MAY 31, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. the demand, the price will be made up of a compound of plan which makes no addition to the exchangeable value the degree of necessity, and the ability of the consumer to of the productions of their capital and labor. It is very pay, with very little, if any, reference to the cost of pro-true that the tariff laws take a wide scope, and, in various duction. But if I affirm that two added to two make four, degrees, affect the far greater part of the exchangeable and a reduction of duties is like to follow, the tariff party commodities, except the productions of that labor dewill call it a naked, unfounded assertion; so I must call signed to be taxed and not bountied. The friends of domy witnesses-they are here. What were the prices of mestic industry, in some of their bulletins from New York, goods during the war? Let the addresses and speeches seem to take it for granted that, if the tariff laws raise the of tariff men answer. Their answer is at all times pressed price of things in general, it is accompanied by an increasforward to induce the country to hire them to make goods in time of peace; and a taste of such prices is the only thing which can naturally account for some of our duties. 2d. Two articles of the same kind and quality will, in general, sell in the same market at the same price. I will call no witnesses to prove this. 3d. If the article which is produced here in considerable quantities, but short of the demand, and at a fair living profit, may be sold at twenty per cent. above that price at which the same article could be imported, a duty of thirty per cent. lays the manufacturer over the importer, and compels the latter circumspectly to guard against excess of importation, or he must be ruined. ed ability to pay, arising from an increase of wages; and I can readily see that where the production of things which are enhanced in price by law is the principal labor of the people, that labor there may be also enhanced in price, and thus every exchangeable commodity, except those which are wholly regulated by a market, without the influence of the tariff laws, may be affected in equal degree. How that affects the producer of things so generally designed for export, as that the home market is entirely dependent on the foreign market, has been set forth by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. McDurFIE] with a clearness and force of argument which I should but becloud were I at all to intermeddle-at least, with that part of it which dissects his general proposition, and shows the practical proportions and amounts of burden thus fixed on the planting interest. 4th. The home production of the protected articles of iron, and some of its productions of salt, sugar, wool, and the manufactures thereof, manufactures of cotton, and hemp, and of the raw material, are short of the home de- I will state the proposition as I understood it. If, by mand; and I may say, in general terms, with a few ex-law, you enhance the value of all the exchangeable comceptions, our home production of manufactures is insuf-modities of the country fifty per cent., the labor which ficient for home consumption. This fact is proved by the produces these commodities will rise fifty per cent., and treasury statements of the last year, as well as all previous it will require an increase of circulating medium in the years; and the deficiency is not trifling in operative amount, same proportion, to conduct the exchanges. But if, in but is more than thirty millions of dollars. that country, the labor and capital of part of the people From these facts I have a right to state and conclude be and remain unemployed in producing things the value that the duty on imports in each and every case (where of which is not affected by that law, but is exclusively the wants of the country require these imports) produces regulated by the price of these things in a foreign market, an increase of price on the corresponding home produc- then, by the operation of the law, the exchangeable value tion equal to the duty; and it is plain that a tax or duty to of these exports (to all practical purposes to the owner) be raised on thirty millions of such foreign production, is reduced one-third. This appears to me to need no exwith no excise on the home products of a like kind, may planation: whether it is said that the money is degraded, be a light or heavy burden, according to the proportion or every thing which that money represents is enhanced, which the consumption of home produced goods bears to is a mere shift of words which practically mean the same that of foreign. If, in any town, a thousand hats are con- thing; and when the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. sumed annually, and the Government needs one hundred APPLETON] said that, if the money was really degraded dollars revenue to be raised on the consumption of hats, here, the laws of trade would soon carry so much of it it requires a duty of ten cents per hat; but if nine hun- abroad as to make it find its level, he did not seem to take dred of these hats be made in that town, and one hundred the fact that the case supposes no redundant quantity of are imported, and the Government, for the protection of circulating medium at all, and that, in fact, the laws of the hatter, determines to raise the whole revenue on the trade could not remove a dollar of it, so long as the law one hundred imported hats, the duty needed is one dollar can so operate as to require one hundred and fifty dollars per hat; and this increasing, as it must, in the same de- to represent a value which, without that law, would be gree, the price of each of the nine hundred home-made represented by one hundred. Every man whose labor hats taxes the hat wearers one thousand dollars, of which produces things for the home market, gets the enhanced the Government gets one hundred, and the hatter nine price. Not so with him whose labor produces things for hundred. These are commonplace truisms, I know, but the foreign market: he obtains none of it; but it operates needful as the basis of what follow. These protecting du- on every thing he wishes to purchase, and the mode by ties may operate to check a fall of prices, or produce a which this is effected--a tax on imports. So he cannot rise; from sufficient causes before stated, their office, since escape; for, if he brings goods, pays the tax, and sells 1816, has been in general to check the fall of prices. If them without loss, deducting the tax paid, he has but one this operation could have been general, not much harm hundred dollars left, which to him are only worth the or good would have been done. If the fall in the price things they will exchange for. I can readily see an obof the produce of agricultural labor, and of all the various jection arising out of the statement itself; that through the unprotected branches of industry, could have been check whole view it is supposed that the quantity of circulating ed in due proportion, it would then indeed have been medium must be increased in proportion to the increased equal protection to every interest, and, in consequence, value of all the exchangeable commodities in the country, no protection to any interest. But such an effect produced when, in truth, there is an exception of commodities proin law would be unwise, even if it were possible so to duced for exportation; and to that may be added the fact arrange it as to be passed; for, by the act of producing a that the enhancement of price does not go the full round fictitious value of labor, and of things, you require, in the of all other commodities. From stating the case without same degree, increase of circulating medium to conduct these allowances, it is easily seen that the producer of exyour exchanges, and the country would be the loser ports is largely injured as such, and the difficulty of comby the expense of keeping up this needless excess ing to exact conclusions, either as to proportion or amount, of circulating medium. But the great interests of this in no sort inclines the mind to refuse its assent to the plain land are masters of their trade; they have not adopted a fact of injury. But, because I will not injure the view. But, sir, let the whole of that reasoning be reprobated and pronounced against, as I said, before I understood it. There is a sectional inequality in the operation of these laws, condemned by the principles of eternal justice, which no men can bear that are free: for those who suffer such things are not free. [MAY 31, 1832. of the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means where are exhibited all the evidences of receiving "to tending to give some adequate idea of the extent of the have and to hold." Our tribute of ten millions is not lesinjury, I will pursue this view no further. My own view sened by the fact that to and among one another they had been entirely different; and I own that, if I now (nominally for the most part) pay twenty millions. Each rightly comprehend the views of the gentleman from one of the favored classes feels the bounties given to every South Carolina, [Mr. McDUFFIE,] I never did until yes- other as a drawback on his own, as is also whatever interday. crease of wages the stimulus of bounties creates, a drawback on all of them where it occurs. But on this whole matter I will not say more, because I do not think the people of the sections of this extended chain of monopolies are benefited by them. When it is said to benefit that country, and I allow it to be true, the great interests before explained stand for the country; but the injury on I have in the outset given a view of the tariff laws as our side of the line is, in my view, without effect. To us they are; classed them as to the things and persons affect- it comes in no questionable shape. Mr. Chairman, on this ed by them; shown that the main body of my constituents point man may be trusted. For a time, a fashionable bubare taxed on their consumptions of imports fifty per cent. ble, or heated party zeal, may close or blind the eyes of at least; that those who take the American substitute are interest; but the mass of property owners, in any section, taxed as high. Of these American substitutes, we are cannot long be deluded in regard to matters affecting the told by the friends of domestic industry an amount of value interests of their respective capitals. They may club, is produced equal to one hundred and fifty millions of and cheat the poor and ignorant, but they cannot be dollars; but take off a third for so much added by law, cheated in a matter directly affecting their property. Outtake off two-fifths more for goods affected but partially numbered and spoiled they are, but not cheated. I know, by the system, the balance is sixty millions. There are indeed, that, by a system complex and indirect as is the thirty millions of imports of a like kind, paying at this American system, years and years may pass before the time fifty per cent. The account stands thus: Southern yeomanry see, with precision, the extent and Home goods, $60,000,000 amount of their oppression; but, with the instinctive sagaImports of goods of the like kind, 30,000,000 city of interest, they saw at once that laws requiring them to pay thirty, fifty, and one hundred per cent. more for $90,000,000 necessaries, with the avowed purpose and effect of increasing, in the same degree, the prices of the productions of other States, could be no other than a gross $45,000,000 injustice to them. Their opposition has accordingly 15,000,000 increased with the development of the scheme in practice; 30,000,000 and I do fully believe that the day and hour which, to their minds, shall carry full and complete knowledge of $90,000,000 all the exactions, precisely as they are, will mark the limit These fifteen millions of revenue, and thirty millions of of their endurance of them. Mr. Chairman, the manubounty, I take to be paid by the consumers of the import- facturers who assembled at New York sent forth an aded and protected goods, in proportion to their consump-dress to the people of the United States. It is drawn with tions of those goods. It is, as to each individual in every ability; but it so happens that there is in our statute book part of the country, whose productions are not enhanced a duty of three cents per pound on cotton, upon which the by it, a tribute equally oppressive and degrading. The writer of the address comments, and affirms that which I free trade memorial (a State paper maintaining, in all have labored much to prove, that a duty laid for the propoints, the high character of its author) has set forth, in a way not to be resisted, how far the farmer (other than the grower of wool) and the mechanic are acted on by this policy. But I have complained too often, and, I think, too justly, of my distant friends, who so kindly take the guardianship of my domestic concerns, for me to undertake to know how far forth a thing they crave is a blessing, to describe the curse it brings on us, which I see and feel is my present purpose. Duty and enhancement of price at fifty per cent. For the treasury, For the monopoly, or great interest, tection of the products of the labor of one part of this Union, benefits that part at the expense of the rest. But let the writer speak for himself. "Is it the cotton-growing States who would subvert this prosperity, and lay us, once more, prostrate before the power of our rival? Those States who, for the article of cotton, enjoyed a duty which did not merely promote, but absolutely created its culture-a tax upon all the other States, which was represented as a grievance by the Secretary of the Treasury One-third part of the people among whom none of these in the very infancy of our Government—a tax which di bounties are paid, the produce of whose labor is in no sort verted labor and capital into new channels for the excluaffected in its money price by the policy, are required to sive benefit of those States, at the expense of all the rest pay, and do pay, as a tax on their consumption of imports, a tax which had not the remotest connexion with the to the treasury, five millions of dollars; as a bounty or tri- revenues of the country, but was imposed merely for bute to the monopoly, they pay ten millions. This last protection?" (page 37.) The writer speaks and reasons sum is taken entirely off, and delivered over to the great precisely as I do. He says that protecting duties are taxes, interests of other States. If the monopolies which receive and grievances, too, on those who bear them; that they are this tribute were studded all through the Southern coun- benefits and blessings to those who are protected by them, try as they are in the tariff States, the iron hand of oppres- of so high an order that the grateful sense thereof should sion would still be on the yeoman and laborer whose pro- ever after hush their complaints against like benefits beducts are priced by the foreign market. But the ten ing conferred on others at their expense. But duties are millions of dollars would be kept in their country. Cities taxes and grievances only when laid to protect Southern would rise; roads and canals be constructed; palaces built labor. Hear the language of the same address, (page 31.) and adorned; and "the toil which upheld the glittering "The influence of protection upon wool, while it has show" might be made to believe it had an interest in it. been most beneficial upon the farming States, has had no But I do not think the planters of the South could be thus tendency, that we are aware of, to injure the plantation deceived. Immediate contact with the monster monopoly States." "So, note the diversity." There is a sense in would sooner display the body and form of his oppressions. which the plantation States are concerned but little about But our tribute goes off to the lordlings of other States, the duty on wool. If the duty on woollens be absolutely MAY 31, 1832.} The Tariff. [H. OF R. fixed at any point, and was not to be raised or lowered plicable to nations in their intercourse with each other, with reference to the duty on wool, the planter might because universal consent and submission to the rule can regard with indifference this division of spoils already never be obtained; but its impracticability, as well as its taken from him; but if this duty fixes the farmer in the impolicy, is demonstrable on other grounds. Nations, lists with the great interests, determines him, too, to be like men, have their periods of youth, maturity, and old our enemy, I know not what we shall do. But this I know, age, and the same unbending rule is no more applicable we will be slaves to no master; and, above all, we will not to every stage of their advancement than a particular that a moneyed monopoly tax us and our children at its food and raiment to the different periods of human life. will and pleasure. An old manufacturing country like England, and a young These bulletins from New York contain much matter for agricultural one like the United States in its colonial conreflection. Had the managers the least doubt of the cre- dition, derive mutual benefit from the interchange of the dulity of their disciples, they would not have ventured so products of their industry; their wants are different, and palpable a contradiction, so near together, as their com- their traffic reciprocally convenient. In like manner, ments on the wool and on the cotton duty. But their faith England and her colony of New Holland exchange to muhad before been well tried. They had succeeded in esta- tual advantage; they are both gainers; but this will not blishing, beyond the reach of argument or evidence, that continue. New Holland, like the United States, will imthe tariff laws of 1824 and 1828 were, each in their turn, prove; new interests and wants will spring up as she adindispensably necessary to enable the manufacturers to vances; and she will finally manufacture for herself, and get such prices for their goods as to avoid ruin; and, as a covet independence. Old nations, on the contrary, cirmatter of faith, their votaries are required to believe, and cumstanced as France and England, have little to gain many of them do believe, that the natural and regular from each other. They are now friends, but unable to effect of these laws was, immediately, so to lower the agree on the terms of a treaty of commerce. The French price in Europe, that the consumer, after paying the duty, minister lately told the British ambassador that the theory gets the article cheaper; and, moreover, that such being of free trade was very good; but as France was behind the regular effect of the tariff laws, they nevertheless England in capital, skill, and machinery, there was no afford protection to the manufacturers. That they mean equality in it at present, but it might perhaps suit them what they say, that is, that high duties make cheap goods, fifty years hence. So the negotiation proved abortive." is shown by their exhibiting in evidence the fact, as they The Committee on Manufactures, (not of this House,) say it is, that coffee has risen in price since the duty was who put forth the piece I have read, deem it very unlessened. They mean what they say, but do they believe philosophical to suppose that man, if left to himself, knows it' Let the memorials on the table answer for what they exhibited in that piece of coffee evidence to the public. Do they believe the fact that such evidence tends to prove? The distinguished chairman of the Committee on Manufactures says, "It is against the dictates of common sense so to believe;" which remark, as I think, is in perfect accordance with good sense and truth. best how to take care of his own interest. Every move made by the manufacturers proves that, individually and collectively, they understand the matter well. They know their own interest so well, and how to pursue it so adroitly, that, in all things, every other interest is made to give way, to bow and bend before them. They ask, why guard and cherish the liberty of the subject, and I wish to call the attention of the committee to another leave his labor unprotected? Now, I like some of this pamphlet from the New York mint. It professed to be language. Restrictionists, who call the people "operawritten on the coasting trade. I will read, sir, page 92. tives," ought to say subject instead of citizen; but, with "The philanthropic theory of free trade can only rest on reference to the operations of this Government, it is an a presupposed equality and reciprocity of benefits in the idle question. My wife, my son may be imprisoned falseintercourse between nations, and the opinion that man, if ly; my property may be taken by force or fraud; life or left to himself, knows best how to take care of his own inte- reputation may be destroyed; and this Government can rest. If this principle, however, is analyzed, it will be do nothing to protect the rights, or punish the wrongs. found as difficult of execution as it is unphilosophical in And as it respects my labor, if my wages are refused, reference to human nature. In a civilized state man this Government cannot give me redress; and I thank gives up a portion of his liberty, the better to secure the God that, in all these respects, my rights are in better remainder. But why restrict liberty, and not regulate keeping. What I have to ask of this Government is, his conduct in the social compact? Why leave his great that it will not so use its lawful powers over foreign comand vital interests to shift for themselves, and struggle merce as determinately to intercept one-third of my wages, against rivals who are constantly plotting their ruin and transfer the same to one to whom I owe nothing. Why guard and cherish the liberty of the subject, and "Not to protect your industry is virtually to abandon it." leave his labor unprotected? The duty of Government Here, sir, as every where else, in the language of tariff towards both is equally imperative and obligatory. Where men, and in acts of Congress, too, it is easily seen that both are thoroughly secured, there will they establish the private good of the manufacturers stands for that of their dominion, and exert their influence for the benefit the country; but we who suffer feel that we are the weakof man; where either is neglected, both will perish; for er nation, upon whom a monopoly is forced: we have the end and object of liberty is to secure life and pro- never conveyed the right. I know not, sir, whether the perty-it is to feed, clothe, and shelter the people. Not insult to our understandings, included in such views, reto protect your own industry is virtually to abandon and quire not as much patience to bear it evenly, as the injury subject it to the tyranny and control of foreign nations. done. I will read one other passage. "At present, England The exertions of each to promote and stimulate the ener gies and enterprise of its inhabitants, augment produc-wishes to exchange the labor of her machinery with Ametion, and cause the greatest aggregate prosperity. If the rican manual labor, being, in the ratio of its productive weaker nations neglect this duty, they confer in reality a powers, more than two hundred to one against the United monopoly on the strongest, who, in that event, impose States." their own terms and conditions. Each Government can These remarks, those above cited from the French mienjoy free trade, equality, and reciprocity within its own nister, and all that is said about the policy or duty of projurisdiction, so far as qualified liberty will allow. The tection, contain this proposition, that a country whose constitution of the United States, for instance, provides productions are principally the result of manual labor, that all taxes and impost duties shall be uniform through- will be ruined if an unrestricted trade is carried on beout the States; but this uniform principle is totally inap-tween that country and one using machinery, that has the H. OF R.] The Tariff. [MAY 31, 1832. 1,004,540 lbs. chain cable, cost 51,341, duty 30,136 20, 51,909 cwt. hemp, cost 295,706, on which the present advantage in capital and manufacturing skill. The insult Mr. Chairman, a vote was about to be taken which contained in that proposition is the apparent supposition would have put the bill from the Committee of Ways and that we cannot see that, if it be true, our ruin is sealed Means out of this committee. I could not foresee the any way. Is it possible that a doubt can be raised about turn the debate would afterwards take. I had not inthe question whether it would take longer to ruin Vir- tended to enter so early into this discussion, and when ginia to carry on such a trade with New or Old England? thus forced forward, I had not time so to arrange the with New York or France? If they who advance the matter as to give my views in less time and fewer words, doctrine believe it at all, and I suppose they do, they or to guard against the omission of many things I designed deem it wise and just, because the great interests of the to bring forward. There is no end to the demonstrations country will gain all that the little interest loses, and the of the absurdity and oppressive character of this system, United States will be no loser by such ruin of Virginia. which would result from a minute dissection of its differBut let us see if the simple disadvantages of exchanging ent parts. I will present to the committee an account our manual labor for the machine labor of the North taken from the abstracts from the commercial document ruins us as fast as it suits the views of the great interests. of last year, which has been printed and laid on our tables. "Each Government can enjoy free trade, equality, and It sets forth some burdens imposed on the shipping intereciprocity within its own jurisdiction, so far as qualified rest, which I believe they bear exclusively. liberty will allow." I will suppose the gentleman from 54,721 lbs. anchors, cost $2,287, duty $1,094 42, or 47 Massachusetts [Mr. APPLETON] and myself to have met in 83 per cent. New York, he with the woollen cloths of Massachusetts, I with cotton and tobacco. Each wants to sell his own, and buy the other's produce. We may well imagine some such mutual sentiments as these: Massachusetts and Virginia stood by each other in the revolution; the difference in their climate, soil, and population, causes them to produce different things; the old sentiment of regard should be cherished in every practicable mode; they ought, therefore, to exchange their surplus produce freely, and the rather, as both would consult their interest in doing so. I would then inquire what would be the terms of trade, We have the deliberate judgment of the Secretary of stating that I wanted such cloth as his, and desired to sell the Treasury that the shipping interest cannot bear these my tobacco and cotton. What price will you give me for taxes, and that judgment is affirmed by the Committee on my produce? Answer. We use so small a proportion of Manufactures; and if any one doubts the accuracy of this the annual crop of tobacco and cotton, on this side of the judgment of affirmance, he is referred to the speeches of water, that the foreign market controls the prices of these a gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. WEBSTER,] made articles entirely. Here is the last Liverpool price cur- before the great interests of that State, which caused rent; my private letters accord exactly. I will take your some of her great men to take the other side. I never produce at the Liverpool prices, deducting the charges had a doubt of the folly, I had almost said wickedness, of freight, commission, &c. My reply would be, the pro- of thus taxing and crippling this right arm of the nation's position is fair; I accept it, and will take your cloth, add- defence; but tax it you will, and tax it you must. The ing the charges of freight, commission, &c., to the Liver- governing principle which conducts to this conclusion pool price; for I know that your utmost effort will not was announced by the great leader of the American syssupply the demand, and I would as soon give you the tem, I believe, from Cincinnati; but I will read the rule freight and importer's profit as to give it to one of these from the New York address, page 39. merchants, one-half and more of whom are foreigners. Suppose the dramatis personæ artless, open, honest men, as I will hope is thought of one, and I know I think of the other; do you not think there would be a difficulty in getting further in this trade? Could he say that, besides "Let those who acknowledge this great bond of union what you offered, a wise, a just, a paternal Government never forget that united we stand, and divided we fail;' has ordered that you shall give me sixty per cent. on the that sugar and iron, hemp and lead, wool and cotton, and Liverpool price, or seventy-five per cent. on that price in the other productions of our diversified soil, elaborated the whole, which is free trade, equality, and reciprocity, by our own indefatigable industry, and protected by our as far as the qualified liberty you have will allow? Are own free Government, are, in effect, the Government that they free, whose liberty is thus qualified? The friends of holds us together, and make us one people; that the home the tariff say I cannot have free trade on terms of equali- market is the palladium of home itself in all its most enty and reciprocity, with those who use machinery, with- dearing and ennobling, political and social relations; without out ruin. I pray you tell me how I shall stand the said which we have no common country, but should be reduced machinery with sixty per cent. against me. But they to the condition of dismembered and defenceless provinces. must pardon me for saying that the disadvantages under Let it, therefore, be the instinct of all who acknowledge which they suppose I labor in trading with a country its cause as their own, to stand together like the fathers of which has carried machinery to the very highest pitch, is the revolution, with no local jealousy, no impolitic predelusion, mere delusion. If, by the use of machinery, ference of one part of our system to another, but mainthey produce an article which I was in the habit of pro- taining a united and inflexible adherence to the whole." ducing by manual labor, I must get the machinery, or I put out of the case the wordy connexion between the quit that part of my business. But is not this the fact? Union of these States and the common object which is the The perfection of their machinery affects me only by soul of the Union, so ardently recommended in the paragiving me double the quantity of comforts for my day's graph. The authors display their loyalty to the cause, work of manual labor. The changes which, in this and but the instinct of the interest advised was already in the every other way, have taken place since the year 1818, roads pointed out. But to my account. Why must the leave the exchangeable value of my manual labor unhurt. shipbuilder (who confessedly cannot afford it) pay 47 83 I think, on the whole, I should be rather aided but for the tariff of protection, by which my comforts are curtailed, and the profits of the great interests increased. "But let us bear constantly in mind that the union, the happiness, the peace, and the power of our beloved country depend on its domestic industry, without which these United States would cease to be an independent nation. per cent. duty on his anchor; 58 69 per cent. on chain cable; more than 80 per cent. on cordage; 52 2-3 per cent. on hemp, and 35 3-8 per cent. on sail duck? The answer Of sheets and hoops, the quantity was The duties paid on it amounted to [H. OF R. 5,672,779 lbs. $151,909 00 198,647 00 Of braziors' rods, the quantity imported was 487.013 lbs. Of nails, (wrought nails, I presume,) the quantity im- The duties paid amounted to 814,748 lbs. $52,597 00 40,737 40 is simple. "Let it, therefore, be the instinct of all who acknowledge its cause as their own, to stand together," &c. The iron master is protected by a duty of 113 7-10 per cent. on English rolled iron. If anchors were to come in at a less duty, the iron master might lose the sale of as much as would make an anchor, and the same as to chain cable; and, besides, if the artisans engaged in making the things were deprived of their protection, their votes would go for a free trade representative in Congress. The duty on hemp has, I believe, pretty well broken up the manufacture of cordage for ships; but the hemp duty must be kept up to keep Kentucky deluded in the belief that she has some little more share in the spoil of the South than her premium on cotton bagging. So the duty of more I request the committee to look on the picture prethan 80 per cent. must be kept up on cordage to prevent sented by this account. I have proved, by evidence and the attempt to make it being perfectly ridiculous, or a call argument that cannot be met, that these duties are not for a repeal of the duty on hemp being louder. The duty borne, even in part, by the foreign producer. The quanof 35 3-8 per cent. on sail duck is scarcely enough to ba- tities of these things every year imported prove the really lance the duty on hemp, which duty is known to be inert operative character of these duties; and if the enormity of and inoperative as a protection to the growth of hemp in the amount did not, as it does, prove the injustice of them this country; the fact being that the hemp imported, and at the first blush, a very slight scrutiny will show that they that grown in this country, is used for distinct and different must, in a great degree, cut each other's throats. Why will purposes. But still the hemp grower may be made to be- not a duty of five cents per pound on wrought nails prolieve that the magic of protection applies to him, and be hibit their importation? The answer is, that the duty on induced to vote for a tariff man. nail rods is more than double in proportion to value. Why not repeal the duty on the rods? Because the blacksmith belongs not to the chain of money capitalists, the favorites of this policy, and the owner of the slitting and rolling mill does. Repeal the duty on nail rods, and reduce the duty on nails to two cents, and in a short time the importation of nails would cease. Of this opinion, so far as respects the amount of duty, was Alexander Hamilton. I know that wrought nails are little used; and the manufac And thus, sir, I know no task more idle, as to its immediate practical effect, than that of pointing out the particular incongruities of your system of iniquity and oppression. I might take hold of any part, and though the folly and wickedness of it be presented plain as the noonday sun, though not a man who hears me, but sees it naked as it is, and deformed as injustice and oppression can make it, still, sir, the maxim is "united we stand, divided we fall." Let me ask the committee to look at an account of the im-ture of cut nails has so won its way, as not to be, practiportation of iron, made the last year, taken from the same abstract I before referred to. I have added the duties at the legal rates, according to my own calculation. [At this point, Mr. BOULDIN gave way for a motion that the committee should rise, and proceeded, on the next day, as follows:] cally, in the list of public grievances. If the heavy tax on iron was taken off, one cent per pound would protect cut nails; but wrought nails are to some extent necessary, and would be more used, but for this tax with a double aspect, which, while it grievously augments the price, in a good degree prohibits the home manufacture. With Mr. Chairman, I yesterday endeavored to show how it is, the uses to which the other articles from the slitting and that however absurd, even on tariff principles, any duty may rolling mills are applied, I am not so familiar as many of be found in practice, even though it cuts its own throat, my opponents. Sheet iron, as such, I do not understand yet, if it is a link in the chain of combination, it must to be a finished manufacture. For the most part, at least, stand. Instinctively each separate bountied interest knows it has to assume some new form before it comes to the use that from it the public gets no return of value for the bur- of him who pays the tax. I know not how the matter is, dens imposed by it. Each knows that he can pursue no but if the owner of the slitting and rolling mill is not so course of argument, showing the over-share of his brother, over-bounty fed as to make him fat and lazy, he might that will not direct the prying eye to the defects in the have a monopoly of the whole business of giving the new whole title. And from this instinctive feeling of interest, forms required; but the large importation shows that they wherever the system itself has taken root, members are cannot supply the demand, and shows, also, that they elected who are for "our system, and our whole system," pocket the premiums of 170, 130, and 124 per cent. in and they vote, as I do, representing fairly the interest that the several cases stated. Whether they make what the country loses, is to my mind midnight darkness; but this we know, that the business is not in its infancy; and if they do make what we lose, their profits are enormous, and ought to be taken down; if they only make a fair Bent them. I was proceeding further to exemplify this view, by the duties on iron. I will read the account I was yesterday ready to present: Of rolled bar iron, the quantity imported last year living profit with such bounties, it is proof conclu was It cost in England the sum of The duties paid on it in the United States amounted to At the rate of 113 7-10 per cent. Of hammered bar iron, the quantity was It cost in Europe the sum of The duty paid on it was Or 41 44-100 per cent. 344,918 cwt.sive that it is a losing business to attempt longer to sus $544,664 00 tain them. The English rolled iron does not come in competition with the American. It is used for different 619,594 00 purposes, and sells lower, after paying 113 per cent. duty, than the American or hammered bar with which it comes imported last year into competition. This, therefore, is an oppressive tax on 52,232,192 lbs. iron for wheel-tire and other things for which it suits best, - $1,260,166.00 kept up because the iron master has an undefined fear 522,321 99 that, unless the Government require the consumer to pay for it more than a second time, its use may be extended. Of nail rods, the quantity imported last year was 227,160 Let me ask again why it is that these palpable enormities lbs. are to be kept at their present height; or, if reduced, so $4,585 00 little as to leave the lowest of them 91 per cent.; second, 7,950 00 106 per cent.; third, 112; fourth, 124; and fifth, 149. A plausible story may be made another way, but the |