CHAPTER V. ANNALS OF MANUFACTURES. 1830-1840. THE attention of Congress was once more called to the subject of the Tariff, which continued to be violently discussed by the opponents of the late act. President Jackson, in his first annual message to the twenty-first Congress, at its first session, December 8th, 1829, made the following remarks: 1830 "To regulate its conduct so as to promote equally the prosperity of these three cardinal interests (agriculture, commerce, and manufactures), is one of the most difficult tasks of government; and it may be regretted that the contemplated restrictions which now embarrass the intercourse of nations, could not by common consent be abolished and commerce allowed to flow in those channels to which individual enterprise, always its surest guide, might direct it. But we must ever expect selfish legislation in other nations, and are therefore compelled to adapt our own to their regulations, in the manner best calculated to avoid serious injury, and to harmonize the conflicting interests of our agriculture, our commerce, and our manufactures. Under these impressions I invite your attention to the existing tariff, believing that some of its provisions require modification. The general rule to be applied in graduating the duties upon the articles of foreign growth or manufacture, is that which will place our own in fair competition with those of other countries; and the inducements to advance even a step beyond this point, are controlling in regard to those articles which are of primary necessity in time of war." The committee to which this part of the message was referred, reported against the expediency of any alteration of the tariff, but Mr. Cambreleng, from the Committee of Commerce and Navigation, on the 8th February, made a lengthy report, which was printed, recommending & modification of the existing tariff and revenue laws as incongruous and absurd in their provisions. On the 30th April, he introduced a bill to amend the navigation laws so as to secure a reciprocity of trade, at a uniform duty of thirty per cent. upon imports from such nations as would 342 1830] ALTERATION IN THE TARIFF. 343 admit American products on like terms. The bill did not prevail, and another introduced in the Senate, by Mr. Benton, on the 23d of the same month, was also laid on the table on motion of Mr. Webster, and never taken up. The latter was entitled "A bill for the abolition of unnecessary duties, to relieve the people from sixteen millions of taxes, and to improve the condition of the Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, of the United States," and provided for the repeal or the reduction of the existing duties on the principal imports, in favor of such nations as would reciprocate by treaty, and laid a duty of thirty-three and one third per cent. on furs and raw hides imported. A bill introduced early in the session, by Mr. Mallory, from the Committee on Manufactures, in alteration of the several acts laying duties on imports, providing for the more effectual collection of the duties, and to prevent evasions of the revenue, became the subject of earnest discussion, upon the presentation of a new bill by way of amendment, by Mr. McDuffie of South Carolina. The substitute, which was rejected, proposed to repeal the acts of 1824 and 1828, so far as they imposed increased duties on woolens, iron, hemp, flax, cotton bagging, molasses, indigo, and manufactures of cotton-and to reduce the duty on salt to ten cents a bushel. Mr. McDuffie entered into a protracted discussion of the whole policy of protecting duties, designed to show their pernicious effects upon the various interests of the country, and particularly upon the South, which he represented to be suffering extremely from that He repudiated with much severity of language, a constitutional right in the majority to govern, and was supported by Mr. Blair of the same state, who, also spoke in strong language, and declared that the time was at hand, when the rights and interests of his state, in common with those of the South, must be respected, or she would seek a remedy herself. The bill, after receiving several amendments, and the support of Messrs. Crawford of Pennsylvania, Everett of Massachusetts, Burgess of Rhode Island, and others, who spoke of the prostrate condition of New England manufactures, passed on 13th May, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-seven to forty. cause. On the 20th May an act was approved, reducing the duty on coffee, tea, and cocoa; and on the 29th, the duty on molasses was reduced to six cents a gallon, and a drawback allowed of four cents a gallon on spirits distilled from foreign molasses. An act, of the same date, reduced the duty on salt to fifteen cents a bushel until 31st December, and to ten cents thereafter. In the discussion of these measures, and the question of internal improvements, in Congress and by the leading journals of the South, to which Dr. Cooper of Columbia College, South Carolina, was a promi 344 NULLIFICATION-FULTON-SILK. [1830 nent contributor, the doctrine of state sovereignity, and of the right of the local governments to annul any act of Congress, which a state might deem an encroachment upon its reserved rights, began to be distinctly asserted, particularly by the people of South Carolina. The right of Nullification, therefore, became the issue, in the great debate in the Senate, in January, between Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, and Mr. Webster of Massachusetts, upon the resolution of Mr. Foot, to limit the sale of public lands. Resolutions affirming the constitutionality of the tariff act of 1828, were adopted by the Legislatures of Vermont, Delaware, Louisiana, and perhaps others. By an act approved May 31, the tonnage duties on ships and vessels of the United States, and of such nations as had abolished their discrimi nating and countervailing duties were repealed. A bill before the Senate to recompense the heirs of Robert Fulton by the grant of a township of land, in consideration of the benefits rendered by him to the country, was rejected upon constitutional grounds. Mr. Spencer, from the Committee on Agriculture, on 12th March, made a report, accompanied by a bill to promote the growth and manufacture of silk in the United States. The report, based upon the essays, and other information furnished by Mr. John D'Homergue, the son of an eminent silk manufacturer of Nismes, assisted by Mr. P. S. Duponceau, tended to establish the fact that American silk worms were more productive of silk than those of any other country,' but that the manufac tured silk of the country was inferior, for want of practical knowledge and suitable machines for reeling, whereby it was rendered unfit for the finer fabrics; that every state was adapted to the cultivation of mulberries and the production of silk, and that if the culture were zealously prosecuted, the large importations of foreign silk, amounting in the last year to eight and one half millions, would be compensated by the export of raw silk, and the manufacture of silk stuffs be necessarily introduced The bill drawn up, at the request of the committee, by Mr. Duponceau, after consultation with Mr. D'Homergue, proposed to devote forty thousand dollars to the establishment of a normal filature at or near Philadelphia, under the charge of the latter, whose departure from the (1) The proceedings of the Chamber of Commerce at Lyons, published early in the year, in relation to American silk, state that a sample of silk, reeled in Philadelphia by Mr. D'Homergue, was assayed by a sworn and licensed assayer, and was declared to be of an extraordinary quality and admirably adapted to the uses of fabrication. Its degree of fineness was sixteen deniers, and it would produce singles of fifty, organzine of thirty-two, and tram of wool and silk of thirty duts, a quality extremely rare in our country. American silk is fine, nervous. good, regular, clean, of a fine color; in short, it unites all the qualities that can be wished for. Its value was estimated at twenty-six francs (five dollars) a pound. 1830] SILK-CANALS AND RAILROADS. 345 country the committee thought would be a national misfortune, and he was to be required to instruct gratuitously sixty young men in the art of reeling silk and preparing it for exportation, so as to become afterward directors of filatures, and at least twenty women, who were to be paid for their labor. The balance of the appropriation, after deducting expenses, and the materials, were at the end of two years to be the property of Mr. D'Homergue. No opportunity was found to discuss the bill during this and the following session, and it was lost in the next. An experimental filature, with ten reels and twenty women, was, however, put in operation in Philadelphia during this year, by Mr. Duponceau, under the charge of Mr. D'Homergue, who was a skillful reeler. Two banners of Pennsylvania silk, of light but beautiful texture, each twelve feet long and six feet wide, were woven by the latter for Mr. Duponceau, and having been dyed by some Germans in the city, were exhibited with some smaller articles, as cravats, handkerchiefs, etc., at the Fair of the Franklin Institute, and at the ensuing sessions were presented, one to Congress and the other to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and received with appropriate acknowledgments. Mr. Rapp of Economy, Pennsylvania, who commenced the silk culture in 1828, and made from his first crop fifteen or eighteen yards of striped silk for female apparel and vestings; also made during the last year some black figured silk vestings, and one hundred black silk handkerchiefs, the first ever made west of the mountains, and wholly the product of his Society from the worm to the looms. Spirited efforts began to be made in nearly every part of the country, to produce raw silk for exportation. The "silk mania" may be said to have commenced at this date. In accordance with an act of 29th May, the President issued a proclamation on 5th October, opening to British vessels the trade between the British colonial possessions and the American ports, having received satisfactory assurance that the colonial ports of Great Britain in the West Indies, South America, the Bahama and Bermuda Islands, would be opened to American vessels, which was accordingly done by an order in council, dated Nov. 5th. It was estimated that there were at this time completed within the United States, 1343 miles of canals and other artificial navigation; 1828 miles in progress, and 408 projected. Of railroads, forty-four miles were completed, 422 in progress, and 697 projected. A valuable improvement in Western navigation, was the opening of the Louisville and Portland canal, around the Falls of the Ohio, on the 5th December, at a cost of $750,000. 346 FIRST LOCOMOTIVES-OMNIBUSES-SUGAR MILLS. [1830 The first locomotive constructed in the United States, is said to have been built this year at the West Point Foundry in New York. It was named the "Phoenix," and was built for the South Carolina Railroad, for which a second engine, called the "West Point," was built at the same place during the year. A third one, "the Dewitt Clinton, was constructed there in the following Spring, for the Mohawk and Hudson railroad, which, about the same time, imported the first Stephenson locomotive, afterward rebuilt, and called the "John Bull." A model locomotive engine was built this year for the proprietor of Peale's Museum, in Philadelphia, by Mr. M. W. Baldwin, and attracted much attention during the next year, by its performance with a train of loaded passenger cars. A rotary steam engine, for propelling carriages on railroads, was patented this year, and exhibited by Mr. Ezra Child of Philadelphia, and recommended by Mr. Jones, editor of the Franklin Journal. A new branch of the Carriage Manufacture, was about this date introduced by the construction of the first "Omnibus" in New York. During the next year, Mr. John Stephenson commenced the business on Broadway, where he built his first omnibus, and the second in that city. He has since been extensively known in connection with this branch of the trade, recently superseded in our principal cities by the introduction of horse railroads. The manufacture of sugar mills for Louisiana and the West Indies, had become an important business at Cincinnati and Pittsburg. In addition to cotton, woolen, and other machinery, one hundred and fifty steam engines, and fifty sugar mills, were built this year at the former place, and one hundred steam engines at Pittsburg. Five rolling and three slitting mills, had been erected in Pittsburg in the last two years, and of the iron made there in the same time, six hundred tons were converted into other articles before leaving the city. The iron rolled this year was 9,282 tons. The number of iron works built in the state, in the ten years ending January 1, was forty-nine, of which thirty were blooming forges and rolling mills, one a mineral, and sixteen charcoal blast furnaces. The whole number of iron furnaces in the United States was estimated at 202, and their product 137,075 tons of pig iron, and 18,273 tons of castings: total, 155,348. In east Jersey, in a part of Connecticut, in a large district of New York, and in Vermont, bar iron was extensively made, by the process technically denominated "blooming," only a single operation from the ore, without the intervention of the blast furnace. (1) Historical Magazine, vol. 3, p. 150. owned by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, erected in 1826. |