does not accrue, that will be enjoyed of supplying the raw material and provisions for the consumption of artisans. Is it not most desirable to put at rest and prevent the annual recurrence of this unpleasant subject, so well fitted by the various interests to which it appeals, to excite irritation and to produce discontent ? Can that be effected by its rejection? Behold the mass of petitions which lie on our table, earnestly and anxiously entreating the protecting interposition of Congress against the ruinous policy which we are pursuing. Will these petitioners, comprehending all orders of society, entire states and communities, public companies and private individuals, spontaneously assembling, cease in their humble prayers by your lending a deaf ear? Can you expect that these petitioners, and others, in countless numbers, that will, if you delay the passage of this bill, supplicate your mercy, should contemplate their substance gradually withdrawn to foreign countries, their ruin slow, but certain and as inevitable as death itself, without one expiring effort? You think the measure injurious to you; we believe. our preservation depends upon its adoption. Our convictions, mutually honest, are equally strong. What is to be done? I invoke that saving spirit of mutual concession under which our blessed constitution was formed, and under which alone it can be happily administered. I appeal to the south-to the high-minded, generous, and patriotic south-with which I have so often co-operated, in attempting to sustain the honor and to vindicate the rights of our country. Should it not offer, upon the altar of the public good, some sacrifice of its peculiar opinions? Of what does it complain? A possible temporary enhancement in the objects of consumption. Of what do we complain? A total incapacity, produced by the foreign policy, to purchase, at any price, necessary foreign objects of consumption. In such an alternative, inconvenient only to it, ruinous to us, can we expect too much from southern magnanimity? The just and confident expectation of the passage of this bill has flooded the country with recent importations of foreign fabrics. If it should not pass, they will complete the work of destruction of our domestic industry. If it should pass, they will prevent any considerable rise in the price of foreign commodities, until our own industry shall be able to supply competent substitutes. To the friends of the tariff, I would also anxiously appeal. Every arrangement of its provisions does not suit each of you; you desire some further alterations; you would make it perfect. You want what you will never get. Nothing human is perfect. And I have seen, with great surprise, a piece signed by a member of Congress, published in the National Intelligencer, stating that this bill must be rejected, and a judicious tariff brought in as its substitute. A judicious tariff! No member of Congress could have signed that piece; or, if he did, the public ought not to be deceived. If this bill do not pass, unquestionably no other can pass at this session, or probably during this Congress. And who will go home and say that he rejected all the benefits of this bill, because molasses has been subjected to the enormous additional duty of five cents per gallon? I call, therefore, upon the friends of the American policy, to yield somewhat of their own peculiar wishes, and not to reject the practicable in the idle pursuit after the unattainable. Let us imitate the illustrious example of the framers of the constitution, and always, remembering that whatever springs from man partakes of his imperfections, depend upon experience to suggest, in future, the necessary amendments. We have had great difficulties to encounter. First, the splendid talents which are arrayed in this House against us. Second, we are opposed by the rich and powerful in the land. Third, the executive government, if any, affords us but a cold and equivocal support. Fourth, the importing and navigating interests, I verily believe from misconception, are adverse to us. Fifth, the British factors and the British influence are inimical to our success. Sixth, long established habits and prejudices oppose us. Seventh, the reviewers and literary speculators, foreign and domestic. And, lastly, the leading presses of the country, including the influence of that which is established in this city, and sustained by the public purse. From some of these, or other causes, the bill may be postponed, thwarted, defeated. But the cause is the cause of the country, and it must and will prevail. It is founded in the interests and affections of the people. It is as native as the granite deeply imbosomed in our mountains. And, in conclusion, I would pray God, in His infinite mercy, to avert from our country the evils which are impending over it, and, by enlightening our councils, to conduct us into that path which leads to riches, to greatness, to glory. SPEECH OF ROBERT Y. HAYNE. ON THE TARIFF, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, I RISE to address you, Mr. President, under a greater weight of responsibility than I have ever before experienced. Being under a solemn conviction, that the system, recommended by this bill, (should it become the settled policy of the country,) is calculated to create jealousies, to banish all common sympathy among the people, and array particular states and certain peculiar interests, in deadly hostility towards each other, I cannot but consider the final triumph of such a policy as destined to put in jeopardy the peace and harmony of the whole union. The preservation of the system will render necessary successive acts of legislation, and the Congress of the United States, instead of looking to great national objects, will find itself hereafter constantly engaged in settling the conflicting claims of interested monopolists, and attempting to measure out to the several states and the various employments of labor and capital, an equal proportion of protection and encouragement. I can perceive no end to the difficulties in which we must be involved by such a course of legislation; I can discover no means of avoiding the fierce conflicts to which it must give rise, short of the final abandonment of the whole scheme, which, however necessary, will be attended by ruin to those who shall be tempted, by your restrictions and bounties, to engage in unprofitable pursuits. Whatever advantages may possibly accrue to the east or the west, from this bill, it is certain that it must operate most injuriously on the south. While the inhabitants of that portion of the union will enjoy no part of your bounties, they will be called upon to furnish, (in the enhanced price of all the articles of their consumption,) the means of making profitable the pursuits of others. The cotton-growing states will, moreover, be exposed to the risk of having the foreign market for their produce cut off: a calamity which would involve in total and irretrievable ruin that valuable, and, I may be permitted to add, interesting and faithful, portion of our common country. However unfounded these apprehensions may be, they are universally felt in the southern states, and appear to my mind to rest on such a solid foundation, that in opposing this bill I consider myself called upon to maintain interests of inestimable value, and to endeavor to avert calamities of immense magnitude. The difficulty of this undertaking, however, is no less appalling than the magnitude of the danger. The question has been discussed by some of the ablest men our country has produced, and almost all the arguments which belong to it have been already urged, in a manner the most forcible, and in language the most persuasive. I did hope, sir, that every shadow of doubt, which the influence of preconceived opinions, or the suggestions of interest, had thrown around this subject, would have been dispelled by the extensive and profound learning, the brilliant wit, and the delightful and almost resistless eloquence with which it has been treated by my friends. I am conscious of my inability to add one ray of intellectual light to the full blaze with which they, in the meridian splendor of their learning and eloquence, have invested it; and if the minds of our opponents still remain involved in more than Cimmerian darkness, I cannot indulge the hope, that they will be enlightened by any thing which I can say. The causes, (whatever they may be,) which have hitherto "shut out the light," resisted the truth and rendered argument useless, cannot be removed by me. If I were at liberty, therefore, to consult entirely my own |