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the same articles on which the duties are paid. That part of the country in which two-thirds of the exports are produced, are not, nor are they expected to be, engaged in manufactures.

[MAY, 10 1830.

forty per cent.: the penalty on them is the same as if the whole forty per cent. was to him a profit; and it is attended with this aggravation, that they are deeply injured for no one's benefit.

I think it must be admitted that all the goods imported must, generally, be paid for by articles exported. And if the North and West consume two-third of the goods imported into the United States, if they pay for them at all, they must pay for them with the exports of the South. Here I will take occasion to remark, that the very able gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GORHAM] sets forth, in the most clear manner, how he who furnishes what a planter of cotton or tobacco needs, acquires the power and right to consume part of the goods for which the tobacco or cotton is exchanged in a foreign market. There is no flaw in his reasoning, if the facts are as the argument sup poses. But that is the very hinge on which this question turns. In the case supposed by me, the inhabitants of N entitled themselves to the moiety of the exports, or their proceeds, produced in T. But the law gave them forty per cent. advantage in the exchange, so that T gave one hundred and received sixty. How, then, do our northern and western brethren become entitled to the proceeds of one-half of the southern exports? The answer is, by things they sell us, or that they sell to others. But the statement shows that their exports are laid out in imports, and half the southern exports are required to make up the deficiency in their means of paying for imports consumed. One-half, then, of the exports produced by the South are purchased by the productions of northern and western labor. Do we pay them the average duty of forty per The sentiments I often hear expressed on this subject, cent. in this exchange? This is a matter not susceptible" that no duties are paid on home manufactures, and that of that sort of proof which will make one who receives each individual contributes the same to the treasury, in the bounty admit it; but the payer sees it plain enough. proportion to his consumption of duty-paying articles,” as I know, indeed, that, between the South and West, there has been, and is, a trade in stock, which is not regulated by law; in other words, we are not compelled by law to give more than the market price to Kentucky for pork. I know, too, that the ship owner earns part of our exports, and he, it is true, is as far from being a favorite with Congress as the southern planter. But the great mass of productions received by the southern planter is from the North and East, upon almost every article of which the full amount of the duty is paid. Coarse cottons, I know, are sold for less than the duty itself; but it does not follow that we do not pay forty per cent. even on that article; it is now manufactured in England astonishingly low; and if the views gentlemen give us of that matter were founded on facts, they would at once reduce the duty to fifteen per cent., which is enough to secure the manufacturer against the effect of English bankruptcy.

This view of the case makes the burden on the South one-eighth less than the more able one of the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. McDUFFIE] made it. That eighth is allowed in this estimate only because the remainder justifies the loud, the peremptory call for relief, now reverberating from every part of the planting country, except that in which sugar is produced. I say the admission is only made for that cause; for I do believe that the bread stuffs, cotton, tobacco, slaves, lumber, &c., sold by the South to the tariff States, (for their own use,) will more than pay for every unprotected article purchased by the South of any of them, including every article (if such there be) which is (now) not affected by the protection: and I mean in this statemeut to include freight and merchant's profit, paid to them on our foreign commerce.

In drawing this conclusion, I have no guide but my opinions of the results of trade between the States, formed from simple observation.

I believe that when the southern exports amount to forty millions, and the import duties to twenty-four millions, the burden imposed on the South by the laws laying those duties, is sixteen millions; but of nothing (not resting on mathematical truth) am I more sure than that, from the same amount of exports and impost duties, the South are burdened with fourteen millions-a burden from which relief must and will be had.

an answer to the objection that our system of protecting duties bears unequally heavy on the non-manufacturing States or parts of the country, affects an ignorance of the applicability to our situation of the view I have taken of this subject, covering an insult to our understanding, gross as the system itself is oppressive and unjust. I did not and do not now, propose any particular reply to the arguments on the other side; but one of them is so extraordinary, I shall not pass it by.

Sugar, says the gentlemen from Rhode Island, [Mr. BURGES] is the only article, the price of which is increased by the tariff; and by the tariff on that article, the value of southern property, or labor, is increased, or kept up (which here he sees is the same thing) to the amount of many millions more than its owners have been injured by the system. He did not condescend to tell us why the competition of the American producer of sugar with the But suppose the coarse cottons be sold to us at a fair foreign producer did not result, as he supposes the forced price. An estimate has been made, during this debate, of woollen manufactures in Rhode Island to have resulted; the cotton purchased by the North, (greatly too large, I that is, actually in lowering the price of both the foreign suspect,) but the half of it, with the flour, tobacco, and and domestic article. In this market, this distinction is corn of the South, consumed by the North, will pay for founded, I suppose, on two facts; one, that sugar is a all the unprotected goods we get of them, threefold. southern production; and the other, that, unless the tariff With regard to our trade with the West, I doubt whether raises or keeps up the price of sugar, it is not conceivable the slaves annually sold to Louisiana, (which is also a tariff how it would affect the price of slaves. But how is the State,) added to the other things sold to the North for con- southern planter bettered by the price of the labor emsumption there, will not pay for every article we obtain of ployed by him being raised in the market, while the prothe North and West, which is not affected by the tariff, to duce of that labor is stationary, or lower, in price! So its full amount. But to this large amount add one-eighth far as the labor in question is designed for any use but of southern exports, and I know the sum will be sufficient, sale, the inference of benefit is directly the reverse of the and more than sufficient. How then would stand the ac- fact; and besides the manifest loss of an increased capital, count? Upon the supposition that the southern exports in producing the same interest, there is this other apparent any year amounted to forty millions of dollars, and the loss, that so much of the produce of this labor as is vested whole import amounted that year to twenty-four millions in sugar, produces less than it would do by forty per cent. of dollars, the burden on the South would be fourteen I do admit that when, by unjust burdens, the planter is millions of dollars; and this is so, whether the manufacturer broke, his creditors get a better dividend, from the fact makes any thing by his trade or not; for Congress has that the New-Orleans slave dealer can get a better price induced him to go into a business at which he can only from the sugar planter than can be paid by those cultivatsave himself, although others are compelled to pay himors who, of their sinking substance, are still compelled to

MAY 10, 1830.]

The Tariff.

[H. OF R.

when the wages of labor will be low enough for merchan-
dise generally to be manufactured here as low as they may
be imported, is one for which a good man ought not to
pray. It is too distant for our circumstances; justice, par-
tial justice, at least, must be sooner done; no reference,
even in thought, should be had to a severance of these
States. But the inequality of public burdens exists as I
have stated it, if not in all the aggravation of the state-
ment, still enough, and more than enough, to justify the
affirmation that no Government can maintain it, no people
ought to bear it. Like the gentleman from Massachu-
setts, [Mr. GORHAM] as I regard no threats, I make none;
but if I see a course of legislation here which my consti-
tuents cannot bear, I should be false to them if I did not
say so. I say it, therefore, because I believe it; and I call
on New England in particular, and also on every tariff
State, to examine this subject dispassionately; the results
of the principles assumed, as well as the principles them-
selves, are undeniably true. The facts are believed. Into
these facts, I beg that inquiry be made, and, if fairly made,
I am sure justice will be done. But relief, in some way
or other, must and will be had. I conclude, sir, that the
amendment proposed ought to be adopted. That amend-
ment would leave the protection of manufactures up to
and above, the maximum of Alexander Hamilton. And,
while the southern States would still be unequally and un-
justly taxed, the actual amount would be, perhaps, a bur-
den which they can bear. I have said nothing of the total
want of constitutional power to keep up this most oppres-
sive burden. Those who think they are unequally taxed,
do also generally believe they are so burdened by unau-
thorized power-a state of things to which I refer simply
to weigh as it should. Of the entire accuracy of these
opinions, I have no doubt; but men of all parties here
agree that Congress are not prevented by the constitution
from doing what they want to do in any case.
An argu-
ment, therefore, on that subject, would be useless.

protect those who are growing daily in wealth, and wallowing in luxury. But what is said by the gentleman in regard to the price of sugar, is true in regard to every article of home manufacture with which the demand is not fully supplied; and as to such articles as are manufactured in sufficient quantities to supply the demand, so much of the duty is still paid, as the cost of production here, with the necessary profit to the manufacturer, exceeds the price at which the article might be imported. I should not con over these commonplace matters here, but, somehow or other, the truths they contain seem to be too near and obvious to be allowed to have influence here, or even to exist. As to the idea that a protecting tariff, by increasing production, lessens the price abroad, and so does not raise the price here, I think the gentleman from Massachusetts who first addressed the committee, [Mr. DAVIS] supposing that he could collect the idea of making a foreign country pay our revenue from some part of the argument of the gentleman from South Caroina, [Mr. McDUFFIE] sneeringly called it "a new discovery in political economy;" but if this notion be true, the discovery has been practised on for centuries. I know that so long as the manufacturer gets more for his goods than the least living profit on his capital, you may reduce the price by increasing the quantity of goods; but when you come below this, production must lessen, until the living profit is again made Causes independent of our tariff would have put, and did put European manufacturing capital down to this minimum profit, and labor down to the bare subsistence of the laboring classes. New inventions in machinery, modes of sustaining laborers for less, and of applying their labor better, may still lessen prices; but your tariff laws have had, and can have, no effect but to increase the price here in comparison with the price elsewhere. On this subject, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GORHAM] gives us full information, and there is no man, here or elsewhere, more capable of informing others. Nor do the different views we have taken of this and some other subjects, abate aught from the idea I have formed of his possessing all the qualities befitting a representative of the cradle of American liberty. He tells us that if our present system of duties be repealed, an axe nor a hoe, not a spade, shovel, or hammer, could be made at our shops; that not only would our workshops and manufacturing establishments on the seaboard be annihilated in a moment, but that British goods of every description would penetrate throughout the whole couutry, and be sold so low, that they could not be made by The honorable gentleman who moved the amendment our artists. Sir, this statement is undeniably true; and under consideration, has signified his intention of closing with a knowledge of it, of the amount of duties now by this debate, and expressed a desire that whatever can be law assessed on imports, the quantity of the same articles urged against it, should be first submitted. I am anxious, manufactured and sold in the country, the amount of ex- [said Mr. M.] so far as the patience of the committee will ports and imports, and places which produce the exports, allow, to comply with his request; for, notwithstanding the with a knowledge of the fact that these domestic manufac- wide range of this debate, and the great talent it has elicitturing establishments are not, and will not be in the south-ed, all the aspects and relations of this subject have not ern country, the monstrous injustice of saddling the South yet been examined. Indeed, it is beyond the grasp of any with half the burden they bear in rearing up these manu-single speech, or the compass of any single debate. But, factures appears so plain, that it proclaims aloud that re- in the hands of the gentleman from South Carolina, its lief must and will be had. This would be so, even were circumference has been immensely enlarged. Here is a it true that the present list of protected goods would, iu a reasonable time, need no protection.

not

The direct benefit of the effect thus produced would be exclusively, even then, confined to the manufacturing districts, and the indirect benefit to agriculture, out of all proportion, in favor of the same districts.

But this land of promise, this good to come, like human bliss, recedes as you approach it, and it is still to-morrow. More than double the time needed to make the whole southern country a waste has passed since the duties and other charges have brought many articles into advantageous competition with the foreign commodity; yet no article, which ever called for the protection of law, now sells as low as it could be imported, but for the law. The day VOL. VI. 119.

Mr. MARTINDALE said, he was very desirous of presenting his views to the committee on this momentous subject under consideration. He was [he said] desirous of doing so, not only because of its magnitude and sweeping character, but because he considered this the last tariff debate. A kind of crisis was now presented; and the argument being exhausted, or about to be exhausted, the alternative [said Mr. M.] is placed before us either to submit to legitimate, constitutional legislation, or coerce a constitutional majority by the superior physical or moral power of a minority.

new basis of argument, and new ground of reproach and complaint. He has described the South as the tributaries of the North, at the rate of ten millions annually. The tariff takes the vast sum of ten millions annually, over and above their just proportion of the public burdens, from two millions of free men, and transfers it to ten millions of their more favored neighbors, who are represented as the taskmasters of the South, and insatiable monopolists. To sustain such extraordinary charges, it became necessary to assume an entire new theory, and the gentleman has boldly advanced the political heresy, that exportation pays the duty on imports. In as much as cotton, rice, and tobacco constitute two-thirds of all the exported produce of the United States, the States producing these articles

H. OF R.]

The Tariff.

[MAY 10, 1830.

pay, in that proportion, the entire revenue of the Union. in the nature of things to reach the raw material, by duty The gentleman assumes what is manifestly absurd upon on the manufacture in any other way. This is self-evident, the face of it, and is, in terms, a direct contradiction of a and will no doubt be admitted. On the gentleman's theotruth almost self-evident, and of opinions universally re- ry, the value of the entire manufacture is first diminished ceived as true, and universally adopted in practice. Let by the duty. All its elements (for these combined are us consider it for a moment. The duty is, in fact, added the manufacture) must, of course, be diminished in value after the purchase; and whatever be the price of purchase, in the same proportion in which they enter into its compo the duty, like the per centage of the retailer, is superadd- sition. These elements, besides the raw cotton, are the ed. As an undeniable matter of fact, then, the ultimate skill, labor, and subsistence of the artisan, and the use of purchaser, who is the consumer, pays in the purchase price the machinery and capital of the master. On an average, the sum total of the original purchase price, and all sub- these constitute four-fifths of the value of cotton manufac sequent charges, whatever those charges are. The duty tures. Four-fifths of the fifteen millions, therefore, which is a subsequent charge, He, therefore, necessarily pays the gentleman charges upon cotton, should be charged that charge, unless it be thrown back upon the producer, upon the manufacturer and capitalist. For three millions, by some retrospective ex post facto principle, operating which the cotton and tobacco planter pays, the British upon future purchases. There is nothing voluntary or con- capitalist and manufacturer pay twelve millions into our ventional in this business. The operation cannot be effect- treasury. This is inevitable, or the gentleman's theory is ed by any arbitrary, predetermined act of the intermediate good for nothing. The gentleman's patriotism would manufacturer. An uncontrolable law of trade is, that the cheerfully acquiesce in the payment of three millions for supply of the market regulates the market price. There the sake of a tribute of twelve millions from England and must be some intelligible process, by which the problem France; and the more especially, when he allows the procan be wrought out. It cannot be by disburdening con- portion of the national revenue, justly chargeable upon the sumption, for consumption is not charged with the duty. cotton-growing States, to be about five millions. But, if The proposition of the gentleman throws the charge upon the gentleman's assumption be true, our duties upon the the producer, the effect of which would be to diminish manufactures which we do consume depreciate as much production and not consumption. I am utterly unable to the value of those of the same kind which we do not concomprehend the modus operandi of this strange hypothe-sume, as of those which we do consume. The loss is insis. But let us examine some of the consequences which calculable to England as well as the cotton-growing States. must necessarily flow from the gentleman's doctrines. If Our duties, of something more than ten millions, upon it be true that the producer pays the tax upon consump-cottons, woollens, iron, and hemp, and their manufactures, tion, it follows, of course, that the consumer does not pay it is alleged, diminish the value of forty millions worth of it. And if this be true, we have been very unwise in re- raw produce by fifteen millions. This is effected by reducing the duty on tea and coffee. We shall not diminish ducing the value, not only of the manufacture wrought of the price to the consumer. We have only alleviated the the raw produce just named, but also of woollens, iron, burdens we had imposed upon the Chinese, the Javanese, and hemp. and their various manufactures. The thirty and the West Indians. We have thrown away ten millions of millions worth of cotton which we export produce one revenue, which we had contrived to make the foreign pro-hundred and fifty millions worth of manufactures. We ducer of these articles contribute to our treasury. But import, say ten millions worth of these, not more, on the gentleman's own recommendation contradicts this necessary conclusion from his present proposition. He has procured a reduction of the duties on tea and coffee, on the plausible pretence of making them cheaper to the consumer, whereas, according to his present reasoning, the reduction of the duty on teas and coffee will so in crease the consumption at home, and thereby raise the demand abroad, as to augment the price abroad equivalent to the reduction of the duty at home.

which we impose duty. But that which is left for foreign consumption is affected just as much by our duty as that which we import. The market price of the whole is the same. So of all the other manufactures purchased with our cotton, rice, and tobacco, or else we do not lighten the burdens upon cotton, rice, and tobacco, by reducing the duty on woollens, iron and hemp. The mass of these manufactures and materials, from which we supply our imports, it is impossible to estimate; but if the But how can the producer of one ingredient of the fa- woollen manufactures of this country amount to seventy milbric be separated from the producer of another element lions of dollars annually, according to numerous estimates, of the same fabric? If the producer of the cotton, for those of England, Holland, and France cannot be less than instance, pay any portion of the duty imposed upon the four hundred millions, the price of all which we have remanufacture, does he pay all that duty, or only that por-duced by our duty in the proportion of fifteen to forty, tion equivalent to the proportion of the value of the cot- that is, by an imposition of a duty of ten millions, we have ton to the value of the fabric? How does the manufac- annihilated a value of at least two hundred and twentyturer escape his portion of the tax? It is inconceivable. The gentleman's ingenuity will be taxed more severely than he has represented his constituents to be, to devise a scheme by which he can exonerate the manufacturer from contributing, at least, his proportion to the payment of the duty on the manufacture. Is it not so? Let it be remembered that the gentleman's proposition exonerates the consumer from the payment of the duty, because he charges it upon the producer. The duty, therefore, does not raise the price of the manufacture to the consumer, for, if it did, he would necessarily pay the duty. It diminishes the price, therefore, in the bands of the producer, or the producer does not pay it. But it is the manufacture upon which the duty is imposed. It is the manufacture, therefore, the price of which is diminished, or else the addition of the duty would raise the price, and the consumer would pay it. You must, of necessity, diminish the price of the manufacture before you can affect the price of the raw material. It is utterly impossible

five millions. Indeed, this amount, extravagant as it may appear, is far below the actual loss, on the assumption of the honorable gentleman. This estimate excludes entirely from the account, iron, hemp, flax, and their manufactures. But if a duty on cotton goods diminishes the value of tobacco nearly forty per cent., it is impossible to estimate its influence upon the value of Saxon sheep in Germany, or Young Hyson tea in China. The extravagance of the gentleman's theory is its own refutation.

But how can the duty on woollens and iron depress the price of cotton? By diminishing their price? This would be favorable to the consumer, and, so far as cheapness. could produce such a result, would encourage consump tion. But a more extensive consumption of woollens would not increase the consumption of cotton, or in any way encourage its production. But does the duty on iron and woollens enhance their price? Then the consumer pays the duty, and the producer does not, and then colton is not charged with the duty on woollens and iron,

MAY 10, 1830.]

The Tariff.

[H. OF R.

and the gentleman's proposition is erroneous. Indeed, it we should continue to buy and manufacture their cotton is a notorious and very strong fact, that the comparative according to the present course of trade, and northern dearness of woollens, notwithstanding their present ruin- capital and northern ships would still continue to purchase ous depression, has been the cause of substituting, very and export the cotton, rice, and tobacco of the South. The extensively, too, cotton manufactures for woollens; and intercourse between the North and the South is free now; this, more than any thing else, accounts for the rapid in- and so far as the export of cotton and tobacco is concerned, crease of the consumption of cotton from less than one it is perfectly free between England and the South; and hundred millions of pounds to three hundred millions of yet northern ships transport all, or nearly all, the cotton of pounds in ten years. If the duty on woollens has dimi- the South. This condition of trade would continue if the nished the consumption of woollens, it certainly has not tariff should be repealed. It would continue if the cottondiminished the consumption of cotton, and its repeal growing States should secede. They are not commercial could by no possibility increase the consumption of cotton. States. They have neither ships nor seamen, nor can they But when did cotton, rice, and tobacco begin to pay the have. The northern States would continue to buy foreign imposts on woollens, iron, hemp, flax, and silk? Before manufactures with southern cotton, so long as they importor since the tariffs of 1824 and 1828 It is manifest that ed foreign manufactures; and as long as they imposed if they pay the duties now in the proportion they bear duties thereon, the southern cotton would pay them, if it to our other exports, they paid them before in the same pays them now. A little attention to this subject will make proportion, and will continue to pay them in that propor- it perfectly clear that the change in the political relations tion, even should these tariffs be repealed. The rate of of the States would not in the least vary their commercial' duty, and the proportion which these raw products bear relations, provided the same freedom of intercourse was alto the aggregate of our exports, cannot change their na-lowed as is now enjoyed. It would not transfer from the ture, nor alter the relation in which they stand to import- North their capital, their ships, nor their commercial ınaed manufactures. The repeal of these tariffs, therefore, rine, and certainly not their manufactures. How, then, would only so far alleviate these oppressed productions as would it influence the course of trade? It would relieve it dimished the revenue, and would, in no degree, distri- the South from the burden of the duties on manufactures; bute the burden complained of, only in so far as it mul- but for this alleviation, they would be compelled to substitiplied and distributed the various exports with which tute an imposition of a more onerous and intolerable chathose manufactures are purchased. But it is not contem-racter, upon cotton, or upon that which produces it. They plated, and, I presume, not desired by the honorable gen- would not alleviate the burden. They would only change tleman, to substitute flour, and beef, and pork, for cotton, its position from manufactures to cotton, and its character in the foreign market, in the purchase of our manufac from a voluntary to a compulsory tax. They would not tures. But, unless this substitution were effected, the re-think of dispensing with a Government and its concomitants. peal of the tariff would not alleviate the unequal burdens of the South, nor transfer their due proportion to the North. Cotton must still pay the duties so long as it continues to be the medium of exchange for English and French manufactures. Neither is an essential diminution of revenue anticipated from this proposition, should it be adopted, but a greatly increased consumption of cotton. How this can be accomplished, without diminishing the price to the consumer, is to me incomprehensible. If goods do not become cheaper by taking off the duty, I cannot conceive why he should be induced to buy and consume more. But if the diminution of duty is a diminution of price to the consumer, then the consumer pays the duty in just so far as the price is enhanced by the duty, and then the producer does not pay it, for both cannot pay the same duty. The gentleman's own proposition denies the applicability of his remedy. His proposition is false, or his remedy is inefficient. They cannot cohere. It remains certain, however, that cotton would still pay the duty, whatever it might be, and of course the revenue, and precisely in proportion to the amount of its exportation.

They must have a navy, an army, and fortifications; and they would soon find themselves in the enjoyment of all the blessings of a national debt, and all the embarrassments of paying the interest and redeeming the principal. The conclusion of the whole matter would be, that the price of their cotton would not only be diminished, but the quantity also; and the wealth and population of South Carolina would be transferred to the Texas, or the cape fields of Louisiana. But let us view this subject in a different aspect. Suppose the dissolution of our political relations should produce an alienation of friendship, and a suspension of intercourse. The South would prohibit the manufactures of the North, and the North the cotton of the South, both in the bale from Savannah and Charleston, and in the box from England and France. The South would lose the market, not only for the two hundred thousand bales now manufactured at the North, but of nearly half that amount now manufactured in England and France, and reimported and consumed at the North. The North would find their cotton in Louisiana, (for Louisiana is a tariff State,) in Texas, in Mexico, in Brazil, in Egypt, in Liberia, in the On this hypothesis, the case of the southern States is whole belt of the earth, seventy degrees broad, extending utterly hopeless and incurable. They must secede from at least thirty-five degrees each side of the equator. "New the Union. It is a desperate remedy; and even that, I will England, and her associates in this system of tyranny and endeavor to show, could in no degree administer the relief oppression," would then make these vast sections of the sought for. Suppose a thorough conviction of permanent earth her "tributaries," instead of Georgia and South Cairreconcilable interests should produce a dissolution of the rolina, in so far as their cotton furnished the medium of exUnion, and the cotton-growing States are erected into a change for any commodities on which she could impose duseparate Government a new United States of America- ties for revenue or protection. What, then, would be the (if a union could be accomplished among so many absolute price of South Carolina cotton, with the loss of a market Sovereignties.) What then? Why, they would continue for at least one-half of her present crop. The disastrous to grow cotton as now, and eschew all manufactures, and consequences are sufficiently manifest, and certainly inevithrow open their ports to all the world, and establish an table. Then, indeed, would despair, desolation, and ruin unlimited freedom of trade, (as the most valuable freedom,) sweep through the land, and leave but a blighted, barren, and supply their treasury by an income tax, or, what would and trackless waste behind. It is not necessary to deepen amount to the same thing, a direct tax on slaves and real the shades of this picture with the horrors of a civil or serestate. The northern tariff States would pursue their pre-vile war, to render it terrific, and to arrest our progress to sent policy, and cherish and protect their manufactures, as an exhibition of the reality. But the course indicated by the the best means of promoting their agriculture and com- present temper, and new doctrines of South Carolina, leads If placed on an equal footing with the most favor- directly to this black abyss. If the State of South Carolina ed nations in our intercourse with the Southern Republic, nullifies the tariff, the Union is ipso facto dissolved, or is

merce.

H. OF R.]

The Tariff.

[MAY 10, 1830.

import the soil of Sweden and Russia to manure our wheat fields, as to import their iron to construct the ploughs that till them. According to the cost of production, it is probably somewhat dearer than our wheat; but increased competition is rapidly increasing the production, and the inequality will speedily be removed. One thing may be considered as finally and irrevocably settled; it will never be abandoned; the protection will never be withdrawn. This may be and should be considered the irrevocable, unchangethis matter, for this good, substantial, and very satisfactory reason; the policy is founded upon a clear perception and a full and perfect understanding of the great, permanent, and unchangeable interests of all that portion of the Union whose productions come in competition with foreign productions which we are in the habit of importing. Mary land, and Virginia, and Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, are bound in perpetual alliance with the tariff States, and committed, by their strongest and dearest interests, to the protecting policy forever.

Preserved only by enforcing the tariff, and executing upon | hyperbole, but, if it be, the honorable gentleman has furthe State the laws of the Union. If the Union be dissolved, nished some precedents of that sort; but we might as well still the mischief is not cured, but aggravated. No remedy is applied, but numberless and intolerable evils are engendered to be perpetuated forever. Now, let us look at the other side of this question. You ask us to repeal the tariff. We cannot do it. You complain that the tariff is intolerable to you. Its repeal would be inevitable destruction to us. To us it is a proposition of self-immolation. You must destroy our woollen, cotton, iron, hemp, and salt manufactures, or you accomplish nothing. Your object is, you avow it, to reduce us to the necessity of buying of Eng-able policy of the tariff States. There can be no doubt in land and France, with your cotton, all that we now produce or manufacture of these articles, to enhance the price of cotton, and to enable you to sell more. This is your proposition. This is what you intend to accomplish. It is what you must accomplish; or, however much you may injure us, you derive no advantage yourselves. There are two sides to this subject. It may be well to look at the magnitude of the interests which you propose to sacrifice, and which you must sacrifice, to build up your own. The woollen manufactures of the United State shave been esti mated at the annual value of seventy millions. This, of I have never allowed myself to contemplate the dissoluitself, is more than double the whole cotton-growing inte- tion of the Union as possible. But if the gentleman's rest of the Union. The manufacture of cotton is the next views of the interests of the cotton-growing States be cormost important interest, and may be safely put down at rect, it is not only possible but inevitable. It should pot thirty millions annually, fully equal in value to our foreign only not be opposed and prevented, but it should be imtrade in cotton. Our iron, hemp, and salt manufactures mediately negotiated and amicably adjusted. I will not be cannot be less than thirty millions more of annual produc- chargeable with wrong and oppression, and tyranny, and tion. Here, then, is an annual production of at least one plunder, and robbery toward any portion of the human hundred and thirty millions, which you propose to annihi- family, much less toward any of my countrymen and fellate or greatly to diminish. This, it should be remember-low citizens. For myself and my constituents, and in beed, is an annual production, and like so much interest is the measure of the capital employed in this production. Three-fourths of this amount are raw material and subsistence, and the wages of labor. One-half, at least, is agricultural produce, forming the elements of manufactures. Here, then, is a permanent and perpetually increasing market for more than sixty millions' worth of mere agricul tural produce involved in the preservation of these manufactures. This, we know, is of infinitely more value than all our foreign commerce, in the productions of the northern and western States.

half of the State which, in part, I represent. I repel the charge of the base intent imputed by the gentleman from South Carolina. We have not, knowingly and designedly, inflicted an injury upon South Carolina. Our constituents have demanded no such sacrifice of honor and principle at our hands., Make good the charge, prove the injury, and they will consent to the secession to-morrow; but they cannot and will not allow the repeal of the tariff. The Union is dear to them; it is consecrated by every feeling of patriotism; it is incorporated in every affection of their nature, and interwoven with every sympathy of the This interest cannot be abandoned. It must be protect- heart. The memory of their fathers reminds them pered. It is of vital importance to the whole Union to us it petually of the Union: but they cannot, and will not, endure is indispensable. Every laborer, every mechanic, every the charge of injustice, oppression, tyranny, robbery, plun farmer knows this. He knows that if manufactures can- der. Go, in the name of God-go in peace-if there be not be sustained, he cannot find employment; if manufac- the least semblance of truth in the charge. But there is tures are not sustained, he cannot find a market for his wool, not. It is the merest fiction of a heated imagination, a pernor for his surplus provisions; and if he cannot sell them, fect delirium of passion, a sublimated delusion of refined, neither will be produce them. We know that the repeal ingenious ends, contradicted by the experience of every of the tariff would sacrifice this market, and that it would age and every nation, and the evidence of every fact. Is be immediately seized upon by the French and English, South Carolina oppressed! I deny it. Before this nation without benefiting our southern neighbors. This we know, and the world, I protest it is not true. Where is the proof! and we cannot permit it to be done. The South cannot, It has not been exhibited. It does not exist; it is not in nain justice, ask that. it should be done. They boast of the ture. In what does it consist? In the cheapness of cotton! bounties of Providence they enjoy, the rich staple of cot- The tariff has not reduced the price, but has contributed ton in which we cannot participate. But we, too, have to keep it up. The price is controlled by a law beyond our blessings; we, too, have our rich staples, of at least the reach of congressional legislation. It is the unchangeequivalent value. Our climate and soil are adapted to the able law of trade; the relation between supply and deculture of the finest wool, far superior in value to the cot mand. The South have overstocked the markets of the ton of the South. A market for it is as important to us as world, and the price has fallen in exact proportion to the is a market for cotton to the South. This market must be excess of supply. The proof to this point is abundant. furnished by manufacturing it here. It would be as absurd One fact alone is conclusive. More than half the annual for us to import wool or woollen manufactures, as it would crop remains on band in the English market at the close oe for the South to import the cotton of Brazil instead of of every season. In the whole mass of commercial comproducing it themselves. The same may be said of all the modities, there is not a parallel to this excess of supply, elements of this manufacture; they are superabundant, and and consequent excess of cheapness. Would the repeal ruinously cheap; and here we are importing the wheat, the of the tariff remedy this? No: it would increase the misbeef, the pork, the vegetables of England, when ours are chief. The consumption of cotton would be less; for the perishing on our hands. Our minerals, too, are inexhaust- means of purchase in the northern States would be greatly ible, and the means of converting them into iron, and ma- diminished. Is there any want of cotton in England! No; nufacturing them to our use, are at hand. It may seem an there is too much there. Any want of cotton manufac

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