CHAPTER V.

Attempt to revise the tariff of 1816. Petitions. Bills reported. Debate on the bill. Passed by the House. Defeated in the Senate by postponement.

THE tariff of 1816 proved less favorable to the manufacturing interest than had been generally anticipated. Therefore, at the session of 1819-1820, numerous memorials, from a number of States, were again presented to Congress, asking for the further protection of that interest. Among these memorials was one from a convention of "the friends of national industry, assembled in the city of New York, to take into consideration the prostrate condition of our manufactures, and to petition Congress for their relief, composed of delegates from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio;" and another from the American Society of the city of New York, for the encouragement of domestic manufactures. The following are some of the views and facts presented by the memorialists:

The people of this country, they said, after having enjoyed the benefit of an over-proportion of the trade of the world, found themselves in a state of great embarrassment. Our commerce was greatly prostrated; our shipping had sunk in value to one-half of its original cost; real estate was depreciated; merchants, manufacturers, and farmers, were reduced to bankruptcy; many mechanics and artists were unemploy ed; and our great staples were so reduced in price as most seriously to affect the interests of the agriculturists, and to diminish the means of paying for our importations. We were deeply indebted to foreign nations, notwithstanding we had transmitted to them as much of our surplus productions as they furnished us a market for, and a large amount of our Government and bank stock, which subjected us to an oppressive annual tax for interest, probably equal to the amount of the civil expenses of our Government, which adds to the impoverishing drain of our specie. Our cities and vil lages were filled with the manufactured productions of other nations, by which we had been ruinously drained of our wealth.

The petitioners refer to Portugal, Russia, Austria, England, and France, as furnishing examples illustrating the beneficial effects of the encouragement of domestic manufactures by bounties and duties, amounting, in some cases, even to the prohibition of rival articles of other nations. And, on the other hand, they refer to Spain to show the effects of the opposite policy. She had, for centuries, with those boundless resources which were lavished on her in vain, nourished the industry of other nations, and often, with those treasures, squandered for their manufactures, fed the armies that covered her fields with desolation, and shed disgrace on her arms. The mass of her subjects, unprotected in their industry, were in a state of distress and misery; although under a wise Government, some centuries ago, Spain was the most manufacturing nation in the world. Even yet, two or three of her provinces, where industry was protected, were as prosperous and industrious as any part of Europe.

The late war with Great Britain, and the events which immediately preceded it, produced, in many of our reflecting citizens, a due sense of their best and most lasting interests. With a rapidity unexampled in the history of any other people, a large portion of their capital was transferred from commercial to manufacturing pursuits. The value of goods manufactured in the United States, as taken from the marshal's returns, amounted, as early as 1810, to upwards of $172,000,000, which value was greatly increased during the late war.

The peace of Europe was attended with ruinous consequences to us our infant manufactures were blighted in the bud; the spirit of speculation spread through our country, seducing her votaries from the paths of quiet and laborious industry, by promises of sudden wealth. But it was soon found that the commerce of 1815 and 1816 was not the commerce of 1806 and 1807: the nations by whose calamities we had flourished, whose impoverishment had been our gain, were now at peace with each other, and returning with eager activity to the employments of social life; our vessels were no longer wanted to convey their products, nor to supply them with ours. Cherishing and depending on their own resources, they have furnished us a useful and honorable lesson in the encouragement, support, and extension of domestic, and salutary restrictions on the importation of foreign manufactures. An imitation of their policy, in this respect, your memorialists believe to be indispensable to the prosperity and independence of our country.

To remove the embarrassments of the country, and to restore life and vigor to our almost expiring manufactures, they recommended three measures :-

First. To abolish credit on import duties. Since credits on duties were first established, the state of the country had changed. Slowly recovering from the effects of a desolating war, almost destitute of money and commercial connections, it was necessary to aid the first efforts of enterprise. This measure was therefore wise and salutary. The weakness of our internal resources produced a dependence on imposts for the support of Government. But how great the change. From a population of three, to ten millions; from an annihilated commerce, to one that spreads it canvass on every sea; from a state of agriculture very little exceeding our own daily wants, to a surplus production exceeding $80,000,000 a year; from an almost total want of manufactures, to an actual invested manufacturing capital of cotton and woolen goods alone exceeding $50,000,000.

Our commerce was at first carried on by resident merchants, whose prudence and experience restrained importa tions within due bounds; credits on the duties afforded them facilities which their situation required. But for some years past, and especially since the universal peace in Europe, and the conclusion of our late war, these regular traders have been supplanted by foreign merchants and manufacturers, or desperate speculators, whom the credit on duties has enabled. and induced to inundate our markets with foreign goods, producing the most pernicious effects on our mercantile stability and the prosperity of our manufactories. It may also be here remarked, that the operation of this credit on imposts is to create a capital for new importations. For, let us suppose that four importations, to the amount of $100,000 each, be made in one year, at the average of 25 per cent. duty, the sum of about $100,000 is left to trade with in the hands of the importer, with the ultimate risk to Government of the loss of the whole. A credit of eight, ten, and twelve months, increases the facilities of the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain for carrying into effect their hostile purpose of extirpating every germ of manufactures among us.

These consequences, injurious as they are, are exceeded by those which arise from the trade to China and the East Indies; a trade, encouraged as it is at present, of the most exhausting and pernicious effects. The long credit of from one to two years allowed by law on duties on this trade, we

are sincerely persuaded, produces the ruinous effects of drain. ing us of our specie, and, in the case of most of the East India goods, overwhelming our markets with inferior fabrics, which, from their apparent cheapness, meet a ready sale, while the much superior products of our own industry and skill must be sacrificed at a ruinous loss, or remain unsold in the hands of the manufacturer.

Secondly. To impose a restrictive duty on sales at auction. In the extent to which they have arrived among us, they are greatly injurious, not only to the fair and regular dealer, but to the community at large. Large quantities of silk, woolen, cotton, and other goods are manufactured in Europe and the East Indies, expressly for sale at auction in the United States. These goods are deficient in length and breadth, and of flimsy texture; yet so well finished to the eye, that they generally escape detection until they reach the consumer. For such base fabrics have our people, for years past, been exorbitantly taxed, to the great injury of our own hard-struggling manufacturers. As an example of the enormous extent of this business, the petitioners say, that, as appears from the returns of the auctioneers, their sales of foreign goods amounted, in 1818, to the prodigious sum of $14,000,000; from which they judge the sales in the United States to be at least $30,000,000. And they are satisfied, from past experience, that the sales of domestic goods at auction are as deleterious as those of foreign merchandise ; as they tend to encourage the manufacture of inferior fabrics, and thereby injure the reputation of American fabrics generally. They therefore recommend a duty of 10 per cent. on such sales, in order to diminish them.

Thirdly. To aller and increase the duties on imported goods. And the petitioners give a list of the articles which, in their opinion, ought to be charged with increased duties, and specify the particular rate of duty which they think ought to be imposed on each article.

In favor of the policy which they recommend, they say: The farmers and planters would largely participate in the benefits of this system. The planter would have a steady market for his raw material, not subject to those destructive fluctuations which have produced such extensive ruin within the present year; and the farmer would have an equally steady and increasing demand for the productions of his farm, many of which, especially in the interior of the country, and in the Western States, will not bear transportation to

market. This advantage is so palpable, that we shall only refer, in illustration of it, to various towns and villages throughout the United States, in the neighborhood of which, lands and their productions rose 100 or 200 per cent. in value, in consequence of the extensive establishment of manufactures, and, by their decay, have fallen below their original value.

In further support of their recommendations, the memorialists give a comparative view of the American and British tariffs in a few articles:

In order to protect the cultivation of cotton, the great staple of the country, by securing to it a preference in foreign markets, and to shield it from the ruinous fluctuations incident to a competition with the overwhelming quantities and inferior qualities from India and other parts of the world, and to afford security to the cotton manufacture, and especially of the coarser fabrics, already established, one of these memorials prayed that Congress would restrict the importation of cotton goods to such as were manufactured wholly from the raw material produced in the United States, and increase the duties on all cottons of foreign growth.

Petitions were also presented, asking for the further protection of boot and shoemakers, paper manufacturers, book printers, and others.

Mr. Baldwin, of Pa., Chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, reported a bill, "to regulate the duties on imports and tunnage, and for other purposes." This bill passed the House at a late period of the session, and was taken up in