adopt the constitution, is of all remedial devices, the last that ought to be brought forward. And what renders it the more extraordinary, is, that, as the tax on commerce, as far as it could be separately collected, instead of belonging to the treasury of the state, as previous to the constitution, would be a tribute to the United States, the state would be in a worse condition, after the adoption of the constitution, than before, in reference to an important interest, the improvement of which was a particular object in adopting the constitution.

Were congress to make the proposed declaration of consent to state tariffs in favor of state manufactures, and the permitted attempts did not defeat themselves, what would be the situation of states deriving their foreign supplies through the ports of other states? It is evident that they might be compelled to pay, in their consumption of particular articles imported, a tax for the common treasury, not common to all the states, without having any manufacture or product of their own, to partake of the contemplated benefit. Of the impracticability of separate regulations of trade, and the resulting necessity of general regulations, no state was more sensible than Virginia. She was accordingly among the most earnest for granting to congress a power adequate to the object. On more occasions than one, in the proceedings of her legislative councils, it was recited "that the relative situation of the states had been found, on trial, to require uniformity in their commercial regulations as the only effectual policy for obtaining in the ports of foreign nations a stipulation of privileges reciprocal to those enjoyed by the subjects of such nations in the ports of the United States; for preventing animosities which cannot fail to arise among the several states from the interference of partial and separate regulations; and for deriving from commerce such aids to the public revenue as it ought to contribute, &c."

During the delays and discouragements experienced in the attempts to invest congress with the necessary powers, the state of Virginia made various trials of what could be done by her individual laws. She ventured on duties and imposts as a source of revenue: resolutions were passed at one time to encourage and protect her own navigation and ship building; and in consequence of complaints and petitions from Norfolk, Alexandria and other places, against the monopolizing navigation laws of Great Britain, particularly in the trade between the United States and the British West Indies, she deliberated, with a purpose controlled only by the inefficiency of separate measures, on the experiment of forcing a reciprocity by prohibitory regulations of her own. [See Journal of house of delegates in 1785.]

The effect of her separate attempts to raise revenue by duties on imports, soon appeared in representations from her merchants, that the commerce of the state was banished by them into other channels, especially of Maryland, where imports were less burdened than in Virginia. [See do. for 1786.]

Such a tendency of separate regulations was indeed too manifest to escape anticipation. Among the projects prompted by the want of federal authority over commerce was that of a concert first proposed on the part of Maryland for a uniformity of regulations between the two states, and commissioners were appointed for that purpose. It was perceived, however, that

the concurrence of Pennsylvania was as necessary to Maryland as of Maryland to Virginia, and the concurrence of Pennsylvania was accordingly invited. But Pennsylvania could no more concur without New York than Maryland without Pennsylvania, nor New York without the concurrence of Boston, &c.

These projects were suprerseded for the moment by that of the convention at Anapolis in 1786, and forever by the convention at Philadelphia, in 1787, and the constitution which was the fruit of it.

There is a passage in Mr. Neeker's work on the finances of France which affords a signal illustration of the difficulty of collecting, in contiguous communities, indirect taxes, when not the same in all, by the violent means resorted to against smuggling from one to another of them. Previous to the late revolutionary war in that country, the taxes were of very different rates in the different provinces; particularly the tax on salt, which was high in the interior provinces and low in the maritime; and the tax on tobacco, which was very high in general, whilst in some of the provinces the use of the article was altogether free. The consequence was, that the standing army of patrols against smuggling had swoln to the number of twenty-three thousand ; the annual arrest of men, women, and children, engaged in smuggling, to five thousand five hundred and fifty; and the number annually arrested on account of salt and tobacco alone, to seventeen or eighteen hundred, more than three hundred of whom were consigned to the terrible punishment of the gallies.

May it not be regarded as among the providential blessings to these states, that their geographical relations, multiplied as they will be by artificial channels of intercourse, give such additional force to the many obligations to cherish that union which alone secures their peace, their safety, and their prosperity! Apart from the more obvious and awful consequences of their entire separation into independent sovereignties, it is worthy of special consideration, that, divided from each other as they must be by narrow waters and territorial lines merely, the facility of surreptitious introductions of contraband articles, would defeat every attempt at revenue in the easy and indirect modes of impost and excise; so that whilst their expenditures would be necessarily and vastly increased by their new situation, they would, in providing for them, be limited to direct taxes on land or other property, to arbitrary assessments on invisible funds, and to the odious tax on persons.

You will observe, that I have confined myself, in what has been said, to the constitutionality and expediency of the power in congress to encourage domestic products by regulations of commerce. In the exercise of the power, they are responsible to their constituents, whose right and duty it is in that as in all other cases, to bring their measures to the test of justice and of the general good. With great esteem and cordial regard,

Jos. C. CABELL, Esq.

JAMES MADISON.

Number 4. p. 258.

Mr. Madison to Mr. Cabell.

Montpelier, Oct. 30, 1828. DEAR SIR:-In my letter of Sept. 18, I stated briefly the grounds on which I rested my opinion, that a power to impose duties and restrictions on imports, with a view to encourage domestic productions, was constitutionally lodged in congress. In the observations then made was involved the opinion, also, that the power was properly there lodged. As this last opinion necessarily implies that there are cases in which the power may be usefully exercised by congress, the only body within our political system capable of exercising it with effect, you may think it incumbent on me to point out cases of that description.

I will premise that I concur in the opinion, that, as a general rule, individuals ought to be deemed the best judges of the best application of their industry and resources.

I am ready to admit, also, that there is no country in which the application may, with more safety, be left to the intelligence and enterprise of individuals, than in the United States.

Finally, I shall not deny, that in all doubtful cases, it becomes every government to lean rather to a confidence in the judgment of individuals, than to interpositions controlling the free exercise of it.

With all these concessions, I think it can be satisfactorily shown, that there are exceptions to the general rule, now expressed by the phrase, “let us alone," forming cases which call for interpositions of the competent authority, and which are not inconsistent with the generality of the rule.

1. The theory of "let us alone" supposes that all nations concur in a perfect freedom of commercial intercourse. Were this the case, they would, in a commercial view, be but one nation, as much as the several districts composing a particular nation; and the theory would be as applicable to the former as to the latter. But this godlen age of free trade has not yet arrived; nor is there a single nation that has set the example. No nation can, indeed, safely do so, until a reciprocity, at least, be ensured to it. Take for proof, the familiar case of the navigation employed on a foreign commerce. If a nation, adhering to the rule of never interposing a countervailing protection of its vessels, admits foreign vessels into its ports free of duty, whilst its own vessels are subject to a duty, in foreign ports, the ruinous effect is so obvious, that the warmest advocate for the theory in question must shrink from a universal application of it.

A nation leaving its foreign trade, in all cases, to regulate itself, might soon find it regulated by other nations into a subserviency to a foreign interest. In the interval between the peace of 1783 and the establishment of the present constitution of the United States, the want of a ganeral authority to regulate trade, is known to have had this consequence. And have not the pretensions and policy lately exhibited by Great Britain, given warning of a like result, from a renunciation of all countervailing regulations on the part of the United States? Were she permitted, by conferring on certain portions

of her domain the name of colonies, to open from these a trade for herself, to foreign countries, and to exclude, at the same time, a reciprocal trade to such colonies, by foreign countries, the use to be made of the monopoly need not be traced. Its character will be placed in a just relief, by supposing that one of the colonial islands, instead of its present distance, happened to be in the vicinity of Great Britain; or that one of the islands in that vicinity should receive the name and be regarded in the light of a colony, with the peculiar privileges claimed for colonies. Is it not manifest, that, in this case, the favored island might be made the sole medium of the commercial intercourse with foreign nations, and the parent country thence enjoy every essential advantage, as to the terms of it, which would flow from an unreciprocal trade from her other ports, with other nations?

Fortunately, the British claims, however speciously colored or adroitly managed, were repelled at the commencement of our commercial career as an independent people, and at successive epochs under the existing constitution both in legislative discussions and in diplomatie negotiations. The claims were repelled on the solid ground that the colonial trade, as a rightful monopoly, was limited to the intercourse between the parent country and its colonies, and between one colony and another; the whole being, strictly, in the nature of a coasting trade from one to another port of the same nation; a trade with which no other nation has a right to interfere. It follows, of necessity, that the parent country, whenever it opens a colonial port for a direct trade to a foreign country, departs, itself, from the principle of colonial monopoly, and entitles the foreign country to the same reciprocity in every respect, as in its intercourse with any other ports of the nation.

This is common sense and common right. It is still more, if more could be required. It is in conformity with the established usage of all nations, other than Great Britain, which have colonies. Some of those nations are known to adhere to the monopoly of their colonial trade, with all the rigor and constancy which circumstances permit. But it is also known, that, whenever, and from whatever cause, it has been found necessary or expedient to open their colonial ports to a foreign trade, the rule of reciprocity in favor of the foreign party was not refused, nor, as is believed, a right to refuse it pretended.

It cannot be said that the reciprocity was dictated by a deficiency of the commercial marine. France, at least, could not be, in every instance, governed by that consideration—and Holland still less to say nothing of the navigating states of Sweden and Denmark, which have rarely, if ever, enforced a colonial monopoly. The remark is, indeed, obvious, that the shipping liberated from the usual conveyance of supplies from the parent country to the colonies might be employed in the new channels opened for them, in supplies from abroad.

Reciprocity, or an equivalent for it, is the only rule of intercourse among independent communities; and no nation ought to admit a doctrine, or adopt an invariable policy, which would preclude the counteracting measures necessary to enforce the rule.

2. The theory supposes, moreover, a perpetual peace; a supposition, it is

to be feared, not less chimerical than a universal freedom of commerce. The effect of war among the commercial and manufacturing nations of the world, in raising the wages of labor, and the cost of its products; with a like effect on the charges of freight and insurance, need neither proof nor explanation. In order to determine, therefore, a question of economy, between depending on foreign supplies, and encouraging domestic substitutes, it is necessary to compare the probable periods of war with the probable periods of peace; and the cost of the domestic encouragement in times of peace, with the cost added to foreign articles in times of war.

During the last century, the periods of war and peace have been nearly equal. The effect of a state of war in raising the price of imported articles, cannot be estimated with exactness. It is certain, however, that the increased price of particular articles may make it cheaper to manufacture them at home.

Taking, for the sake of illustration, an equality in the two periods, and the cost of an imported yard of cloth in time of war to be nine and a half dollars, and in time of peace, to be seven dollars, whilst the same could at all times be manufactured at home for eight dollars, it is evident that a tariff of one dollar and a quarter on the imported yard would protect the home manufacture in time of peace, and avoid a tax of one dollar and a half imposed by a state of war.

It cannot be said that the manufactories which could not support themselves against foreign competition in periods of peace, would spring up of themselves at the recurrence of war prices. It must be obvious to every one, that, apart from the difficulty of great and sudden changes of employment, no prudent capitalist would engage in expensive establishments of any sort, at the commencement of a war of uncertain duration with a certainty of having them crushed by the return of peace.

The strictest economy therefore suggests, as exceptions to the general rule, an estimate, in every given case, of war and peace periods and prices, with inferences therefrom, of the amount of a tariff which might be afforded during peace, in order to avoid the tax resulting from war. And it will occur at once, that the inferences will be strengthened by adding, to the supposition of wars wholly foreign, that of wars in which our own country might be a party.

3. It is an opinion in which all must agree, that no nation ought to be unnecessarily dependent on others for the munitions of public defence, or for the materials essential to a naval force, where the nation has a maritime frontier or a foreign commerce to protect. To this class of exceptions to the theory, may be added the instruments of agriculture, and of the mechanic arts which supply the other primary wants of the community. The time has been, when many of these were derived from a foreign source, and some of them might relapse into that dependence, were the encouragement of the fabrication of them at home withdrawn. But, as all foreign sources must be liable to interruptions too inconvenient to be hazarded, a provident policy would favor an internal and independent source, as a reasonable exception to the general rule of consulting cheapness alone.