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Great Britain."

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plunder is infinitely less voracious. There is a limit to the Speaker pronounce "the yeas have it,' and the work of exactions of an absolute monarch, which he has no motive desolation is done. This, too, is all accomplished peace to exceed. When his subjects have supplied his exche- ably. Yes, sir, war is prevented between the members of quer with a sufficient treasure to gratify his imperial vanity, the confederacy, but that is substituted which is infinitely by covering him with the decorations appropriate to his worse for the minority. If the majority, in waging a war rank-when they have provided the means of keeping up of piracy and plunder, were exposed to the perils of their his civil and military establishments, and of maintaining the vocation, there would be some security in that, even to the pomp and pageantry of power, ambition itself can supply minority. "The battle is not always to the strong." Valor no motive for any further exaction. But where is the peo- and skill might supply the place of numbers in the open ple whose resources are sufficient to satisfy the voracious field, and a just cause would give a threefold energy to cravings of a majority, acting upon the principles of the every freeman, in resisting the lawless invader of his manufacturers and their confederates in this unholy cru- rights. But when it is reduced to a mere matter of countsade against the commerce of the southern States? The ing, what valor, what skill, what power of argument or wealth of the Indiens might be exhausted, and yet the appe- eloquence can make a minority of votes in a just cause of tite for plunder would be as far from being satiated as ever. equal power with a majority in an unjust one? It cannot be doubted that, when a majority of the com- I beg leave now to suggest, for the consideration of the mon legislative council, in a federative system of Govern- committee, some historical analogies which are calculated ment, assumes the power, and makes it the avowed and to exhibit, in a strong practical point of view, the tyranny final object of its exercise to injure or destroy the local, and injustice of this proscriptive system of legislation peculiar, and exclusive interests of a part of the States com- which the majority of Congress have carried on for the posing the confederacy, the principle of confederation it last ten years against the lawful commerce of the southern self is converted into the heaviest political curse that can States. What, then, is the sum and substance of that sysafflict any people. Its very end is utterly perverted. The tem? It is precisely this, sir: that the southern States only legitimate purpose of a confederation of States is the shall be prohibited from carrying on commerce in certain preservation of every member of the league, both from articles with the nations of the world, and shall be restricted foreign injustice and violence, and from the injustice and to an intercourse with the tariff States of this Union. This violence of the other members. But it cannot be disguised reduces the southern States to a state of colonial vassalage that, in the case under consideration, the power of the con- to the tariff States, decidedly worse than that of our anfederacy is prostituted to the perpetration of the very in- cestors to Great Britain. What was the amount of the justice and violence it was specially, if not exclusively, in- colonial vassalage of our ancestors? It was nothing more tended to prevent, and to the destruction of the very rights than that they should be "prohibited from carrying on and interests it was intended to secure; and that, too, in commerce, in certain articles, with the nations of the the most injurious, because the most insidious, of all forms-world, and should be restricted to an intercourse with the substitution of legislative power for physical force. In this way, the States composing the majority are as distinctly arrayed against those composing the minority, in a war of legislation, as they possibly could be in a war of arms, if they were unconnected sovereignties. If the States were not united by this confederacy, a greater outrage could not be conceived, as well against the principles of natural justice, as against the law of nations, than an attempt of twothirds of those States to prohibit and destroy the lawful commerce of the other third. The universal sense of all civilized nations would cry out against the enormity. Yet this is precisely, and to the very letter, the outrage which the tariff States are now perpetrating against the southern States, through the instrumentality of a Government formed for the very purpose of preventing it. The Federal Legislature, under these circumstances, entirely loses its Conservative character, ceases to be the common council of the confederacy, and becomes a mere substitute for armies and navies, to carry on the work of plunder and desolation by which the tariff States propose to counteract the bountiful dispensations of Providence in favor of the The prohibition which excluded our ancestors from the southern States. The hall of Congress is nothing more commerce of all other countries but Great Britain, was nor less than a field of battle, in which the conflicting pow- almost purely nominal. Without that prohibition, the trade ers are arrayed against each other in a species of warfare, of the colonies would have been confined almost excluin which neither valor, nor skill, nor reason, nor justice, sively to the mother country. She furnished them with the are of any avail to the combatants, but of which the issue best market in the world for all the productions of their is ultimately decided by the mere brute force of numbers. industry. She supplied the articles they wanted cheaper This palpable prostitution and perversion of the federal than they could be obtained from any other nation, and power of the Union not only fails to secure every mem-gave them a better price for their productions. But the ber of that Union from the injustice and violence of the other members, but places in the hands of a majority of . States an instrument more powerful and more dangerous than cannon, for the destruction of the interests of the minority.

The southern States, then, are reduced to the very same relation to the tariff States, in point of principle, as that in which all the colonies formerly stood to Great Britain. They have changed their masters, to be sure; and I will now proceed to inquire what they have gained by the change.

I confidently assert that the restrictions imposed by the tariff States upon the commerce of the planting States, are one hundred times more injurious and oppressive than all the colonial restrictions and taxes which Great Britain ever imposed, or attempted to impose, upon the commerce of our forefathers. Yes, sir, a revolution which severed a mighty empire into fragments, and which history has already recorded as the first in the annals of human liberty, originated in restrictions and impositions, not a whit more tyrannical in principle, and, as I will proceed to demonstrate, not a hundredth part so oppressive in point of fact, as the restrictions and impositions now unconstitutionally imposed upon the southern States.

very opposite of this is true as to the restrictions of which we now complain. Instead of coinciding with the natural course of trade, they come directly in contact with it. The southern States are excluded from their natural markets→→ the very best in the world, for the purpose of confining Without fleets or armies, and, what is of infinite import them to a market which is, in all respects, the very worst. ance to tender consciences-without hazarding the loss of Europe now consumes five-sixths of our agricultural staa single drop of human blood, a prosperous commerce is ples, and the consumption would be indefinitely extended, swept from the face of the ocean by the mere mathema-if the trade was unrestricted; the tariff States could not tical power of numbers. All that is required, is that the consume, under any circumstances, more than one-fifth of Clerk at your table should count over the votes, and the these staples. Great Britain, France, and Holland could

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furnish us with such manufactures as we want, at a price will be memorable in the history of the country, as the one-third less than that for which they ever can be furnished second war of independence. The evident tendency of by the manufacturing States of this Union; and, under these the British pretensions to recolonize the United States. circumstances, we are compelled to purchase from these caused every enlightened patriot to see and to feel that States, and denied our national right of purchasing from such was the true character of the contest. Now, what foreign nations. In one word, we are excluded from the were the pretensions of Great Britain? In the very strongest very best markets in the world, and confined to that in point of view, they amounted to no more than the assump which we can get least for what we have to sell, and are tion of a right, on the part of Great Britain, not to prohibit, compelled to give most for what we desire to purchase. but to shackle and encumber. during war, the comThe duties and restrictions imposed upon the commerce merce of the United States with the adverse belligerents. of the southern States for the exclusive benefit of the tariff Suppose she had set up the broad pretension-similar to States, amount to a larger sum of taxation and oppression that now enforced by the tariff States-that we should in a single year, than all the restrictions and taxes imposed trade exclusively with her, and should not trade with upon all the colonies by the British Parliament, from the France, either in peace or in war. There is not a padate of the stamp act to the breaking out of the revolution-triot in the Union who would not have seen his country

ary war.

one vast catacomb of slaughtered freemen before he The southern States are to all intents and purposes re- would have tarnished the memory of his ancestors, by subcolonized, as much so as if the British Parliament had the mitting to terms so ignominious and degrading. Every supreme legislative power of regulating their commerce. plain would have been a Marathon, and every strait a I am aware that it has been attempted to impair the force Thermopyla; and Great Britain would never have succeedof this analogy, by adverting to the fact that the southern ed in establishing her arrogant pretensions, until none but States are fairly represented in Congress. But when the slaves survived to acknowledge and submit to it. And yet power of this Common Council is directed against the in- the southern States, who so gloriously sustained a war terest of the minority, so isolated and distinguished by waged against this pretension, are now actually reduced geographical and civil peculiarities and commercial inte- to a state of degradation and dependence, beyond all quesrests, as that laws, apparently and nominally general, may tion worse than that which would have resulted from its be, in effect, local and exclusive in their impositions, it is establishment. If we had been actually conquered by the obvious that a representation of the minority, on all ques- British arms-if we had been compelled to prostrate the tions affecting its distinct and local interests, is substantially insignia of our sovereignty at the feet of the conqueror, no representation at all. When the proposition before and the terms of our submission had been dictated at Congress is the imposition of a common and equal burden the head of victorious legions, nothing worse could have upon the whole country, or the appropriation of the com- been imposed upon the whole confederacy, by the right mon funds to defend the rights of a single State, or even of conquest, than the oppression and vassalage to which the southern States are now subjected by the legislation of Congress.

of a single individual, I should consider the southern States really represented, however much they might differ with the majority. But when the proposition is to impose an exclusive burden on those States, or appropriate their peculiar funds for the benefit even of all the other States, I should regard them as having no representation at all, though they were entitled to ninety-nine votes in a council of two hundred. On such a question, any thing less than a majority, or, at least, an equality, of votes, is precisely equal to no vote at all. It is not a question of deliberation, concerning common interests, but a question of naked, numerical power, concerning interests that are entirely adverse.

If all the commercial nations in the world were to unite in a conspiracy to cripple and restrict our commeree, by hostile regulations, so far as their own interests would be promoted by it; if all the restraints interposed by the law of nations to protect that commerce were annulled, and the nations of Europe had the unlimited power to make what regulations they pleased in regard to it, nothing worse could possibly be done, than what our own legislation has done already. It is true, sir, if there be any consolation in that, that the injury is not inflicted by a foreign power, but by those who call themselves our brethren and fellow-citizens. But I am far from perceiving any thing in this circumstance to mitigate the injury. I solemnly declare, I would rather it were inflicted by a foreign power. A dagger plunged by the hand of a brother carries a se verer pang to the heart of the injured party, from the very consideration that the blow was inflicted by one who was under the most sacred obligations to arrest it, if aimed

Nothing, therefore, can be more unfair and ridiculous, than to maintain that the unjust and unconstitutional impositions of the tariff system are, in any respect, less tyrannical in their operation upon the southern States, merely because those States are represented in Congress. What would have been the nature of a colonial representation in the British Parliament in 1776 The wisest of our patriotic ancestors rejected the idea as a miserable by another. mockery. What is the value of an Irish representation I must now invite the attention of the committee for a in the British Parliament, on all questions affecting the lo- few moments to a brief exposition of the actual condition cal interests of Ireland, and in which the interests or pre- of suffering to which the Southern states have been rejudices of England stand opposed to them? Let the op- duced by this system. I will draw no picture of the ima pression and ruin of Ireland answer the question. What gination, but present a few decisive facts that will speak would be the value of West India representation in Parlia- a language too unequivocal to admit of but one interprement, on the question of negro-emancipation! And what tation. For the last twelve years, the condition of the is the value of a southern representation in Congress, when country has been growing worse and worse, in a steady the question to be determined is, whether ten millions of progression. During this time, the price of cotton has southern commerce shall be subjected to the legislative fallen from thirty to ten cents a pound, and every thing rapacity of the majority? They serve no other purpose else in a corresponding degree. This state of things is than to be nominal parties to the immolation of their constituents, and thus furnish to their oppressors a pretext and disguise for the outrage.

The course of these remarks forcibly suggests another historical analogy, calculated, if that be possible, to exhibit, in a still stronger point of view, the state of political degradation to which the southern States are reduced by the prohibitory system. The recent war with Great Britain

peculiarly distressing. Almost any condition is tolerable which is permanent. We become reconciled to it by habit, and make all our calculations and pecuniary ar rangements to accord with it. But when tariff is passed after tariff, extending further and further the oppressive influence of the system, constant pecuniary embarrassment is the almost unavoidable result. No prudence can avoid it. An unexpected decline in the price of produce

APRIL 29, 1830.].

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baffles the calculations even of the most cautious; and, [ high as it is at present, although the same quantity of in this downward tendency of things, the planter almost manual labor is necessary to produce it now as at the invariably finds, each successive year, his means of meet- former period. A corresponding reduction in the price of ing his pecuniary engagements less than he reasonably calculated when he made them.

labor is the necessary consequence. On the contrary, the price of grain is very nearly as high in the grain growing States, taking an average of several years, as it was thirty years ago. No reduction, therefore, has taken place in the price of the labor employed in producing it. In fact, the average price of labor in the northern States, including all pursuits, has evidently advanced during the period under consideration. It cannot be otherwise, under a system of taxation and oppression which annually draws from the southern planters one-third of their incomes, to be distributed, in bounties and disbursements, among the people of the other states of the Union. It is the natural result of that system, and God only knows at what point of depression, short of absolute ruin, it will stop, if this Government shall persevere in the course it has hitherto pursued.

The profits of the cotton planter, with all the natural advantages with which Providence has favored him, are now actually less than those of any other description of capitalists in the Union. I speak of what I personally know, when I assert that the labor of a slave in the field does not yield the owner more than twelve and a half cents per day, on an average. Now, sir, I leave it to any gentleman from the middle or eastern States, to say whether the price of common field labor is not three or four times as high. Taking the average of the various kinds of labor in those States, I feel authorized to say, it may be set down at fifty cents a day. I am aware of the prevalence of an idea that slave labor is not as efficient as free labor; but, as regards agricultural pursuits, it is entirely erroneous. No white man from New England, or any where else, can do more field labor than a South Carolina slave. Taking the average of the year, the southern planter has greatly more labor performed by each hand, than the northern farmer. With us, there is no season of rest from one end of the day, or from one end of the year, to the other. The winter season, which is a period of festivity and rest with the northern farmers, is, with our planters, a period of active and laborious preparation for the ensuing spring. If, notwithstanding, he cultivates the most valuable staple in the world, and works thus incessantly through the whole year, the labor of the southern planter is not one-fourth part as productive as the average of northern labor, does it not furnish a striking commentary upon the ruinous and exhausting effects of your oppressive system of taxation? If the soil and climate of Pennsylvania or New York "A rose of the wilderness left on the stalk, were as well adapted to the culture of cotton as those of To tell where the garden had been " South Carolina or Georgia, I am well satisfied, a Penn- Looking upon this sad reverse in the condition of their sylvania or New York farmer could not afford to cultivate descendants, they would naturally inquire what moral or cotton for less than twenty cents a pound, with all the in- political pestilence had passed over the land, to blast and dustry and economy he could use. Let any man ac-wither the fair inheritance they had left them? And, sir, quainted with the business of cotton planting make an estimate of the price for which he could afford to raise cotton, using hire labor at fifty cents a day, and he will find the statement I have made amply confirmed by the result.

A great and solemn crisis is evidently approaching, and I admonish gentlemen that it is the part of wisdom, as well as of justice, to pause in this course of legislative tyranny and oppression, before they have driven a high-minded, loyal, and patriotic people to something bordering on despair and desperation. Sir, if the ancestors of those who are now enduring, too patiently enduring, the oppressive burdens unjustly imposed upon them, could return from their graves, and witness the change which the Federal Government, in one quarter of a century, has produced in the entire aspect of the country, they would hardly recognize it as the scene of their former activity and usefulness. Where all was cheerful, and prosperous, and flourishing, and happy, they would behold nothing but decay, and gloom, and desolation, without a spot of verdure to break the dismal continuity, or even

when they should be told that a despotic power of taxation, infinitely more unjust and oppressive than that from which the country bad been redeemed by their toils and sacrifices, was now assumed and exercised over us by our own brethren, they would indignantly exclaim, like the ghost of murdered Hamlet, when urging his afflicted son to avenge the tarnished honor of his house

"If you have nature in you, bear it not."

I know there was a time, sir, when it was believed that the southern planters were realizing so rich a barvest of prosperty, and such enormous profits, that it was thought nothing more than justice to cut down their in- Sir, I feel that I am called upon to say a word or two comes, by this new species of agrarian legislation, to a on the subject of the deep excitement which now exists level with those derived from other modes of employing in South Carolina, and to vindicate the motives and the capital. But, even if you had any semblance of right to character of the people of that State from imputations exercise this arbitrary power of curtailing incomes and which have been unjustly cast upon them. There is no equalizing profits, you have carried it entirely beyond the State in this Union distinguished by a more lofty and dispoint at which your own principles would require you to interested patriotism, than that which I have the honor in stop. If you have a right to reduce the labor of the plant-part to represent. I can proudly and confidently appeal er to a level with your own, have you any right to carry to history for proof of this assertion. No State has made the reduction so far, that you shall receive three or four greater sacrifices to vindicate the common rights of the times as great a reward for your labor as the planter does Union, and preserve its integrity. No State is more wilfor his! No agricultural community, that carried on the ling to make those sacrifices now, whether of blood or labors of the field by free labor, could have endured, or treasure. But, sir, it does not belong to this lofty spirit of would have submitted to this system of oppressive exac- patriotism to submit to unjust and unconstitutional opprestion, until the price of labor had reached so low a point sion, nor is South Carolina to be taunted with the charge of depression as it has in the southern States. There of treason and rebellion, because she has the intelligence is no example existing, of so great a fall in the price of to understand her rights, and the spirit to maintain them. any agricultural production, as that which has taken God has not planted in the breast of man a higher and a place in the southern staples. From century to century, holier principle than that by which he is prompted to rethe price of corn, for example, maintains almost a uniform sist oppression. Absolute submission and passive obediprice, because the cost of its production-the actual la ence to every extreme of tyranny, are the characteristics

bor required to produce it, cannot, as in the case of manu- of slaves only.

factures, be materially diminished by machinery. Thirty The oppression of the people of South Carolina has years ago, the price of cotton was nearly three times as been carried to an extremity which the most slavish popu

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[APRIL 29, 1830.

lation on earth would not endure without a struggle. Is was, that the demagogues of the time secured the favor of it to be expected, then, that freemen will patiently bow the people more effectually by a liberal dispensation of down and kiss the rod of the oppressor? Freemen, did I the grain drawn from the subject provinces, than by the say! Why, sir, any one who has the form and bears the highest talents, the most exalted patriotism, and the most name of man-nay, a beast that wants discourse of rea- signal services. Now, sir, what is the difference in prinson," a dog, a sheep, a reptile-the vilest reptile that ciple between the distribution of grain and the distribucrawls upon the earth, without the gift of reason to com- tion of disguised bounties, amounting to millions, many prehend the injustice of its injuries, would bite, or bruise, millions of dollars annually? The latter I consider inconiparably the worst, because of the very disguise which is or sting the hand by which they were inflicted. thrown around the proceeding. But the evil does not stop The enorwith the degradation and corruption of the people. The system tends also to corrupt the Government. mous sum annually taken from the pockets of the southern people, is, to all intents and purposes, a fund of corruption, by which the Presidency itself may, at no distant period, be bought and sold.

Is it, then, for a sovereign State to fold her arm, and stand still in submissive apathy, when the loud clamors of the people whom Providence has committed to her charge, are ascending to heaven for justice? Hug not this delu sion to your breast, I pray you.

It is not for me to say, in this place, what course South Carolina may deem it her duty to pursue in this great emergency. It is enough to say that she perfectly understands the ground which she occupies; and be assured, sir, that whatever attitude she may assume, in her highest sovereign capacity, she will firmly and fearlessly maintain it, be the consequences what they may. The responsibility upon her oppressors. will not rest upon her, but

And here, sir, I beg leave to offer a few remarks on the subject of the celebrated resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, about which much has been recently said in Congress and out of it. It is not my object to give any opinion upon those resolutions, but to show what they really are, and the principles they distinctly avow.

Do not the people of the tariff States distinctly hold out the idea that they will not support any man for the Presi dency who is opposed to the protecting system? Has it not been openly avowed on this floor as the paramount claim, the indispensable qualification of a candidate for the Presidency? And is not this an open avowal that the Presidency of the United States is to be conferred, not upon the man of the greatest talents, the purest patriotism, or the most important public services, but upon the man who will consent and stipulate to bestow millions of money, unconstitutionally and unrighteously exacted from the people of the South, as a largesse to the northern manufac I have before me a preamble to certain resolutions, re-turers and their associates? Sir, disguise it as you may, by cently adopted by the Legislature of Kentucky, in which calling it a question of principle and general policy, it is it is stated that, "at a former epoch, when certain acts a mere traffic between avarice and ambition, in which it were passed by Congress, called the alien and sedition laws, is stipulated that money, first to be obtained by extortion which were believed to be unconstitutional by the General and plunder, shall be given in exchange for political Assembly, it neither interposed nor threatened the adop- power. It is nothing different, in principle, from the sale of tion of any measures to defeat or obstruct their operation the Roman empire by the Prætorian cohorts, for imperial within the jurisdiction of Kentucky." Will it be pretend- donatives. If General Washington could rise from the ed that the Legislature of Kentucky did not avow the grave, and were presented as a candidate for the Presi right to adopt such measures. Listen, sir, to the language dency, with an avowal of his opposition to the tariff, any of the resolution she adopted in 1799-a resolution drawn man who would pledge himself to support that system, up by the hand of Thomas Jefferson: "That the several though covered with "all the multiplying villanies of na States who formed that instrument, (the federal constitu- ture," would carry the election against him. Under these tion) being sovereign and independent, have the unques- circumstances, I put it to gentlemen to answer me the tionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a nullifi- question, what is the motive which induces the people of cation by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts, done the tariff States to support for the Presidency a man who under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy." will pledge himself to support the tariff? The answer, I will make no comment on this language. It is too plain sir, in plain English, is money, money, nothing but money. to be perverted. I will barely add, that the celebrated If this be principle, it is political bargaining reduced resolutions of Virginia maintain the same doctrine, in lan- principle. Such, however, is the unavoidable result of the guage equally explicit, and that Pennsylvania adopted system. The moment that Government assumes the prerogative of interfering with the great pecuniary interests of similar resolutions at a subsequent period. society, with a view to change the distribution of property, its action becomes essentially corrupt and corrupting.

But, sir, in a case of extreme injustice and oppression, I will not stop to moot points of constitutional construca sovereign tion. I place the right and the obligation State to interpose the shield of its sovereignty between its citizens and oppression, upon much higher grounds.

I have now gone through the various topics I intended to discuss, and I will say, in conclusion, that in all I bave uttered, there has not been mingled one feeling of personal unkindness to any human being, either in this House or out of it. I have used strong language, to be sure, but it has been uttered "more in sorrow than in anger." I have felt it to be a solemn duty which I owed to my constituents and to this nation, to expose the unjust and oppressive operation of the tariff system, and to make one more solemn appeal to the justice of their oppressors.

There is one objection to this system of Government protection, and Government bounties, which I intended to have presented more fully than I feel warranted in doing under existing circumstances. I allude to its strong and inevitable tendency to corrupt one portion of the people, while it oppresses and enslaves the other. No state of things can be conceived more unfavorable to liberty, than Let me, then, beseech the advocates of that system, in that in which large multitudes of people, embracing entire classes of the community, are taught to look habitual- the name of our common ancestors, whose blood was minly to the Government for pecuniary aid and support. It gled together as a common offering at the shrine of our is not in the nature of things that such a population can common liberty-let me beseech them, by all the endesthave the feelings of independent freemen. They look up ing recollections of our common bistory, and by every to the Government with an idolatrous feeling, as if the sun consideration that gives value to the liberty and union of of heaven could not shine, or its showers fall upon the these States, to retrace their steps as speedily as possible, earth, without the special interposition of that Govern- and relieve a high-minded and patriotic people from an unment. I have said, on a former occasion, that the days of constitutional and oppressive burden, which they cannot Roman liberty were numbered, when the people consent-longer bear. ed to receive bread from the public granaries. The result

[The committee then rose.]

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PRIL 30, 1830.]

Judge Peck-Navigation and Impost Law.

JUDGE PECK.

Mr. BUCHANAN, from the committee appointed for the purpose, reported an article, to be exhibited to the Senate of the United States in behalf of themselves and of all the people of the United States against Judge Peck, a Judge of the district court of the United States, for the district of Missouri, in maintenance and support of their impeachment against him. It was laid on the table and directed to be printed.

[See Senate proceedings, Tuesday, May 4.]

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FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1830.

863

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fate of the tariff of 1824 depend on the casting votes of which he had deeply at heart? And did not the ultimate the Speaker given on some of the items of the bill? Yes, sir, I say there is in this country an aristocracy of manufacturing capitalists, who would, if they could, grind the democracy of this nation to ashes, as the nobility of Great Britain would the poor laborer who cries for bread. Sir, the committee entertain no delusive hope that this bill will affect the policy of Great Britain-at least, for some years to come. No! her policy in relation to grain is fixed and settled. It is regulated and controlled, as ours bas hitherto been here, by those who are deeply interested in perpetuating monopoly. The great land proprietors of the House Great Britain by their votes. It is not to be expected that of Lords-the hereditary nobility-control the policy of a majority of that description will consent, at least for the present, to receive our grain in exchange for British proMr. MALLARY called for the reading of the bill; and States on the equal terms proposed by the bill. But there Neither is it probable that France will, for some time to come, reciprocate commerce with the United it having been read, he said it would be impossible to act are other nations with whom a beginning may be made. on such a measure at this session, if it ought to be acted on Portugal is one. at all; therefore, he moved to lay the bill on the table. At country-it has been entirely sacrificed by the unwise rethe request, however, of Mr. CAMBRELENG, he withdrew strictions of both countries. There are in our commerce We had once a valuable trade with that the motion, to give an opportunity for explanation. with that nation no conflicting interests-I have no doubt

NAVIGATION AND IMPOST LAW. Mr. CAMBRELENG, from the Committee on Commerce, reported a bill respecting the navigation laws and duties on imports, which having had its first and second reading by its title, Mr. C. moved to commit it to a Com-ductions. mittee of the Whole House, and print it.

Mr. CAMBRELENG said that the majority of the Com-that a treaty stipulating commercial reciprocity might be mittee on Commerce, under whose directions he had re-formed with that nation to-morrow, by which we should ported this bill, were perfectly aware that the sentiments very soon enjoy a large and valuable trade with that counof the majority of the House were in opposition to it at try in the mutual exchange of our productions. There this time. The committee had directed him to say that it are countries also in the North of Europe, with whom rewas not their intention to ask for its consideration during ciprocal arrangements might be made. But, sir, I have the present session-perhaps not at the next. The provi- gone further into this question than I had intended to do sions of the bill are novel and important, and require ma- now. ture deliberation. All that the committee now desire is, that the measure should go forth to the nation-that it may sideration of the House and of the nation-the laboring, The committee merely propose the measure for the conbe generally understood, and that the great agricultural the mechanic, and agricultural interests of the country; interest of the country should determine for themselves they have no expectation of changing the opinions of our whether they will exchange the produce of their farms for masters, whose pecuniary interests are involved. the merchandize of other countries, on terms of just reci- ask nothing, sir, from the majority of this House, but what procity. There is no novelty in the principle of the bill we have a right to ask. The minority has its rights as well We -it merely proposes to carry out the rule of reciprocity as the majority. They have a right to expect parliamentwhich this Government has acted upon ever since the war. ary courtesy from the majority-an opportunity to be We have been for sixteen years proposing to all nations to heard, to have their measures fully and fairly debated-an abolish all restrictions on navigation-we have been pro- open and honorable contest. This new course of arrestclaiming, by our acts, our willingness to meet them on ing measures at their second reading, of stopping inquiry fair and honorable ground—and that we were ready, when and stifling debate, is not only extraordinary, but alarmever they were, mutually to exchange our productions on ing. That, sir, is the object of the gentleman from Verreciprocal terms. This, I know, is not the doctrine of some mont. The House has already treated one important gentlemen of this House, but it is the voice of two-thirds measure-the bill proposed by the gentleman from South of the American people. They are willing to exchange Carolina, [Mr. McDUFFIE] in that way. [Here the Chair the vast amount of their own products for those of all other called the gentleman to order for reflecting on the connations who are willing to receive them on terms of fair duct of the House.] Mr. C. replied, that it was not his reciprocity. Sir, we cannot be insensible to the contest now going ceedings, but to show the alarming consequences that design to reflect upon the House for the course of its proon in England-a contest between the democracy and aris- might result from such a course, when a minority, a powtocracy of that country, similar to that which we now see erful minority, too, were denied an opportunity, even to have in this country. [Here Mr. DODDRIDGE rose.] Sir, I be- an important measure discussed, when the rights of the lieve I am entitled to the floor, and understand whether I minority were openly trampled upon. Whenever such am out of order or not. The whole question is open. I should become the practice of a majority of the House, was noticing the contest now going on in England, where he should consider it one of the most alarming symptoms the democracy who were crying for cheap bread, were of approaching dissolution. We do not, I repeat it, deoppressed as the democracy of this country is by the aris-sire to go into this debate during this session. Let the tocracy. Sir, what have I seen in this House? How were measure go forth to the nation-let us debate it at the the tariffs of 1824 and 1828 passed? Have we not all seen next session, and then let gentlemen do as they please duties voted by majorities of four and five votes? Were with it. they not carried by the votes of those, who were interested, directly or indirectly, in the stock of cotton and woollen York [Mr. CAMBRELENG] seemed to be greatly alarmed Mr. MALLARY observed, that the gentleman from New companies-of members whose patriotism lies in the pock- at the course he was taking. But, sir, what is the real et? who imagined that their bankruptcy or prosperity character of the bill he has proposed? It is a measure that depended on the vote they might give? Nay, sir, have I is intended to give the power to the not seen the very chair you now occupy filled by a dis- the great interests of this country. Stinguished gentleman, and did I not see him, in 1824, give, the representatives of the people. on more than one occasion, his casting vote on questions this power to itself. Hold it fast.

President to control Let this remain with Let Congress keep No such power should

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