JAN. 24, 1833.] The Tariff Bill. [H. of R. table, and decided by yeas and nays, yeas 95, nays 72, as to the production of cotton, rice, and tobacco, commonly follows: called the planting interest. It complains of being unYEAS.-Messrs. Mark Alexander, Robert Allen, John equally burdened and oppressed by the existing impost Anderson, William S. Archer, John S. Barbour, Robert laws. He proposed to examine this complaint, and should W. Barnwell, Daniel L. Barringer, James Bates, Samuel endeavor to show it had no foundation in fact; that whatBeardsley, John Bell, John T. Bergen, Laughlin Be- ever of depression of labor, and of decay, there may be i thune, James Blair, John Blair, Ratliff Boon, Joseph in the South, might be accounted for from other causes Bouck, Thomas T. Bouldin, George N. Briggs, John of general influence on that section of the Union: after Brodhead, John C. Brodhead, Churchill C. Cambreleng, which, he should present some other considerations, John Carr, Samuel P. Carson, Thomas Chandler, Joseph which, with him, were insuperable objections against W. Chinn, Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Clement C. Clay, Au-acting upon the subject at all at the present session. gustine S. Clayton, Richard Coke, jr., Henry W. Connor, The South then demands a repeal of the existing imRobert Craig, Thomas Davenport, William Drayton, Jo- post laws, and an abandonment of the settled policy of seph Draper, John M. Felder, James Findlay, William the country, upon the faith of which great interests have Fitzgerald, Thomas F. Foster, John Gilmore, William F. been staked; on the allegation that those laws are uneGordon, John K. Griffin, Thomas H. Hall, William Hall, qual, and oppress slave labor; that they throw upon that Joseph M. Harper, Albert G. Hawes, Micajah T. Haw- labor more than its just proportion of the public burdens: kins, Michael Hoffman, Cornelius Holland, Henry Horn, in a word, the whole controversy, so long and so obstiHenry Hubbard, William W. Irvin, Leonard Jarvis, nately waged on this subject, is a mere question of equalFreeborn G. Jewett, Cave Johnson, Joseph Johnson, Ed-ity of taxation. It was to that question, therefore, he ward Kavanagh, William Kennon, Adam King, Jolin should invite the particular attention of the committee. King, Henry King, Henry G. Lamar, Gerrit Y. Lansing, The allegation is, that the taxation imposed by the im Humphrey H. Leavitt, Joseph Lecompte, James Lent, post laws, under the forms of the constitution, is, in fact, Chittenden Lyon, Joel K. Mann, John Y. Mason, Jona- in violation of its spirit and meaning; that, in this partithan McCarty, William McCoy, Rufus McIntire, James cular, the constitution has been abused, to the injury of J. McKay, Henry A. Muhlenberg, John M. Patton, Job the complaining party. Pierson, Franklin E. Plummer, James K. Polk, Edward C. Reed, Abraham Rencher, William Russel, Charles S. Sewall, Augustine H. Shepperd, Samuel A. Smith, Nathan Soule, James Standifer, Philander Stephens, Francis Thomas, Wiley Thompson, John Thomson, Gulian C. Verplanck, James M. Wayne, John W. Weeks, Campbell P. White, Richard H. Wilde, John T. H. Worthing ton. Mr. Chairman, when individuals enter into an agreement, and afterwards a dispute arises as to the manner of executing it, or if either party complain of what he may be required by the other to do, we go back and inquire into the circumstances under which the agreement was entered into-the motives of the parties, and, most especially, into the consideration to be given or paid for the several stipulations. These are the lights which reason and justice direct us to resort to as our safest guides. When public compacts are brought into controversy, we resort to the same aids, and decide them by the same rules of interpretation. Let us apply these rules to the question of taxation now made under the constitution. NAYS.-Messrs. John Quincy Adams, Chilton Allan, The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, Mr. WAYNE in the chair, and resumed the TARIFF BILL. Mr. WILDE resumed the floor, and concluded the course of his remarks in support of the bill, as given above. He was followed by was said, among other things, that slaves, being property, they were not parties to the constitution, and had no agency or voice in making it; and, therefore, their owners ought no more to have a vote for them, than the owners of horses and cattle in those States where slaves did not exist. To this it was replied, that slaves were persons as well as property, and had some of the rights of persons; and if they were taxed, as they would be, the burdens of Government, unless they were represented, would be unequal, some of the States having no property of that description. This difficulty was adjusted by resorting to the great and acknowledged axiom in politics, that taxation and representation are the true measure of the value of each other. Direct taxation, therefore, was made the basis of representation in Congress, and in the choice of the PreMr. VINTON, of Ohio, who said he did not rise to sident; that being the only mode of taxation capable, in enter into an examination of the details of the bill now its nature, of being reduced to perfect equality. On before the committee. For reasons which he would as these terms the owners of slaves got a vote in their acsign, he should vote against the bill, without regard to count, according to the rule fixed in the constitution for its particular details. One only, of all the great interests representation and taxation. So that the political power of in the country, said Mr. V. makes any call upon Con- the country is composed of two distinct ingredients; that gress to act on this subject: he meant that which is devoted which represents the freemen of all the States, and that H. OF R.] The Tariff Bili. [JAN. 24, 1833. which represents the property in slaves. At the time the raised by this tax from the people of the North, and paid constitution went into operation, the property represen-out at the South and West, to meet the deficiencies of tation in Congress was between one-eighth and one-ninth the establishment there? Must not this be a charge on of the whole body: it is now between one-ninth and one- the profits of Northern industry? And do not the South tenth. Under the last census, it will be about one- and West enjoy this luxury, an invaluable advantage, in tenth-one-ninth may be assumed as the average for the part, at the expense of the North? Let us go, sir, somewhole time. If, therefore, more than one-ninth of all the where else in search of unequal taxation and oppression revenues of the Government have fallen on that description of slave labor. of property, then they who represent it here have a right to complain: if it have paid no more, then they have nothing to complain of. And that is the question to be set. tled. Now, then Mr. Chairman, for the facts. The revenue of the United States, from the 4th of March, 1789, when the constitution went into operation, to the close of the year 1832, is composed of the following items: Customs, Internal revenue, Postage, Public lands, Bank dividends, sales of bank stock, and bank bonus, Direct taxes, The next source of revenue has been from the public lands. Of the forty millions of dollars paid for them, is it not notorious that a vast majority of it has been received from the free States? And even in the slaveholding States, the money paid for the public land can in no sense be called a tax on slave labor. The slave, it is true, works the plantation, and is a part of the capital of $594,338,000 its proprietor. The horse of my constituents sustains the 22,204,000 same relations to the farm and its owner. And the price 1,090,000 paid for the land he works on can with no more propriety 40,152,000 be called a tax on the labor of the slave, than in the other case, on the labor of the horse! It would be absolutely 10,883,000 ridiculous to take up time to show that, of the ten or 12,702,000 eleven millions derived from bank dividends, bank bo5,000,000 nus, and sales of bank stock, the slave labor has nothing to complain of. We must then look exclusively to the $686,000,000 customs for the alleged oppression and inequality. In what manner, Mr. Chairman, and on what articles of slave One-ninth of this amount would give a requisition of consumption, has the sum of seventy-five millions, chargeseventy-six million two hundred and twenty-two thou-able on the slave labor for its representation, after desand dollars, as the proportion of the slave property, in ducting the direct tax, been paid? How does the slave compensation or payment for its political power. The pay more than his proportion of the customs? Indeed, be direct taxes being twelve million seven hundred and two would ask, how he paid his proportion? Is it not a fact, thousand dollars, the one-ninth of that sum paid by the that slaves on the tide waters are coarser and cheaper slave property is one! million four hundred and eleven thousand dollars, leaving, of the proportion chargeable on the slave property, nearly seventy-five millions to be made up from other sources. Miscellaneous items, say fed and clothed than any other class of productive laborers in the country, and, consequently, consume less in value of articles paying duties? Of the ninety millions of dutiable articles imported during the last year, he did not Now, Mr. Chairman, let us look into the other branches think it could be shown the slave population consumed of the revenue, and see if it have paid that much of them. more than about two millions. There were very few arHe would first take the internal revenue, amounting, as ticles within the range of their consumption. The mass stated before, to twenty-two million two hundred and of that importation is made up of tea, coffee, sugar, wine, four thousand dollars. How was that made up? It was silks, laces, broadcloths, and other finer manufactures of derived from excise on stills; carriages; retailers' licen- wool, fine cottons, hardwares, linens, spirits, and many ses, stamps, and stamped vellum, parchment, and paper; other articles of luxury; and of these the slave consumes refined sugar, and sales at auction. By looking into the nothing, or next to nothing. He did not know of any treasury returns, gentlemen will find that the portion of thing paying duties, except salt, coarse woollens, and these taxes paid by the country north of the Potomac is blankets, that the slave habitually consumed. It was true, very much larger than its proportion of representation in coarse cottons were also furnished them, but he believed this House. But what portion of them, he would ask, nullification itself would admit they were purchased as was paid by the slave, and thus operated as a tax or bur-cheap here as they could be any where. Now, sir, let us den on the profits of his labor? Was the slave a con- put this matter to the test of a little calculation. Take sumer, to any extent, of distilled spirits? Did the slave the Secretary's statement of the revenue for 1832 at enjoy the luxury of a carriage? Have retailers' licenses thirty-one million seven hundred and fifty-two thousand, been granted to slaves, or are they the persons who are all of which has been applied to defray the expenses of permitted to frequent such shops? When did they use Government, and extinguish the public debt. Suppose vellum, parchment, and stamped paper? And if, per that sum had been raised by direct taxation. The aschance, they ever enjoyed a morsel of refined sugar, has sessment on the slave property, as it is now represented not its ordinary consumption been reserved for the more in Congress, would be nearly three and a half millions of refined palate of the master, and of the freemen of the dollars; and about three millions, as it will be representNorth? It would be as difficult to show what they have ed in the next Congress. This is exclusive of the asse-shad to do with sales at auction, the only remaining source ment on the free population in the slaveholding States. of these internal duties. He was then justified in saying Now, sir, suppose the law of the last session had been in that the slave labor has been, substantially, exempt from operation; a supposition which he had a right to make, any of the burdens of this class of taxes. They have since that act was complained of, and its repeal demandfallen elsewhere.. ed. What portion, under the law of last session, of this The next item is the one million and ninety thousand sum of three millions and upwards, would the slave condollars paid into the treasury from the Post Office. This sumption of the last year have paid in duties, admitting is in addition to the large sums raised annually from post- (what is always disputed here) that the whole duty is a age, to sustain the establishment. It surely will not be tax on the consumer? To appease the complaints of this claimed that the master has been oppressed by paying interest, the duty on coarse woollens and coarse blankets postages for the slave. Will any one here deny that the had been brought down to five per cent. ad valorem, (a postage tax has always been paid by the people of the mere nominal duty,) by that act. The importation of North far beyond their proportion of population or repre- coarse woollens and blankets amounted last year to one sentation? Has not a large sum of money been annually million six hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars. The JAN. 24, 1833.] The Tariff Bill. [H. OF R. duty, at five per cent., would be eighty-two thousand sir, direct your attention from these dry details to another seven hundred and fifty dollars. view of this subject, and inquire what has been the vaHe believed the consumption of salt was estimated in lue of this political power to that interest, and to the Europe at one-fourth of a bushel per annum for each per- whole South. Has it not produced the most important son; say half a million of bushels of salt for the two mil- results in the Executive administration, and in the legislalions of slaves, duty ten cents per bushel, fifty thousand tion of the country? Is there any interest in the nation dollars, making, in all, one hundred and thirty-two thou- that has been so sedulously guarded, and so constantly sand seven hundred and fifty dollars, being about one and powerfully felt? Was it not the property vote, in twenty-fifth part of what the direct assessment would be the choice of the Chief Magistrate, that elected Thomas on the whole slave population. In this calculation, the Jefferson over the elder Adams? and again in A. D. 1824, whole quantity of coarse woollens and blankets imported was it not the same property vote which gave to General into the country is supposed to be consumed by the slave Jackson that plurality which, in the opinion of the Amepopulation. But he doubted whether the boatmen and rican people, conferred on him a just claim to the Exeother laborers in the non-slaveholding States did not cutive chair? the denial of which by Congress was conconsume the half or more of them. The truth is, the sidered by the people to be an act of injustice towards slaves in the interior, above tide water, are almost exclu- him. Has not this property vote effected both of the sively clothed in fabrics manufactured on the plantation. great revolutions in the administration of this country, Nothing is now paid by direct taxation; and, instead of and the only revolutions that have ever taken place? Does relieving the few articles consumed by the slave from du- this show it to be an oppressed interest? Has it secured ties, it would be a matter of strict justice and right to as- to itself no valuable exemptions? By looking into the sess high imposts upon them, so as to make the owner acts of Congress passed in 1807 and 1808, and also during pay something for the political power he enjoys on ac- the late war, making requisitions upon the States for micount of the slave. The property representation of South litia for the service of the United States, it will be found Carolina, under the last census, will be about one-sixtieth those requisitions were made according to the militia repart of the whole representation in Congress. If Gov- turns of the several States, and not according to the rule ernment were to raise thirty millions by direct tax, the of representation. assessment on the slaves of that State would be half a Is it nothing that the property representation shall have million of dollars, which is, perhaps, twice or three times an important voice in deciding when the sword of the the amount of all the duties that will be assessed, under country shall be drawn, while the burden of drawing it is the act of the last session, on the imported articles con- devolved on others? Was it not the same property vote sumed by the slaves, not in South Carolina merely, but here that made up the majority, which decided in its own in the whole Union. He was aware it would be said favor, in the celebrated D'Auterive case, that when a slave that the slaves ought not to be at all grouped into one ag- falls in battle, or is disabled in the service of the country, gregate, since, on tide water, they are generally clothed the Government shall pay for the slave? While, on the -in imported cloths, while those in the interior wear little other hand, if a farmer or mechanic be draughted as a or none; that this mode of calculation, therefore, made militiaman into the service of the country, and he falls in too small an allowance for the consumption of those near battle, his widow and children are thrown unprovided for the Atlantic, and did not accurately estimate the pressure upon the mercy of the world. Who can tell what it may on their labor. Let us then, Mr. Chairman, subject this cost the country to defend this same property against the matter to the test of individual calculation. Suppose fif- public enemy in war, or against its own efforts to liberate teen millions are to be raised by direct taxation, which, itself from bondage? Ought not that property, he would he believed, was the water-gruel standard down to which ask again, which enjoys this exemption, and has also an the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means pro- important vote in all the affairs of the country, to be conposed to reduce the Government. The assessment on the slaves of South Carolina would be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and on each of its three hundred and fifteen thousand slaves seventy-nine cents. Compare this with the indirect tax or duty the owners will payunder the act of the last session. And for this purpose, suppose the slave to be clothed in imported woollens, and allow for each slave, taking the whole population, large and small, male and female, a blanket and five square yards of woollen cloth per annum, which he presumed to be a liberal estimate. The account would stand thus: Cents, 14 Leaving a deficit of sixty-five cents out of the requisition of seventy-nine to be made up in some other way. If the slave in Carolina consumes any other dutiable articles, or in greater quantities, he should be glad to be set right: and also that some gentleman would show how the remaining sixty-five cents were paid. Until that was done, he could not resist the conclusion that slave labor, so far from being oppressed, was, in truth, the most favored of any in this country. We have seen, Mr. Chairman, what the property representation pays into the public treasury. Let me now, tent to pay liberally its portion of the public revenue without murmur or complaint? Permit me, Mr. Chairman, for a moment to direct your attention to the general influence and practical operation of this property representation on the legislation of the country. When the Government went into operation, this interest was put in possession of that power, and has, without interruption, enjoyed it since. At that time, the continental debt, and debt assumed by the constitution together, amounted to about eighty millions of dollars. The commerce of the country was in its earliest infancy; no one dreamed of the sudden expansion it was shortly destined to receive by the agitation of all Europe; direct taxes, like those now assessed by the States, were calculated upon as a principal resource to sustain the treasury; and, even in the year 1790, three years after the convention that formed the constitution, the impost yielded only three million and thirty thousand dollars, a sum insufficient to meet the interest of the public debt. Well, sir, in the enlarged expenses unavoidably growing out of the state of Europe, a direct tax of two millions per annum only was assessed in the administration of the elder Adams; and what followed? Why, sir, the very property representation that got its power to be paid for in that way, made war on the then existing administration on that account; and, as every one knows, the direct tax was one of the principal causes of its overthrow: and so very unpopular did that interest then make direct taxes by the General Government, that the experiment has never 1 H. OF R.] The Tariff Bill. [JAN. 24, 1833. since been ventured upon, except under the severe pres- rica, has directed the attention of the whole world to its sure of the late war. And thus this power has practically cultivation, wherever it can be produced, and especially got for itself an exemption from payment of the equiva- in those countries where human labor is most cheapened lent for which its representation was given. and depressed-in the East Indies, Egypt, Brazil, and One or two more facts, sir, on the subject of the op- other parts of South America. Is it not a fact that the pression of this interest. Did it not lead the van in the home market is the best market, first served, and at the embargo and non-importation acts which drove the com- highest price? And what security has the cotton grower mercial capital and industry of the country from the water it would be so under the operation of this bill? He said to the land? Did it not take the lead in forcing that capi- these things, because the prosperity of the cotton and tal and industry, against all remonstrance, into the busi- sugar industry was of the very first importance to the ness of manufacturing? And now, when they have no country he represented. If he were satisfied the plant. place of refuge left, does it not threaten their annihilation? ing and manufacturing interests were incompatible with Did not this same property vote settle the Missouri ques- each other, and could not stand together, he thought it tion in its own favor? And was it not this interest that would be better for the Western country that the manu carried the Indian bill in 1830-'32? The property repre- facturing interest should fall; but he would decide be sentation is the only infusion of aristocracy in the consti- tween them as he would between his right and his left arm. tution. And whoever looks into the history of the United They both opened great markets for the staple proStates, must be satisfied it has been incessantly applied to ducts of the West, and every farmer in that country that the industry, capital, legislation, and Executive adminis- follows the plough has a deep stake in sustaining them. tration of the country, first as the lever, and then as the All of the great departments of industry in this country screw, and now it threatens to draw the sword upon us are dependent upon each other; they are interwoven and to enforce new and unconstitutional exemptions in its wedded together in a thousand ways, and cannot be dis favor. He said he did not say these things by way of severed without violence to all. As the production of complaint, but in answer to the complaints of others; he cotton and sugar is the most profitable employment of the was satisfied with the constitution as it is. But if Caroli- labor of the slave, we, of the upper country, supply alna and Georgia, or any other States of this Union, de- most every thing that is consumed on the plantation, sired so to amend that instrument as to disturb the existing especially in Louisiana. And to give you some idea, Mr. adjustment of powers, he should say no, till it was accom-Chairman, of the minutia to which the supply descends, panied with a proposition to give up the property vote. he would state that hay was carried in great quantities He would then, and not till then, begin-to think of mak-from the very sources of the Ohio to Louisiana, a distance ing the bargain over again. The constitution is known, of near two thousand miles, and there sold at a fair profit. as he said before, to have been the result of compromise We send our flour, beef, pork, lard, and other products, and concession of interests; and if any State or section of around to Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston, for the supthe Union, while it retains, even to jealousy, all the ad-ply of the planters there. So important did he consider vantages secured to it by that instrument, shall come and these cotton and sugar interests to be to his constituents, ask or demand of others a concession of what is incon- that he had never lost an opportunity to vote for any mea venient to the party making the request, (but very sure calculated to sustain or advance them. Accordingly, important to those of whom it is made,) it cannot in in the session of 1823-24, when a distinguished gentlereason be expected that propositions so made will be man from Virginia moved a reduction of the sugar duty, viewed with much consideration or respect. he had voted against it, when it escaped a reduction by a Will Carolina give up her property representation if majority of three votes only, which, perhaps, might have that property were relieved from all taxation, both direct been its ruin. Again, in 1826, being satisfied, after careand indirect? He was sure she would not. And if so, it ful inquiry, that the reduction of the duty on French shows she has the advantage on her side in this particular wines would essentially enlarge the cotton and tobacco arrangement of the constitution. He thought he had markets in that country, he, with one other gentleman shown that the slave property was not now, and never had only of all the delegation in the Western country, voted been, an oppressed interest in this country. We must for that law. The West was opposed to it, under the erlook to other causes than legislation for the decay and roneous impression that it would diminish the consump pressure complained of at the South. He should advert tion of spirits distilled from grain. The law, he believed, to some of thein before he sat down. He believed this had had a happy effect upon that trade, even beyond what would prove a most mischievous bill to the South; he re- was then anticipated. Again, in 1828, on the represenferred, in particular, to the provision it contained for the tation of Southern gentlemen that their country was well admission of cotton into the United States free of duty. fitted to the production of indigo, he had voted to lay a Nothing short of experimental proof will satisfy the cot-heavy duty upon it. In that, however, they were miston-growing interest that it derives any benefit from the taken, and it had turned out to be a tax on the whole duty now imposed. Should the bill pass into a law, he country, without benefit to any body but the foreign had no doubt that, in a very few years, loud calls would manufacturer. Ile mentioned these things, not because be made on Congress to restore the duty for protection they were of great moment, but to show the principle against foreign competition; and, for one, he hoped it and feelings upon which he had acted in respect to Southwould be restored. Next to England, our own is the ern industry. He had at all times voted to protect and largest cotton market in the world, and is now occluded encourage it. He had done, and he would do, the same from all competition. Is it not quite apparent that the thing for Northern capital and industry. In the face of opening of so large a market to competitors will give a every clamor he would be just and fear not." For stimulus to the production of cotton abroad, and, to the year after year he had listened to excited complaints of same extent, produce a contrary effect at home? And is the oppressive influence of the manufacturing industry on it not more than probable that the stimulus thus given to slave labor. He had anxiously inquired into the subject, production would depress the price abroad as well as at and with the sincerest desire to learn the truth, and yet home? If the cotton-producing labor be depressed, as is had never been able to comprehend how it was that alleged, is it not important to it to retain the exclusive interest suffered, though he thought he could see how it possession of our own increasing and lucrative market? was most materially benefited in the creation of an imCan it be politic for a depressed and sinking interest to portant home market for cotton. It was now little more invite competition? The astonishingly increased and in-than a quarter of a century since the cotton production creasing consumption of cotton in all Europe and Ame-grew up into any importance in South Carolina, and his JAN. 24, 1833.] The Tariff Bill. [H. OF R. inquiries had resulted in a fixed conviction that whether dence that the South has been robbed and plundered by that State remained in or went out of the Union, that an- your legislation, for the benefit of the North. In the other quarter of a century would substantially put an end eagerness to blame the tariff, all natural causes, all ordito the business there. The causes that were working its nary circumstances, and especially the influence of the overthrow in Carolina were beyond the control of your habits of life, are wholly overlooked. He would put a legislation; it had no power to save it. He had already case, which might not be exactly in point, but approxiadverted to the powerful competition that was preparing mated somewhat towards the truth. Let it be granted to meet it in the world abroad, of which the fact that one that, taking a whole community together, the labor of hundred thousand slaves had been imported into Brazil one person is competent to the support of two; and let it during the last year, gave an appalling admonition. It also be admitted that slave labor is as persevering, skilhad a still more formidable rival at home. The valley of ful, and productive as free labor. Now suppose two the Mississippi could produce cotton enough to supply communities in juxtaposition, each having a million of the consumption of Europe and America. One hand will people; in one the half, and in the other the whole popugrow as much cotton in Alabama or Louisiana, as two in lation shall labor. Upon this hypothesis, one would just South Carolina. As a natural consequence of this, we see make the two ends of the year meet, and accumulate the capital and labor of all the Southern States hurrying nothing; while the residuum of the product of the other, away after a more profitable investment as fast as the after supporting itself, would be precisely equal to the water runs down the Potomac; and it allures away, for support of a million of people; that is its accumulation. the most part, precisely that description of labor and capi- At the end of the first year, the contrast in the condition tal which are the most productive, and the loss of which of the two might not be very striking; but this operation is felt with the greatest severity. The young, healthy, is repeated from year to year, for near half a century; in and athletic slaves go away, leaving the superannuated the one, every thing remaining nearly stationary, without and unprofitable behind, who are oftentimes a burden on any new employment of labor or capital; in the other, their owners. This process will continue to go on till the the accumulation of each successive year is carefully inrate of profit in the production of cotton on the rich lands vested, it becomes itself an active principle, it multiplies of those fertile regions is brought down to the common employments, divides labor, puts machines in motion, level of the profit of capital devoted to other pursuits. more powerful and productive than hundreds of men. When this condition of things comes, as come it must, the And now, sir, the contrast outstrips imagination itself. South Carolina planter, upon his exhausted and compara- Let me put a case a little nearer the ordinary walks of tively sterile soil, can no more stand the competition with life. Suppose two young men, each inheriting fine his Western neighbors, than the people of New England estates, should set out in life together; one worked hard, could compete in the growing of wheat with Pennsylva- and as his children grew up they labored with him, and nia, Ohio, and the interior of Virginia; and that too, not all lived economically; his farm was well cultivated; his for home consumption, but to be sent abroad to carry on the competition in the markets of the world. That the production of cotton is rapidly coming down to this condition of things in South Carolina, is conclusively shown by the fact that within the last thirty years the quantity of cotton produced in the United States has increased almost tenfold, and has nearly trebled since 1820, while the population of the cotton-growing States has increased in a far less ratio. fences kept in good order; his stock of cattle and horses increased, and every year a little money was put out at interest, or invested in the purchase of additions to his farm, until, by the time his children are grown up, he is independent in his circumstances, and able to give them a good setting out in life. As for the other, if one-half of the family worked, the other was at play; he and his children went to horse races, wine parties, and places of amusement, until, by the time his children were grown The struggle of South Carolina against the laws of up and ready to leave him, his farm was exhausted by capital and labor must be ineffectual. Can secession from bad cultivation, his fences gone to decay, and himself in the Union give her any relief? Will it not plainly accele- debt. He now looks over into the fair fields of his neighrate this condition of things? If Carolina were separated bor, and takes it into his head that he has robbed him. from the Union, immediately the duty of three cents per Straightway he goes to him and says, "How is this, sir? pound upon her cotton would be exacted on importation Had I not, when we set out together, as good a farm as into our markets. In other words, it would give to the you? You are now rich, and I am poor; it is plain you other cotton-growing States the exclusive possession of have robbed me, and I will not submit to it any longer; the home market. And this, in its turn, would give a the case is past all argument; you must surrender at disnew and powerful impulse to the emigration of capital cretion, and with becoming spirit, or I will proceed to and labor. Secure in the enjoyment of the home market, nullify' you." Do you think, Mr. Chairman, that that they would forthwith go abroad, with increased activity man would listen to such a demand with much complaand strength, into the competition for the markets of the cency, or disposition to obey it? world. Is it not apparent that Carolina must, in the end, take refuge from this unequal competition in manufactures and the mechanic arts; and that she will be obliged to bring into use the almost unrivalled water power which is to be found there, and in all the Southern States above tide water, and on the slopes of the Alleghanies? In this, she has a latent wealth and strength, of which no rivalry can dispossess her. He had not said, and should not say, that the case of South Carolina and New England was parallel to the one he had now put. But was it true that the South was going to decay? What are the evidences of it? Had not the products of her industry and her population increased? He imagined the decay complained of was to be found in the altered condition of that class which formerly held in its hands Mr. Chairman, permit me to advert to one topic con- the wealth and influence of the country, rather than in a nected with this subject, which has been constantly pre- diminution of that wealth in the aggregate; it had chang sented to the House for years past; the comparative pros- ed owners, and the number of owners had been multipliperity of the North and the South. It is made use of to ed. He had often heard described, in glowing colors, on prove every thing. If you ask how, and on what articles this floor, and in private circles, the wealth, and splenof consumption, the South pays more taxes than the dor, and hospitality of those colonial mansions at the North, instead of a specific answer, you are told, in gene- South which are now in ruins. The revolution had, ral terms, that the South has a fairer country and better doubtless, brought about this change; but the legislation climate than the North; that the latter is now rich, and of Congress had had no agency in producing it. The the other poor; and this is relied on as conclusive evi-spirit of the age required that the colonial laws of primo VOL. IX.-81 |