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MAY 10, 1830.]

The Tariff.

tu es No; they are superabundant, and ruinously cheap. Is there any want of cotton or cotton manufactures in the United States? No; they abound in every market, and so cheap that they will not remunerate the cost of the material and manufacture. Now, the evidence in this importaut fact is presented in every district and village in the United States. It is brought home to every man's door. Every man, woman, and child in the United States, who has had occasion to buy and wear a yard of cotton, and can understand the price, knows the truth of this fact. What then is the complaint? It is not, and cannot be the price of manufactures. Indeed, the gentleman's argument, in effect, admits this. He proposes to raise the price of the raw material equivalent to the reduction of the duty. Of course he does not expect to diminish the price of the manufacture to the consumer. But the consumption cannot be increased, without either diminishing the price or increasing the means of the purchase. But, while the gentleman proposes to augment the means of purchase of two millions, he will greatly diminish those of ten millions. It is manifest that, in the aggregate, he will destroy more value than he will create. How, then, will the gentleman enlarge his market for cotton? I aver it is physically impossible, in any other way than by the obvious and natural increase of the population, wealth, refinement, and civilization of the world. In no other way can he find a market in the wide world for another bale of cotton. The market of the world is open; the commerce of the world, in the article of cotton, is unrestricted; and the markets of the world are literally crammed with cotton and cotton manufactures, and the cheapness of both is a subject of universal complaint and universal admission. Greater cheapness, then, is not desirable, but would be deplorable. Greater consumption is unattainable, but by increasing the number and wealth of the consumers. And how does the gentleman propose to accomplish this? By impoverishing ten millions of people to enrich two; by depriving them of employment and the means of purchase, by annihilating an annual income of more than fourfold the value of all the cotton, rice, and tobacco of the South, and by transferring this income to England and France, and not to the cotton-growing States?

But, however disastrous the depreciation of the value of cotton has been, I do assure the gentleman that it has not yet attained its minimum. The history of the past proves, beyond the power of refutation, that the tariff has had no influence whatever in accelerating this depreciation, nor can any tariff arrest it. The depreciation was more rapid before the tariff of 1824, than it has been at any time since. The mania of 1825, which raised cotton to thirty cents the pound, will not, I presume, be imputed to the tariff. In five years, including 1819 and 23, the export of cotton was actually doubled; but the price of the whole was actually diminished. In 1819, thirty-seven million nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand and forty-five pounds sold for twenty-one million eighty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine dollars; and, in 1823, one hundred and seventy-two million seven hundred and twenty-three thousand two hundred and seventy pounds sold only for twenty million four hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred and twenty dollars, when it should have sold for at least forty-one millions, showing a depreciation of price corresponding precisely with the augmentation of quantity, the universal and inevitable law of trade; furnishing an obvious, full, and satisfactory explanation of all the distress of which South Carolina complains.

In ten years the annual crop of the United States has more than trebled. The annual crop may now be safely estimated at three hundred millions of pounds, but the value is less than thirty millions of dollars. This increase is without a parallel is the history of agriculture; and though its consequences are natural and inevitable, they have by no means been what they would have been, but

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for the opportune introduction of manufactures at the North, and the sugar culture at the South. The manufacture of cotton at the North has introduced it into more extensive and general use, and has substituted it for woollens and linens, for household and domestic purposes. The sugar culture of the South has employed probably seventy millions of capital and many thousand slaves, which, but for the tariff, would have been retained in the production of cotton. Both these causes have administered an immense alleviation to the cotton culture, to the amount of at least four hundred thousand bales. But, under the present liberal and efficient protection of thirty to sixty per cent. on sugars, the culture of it at the South is extending so rapidly, that in less than ten years it will exclude the foreign sugars altogether. That interest will then begin to be depressed; the current of capital and labor to that employment will be less rapid, and in a few years more, it will cease entirely. In the mean time, the culture of cotton will be extended with the increase of population, and the progress of the settlements of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas; and, when fully peopled and fully cultivated, these States and territories are abundantly competent to produce cotton enough to supply the consumption of cotton not only for America, but for all Europe. If these States and territories have trebled the product of cotton in the last ten years, what shall prevent their trebling it in the next! Nothing but the depression of the price below the common level of prices. Low as cotton now is, it is still more profitable than any other agriculture, sugar excepted. It is better to grow cotton at six cents the pound, than corn at six cents the bushel; capital and labor will therefore still rush into the production of cotton, and the quantity will be still rapidly augmented, and the price still further depreciated. When we consider that during all this time Mexico and South America will naturally turn their attention to the culture of this valuable staple, there can be no doubt but that the disparity between production and consumption will be still further increased, and the comparative price still further diminished. The gentleman will find that the special blessings of soil and climate, of which he boasts, and for which he thanks nobody but God and nature, are too diffusive to admit of monopoly, or to justify a boast.

What, then, remains for the southern cotton-growing States? The inevitable consequences of an obstinate adhesion to their favorite maxims of policy, to the exclusive occupation of agriculture, comparative poverty and decay, a meagre and sparse population, deficient markets and languishing agriculture. These consequences are inevitable and invariable. They never did fail, and they never will fail. A mere agricultural community was never yet a populous and wealthy community. They never will be wealthy and populous. It is morally and physically impossible that they ever should be. The West Indies are apt examples in illustration of my position. Producing the most valuable staples, of which they have enjoyed a monopoly for centuries, in comparison with England and France they are poor, and will ever remain so. Possessing a monopoly of five invaluable agricultural staples, cotton, rice, tobacco, indigo, and sugar, our southern brethren complain of overwhelming poverty and distress. I doubted not the reality of their distress. Their resources have sustained an immense and irreparable diminution. In their prosperity, they graduated their expenditures by the scale of their income; they contracted habits, which imperiously demanded continued indulgence; they have been indulged to the full extent of their means, and nothing was accumulated to meet the exigencies of a reverse of fortune: the reverse came like a remorseless and overwhelming flood, and intense suffering ensued. The gentleman's picture of distress, I have no doubt, has a melancholy original. I have myself witnessed the reality in another section of the Union, from the operation of similar causes. Time was,

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The Tariff.

[MAY 10, 1830

when we could command two dollars per bushel for wheat, The theory is, we must buy or we cannot sell. The praefor every bushel the soil and labor of the country could tice is, to buy what we desire, and what will be profitable produce, and every other agricultural production bore a to us, with such means as we can command, from whatever corresponding price. But did our farmers grow wealthy? source they may be derived. So the northern States, of did they accumulate capital? No! They lived out the whole, whom the English and French will buy comparatively and fearlessly and improvidently ran into debt; and pover- nothing which they can directly produce, procure, as best ty came upon them, and brought on a train of numerous they may, the cotton of the South, and the specie of Meximiseries and distresses. The obvious cause in both cases, co and Peru, and, with these means, purchase the manuwas and is an inadequate market, the privation of accus- factures of England and France. We purchase also the tomed markets to the North, and the consequent diminu- teas, silks, and nankins of China. We shall continue to tion of accustomed prices. What is the remedy? There is purchase them as long as we have the means. But does but one in nature. Multiply your occupations, diversify China buy our cotton, or any single agricultural producthe application of labor and capital, so that all your expen- tion of the country? Not one. We purchase principally ditures and disbursements may serve to reward, stimulate, with specie or bullion. Then there is a practical refutation and enrich productions. Like the skilful agriculturist, of the theory. The theory, then, is good for nothing. It who returns to the earth as much as he draws from it, and is not true in practice, in the sense in which it is set forth. preserves its fertility by liberal and repeated manurings, The interests and the wants of Europe constitute the maryour expenditures must be bestowed upon those who sup- ket for our cotton. Those wants and interests will conply the means, or you will assuredly exhaust those means. tinue precisely the same after we have prohibited their The gentleman has spoken of the importance and the value manufactures, as they now are. The one cannot be satisof the expenditure of public money. In my own opinion, fied, nor the other promoted, without our cotton. They he has not greatly overrated its importance. But why did must have our cotton; their interests and necessities denot the gentleman reflect that the expenditure of private mand our cotton, and will continue to demand it to the capital, or the disbursement of individual wealth, was fully extent of their own consumption, and their ability to sup equivalent to the same amount of public money? Suppose ply the consumption of others forever; for Europe canthe sixty millions now annually expended on foreign pro- not produce cotton. A man might live as long after severductions as the reward and stimulus of foreign capital and ing the femoral artery, as England could prosper after exlabor, converted into cash, and expended upon our own cluding our cotton. They will always, therefore, buy our labor and capital in the purchase of our own productions cotton so long as they can buy it of us cheaper and better and manufactures, it would be equivalent to the disburse than anywhere else, and as long as they have the means. ment of so many millions of public money, and the couse- And need we trouble ourselves about the means of England quences would be immeasurable and inestimable. This sti- and France of the purchase of our cotton, when we know mulus would be felt in every vein and artery of this mighty and feel the great difficulty to be to procure the means to republic. All varieties and grades and capacities of labor purchase their manufactures-when we know that their would find full employment and ample reward. Consump-comparative wealth is much greater than their comparation would be abundantly supplied and fully satisfied; and, tive population? while labor would be liberally rewarded, capital would be The gentleman says England has no specie-how can accumulated. Our southern neighbors must, therefore, as she buy our cotton unless we receive her manufactures the only possible remedy for the evils of which they com- England has no specie! And yet he admits that we have plain, manufacture their own cotton as well as produce it; sent to England and France seven millions of bullion and apply some of their capital and labor to the manufactur- specie annually for many years past; probably ten years ing, and not all to the growing of cotton. Take your share past-seventy millions in ten years! But, while they have of the monopoly which you allege that the tariff has secur- been drawing specie from us at this rate, notwithstanding ed to the northern capitalist. It is certainly as accessible our large export of cotton, &c. they have absorbed all the to you as to him. Your advantages are as great, if not gold and silver of South America-all of Spain and Portugreater. You have the material on the spot, the labor at gal. What has become of it? That portion of Europe command, subsistence abundant and cheap, too cheap, wa- which may be considered the natural and permanent marter power and steam power; and skill and experience you ket for the cotton of the South, contains at this moment must acquire, or you will never have it, and you can as more of the precious metals than all the world beside. well acquire it now as ever. And what hinders the adop. And they are still rapidly accumulating it—still absorbing tion and enjoyment of the tariff policy, instead of this eter- it, and sucking it up like a sponge from all the world benal and fanatic war against it? Nothing but your opinions, side. And do gentlemen seriously believe that the loss of your abstract theories, and obstinate prejudices. Change a market of sixty millions' worth of manufactures in the your opinions, and change your pursuits, and barter your United States would seriously influence the wealth and impoverishing theories for useful and substantial manufac-prosperity of Europe, so as to deprive them of the means tures. This is your remedy, and your only remedy. of purchasing forty millions annually of our cotton, rice, But England will not buy our cotton, unless we receive her manufactures in payment. We shall lose the market of England and France-the market of Europe for our cotton. We must not manufacture cotton or any thing else if we expect Europe to purchase our raw cotton. We are charged with seeking to destroy our commerce, especially the commerce of the South. This charge is urged with a seriousness, and gravity, and earnestness, that leave no doubt of the sincerity of the melancholy forebodings of those who prefer it. But why has it not occurred to those gentlemen that these forebodings have been discredited by uniform experience? This charge is founded upon their theory, unsupported by one fact, and is as baseless as the theory itself. It is the old argument again repeated, to be again refuted. It was urged in 1824, repeated in 1828, and now again in 1880, and during these six years the export of cotton has actually been doubled, or nearly so.

and tobacco? Admit that it would transfer some portion of their capital and wealth to the United States, it is what they can very well spare, and what we very much needand it will consume as much cotton here as it can there.

It is undoubtedly true that, of all the nations of the earth, we enjoy the greatest number of advantages for ensuring a favorable balance of trade, and accumulating wealth and capital; but, in proportion to our population and advantages, we have probably accumulated less capital than any enterprising, industrious nation. In any aspect of the subject, the apprehension of the loss of our commerce with Europe, in cotton, rice, and tobacco, is wholly ideal and imaginary. They could not dispense with our cotton, even should we entirely prohibit their manufactures. Europe could not consume any less cotton, and the United States would consume more. Every additional cotton factory in the United States may be justly considered a new cotton

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market, and furnishes to all its dependents and connexions the means of purchasing and consuming its fabrics. The best illustration of my position would be for every gentleman to imagine a factory erected in his own neighborhood, capable of employing five hundred or a thousand persons, men, women, and children. Every member of this House could collect that number of poor destitute persons, who could in this way acquire the means of a comfortable subsistence, and who are now wholly unoccupied, or nearly go. Take the city of Washington: I aver, what I verily believe, and what I think no one will deny, that there are more than a thousand persons of this description in this city, who would be glad to find employment and earn their subsistence in such an establishment, and who, if they could command the means that this employment would give them, would wear out fourfold the quantity of cotton manufactures they now do. This, to a certain extent, has already been accomplished, as all know, where manufactures have been established. It is capable of vastly greater extension and diffusion.

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them tributary to another portion, assumes the responsibility of declaring that their condition must be changed, by changing their policy, or by changing their political relations, in other words, by dissolving the Union, for all will allow that such a condition is intolerable to free men, and ought not to be endured. No one will pretend, for one moment, that this inequality is supportable, or that it can, by any possibility, be continued. It ought not to be endured. It is stated, to make it apparent, and to make it felt, that it ought not to be endured. It is urged to effect a change, or to stimulate resistance, because it is admitted that it cannot be submitted to, and ought not to be submitted to. What is the inference? Is not the man who assumes this responsibility bound to know that the position which he has taken is a tenable one? Is he not bound to be right? Is he not bound to make good the charge of imposing tribute to prove it by argument incontrovertible, and by facts which are indisputable?

Let us examine the gentleman's positions for a short time. If I have not greatly deceived myself, the gentleman's fortress may be demolished by his own battery.

The gentleman bas indulged in a long and violent invective against monopolists, in all which I most heartily In the course of his remarks, the gentleman took occaconcur, except its application. But what is a monopoly? sion to refer to some out-door conversation, in which a An exclusive privilege-a right secured to an individual, gentleman from New York undertook to predict that in from the enjoyment of which all others are excluded. Is ten years we should cease to import woollen, cotton, iron, the term applicable to any condition of things in our coun- hemp, or linen manufactures, or any of the materials of try? Certainly not to any sort of manufactures. Is the which they are composed. Without waiting to discuss gentleman restrained from manufacturing? Are any of the probable truth of this prediction, and protesting at his constituents, except by an estimate of their own inte- the same time against the injnrious consequences which rests! Not one. In a population of twelve millions of the gentleman attempted to deduce from its fulfilment, I people, there is the most unlimited, unrestricted freedom presume that the gentleman will admit that the verifica of pursuit and competition. Unlimited freedom of com- tion of that prediction would not alleviate the burden of petition, I had always thought directly the reverse of mo the southern tribute. If they pay tribute now, they would nopoly. And yet the gentleman has applied this term pay tribute then; and he would probably intend that the trimonopolist to the northern manufacturer, and at the same bute would be augmented, although I do not anticipate any time boasted of the manufacturing capacities of his own perceptible advance in the price of manufactures; on the conState; the materials, minerals, soil, abundance and cheap- trary, I think it would be diminished. But, for the sake of the ness of provisions, and unbounded water power. And argument, suppose the prediction fulfilled. In the course of why do they not avail themselves of these advantages? ten years, a rigid enforcement of our present tariff works, Simply because they do not choose to do so-and because a probibition of the importation of the manufactures and they think their present occupation more profitable. And materials in question; and the South, continuing to prefer yet the gentleman talks of monopolies, with the same sin their present occupation of cotton planting alone, should cerity and earnestness with which he complains of the ex-be constrained to receive in exchange for their cotton the travagant duty on the exportation of cotton. It is mani- manufactures of the North, to the same extent in which festly an abuse of language calculated to deceive himself, they now receive those of England, that is, all they desire and inflame the ignorant. There is certainly no manufac- or can afford to consume: let us see who would have the turing monopoly in this country, nor anything bearing the advantage in exchange, then-who, then, would be the remotest resemblance to one. tributaries. It will be admitted, I suppose, that when the products of a given quantity of labor and capital can be exchanged for the products of the same quantity of labor and capital, the exchange is equal. If equality be attainable, this would accomplish it. If there be such a thing as equality in our commercial intercourse and political relations, this would be equality. There would be no tribute on either side when this equality was achieved. Now, sir, measured by this rule, where are products the dearest now-where would they be dearest then? The price of the products of the manufacturing industry of the North is measured by the price of capital and labor there. It is so now-it would be so then. The same rule holds true of the South, and will continue to hold true. Now, what are the facts? Every thing is dearer at the South than at the North, measured by the only standard by which values can be compared. What is the proof? It is furnished by the comparative price of naval and army supplies; of governmental contracts for the transportation of the mail; by the price of bread and subsistence generally; by this strong fact, which, as I have been assured by southern gentlemen themselves, is a common occurrence, that a Georgia cotton planter has procured the buildings on his plantation, constructed of the timber, brick, and lime of the State of Maine, built by the mechanics of Maine, and fed on the provisions of Maine. Who construct the public works of

But there is another aspect of this subject, which the gentleman has presented in the most odious and repulsive colors. He has represented the South as the tributary colonies of the North. They are not only colonies, but tributaries—a condition far worse than that from which this country emerged by the war of the revolution. It is a legitimate deduction from his argument. We compel them to pay a tax of sixteen millions upon cotton, and then expend it, in the form of bounties, upon the northern monopolist. The southern democracy is made tributary to the northern aristocracy. The condition is degrading, debasing, intolerable, and ought not to be endured. It cannot be endured. This error is the more dangerous, in as much as it is addressed to the pride, honor, self-respect, and every worthy and elevated principle of our na tures, and outrages them all. Coming, too, from such high authority, it will be received on the credit of that authority, and will be, if it be not already, received on trust, as a maxim not to be questioned, but to be acted on. It be hooves the public man who avails himself of his official station, to give weight and currency to such opinions and declarations, to know for certainty that they are true, or he incurs a degree of criminality, little short of treason. Whoever proclaims to one portion of his fellow-citizens that the established policy of his Government renders

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Navigation and Imposts.-The Tariff.

[MAY 11, 1830.

the South? Who, at this moment, having finished their | mittee, and its vital connexion with the rights and interests own, are digging the canals and building the railroads of of the Southern States, were duly considered, no apology the South! These facts are worth a volume of argument. would be deemed necessary on his part, for trespassing They stand by their own strength; and not only defend again upon that patient and indulgent attention, for which themselves, but the whole North, from the preposterous he was already under so many obligations to the committee. charge of imposing tribute upon the South, and prove who, So far as I am concerned [said Mr. McD.] what I am now if any, are the tributaries, and who, from the very compo- about to utter will be the last appeal of an injured and opsition of southern population, must ever remain tributaries. pressed people to the reason and justice of their oppres I need not inform gentlemen that free labor would render sors. For if, as I too confidently anticipate, the majority cotton more abundant and still cheaper at the South. of this House shall now refuse to mitigate the heavy and Cheap as it is, it is not so cheap as northern manufactures unrighteous burdens of which we complain, by even a now are, and not so cheap as it will become when northern moderate relaxation of this system of taxation, confiscalabor shall be more extensively employed in its production. tion and prohibition, I have fixed my determination that, Cheap as it is, it is not so cheap as other products of the do what you may on this subject, I will never raise the South, sugar excepted: it is not so cheap as corn, or any voice of impotent remonstrance in this Hall, vainly urging thing subsisted upon it or made by it. The proof is, that a plea of reason and justice before an interested tribunal, all these products are equally the fruit of the capital and into the deliberations of which neither reason nor justice labor of the South, and they still find the cotton culture can ever enter. the most profitable, and, therefore, are still rushing into it. In the opening argument by which I attempted to Is it not manifest that the gentleman has raised the cry of sustain the amendment I had offered, I laid down certain tribute-tribute—as the thief joins in the hue and cry to practical propositions in political economy, intended to evade pursuit and avoid suspicion? Is it the payment of explain the real operation of indirect taxes, and demontribute which has aroused the gentleman's indignation or strate the extent and enormity of the burdens by which is it the loss of tribute which has alarmed his fears? If the southern people are oppressed. I submitted these to this it should be answered, that the commerce in cotton propositions to the reason and judgment of the gentleis an absolute, indefeasible, unconditional, underived, and men on the other side of the question, inviting the most independent right-it is admitted. And so is our market severe and rigid scrutiny, and having no other object in for wool, for iron, for hemp, and whatever else we can view than the development of truth. And I sincerely produce. Its comparative value has already been stated. declare, that nothing would have afforded me more gratiAnd this is the great contest after all-the enlargement of fication than to have been convinced that my opinions our market. This is what the cotton planter desires-an were erroneous, and that my constituents had no just enlarged market. We do not seek to restrict his market, ground to complain of the unequal and oppressive_burwe only desire to retain our own. He demands of us to dens imposed upon them by Congress. But, sir, I resubstitute his cotton for our wool and woollens-for our gret to find that the propositions which were offered in hemp, and flax, and iron-for every thing we produce and this spirit have not been met with a corresponding temmanufacture; or, which is the same thing, to buy all these per, nor answered in a tone and manner at all appropriate various commodities with his cotton. 66 Buy foreign manu to the gravity of the subject or the solemnity of the occafactures, that I may sell more cotton." And because we sion. I put it to the candor of gentlemen, and their sense say we have not the means, we cannot afford it-we must of decorum, whether it becomes the dignity, even of live on our own resources-gentlemen cry out tribute, an interested majority, to add insult to injury, by telling tyranny, oppression, injustice, plunder, robbery-when they the representative of those who still claim a titie, at least. themselves are the tyrants and oppressors, if there be any to the forms of freedom, that he is himself a "maniac," in this country. It thus appears how utterly baseless, and and his reasoning madness. Such, sir, is the imputation, imaginary, and fictitious are all these menacing and boist- conveyed in no equivocal language, which the member erous complaints from South Carolina. Let the gentlemen from Rhode Island [Mr. BURGES] has thought it decorous who have stimulated them, and fomented and inflamed to apply to the representative of an enlightened people, them, take care that they do not kindle a fire which they when urging their complaints before their "very worthy would be glad to extinguish, when it has become too in- and approved good masters;" and to an argument which, tense to be subdued. Nothing is so ungovernable as infu I must be permitted to say, he was neither capable of comriated ignorance; and nothing is more readily credited by prehending nor answering. Madness! No, sir, "it is not it than the story of fictitious and ideal wrongs. madness that 1 have uttered." "For love of grace, lay not the flattering unction to your soul, that not your trespass, but my maduess speaks." "Bring me to the test, and I the matter will re-word, and prove which madness would gambol from." And now, sir, I will proceed to notice, as briefly as I may, the prominent arguments urged by several gentlemen, to show the fallacy of my propositions; and if I do not labor under some strange hallucinaforth the words of truth and soberness." tion, I will satisfy every impartial man that "I speak

Mr. McDUFFIE then took the floor, for the purpose of replying to those who had opposed his amendment; but it being nearly six o'clock, he moved that the committee rise. The committee rose accordingly.

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1830.

NAVIGATION AND IMPOSTS.

The House resumed the consideration of the bill report ed by Mr. CAMBRELENG, concerning navigation, &c.

Mr. STRONG continued the remarks which he com

menced yesterday, until the expiration of the hour, without baving concluded.

THE TARIFF LAWS.

I cannot but remark at the outset, that the gentlemen opposed to the amendment have carried on the controversy with great dexterity and skill. Cautiously, and no doubt prudently, avoiding the main body of the argument, they have hung upon its outskirts, and seized upon strag gling phrases and detached propositions, which they have run out by misapplication and perversion to some palpable absurdity, and then triumphantly refuted it. I feel strongly confirmed in the truth of the propositions I have advanced, by the eutire failure of the gentlemen of such distinguished ability as those from Massachusetts, who have Mr. McDUFFIE said, he indulged a hope, that when the addressed the committee to meet and refute them. The very great importance of the question before the com-leading proposition which I laid down, affirmed that a

The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. POLK in the chair, and took up the bill to amend the act in alteration of the several acts laying duties on imports, the question being on the amendment of Mr. McDUFFIE, proposing a gradual repeal of the acts of 1828 and 1824, laying duties on imports.

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duty of forty per cent. upon the amount of the exports of cotton, tobacco, and rice, might be safely assumed as the measure of the burdens imposed upon the planting States by this Government, taking into view the entire operation of the impost duties and public disbursements.

I intentionally placed the duty at a point considerably lower than the average of the duties upon imports, to make allowance for the increased value of the imports beyond that of the exports. And now, sir, after hearing and attentively considering all the arguments that have been urged against my estimate of the burdens of the southern States, I am fully satisfied that so far from being extravagant, it does not come up to the reality.

I contended that impost duties, being indirect taxes laid upon production, could not, in the nature of things, be ultimately and exclusively thrown upon consumption; and that, in the actual state of the productive industry of the southern States, and the foreign commerce of which it is the basis, at least one-half of the burden of the impost duties laid upon the exchanges of that industry was sustained by the planters, as producers, in addition to the I burden they sustained, in common with other classes, as consumers. With a view to simplify the argument, I stated that a duty on the import of a foreign manufacture was precisely equivalent, as it regards the southern planters, to a corresponding duty upon the export given in exchange for that manufacture.

[H. or R.

But, sir, even if the argument of the gentleman were true in principle-if we admit, to the fullest extent, the power of the planter to import specie in exchange for his productions, and to dispose of it, it does not touch the question at issue. In point of fact, the planter does not import specie in exchange for his productions, but he imports cottou and woollen and other manufactures subject to high rates of duty. This conclusively demonstrates that the option of importing specie is to the planter a barren privilege of which he cannot avail himself, to avoid paying the duties on foreign manufactures. If it were not, he certainly would exercise it. In fact, the cotton planter is virtually placed under the same necessity to import the manufactures you are so anxious to exclude, as if the laws imposing duties on those manufactures had contained a provision that no other foreign production should be imported in exchange for the staples of the planting States. A moral necessity, growing out of the apparent fact that no other foreign articles can be imported as advantageously as manufactures charged with high duties, is, to all intents and purposes, equal to a legal compulsion to import them so long as that moral necessity exists. It has existed ever since the commencement of the system of the prohibitory duties, as is conclusively shown by the fact that the annual amount of the manufactures in question, imported from the countries to which we export our staples, almost exactly corresponds with the amount of those staples exported; while it has been a subject of constant complaint with the advocates of prohibitory duties, that our market is drained by those countries of the specie which it draws from others:

And how, sir, have these propositions been met? The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GORHAM] denies the equivalency of import and export duties, upon the solitary ground that the planter is under no legal compulsion to import manufactures subject to high duties, in exchange The question is therefore reduced to this simple issue: for his staples, but may import specie free of duty. I con- Is not a duty imposed upon the manufactures which the fess, sir, I was astonished to find a gentleman of so much planter actually does receive in exchange for his agriculintelligence and acuteness, picking up and endorsing one tural productions, and which are the only foreign articles of the most absurd of all the relics of the old mercantile his interest will permit him to import, precisely as bursystem. Specíe has scarcely any use, but as the mere densome to the planter, as the same amount of duty levied representative of value. In this respect, it stands pre- upon the export of his cotton, tobacco, or rice? Stript of cisely upon the footing of a foreign bill of exchange; and all complication and ambiguity, this seems to me too plain it would be just as reasonable to suppose that a commerce a question to be gravely argued. The gentleman from could be carried on between two nations, founded on the Massachusetts [Mr. GORHAM] fairly and distinctly admitexchange of cotton for those foreign bills, as suggested by ted-what his clearness and pride of intellect would not Que gentleman, as upon the exchange of cotton for specie. permit him to deny that the planter could not relieve In a mere individual transaction, it may be very advan- himself from any part of an export duty imposed upon tageous for a planter or merchant to receive a bill of ex- cotton, because that staple has to contend in foreign change for cotton, tobacco, or rice. But does not every markets against the competition of the whole world. man know, who knows any thing about the nature of trade, Now, sir, this concession is a virtual abandonment of the that this bill of exchange must be the representative of fo- whole controversy. For if the cotton planter cannot rereign merchandise actually sold in this country? A greater lieve himself from the burden of an export duty, neither absurdity cannot be suggested, than the notion of making can he relieve himself from that of an import duty, which bills of exchange articles of commerce between nations, is, in all respects, equivalent to it. He has precisely the to be set down at the custom-house as part of the national same means of relieving himself from the former that he imports; and yet it is very little greater than that of sup- has for relieving himself from the latter, and that is, by posing specie can become a valuable article of commerce limiting the production of cotton. Almost every gentlebetween the manufacturing nations of Europe and the man who has engaged in this debate, has admitted that the staple-growing States of this Union. It is true that specie demand and supply of any article regulate its price. At has an intrinsic value, in use, which creates a demand for any given point of time, these are the sole and exclusive it to a limited extent, for the general purpose of consump- causes that regulate prices. The cost of production, tion, independent of the demand for it as a circulating which, in the long run, undoubtedly controls and reguInedium. To a certain extent it is an article of commerce; lates the price of every article produced by human labor, but, in this view, it has no advantage over any other article operates in no other way than by changing the quantity of commerce. To tell the cotton or tobacco planter, there-produced, and consequently the relation between the supfore, that a tax imposed upon the return cargo which he ply and the demand. While these remain unaltered, no receives for his staples, is not equal to a tax upon the ex- increase in the cost of production will produce any enport of those staples themselves, because he may obtain hancement of price whatever. Now, a tax or duty imspecie for them, and import it free of duty, is the same thing in principle, as to tell him he may avoid the duty upon cotton and woollen fabrics, by importing South American Skins and dye stuffs and other articles, not subject to duties, iu exchange for his staples! It would be just as convenient for Great Britain to pay for our staples in these Latter articles, as in specie, and there would be very nearly as great a demand for them in the United States. VOL. VI-120.

posed upon any article is analogous in its operation to a sudden and general impoverishment of soil, which of course would increase the cost of production. The tax, indeed, is for the producer the worst of the two evils; because it does not, in the first instance, diminish the quantity produced, while it necessarily increases the cost of production to the full amount of the burden it imposes. The consequence is, that the whole burden of the tax must

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