measures from its depression. The shipping interest, also, has suffered severely, still more severely, probably, than commerce. If anything should strike us with astonishment, it is that the navigation of the United States should be able to sustain itself. Without any government protection whatever, it goes abroad to challenge competition with the whole world; and, in spite of all obstacles, it has yet been able to maintain 800,000 tons in the employment of foreign trade. How, sir, do the ship-owners and navigators accomplish this? How is it that they are able to meet, and in some measure overcome, universal competition? Not, sir, by protection and bounties, but by unwearied exertion, by extreme economy, by unshaken perseverance, by that manly and resolute spirit which relies on itself to protect itself. These causes alone enable American ships still to keep their element, and show the flag of their country in distant seas. I need not say that the navigation of the country is essential to its honor and its defense. Yet, instead of proposing benefit for it in this hour of its depression, we propose by this measure to lay upon it new and heavy burdens. In the discussion, the other day, of that provision of the bill which proposes to tax tallow for the benefit of the oil merchants and whalemen, we had the pleasure of hearing eloquent eulogiums upon that portion of our shipping employed in the whale fishery, and strong statements of its importance to the public interest. But the same bill proposes a severe tax upon that interest for the benefit of the iron manufacturer and the hemp grower. So that the tallow chandlers and soapboilers are sacrificed to the oil merchants, in order that these again may contribute to the manufacturers of iron and the growers of hemp.

If such be the state of our commerce and navigation, what is the condition of our home manufactures? How are they amidst the general depression? Do they need further protection? and if any, how much? On all these points, we have had much general statement, but little precise information. In the very elaborate speech of Mr. Speaker, [Henry Clay of Kentucky] we are not supplied with satisfactory grounds of judging in these various particulars. Who can tell, from anything yet before the committee, whether the proposed duty be too high or too low, on any one article? Gentlemen tell us that they are in favor of domestic industry; so am I. They would give it protection; so would I. But then all domestic industry is not confined to manufactures. The employments of agriculture, commerce, and navigation, are all branches of the same domestic industry; they all furnish employment for American capital and

American labor. And when the question is, whether new duties shall be laid, for the purpose of giving further encouragement to particular manufactures, every reasonable man must ask himself, both, whether the proposed new encouragement be necessary, and, whether it can be given without injustice to other branches of industry. . .

I will now proceed, sir, to state some objections which I feel, of a more general nature, to the course of Mr. Speaker's observations.

He seems to me to argue the question as if all domestic industry were confined to the production of manufactured articles; as if the employment of our own capital, and our own labor, in the occupations of commerce and navigation, were not as emphatically domestic industry as any other occupation.] Some other gentlemen, in the course of the debate, have spoken of the price paid for every foreign manufactured article, as so much given for the encouragement of foreign labor, to the prejudice of our own. But is not every such article the product of our own labor as truly as if we had manufactured it ourselves? Our labor has earned it, and paid the price for it. It is so much added to the stock of national wealth. If the commodity were dollars, nobody would doubt the truth of this remark: and it is precisely as correct in its application to any other commodity as to silver. One man makes a yard of cloth at home; another raises agricultural products, and buys a yard of imported cloth. Both these are equally the earnings of domestic industry, and the only questions that arise in the case are two: the first is, which is the best mode, under all the circumstances, of obtaining the article; the second is, how far this first question is proper to be decided by the government, and how far it is proper to be left to individual discretion. There is no foundation for the distinction which attributes to certain employments the peculiar appellation of American industry; and it is, in my judgment, extremely unwise, to attempt such discriminations. . .

Let me now ask, sir, what relief this bill proposes to some of those great and essential interests of the country, the condition of which has been referred to as proof of national distress; and which condition, although I do not think it makes out a case of distress, yet does indicate depression.

And first, as to our foreign trade. The Speaker has stated that there has been a considerable falling off in the tonnage employed in that trade. This is true, lamentably true. In my opinion,

it is one of those occurrences which ought to arrest our immediate, our deep, our most earnest attention. What does this bill propose 1 for its relief? Sir, it proposes nothing but new burdens. It proposes to diminish its employment, and it proposes, at the same time, to augment its expense, by subjecting it to heavier taxation. Sir, there is no interest, in regard to which a stronger case for protection can be made out, than the navigating interest. Whether we look at its present condition, which is admitted to be depressed; the number of persons connected with it, and dependent upon it for their daily bread; or its importance to the country in a political point of view, it has claims upon our attention which cannot be exceeded. But what do we propose to do for it? I repeat, sir, simply to burden and to tax it. By a statement which I have already submitted to the Committee, it appears that the shipping interest pays, annually, more than half a million of dollars in duties on articles used in the construction of ships. We propose to add nearly, or quite, fifty per cent. to this amount, at the very moment that we bring forth the languishing state of this interest, as a proof of national distress. Let it be remembered that our shipping employed in foreign commerce, has, at this moment, not the shadow of government protection. It goes abroad upon the wide sea to make its own way, and earn its own bread, in a professed competition with the whole world. Its resources are its own frugality, its own skill, its own enterprise. It hopes to succeed, if it shall succeed at all, not by extraordinary aid of government, but by patience, vigilance, and toil. This right arm of the nation's safety strengthens its own muscles by its own efforts, and by unwearied exertion in its own defense becomes strong for the defense of the country.

No one acquainted with this interest can deny that its situation, at this moment, is extremely critical. We have left it hitherto to maintain itself or perish; to swim if it can, and to sink if it cannot. But at this moment of its apparent struggle, can we, as men, can we, as patriots, add another stone to the weight that threatens to carry it down? Sir, there is a limit to human power and to human effort. I know the commercial marine of this country can do almost everything, and bear almost everything. Yet some things are impossible to be done; and some burdens may be impossible to be borne; and as it was the last ounce that broke the back of the camel, so the last tax, although it were even a small one, may be decisive as to the power of our marine to sustain the conflict in which it is now engaged with all the commercial nations on the globe.

C. A Southern View on the Tariff1

The southern representatives very generally opposed the protective tariff. One of them, George McDuffie, of South Carolina, spoke against it as follows:

Looking to the operation of this measure upon the different classes of the community, it may be fairly stated as its general result, that it will sacrifice the laboring classes for the benefit of the capitalists. And when I say capitalists, I include as well those who employ capital in some of the products of agriculture, as in manufactures. You propose to protect, by duties, not only manufactures, but wool, hemp, and even grain. Ridiculous as the duty upon this last article is, it serves admirably to illustrate the genius of the system.

Although the manufacturing interest makes the most prominent figure in this scheme of protection, the question is no longer between the manufacturing and agricultural interests, but between all those who produce more than they consume of the articles subject to duty, and those who purchase that surplus production. From this it is obvious, that but a very small part of the community can enjoy the benefit of this system, which operates as a permanent tax upon the remainder. As to the manufacturers we know their number is exceedingly small in comparison with the aggregate of our population. But the smallness of the number of farmers who can be benefited by this bill, is not so obvious. There exists a delusion on this point, which is easily removed. It is supposed that the great mass of the farmers will participate in the bounties provided. But every practical observer must know, in relation to wool, for example, that a great majority of the farmers can produce no more than they consume in their own families. It will be the more wealthy farmers, therefore, who will realize the advantages, such as they may be, of this compromise with the manufacturers, while the small farmers and the whole class of mere laborers will be compelled to bear the burdens of the system, such as they certainly are, without the slightest equivalent.

No man has pretended, no man will venture to assert, that the price of labor will be increased by this measure. That, sir, the thing which most deserves encouragement, is left unbountied to its fate. I do pronounce it, that this is a combination, not only of the few against the many, but of the wealthy against the poor; we take from those who have not, and give to those who have. I speak with studied precision when I say, that those who consume what they do not make,

1 Annals of Congress, 1823-4 (Washington, 1856), 2421, 2426.

are taxed for the benefit of those who make what they do not consume. These are the true antagonist powers of this system....

It would be some consolation to me, sir, if I could believe that the heavy impositions, which must operate so oppressively upon the part of the Union I have the honor to represent, would produce an equivalent benefit to other portions of the Union. If my constituents must be sacrificed, it would in some degree soothe their injured feelings, if they could have this excuse, at least, for quietly submitting to their fate, hard as it is, and unjust as they believe it to be. But even this humble consolation is denied us. We are doomed to suffer, under a clear conviction that our sufferings will administer no relief to the distresses, whether real or imaginary, of any portion of our fellow-citizens. We are to be made the victims of a system "which not enricheth them, but makes us poor indeed”a system which wages war, not against our enemies, but our friends; not against the hostile regulations of other countries, but against the advantages of our natural position in the world, and the munificent bounties of an all-wise Providence a system which has originated in discontent, and must inevitably end in disappointment..

V. FREE TRADE ARGUMENTS

Memorial on Free Trade, 18311

After the passage of the "abomination" tariff bill in 1828, those opposed to the system set about to educate public opinion as to the merits of free trade. Accordingly, in 1831, a free trade convention was held in the city of Philadelphia, and at its request a free trade memorial was drawn up by Albert Gallatin and presented to Congress. The important parts of this memorial are as follows:

We are not called upon to discuss the abstract question, whether another mode of taxation would be more eligible than the impost, or whether an unrestrained intercourse between all nations, free of the payment of any duties on imports, would be best calculated to promote the industry and prosperity of all. On that subject, the experience of forty years is conclusive so far as relates to the United States. The people prefer, in time of peace, duties raised on the importation of foreign merchandise, to any internal tax, direct or indirect. Whether for good or for evil, that system affords an encouragement to domestic manufactures not less efficient for being incidental. Duties on imports, amounting on an average to about 20 per cent. on the value, appear

1 Gallatin's Free Trade Memorial. Senate Documents, 1831-2 (Washington, 1832), I, Doc. 55, pp. 6–8, 11.