H. OF R.]

The Tariff.

[JUNE 28, 1832.

most useful and productive class, usually known by the name of dandies. Finally, sir, there is a long list of dyestuffs and other materials for domestic manufactures, (including the indigo of the poor constituents of my colleague, for which he endeavored in vain to obtain the incidental protection of a low revenue duty,) which are exclusively consumed in the manufacturing States.

and I know it to be the opinion of some of the most intel- report, but the palaces of those nobles who have become ligent of our merchants, that it is fully equal to an increase wealthy by having the earnings of the poor transferred to of ten per centum. Assuming the annual amount of the them through the agency of this system of legislation. importation of woollens to be ten millions, it follows that Then, sir, we have among the favored articles, cashmere on these articles alone there will be an increase of one shawls, tortoise-shell, musk, and frankincense, to ormamillion, added to the burdens of the protecting system, to ment and perfume ladies who move in the highest circle; counterbalance the nominal reduction of $427,000. But and rattans and quizzing glasses for the benefit of that the credits on all the other protected articles are reduced on an average of four and a half months, which is an equivalent to five per cent. upon the principle laid down as to woollens. Assuming the amount of these articles annually imported to be twenty-five millions, we have $1,250,000 as the increase of the burdens of the protecting duties, to be placed in contrast with a nominal reduction of $417,000. It results that the aggregate an- What then is the true operation of this bill, considered nual burden of the protecting duties levied on Southern in reference either to the different classes of the commuproductions is nominally reduced $844,000, and increased nity, or to the different sections of the Union? How does $2,250,000, leaving the sum of $1,406,000 as the actual it respond to the just claims of the South, at this great increase of the burdens of the South. And this, sir, is crisis of our history, when the extinguishment of the the olive branch of conciliation and compromise which is public debt has put it in the power, and made it the duty of to be held out to the Southern States, to induce them to Congress to do an act of grace and of justice to that deepsubmit with patience to this scheme of injustice and op-ly aggrieved portion of the confederacy? Why, sir, it pression! has actually increased the positive burdens of the Southern But, sir, the inequality of this delusive plan of reduc- States to a considerable extent, and very greatly increased tion is greatly increased, and its injustice greatly aggra- their comparative burdens. In the first place, five-sixths vated by the other provisions of the bill. To whom, of the amount of the reductions are upon luxuries used sir, is the relief really extended which this bill pro- only by the higher classes. But, in the second place, and vides? Is it to the South, that devoted region which what I consider of much more importance to my constitusustains the whole brunt of the protecting system, and is ents, five-sixths of these reductions are upon imports of the actually sinking under the weight of its intolerable op-manufacturing States, operating almost exclusively for the pression? So far from it, sir, we have seen that the ad- benefit of the productive industry of those States. ditional burden imposed upon the foreign exchanges. An analysis of our foreign commerce will show that our alone of the South will be $1,406,000, while, as I will now trade with the East and West Indies consists almost enshow, the foreign exchanges of the North will be actually tirely of exchanging the productions of the tariff States relieved from duties to which they are now subject, to for the productions of these two portions of the globe; and the amount of $3,780,000. And this relief, sir, will be of that our trade with Europe consists as exclusively of exthe most substantial and unequivocal nature. For at least changing the agricultural staples of the planting States three millions of it will result from admitting, almost for the various kinds of manufactures which we import entirely free of duty, foreign articles which are exclusive-While this bill has actually increased the burdens imposed ly imported in exchange for the productions of the North-upon this latter branch of our trade, which is vital to the ern States, and a large portion of which is exclusively prosperity of the planting States, it has almost entirely consumed in those States.

removed even the ordinary burdens of taxation from the The existing duties on the articles made entirely former branch. One of my strongest objections to this free by this bill, amount to $939,000; those on tea, which bill, and one which would induce me to vote against it if I will come in with a mere nominal duty of one cent a had no other, is this offensive discrimination which it pound, amount to about $1,400,000; those on coffee, which makes between protected and unprotected articles. The will pay only half a cent a pound, amount to $257,000; those latter, which are of all our imports the most appropriate obon silks, which will come in under a duty of ten per cent., jects of taxation, whether we regard the producers or conamount to about $800,000; and those on wines to $84,000. sumers, are, with some trifling exceptions, admitted free In addition to these articles of the unprotected class, of duty, while the entire burdens of federal taxation are there is one of the protected articles which is almost ex-thrown upon those articles which have the most indisputa clusively purchased with the productions of Northern ble claim to entire exemption. Upon what principle, industry, upon which a reduction is made. I allude to and for what purpose, are the former class of articles brown sugar. Assuming the annual import for consump-admitted free of duty? I have frequently heard it asked, tion to be sixty millions of pounds, the reduction will" will Southern men, who are so much opposed to taxaamount to $300,000. tion, complain that we take off the duties from tea, coffee,

With the exception of the wines and a portion of the wines, silks, and other luxuries?" Yes, sir, we do comsilks, all these are the peculiar exchanges of the Northern plain of this-not because it reduces duties, but because, or manufacturing States, being either purchased within proportion as you diminish the revenue derived from their productions, or acquired by their navigating industry. the Northern exchanges, you superinduce a necessity of It is a matter of curiosity, sir, as well as useful illustra-imposing and maintaining still heavier duties on the protion, to look a little more minutely into the detail of those ductions and exchanges of Southern industry. Do gen articles which are to be admitted free of duty, or at a tlemen suppose I am such a dupe as to be persuaded that mere nominal duty, by this bill. Among the free articles this is nothing to me? Do they imagine that the people I find cocoa, almonds, raisins, figs, currants, dates, filberts, of the South are a people of one idea, and that they are nutmegs, cinnamon, ginger, olives, grapes, pineapples, so utterly stupid as to be incapable of perceiving that a and all those foreign luxuries which supply the tables and proposition to take off the duties from the exchanges of finish the feasts of the wealthy, intended, no doubt, for the manufacturing States is equivalent to a proposition to the special benefit of the aristocracy which this system is put on the same amount of duties upon the exchanges of calculated to create and maintain. We have also in the the planting States? A certain amount of revenue is nesame category, marble, paintings and drawings, to orna-cessary for the support of Government; and the less you ment, not the palaces of the poor, to which reference raise of this amount from the exchanges of the North, the was made by the gentleman from Massachusetts in his more you must necessarily raise from those of the South.

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The Turiff.

would follow that the price of American cotton must be try to another." It is not to be doubted, sir, that a silver lower in the markets of Europe, than that of East India dollar, or a gold cagle of the United States, if the coin be or Brazilian cotton of the same quality. Now, it is to be genuine, will pay a debt of this amount in England; and regretted that gentlemen who have done me the honor if these coins were depreciated in the United States more to notice my argument, had not taken the very trifling than two and a half per cent., as compared with the same pains which it would have cost them to understand what coins in England, they would be carried out by the course it really was. Two years ago, when I discussed this of exchange, provided the Americans had any debts to But every practical man who knows any thing of the question here, and every time I have discussed it since, I pay in England. disclaimed the idea that our duties could materially diminish the price of American, or of any other cotton in laws of trade, must perceive that no one who did not owe Liverpool or Manchester, in as strong and emphatic lan-money in England would buy a bill of exchange on that I distinctly stated that the country, though money should be depreciated in the Unitguage as I could command. value of cotton in the United States was diminished by ed States to the full extent of the protecting duties, as the duties levied on the imports received for it, because compared with the protected manufactures. And as debts the price of it in Europe could not be enhanced in con- in England are only contracted, in point of fact, by purI complained, that whether I chasing manufactures, it is obvious that a bill on England sequence of these duties. sold my cotton for money or for manufactures in Liver- would never rise above the natural rate of exchange, pool, I could not get any more money or more manufac- though money in the United States, as compared with inaI affirm that the tures for it in consequence of the duty, than I could have nufactures, should be worth thirty-three and a third per obtained if no such duty existed. That, in case I exchang- cent. less than it should be worth in England. Let us put the matter to a plain test. ed it directly for manufactures in Liverpool, it was obvious that if the Government should take one-third of them, value of money here, in purchasing manufactures, is thirtyor, which is the same thing, fifty per cent. on their value, three and a third per cent. less than it is in England. The I should be deprived of just that much of my property, gentleman from Massachusetts says this cannot be so; for and the exchangeable value of my cotton would be, to that if it were, the rate of exchange would indicate it, and But to what purpose that extent, diminished. This, sir, was my argument. It bills on England would be fifty per cent. aboye par. referred, exclusively, to the real price or exchangeable accordingly purchases a bill for one thousand dollars, and value of American cotton, and assumed that this exchange- gives fifteen hundred dollars for it. able value was fifty per cent. greater in Europe than it can he apply this bill in England? Will he purchase mawas in the United States in purchasing manufactures, in nufactures, costing one thousand dollars, to bring them so, he would have to pay the Government five hundred consequence of a fifty per cent. duty imposed upon those here and sell them at the market price? If he should do manufactures. If, for example, the cotton planter of Brazil is per-dollars at the custom-house, which would be precisely mitted to import British manufactures without paying any equivalent to the premium he had paid for his bill; and it duty to his Government, is it not self-evident that the ex- follows that he would sustain a clear loss by the operation changeable value of his cotton would be fifty per cent. to the full amount of that premium. greater than that of the American cotton planter, though each of them should receive the same price or the same quantity of manufactures in Liverpool? The Brazilian would be permitted to import and retain the whole of his manufactures, while the American would be permitted to retain only two-thirds of his.

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It is obvious, therefore, that, unless the value of money in the United States should be depreciated more than thirty-three and a third per cent. below its value in England, as compared with manufactures, the exchange between the two countries would never indicate the depreciation, and bills on England would never rise above their If South Carolina should enjoy a perfectly free trade, natural rate of two or three per cent. so long as the proand Georgia should continue to be subject to this protect-tecting duties remained at an average of fifty per cent. But one of the gentlemen from Massachusetts, [Mr. Daing system, is it not apparent that the South Carolina cotton would be worth from two to four cents more in the vis,] feeling, perhaps, the deficiency of his argument, enpound to the South Carolina planters and people, than the deavored to relieve himself from his difficulty, by resorting Georgia cotton would be worth to the Georgia planters to a figure, which has been very frequently, and very apand people, though both would still receive the same propriately, applied to this subject. He said that we could price in Europe? Cotton would command just so much not pile up money in the United States," but that, like wamore of the comforts and enjoyments of life in South ter, it would naturally seek its own level. Now, sir, without Carolina than it would in Georgia; and, assuming fifty per going very deeply into the doctrines of hydrostatics, I should cent. as the average duties paid in Georgia, South Caro- suppose that the gentleman, living as he does in a counlina would be just as wealthy with one hundred thousand try where machinery is impelled by water, must have seen If a good and bales of cotton as Georgia would be with one hundred many proofs that water cannot only be raised, but permasubstantial dam should be thrown across the current of a and fifty thousand. If any thing can be plainer than this, nently retained, above its natural level. I should like to know what it is. stream, and raised to the elevation of ten feet above that current, the result would be that the current would be suspended until the water above the dam should be raised ten feet, when it would begin and continue to run over the dam in precisely as large a volume as that which ran before in the natural channel. And, sir, as long as the dam should continue, this artificial accumulation of water in the pond would be thus maintained above its natural The gentleman from Massachusetts, who first spoke on level. If the gentleman had taxed his imagination for the this question, [Mr. APPLETON,] answering very triumph- purpose, he could not have furnished me with a more apProtective duties upon imports operate as a great naantly an argument which I did not use, and ingeniously posite and forcible illustration of my proposition. When first imposed, they necessarily passing over the one I did use, maintained, what no human being ever thought of denying, "that a dollar in the Unit- tional check dam. ed States, as compared with a dollar in England, could suspend the importation of the articles to which they apply, not be depreciated more than two and a half per cent., and money continues to accumulate until it rises to the this being the cost of transporting specie from one coun-level of this legislative embankment, when the importa

But, in case a planter should exchange his cotton for money in Liverpool, and bring this into the United States, I maintained that the effect of the duties could not be evaded in this way, because money would be depreciated in comparison with every thing he wished to buy in the United States; or, in other words, the exchangeable value of money would be diminished exactly in proportion to the enhanced price of manufactures.

JUNE 28, 1832.]

merce.

tleman pays me, costs him just as much less in domestic manufactures as will be equivalent to the protecting duty, and will be precisely that much less valuable to me for the purchase of manufactures, or to any other purpose, to whom I may pass it.

tion of the taxed articles is again resumed. And as, in the no more, for the purposes of the gentleman as a concase of the water, the same quantity will run over the dam sumer of British manufactures, than ten would be worth that formerly ran along the natural channel, so, unless the under a system of free trade, and he certainly would not fountain of supply be diminished, so, likewise, the same be guilty of the folly of giving me more for my cotton quantity of foreign manufactures will come into the Unit- than it is worth. But this matter is not adjusted in point ed States, paying the duties, that originally came in with- of fact by the chaffering of the honorable gentleman and out any duty, unless those exports be diminished which myself. It is adjusted much more effectually by the opeare the true fountain source of this branch of our com-ration of those general principles of truth which I have already explained, by which money is accumulated and deOne of the most obvious effects of those commercial re-preciated in the United States. The money which the genstrictions which give an artificial value to certain productions, is to increase the quantity of money which is necessary to circulate those productions. If the protecting system has added an average of fifty per cent. to the nominal value or money price of all the protected articles, it follows, as a mere corollary, that a proportionately larger sum of the precious metals, or of their representatives, paper credit and circulation, are now necessary to affect the exchanges of the community in those articles, than would be necessary if the protecting system were repealed. And this additional supply of money was originally furnished at the exclusive expense of the planting States, and amounts to nothing less than a permanent authority to the manufacturers to draw this sum annually from the income of the planters.

Money is a mere measure of value, and if your restrictive laws increase the money price of manufactures fifty per cent. while they certainly add nothing to the money price of cotton, they in effect enact that the planter shall give a bale and a half of cotton for the quantity of manufactures which he has a natural right to acquire for a single bale.

The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, who last spoke on this subject, [Mr. EVERETT,] advanced a plausible and ingenious reply to the argument which affirms that the protective duties operate as a peculiar burden to the cotton planters. If, said he, the cotton planter is the producer of the manufactures obtained for his cotton, he can only be so in the same sense in which it may be said that the consumer of those manufactures is the producer of them. Now, sir, although there is something imposing in this view at first, it dwindles into a mere plausible play upon words when thoroughly examined.

The cotton planters produce imported manufactures by' an exchange abroad, and upon this exchange the protect ing duty is levied; whereas, all other consumers produce these manufactures by a domestic exchange upon which no duty is levied.

I will take the case put by the gentleman himself. He said he was obliged to use my cotton to purchase the British broadcloth, and the manufactures he had occasion to consume. Very well, sir. And pray what does the gentleman give me for my cotton? He pays me in domestic manufactures which are enhanced in price by the protecting duties to an amount fully equivalent to the duties he will have to pay on his imported broadcloths. And, although the gentleman may, in point of fact, give me money for my cotton instead of domestic manufactures, it will not make a shadow of variation in the case, because it is obvious that money is a mere representative, and that the whole of this domestic commerce between the North and the South ultimately resolves itself into an exchange of cotton, and other staples, for domestic Northern manufactures. And even in the case where the payment for my cotton is made by the gentleman in money, it is very certain that if he buys fifteen bales of this cotton for the express purpose of supplying his annual consumption of British manufactures, he can afford to give me, and will in fact give me, no more for these fifteen bales than he could have given me, and would have given me, for ten bales, if the Government did not take one-third part of the foreign manufactures for which he proposed to exchange them. In other words, fifteen bales of cotton are worth

There is no evading the consequence, therefore, that the real price or exchange value of cotton is diminished in proportion to the increase of the average money price of all the articles, foreign and domestic, for which cotton is ultimately exchanged. But the gentleman from Louisiana, [Mr. BULLARD,] who some days ago delivered us a very instructive exposition of the cotton-planting business, declared his disbelief of the doctrine that the value of cotton is diminished by the duty imposed upon the privilege of exchanging it for foreign manufactures, and gave, as the ground of his disbelief, a reason which, whatever else may be said of it, is certainly free from all mysticism or subtlety. He stated, with an air at once of great simplicity and apparent triumph, that he went to market and sold his cotton for money, and when he got the money he did just what he pleased with it, without being conscious of any compulsion from any quarter. Now, sir, I do not know what that gentleman may please to do with his money, but he must be differently constituted from other men, certainly from me, if he can do what he pleases with his money when the Government hedges him round by this protecting system, and compels him, under a heavy penalty, to make his purchases here, when he could obtain forty or fifty per cent. more, if permitted to go abroad without any restriction. Pray, sir, might not the inmate of a penitentiary allege that he was a freeman upon the same principle, if the humanity of his keepers should permit him to make what he could within the walls of his prison, and to sell the products of his industry for whatever price they might choose to give him for them? Freedom, in the use of my property and my faculties, involves the idea not only that I may make what I please by my labor, but that I may go where I please to exchange it for other productions. If I am prevented from going abroad for this purpose, my country is, in this respect, converted into a great prison-house. On the contrary, if you will allow me the unrestricted privilege of going to Liverpool with my dollars, I can make them fifty per cent. more valuable than the gentleman from Louisiana can make his, with his boasted penitentiary privilege of doing what he pleases with them.

But, said the gentleman with a very facetious and ironical air, "I feel no oppression; I am wholly unconscious that I am robbed of any thing, and I never heard any of my constituents complain of this system of robbers of which so much is said elsewhere." And he seemed to be quite puzzled to imagine how he could be robbed without seeing the robber. There is certainly a great deal of primitive and homely simplicity in this mode of bringing a philosophical proposition in political economy to the test of the mere animal senses. And I doubt not that when Gallileo maintained, in opposition to the ignorance and priestly superstition of his day, that the earth moved round the sun, his great adversary, the Pope, might have refuted his doctrine to the satisfaction of the whole rabble of Rome, in the same way that the gentleman from Louisiana has satisfied himself that the value of his cotton is not diminished by his being compelled to sell it in the worst market instead of the

H. OF R.]

best.

The Tariff.

tence.

His Holiness would doubtless have gained a signal parison with this! Surely this would be "controlling and triumph over the great philosopher, if, on a clear morn-regulating foreign prices" with a vengeance! But, sir, we are too apt to over-estimate our own agenOur legislation has no such omnipoing, he had summoned the multitude to witness the rising On the contrary, the effect of our restrictions of the sun, and pointed them to its palpable progress from cy in human affairs. the horizon to the zenith, in the course of a few hours. But it would, nevertheless, have been the triumph of upon the price of British manufactures is so perfectly ignorance and superstition over philosophy and truth. contemptible, that while these restrictions are shaking this But one of the gentlemen from Massachusetts [Mr. Ar- empire to its centre, as involving the ruin and slavery of PLETON] has presented a view of the constitutional rights one party and the prosperity of the other, they are not of an American citizen, which is in exact keeping with deemed in the British Parliament of sufficient consequence this protecting system, and deserves to be noted as a curi-to produce the least excitement. Their effect in reducWhen the cotton planter goes to Europe, ing the price of English manufactures, at the very utmost, osity at least. and exchanges his cotton for manufactures, and brings could not exceed two and a half per centum, and this these to the custom-house for entry, the honorable mem- would be a mere nominal and temporary reduction, causber has gravely expressed the opinion that, by this com-ed by the efflux of specie from England, and its influx mercial adventure, he makes himself an alien, and ceases into the United States, as heretofore explained. to be an American planter. And when he complains to the collector of the customs of the injustice of taxing his manufactures, to give a bounty to the similar manufactures of his rival, the gentleman makes the collector reply, that "national protection does not extend beyond the limits of the United States!" This proposition speaks its own enormity, and, monstrous as it must be admitted to be, it is nothing more than a practical commentary on the system of which the gentleman is at once the advocate and the beneficiary.

Another gentleman from the same State [Mr. DAVIS] contended that our protecting duties could not diminish the value of American cotton, for that this would involve the absurd consequence that our legislation is adequate to control and regulate foreign prices. I have already shown you, sir, that no such consequence follows, but that my argument has reference exclusively to the value of cotton But I will now show here, and not to its price abroad. you, sir, that the gentleman from Massachusetts has himself used an argument-it is the great catholic argument, too, in favor of the protecting system, which does involve the absurdity that our legislation is competent to regulate He maintains, the prices of the whole commercial world. as he and his coadjutors have often done before, that the protecting duties have the effect of diminishing the prices of protected articles in the United States, and to avoid the obvious inference that this would throw the whole burden of the duty upon the American producers of imported manufactures, the planters, he alleges that the burden of the duty is thrown upon the foreign producers, the manufacturers abroad.

Suppose, out of the million of bales of cotton produced in the United States, we exported fifty thousand to one of the small States of Greece; and that this State, with a view to encourage the domestic growth of cotton, should levy a Would the price of protecting duty of fifty per centum on the importation of American and other foreign cotton. our cotton be sensibly affected by such a regulation? Is it not plain, that while the great markets of the world were open to us, we should utterly disregard this petty restriction? Yet this is an exact exemplification of the effect of our restrictions on the price of English manufactures. It is worth while to notice the inconsistency in which the advocates of the protecting policy involve themselves on this particular aspect of the question. When we contend that the protecting duties operate as taxes on the producers, they reply that this is a new theory, and that the duties are really paid by the consumers. But, almost in the very same breath, they tell you that these protecting duties diminish the prices of the protected articles; in other words, the consumer pays the duties, by being compelled to buy cheap, instead of dear manufactures! Then, to extricate themselves from this open and apparent contradiction, they resort to the absurd notion that the burden of our protecting duties falls upon the foreign producers. The truth is, that whatever portion of the burden of our protecting duties does not fall upon the consumers in the enhanced cost of the protected article, must necessarily fall upon the American producers, the planters, who furnish the exports. If it were true, therefore, that the protecting system diminishes the prices of protected articles, not only the whole amount of the protecting duty, but more than the whole amount of it, would fall upon the producers of the exports.

It is obvious that this can be done only by reducing the price of manufactures in the general market of the whole I will now analyze the operation by commercial world. which this extraordinary result is to be produced; and, in doing so, I will exercise this phantom of delusion which the manufacturers are perpetually conjuring up as a witLet us take the article of cotton manuness in their favor. It was stated by factures, and apply this doctrine to it. Mr. Huskisson that the whole annual production of cotton manufactures in England amounted to $160,000,000. Of these we import about $8,000,000 annually into the United States, under a protecting duty, I will suppose, of fifty Now mark the consequences of the argument I am considering. It affirms that this duty of fifty per cent. on the miserable fraction of eight out of one hun-system. dred and sixty millions of English manufactures, (to say nothing of the production of the continent of Europe,) has the potent and transcendent effect of reducing the price of the whole hundred and sixty millions at least That is to say, a thirty-three and one-third per cent. duty of fifty per cent. on $8,000,000 English imports diminishes the aggregate value of the manufactures of England $53,000,000! More than six times the entire value of our whole importation of them!

per cent.

What a tremendous blow at the prosperity of England; and how insignificant the miracles of former ages in com

The gentleman from Louisiana, in reply to the argument that our commercial restrictions depreciate the value of money as compared with other articles, asked the question with an apparent consciousness that it was unanswerI could not have desired a able, whether the value of North Carolina gold was depreciated by these restrictions. more perfect exemplification of the truth of my argu ment, and one which is more plain and obvious, than this which the gentleman has suggested. Nothing can be more evident than that the value of gold to the producer is diminished in the precise degree that the prices of all other articles are artificially enhanced by the protecting That system, indeed, cannot be more accurately defined than by saying it is an authority given to the manufacturers of protected articles to demand, upon an average, forty or fifty per cent. more of gold or silver, As the people of for a given quantity of them, than could have been obtained without the protecting duties. North Carolina cannot use their gold for either food or clothing, I presume my friend before me [Mr. CARSON] can inform the House, from his own experience, to what extent the exchangeable value of his gold is diminished by the tariff. If he exchange it for sugar, he must give fifty per centum more for it, for a given quantity of that