166,000l. sterling. In the course of that year the duty was reduced from two shillings to seven pence the cwt. and the average annual produce of the reduced duty for the next three years, instead of being diminished, rose to 195,000l." These few remarkable facts serve incontestibly to prove more than whole libraries of theoretical reasoning could do, that the financier, who calculates upon raising revenue by duties upon imports, must unavoidably be content to make them moderate, or to lose his object. They also force upon our minds this important question, whether the deficit, which occurred in our revenue last year, and the still greater one which threatens us for the present year, are not both attributable, at least in part, to the very high rates of many of our existing duties? If the design of the proposed tariff be to force into being certain manufactures which had no previous existence here; or to foster, at the national expense, such as have been found, after sufficient trial, incapable of being otherwise supported; the hope of revenue, from this source, must be abandoned; for it is a physical impossibility that the two projects can be consummated together. If manufactures are to be forced, the Treasury coffers must remain empty for any thing that the tariff can bring into them. On the contrary, if the duty on imports is to augment the revenue, the manufacturing interest must be content to rely upon her own energies, without calling on govern"ment to make crutches for her, of both agriculture and commerce, to support that body, which, in the mania of speculation, has been 'dieted and swelled into an unnatural growth, too unwieldy for her own natural limbs to sustain. Let us take another view of the subject. If it has become a settled point in our policy, that no justifiable means are to be neglected to render this nation a great naval power, as essential to the Union; as protective of the great and only outlet for all the agricultural products of the immense regions of the west; it is well worthy of inquiry, whether it possibly can be effected by multiplying discouragements to foreign commerce. Can our hardy, magnanimous, and dauntless seamen, whose pursuits have heretofore exposed them to the perils of every ocean; to the vicissitudes of every clime; and inured them to that constant regimen and discipline so well calculated to fit them for all the purposes of nautical life? Can such men, with any advantage to our rising navy, be converted into a set of skulking, profligate smugglers, or of sailors confined solely to the coasting trade? Yet, that such must be the inevitable result of either destroying, or much farther injuring, our foreign commerce, is a consummation which appears to us as unavoidable as that death must follow the destruction of all our vital functions. Commerce is to the body politic, what the circulation of the blood is to the hody natural. To check either, materially, is to produce disease; and, to augment such check in any great degree, is to destroy the healthful existence of both. Again, is it possible that we shall add much, either to the moral or physical power of this nation, by interposing legislative aids to accelerate the natural increase of that class of citi zens, who, from the very nature of most of their occupations, must necessarily be brought up in a way which, to say the least of it,is surely not the most favorable, either to health, to morals, to bodily, or intellectual vigor? Can it be within the scope of any rational anticipation that our manufacturers, one and all, can ever be made successful competitors to those of Sheffield, Birmingham, and Manchester, who, by means of the very system of which some of us are so exceedingly emulous, are forced to labor from fourteen to seventeen hours in the twenty-four, and to live almost exclusively on vegetable diet, in order to earn a miserable pittance of wages, scarcely sufficient to keep body and soul together? Can any, the most sanguine projector, calculate on realizing any such successful rivalry, except at an expense of taxation, of national happiness, and legislative oppression, such as the citizens of the United States will never willingly incur? In whatever way we view this subject and we have endeavoured to bestow on it all the consideration which its great importance so justly merits, we cannot avoid anticipating, from the success of the tariff project, irreparable injury, not only to agriculture and commerce, but to many of the mechanic trades immediately connected with, and dependent upon, these two great sources of the wealth and physical power of this nation. Agriculture, already bereft of half her ability to pay taxes, by a combination of circumstances, among which our protecting duty system holds a prominent station, is now called upon to pay a still further tax of some ten, twenty, or thirty per cent. upon almost all her necessary purchases, at a time too, when the existing duties have been more than doubled in value to those who receive the benefit of them, by the appreciation of money, and the depreciation of domestic provisions of every kind-a depreciation, moreover, so continued and portentous, as to threaten to terminate even the culture of several of those products which heretofore have most contributed both to our emolument and to our comforts. What is to be the consequence? Why a rapid and appalling retrogradation throughout the community, compelling us not only to relinquish most of those embellishments of civilized life which polish and adorn the social structure, but also to bid adieu to all the fond hopes which solace the parent and animate the patriot in regard to the progress of education, the improvement of morals, and the general diffusion of national happiness. Commerce, curtailed in all her branches by the same sinister combination of events, is required still further to furl her sails, or to spread them only to the breezes of our bays, our rivers, and our sea-board. Or, if not deterred by the numerous difficulties which present themselves to her customary pursuits, she still essays to spread her canvass over the bosom of those distant seas, from navigating which, she has heretofore hoped to derive a fair and honorable reward for her toils, she is told that a large portion of her now scanty profits must go to foster a new interest in our community, which it has been found, upon trial, cannot be gotten up, without levying still heavier contributions, both on agriculture and commerce. The numerous artizans too, whose reliance for comfortable support, has hitherto been placed upon the prosperity of agricultural and commercial occupations, must now be transferred to some other less precarious dependance; or their present employments exchanged for hopeless inaction. And what is the inestimable boon held out to us, as a compensation for all these privations? Why, truly, an adequate home market for all our domestic products! That this idea is altogether fallacious, we trust can be made manifest by a very few remarks. The manufacturing establishments which it is said will grow out of the tariff, are to be peopled from the population already within the country, or to be supplied by foreign importations. If in the first mode, then it is obvious, that, unless we suppose the intended recruits can live in their present scattered condition, without food altogether, they will not, when embodied, consume so much more additional provision, as to compensate for the great diminution of exports which the new tariff must necessarily occasion. It is only then by the importation of that class of foreigners-the least desirable part, in general, of foreign population, that the number of manufacturing consumers, and consequently the quantum of consumption, can be materially augmented. This is unquestionably true, as to provisions. But it will be said, that our raw materials will then find so much more extensive a market than they have at present, as amply to remunerate us for all additional costs. If it were true that we have no home market at all for our agricultural products, it might become a question with some, whether it would not be worth while to incur a considerable national expense with a view to create one: provided it were probable that the domestic sale of our surplus produce would then be so much greater than the foreign sale extinguished by this creation, as to reimburse those at whose cost it was made, for all additional expenses. But this happens not to be a fact. Your honorable body cannot be ignorant, that our home market for the produce of the soil, especially for cotton, is even now on the increase: that a large portion of our manufacturers claim no farther protection; ask no additional duties: that the stockholders of one of the most considerable and flourishing manufactories in the United States-we mean that of Waltham in Massachusetts, at this time divide twelve per cent. on their capital: and that most others, of any standing, are known to be in a sufficiently flourishing condition to ask no aid from government. The question, then, is simply reduced to this: Shall we impose additional, duties upon almost every article of foreign importation, either to gratify the sanguine expectations of those who wish to make trial of such manufactories as do not exist here at present; or to enable those who have failed, no matter from what cause, in manufacturing experiments already made in various parts of our country, to renew them at the expense of more than three-fourths of the nation? Relying, as we do, upon the wisdom and patriotism of our legislature, we cannot, for a moment, believe, that, from the freest government upon earth, we are to expect a system of policy so repugnant to every principle of reason and justice, as would be that, which your honor able body has been so importunately urged to adopt. And we confidently trust, that the men to whose intelligence and virtue the American people have entrusted the preservation of their dearest rights and interests, are as deeply impressed, as any of their constituents themselves can possibly be, with the truth and importance of the following cardinal maxims in legislation: That, if the principles both of justice and policy forbid the majority of a nation to impose any tax on the minority alone, a fortiori, they. inhibit the imposition of any tax to be levied upon the former for the sole benefit of the latter. That, where revenue is to be derived from imposts on foreign commodities, universal experience has demonstrated that moderate duties contribute much more than high ones towards the attainment of this object. That, where such duties are imposed to foster the particular interest of any class who pay no part thereof, those duties must necessarily come out of the pockets of all the other interests in the community; and are in direct violation of that fundamental maxim "not to tax the many for the benefit of the few." That the practice of frequently changing those revenue laws which operate as taxes upon agriculture and commerce have a much more pernicious effect upon both, but especially upon the last, than permanent taxes of the highest kind compatible with the permanent existence of those two great sources of national wealth and power. That, for government, by legislation, to add to those casualties and uncertainties which naturally affect the profits of labor, is to in fringe the natural right which every man has to pursue any trade, profession, or calling, that he pleases; and is to administer oppression, instead of justice. That, by the exercise of such a power, governments may not only force individual capital into any channel which they please, but may either create or suppress, ad libitum, any particular class among the various ones into which communities are usually divided. That the reciprocal wants of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, with their relative capacities of supply, are sure guarantees of mutual good will, and friendly offices, when left to exert their respective energies in their own way; but that the interference of governments with their private concerns rarely fails to produce a jarring of interests, and consequent hostility both of feelings and conduct. That the natural diversities of soils and climates, and the artificial varieties of manners, habits, and customs, are far better regulators of supply and demand than the wisest legislators can possibly con-trive. That a due proportion of heat, moisture, and the pabulum of plants, will not more certainly produce a vigorous and healthful growth in the vegetable kingdom, than will the natural inclination of mankind, to improve their condition, produce it in the political world, if left to exert itself, entirely free from all legislative restraints, but such as peace, order, justice, and good morals, require. |