FEB. 26, 1831.] Internal Improvements.—Live Oak in Florida.-Duty on Sugar. [H. OF R. Again, tenth amendment of the constitution: "The destroying, or removing live oak and other timber, or trees powers not delegated to the United States by the consti- reserved for naval purposes; which bill having been twice tution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to read, Mr. H. moved that it be ordered to be engrossed, and the States respectively, or the people." read a third time to-morrow. Eleventh amendment: "The jurisdictional power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against any of the United States, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State." Sir, said Mr. L., my State is amply and fully sustained in all her acts, deeds, and doctrines upon the various Indian subjects-by the plain letter and obvious spirit of the constitution of the United States-and I have taken a solemn oath to support that instrument. Mr. STORRS, of New York, desired to know whether the treaty was before the House. It was unprecedented to vote an appropriation to carry a treaty into effect before the President communicated a copy of it to the House. No such communication, he was informed, had been made, and he was, therefore, opposed to the amendment. Mr. DWIGHT was not solicitous about the amendment, but he stated that his object was embraced in the general appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars last year: but that appropriation had not been touched; it remained in the treasury, and would go to the surplus fund, and it was necessary to make a new appropriation for this object, if it was to be effected. Mr. McDUFFIE observed he was indifferent about the fate of the amendment in committee. He had offered it now, that he might be able to offer it in the House when a copy of the treaty should be received. The amendment was then rejected without a count. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. The committee took up the bill making appropriations for certain harbors, and providing for certain surveys, Mr. LEA moved to increase the appropriation for the improvement of the Tennessee river from five hundred to five thousand dollars, and to include the branches of that river; which was agreed to. Mr. HAWKINS, of New York, moved an appropriation of five thousand dollars for removing the bar from the mouth of Black river, on Lake Ontario; which amendment Mr. HOWARD opposed, and Mr. HAWKINS explained and earnestly advocated, and it was agreed to. Mr. WILDE had the preservation of this invaluable timber much at heart, and doubted the expediency of the course recommended by the Secretary of the Navy, in relation to it. He hoped this bill was not in accordance with the suggestion of the Secretary, and that it was not the precursor of an intention to abandon the artificial cultivation and protection of the live oak timber. Mr. HOFFMAN replied distinctly that it was not; but that it was the intention of the Government to continue the protection and cultivation of the timber. The bill was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. DUTY ON SUGAR. The House resumed the consideration of the resolution moved by Mr. HAYNES, of Georgia, on the 11th January last, to reduce the duty on sugar. Mr. WHITE, of Louisiana, rose, and addressed the House as follows: He said it appeared to him that the situation in which he was placed was a very unfortunate one; and misfortune would sometimes impel a man to do what he would otherwise abstain from. It An interest of vital importance to the people of the State from whence I come, said Mr. W.--and, I think, no less important to the people who abide in every other State--has been directly assaulted. The gentleman who had the honor of leading the van in that attack, has made a number of statements, and has ushered them to the world in the semblance of facts. I, however, am unable to accredit them in that capacity. But, at all events, they are asseverations made, or purporting to be made, on the floor of Congress, and they ought either to be admitted if found to be correct, or contravened if a doubt be raised as to their accuracy. The honorable mover had a right to say what he did, and to say it at the time he did. was a franchise belonging to him, as the introducer of the measure. After he had concluded his oration, and had been supported by a speech from another quarter, the duty fell to me--though many other gentlemen would have been infinitely more competent to the task--to make some reply, if any were required; not, however, to anMr. HALL, of North Carolina, moved an appropriation swer at that time, because the finger of the dial was just of five thousand dollars to remove certain shoals below approaching the point which must bid the altercation terWashington, in North Carolina; but avowed that he could minate for that day. The circumstance has been so stated not vote for it himself, yet hoped that those who had in the newspapers; and the people where we live must be no constitutional scruples on the subject of such appro- looking, with some curiosity, to see whether we have priations would agree to it. The amendment was rejected. thought it worth while to denegate, or have quietly made On motion of Mr. SWIFT, an appropriation of five hun-up our minds to acquiesce in those facts of the gentleman's dred dollars was inserted for deepening the channel be- invention, in which they must think, with ourselves, that tween Hero, on Lake Champlain. he is blest with a most wonderful facility. It does Messrs. BOONE, RICHARDSON, and LECOMPTE seem hard that such a sequence of rhapsodies should be made unsuccessful attempts to get appropriations for par- suffered to go abroad through the country, with the ticular objects. avowed object for which they were emitted, without any The committee next took up, in succession, the light-opportunity being afforded to examine their infallibility house bill, and the bill making an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars for a custom-house in the city of New York; which having gone through, The committee rose, and reported all the bills to the House; and then The House adjourned. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Mr. HOFFMAN, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, to which was referred the letter of the Secretary of the Navy, of the 7th of January, upon the subject of live oak timber in Florida, made a report thereon, accompanied by a bill to provide for the punishment of offences in cutting, at the source from whence they emanated. Yet here have we been met, and precluded by the rule of the House which sets apart but one hour a day for the consideration of the subject, together with a great variety of other things which constantly supersede and take precedence over it. I have been waiting in perfect resignation for the natural order: yet, during all this period of expectation, but one opportunity has presented itself, and that was, on one morning, the poor space of something less than five minutes by the clock; and even then the House was not ready for the discussion. But if we had been ready, and had been furnished with the documents for which we were waiting, and which were deemed indispensable, and without which, of a surety, I could not have proceeded with any kind of propriety, it would have been but a mockery H. OF R.] Duty on Sugar. [FEB. 26, 1831. to take up a subject of so much magnitude, to be then leled labor and privation has succeded in reclaiming from laid aside to make room for other matters of minor consequence. its once superincumbent waste of water; and has transformed it into a bright and busy mart, where the active and the enterprising of the fellow-citizens of every gentleman on this floor daily and hourly resort, to garner up and carry home stores of hoarded wealth, in return for the various products, whether of agriculture or manufacture, of the several countries where they reside. To dry up these sources of national and individual The resolution has at last come up in its regular turn: and what portion of time is now allotted to it? Why, sir, a considerable portion of the hour is already flown, and its remaining moments are fast ebbing during the allusion. There are but four days after this remaining of this session, and, even of these four, one is assigned to the consideration of petitions; and if we continue to adhere ri-wealth, and to convert our shores, now decked with costgidly to the hour rule, I see no chance worth talking about, ly manufacturing establishments, into idle solitudes, is the for any response from our side of the House. object. It must be the patriotic wish of gentlemen; and The subject-matter of the resolution, like all matters of if it be not the object, then let me tell them, it inevitapolitical economy, is complex in its nature, involving a bly would be the effect of the measure, supposing it carried great multiplicity of topics, which, indeed, I have no pre-into fulfilment. I speak it in the utmost seriousness, tension to be able to suggest, much less to treat in a fitting when I declare my belief, in which I am confirmed by the manner. Yet it would be gratifying to me, in the attempt opinion of every intelligent man where I live, that if you which it is my duty to make, to have some little more lati- abolish this duty, you make the banks of the Mississippi a tude than the rule allows. I am aware that it requires wilderness; and, so far as my individual option goes, I some effort of boldness to ask any departure from rule, would rather you did your work thoroughly than by at this late hour of the session, when so much important halves. Gentlemen may talk about modification, from the matter is pressing on the time and attention of Congress; gratuitous supposition that men who are doing so astonishand it is with entire deference to the views and feelings of ingly, may well bear a reduction. They may romance as every gentleman, that I make the request, which nothing much as they please about eight or ten hogsheads to but a strong sense of duty prompts me to: it is for a brief the acre, or to the hand, whichever way they choose to suspension of the rule. have it: I say, that if you touch the duty, by that fatal [The question on suspending the rule for an hour was contact you in all probability sink fifty millions of the naput, and carried by a majority of more than two-thirds. Mr. W. then continued:] I am sorry, very sorry, said Mr. W., that a conjuncture should have presented itself, to make it needful for any one from the country where I live to say any thing that may at all connect itself with this much vexed subject of protecting duties. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of the tariff policy; whether its operation has been a beneficial one, as I think it has, to the nation at large, or an injurious one, as some wiser men than I am seem to opine--in short, whether it has proved a national blessing or a national curse--as its apologists and its revilers alternately contend-We (I speak in the name of those who send me) have beguiled ourselves with the belief that the duty contemplated by this resolution was, from its very nature, and from all its concomitant circumstances, en tirely foreign to that long agitated controversy. tion's capital, and transfer at once to the foreigner the five or six millions which its employment now produces to the people of the United States, and in which they all, full nigh, come in for equal shares. And, rather than have you lay a violating hand on any part of the ark of our covenant, I would invite you to do at once the ultimatum of your destructiveness, and strike every vestige of it from the page of your statute book. I made some allusion to the line of conduct held by the State in relation to these matters. Sir, whether our course be characterized by wisdom or by folly, I do not stand here to discuss. But there is one fact I may be permitted to remind gentlemen of, which is this--that those said tariff laws, be they right or wrong, against which they are pleased to take so much umbrage, are in no wise indebted to us for their being: it was no auxiliary hand of ours that helped to call them into existence. Look Looking back for its origin to a former century-coeval back through the records of your parliamentary proalmost, in its existence, with the very Government under ceeding, and, if I be not mightily mistaken, you will inwhich we live--having grown up, as it has, with the variably find the voices of our representation on the growth of the country, and interwoven itself, as it must negative side of all questions for the increase of duties, have done, with all its political economy, as well as with with the sole exception, perhaps, of the act of 1816, the individual and domestic economy of every man and whereby the duty now in question was created, and for every woman in it--claiming no identity in point of date which I have heard it stated, sometimes tauntingly, that with either of the far-famed tariff acts of 1824 or 1828, some of them were induced to vote. And what of that? which have become so offensive to the sensibilities of gen- Why, sir, in so doing, they acted conjunctly, and moved tlemen, and against which alone their professed hostilities hand in hand, with all the principal members and coryhave been hitherto directed; transcendently lucrative, phai of these very States who now, forsooth, find it meet valuable, and important, as we know the interest which to ring the alarum bells--at what? At a most important has grown up under it to be to all, and less so to ourselves national interest, now grown hoary, and, one would almost than to the people of every other portion and fractional think, prescriptive, by time, and which was deemed by subdivision of this nation-deeply imbued with all these their best public men, in 1816, to be an object deserving impress ons, we have been so far the victims of credulity, their utmost solicitude and regard; an interest, too, which as to hope that the elements of that strife might rage and has since produced to gentlemen, and to every man who has fret themselves to death, without ever reaching us, in the had a hand in sending them here, benefits more substanseclusion of our distant, peaceful, unobtrusive agricultu-tial and material than any thing their law makers of that ral pursuits. day could have anticipated--ay, far transcending all they The uniform course of the State, through its represen- could have dreamed, in their moments of warmest aspira tation on the floor, has been such, one would think, as to tion for the future success and prosperity of their country. mitigate, if any thing could assuage, that reckless zeal, But, sir, I am running forward of what I was going to which would now press onward, regardless of conse- say in reference to the conduct of the State touching quences, to the utter annihilation of the little doubtful these said tariff questions. Returning to that point, I say, prosperity we have enjoyed; which would fain break down that throughout the whole course of our national legisla even unto the very dykes of the Mississippi, and turn the tive history, up to the act of 1828 inclusively, whatever old flood loose, to revel once more over an extent of little weight our representation may have had in the counfertile country, which nothing but a century of unparal-cils of the country, has always, or generally, gone in op FEB. 26, 1831.] tion. position to proposals for the increase of duties. And how It is not my intention, nor is this the proper time, to go do we, their successors, now act? Why, we, in pursuance into any elaborate enumeration of particulars, yet I must of the dictates of our own mind, and in compliance with be allowed, as connected with this subject, merely to cite the expressed legislative will of--I will not say our coun-one or two items by way of illustration. I will take, for try--but I say that, in obedience to our own judgments, instance, the article of cotton bagging, which is one of and to the expressed opinion of the Legislature of our those things on which we of-where do we live? I hear State, we now freely give our votes for the maintenance persons talk of a hither and a further West-so also, in of enactments which our predecessors may not, perhaps, appearance, must we duplicate the other cardinal points-have supported on their passage. Nor am I at all aware on which we of the further Australia are taxed and opthat the fact implies any fickleness of purpose, or any pressed, if taxation and oppression there be in it, to the vascillation of sentiment or policy. I apprehend you full extent as much as our neighbors of the South are. would find us as slow now, as you found them then, in Well, sir, this necessary article, which, before the tariff of yielding our assent to any projected scheme of augmenta- '28, cost us twenty-six or twenty-seven cents a yard from tion, however useful or expedient we might deem it. This, Europe, we now get from our American tax-masters for however, is but surmise of mine, and on that point, of sixteen or seventeen cents. There is a clear fall of ten course, we must beg leave to reserve to ourselves the cents in the yard. right of decision. But, sir, to impose duties is one Iron, of which we consume so much, more, perhaps, thing, and to take off duties is another and an awfully than any two of the States, which enters so immensely into different thing. It is one thing to hold out your induce- the process of manipulation and manufacture of sugar, and ments to industry and capital, and it is another and a very which also is one of those things against which the ejaculadistinct thing, "by one fell swoop" of your legislative be- tions in our neighborhood are so loud and enduring." Well, som, to sweep from the face of the earth millions of in- sir, this indispensable convenience has fallen in as great, dustry and capital, which, by your national faith, tacitly or a greater, proportion than the cotton bagging. Evaplighted--unless you are ready to repudiate all idea of porating kettles, of a much better metal, which offer an faith in a Government like ours-by your nation's faith infinitely more effectual resistance to the intense heat of pledged, and religiously observed, too, for a tract of time our furnaces, we now get of domestic cast, for twenty-say twenty-seven years, for such is about the period of five or thirty-five per cent. less than we paid for them its application to us--you have called forth and lured into before the tariff of '28. Sugar mills, I mean mills with the fair field of honest enterprise and successful competi- the large iron cylinders, for expression, and steam engines, now cost us about one-half what we paid for them These are, in part, the motives on which our conduct three or four years ago. And, sir, not only do we get proceeds; and I challenge the casuistry of gentlemen on these things, but we get them abundantly. Whilom, this floor, and I invite the sober sense and equitable feel- and the supply was extremely precarious, owing to the ing of the American people, wherever found, to gainsay three thousand miles of ocean that flowed between us and them if they can. Yes, I would appeal from the bicker- the countries from whence we derived them: now, assorting jealousies of this heated, inflammatory atmosphere, to ments of the implements from the Atlantic seaboard and the hearts and to the heads of the people of the United from the Western States are cumulated at every village States, and to none quicker than to those who live in Geor- and hamlet along our coast, to be obtained by the farmer gia and Virginia. on the most advantageous and accommodating terms. But, sir, the motives I have mentioned do not constitute But, sir, this is not all. While we are drudging at the our sole and only spring of conduct. While we acknow-mill, or watching by the midnight oil the cbullition of the ledge some regard for the interests of persons dwelling kettle, we must have raiment; accordingly, there are the in other portions of the country, from the conviction that domestic cottons for clothing to ourselves and laborers, their prosperity is our prosperity; while we are even so which cost us something more than zero. Coarse woolunfashionable as to own some deference for that precept len cloths have been constantly declining in price, and imof the moral law which forbids us wantonly to destroy or proving in texture, for the last four or five years: and yet to injure our fellows, we have other more immediate, pal- the most important considerations remain still untold. By pable, and material governing considerations. consuming, as we do, the productions of all the other When those much abused tariff acts were in the chry- States, they are enabled to become the purchasers of our salis state, we did not precisely understand how they were sugars-and the raw material of our cotton generally finds to operate. They were represented to us in the light of its best price in the American market; a market which is "experiments.' The system cognomened "American," exclusively our own, in which we, the cotton-growers of seemed likely to lead us on through new scenes of un- the United States, are the monopolists, or rather the monotried being," and, as was natural to men on the verge of vendists, where neither the Pacha of Egypt, with his hunan important step, we paused to soliloquize. But, sir, dred thousand serfs, nor the starving rice-eating millions the experiment has since been tried before our eyes; and of India, are permitted to interfere, and compete, and we think we have witnessed its success. We have seen knock down to the dust the value of our staple. it realize, or tending rapidly to realize, almost all that was Now, if this be taxation and oppression, then I say, taxpredicted of it, at the time, by its friends, and conse-ation and oppression for me: only let us define the terms, quently falsify, or rather agreeably disappoint, the sinister in order to understand each other, and avoid confusion of vaticinations of its foes. Its immediate effect, with us, ideas. I see no insuperable objection, if gentlemen insist has been to give us almost every article of primary neces- on it, why the nomenclature of things should not be changsity of a much better quality, and at an infinitely reduced ed, provided only that those who use the vocabulary would price. By quickening internal commerce, and awaken- mutually agree on the mutation. ing into exercise the latent capabilities of American in- I have thought it might not be improper to offer a few genuity, it has developed to the nation new sources of general observations on the system of which the object wealth, strength, and prosperity, to which it was before a looked to by this resolution forms a part. I will now enstranger. By opening new markets, and creating new deavor, under favor of the House, to narrow in the circle demands, and by promoting a rapid interchange of com- of my remarks, so as to make them more immediately apmodities between different sections, it has multiplied in-plicable to the subject under consideration. dustry and employment, and has thus brought an increas- The culture of the sugar cane in Louisiana appears to ed ratio of virtue and happiness to the great mass of the me to present three principal aspects under which it depeople. serves to be considered. The first relates to the extraor H. OF R.] Duty on Sugar. [FEB. 26, 1831. dinary profits supposed to be realized by those who are Why, the gentleman must have discovered for our bene. engaged in it. This I regard as a topic of most perfect fit that grand arcanum, supposed to exist in nature, but futility, yet it is one which it has pleased gentlemen to start for which the dreaming alchymist has sought in vain since for the want of a better. The second applies to the influ- the birth of time. A very Midas! he but touches us, and ence it has had on the supply and the price of the article lo! we stand confessed, in form and pressure, as solid to the whole people of the United States. The third, and masses of the shining dross. He shows, by calculation, most important, involves the inquiry as to the extensive very satisfactory to himself, I have no doubt, that a sacmarket it has created for the productions of every State in charine concern in that country yields a nett profit to its the Union. I will endeavor, if I have time, to say some-owner of more than thirty-two per cent. He takes up a thing on each of these separate heads. plantation, which he estimates, with all its paraphernalia, its apparatus, its laborers, its horses, its implements, its stock of every kind, at fifty thousand dollars; he then proceeds to state its account current of profit and loss for the year, in the most mercantile style of debit and per contra; and he brings out, at the end of the year, a nett profit of more than twenty thousand dollars to the proprietor! In approaching the subject of our supposed inordinate profits, it seems to me not inopportune to notice, at once, some of the statistics for which we are indebted to the lucubrations of the gentleman from Georgia. I would not think of following him through all the minutia of the lore with which he has thought fit to store his memory or his tablets for the occasion, but would merely advert, hastily, to such things as appear to me useful to the end of the in- Now this is certainly a handsome little interest on money quiry. In undertaking this task, my vocation must be a in such hard times as these; and I wonder why some of the mixture of pleasure and of pain; pleasure, in having it in loose cash that is hawking about these other States at four my power to agree with the gentleman in some respects; and five per cent. per annum does not flow in that direc pain, in being compelled to differ from any of the dogmas tion, and seek to invest itself in sugar plantations. I wonof his belief on this or any other subject, as indeed the der that two-thirds of the people of Louisiana should conpoints on which our opinions are irreconcilably discre- tinue to slave for nothing in the culture of cotton, when pant are chiefly such as he chooses to derive from gratui- they see their next door neighbors plenishing their barns tous inference, or, what is far worse, from the tongue or with doubloons. I wonder that the people of the adjatrump of that abominable terrifier of nations, that lying cent States, who are looking on with every thing requisite plague--common rumor. What are the precise data we in hand, do not step over the border and make their forgather from him? Why, he informs us that, in 1803, the tunes. I marvel that the gentleman himself does not condiment sold in Philadelphia for twelve and a half cents mount his Argo, affront the perils of the Florida Strait, a pound. That I do not deny. I know that about that time, and sail up the Mississippi, to pluck the golden fleece. I both before and after, it frequently sold for that much, can tell him why he does not. It is because he knows and oftentimes for much more. Ile says that, in after very well there is no such prize there. Sir, if the story years, the price declined in Europe, and here in the Unit- were entitled to a moment's credence, you would find in ed States. I know that, too; and there, I contend, our Georgia alone ten thousand valorous men to start at the influence began to be felt. He has ascertained that the word, and attempt the enterprise. If but one-half the price of it at New Orleans now ranges from five to five described wealth were to be collected on our shores, we and a balf cents--take the average, or price current, five should be overrun in less than twelve months by swarms and a quarter cents--and that the quantity produced more numerous and more greedy of gold than were the there is estimated for the past year at one hundred thou-blue-eyed myriads that rushed from their Germanic fastsand hogsheads, equal to one hundred millions of pounds. nesses on the devoted provinces of the Eastern_empire. My information in this respect does not differ materially Fifty thousand dollars yielding a nett profit of twenty from that of the gentleman; and I say it is a splendid re- thousand dollars in a year! I have no objection-no, not sult, and is, of itself, quite sufficient to enlist in its behalf the slightest-to the gentleman's arithmetic. I only wish the intelligent sympathies of the people of this country, it could lay claim to some portion of that accuracy comand even to propitiate the most sordid, selfish feeling-monly ascribed to the exact sciences. I sincerely wish, if such alone must govern Americans--of every one. for the sake of the gentleman himself, and all his friends The gentleman also says that sugar has been bought in in Georgia, that it were but half true-ay, that it were the West Indies, during the last year, at four cents a but true in one-fourth part; and that it has a fourth of pound; and I am willing, for the present, to put the argu-truth, is what I unhesitatingly deny. Ha! here is a mooted ment on that ground, reserving the point for some future point. The gentleman says twenty thousand dollars—I say not five. How shall we decide the issue? To what umpirage shall we resort? To a wager? No, that is no test of truth. Yet, perhaps, (who knows?) the gentleman from Georgia, or some of his informants, might be willing to underwrite the result. May be they would undertake to make the achievement sure by the appliance of their own skill and craft in the science of tillage; if so, then I But here it grieves me to say, the harmony and good say to them, Come one, come all, and I will pledge myunderstanding between his opinions and mine must end. self, and will furnish a hundred responsible co-obligors on I have none, no, not the slightest objection to his facts; the bond, if required, that they may select any establishbut the moment he begins to assume premises, and seeks ment in the State they please, not worth more than fifty to enlighten our intellect by what he has been told, I thousand dollars; and, in fixing its value, we will estimate must be allowed, for the moment, to turn lawyer, and en- the mere land below what their best lands in Georgia sell ter my objection to the admissibility of the hearsay. for; and they may then assume the entire management With that ingeniousness which marks his life and conver- and control for any length of time they please-two, three, sation, he admits that he has no practical acquaintance five, or ten years, they guarantying to us the said nett with the subject: but he says that a friend, or, perhaps, a profit of twenty thousand dollars per annum; and if they plural number of friends, have told him how it is--and do, that we, on our part, will then guaranty unto them an so, with one dash of his pen, and the addition of a given annual salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year for their number of zeros, he showers, nay, he heaps, on our de-services; yes, and they shall have bed, board, and washvoted heads more gold than was ever dug from the ca- ing besides, and a horse to ride, and a seat in the parochial church to boot. Was there ever a fairer offer? The consideration. I will here take occasion to offer my acknowledgments to the gentleman for all the facts, properly so called, which he has adduced. It would have been my duty to search them out, if he had not done it; and I have no doubt he has taken them from the State papers of the day, or consulted chronicles on which he relies. verns of Potcsi. FEB. 26, 1831.] Duty on Sugar. [H. or R. gentleman says they make nothing in Georgia. Here is they are men who habitually sit down by a deal board a chance of fortune with us. Do you come and oversee, table to a homely repast of bread and salted fish or meat and ensure to us the nett profit of twenty thousand dol-bought from you, to which some, not all, are enabled to lars, which you so confidently describe, and we will then add the zest of a measure of cheap claret wine, which the ensure to you an annual stipend of fifteen thousand for sultriness of their climate makes an almost indispensable your pains, and allow you besides the sundry little fran-requisite to existence; while other persons, luxuriating chises I have mentioned, in order to keep the whole of it beneath the bland influence of milder skies, are banquetin your pocket. count. ing on the culled dainties of the earth, and rousing their Fifty thousand dollars yielding a clear profit of twenty sated appetites by the costly potations of France and thousand dollars! What immensely rich characters must Spain, or sit sipping the rich juices of the Fortunate we be! Mr. Speaker, one of the most harmless pastimes islands, in order to discriminate whether the vintage have of the money-hoarder is said to consist in the joys of tell- been chilled by the too rude visitation of the breeze on ing his pelf; one of the most innocent pleasures of the the northern slopes, or be dashed by the fine aroma imrich, in reckoning the aggregate of their gains. Now, parted by the southern exposure. Yes, sir, those men only allow us a moment's fruition of this kind, and let us who, you say, tax and oppress you, are men who delve and feed coarse, to tax and oppress you in reality, but According to the best estimates we are enabled to ob- they tax you with ease and with affluence, and they optain, our investments in that culture amount to fifty mil- press you with Champagne, with Sherry, with Madeira. lions of capital-ay, sir, to fifty millions of hard-earned And what do you do the while? Why, you sit gravely dollars-not earned, however, by the cultivation of sugar. talking of their inordinate wealth and luxuriousness, and Now for the proportion. If, as the gentleman asserts, solemnly discussing the propriety of legislative intervenfifty thousand dollars yield a nett profit of twenty thou- tion, to bring them down from their high estate, or, in sand in one year, how much do the fifty millions yield? tailor phrase, to take them a button hole lower. Work the sum. Why, sir, it is twenty millions of dollars-- Now, Mr. Speaker, I will appeal to you: is it not amazalmost equal to the whole revenue of the United States! ing that any portion of our country, and especially that litThe budget of your Department of Finance puts downtle nook of it, should even at this day be so illy comprethe gross revenue of the United States at twenty-two mil- hended, so liable to be misunderstood, even by intelligent, lions-I drop fractions. The budget of the gentleman well informed American statesmen? With nothing at all of from Georgia assigns to one class of planters in a single romance in its position: without mountain and without State-a State having but three Representatives on this mist, though with plenty of rain and hot weather; a plain, floor--a nett revenue almost equal to the whole gross col-simple, matter of fact country, of hard work; the most aclections of your Government, with all its imputed blood-cessible in the world, to our friends and yours, from the sea sucking and vampyrism; notwithstanding its alleged sys-as well as from the land, and which is annually visited by tem of taxation and oppression, which, they say, is such thousands and tens of thousands, pilgrims to the shrine of that the people can no longer bear it. pleasure or of gain, from every State in this Union! Is similar delusion prevailed in France at a very early period of our colonial history. The whole city of Paris was shaken by the frenzy. Public declaimers, then, as now, with Law, a visionary enthusiast, or mad schemer, at their head, proclaimed that the banks of the Mississippi were the famous El Dorado of which the poet had raved. Its inhabitants they depicted as Thomson describes the immates of the Castle of Indolence: they all dwelt in sumptuous palaces; by night they slept on cushions of softest eider down; by day reclining on damask ottomans, listening to the lascivious windings of the lute." 66 Sir, deduct your expense of collection, the salaries to it not passing strange that such a place should continue to your officers of the customs, and the cost of your revenue be the theme of such wild, improbable, incoherent imaservice, which may be about assimilated to our brokers' ginings? Why, no, I suppose it is not strange-it would fees, and then, according to the gentleman's hypothesis, seem to be preordained that it should be so. The same the difference will be but a fraction between the whole hallucination has existed for a hundred years or more, and gross income of the United States and the nett income of will, I dare say, exist for a hundred years to come. A a few planters in Louisiana, And who are they that are accumulating such a mountain of the precious metals, as, if true, must in a short time crush through the feeble substratum of their alluvion, and whelm both it and themselves to the depths of the bottomless abyss? Who, I say, are they? Why, they are a small portion, numerically considered, of the agriculturists of a small State! What wealthy Nabobs! what bloated Viceroys! what gorgeous Indian Rajahs must they be! Pretty attributes these to ascribe to a class of men notoriously the most plain, unostentatious, uncostly, practically republican men, in all their habits and modes of life, of any in these United States! In this Eden of the new world, they asserted no labor I do not pretend to deny that there are some men of was required-men sowed not, neither did they reap; wealth there; there are some every where. I know seve- wishes were no sooner formed than gratified; every thing ral myself that have gone from these other States, princi- that could minister to the appetite was scattered in spon pally from Georgia, and Carolina, and Virginia, and have taneous profusion through the land; every clod sparkled taken their wealth with them, though very few of them with a gem-every pathway was strewn with glittering have much enhanced their substance by the products of ingots of silver and of gold. And, sir, the tale had its Neither do I deny that there are sundry per-proselytes then, as it seems to have now, and as things insons there who dwell in decent houses, and live as persons credible always will. Hundreds and thousands believed similarly circumstanced do in other countries; and even the story--and, sir, what came of it! It eventuated in the they, I contend, do not live, nor are they enabled to live, celebrated Mississippi scheme, in which hundreds of dein the same style of elegance and comfort with people of luded victims of both sexes embarked. They came to equal condition in other States. Sir, I speak of the great the El Dorado, and what did they find? They found majority of those who are engaged in the culture of sugar, dreary coasts and inhospitable shores; primeval forests, when I say that they are men who toil and drudge in a dank with noxious vapor; and spreading morasses, rife way that the gentleman has no conception of; for, during with lethiferous malaria; and, worse than all the rest, the period of their harvest, which runs through a portion squalid misery and ghastly famine staring them in the face. of the inclement season of winter, they have to labor the So burst that bubble--but the eloquence of the gentleman livelong night as well as by day; that they are men who, from Georgia not unforcibly reminds one of the ideas to for eleven months in the calendar, go clad in blanket to which the inflation owed its birth. coats, and wear domestic trowsers from your looms, that Now, Mr. Speaker, how are auch errors and miscon the cane. VOL. VIL-51 |