APPENDIX, No. IV.

COLBERT,-No. I.

Fourth Edition, April 25, 1827. It was believed that the question of the right of congress to impose duties for the protection of manufactures, was finally settledand that irritation would never again be excited on the subject. The belief has proved nugatory. Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, in a speech manifesting considerable warmth and strong feeling, has again asserted the unconstitutionality of the system.

"When in violation of the constitution of the United States, you talked of en"couraging domestic manufactures, did they [the southern members] not point "to that part of the proceedings of the convention that framed the constitution, in "which the power to promote and encourage the useful arts, &c. by BOUNTIES, was expressly refused to you? Did they not tell you, that the rights of one part of the community were invaded by an iniquitous taxation, for the bene"fit of a smaller part?"-Mr. Hamilton's Speech, Jan. 22, 1827.

This is harsh language-and, even if correct, is not very decorous towards that legislature of the nation, which enacted the existing tariff, a tariff now branded with the opprobrious and disgraceful stigma of "an iniquitous taxation," and "a violation of the constitution." But what shall we say of this very strong reprobation, when it is proved to be utterly unsound in principle?

Nothing can be more illogical than to style a “protecting duty,” a "bounty." It is an utter perversion of terms. The operation of both, it is true, is very nearly similar. But to insist, from this result, that they are the same, is just as correct as to assert that beef and bread are the same substances, because they equally contribute to support the human frame.

On the subject of the constitutionality of protecting manufactures, it may suffice to refer the reader to the subsequent essay, published a year since, in which the sentiments of the first congress are to be found, fully and completely expressed, beyond the power of cavil, at a time when the meaning of the framers of the constitution, and the proper bearing of that instrument, were certainly as well understood as they can be at this day, by Mr. Archer, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Stevenson, or Mr. Tatnal. The solemn acts of legislation of that body corresponded exactly with those sentiments. They protected by duties agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; but the second very inefficiently indeed-as the manufacturers were almost wholly unrepresented.

And however willing the world may be, to do complete justice to the extraordinary talents and pure patriotism of Mr. Hamilton, he will not be offended at the assertion, that Mr. Madison, one of the purest and soundest men that Virginia ever produced, is not inferior to him and when in the year 1789, Mr. Madison, and most of the other leading members of congress, recently from the convention, not only admitted the right, but advocated the exercise of that right, to protect manufactures, surely it is among the most wonderful things of the present very wonderful age, that enlightened men, and enlightened bodies of men, should now denounce its exercise as a violation of the constitution. Among the aberrations of the human mind, this will certainly hold a conspicuous rank.

Mr. Madison.-"Regulations have been provided, [in some of the states,] "and have succeeded in producing some establishments, which ought not "to be allowed to perish from the alteration which has taken place. It would be "cruel to neglect them, and direct their industry to other channels; for it is "not possible for the hand of man to shift from one employment to another

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"without being injured by the change. There may be some manufactures, "which, being once formed, can advance toward perfection without any adven"titious aid: while others, for want of the fostering hand of government, will be "unable to go on at all. Legislative attention will therefore be necessary to collect the "proper objects for this purpose."-Lloyd's Debates, Vol. I. p. 26.

The same." The states that are most advanced in population, and ripe for "manufactures, ought to have their particular interests attended to in some degree. "While these states retained the power of making regulations of trade, they "had the power to protect and cherish such institutions; by adopting the pre"sent constitution, they have thrown the exercise of this power into other "hands: they must have done this with an expectation that those interests would "not be neglected here."-Idem, p 24.

General Washington's sentiments on the subject, are certainly entitled to great attention.

In his message to congress, 1790, he states→→→

"Their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufac"tures as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly "military supplies."

To promote here can have no other meaning than to protect. No other mode of promotion was in the power of congress.

Again :

"The encouragement of manufactures is of too much importance not to in"sure a continuance of their efforts in every way that shall appear eligible.” Message of 1796.

Mr. Jefferson's views corresponded exactly with those of general Washington. In his message of 1802, he distinctly recommends the protection of manufactures to congress.

"To cultivate peace, maintain commerce and navigation; to foster our fishe"ries, and PROTECT MANUFACTURES, adapted to our circumstances, &c. "are the land-marks by which to guide ourselves in all our relations.”

And are the overwhelming testimonies of General Washington, Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, to be set aside by the new-fangled construction of Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Tatnal, Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Archer, &c. &c.? Forbid it, reason and common sense. We might, if such a construction were attempted to be forced upon us, say with Mr. Tatnal, when he so violently opposed the attempt to rescue from ruin our manufactures, on which the middle states so mainly depend"Shall we submit to such treatment-No sir, we cannot," &c. &c. &c. But this is language we scorn to use.

Supposing with Mr. Hamilton, however illogically, that protecting duties are "bounties," have we no precedent to plead for them? Has our government refrained from "bounties," as "the accursed thing" that "violates the constitution ?" What will Mr. Hamilton say, when he reads the following section of a law, passed July

29, 1813:

"On all pickled fish of the fisheries of the United States, exported there"from, subsequent to the last day of December, 1814, there shall be allow"ed and paid A BOUNTY-[yes, Mr. Hamilton, a bounty,] of twenty cents per " barrel."

It will be said, this is but a drawback of the extravagant and enormous duty on salt. This is no answer. It is to all intents and purposes a bounty. But I lay no sort of stress on this fact. The argument is too strong to need it.

But has the government laid no duties on importation for the protection of agriculture?

The high duties on cotton and hemp, in 1789, were laid expressly to encourage the growth of those articles in the south, the staples of

which were then most lamentably depreciated, as witness the Jeremiad of Ædanus Burke, on the 16th of April, in that year.

"The staple products of South Carolina and Georgia, were hardly worth "cultivation, on account of their fall in price. The lands were certainly "well adapted to the growth of hemp, and he had no doubt but its culture "would be practised with attention. Cotton was likewise in contemplation "among them; and if good seed could be procured, HE HOPED MIGHT SUCCEED. "But the low strong rice lands would produce hemp in abundance, many "thousand tons even this year, if it were not too late in the season.”—Lloyd's Debates of Congress, Vol. I. p. 79.

Mr. Tucker, another of the representatives from South Carolina, joined in the doleful chorus with Mr. Burke

"The situation of South Carolina was melancholy. While the inhabitants "were deeply in debt, the produce of the state was daily falling in price. Rice "and indigo were become so low, as to be considered by many not objects "worthy of cultivation."-Idem, page 93.

The duties imposed at that time on those bulky raw materials, cotton and hemp, were 150 per cent. higher than those on the finest cotton or hempen goods.

Cotton sells now to the south for 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 cents per lb. The duty, which is actually prohibitory, is three cents, equal to an average of 35 per cent. or 50 per cent. on the lowest qualities.

The cheese imported in 1825, averaged about 16 cents, (29,067 lbs. cost $4663.) The duty is nine cents, equal to 54 per cent. But cheese in Holland is only, 6, 7, 8, or 9 cents per lb. and, therefore, so far as regards that quality, the duty is from 100 to 150 per cent. I trust no man of honour will deny that this is a protecting duty. It is in a great degree prohibitory.

The enormous duties on snuff and tobacco, from 70 to 90 per cent. imposed in 1789, were intended to be, and actually were, prohibitory. The object was to secure the tobacco planter the consumption of the country, and this was effectually accomplished.

The exorbitant duty, three cents per lb. equal to 75 a 100 per cent. on brown sugar, a necessary of life, used chiefly by the poor, is for the protection of the wealthy planters of Louisiana, who always vote en masse against the protection of manufactures, by duties of 25, 30, or 33 per cent. The duties on sugar operate most ruinously on the merchants engaged in the West India trade, in which that article forms a chief item of remittance, and is always, or at least almost always, a losing concern. The attempts to reduce the duty to 24 cents per pound were rejected by the southern votes, which are rarely divided.

A member of congress voting against a small reduction of the duty of 75 or 100 per cent. in his own favour, on a bulky article, subject to heavy freight, and next hour voting against a duty of 30 or 40 per cent. in favour of his fellow citizens on a light article, such as cottons, exhibits a moral phænomenon, not calculated to excite very pleasurable sensations in a philosophical mind.

So much for the protecting duties in favour of agriculture.

Mr. Hamilton's distress about the sufferings of the poor, from the proposed duty on coarse woollens, might be easily alleviated, and his mind restored to its usual state of serenity, by reflecting on the often-quoted case of coarse cottons, the very high duty on which was opposed on similar grounds. The article is now one hundred per cent. better than when imported-and is sold at half the price, mak

ing a difference of seventy-five per cent. in favour of the poor, who excite so much of Mr. Hamilton's commiseration. That is to say, one yard of domestic cottons, now sold for twelve and a half cents, will wear twice as long as a yard of India muslin, which was sold at twenty-five cents; and, but for the domestics, would continue at that price. Coarse cottons, in 1816, excited the same degree of the commiseration of some of the members of the then congress, lest the poor should be oppressed and injured by high duties on the article as the coarse woollens do now!

To conclude :

Mr. Hamilton has expressed an idea having a close affinity with the threats held out by Mr. Tatnal in regard to the tariff of 1824

"Are you prepared," said Mr. T. "by passing THIS INFERNAL BILL, to add to "a poverty which is wearing one portion of our country to the bone.***Is it thought "that we will tamely submit to this treatment? No, sir, we cannot. By heaven, we will not."

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Mr. Hamilton very gravely and soberly informs us, that the tariff bill "shook the Union to its centre." This is a subject of the utmost delicacy, on which it is difficult to refrain from expatiating largely and severely. There is no more fertile subject of discussion for the middle or eastern states-and none which ought to be more carefully shunned by the southern. But it is fraught with materials for "spontaneous combustion"-which do not require any agent to produce an explosion. The discussion is therefore waived. And woe, tenfold woe, befal the man who "casteth about fire-brands, arrows, and death”—“ and saith, am I not in sport ?" But let it be distinctly observed, and let the observation sink deeply into the minds of those by whom the threat is so frequently and so wantonly broached, that it ought never to be pressed by any part of the Union, but more particularly by the southern states, which are by far the most vulnerable, and the least able to carry such threats into execution. The other states have too long and too patiently submitted to these very intemperate-very imprudent-very impolitic-very offensive-and, more than all, very impotent menaces-which no earthly consideration could justifyand nothing for a moment palliate, but the effervescence of inexperience, or the petulance and impetuosity of tempers of morbid irascibility. For a thousand reasons, the threats might be retorted with tenfold force. They ought, therefore, to be forborne for ever. "Quousque tandem abutere patientiâ nostrâ ?”

Philadelphia, January 25, 1827.

COLBERT.

Fourth Edition, April 25, 1827.

COLBERT,-No. II.

First published Jan. 6, 1826.

Is congressional protection of manufactures a violation of the Constitution?

This is an important question, which has never, it is believed, been fully discussed. It ought to have been finally settled long since.

Whenever, of late years, the question of protecting the industry of that useful and numerous portion of our citizens engaged in furnishing a domestic market for the flour, the beef, the pork, the mut

ton, the lamb, the poultry, the vegetables, the spirits, the cotton, the wool, the hides, the skins, the hair, the tallow, the timber, the hemp, the flax, the coals, the iron, the lead, the copper, of their fellow citizens who cultivate the soil, or explore the bowels of the earth for her hidden treasures, has been agitated, a formidable opposition has been excited among those very fellow citizens, on the ground of the constitution presenting an insuperable bar-thus unwisely, as far as in them lay, endeavouring to depress and diminish the number of their best customers and supporters, and alas! to their own most serious injury, but too successfully.

In many cases the opposition to measures contemplated or adopted, arises from the address of designing men exciting the passions and prejudices of the ignorant and uninformed. This is by no means the case in the present instance. The opposition embraces some of the most enlightened and estimable citizens in the United States. John Taylor, of Caroline, whose talents and rectitude were never called in question, was a leader of this school. A governor of one of the southern states, Virginia, I believe, denounced the system in a recent message to the legislative body-and in the legislature of South Carolina, a resolution, declaring such protection unconstitutional, was lately passed :

“Resolved, that it is an unconstitutional exercise of power on the part of "congress, to lay duties to protect domestic manufactures."

While the intelligence and integrity of the opposers of protection, are freely admitted, it may be confidently asserted, that an equal portion of integrity and intelligence has been arrayed on the other side of the question.

In this conflict of opinions, it is well worth while to investigate the subject thoroughly, and ascertain whether there be any clue to guide us in our researches, and to establish the soundness or unsoundness of the doctrine, beyond the power of controversy.

The power of congress to impose duties, restrictions, and prohibitions for the protection of our citizens engaged in commerce, has been exercised times without number, and never been once impugned. And it would be difficult to prove that it is not equally the right and the obligation of congress to impose duties, restrictions, and prohibitions for the protection of another class of citizens, certainly not less useful, and at least ten times as numerous,* unless it can be proved that commercial men have privileges peculiar to themselves, to which manufacturers have no claim.

In the first session of the first congress, the duties on teas imported in American vessels, averaged 12 cents per pound; whereas on those imported in foreign vessels, the average was 27 cents-being a difference of 125 per cent. Here were duties imposed solely for the

* By the last census, the number of citizens engaged in TRADE and commerce, was about four per cent. of our population. Herein were included shopkeepers of all kinds. More than half the number are in the interior of the country, where there is not a single merchant. Those engaged in what is properly styled " commerce,” are not probably one per cent. of the entire population. Those employed in manufactures were, in 1820, 14 per cent.-and in six of the states 22 per cent.