55 cents, and the price was $1 25. Ingrain and Venetian, under the reduced duty of 27 cents, cost 80 cents. In 1844, when the duty was 35 cents on ingrain and Venetian, the price was 65 cents. What rendered the contrast more striking, is the fact, that, in 1841 and 1842, trade was depressed, and mechanical labor in comparatively little demand.

Wool also had been favorably affected. The importation had largely fallen off, and the home production increased both in quantity and price. In the Eastern markets, the price of Saxony in 1844, was 50 to 55 cents; of full blood, 45 to 47; one-quarter blood and common, 37 to 40; being an advance of about 30 per cent.

Hemp had been little cultivated, except in Kentucky; and nearly the whole production had been used in the manufac ture of cotton bagging and bale rope. The country had been dependent mainly on Russia for supplies for ships' cordage and other purposes. Our imports in 1840, were $686,777; in 1841, $600,201; in 1842, $267,849; in 1843, (nine months,) $228,882. In 1844, the cultivation had been extended to Illinois and Missouri. The rapid increase of the cultivation of this article appears from the following statement of hemp received at New Orleans: In 1842, 1,214 bales; in 1843, 15,000 bales; in 1844, 38,000 bales, or about 5,000 tuns; the increase being almost exclusively from Illinois and Missouri. Under a protective duty of $40 a tun, the price was at one time reduced to $55 a tun.

The price of scarcely any article experienced a greater reduction than that of cotton bagging; an article used only at the South. The price at Louisville, Ky., was in 1841, 26 cents, which was 4 cents higher than in 1840; in 1842, 16 cents; in 1843, 13 cents; in 1844, 10 cents; and yet a proposition was made in Congress to take off the duty on cotton bagging and gunny bags. The manufacture had been greatly increased by the protection afforded by the tariff of 1842..

The iron business increased with a rapidity never before known in this or any other country. The price of iron, which had considerably fallen, advanced considerably in 1845, in consequence of the unprecedented demand occasioned by the European railroad mania and other causes. In the State of Pennsylvania, the number of manufactories was very greatly increased. From Hunt's Merchant's Magazine it appeared, that, in 1845, there were in the United States 540 blast furnaces, producing 450,000 tuns of pig iron; 951 bloomeries, forges, rolling-mills, &c., yielding 291,600 tuns of bar, hop,

and sheet boiler and other wrought iron, 30,000 tuns blooms, 121,500 tuns castings. The consumption of iron in the crude state, was estimated at $42,000,000 per annum. The amount produced in all continental Europe was only about 700,000 tuns. The quantity imported into the United States in 1844, was 99,384 tuns, valued at $3,484,499.

John Quincy Adams, in an address to his constituents, in October, 1844, said: "The tariff of 1842 has wrought wonders for the purposes for which it was enacted the procurement of an adequate revenue, and of protection for the native industry and free labor of the land. It has fully performed its promise in the production of revenue. It has restored the palsied credit of the nation, filled the coffers of the Treasury, provided ample means for defraying the current expenses of the years 1842, '43, '44, and '45, and already paid off a large proportion of the heavy debt contracted by the preceding administration. But the tariff has also afforded protection to the free labor and native industry of the country; and this, strange to say, is the source of the strongest opposition to the enactment of the tariff when it was carried through, and is now the most efficient for forcing its repeal.

"Protection is the price of allegiance. Protection is the object for which all government is instituted. When a gov ernment ceases to protect, it must cease to claim obedience or submission. Protection was the great and all embracing cause, I might say, the only cause, of the enactment, by the people, of the Constitution of the United States. The very first act of the first Congress, after its organization, was an act for raising revenue, and for the protection and encouragement of manufactures. Who then dared to question the constitutional right of manufacturers to encourage ment and protection? The next act was one for imposing duties on tunnage. This also was an act for levying revenue; but its primary object was protection-protection specially to ship-builders to agriculture, by providing a market for timber, iron, sail cloth, cordage, hemp; to commerce and navigation. All this was done by laying a heavy duty on the tunnage of foreign ships, and a very light one upon our own. These acts as measures for raising revenue, were for protection to the whole Union."

While the people of the Northern States were rejoicing in the beneficent effects of the tariff upon the industry of the country, the South complained as bitterly as ever of oppres sion and unequal taxation. The tariff was denounced in pub

lic meetings in several of the districts in South Carolina, and anti-tariff associations were formed, with a view to a more systematic and effective opposition. At a meeting in the Beaufort district it was

Resolved, That we believe it the duty of South Carolina to redeem her solemn pledges, not to submit to a tariff of discriminating dutics with a view either to direct or incidental protection, which we regard as unconstitutional and oppressive.

"That we believe it the duty of the Legislature, at its next session, to call a Convention of the State, to assemble not later than May, 1845, to which body shall be left the mode and measure of redress, and whose decision as representing the sovereignty of the State, we pledge ourselves to sustain."

This is a fair specimen of the feeling and sentiment expressed at public meetings and by a portion of the public press in that State. The recent tariff was pronounced "one of the most flagrant breaches of one of the commonest rules of honesty that ever has been perpetrated in the legislation of a free country. The compromise act was a pledge to the opponents of the tariff, and to every friend of the Union, that that kind of legislation which had endangered the peace of the country should be no more resorted to."

The project of a Convention of the Southern States to consult on some plan of resistance was proposed; but after some discussion through the public press, and after due deliberation, the scheme was abandoned. It was deemed the wiser policy to await the installment of the new administration.

At the next session of Congress, 1844-1845, the last under Mr. Tyler's administration, no effort was made to repeal or modify the tariff.

CHAPTER XV.

President Polk's messages on duties. Secretary Walker's report. Debate on the bill in the House-passed by the House. Debate in the Senate, and its passage.

THE inauguration of James K. Polk took place the 4th of March, 1845. In his Inaugural Address, he alludes to the subject of protection, thus:

In exercising this power [of taxation,] by levying a tariff of duties for the support of Government, the raising of revenue should be the object, and protection the incident. To reverse this principle, and make protection the object and revenue the incident, would be to inflict manifest injustice upon all other than the protected interests. In levying duties for revenue, it is doubtless proper to make such discriminations within the revenue principle, as will afford incidental protection to our home interests. Within the revenue limit, there is a discretion to discriminate; beyond that limit, the rightful exercise of the power is not conceded.

The largest portion of our people are agriculturists. Others are employed in manufactures, commerce, navigation, and the mechanic arts. To tax one branch of this home industry for the benefit of another, would be unjust. No one of these interests can rightfully claim an advantage over the others, or to be enriched by impoverishing the others. In exercising a sound discretion in levying discriminating duties within the limit prescribed, care should be taken that it be done in a manner not to benefit the wealthy few, at the expense of the toiling millions, by taxing lowest the luxuries of life or articles of superior quality and high price, which can be consumed only by the wealthy; and highest the necessaries of life, or articles of coarse quality and low price, which the poor and great mass of our people must consume. A spirit of mutual concession and compromise in adjusting its details should be cherished by every part of our wide spread country, as the only means of preserving harmony and a cheerful acquiescence of all in the operation of our revenue laws."

In his annual message to Congress in December, 1845, the

President recommended "suitable modifications and reductions of the rates of duty imposed by our tariff laws." He said that "the discriminations should be within the revenue standard, and be made with the view to raise money for the support of the Government;" and then proceeds to define the term revenue standard which is done in a manner perhaps never done before, if, indeed, the service had ever been attempted. The following is his language:

"It becomes important to understand distinctly what is meant by a revenue standard, the maximum of which should not be exceeded in the rates of duties imposed. It is conceded, and experience proves, that duties may be laid so high as to diminish or prohibit altogether the importation of any given article, and thereby lessen or destroy the revenue which, at lower rates, would be derived from its importation. Such duties exceed the revenue rates, and are not imposed to raise money for the support of Government. If Congress levy a duty for revenue, of one per cent. on a given article, it will produce a given amount of money to the Treasury, and will incidentally and necessarily afford protection or advantage, to the amount of one per cent., to the home manufacturer of a similar or like article over the importer. If the duty be raised to ten per cent., it will produce a greater amount of money, and afford greater protection. If it be still raised to twenty, twenty-five, or thirty per cent., and if, as it is raised, the revenue derived from it is found to be increased, the protection or advantage will also be increased; but if it be raised to thirty-one per cent., and it is found that the revenue produced at that rate is less than at thirty per cent., it ceases to be a revenue duty. The precise point in the ascending scale of duties at which it is ascertained from experience that the revenue is greatest, is the maximum rate of duty which can be laid for the bona fide purpose of collecting money for the support of Government. To raise the duties higher than that point, and thereby diminish the amount collected, is to levy them for protection merely, and not for revenue. As long, then, as Congress may gradually increase the rate of duty on a given article, and the revenue is increased by such increase of duty, they are within the reve nue standard. When they go beyond that point, and, as they increase the duties, the revenue is diminished or destroyed, the act ceases to have for its object the raising of money to support Government, but is for protection merely.

"It does not follow that Congress should levy the highest