or barter." "But the diminution of money in one country, and its increase in another, do not operate on the price of one commodity only, but on the prices of all "This higher value of money will not be indicated by the exchange; bills may continue to be negotiated at par, although the prices of corn and labor should be 10, 20, or per cent. higher in one country than another." "When each country has precisely the quantity of mo 30 tected manufactures is produced by the quantity and diminished value of money, in that degree all other articles in the same region of country are enhanced also. While, therefore, the price of manufactures is increased forty or fifty per cent. by the protecting duties, the price of all farming productions is probably increased twenty-five or thirty per cent. It results that the burden imposed upon the Northern consumers is only the difference between the price of the protected and the unprotected produc tions of that part of the Union. For the same reason that MAY 28, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. the prosperity of the great manufacturing interests of the duties upon the producers and consumers of the articles North produces a corresponding prosperity in the other subjected to these respective duties. classes there, the depressed condition of the Southern If, for example, a discriminating excise duty were levied planters must produce a corresponding depression in all upon the producers of one-third part only of the cotton the subordinate departments of Southern industry. The manufactures of the United States, every body would adprotecting duties have a double operation upon them. mit that almost the whole burden of this duty would fall They, at the same time, diminish the price of their great upon the producers of the proscribed manufactures. The staples, and increase the price of all the articles they have exemption of the other two-thirds from taxation would occasion to purchase from other parts of the Union. render it obviously impossible to throw the burden of the duty on the consumers. I will now inquire what is the aggregate effect of the whole protecting system on the two great subdivisions of Now, this is equally true of import duties levied upon the Union-the planting and the manufacturing States. foreign manufactures, while domestic manufactures of the Assuming the average rate of protecting duties at forty same kind, and of twice the amount, are exempted from per cent., (though it is in fact more,) and setting down the duties. And the reason why it is not equally apparent, is, Southern exports at thirty-five millions of dollars, we have that, as excise duties operate upon domestic exchanges, the sum of fourteen millions of dollars as the amount of there is nothing in the transaction that brings an increased the revenue annually levied from the productions of the quantity of money into the market. Every body sees, planting States, of which more than one-half is transferred therefore, that, in the case stated, the price of the dutied as a tribute to the manufacturing States. But the actual article cannot be increased as much even as one-third extent of the transfer of wealth which takes place, annual- part of the amount of the duty, and the principal burden ly, from the South to the North, cannot be fully realized must consequently be borne by the producer. until we take into the estimate the exchanges between If money were not admitted free of duty from fothose two sections, as well as our foreign exchanges. reign countries, and if the quantity of it in the United The whole amount of the Southern staples which we sell States remained the same, after the imposition of proto the manufacturing States, cannot amount to less than tecting duties, as before, it would be equally as apparent, as six millions of dollars. Cotton alone, by the estimate of in the case of excise duties, that the producers must bear the manufacturers, amounts to more than that sum. While most of the burden. The very first effect of laying on we certainly obtain no greater money price for our staples protecting duties, in such a state of things, would be a plain, in this exchange, in consequence of the protecting duties, palpable fall in the money price of the staples of exporta? we as certainly give from twenty-five to fifty percent. more tion in the United States, almost exactly proportioned to for all the articles we receive. The amount of the direct the duties, while the money price of the protected articles annual tribute levied upon the South, in this internal trade, would remain unchanged. The exchangeable value of is not less than two millions of dollars. The estimate of the Committee of Ways and Means is much too small. As to this burden. there can be no mistake; for it is certain that the money price of the articles we receive from the North for the staples there consumed, is increased to the amount of at least two millions by the protecting duties; and it is as certain that the money price of cotton, tobacco, and rice, is not increased at all, but rather diminished by those duties. the staples of exportation would be no more diminished than it is now, but it would be more obvious, from being indicated by a fall in the money price of these staples, instead of a rise in the money price of protected manufactures. For the purpose of embodying these principles in a practical illustration, and of demonstrating that partial and discriminating duties upon a portion only of the national consumption must operate as taxes upon production, I will suppose that one-third part of each and every article Upon the whole, then, the annual production of the consumed in the United States were produced south of three great agricultural staples of the South, consumed the Potomac, and the other two-thirds north of that river. both abroad and at home, amounts to at least forty millions I will, moreover, suppose that a political economist were of dollars. The effect of the protecting system, as we to rise up in the North, and propose that the whole amount have seen, is to depress the exchangeable value of this of the federal taxes should be levied by excise duties upwhole amount of production, as compared both with the on that third of the various articles of our consumption manufactures of the North, and with foreign manufac- which was produced south of the Potomac. He would tures, in the exact degree that it enhances the prices of be at no loss for arguments to sustain this proposition as a those manufactures. In other words, upon all the exchan- just and equal scheme of taxation, if it be true that the ges of the planters, at home and abroad, they pay an aveage of forty per cent. more for what they purchase, While the price of their staples is not at all increased; and this unequal state of their exchanges is exclusively produced by the protecting duties. Sir, this is no picture of the imagination; it is a plain analysis, a strict business view of our condition. And I do not know any language by which I can better describe the aggregate operation of the protecting system upon the different sections of this Union, than to say it is an annual legislative draft upon the productive industry of the planting States, in favor of the manufacturing States, for between ten and fifteen millions of dollars, signed by the presiding officers of the two Houses, and countersigned the President of the United States. Having now explained the agency of money in the exchanges of foreign commerce, and its tendency to disguise the actual operation of the protecting system, the committee will the more readily perceive the force and propriety of the illustrations which have been adduced to prove the great inequality and injustice of that system. The reason is now apparent why import duties have been trroneously supposed to operate differently from excise whole burden of indirect taxes falls upon the consumers. He could truly allege that it would be much more economical to collect the duties from one-third part of the Union, than from the whole, inasmuch as only one-third of the number of revenue officers would be required; and if it would be an equal and just system, its economy should be decisive in its favor. Let us now dispassionately examine its true operation, assuming that the productions of the South amounted to sixty millions, and those of the North to one hundred and twenty millions, and that an excise duty of forty per cent. should be levied on the former, yielding an annual revenue of twenty-four millions of dollars. Taking the article of shoes as an example, and assuming that twelve millions of pairs should be annually consumed in the United States, averaging the value of one dollar each, it would follow, from the supposition, that the Southern States would produce four millions of these pairs, and that the Southern shoemakers would pay excise duties to the amount of one million six hundred thousand dollars. Now, it is maintained that all duties fall upon the consumers, and consequently that the Southern producers of shoes would have no more cause to complain of these partial duties than any MAY 28, 1832.] The Tariff [H. OF R. other class of people, as all must be equally the wearers Sir, I am greatly within the limits of what I might affirm, and consumers of shoes. It is evident that the consumers when I say that taxes to the amount of five millions of of the South would be subject to no greater burden, as doilars, levied on the Southern States, and disbursed in consumers, than those of the North, for the price of South-distant parts of the confederacy, are more burdensome ern made shoes could not be any higher than that of North- and oppressive than taxes to the amount of ten millions ern made shoes in the same common market; there could would be if disbursed amongst those States. It is a great not be two prices for the same quality of shoes. The whole result would consequently be, that the consumers of the North and of the South would pay the very same price for shoes, and be subject to the very same burden in consequence of this duty. But the Southern shoemakers, it is obvious, would pay taxes to the amount of one million six hundred thousand dollars, while those of the North would pay none at all. Here, then, would be a specific tax of one million six hundred thousand dollars levied on the producers of shoes in the South, diminishing the annual income of that section of the Union precisely to that extent, as compared with the income derived by the Northern section from the same quantity of the same kind of labor. The course of reasoning which I have applied to shoes, will equally apply to every other article; and it will follow that the grand aggregate of this scheme of partial and discriminating excise duties would be to throw the entire burden of federal taxation upon the Southern States, though the consumers of both sections would be equally affected by it. It would be exclusively a tax upon the producers, and would be, in no respect, less unjust and oppressive than if the same sum were levied, by a poll tax, upon the shoemakers, and the various other producing classes of the Southern States. Now, Mr. Chairman, if that scheme of adjusting the tariff should prevail, which proposes to repeal all the duties on unprotected articles, and levy the whole federal revenue by import duties upon those articles which are obtained from abroad in exchange for cotton, tobacco, and rice, we shall have the very system which I have described, to all substantial intents and purposes; the only difference will be in the name. In the one case, as in the other, the entire burden of federal taxation will be thrown upon the Southern States, as certainly as if the revenue were exclusively raised by an excise duty upon cotton, tubacco, and rice, at the moment of their passing from the warehouses of the planters. I pronounce it to be utterly impossible for the ingenuity of man to devise a plan of raising revenue more unjust and unequal in its operation upon the exporting States of this confederacy. error to suppose that the collection and disbursement of Such are the views I have deemed it proper to present of inequality of the protecting duties, as a system of taxation and contribution. I will now briefly advert to the still greater inequality which exists in the disbursements I have selected this single instance of the effect of the of this Government; a circumstance which greatly aggra- Government disbursements as an illustration of the whole. vates the oppressiveness of the system, and makes it abso- In a pecuniary point of view, the nation loses, in the aggrelutely desolating to the planting States. This, sir, is comparatively a new department of political economy. The tremendous influence of Government disbursements in the distribution of national wealth seems to have been overlooked by the ablest men in Europe, until the termination of the wars which grew out of the French revolution. The great distress which was produced in England by the transition from war to peace, and the consequent curtailment of the annual loans and disbursements of the Government, to the extent of something like one hundred millions of dollars, disclosed to the statesmen of that country the true secret of the immense financial resources which had carried them through the war, and which were apparently as miraculous as the military resources of the French emperor. They made the important discovery that the aggregate wealth of a nation, and particularly its pecuniary resources for war, are scarcely diminished at all by the heaviest taxation, so long as the revenue collected is disbursed within the country; and that almost the whole operation consisted, not in destroying capital and wealth, but in transferring them from one class of the community to another. gate, only the sum which the officers, soldiers, sailors, and other persons employed by the Government, are prevented from making in some productive employment. This would not amount, upon an average, to more than five millions of dollars on a revenue of twenty-four millions collected and disbursed by the Government. The remaining nineteen millions are merely transferred from those parts of the Union where the taxes are levied, to those in which they are distributed, without any aggre gate diminution of the national wealth. In a country like England, having a small territory, this operation is scarcely felt. The burdens of the taxes, and the benefits of the disbursements, are so equally distributed every where, that the one is almost completely counterbalanced by the other. In the United States it is almost precisely the reverse. In South Carolina and Georgia, for example, States which contribute probably three times their proper quota of taxation, amounting to upwards of five millions, there have not been annually expended one hundred thou sand dollars for the last ten years. Almost the whole of a revenue of twenty-four millions of dollars is distributed MAY 28, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. north of the Potomac, principally among the manufactur- While you see nothing but ruined cities and deserted viling States; adding additional stimulus to their industry, lages from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico, you behold already too highly stimulated by the enormous bounties of the most animating spectacle of cities, towns, and villages, the protecting system. In the exact degree that these une- rising up like "bright exhalations," and as if by magic, qual disbursements enrich the Northern States, it is self-evi- throughout the whole region of the manufacturing States. dent that they must impoverish those of the South. It is a But, sir, there is no magic in all this, but the injustice of perennial current which constantly flows out and never re-human legislation; which, by a process silent, unperceivturns, and must inevitably exhaust any fountain, however ed, and for a long time unknown even to its devoted victims, abundant. It is precisely asif the taxes collected in one coun- has been steadily drawing away the very life-blood of their try were disbursed in another; and I will venture the opi- prosperity, and transfusing it into that of their oppressors. nion, that, if the taxes raised in England for the last twenty I have, heretofore, adverted to the extraordinary fact years had been disbursed on the continent, the whole island that the wages of agricultural labor are four times as high would have been at this moment a desolate waste. in the manufacturing States as they are in the planting If, sir, these views of the pernicious influence of the States; and I will now repeat what I said here two years taxation, protection, and disbursements of this Government ago, that there is not a country upon the face of the earth upon the prosperity of the planting States rested solely where the labors of agriculture are performed exclusively on speculative reasoning, I might be disposed to distrust by freemen, that would have submitted to this system of the results of that reasoning, however clearly made out. oppression half so long as it has been endured by the peoBut, sir, I live in a country where the oppressive influence ple of the South. The great pressure of the system has of this system is practically felt: and where impressive been upon the planters; men naturally liberal, public memorials are every where scattered over the fairest re-spirited, and patriotic. Feeling no actual suffering, they gion that the sun of heaven ever shone upon, bearing testi- have too long and too patiently submitted to this injustice mony to the truth of the exposition I have presented. The and oppression amidst the decay of every thing around historical and statistical phenomena of the manufacturing them, while the price of labor has been gradually sinking and planting States for the last sixteen years give the from fifty to twelve and a half cents a day, and the profits most ample and conclusive confirmation to all that I have of capital in proportion. Sir, I am sure, if the tables had said on this subject. been turned upon New England, she would not have subAt the close of the late war with Great Britain, every mitted to this process half so long as the Southern States thing in the political and commercial changes, resulting have submitted to it. The gentleman from Massachusetts from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity [Mr. ADAMS] has informed us that, during the embargo to the Southern States, and great embarrassment and dis- and non-intercourse laws, New England was almost driven tress to those of the North. The nations of the continent to rebellion. Sir, I will do New England the justice to had all directed their efforts to the business of manufac- say that if she had been the victim of such a nefarious turing; and all Europe may be said to have converted their scheme of legislative plunder as this, tending rapidly to swords into machinery, creating an unprecedented demand reduce the wages of her free laborers from fifty to twelve for cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There and a half cents a day, before they had descended half is nothing in the history of commerce that can be compar-way down the scale, her whole population, if they could ed with the increased demand for this staple, notwithstand- have found no other remedy, would have risen up as one ing the pernicious restrictions by which this Government man in glorious rebellion. has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice But, sir, amidst the distress of the Southern people, are produced only on a small portion of the globe, while they are occasionally favored with some scraps of consolaall other agricultural staples are common to every region tion from those philanthropic persons who assume to unof the earth, this circumstance gave the planting States derstand their condition and their interests better than very great advantages. To cap the climax of the commer- they do themselves. It is stated in the speech of a distincial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, guished statesman, which I have now before me, that the their great and most valued customer, received their cot- cotton planter can make five bales of cotton to the hand, ton under a mere nominal duty. On the other hand, the upon an average, and a profit of twenty per cent. on prospects of the Northern States were as dismal as those his capital. Now, sir, I am myself a cotton planter, and of the Southern States were brilliant. They had lost the I know that the average production of skilful and efficient carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe planters in South Carolina does not exceed three bales of had thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand upland cotton, of three hundred pounds weight, to each and the high prices which our own war had created for hand; and, taking the general average, I do not believe their grain and other productions; and, soon afterwards, it is more than half as much. 1 am also confident that the they also lost the foreign market for their grain, owing average profit of capital does not exceed three per cent. partly to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes. While I am noticing the speech of this gentleman, I will Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hopes say a word in relation to an anecdote which I happened to of the Southern States at the close of the late war, in hear him repeat concerning myself, individually. Alluding which they bore so glorious a part in vindicating the free- to the great excitement which existed in South Carolina dom of trade. But where are now those cheering pros- in 1828, he was pleased to say that I had contributed to pects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir, utterly blasted, by the consuming and withering course of a system of legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of commerce, and the bounties of a merciful Providence, and which, by an impious perversion of language, is called " "protection!" produce it, and to induce the people to adopt resolutions that they would not purchase Kentucky pork. He added, in illustration, I suppose, of the evanescent ebullitions of our patriotism in South Carolina, that he had understood that I applied to one of my neighbors to lay in my supply of pork, and that when he demanded a double price for Yes, sir, the very Government which is under every it, I replied, "if that is your patriotism, I will buy my obligation, human and divine, to protect our commerce pork from the Kentuckians." Now, sir, I have no doubt from all foreign aggression, becomes itself the aggressor, that this story is quite current in Kentucky; and I have only and directs the whole power of its legislation to sweep it to say that it is just about as well founded as the statistical entirely from the face of the ocean. And where, sir, are statements upon which the tariff system has been erected. the dismal prospects of the Northern States? The same There is not one word or syllable of truth in it from the power which has blasted the fair prospects of the South, beginning to the end. I have habitually supplied my has, by the same act, brightened those of the North plantation by raising my own pork. It is no part of my VOL. VIII.--198 |