[MAY 29, 1832. $44,914,984 00 32,036,760 00 There are of cotton mills in the United States, 795. 1,860,779 00 14,016,502 00 Consumption of agricultural products, 3,750,000 00 In connexion with the foregoing let us look at the cotton crop grown in this country, its increase of product, and at its increase of consumption both in the United States and England. case of woollen manufactures in his reflections, when he made his communication to the National Legislature. The law of 1816 was enacted on the 27th April, and was, as I have always understood, carried by the votes of Southern gentlemen against New England wishes. On this subject the course of my own State has never wavered. But I have heard it said in this House, though I believe not on the present occasion, that the course of those gentlemen on this floor in 1816, who voted for the law of that year, has been misunderstood or misrepresented, if it is interpreted into any approbation of the policy, or if, from their conduct on that occasion, it shall be inferred that they lent their aid to building up and strengthening the system of encouragement and protection to domestic manufactures; and the reason assigned is, that that law contemplated and effected a reduction of duties. With great In 1831, there were produced, in the United States, of deference for the opinions of others, it strikes me this is cotton, 375,925,302 pounds; the consumption of this an error. The duties with a view to protection were not country is said to be more than one-fifth of the whole, say, those of 1812, 1813, 1814, or 1815; they formed no part however, one-fifth, 75,185,060; the value of the manufacof the permanent, but were properly styled, by Mr. ture, allowing that the cotton is increased fourfold in the Lowndes, to be temporary duties, strictly war duties, process, which is the general estimate, must be equal to imposed to enable us to carry on our military operations; four-fifths of the crop, and to the whole export of the arand were, by the law of July, 1812, which originated ticle. According to the statistics of Mr. Pitkin, there them, to continue during the war, and for one year after were exported 87,397,645 pounds of cotton in 1819, and it ceased. I speak of course of the increase of duties the consumption of Great Britain, in the same year, was enacted by that law. The true inquiry, to enable you to 428,000 bags. Our manufacturers consume now sevenascertain whether, in 1816, there was an increase or di-eighths as much as was exported twelve years ago, and minution of duties, not on the war, but on the permanent nearly one-half as much as was consumed in Great Britain imposts, is, what were the duties before July, 1812? The then, and almost one-third as much as she uses at present. answer to that question will show that they were lower, The average export of cotton for five years immediately considerably lower, than those provided by the law of before the war was 57,000,000 pounds, or about 190,000 1816, or, in other words, that that law increased them. bales of 300 pounds, less than is actually consumed in the The duties on iron, woollen, and cotton manufactures United States at this day; which, as stated before, is were but fifteen per centum before 1812; and what were 75,000,000 pounds, or 250,000 bales of 300 pounds. they by act of 1816? On rolled bar iron thirty dollars per If we used one-sixth of the crop, prior to 1816, which ton, and on iron manufactures twenty per centum on the is believed to be within the truth, but to ascertain which value; on woollen and cotton manufactures twenty-five per accurately there are no means at hand, it would give centum until 30th June, 1819, and afterwards twenty per 11,000,000 pounds, or about 36,666 bales of 300 pounds, centum. Nay, more, on some of the articles now most as used before the war; we now consume very nearly seven complained of, as carrying an onerous duty, there was not times as much, or the increase of consumption has been, one cent levied until 1816; unmanufactured wool, for instance, which was then for the first time subjected to any duty, when fifteen per centum ad valorem was imposed upon it. The several laws of 1818, 1824, 1828, and 1830, are too well known to the committee and the country, as respectively increasing the duties on imports, except the last, which went to enforce their collection, to require any further notice than to be mentioned. in sixteen years, within a trifle of seven hundred per centum. In England, from 1781 to 1785, there was an average annual use of 10,941,943 pounds; from 1805 to 1810, her manufactures consumed, one year with another, 76,601,775 pounds, about the quantity we now use. The London price current for January, 1832, estimates the present annual consumption of England at 245,000,000; showing an increase of 220 per cent. in twenty-two years. From 1816 to 1832, the British manufacture rose from 93,920,055 to 245,000,000 pounds, or 160 per centum, against 700, in the United States. The cotton crop in this country in 1816 did not much exceed 81,000,000; it was in exports exactly 81,747,116 pounds, or 272,490 bales of 300 pounds; very little more than we use now. It was in the last year very nearly 376,000,000, or 1,253,333 bales; exhibiting an increase of production of almost 500 per centum in sixteen years. During this period, the consumption has increased in Great Britain, as we have already seen, from 94,000,000 to 245,000,000, or about 150,000,000 pounds, equal to 500,000 bales, leaving an excess of production, beyond English consumption, of 131,000,000 pounds, or 436,666 bales, of which we consume nearly one-half. What, I ask you, Mr. Chairman, and this committee, has been the consequence of this steady pursuit of one line of policy-of the encouragement by which you invited your citizens to engage in manufactures, and of the protection which you virtually undertook should be extended to their enterprises, by a series of measures, in my judgment wisely originated and wisely persisted in by the clearest heads and best hearts? What they intended it should be; what it was precisely their purpose should follow. Manufactories have sprung up in a large proportion of the country; not in one town, not in one district, but every where; and, like the dews, and rains, and sunshine from heaven, stimulating every thing, and furnishing food for every body. Will you destroy what you have built up? It cannot be denied that the legislation on this subject has been the corner-stone of many, if not The immense consequence, of even this single branch most, of these establishments. Will justice allow you to of industry, cannot be overlooked; nor is it easy to perallure from other pursuits, and to lead from other invest-ceive how, extended and extending as it is, this great outments, into this branch of industry, only to withdraw the inducements you had held out? Let us inquire what is at stake, and how large are the interests that implore you not to endanger their existence; endanger, did I say? not absolutely to destroy them! Take two or three of the leading manufactures of the country; for example, cotton, wool, and iron. let for raw cotton can injure him who produces it to sell. The manufacture of wool is perhaps still more important; certainly not less so. The number of factories in the United States I do not know; but it is estimated that the number of sheep is not smaller than 20,000,000, and that their average value may be fairly put at two dollars per head. MAY 29, 1832.] Aggregate value of sheep, The cloth and other articles, into which it is The capital invested in the manufactories, The wages paid to those employed in them, not including the mechanics and laborers employed in the building and repair of houses, machinery, &c., cannot be, although I have no positive information on the subject, less than The annual consumption of agricultural cause of the manufacture of wool, will be, Of wool, Food of horses and other animals engaged in transportation, Total, The Tariff. $40,000,000 20,000,000 This effect, so advantageous to those who have occasion to buy iron, (and who is there that, in some shape or other, does not find it convenient, indeed, necessary to do so?) may be very distinctly traced, it is thought, to Ameri40,000,000 can competition. The state of things abroad can scarcely 40,000,000 have produced it: for in England the price of iron has not fallen to any amount worthy of notice since the depreciation of 1829, while in that year, 1830, and 1831, it has sunk in the United States about twenty-five per centum. Swedish and Russian iron were higher in 1830 and 1831 than in 1824, having fluctuated, and borne generally a 10,000,000 higher price between those two extremes than at either of products, be- them. With English iron it was not so. In July, 1828, after intelligence of the passage of our tariff law of 19th $20,000,000 May, 1828, reached England, it fell from £8 98. sterling 3,750,000 to £7 98. (that is £1 or $4 44;) in 1829 it was further reduced 500,000 from £7 98. to £6, (£1 9s. equal to $6 50;) throughout There were made at these furnaces, in 1830, 155,348 tons of iron. From which bar iron was furnished Castings 90,768 The bar iron, at the market price for 1830, ($96 663 per ton,) was worth Castings, - $9,342,030 2,102,380 the remainder of 1829, and during 1830, it continued at 500,000 £6; and in 1831 its price was from £6 to £5 10s. It is manifest that the single variation of price, and that slight, $24,750,000 in English iron, since 1829, could not have had the smallNot to speak of the land which subsists the sheep and fur- est influence in effecting the reduction in the cost of this nishes those products. indispensable metal, which has been steadily progressing The remaining interest to which I have adverted is iron.in our own country.* I cannot state the precise number of furnaces, but there I would not be more tedious than is absolutely necessary, were known to be in operation, in the United States, in and shall not, therefore, refer to the various other manuthe year 1830, two hundred and two, and the enumera- factures now in operation in the United States; the leather, tion was incomplete. the linen, and hempen, the copper, the sugar, and the many different branches which exercise the ingenuity and industry of our fellow-citizens. Why shall we take a step which will put to hazard, and, as I think, destroy, those immense interests? Because, say honorable gentlemen with whom I have the misfortune to differ in opinion, the Tons, 96,621 policy which cherishes them works oppression and injury 28,273 to one section of the country, and to one interest, called, generally, the planting interest. If this were so, I should deeply regret it; but, before we inquire into this allegation, let us look for a moment at the relative value of those interests which are said so much to conflict. The cotton 11,444,410 raised in the United States, in 1831, was, according to my calculation, worth, at nine cents per pound, $33,833,277. 10,861,440 I freely admit, as has been suggested by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. McDUFFIE,] that 11,528,134 agricultural pursuit is one of the leading engagements of life; that it lies at the foundation of national wealth and 11,444,410 prosperity; and that he who grows wheat, or corn, or cotreduced to ton, literally produces and adds so much to the aggregate possessions of the community, and, in this particular, is more useful than he who, by an interchange of commodities, may contribute to your convenience, but amasses only for himself by shifting possession, and not by creating, if may so speak, that which did not exist before. But the planter is in nowise more useful than the manufacturer, who, by his skill, and ingenuity, and industry, gives to an The operation of the present policy, and its beneficial article a value that it had not previously: to whatever exresults, can be very happily illustrated by the article un- tent the manufacture is worth more than the raw materials der consideration, and its manufacture. While bar iron of which it is composed, by so much has he added to the is furnished to the purchaser of a much better quality, common stock, and given existence and being to so much and the improvement in castings has been, perhaps, un-increase of our entire wealth. He contributes as efficientequalled in any other walk, the price has been uniformly ly, therefore, to the permanent prosperity of the country, falling. H. OF R.] The Tariff. [MAY 29, 1832. amount, it would be to a higher degree and greater ex- into Boston 284,504 barrels, and 3,955 half-barrels of tent: for his means necessarily flow in a thousand rills, through those he employs, over the whole land, irrigating and fertilizing every field and hamlet. We have seen what is the addition of the planter in the The woollen mills cannot yield less, though $32,036,760 More than twice the value of the cotton crop of 1831. Take another view. The wages of the operatives in factories are original wealth; they are produced or created wealth, that had no pre-existence. Like the rewards of labor, they are cumulative; and being the yield of the hand and the head, do not merely transfer, but make property. In cotton mills the aggregate annual wages In woollen mills they cannot be short of flour, 681,131 bushels of corn, 239,809 bushels of oats, 50,000 bushels of rye, and 33,489 bushels of shorts; and into Providence, Rhode Island, 71,369 barrels of flour, 216,662 bushels of corn, and 7,772 bushels of rye. During the same period there were discharged from the port of Philadelphia 420,353 bushels of corn, 201,878 bushels of wheat, and 110,557 bushels of rye and barley. I have not spoken of the sugar, molasses, tobacco, and other articles annually conveyed to the Eastern and Northeastern States from the Southern and Midland regions. The consumption, Mr. Chairman, of bread stuffs and vegetable productions in the manufacturing districts exceeds the export to foreign countries of the same articles. 32,036,760 One branch of industry naturally and inevitably, in the ordinary course of events, aids and sustains another. 11,444,410 While the manufacturer consumes the fruit of the soil, the farmer is enabled to purchase and use the product of $75,517,930 the loom, and the exports in the various mechanic arts find employment in supplying the wants and the comforts, and sometimes the luxuries, if you please, which increased means justify their neighbors in indulging, while from them they draw the ingredients of their own enjoyment. Thus live the people of the Northern and Middle States, each occupation contributing its proper proportion to the general sum of means and happiness; and the whole consummates, I verily believe, as much of contentment and $14,016,502 felicity as the lot of man permits. The bread of industry 10,000,000 is always sweet. The diversity of pursuit to which I have alluded is indispensable to prosperity. There may 7,493,700 be-it arises out of the circumstances that there must be-in a country which has but one leading occupation, $31,510,202 a few instances of very great wealth; but, according to At Lowell, in Massachusetts, alone, I have been inform- my conception, there will not, there cannot be as much ed, $50,000 were paid weekly for wages, some two or competence and comfort spread over the whole surface, three years ago; since which time, three very large com- as where each man is more or less dependent upon his panies for the manufacture of cotton at that place have neighbor for his supplies and employment. This most been incorporated, with capitals amounting to two millions felicitous operation of the system, for which I am conand two hundred thousand dollars, who are now erecting tending, is the strongest argument in its favor. It has the buildings necessary to conduct their business. It is been the principal instrument, under Providence, in reworthy of remark, as showing at one point the powerful deeming from embarrassment and misfortune all the couninfluence which the domestic system exerts in advancing try in which it has been established. It has not only the public prosperity, that, on the ground which the town built up towns, and settled wildernesses, but it has perof Lowell now covers, there were seven years ago but formed a more difficult, and, at the same time, more three or four farmhouses; that the last census gave it a po- grateful task--it has revived declining villages, and repulation of seven thousand; and that when the above suscitated those upon whom the hand of death was almost companies shall have their works in full operation, (in laid. Where the voice of complaint was once feebly ut1834,) there will be required as agents and operatives, &c. tered, and the countenance of despair would almost chill to carry them on, at least five thousand additional per- your blood, you now hear the laugh of hilarity, and see sons; giving, as the entire population of Lowell, in nine the jocund and delightful expression of face, which is the years, twelve thousand souls, besides the natural increase; index of a mind at ease. making it the second, and placing it before Salem, the oldest, town in Massachusetts. While those who have engaged in these pursuits have advanced their own pecuniary concerns, they have beneReturning to the cotton, woollen, and iron manufac-fited the communities in which they have been located, to tures, the three great branches which I have selected as illustrative of the whole, there remains yet another as pect in which I desire to present them to the committee. What amount of agricultural products do they consume? Of cotton, say seventy millions, at nine cents, allowing five millions of pounds for common domestic purposes, Of wool, say forty-five millions, at forty cents, allowing five millions as above, Subsistence, an extent almost incalculable, and of which even those who are enjoying the advantage scarcely know the value, nor will they duly appreciate it, unless, unhappily, its fountains should be broken up. It is like the possession of full health, of which those only from whom it has been taken understand the real value. The progress of this $6,300,000 country in prosperity has been unexampled; if our course of policy be judicious, and the present system is main18,000,000 tained, that prosperity will be, I had almost said, illimita11,250,000 ble. If, which I will not believe, it should be the determination of this body to retrograde, what will be the $35,550,000 consequence? The means now employed in the manuExclusive of fuel, timber, &c., and of food for horses factories will be, in a great degree, if not entirely, lost; and other animals employed in transporting the raw ma- the fortunes of those engaged in them will be generally terial and manufactured article, which, about iron works blighted, if not dissolved, and they themselves, the bone especially, it is well known, must be very great. The extensive domestic market furnished to the grain-growing States may be exemplified by mentioning the imports of one or two places. In the year 1831 there were carried and muscle of the country, will be crushed, in most instances, to rise no more. How shall their capital be withdrawn from their present pursuits? It is invested in houses, lands, water-power, and machinery; the proper MAY 29, 1832.] The Tariff. [H. OF R. What While We ty is useless almost for any other purpose, and must, to a which the duty is, I believe, five cents per pound, and I great extent, be lost, and lost not to the disadvantage of have understood they sell at about the same sum. The the manufacturers exclusively: there, it is true, the pres- truth is, the duty is never an addition to the price, except sure and weight will be first and most heavily felt, but where the competition is feeble, and the foreigner is perthe whole country will soon feel that it has sustained an mitted to retain, in a great degree, the market; if, on the injury. Those who furnish the raw material will imme- other hand, it is active and powerful, it will prevent the diately discover that they have been deprived of a mar-importer from charging the duty to the consumer. ket; those who supply the provisions, the flour, the wheat, says the fact as to iron? It is unquestionable that the efthe corn, the rye, the beef, the pork, and the almost in- fect of the law of 1828 has been a reduction of the price. numerable articles which subsistence demands, will find Iron has not been so low since 1793 as it now is. all their surplus products cheapened, or remaining on it has not fallen in England, from 1829 to 1831, to any their hands for want of purchasers; and last, though not amount deserving attention, it has been cheapened in less certainly, those who use the manufactures will be America, in all those years, about twenty-five per centum. convinced that their consumption is furnished at a dearer To what can this be ascribed but domestic competition? rate, since domestic competition no longer prevents the I might continue this exhibition of facts in regard of foreigner from charging his own price: for, although the other manufactures, but I forbear. report of the Committee on Manufactures treats it as pa- What is it proposed to do? To foster and cherish a radoxical, and alleges that "it seems to conflict with the system that has been productive of so much good, and first dictates of common sense, that duties of impost more than answered the predictions of its friends, by cheapen the price of the articles on which they are le- which our own citizens are sustained in elaborating manuvied," it is, nevertheless, as evident as any other truth factures that the consumer buys as cheap, or cheaper, whatever. To some of the positions in that report I than the foreign, and better; and the money necessary to heartily assent, while others taken in it appear to me to conduct the process, and to purchase the article manufacbe heretical. Of those parts from which I dissent, I can- tured, is expended among ourselves, at home, and, distrinot speak but in terms of the greatest respect: the cha-buted in numberless streams, goes to support honest racter, the talents, the position in the country of its dis- American industry and thrift--by which the farmer, the tinguished author, [Mr. ADAMS,] and last, though not mechanic, the laborer, the merchant, the entire circle of least, the earnestness with which I am persuaded he is society, is benefited, by throwing on its surface money seeking to advance the public interest, and the sentiments that would otherwise be sent abroad, and which, being which all these considerations have inspired, forbid a dif-absorbed by the various occupations of life, aids, most exferent course. But I will array against the position al- tensively and powerfully, in strengthening and invigorluded to, the opinions of the master spirits of the age; of ating the whole? No, sir, but to adopt a measure that him who, in the most intricate department of the Govern- will, in my judgment, be fatal to all its branches. ment, brought order out of chaos, and opened out roads are asked, by the bill reported by the honorable chairman of duty in the Treasury Department, which have been of the Committee of Ways and Means, [Mr. McDUFFIE,] travelled upon ever since, and who reached so advanced to reduce the duties on iron, and the manufactures of it, a point of progression, that, in this age of improvement, to less than they were in 1794, and those on cotton manuwhen the march of the world is rapidly onward, the ta- factures to the same standard that they then bore; to bring lents of his successors have not carried them beyond it. down the duty on iron seventy-five per centum on its preI will refer to the views of living statesmen, having just sent rates, and that on wool and woollens after nearly the claim to great weight for their opinions, and whom I same proportion, and the duty on cottons more than thirwould name if they were not yet on the stage of human ty-three per centum. Do gentlemen think there is less existence, and some of them most active and efficient occasion for a duty now than in 1828--now, when our inmembers of the present National Legislature. It is said, terests are prodigiously enlarged? The testimony of witin the report, to be "contrary to the natural order of nesses examined before the Committee on Manufactures, things that an addition to the cost should be a reduction and to be found among the documents of this House, of the price of an article." This is assuming the very will show that an increase of duty was, at that time, matter in controversy. It does not seem to me that thought to be necessary. Can it be less so at this day, the imposition of a duty on an article of import is an addi- when additional millions have been invested, and the pubtion to the cost of a similar article manufactured in the lic are better and more cheaply accommodated? Has our United States, nor always to that of the import. The commerce suffered? No. Has not our internal trade inprotection afforded is not in the enhancement of price, creased immensely? Yes. Why, then, interfere detribut in the giving of a market; and what is the conse-mentally to those great interests? It is said that we shall quence? You encourage the manufactories in operation not want the revenue which the present imposts will proto extend their business; you stimulate others into exist-duce, after the public debt shall have been extinguished; ence; the supply is increased at home; domestic compe- and the honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. tition arises between rival factories; general competition MCDUFFIE] has placed the sum which will then be necesfor the market between foreigners and them; and "the sary for Government purposes at ten millions of dollars. natural course of things" is, that the consumer is provided I do not concur in this opinion, but prefer the estimate of at a smaller price. This effect will be greater or less, the Secretary of the Treasury, who fixes the amount that according to the proportion the supply bears to the de- our expenditures will require at twelve millions, and mand, and, to my mind, is as apparent as that two and deems it a measure of prudence to have in our public coftwo make four. On this subject facts appear to be con- fers, annually, fifteen millions of dollars. But I do not clusive. Cotton cloths have fallen, under the influence intend now to consider this proposition; a fitter occasion of the policy adopted, from about seventeen cents (which for doing so will occur when the amendment providing was stated to be their price, in a letter from Mr. Isaac for the exemption from duty of those articles which do Briggs, of Delaware, to the honorable William Lowndes, not, and cannot, compete with us, submitted, some days dated 12th March, 1816) to eight cents, or thereabouts: since, by my honorable friend from Massachusetts, [Mr. and, as showing the fallacy of the idea that the duty is DAVIS,] shall be offered, if an opportunity for doing so necessarily an addition to the cost, let it be remembered will be afforded him. Another reason of the greatest that the duty on this species of manufacture is eight and delicacy, and calling for the most ready, attentive, and three-fourths cents per yard; for less than which it is ac-anxious consideration, is urged, and urged by some of the tually selling. The same remark is true of nails, on most talented and patriotic men in the nation, with a force H. OF R.] The Tariff. [MAY 29, 1832. and strength worthy of their intellectual endowments, States without any other charge than the payment of and with a zeal and earnestness that demonstrate the en-freight; or, if he be a wise man, he will deposite it in Engtire conviction of their minds that their positions are land, and draw a bill of exchange for the amount, which founded in truth and justice. he can dispose of at ten per centum premium; or, if he I approach this branch of the subject, Mr. Chairman, must have goods, he can ask for such as are duty free. with unfeigned sensibility, and reciprocate in the fullest If the position of the honorable gentleman, with whom I manner the kindness of feeling expressed by the honora- differ in opinion, were correct, it would seem natural that ble gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. McDUFFIE.] cotton should fall in price: for there is no principle on I not only know, but I feel, that we are of one kindred--| which it can be maintained that the producer pays the might I not say not merely political, but that we own the duty on articles imported, unless it may be shown that he ties of consanguinity: for although our veins do not con- gets less for what he sells than formerly. The law of tain the blood of a common ancestry, yet the blood of 1828 is most complained of; it is the one by which duties those ancestors has been mingled on the battle plain. It on woollens have been most increased, and increased, as is contended that the system of protection is oppressive is alleged, to the detriment of the South. As far as conto the South, which is declining under its blighting in-sumption goes, duty may be paid, but not one jot beyond fluence, and that she is made to pay the greater part of it: for cotton was as high in 1830 as in 1827-precisely the duty, inasmuch as her staple furnishes the largest the same price in the United States, having been nine proportion of the export, and it were folly or blindness cents and a very small fraction in each year; while in Linot to see that great excitement prevails in relation to verpool it was lower in 1827, and in 1828, than in 1830this subject. I hope this family feud may be unlike those having been in the former year five to six and three-fourths of private life, which are always bitter. It has been of- pence per pound; in 1828, five and three-fourths to six ten asserted that we who come from other quarters of the and seven-eighths pence; and in 1830, the price was five country are incapable of judging of the distress which and seven-eighths to seven and one-eighth pence. It is prevails to the South, or of the causes which produced not easy to perceive how he who never negotiated for it; and the right even to decide upon this question has the purchase of goods-who never owned them, or paid seemed to have been almost denied sometimes. I would for them--who never saw them, and who never used not intrude myself into the private concerns of my bro-them, could be responsible for a duty on the importation ther, but this is not his affair alone--it is mine as well as of them. To state the proposition seems to be sufficient his--it is a joint concern, in which I conceive I have the to refute it. The position is confidently taken that goods largest stake. The whole country is concerned, deeply manufactured in England, and obtained for cotton, beconcerned: it is an occasion that I would not seek, but it come immediately, on the exchange, by a sort of talismais one on which, when it comes to me, I cannot avoid act- nic operation, American productions--the productions of ing. Sir, the fact of Southern complaint, and the agita- the planter who has grown the cotton. I understood the tion that it has produced, create sincere regret. That honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. McDurany portion of our country should be declining, must be FIE] to say he was willing to place the whole question on deplored; and if, in my judgment, there could be any re- the correctness of this assumption. It would be rather a medy found for it here, no man would more readily ex- hazardous experiment to do so. Follow out the idea, tend it, unless some great consideration enjoined it upon and it will lead you away from the gentleman's conclusion. me as a duty, looking to the prosperity of the whole, to Admitting, for the sake of the argument, the soundness of withhold it. How is this alleged injury wrought? It is the allegation, it will scarcely be contended that the said that the staple of the South provides the great mass Southern section of the Union retains all the goods which of our exports, and that the articles exchanged for the are imported, or that it consumes a proportion of them crop being dutied, it is in effect a charge upon the crop, equivalent in value to the cotton exported. You want for the merchandise being taxed, so much less is obtained some of them for your comfort and convenience; I desire for the crop. I hold this to be a mistake. Where the to use a portion; and each citizen in society is a purchaser duty is paid by any one in the United States, it is not to some extent; our industry, our land, the exercise of more certainly a law of nature that the sun shall give light the mechanic arts, or professional labors--all American-and heat to the earth, than it is one of trade, that he who furnish the means of exchange or purchase; and do not consumes shall pay the impost. But, in the brisk and the foreign manufactures obtained, in your hands, or effective competition which the skill and enterprise of mine, or those of our neighbors, become as much Ameour manufacturers have enabled them to establish and rican productions as in the planter's? Is there any thing maintain, it is more generally thrown upon the foreign peculiar in the avails of his skill and industry, which does manufacturer or importer, who, by the increased supply not belong to yours or mine? According, then, to this and that competition, and the consequent reduction of strange doctrine, the consumer becomes the producer, price, is prevented from adding the duty to the price, and in this latter quality pays the duty; and either way and is thus made a large and involuntary contributor to you are conducted to the only rational principle, that our public treasury. What is the ordinary course of busi- when the duty is not thrown by competition upon the foness in the disposition of cotton? Does the planter him- reign_manufacturer or importer, the consumer pays it. self export his crop, and import the merchandise he uses? In regard of the depreciated value of cotton, I believe the In very few, if any instances, I apprehend; and when he fact to be, that the extension of manufactures, and indoes, he is a consumer to the amount of so much. Usual-crease of consumption, (and it has increased in much greatly the cotton grower sells his crop to a merchant in his er proportion at home than abroad,) have kept up the neighborhood, without reference to the duty on goods, price of cotton, of which the product has been almost treor so much as thinking of it. This transaction over, and bled in seven years. If the consumption had been stationthe planter having received his price in money, or goods, ary, the fall in price must have been much greater. or both, at home, there is an end to his agency in the matter. The cotton is sent to New York or Liverpool, where it is sold, and goods purchased, into the price of which is put the impost (when the foreigner does not lose it) and all other charges, which are of course paid by the man who buys and uses them. But it is not necessary that goods should be taken for cotton; he who sells may demand money, which he can bring to the United Founds. In 1824 the export of cotton amounted to 142,369,663 do. do. 1826 do. do. do. 204,535,415 1827 do. do. do. 294,310,115 1828 do. do. |