><

the American system, looking to the protection of do- from the market. While this struggle continues, the mestic manufactures, have given rise to two new doctrines duty is paid by the foreigner or by the importing mer of political economy-one of them advanced by the friends, and one by the opponents of that system-both, at first sight, highly paradoxical, both appearing, upon close examination, to be not entirely without foundation, and both, in the ardor of disputation, relied upon, it is believed, beyond just and rational warrant.

The opinion advanced by the friends of the protective system is, that the tendency of aggravating duties of impost upon articles imported from abroad, and have no competition with similar articles of domestic manufacture, is to reduce, and not to increase, the price of the articles themselves.

The opinion sustained by the free trade party is, that the great mass of the duties of impost is paid, not by the consumer of the dutied articles, but by the producer of the article exported, to pay for the article upon which the impost was levied.

chant here. The purchaser and consumer here are relieved from the burden of the duty, and may perhaps obtain the goods cheaper than if they were exonerated from the duty altogether. But this relief is purchased by injustice, at the expense not only of the foreign manufac turer, but of the importing merchant, till the duty becomes prohibitory, and then the foreign manufacturer, the importing merchant, the shipper, the mariner, and the whole class of citizens to whom the importation gave occupation and subsistence, suffer by the extinction of the trade, precisely to the same extent that the profits of the domestic manufacturer are enhanced by the bounty paid to him for his competition with the foreigner. This strug gle, if the statements often made by the friends of the tariff are correct, is sometimes carried on by the manufacturers to a very extravagant and desperate extent. It has even gravely been asserted that, upon the passage of the The doctrine that duties of impost cheapen the price of tariff act of 1828, the British owners of forges and furthe articles upon which they are levied, seems to conflict naces reduced the price of their iron not less than eight with the first dictates of common sense. But its support- dollars a ton, to retain the control of the American marers first appeal with confidence to the fact, that most of ket--an operation by which, as has been shown by the the articles upon which additional duties were levied by memorial of the Free Trade Convention to Congress, they the tariff of 1828, have since that time considerably fallen must have incurred a loss of near five millions of dollars a in price and then they argue that it must be so, by the year, to retain the profits upon yearly sales to the amount excitement of competition in the market. It is certainly of perhaps two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It is contrary to the natural course of things, that an addition very certain, therefore, that the reduction of eight dolto the cost should be a reduction of the price of an article. lars a ton upon the price of British iron in 1828, though True it is that the duty gives a spur to the production of contemporaneous with our tariff act, was in nowise conthe article at home. The price of any article in the mar- nected with it in the relation of cause and effect. We ket must always depend upon the relative condition of the may, and probably do, often greatly exaggerate to ourdemand and supply at the time and place of sale. But selves the immensity of exertions and of sacrifices made very slight variations of time, of place, affect, often to a by the British manufacturers to retain and preserve in very great extent, the relative proportion of the demand their own hands the control of foreign markets. But and supply, and, consequently, the price of the article. that such exertions and sacrifices are and will be made by No safe conclusion can be drawn from the fact that, sub- large manufacturing establishments, in which extensive sequently to the tariff of 1828, the prices of the articles capitals are employed, cannot be doubted. Whenever upon which the duties were then increased, have fallen, they are made, and so long as they are continued, to coununless from other circumstances it can be shown that the teract the effect of tariff duties in foreign countries, the increase of the duty was the cause of the fall in price; nor duties are paid by them, and the purchaser of the goods will it be sufficient to prove so strange a paradox, to ac- in the foreign country obtains them freed from the duty, count for it by the excitement of competition. Wherever at the expense of the foreign manufacturer. there is a profitable market, there will be competition. career of losing trade cannot continue long. In the comHad the tariff of 1828 never been enacted, the competi-petitions between different lines of steamboats and stages, tion in our markets would have been as great, and would we have sometimes seen the rival interests underbidding have been as effectual to reduce the prices as it had been each other, till the traveller has been treated gratuitously with the aggravation of the duties. In that competition with his fare. But the result even of a very short contest our own manufactures might not indeed have shared, but it would have existed in all its force between those who furnished the supply, and could not have failed to reduce the prices to the level of the moderate profit necessary to

the existence of the trade.

But this

of that nature proves utterly ruinous to one, if not to both the contending establishments. And so it is, and must be, with any reduction of price in the market upon articles furnished partly by importation from abroad, and partly by domestic industry, which ensues upon the levy of an additional duty upon the article imported from abroad.

But the duty upon the article imported from abroad enabled the domestic producer to enter into a competition The incidental effect of competition in the market, exwith the importer from abroad. So long as this competi- cited, on the part of the domestic manufacturer, by the tion continues, the duty operates as a bounty or premium aggravation of duty upon the corresponding article imto the domestic manufacturer. But by whom is it paid? ported from abroad, to reduce the price of the article, Certainly by the purchaser of the article, whether of fo- must be transient and momentary. The general and reign or of domestic manufacture. The duty constitutes permanent effect must be to increase the price of the a part of the price of the whole mass of the article in the article to the extent of the additional duty, and it is then market. It is substantially paid upon the article of do- paid by the consumer. If it were not so-if the general mestic manufacture as well as upon that of foreign produc-effect of adding to a duty were to reduce the price of the tion. Upon one it is a bounty; upon the other a burden; article upon which it is levied, the converse of the proand the repeal of the tax must operate as an equivalent position would also be true; and the operation for increas reduction of the price of the article, whether foreign or ing the price of the domestic article would be to repeal domestic. We say, so long as the importation continues, the duty upon the same article imported--an experiment the duty must be paid by the purchaser of the article. which the friends of our internal industry will not be de Some portion of it, however, is for a short interval of time sirous of making. We cannot subscribe, therefore, to paid by the foreigner against whose trade the domestic the doctrine that the duties of impost, protective of our competitor is brought forward. It affects him as a reduc- own manufactures, are paid by the foreign merchant or tion of his profits, which he endures for a time, but under manufacturer. Nor can we more readily believe that they the pressure of which he is finally compelled to withdraw are paid by the purchaser of the articles exported from

our country to pay for the importations which we receive will be doing no injustice to more than one distinguished and influential statesman of the South to affirm that his

in return.

It is contended that, by excluding the foreign manufac-mind has been made up to this result. Nor is it possible turer of cotton from our markets, we disable him from to observe the political movements in progress at this purchasing the raw material produced in our own coun- time in the part of the country where the excitement try; but if, by the exclusion of the foreigner, the effect against the protective system principally prevails, withof the duty is to bring into the market our own manufac-out believing that the effort of the leading spirits among turer in his place, the market for the raw material is in no- them is to turn the current of popular sentiment to that wise diminished--it has only changed its place. Instead conclusion--to calculate the value of the Union. of shipping his cotton to Liverpool or Glasgow, the Southern planter sends it to Providence or Boston. The demand for the article is not diminished by the diminution of importations from abroad. Whatever falling off there may be of shipping for foreign markets, is supplied by the increase of enrolled tonnage and the coasting trade.

But if this high ground is taken in one quarter of the yet common country, what choice or alternative is left to the other? The South, in the person of her champion, says--I am a planter and cultivate my land by slaves-I cannot quit the soil-I cannot change my occupation--my slaves are my subsistence, as well as my property, and they cannot be made to work at manufactures--my first want is to sell my crop as dear as possible, and my second, to buy manufactured articles as cheap as possible, in return. All protection of domestic manufactures, by duties levied upon those of my customers, who purchase my plantation's produce, and work it up into manufactured articles for my use, is an invasion of my rights, a depredation upon my property; I cannot manufacture myself, and I will not suffer you to manufacture for me; I prefer to purchase the fabric from the foreigner, to whom I supply the raw material. Manufactures are necessary for your subsistence, because you have a cold climate, a barren soil, and no slaves; but I will not bear a tax upon the negro cloths of Manchester, to enable you to supply me the same article equally cheap, because your gain must be my loss, and because your prosperity must in the nature of things be incompatible with mine.

The argument of the South has been sometimes stated in another form. It has been said that the portion of the impost duties paid by the inhabitants of the Northern and manufacturing States, instead of being burdensome, is actually profitable to them. That to the manufacturing interests themselves, instead of being a tax, it is a bounty, a gratuitous donation to them by the nation, made at the expense of those portions of the Union where there are no manufacturing establishments. A contrasted view is taken of the population, soil, and climate of the Northern and Southern sections of the Union. In the North, it is said the climate is rugged--the soil barren-the whole population white and free. The land will not feed its inhabitants. They are driven by necessity to the ocean, to the wilderness, or to the establishment of manufactures. These are their only resources for arresting the tide of emigration. In the South, the climate is mild and genial, the soil fertile, and the population divided in nearly equal In this view of the subject, the interest of the South is numbers, into black and white-masters and slaves. The identified with that of the foreign rival and competitor of cultivation of the land is performed by the colored popu-the Northern manufacturer, and against him, and for his lation. The planter cannot change his occupation. He ruin the Southern planter and the British manufacturer is rooted to the soil. Manufactures cannot be established, are colleagued. How strange the association! How deepbecause slaves are both morally and physically disabled ly it conflicts with the whole history of our revolutionary from working in them. They are, besides, very apt to set war! What a satire it speaks upon all our institutions! fire to the buildings, as the experience of certain Yankees It cannot be true. There are theories in politics and has taught them, who, in defiance of the laws of nature, morals, as well as in the science of mind, the fallacy of did recently attempt to set up some manufacture in the which is far more easily detected in the absurdity of the neighborhood of Charleston. The duties levied then conclusions at which they arrive, than in the process of upon articles of foreign manufacture for the protection reason by which they travel. When Mandeville, by a of domestic industry, must therefore always operate to commentary upon the Table of the Bees, undertook to the benefit of the Northern and to the injury of the South-prove that private vices were public benefits, he made an ern section of the Union. They are irreconcilable in- ingenious book, which has perhaps never been very satisterests; and the planter of the South cannot and will not factorily answered, but to the conclusions of which no submit to the sacrifice of his interest for the benefit of the man of correct moral feeling can assent. When BerkNorthern manufacturer, for that would reduce him to a state of colonial vassalage.

ley, from the deepest recesses of philosophy, raised an argument to prove that mind has no conclusive evidence of This argument is approached with painful reluctance. the existence of matter, he was said to have demonstrated It is believed to be here candidly stated; and as it has beyond all possibility of reply that which no man in his been time after time repeated by some of the ablest and senses can believe. When we are told that the cotton most intelligent s atesmen of the South, and as it is be- planter of the South, and the manufacturer of Pennsyllieved to contain the whole substance of the Southern vania, or of New England, have interests so diametrically argument against the protective system, it will be proper and irreconcilably opposite to each other, that they canto examine it in the spirit of candor and of kindness, dic-not remain permanently associated as members of the tated no less by a feeling of sympathy for our brethren and same community, we answer, in the language of the Rocountrymen, than by an anxious solicitude for the prescr-man moralist and poet, "Incredulus odi." We disbelieve, vation of the Union. and we have a doctrine which appears to us to contain, in

The first remark which obtrudes itself upon the mind itself, a satire upon human nature; or, at least, to solve itupon the statement of this argument, is, that it strikes self into that melancholy and exploded theory of Hobbes, directly at the heart of the Union itself. It presents two that the state of nature between man and man is a state great, transcendent, opposite, and irreconcilable in- of war. For were it true that the interests of the planter terests, in deadly hostility to each other; each pervading and the manufacturer were irreconcilable with each the two great Atlantic sections of the country, each operat- other, as members of the same community, what must be ing within its appropriate domain with the irresistible the necessary and unavoidable consequence of the dissoluforce of a law of nature, and leading to the fatal and una- tion of the tie between them as fellow-citizens, representvoldable conclusion that between two large masses of man-ed in the same legislative assemblies, authorized to enact kind, thus situated in natural conflict with each other, no laws binding upon them both? For suppose that combond of union under one and the same Government, even mon tie to be dissolved, and what would be the relations partaking of a federal character, can be maintained. It then subsisting between them? They would remain in

VOL. VIII-m

the same relative geographical position to each other, early came to the conclusion that the modifications suitaeach still employed in the same occupations, and with the ble to the adjustment of the tariff should be prepared same irreconcilable and opposite interests, without that and presented to the House first from the Department of link of union between them, which had existed by their the Treasury.

representation in one common Legislature: with the im- Two resolutions to that effect were adopted by the pulse of mutual repulsion, aggravated by their separa- House in January last, and the report of the Secretary tion, and with all the principles of attraction dissolved was presented to the House, accompanied by the project and vanished into air. Could it be otherwise than that of a bill, which has formed the basis of that now prethe irreconcilable and opposite interest should speedily sented to the House for their consideration. A few refret and kindle into war, and then how would their rela- marks upon the character of the bill, as projected by the tions stand? Must not the weaker party, on which side Secretary, and upon the modifications of some of its prosoever it might fall, fly for assistance to a foreign Power? visions, by which it may be rendered, as the committee Nay, are there not elements in the very nature of the believe, more acceptable to the House and to the country, contest itself, which must drive the planter nation, severed will close the present preport. from their present associates, to Great Britain for alliance? The draught of the bill presented by the Secretary of the and would not that alliance be but another name for pro- Treasury was prepared in a spirit of compromise between tection Must not recolonization prove the inevitable the two great and seemingly conflicting interests chiefly to doom of that nation so constituted and so neighbored? be affected by the reduction of the revenue. In this purAnd what next? The irreconcilable and opposite in- pose it was to be expected that it could not be altogether terests remain in all their force, and with redoubled ag- satisfactory to either. Its provisions have, accordingly, gravation. War, inextinguishable or exterminating war, been considered as of questionable policy by different between the brothers of this severed continent, and a members of the committee, under the impression, on the foreign umpire to perpetuate or to adjust their strife, one part, that the reduction of the revenue contemplated not according to the interests of either of the parties, but by it was too extensive, and, on the other, not extensive according to her own. To her own, necessarily and una, enough. It proposes to reduce the revenue to be raised voidably hostile to both. The whole experience of man- from duties on imports to twelve millions of dollars, and, kind has proved that no nation can ever maintain either thereby, to remit of the existing duties upwards of ten independence or freedom, dependent upon the power of millions. This reduction, in the view of the manufacturanother. And in this case there is an element of weak-ing interest of the country, an interest intimately and ness, of discord, and of desolation, beyond those which closely connected with its internal improvement, and the have heretofore operated in the history of mankind, in interest specially represented in this House by this comthe case of a nation defending itself against another, by mittee, is deemed to be excessive. It proposes a diminuthe assistance of a third. To this the committee will tion of revenue of more than the sum liberated from its barely allude, without expatiating upon its character or its present appropriation for the payment of the national consequences. They would simply suggest to those who debt. A majority of this committee are of opinion, founddeny the power of this confederated Government to pro-ed upon principles submitted to the consideration of the tect, by the energy and the resources of the whole nation, House in this report, that no reduction should be made, at a great and comprehensive, but not universal interest, least at the present time, equal to the whole amount of that there is such an interest most deeply their own, the annual appropriation thus liberated, that is, ten milprotected by the constitution and laws of the United lions of dollars. Upon this opinion, however, they will not States, and effectively protected by them alone. Among now further enlarge. The project in the draught of the bill the consequences from which a statesman of either por- is considered by other members of the committee as exception of this Union cannot avert his eyes in contemplating tionable, for the opposite reason that the reduction is, in that which must ensue from its severance, is the con- their opinion, not extensive enough. Under this variety dition in which that great interest would be found im- of views, the committee have made several modifications mediately after the separation should have been consum- in the bill proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, mated. The committee will refrain from all further ob- and now report for the consideration of the House a bill, servation upon them. Representing, as they do, the manu- not such as would, in its details, be satisfactory to any one facturing interest of the country, they have been most member of the committee, but as that upon which alone anxiously desirous, in the bill which they should present they have been able to unite a majority of their own voices. to the consideration of the House, to adapt its provisions The first and greatest alteration of the existing system not only to the interests, but to the feelings of that por- of revenue proposed in the draught of the Secretary, is that tion of the community which has considered itself most relating to the articles of wool and manufactured woolaggrieved by the existing tariff. It has at the same time, lens; articles involving interests perhaps equal to all the however, been their equally anxious desire to make all other manufacture in the Union put together, cotton only the concessions required for the accomplishment of this excepted. With regard to these articles, the draught of the object, without any essential sacrifice of the interest en- Secretary proposes not only a very great reduction in the trusted to them. For the attainment of these objects, amount of duties to be levied upon the imported articles, their attention was in the first instance turned to the Ex- but a total change in the system of collection, substituting ecutive Department of the Government; the department ad valorem duties in the place of the graduated minimum especially charged with the duty of taking care that the established in the preceding tariff laws. A change, in the laws should be faithfully executed; the department there- estimation of many of the principal manufacturers of those fore liable to be most deeply affected by the great change articles, more formidable to the prosperity of their estain the whole system of our revenues, and of their collec-blishments than the reduction of the duties themselves. tion, to be effected upon the extinction of the national The committee, after a full and deliberate consideradebt. In the multiplied conflicts of interests and of feel- tion of the arguments submitted to them upon this quesings, affecting every portion of the community on the ap- tion by several of the most eminent of the manufacturers, proach of this event, it was believed to be impossible to and after giving them the most friendly and respectful compose them into any semblance of harmony, unless attention, have found their conclusions concurring with upon some general plan, proceeding from or sanctioned those of the Secretary of the Treasury, that the system by the Executive head of the nation. of graduated minimums upon the manufactures of woolSharing in the diversities of opinion prevailing in the lens must and ought to be abolished. For the reasons community upon all these subjects, the committee very upon which this opinion is founded, they refer the House

Hence

to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury accom- the real prices of the articles to be adjusted between panying the draught of the bill, to which they will add con- them at the rate of the real value of the article. siderations of perhaps yet deeper influence upon their it is that frauds to so extensive an amount have been deminds. This system appears, to a majority of the com-tected at our custom-houses, and that frauds to a much mittee, to constitute the greatest and the most reasonable greater amount have probably passed without detection. objection of the South and of Southern interest against There is, besides, in the system of graduated minimums, an the existing tariff. The committee cannot perceive how appearance of indirection little consonant with the frank or in what manner it can be essential to the protection of open-heartedness of republican institutions. It has the the domestic manufacturer. The graduation must neces- air as if the legislators of the nation, in taxing their consarily operate in one of two ways-either as a prohibition stituents, were unwilling to let them know the real amount upon the importation of all articles included between the of that taxation. This has been one of the severest rerates of the respective minimums, or by laying a duty proaches cast upon the tariff by its adversaries; and upon the articles of intermediate value far higher than the committee are anxiously desirous of taking away from that apparent upon the face of the law, and thereby those adversaries their most forcible argument. But, in effecting an artificial inequality between the burdens im- renouncing the system of graduated minimums, it is not posed upon articles of the same kind, and the same value, their intention to abandon the protection of the manufacand an equality of burden alike unnatural upon articles turing interest. Nor was that the intention of the Secreof different value, but of the same kind. Thus, for ex-tary of the Treasury in the preparation of his bill. The ample, a square yard of broadcloth, of one dollar's cost impression of the manufacturers, however, so far as it has at the place of exportation, pays a duty of forty-eight come to the knowledge of the committee, is, that the recents, while, if the cost at the place of exportation be duction of the amount of duties upon the article of manubut one dollar and one cent, it is taken and deemed to factured woollens is too great for the establishments of have cost two dollars and a half, and pays a duty of one this country to bear. Such is the impression of a majodollar and twenty cents, the difference between them rity of the committee; and they have accordingly modibeing that between forty-eight per cent, and one hun-fied that part of the Secretary's draught. Whether the dred and twenty per cent.; while the article of one dollar amount of duty as reported by the committee is itself suf and one cent's cost pays the same duty as the article ficient to preserve the principle of protection as applied costing two dollars and a half. It appears to be impos- to the woollen manufactures, it will be for the wisdom of sible that the practical operation of such a system should the House to determine. It has been the sincere desire not be unjust; and it contains within itself the seeds of those of the committee at once to conciliate the interests and frauds upon the revenue, of which there have been such feelings of the South, not only by the abandonment of heavy complaints on the part of the American manufac- the system of graduated minimums, but by the admission of turers. The report of the Secretary notices these frauds, coarse wools free of duty, and by a corresponding reducand the difficulty, if not impossibility, of providing against tion upon the duties of the article manufactured from them. Measures for that purpose were reported by this them. In this they have also consulted the interest of the committee at an early period of the session, in the form of American wool-grower, with whose products the coarse a bill, since recommitted to them by the order of the article imported from abroad cannot come in competition, House-measures reported by the committee with great and of the manufacturer in whose favor the free admission reluctance, but deemed indispensable by the manufac- of the raw material must likewise operate. On the imturers themselves, as they still are by the committee, in ported wool with which that of native growth must stand the event that the system of graduated minimums should in competition, they propose a reduction which they bebe continued. For those frauds, the article of manufac-lieve will be sufficient to retain in the hands of the Ametured woollens, of cost nearly intermediate between two rican wool-grower the command of the market. successive minimums, affords opportunities and temptations, which neither rigor of legislation, nor vigilance of execution, can prevent.

In all the other modifications of the Secretary's bill, proposed by the committee, both with regard to wool and woollens, and to all other dutiable articles, the object of The measures in the bill reported by the committee the committee has been to reduce largely those articles were some of them of a character troublesome, vexatious, which are not in competition with our own manufactures, and expensive, to the importing merchant; and the ne- and very little, or not at all, those that are. On this princessity which the committee believed there would be for ciple the bill now reported deviates from the draught of the them under the continuance of the graduated minimums Secretary in the article of cotton twist yarn and thread, was among the most cogent reasons which produced the which is excepted from the general duty of twenty-five conviction upon the minds of the majority that the sys- per cent. on all manufactures of cotton, and prescribes tem itself ought to be abandoned. One of the effects that the cotton manufactures to be valued at thirty and which has been produced already is the transfer of the im- thirty-five cents per square yard shall not be of those exporting trade from the American merchant, our fellow-ceeding those values respectively. They have also affixcitizen, to the exporting foreigner in Great Britain. ed a specific duty of twelve and a half cents per square The valuation of the article by its cost at the place of yard on oil cloths, included in the draught of the Secretary's exportation enables the exporter to fix the cost in his in- bill with floor matting, at a duty of thirty per cent. ad voice much at his discretion; and although that discretion valorem. On unmanufactured hemp the committee have may occasionally be restrained by the administration of reduced the sum proposed in the Secretary's draught to the oath required, yet, as it has long been settled by the thirty-five dollars per ton; it having been amply ascersages of British jurisprudence that a fraud upon the reve-tained that this article, as imported from abroad, does in nue laws of a foreign country is no offence against the nowise enter into competition with that raised in our laws of England, the mere administration of an oath, un- own country; and it being a raw material, essential to all sanctioned by any practical penalty, furnishes but an indif- our manufactures of cordage and sail duck. In varying ferent security for the correctness of the invoices at the from the draught of the Secretary on the articles of silk, the place of exportation. The committee have received in- committee have raised the duty on those coming from beformation from an American importing merchant of un-yond the Cape of Good Hope from twenty-five per cent. questionable character, that offers have been made to his to thirty ad valorem, reducing other manufactures of silk agent in England for the supply of the manufactured ar- from twenty per cent. to eighteen, and excepting sewing ticle to any amount that he might desire, and at any cost silk, which is raised to forty per cent. in consideration of the in the attested invoice which he might see fit to prescribe, incipient manufacture of that article in our own country.

On the article of sugar, the committee would have been of the committee have done full justice to the intentions induced to decline adopting the reduction proposed by of that officer. They have perceived in the draught a spirit the draught of the Secretary, but for the introduction into and temper entirely congenial to their own, an earnest deit of the article of sirup at the same rate of duty as that sire to conciliate and harmonize the adverse feelings and upon brown sugar, which the committee believed would interests of the two divisions of the Union. Unable to operate as a compensation to the manufacturers of the concur with him in all the details of his draughted bill, they domestic article for the diminution of the duty upon the have felt it their duty to depart from them as seldom as imported sugars themselves. possible, consistent with their obligations to the interest On the article of salt, the committee have not deemed which it is their special charge to maintain. That their it expedient to propose any reduction of the existing du-own views will in all respects obtain the sanction of this ties; they having already within the last two years been House, or the approbation of the country, they cannot reduced by one-half; and the committee having satisfac-flatter themselves; but they would reluctantly resign the tory evidence that the duties could not be further reduced hope, that the principle of compromise which forms the without injuriously affecting various manufactures, both vital spirit of the bill now reported, may be quickened in on the seacoast of Massachusetts, and in the interior of its progress through this and the other House of Congress New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio. They did to a solid adjustment of the great controversy which now not, however, feel themselves justified in proposing the agitates the nation. In consenting to report this bill, every restoration of the former duty of twenty cents per bushel, member who assented to the measure was conscious of though urged with great force of argument thereto by a sacrificing considerable portions, if not of the interest memorial from sundry citizens of the commonwealth of most deserving to be cherished by him, at least of those Virginia. With respect to the duties upon glass, the interests as understood by those to whom they are of committee have adopted the duties proposed by the draught deepest concern. In considering its various provisions, of the Secretary, with the exception of those upon apo- they would ask of every member of the House, before thecaries and perfumery vials, an article of which there judging of the result, to make the allowance due to this are extensive manufactories in the city of Philadelphia, disposition; and they would hope the appeal may not be and elsewhere; and they have introduced a distinction be- made in vain, which asks him to assume a portion of the tween different articles of this description, of very different same disposition himself. The committee believe this to value, but upon which, heretofore, there has been no cor-be one of those occasions upon which nothing less than a responding discrimination in the duties levied upon them. spirit embracing the welfare of the whole nation can deThe duty proposed by the Secretary, of twelve and a half termine that which is due to all its parts. The measure, cents per gallon on olive oil in casks, the committee have like all those which have preceded it on the same subject, thought it proper to raise to twenty cents per gallon; this is experimental, and even if it should fail to restore enarticle coming in immediate competition with the product tirely that harmony in which the happiness of the Union of our whale fisheries. can alone consist, they cherish the belief that it may be

APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES.

From the articles proposed by the Secretary to be ex-matured into an act of legislation destined to lead hereafempt from duty, the committee have thought proper to ter to a final and more complete re-establishment of the except sidearms, quills prepared, and brass in plates, blue common sympathies which carried us through the conflict vitriol, calomel, corrosive sublimate, macaroni; and among for the establishment of our national independence. the articles included under the general description of "articles coming under the duty of twelve and a half per cent.," they have also excepted bichromate of potash, prussiate of potash, chromate of potash, nitrate of lead, aqua fortis, and tartaric acid. And they have excepted also from the non-enumerated articles now paying an ad valorem duty of fifteen per cent. tartar emetic and Rochelle salts: the articles thus excepted being extensively manufactured in this country.

To the provisions in the fifth and sixth sections of the Secretary's draught relating to cash payments or optional credits at three and six months, the committee have added wool to the manufactures of wool as specified by the Secretary. The seventh section of the draught proposing a levy of a duty of one and a half per cent. on the public sales of manufactures of wool, the committee have deemed it advisable to strike out, unwilling to accumulate a duty upon sales at auction now levied by several of the States of this Union.

IN SENATE U. S. April 5, 1832.

Mr. WEBSTER made the following report:

The select committee to whom was referred, on the 27th of March, the bill from the House of Representatives, entitled "An act for the apportionment of representatives among the several States according to the fifth census, ," have had the subject under consideration, and now ask leave to report:

It re

This bill, like all laws on the same subject, must be regarded as of an interesting and delicate nature. spects the distribution of political power among the States of the Union. It is to determine the number of voices which, for ten years to come, each State is to possess in the popular branch of the Legislature. In the opinion of the committee, there can be few or no questions which The committee have added to the draught of the Secre- it is more desirable should be settled on just, fair, and tary a section providing that the pound sterling shall here- satisfactory principles, than this; and, availing themselves after be rated at the value of four dollars and eighty cents; of the benefit of the discussion which the bill has already the reason for which will be obvious to the House. They undergone in the Senate, they have given to it a renewed have likewise added a section, providing that from and and anxious consideration. The result is, that, in their after the passage of the act the expressed juice of the opinion, the bill ought to be amended. Seeing the diffi sugar cane, and sirup for making sugar, shall pay the same culties which belong to the whole subject, they are fully duties as brown sugar, and that crude and mineral salt convinced that the bill has been framed and passed in the shall pay the same duties as salt. The object of the sec-other House with the sincerest desire to overcome those tion, inserted with the concurrence of the Secretary of difficulties, and to enact a law which should do as much the Treasury, being to take away means of evading the justice as possible to all the States. But the committee duties on sugar and salt, which have been practised, and are constrained to say that this object appears to them which there is reason to believe are more extensively not to have been obtained. The unequal operation of contemplated. the bill on some of the States, should it become a law,

In these deviations from the draught of a bill reported by seems to the committee most manifest; and they cannot the Secretary of the Treasury to the House, the majority but express a doubt whether its actual apportionment of