H. OF R.] The Turiff. eries, fields, or manufactories be thereby rendered more productive. If we produce no greater quantity of commodities, how can we export a greater quantity? If not, how can our importation be increased? [JUNE 16, 1832. This proposition of twelve and a half per cent. ad valorem alike on all imports was proposed as equal, but with a protestation that it may be changed. Changed for what? Direct taxation, when it may better suit South Ca rolina. Should we come down to this equal ad valorem, If it be admitted that when our 68,000,000 of imports pay $12,000,000 less impost, those imported commodities the next menace will demand a per capita tax on the threemay be circulated by $12,000,000 less amount of curren- fifths, as the only constitutional scheme of taxation. Sir, cy, because they will be made cheaper by that amount, we cannot determine the amount of reduction in the recan that currency be exported to purchase and import venue, a primary object of the proposed change, unless 12,000,000 more foreign commodities for home consump- by either reducing impost so low that importation shall tion? What is that currency? It is bank bills; and, if bring no revenue, or by raising duty so high that under not wanted to exchange our cheaper commodities, will be such duty there shall be no importation. There can be called in, and taken out, of circulation. The whole no tax paid upon importation, when there is no duty on 12,000,000 of paper was sustained, and kept in circulation any thing imported; neither can there be any tax payable, by about 3,000,000 of gold and silver in the bank vaults. when, whatever the duty may be, there is no importation. This amount may be sold by the banks, and used as mer- The American system is the principle of one proposal chandise by importers. This sum cannot fairly be used, to reduce the revenue; and this will certainly reduce it to increase our next year's importation; because more on all importation without duty, and on all commodities than seven times that amount is now required to pay the excluded from importation by duty. The American sys cash balance outstanding against us for the excessive im- tem must reduce the revenue; the South Carolina and portation of the last year. We shall not be able to dis-other systems may increase it. The South Carolina and charge that balance in public stocks, as in former years other schemes promise a formal, but cannot secure a subwe have done. The national debt is nearly paid; and the stantial reduction of taxes. The protection States object stocks will soon be cancelled, and no longer be on hand to this scheme. First, because it continues the system of as a medium of exchange. Besides, sir, if our reduced unequal taxation. Second, because it destroys protection, revenue and cheapened consumption might enable us to for which that inequality has been long endured. The grow more raw materials for exportation, what country scheme under the American system must reduce a porwill purchase of us the next year more than they took of tion of taxation, must equalize the remainder, and must us the last? Not all which might have been spared the preserve protection. South Carolina objects to this scheme, last year from our own consumption was exported; but and opposes it because it equalizes taxation, and because all was exported which foreign nations would purchase of it preserves protection. First, we are told that it raises us; and we now owe to them a balance, payable in mo- one tax for revenue; second, it raises another tax, to be ney, of more than $22,000,000. paid as a bounty to the producers of protected commodi Who can believe that our production would not be di-ties; and, third, it taxes the anti-protection States to the minished, by a reduction of all impost duties, to one level amount of forty per cent. on all exports grown on their soil. ad valorem rate of twelve or fifteen per centum? ExLet us first consider the old scheme of revenue, and its posed to foreign competition, and unprotected by any inequalities. The anti-protection States, Virginia, North duty which might check or restrain importation, two- Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, thirds of all the productions in cottons, woollens, sugars, and Tennessee, are, by South Carolina, denominated tax and many other manufactures, would be destroyed. Not paying States. By tax paying, it is presumed they mean less than $60,000,000, now brought to market, would paying more than a fair rate of taxes. South Carolina alno longer be produced. This amount of commodities, if leges that these States pay more taxes than, by that fair in our market at all, must be placed there then by the rate, they ought to pay; and, therefore, that State would labor and capital of other nations; while the capital of our abolish the system of protection, which, as they say, brings own country would be left unused, and its labor out of this oppressive inequality of taxation and payment upon employment. Our exports are but the surpluses of our them. production left unconsumed by ourselves; and whatever it has been, in terms so reproachful, should be proved by This allegation, so weighty in itself, and made, as lessens our domestic production must diminish the amount evidence leaving no reasonable doubt of its truth, before of our commodities for exportation. The ruin, by this it can fairly be made the cause of such complaint, or held policy, spread over our country in all directions, East, out in support of any claim, for such a remedy. I call for North, West, and South, would render us too poor to pro- this evidence. Taxes are matters of record, and those duce for ourselves, or to purchase and pay for the pro- who pay them can produce some trace of the pen, some duction of other nations. Notwithstanding this, sir, the written memorandum of that payment. If they have overrevenue would, in all probability, be increased. This paid in any direct tax, let them produce the unequal apwould not be done by any of the several ways set down portionment. in the South Carolina theory; neither by purchase, by plunder, nor by donation. Importation would flood your community with foreign commodities. These must pass through your custom-house, and augment your revenue; but they would not be immediately brought into your market; for they might as well, and more cheaply, be stored here, than in other countries, where they are now, and never will be, wanted for consumption. Reduce your duties, according to the South Carolina, or the treasury scheme, and, so soon as this policy is known to foreign nations, they will exclaim, "such a madness cannot last more than two years; let us rush in while the gate is open." The stored up and refuse surpluses of former years, of all kinds and qualities, will be thrown into our country from France, Holland, Germany, and England. It would be no wonder if two hundred millions were thus imported; and your revenue, instead of being reduced to ten, should be raised to twenty-five millions of dollars. internal revenue, in the form of excise, or in any other A resolution, if JUNE 16, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. this allegation was first made, would long ago have placed ed that mariners can sail ships cheaper than merchants can these records on your table. They would be proof. We do it. Two or three sailors, who perhaps are brothers, have a right to demand, we do demand, the light of these will unite their stock, the savings of years of hard but records, to be spread over this question. Why have they prosperous labor and peril. By such means, they are enanot been produced? Because their production would bled to purchase and own a ship. This ship is furnished have put this allegation, and the clamorous obloquy with which it has been made, to everlasting silence, and the makers of it to everlasting shame. with a master, with officers and men, from the brothers, sons, and apprentices of the same family. Freighting is the object of their voyages. We have, in New England, Why, sir, here is one partner in a great concern, who an old household proverb, which, in a few words, discloses has, for three or four years, been filling and abusing the the whole system of their economy: they "do all within public ear with accusations against others engaged with themselves." Their father may supply much of their him in the copartnership, and telling all mankind that he provisions; these are to be paid for, or not, as the voyage has become entangled with a gang of sharpers, who have may be more or less prosperous; and their hooks and lines, carried away all the profits of the business, but left him and good fowling pieces, furnish much of what more is to pay all the expenses of it. They come together, at wanted. Their own perpetual labor keeps their ship, her last, to settle their affairs, and agree to do it before men tackle and apparel, in perfect repair; and nothing is, at ready and capable of adjusting and determining their con- their return, in a worse condition, except by the inevitable troversy. He opens his case; he makes his statements wear of the corroding elements. They have no portage of long continued and circumstantial injury; he argues it bill to pay, and all, or much of the ship's earnings goes to from point to point, with all the colorings of advocacy, increase their capital. Such combinations of men are with all the ardor of interest and passion. His evidence fast getting into possession of the navigation of our counis called for; his books, his vouchers; the written testi-try. Merchants are encouraging this course of things, for monials of his disbursements for the concern. He has they have discovered that such ship owners can sail vesthem, he is known to have them. They are locked up in sels, and freight goods, cheaper than they themselves. his own chest. He will not produce them. What would This change is one of the great causes which has sustained the referees say in such a case? Just what the law and the navigation of our country. Mariners and ship owners common sense would compel them to say--that those books of this description may set the competition of the mariand papers which he might produce, which he is called time world at defiance. This, sir, but not paying taxes, upon to produce, and which he refuses to produce, would, if is one of the causes which has brought the ships of South produced, overthrow his complaint, justify his associates, Carolina and other States to this exchange of owners. and establish his own delinquency. Nay, sir, if books and papers may not be had, some witness, some living man, may be forthcoming, who has paid or received these overcharged taxes, and some account of what was so paid and received. By whom, by what man, and to whom, to what man, were these excessive payments made? Were these oppressive exactions levied in cotton, rice, or in to bacco Let these men testify concerning these matters and things, and tell us at large what they have done and suffered. Are these men all dead, or gone out of the country? Then bring some witness who has heard them tell the story of their grievances. If there be no record, no voucher in writing, no living witness, give us hearsay, or some shadowy eridence, more substantial than mere clamor or crimination. es. Have the people of South Carolina sold their navigation? Have they exchanged their ships for cotton fields? Does this prove that navigation is a better business than planting? Capital, it is said, always seeks the most profitable investment. If South Carolina has sold her navigation, she has done it because her capital will be more productive in raising cotton, as Northern merchants have sold their navigation because their capital can be more productively employed in commerce. This shows that, in the South, navigation is less profitable than commerce, and that planting is more profitable than either of them. It discloses no diminution of capital or profit, and proves no payment of taxes, either less or more excessive. There is in South Carolina another cause, a cause peculiar to the South, for this exchange from navigation to Unfortunate, indeed, is the condition of that orator planting. Planters hold the first rank in Southern society. who builds a system of accusation and complaint, in large No matter what may be the cause of this fact, it exists, and discourse, on a foundation of facts stated; but when a must have its effect; nor can the owners of ships or the call is made for his proof, he must remain as inute as the merchant ever reach the rank of the planter, unless by audience of St. Anthony, when he preached to the fish- exchanging his ships and his merchandise for plantations In this matter of tax paying, abstractions, metaphy- and slaves. What man would continue to feel himself and sics, political economy, and free trade are not evidence. his family degraded in condition, when, by a change in Say, and McCulloch, and Adam Smith, and Ricardo are his employment, he might place them and himself in the not witnesses; they make out no proof. Give us some first rank of community? This principle has had its effect record, some written testimonies, or some fair and logical in other parts of the world. In France, commerce has inferences from admitted facts. In place of all such evi-never been the most honorable calling. The merchant, dence, South Carolina calls our attention, and points to no matter how meritorious, was ever in a degraded conher abandoned navigation and exhausted lands as proof dition. England has established a contrary policy. Engthat she has been oppressed and ruined by excessive lish merchants hold the most honorable vocation in their taxation. The fields of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, country. From this, among other causes, the English Tennessee, or any other of these tax paying States, have merchant is as a prince among the nations; while the not, by way of evidence, been put into the case. The French merchant feels himself degraded both at home navigation of South Carolina, as we are told, is done--and abroad; and commerce, in France, is pursued with less clean gone forever. The last ship was sold in Charleston, eagerness, perhaps less honorably, and is by far less the last year. If this be so, and I do not question the fact, flourishing than in England. This change, therefore, of is it a proof of a declining condition? If it be such proof, capital in South Carolina from ships to plantations and how is it proved that such decline is the effect of excessive slaves, and of employment from navigation and commerce tax paying? Navigating capital, with or without its former to planting and growing cotton, is but a change of that owners, easily migrates in quest of more profitable locali- capital from a less to a more profitable investment; and ties. New Orleans and New York are drawing to them- this change of employment is but the leaving a less for a selves almost the whole foreign navigation of the United more honorable condition in society. It proves no deStates. Besides, sir, navigation is not only changing terioration or waste of capital, and assuredly gives not the places, but it is likewise changing owners. It is discover- least evidence of any payment of oppressive taxes. H. OF R.] The Tariff [JUNE 16, 1832. It is said the lands in South Carolina are exhausted, diseased atmosphere has rendered that region and much and some of them are left desolate and uncultivated. If of that city uninhabitable. Was taxation the cause of this we admit the facts, they afford no proof that payment of malady? Has paying taxes exhausted the wealth of the taxes has produced these disastrous effects. The warm, papal dominions, and rendered the people there unable free lands of that State had been hard driven by Indian to employ the labor necessary to cultivate and restore corn, wheat, and tobacco, before the culture of cotton health to the air and the lands of that region? Are we was introduced. Almost all corn-bearing plants wither then prepared to believe that in South Carolina the low and die in ripening their fruit. The land, left unshaded lands, the campania of that State, are suffering all the while the crop is maturing, becomes greatly exhausted by evils of the Italian malaria, from the exactions of the tariff the production. Tobacco and cotton exhaust the fertili- and the payment of exhausting taxes? ty of land by another cause. They are oil-bearing plants, The cause of malaria in the neighborhood of Rome and these, more than any others, destroy the principle of has hitherto, I believe, eluded human research; and in fertility. Cotton, after Indian corn, wheat, and tobacco, South Carolina, where politicians have but one cause, the has, in some places, scourged the lands of South Carolina American system, for all, all evils, moral or physical, the down to barrenness. What has induced planters thus to true cause of this mischief will, if ever discovered, be ruin their lands? Was it because cotton has been a losing found in connexion, not with the ruin, but the cheap rate or a profitable crop? Profit, and the ease and cheapness of lands in our country. Migration gives to the planter with which new lands might be acquired, have produced that great instrument of production at a much less cost, these appearances of desolation. When, by migration, than could restore fertility to exhausted, or soundness to men can have fresh and rich lands for one hundred and deserted lands. Like the Asiatic herdsmen and shepherds, twenty-five cents the acre, they will never confine them we, when the herbage of one region is consumed, do not selves to the old and exhausted, unless for the sake of a wait for a new growth, but remove to fresher valleys market; nor give themselves the trouble and expense of a and more verdant and abundant pastures. systematic rotation of crops or costly manure, to restore South Carolina exhibits to us the low price of labor in their departed fertility. Great profits induced the plant- that State, and offers this, in evidence, as another proof ers of South Carolina to press the culture of cotton; and of excessive and grievous taxes, long paid by the planter, a repetition of cotton crops urged by these profits, not in that part of the Union. We are told that the laborer the exactions of the tariff or the payment of taxes, has pro- there can earn but twelve and a half cents per day. In duced whatever barrenness may be found in their fields, that State, if the laborer be owned by the planter, laboris or whatever desolation may have been caused by a migra- capital. If he earn twelve and a half cents per day, he tion of their people. Their rich, low, alluvial lands, they will earn forty-six dollars a year. It is admitted that he tell us, are deserted, and without culture or inhabitants. supplies, over and above this amount, his own food and Is this the effect of taxation, or of a pestilent air, which clothing, or what is fully equal to them. At a value of renders them uninhabitable? In passing from Charleston two hundred dollars for such laborers, their annual earn. to the highlands, in the summer months, the traveller can- ing is equal to twenty-three per cent. If he be estimated not sleep, during a night, in these marshy regions, without to live and work thirty years, then six dollars a year will hazard of his life. Have the exactions of the American system produced this mischief? Has tax paying breathed this malaria over these lands, and rendered them uninhabitable? more than furnish a fund to insure his life, and replace the capital at the end of that time. Allowing nothing for natural increase, which more than doubles this capital in twenty-five years, we find a rate of profit of twenty per The campania of Rome, once the richest and most po- cent. per annum on laboring capital in that State. If the pulous part of Italy, is now in the same condition, as are value of the land and other parts of the capital necessary these lowland regions of South Carolina. Has paying for any kind of cultivation be equal in amount to the taxes spread the malaria over the campania and into the labor, there will be a clear profit of ten per cent. annualvery gates of Rome, under the bright and healthful sky ly on the whole. Is this a low rate, or a lower rate, than of Italy? Why, sir, that region has been the seat of a is received in States which, by the South Carolina theopower which has exacted and received taxes, from more ry, pay no taxes, but receive bounties? Is this any proof of the human race, and for a longer duration of time, than of exhausting taxes paid by South Carolina? any other power ever established on the earth. From the If you regard this labor as the instrument by which ca day when Romulus thrust his spear through the heart of pital is employed, in which State of this Union can this his brother, because, in derision of his city, he leaped over instrument be so cheaply obtained? Where, on this side the new built wall of Rome, until the time when "Cæsar of the Atlantic, can the human machine be kept in full Augustus sent out a decree that all the world should be work, at a per diem cost of twelve and a half cents? In taxed," the wealth of that world had been, in a less or what other part of our country is capital kept in opera greater stream, flowing into "the Eternal city." At that tion, at an expense so very inconsiderable? The cotton time, this wealth had overflowed, and spread out, on the manufactories of this country produce commodities, annusurrounding country, so that the Appian way was scarce- ally, of about the value of $32,000,000. Of this amount ly less populous than the streets of the city itself; and the $12,000,000 is paid for human labor, and received and apwhole campania was studded with noble villas, and literally propriated by free working men. The machinery of covered with riches. The ecclesiastical, which followed the these establishments requires a great cost to keep them temporal power of Rome, instituted and established a in a working condition. This last item is probably about system of taxation more productive of wealth than any of equal to the working cost of those human machines by those known or operated by any of the Casars. By this which planters operate their inanimate capital. The cost system a price current was established for every kind and of keeping capital in productive operation, is probably quality of human transgression; and no man could obtain four or five times greater in the manufacturing than in the the profit of committing any sin, or the comfort of having planting States. it forgiven, until he had first paid the regular tax of indulg- the low rate of labor in South Carolina, then, be viewed High labor makes low profits. Shall ence for the one, or the no less regular tax for the abso- as proof of excessive tax paying in that State? lution of the other. Nearly all Europe, for centuries, In the anti-protection States, white men, as we are told, paid these and other taxes to the Roman Pontiff, and, to do not work. this very hour, the city of that Sovereign is a tax receiving States, and it is, therefore, degrading; for, as South Caro Work is the employment of slaves in those city, though, at this tune, much more limited in amount lina tells of New England, "none but slaves work." than when in the zenith of its power and splendor. A These States are peopled by about two million five hun JUNE 16, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. plantation is a barony, governed by one will, and that the will of the proprietor. dred thousand white people, and by about one million five hundred thousand slaves. What amount do these one and a half million of slaves produce, annually, in those States Sir, these planters call aloud for the free trade of anwhere none but slaves work? First, they produce all cient Europe, and tell us that the restrictive system of their own food. Second, they make all, or nearly all their England was produced in an age of barbarism. It was; but own clothing, and pay for the remainder. Third, they England owes to it all her advancement in arts, in wealth, furnish all the food of the white population, except such in freedom, and in civilization. This system introduced vilparts of it as may be imported from foreign countries. lages, boroughs, and towns, in a country of mere plantaFourth. What more? They grow about $5,000,000 in tions, mere baronies; of feudal lords, and serfs, their white value of cotton, rice, tobacco, which the white people of slaves. In these towns, the peasant became a burgess, a those States sell to the Northern protection States. Fifth, free citizen; and men of that humble name, protected by they do no more than this, sir, do they? Yes, they do over those laws which restricted the free traders of foreign naand above all this; they annually draw from the lands of tions, and the lawless sovereignty of baronial power in those States cotton, rice, and tobacco, amounting, in England, have, at length, reduced the whole realm to the value, to $20,000,000. What must be the exuberance of dominion of law; and the humblest working man there is soil, what the benignity of climate, what the productive now as free under this whole system of protection, as the powers of labor, which enable fifteen hundred thousand baron of a thousand tenants. persons of all ages and sexes, men, women, and children, to feed and support four millions of people; and, over and above all this, to furnish a surplus of $25,000,000 to their quiet, uncomplaining, "right good masters!" Sir, it is not the anti-christian, but the anti-baronial protection which calls down the anathema of South Ca. rolina. It is not because no villages now adorn that State, but the apprehension that these little republics may, unless Look, sir, at ten of the protection States; Delaware, the protective system can be overthrown, grow up there, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and the other six and call the white population of that goodly region from in "the pale, unripened region" of New England. What a condition of semi-vassalage to the condition of working can they do, after supplying their hunger and fencing out men, endowed, as then they will be, with all the attributes the cold? Their whole surplus for the foreign market was, of industry, intelligence, and independence. Sir, well in 1830, no more than $22,190,935, and this too was pro- may the destruction of the protective system in England duced by a population of five million six hundred and and in the United States be looked for by South Carolithirteen thousand six hundred and thirty-nine persons, and na as a glorious era. It would be a jubilee to all little in States where to be idle is to be degraded, where to tyrants in both countries. It would restore to the barons work is honorable, where all work. How quiet, how sa-of England more than their ancient vassalage, and relieve tisfied is labor; how restless, how complaining is idleness! the planters of South Carolina from all fear that their Do you find in these things any proof of oppression and white might ever become more free than their colored unequal tax paying in South Carolina, or in any other of slaves. Sir, the statesman of the South may now be unthese anti-protection States? born, who shall at some future time build in those States this manufacturing refuge for the white population of that delightful region. We are told that villages spring up in the North as if by enchantment, while in South Carolina are no villages. It is because South Carolina pays taxes, and New England receives bounties. It is, sir, because in New England labor receives so large, and consumes so small a portion of production, that the working men in that region can build and choose to build houses; but in South Carolina labor is capital; all production goes to the owner; and he does not choose to build, except for himself, and that may be a palace; while for his laborer, if he build, he builds a cabin. In New England (I know it is so in Rhode Island) labor can lay up one-fourth part of its earnings. The high rate of labor gives a low rate of profits to capital, and the low rate of cost for consumption preserves this high rate of surplus to labor. After all, not only is there no evidence of payment of these excessive taxes by the anti-protection States, but there is not the least proof that even South Carolina is not in the most prosperous condition. Why do not the people of these States place their wrongs on paper, and send us some evidence of them? It seems to me that "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," if they had none for the other seventeen States, might induce them to remonstrate, before they declare war. Perhaps we shall be told that this remonstrance was made, the last autumn, by the great Free Trade Convention. Their remonstrance has long been on our tables; and, in that paper, all the benefits of the South CaroHere is the source of New England prosperity. The lina theory, and all the evils of protection, are set out surplus of production over the cost of consumption which in grievous complaint and minute detail. Who appointgoes into the hands of tens of thousands of working men, ed the forty-six members of that convention sent from has those tens of thousands of vigilant, careful keepers; South Carolina? Was the appointment made by the and is preserved, therefore, with much more success than people at large, or by a select few of the great planters? if it all went into the hands of a few owners of capital. Rhode Island was represented in that convention by a This reduces profits on stock, and prevents the accumu- very able man, but not by a man chosen by the people; lation of excessive wealth in the hands of the few; but this or, though all very meritorious, by more than ten of that also prevents the poverty of the many, and brings work- people. Sir, that convention, formed, as it was, of very ing men to be middling interest men; to be the people, the distinguished gentlemen, was neither called, nor were great source, and the great object of power. Hence, sir, those men selected by the voice of the people, either in the village, the village school-house, the village meeting the protection or anti-protection States. Their remon house, and all the accommodations of Northern prosperi- strance sent to us is not the voice of the many, the laty. It is not because labor and capital produce more pro. bor, the people; but it is the voice of the few, of some fits there than in South Carolina; but because those pro- part of the capital employed in foreign importation and fits are there more diffused, more carefully preserved, in domestic planting; and to this voice was added the and shared and enjoyed by more persons. In South Ca- loud and earnest outcry of many fiery and clamorous porolina, you have the few rich-the many poor. You have liticians. The nation is not, and will not be deceived the palace of the master; the huts of his slaves. You have by that few, and be thereby betrayed into an overthrow the delight of unquestioned dominion over unquestioning and destruction of the great interests of the many in all submission. You have more, even more than the baron- parts of our country. Sir, by one party, under the South age and vassalage of feudal dominion. In the North, Carolina theory, it is contended that the whole exported every village is a little republic. In South Carolina, every production of these anti-protection States does, when it VOL. VIII.--227 H. OF R.] The Tariff. [JUNE 16, 1832. leaves this country, pay an export duty of forty out of every cent. a head more tax than is paid by the taxing people one hundred bags of cotton, casks of rice, or hogsheads of of South Carolina. I put it home to them here in this tobacco, equal to forty per centum on all these exports. House, or before the whole nation, the christian world, It is contended by another party, a disciple of the same the human race. Let them deny or disprove, if they can, school, that when this production is exported, sold in a any part of this statement. foreign country, invested in other commodities, and im- Will not this relative state of taxation satisfy them? ported into the United States, the whole exported amount No, sir; for we are told by the South Carolina theory, pays a duty of sixty per cent. on importation. So long, man is a plundering animal." So long, therefore, as therefore, as forty and sixty make one hundred, these doc- there is a village, a village school-house, a village meetingtors in the science of political economy will find no part house spire; so long as there is one enjoyment of this remaining of their whole cotton, rice, and tobacco. Not- world, or one hope of another in that devoted region, withstanding all this, these same philosophers do positively South Carolina will proclaim this crusade in the South, maintain that after these States have paid out all to the and pursue this system of plunder against all which labor Government in these two taxes, their good people do has acquired, or use and occupation endeared to us, in shoulder another stout load, in the form of a third tax, New England. May Heaven forgive me if I do not reequal to one or both the others, and do carry and deli- tort upon this people in terms something like the diction ver this last and most grievous burden over to the manu- by them put in the mouths of their own representatives, facturers of New England, in payment of a bounty se- and by them poured out from their tongues upon us in cured to them by the provisions of the protective system. this Hall. Not satisfied with reviling, while they plun One gentleman tells us that the great evil of the protec- der us, let us see what more these spoilers have done; tive system is, because the life-blood of the South is drawn and we shall be the better enabled to understand what from the people of those States by the silent operations further they now intend to do. The protection system of the laws, which few understand, fewer feel, and, he which has now been established in our country for more might have added, much fewer believe! than forty years, is by them denounced as the oppressive, Perhaps South Carolina intends to say that these States plundering despotism of a majority; as that among all ty pay a duty of forty per cent. on their twenty millions of ex-rannies the least to be endured-the tyranny of the peo ports, not directly, but consequentially; not in fact, but ple. Let us examine this administration of the people of because those exports are exchanged in foreign countries the majority, to which South Carolina with so much de for commodities which, when imported, pay that amount cency gives the nickname of "King Demos;" because, I of duty. Do these States consume the whole amount of presume, the word which means the people" is, in these imported commodities? If so, they purchase no Greek, Demos. We shall then learn whether this majori manufactures from New England; for their whole twenty ty, tyrant as they say he is, has not patiently borne by millions of domestic production will have been consumed this system a heavier load of taxation than that under on imported commodities. Their pretence that they pay which this oppressed minority has suffered so long and one tax by impost to the treasury, and another of equal so grievously. amount to manufacturers, is therefore idle and unfounded. Exclusive of the public lands, we have had three great If manufactures do in truth receive a bounty, it must be sources of revenue; the poll tax, usually called the land paid to them by the seventeen protection States; and these tax; the excise and other internal taxes; and impost or anti-protection States will not surely require the system duties on commodities imported and consumed in this to be overthrown for any benefit or relief to those States. country. About $12,700,000 have been raised from the Let us first consider the question concerning their tax poll tax or tax on land. of impost, and, after that, examine this doctrine of the It is here called a poll tax, because it was proportion. payment of bounties; a thing which never has been done, ed among the several States according to the census, but nor can any thing like it be exacted, unless the protec- excluding from taxation two-fifths of all slaves. The tive system shall be overthrown by the bills now under anti-protection States, with a population of one million consideration. Let it be admitted that these seven States five hundred thousand slaves, and two million five huntimport twenty millions because their exports equal that dred thousand whites, and, in all, of about four million amount. One sixth-part, or nearly that amount of all im- polls, paid $630,000 less than any other equal number of ports, is, and long has come into the country duty free. people. if these States consume all they thus import, they really Generous, high-minded, chivalrous South Carolina dedo consume imported commodities paying duties equal mands of New England that two-fifths of her black, in amount to sixteen and two-thirds millions of dollars. equal to two-tenths of her black and white population The average amount of duty is about thirty per cent. ad shall pay no tax. Doubly more avaricious than ancient valorem. These States then pay about five millions. These papal priesthood, the South Carolinians exact not one, States will not pretend that the other five millions of this but two tithes. Yes, sir, and they get them, too, out of production are expended on imported commodities. The the pockets of the hard working, close trading Yankees. whole revenue from imposts is about twenty-two millions. We agreed to this, you will say. We did. We have kept These States are very nearly one-third of the whole popu- covenant with them. We have paid the money. Have lation of the United States; and they should, at a fair rate we ever complained of the hardship? Never; nor do we of taxation, pay one-third of the tax on that importation now; we only caution South Carolinians not to swear so from which this revenue is derived. But they do, if they many more times than once that they themselves have expend all their exports on imports, actually pay about paid it. five millions, and leave about seventeen millions to be paid About twenty-two millions have been raised by internal by the other two-thirds of the American people. The anti- taxes; by excise on domestic distilled spirits, taxes on houseprotection States pay one dollar and twenty-five cents a hold furniture, and on pleasure carriages, comprehending head; while the protection States pay two dollars and in the number one-horse light wagons. This equals about one dollar and eighty-four cents a head of our present population. twelve and a half cents a head. Can the adversaries of the protection system make out for themselves a stronger case? I defy them to do it. What amount of domestic distilled spirits did the antiHere is the bottom line of their manifesto. The people protection States produce? What amount did the labor of South Carolina will go to war with New England, be- of those States consume? Those States produced none, cause the people of New England pay annually into the or next to none; and their labor consumed none of those treasury of the United States not less than forty-one per spirits, produced either from grain, fruit, or molasses, |