sir, are "the rich blessings," so much lauded by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. CLAY,) and the consequence is, that the Southern and agricultural portion of the country, the real yeomanry of the South, are made the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for other sections.

[SENATE.

ities that must attend the operation of any general system.

"It is not of these powers that we complain, but it is the assertion of another, and a very different one. It is the assertion of the power to impose a duty on any article of foreign commerce, not because we want revenue, or the regulations of commerce, as exclude the foreign in favor of the domestic fabric. such require improvement; but because we want to This power is not granted in the constitution, and must be sustained, if at all, by the pliable doctrine of implication; and, as it is not necessary to the

I will not yet believe but the honorable Senator and his friends will see the propriety of relaxing in this measure, and making some concession to the wounded feelings and just claims of the South. Let me tell the honorable gen-power to raise revenue or regulate commerce, it tlemen, that they will urge in vain that this system is of benefit to the Southern people, and that we are incapable of appreciating its value. I hope gentlemen will not longer add to injury and oppression the insult of supposing that we do not understand our own interest.

We were informed by the honorable Senator, in 1824, as we have been now, that to give protection to home industry, would, in a few years, create competition, and thus reduce the price of articles protected-but one ounce of experience on this subject is worth pounds of theory. And experience proves that these calculations and anticipations have been entirely unfounded and fallacious.

Mr. President, in the name of our sacred Union, I protest against this miscalled American system, which, contrary to justice, to the constitution of our common country, to all the sacred rights of freemen, imposes a tax upon my constituents, for the purpose of enriching another section of the Union. It is an outrage, to which no patriotism can prompt any people, claiming to be free, to submit, and which, if persisted in, will prove a hazardous experiment, so long as there remains one spark of that spirit in the Southern States, which resisted the unauthorized taxation of the mother country.

cannot be sustained as an incidental or implied power; on the contrary, it is a substantive, distinct power, resting on assumption, and fraught with frightful danger. It has no limit but the caprice of those who assert its existence, and is necessarily subject to all the varying views of supposed convenience, and the fugitive conceits of expediency. The unlimited nature of this, power, and the dan gerous purposes to which it may be applied, render it odious and unfit to mingle in human affairs. Its dency is to divide the community into nabobs and natural offspring is monopoly; and its natural tenpaupers, to accumulate overgrown wealth in the hands of the few, and to extend the poverty, the vices, and the miseries of the many. This alarming principle leads to the union of the worst of human passions. Cupidity and ambition, under its deleterious influence, administer to each other, at the expense of the community. Cupidity will barter worlds for money; and unchastened ambition will filch from the poor man's toil a portion of its just reward, to appease the cupidity of the cold, calculating monopolist.

"Let it not be again said, that, because the Southwest and South send no agents to beset the members of Congress, and have forborne to petition or remonstrate in every village, or to call a counter convention, they are so recreant to duty, as to acquiesce in the proposed oppression. On the contrary, let it be distinctly understood that Alabama, in common with the Southern and Southwestern States, regards the power assumed by the General Government, to control her internal concerns, by protecting duties beyond the fair demands of the revenue, as a palpable usurpation of power not given by the constitution."

Mr. President, in concluding my remarks, you will be pleased to permit me to read some extracts from a joint remonstrance of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama, adopted with great unanimity, sir, in both branches, in 1828, by way of showing how far the feelings Mr. BENTON, of Missouri, next rose. of the citizens of the State of Alabama are in present session of Congress, said Mr. B., was accordance with the views which I have en-looked to with great anxiety by the people of deavored to declare, as one of their representatives:

The

this Union, as the one which was to effect a large reduction in the public revenue, and an equitable_modification in the existing tariff. The people expected these things from us; but up to this moment they seem to be in a fair way to be disappointed; for no bill has even yet been brought in to accomplish their just expectations; and we are now well advanced in the fourth month of the session.

"The General Assembly of Alabama, alive to the rights of the people they serve, and the interest of the country in which they live, (however painful the duty,) feel themselves called on by the crisis to protest most solemnly against the principle asserted by the General Government to control the labor of the nation, by protecting certain branches of domestic industry at the expense of others. We do The President of the United States has cernot complain of the power to raise revenue or reg-tainly performed his part. His annual Message, ulate commerce. These powers are expressly granted to preserve the existence and promote the received by us in the first week of December, harmony and prosperity of the Government. Nor contained a strong recommendation to this do we complain of the incidental protection that Congress to reduce the revenue to the wants of may result from a well-adjusted tariff,' imposed the Government, and to adjust the duties on on the importation of foreign goods, with a view foreign imports so as to favor our national into revenue alone, nor yet of the occasional inequal-terest at home, and counteract adverse policy

SENATE.]

The Tariff-Reduction of Duties.

[МАВСН, 1832.

from abroad; and he showed us, in the same | recommended in the President's Message, not Message, that the state of the finances, and the only without destroying domestic manufacstate of the country, required these things to tures, but without hurting or injuring them be done, and to be done now! These recom- in the slightest degree. This is my assertion! mendations will shield the President from cen- The proof and the demonstration shall follow; sure for neglect in failing to bring the subject for I know how insignificant it is to make bold of the tariff before us; and it ought to shield assertions without adequate proofs at hand to him from the imputation of double dealing on support them. And here, sir, permit me to that subject. It ought to shield him from that presume that I am a friend to domestic indusimputation! For his sentiments are plainly ex-try, and voted for the tariff of 1824 with the pressed, and are, therefore, intelligible. They are publicly delivered, and are, thereby, universally known. They are in accordance with all his previous acts and words upon the tariff, and are, therefore, entitled to credit for candor and sincerity. I might go further, and say that his sentiments are in accordance with the public wishes and the public interests; but I will not presume to speak for a nation! I will speak for myself alone, and will say that the President has well expressed my sentiments in this recommendation, such as I have often declared them to the Senate here, and to my constituents at home; and, this being the case, it is my duty, still more than my inclination, to defend these sen-year 1810, our manufactures had attained the timents, at this time, and in this place, arraigned as they have been on this floor, and stigmatized as ruinous to the country.

I am in favor of reducing the revenue to the wants of the Government, not only for the reasons which have been mentioned by the President and by several Senators, but for another reason in addition, and which presents itself to my mind as a compact between the States and the Federal Government. We all know that the present form of Government grew out of the weakness of the Government of the confederation, and that the taxing power was the hinge upon which the change turned. The Congress of the confederation had no power to tax the people of the States. It had no power over the purse. It could only ask for money; and this being found a slow way to obtain it, the power of taxing was applied for. The States refused this power, because the Congress might abuse it, and levy too much; they refused to vest the Congress of the confederation with power to levy duties upon imports, and to regulate the foreign commerce of the States, because they saw that, in granting these powers, they yielded the unlimited and responsible power of taxation, and left themselves without defence against the exactions of the General Government. They resisted-they refused. To all the solicitations of Congress they turned a deaf ear, and were inexorable. For ten years they held out; but the convention of 1787 inserted these two powers in the new constitution, and the States, with infinite difficulty, were induced to acquiesce; but that acquiescence was the effect, not of arguments, but of pledges! pledges of that high and solemn nature which no man of that day was permitted to believe could ever be violated.

I maintain, sir, that the federal revenue may be reduced to the wants of the Government, as

approbation of my judgment, and for that of 1828 with repugnance and misgivings. I am a friend to domestic industry, and mean to protect it, according to what I believe to be the true policy of the country, sanctioned by the constitution and by the practice of the framers of the constitution. I will give protection, as an incident to revenue; and this is the kind of protection which is coeval with the foundation of our Government, and under which manufactures attained a high degree of importance under the first twenty years of its existence; and that without giving the least dissatisfaction to any part of the Union. As far back as the

annual value of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars, (as we learn from Mr. Gallatin's report-a report which ought to have shielded him from the reproach which has been cast upon him here!) and that under a low rate of revenue duties, ranging from five to fifteen per centum. The same rate of protection would now produce two hundred and forty millions of manufactures annually-for our population is doubled since.1810. But it is not desired or intended, by any Senators with whom I am acquainted, to reduce manufactures to the degree of protection possessed at that time. The lowest rate proposed by the anti-tariff gentlemen is double and treble what it then was; and, for myself, I shall not go so low as they do.

I now proceed to the proof of my assertion that the revenue may be reduced to the wants of the Government, without affecting or impairing the successful progress of any manufacture. And here I would ask, how many, and which are the articles that require the present high rate of protection? Certainly not the cotton manufacture; for the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. CLAY,) who appears on this floor as the leading champion of domestic manufac tures, and whose admissions of fact must be conclusive against his arguments of theory; this Senator tells you, and dwells upon the disclosure with triumphant exultation, that American cottons are now exported to Asia, and sold at a profit in the cotton markets of Canton and Calcutta! Surely, sir, our tariff laws of 1824 and 1828 are not in force in Bengal and China. And I appeal to all mankind for the truth of the inference, that, if our cottons can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit without any protection at all, they can stay at home, and be sold to our own citizens, without loss, under a less protection than 50 and 250 per centum! One fact, Mr. President, is said to be

MARCH, 1832.]

said that the introduction of the high tariff policy has not been injurious to foreign trade. I think otherwise; but let us avoid an array of opposite opinions, and contradictory assertions, which decide nothing, and produce no results, and let us have recourse to the logic of facts which put an end to all mistakes. Let us ex

power with salt. Before a permit can be ob- | mouths of the Mississippi in 1803? But it is tained to land it on the soil of the United States, the duty must be paid in ready money, or bond and security given to pay it in nine months. If paid in ready money, the interest for nine months is discounted; if credit is taken, the principal and securities in the bond are all required to be citizens of the United States. This is the law. Now for the practical opera-amine this point upon evidence, and evidence tion of the law. The importer who has brought of that character that no man may be permitted this salt to sell, and which he wishes to sell at to dispute it. I speak of the evidence of the four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine cents a custom-house books, and will take two periods bushel, did not bring along with him spare which will exhibit the fairest state of the quescash at the rate of ten cents a bushel, (which tion. I will take the year 1816, which was the is the present duty,) to pay the American Gov- year of the commencement of the high tariff ernment before he can sell his salt to American policy; and the year 1830, which was two citizens. He, therefore, cannot pay the duty years after that system had attained its present in ready money. Credit becomes his only re-maximum growth. In the first of these years source; and, to get American securities to his bond, the salt must be sold or consigned to American citizens. This throws the whole foreign salt trade into the hands of a few men, who make it their business, and their profit, either to go security and take the salt to sell, or to buy it at once out of the hands of the importer, and assume the duties to the Government. And this is the practical operation of the law. Having all the salt in their own hands, the next thing is to fix the price, and that is done by adding the duty to the cost, and putting as many hundred per cent. as they please upon both, for their profit, and this brings the price to forty or fifty cents. This is the process of the regrater in the seaport; the monopolizer in the interior keeps pace with his brother; and, between the two, the farmer pays four prices for his bushel of salt, and then gets a weighed bushel of fifty pounds, measuring little more than half a bushel, instead of a measured bushel, weighing from seventy-six to eighty-four pounds. Such is the operation of the tariff upon the price of salt! Abolish the duty, and introduce a free trade, and what would be the consequence? Why, sir, the importer would never fall into the hands of the regraters. He would land his salt without a permit-without tax-without bond-and sell it in the river, or at the wharf, to any one that would buy it; or he would ascend into the interior with it, bartering his salt with the farm- In the products of agriculture,

ers, against their provisions, and that at first cost, without duty, or advance upon cost and duty. The manufacturer would have a fair price for the domestic article; for freight would operate as a protection, and be equal to a duty of near twenty cents, and give a better profit upon their capital than farmers and planters are receiving. This would be the state of our salt trade if the duty was abolished; and every interest of the farmer requires the abolition.

The West needs foreign trade. Why else did our ancestors struggle under the Government of the confederation to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi? Why else did the whole West rejoice at the acquisition of the

the export of domestic productions was $64,781,896; in the second it was $59,462,029. Here is a decrease of five millions, when there ought to have been an increase of about thirty millions; for our population had increased onethird in the same time, and our country was at peace with all the world during the whole period; and her foreign commerce should have been as progressive as her population. The diminution of foreign trade is then, in reality, about thirty-five millions; and that in the short space of fourteen years. This is a striking view of the decline of foreign trade under the high tariff policy; but it is by no means the strongest view which the case admits. That strongest view will be seen in the dissection, or analysis, of our export trade for those years; an operation which will show that the decline has fallen, not generally upon all our exports, but partially and exclusively on the products of the earth-the products of the South and West

while the exports of the Northeast have ac-
tually increased during the same period.
Here is the analysis:

In the products of agriculture,
In 1816, the domestic exports were:

of the forest,
of the sea,
of manufactures,

In 1830, they were:

$53,354,000 7,293,000

1,331,000

1,755,000

$46,976,332

of the forest,
of the sea,

4,192,047

of manufactures

1,726,270 6,557,380

Here, sir, is proof for you! Here is demonstration? Here is the logic of the exact sciences! Here is the true working of the high tariff policy! And what does it prove to you? It proves that agriculture in the year 1830 is worth seven millions less than in 1816, instead of being worth one-third, or seventeen millions more; that the products of the forest-a kindred product to agriculture are three millions less in 1830 than 1816, instead of being three millions more; that the products of the sea, instead of declining like the others, have ac tually advanced near half a million; and that