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for the extraordinary circumstances in which the principal powers of Europe were placed.

The French Revolution, nearly cotemporaneous with the adoption of the Constitution, soon spread its waves over the surrounding nations, sweeping away alike the usual landmarks of the commercial and of the political world. During a war of twenty years, we were the only commercial people that preserved the relations of neutrality. This circumstance threw the carrying trade of the world into our hands; and created, at the same time, and sustained, an extensive demand for the products of our soil. In this state of things, more extended and effective encouragement for domestic manufactures, was not required. There was no want of profitable employment for all the capital, labour, and skill, which the community could furnish.

The consequence was, notwithstanding the occasional embarrassments and vexations which our commerce encountered, an unexampled progress in population, wealth, and improvement. But, when the period of general peace returned at last, commerce, as well as other pursuits, resumed, in a great measure, its ancient channels; our merchants and navigators found themselves checked and traversed by successful competitors, on every side; and the products of our soil, with one or two exceptions, were, in a great measure, excluded from the markets of Europe, by restrictions and monopolies. At the same time, the manufacturing establishments, which had grown up, with a sort of hot-bed vigour, during our war with Great Britain, were swept away, in rapid succession, by the returning tide of mercantile cupidity, and British competition. General distress overspread the land; credit was, in a great measure, prostrated, and enterprize unnerved.

If, under these circumstances, the Government had looked on unconcerned, and taken no measures to stay the threatening ruin, it would have been unfaithful to its trust. The remedy was obvious; so obvious, that it can hardly be said, that there was a division of public opinion regarding it. The Tariff Law of 1816 was generally allowed to be a wise and necessary law. But it soon became evident, that the protection it gave to some important branches of industry, was inadequate. This, at least, was the opinion of the majority; and in 1824 the Tariff was again revised, with a view to this object.

The last act met with a violent opposition; and is denounced, by you, as both unconstitutional and inexpedient. The former objection I have considered at length. With regard to the latter, I shall offer but a few remarks. Its operations and effects are now matters of history. Have they been injurious? If so, where, and in what manner? Have they tended to cripple and embarrass our commerce? Have they diminished our revenue? Both these consequences were loudly and confidently predicted from the measure. Have these predictions been verified?

The present Chairman of the Committee of Commerce, Mr. CAMBRELENG, in his ardent opposition to this bill, made use of the following language:" This modern scheme of protecting industry, will cost our revenue at least two millions of dollars annually." Let us see the result.

The amount of the revenue from imposts was in 1821, $13,004,447; 1822, $17,589,761; 1823, $19,088,433; and in 1825, $20,093,713; 1826, $23,312,820.

So much for Mr. CAMBRELENG's predictions on the subject of reve

nue.

With regard to the effects of this bill on the importation of foreign goods, the predictions of this gentlemen have been still more signally falsified. This was his language. "What in the aggregate, is the measure proposed? To prohibit the importation of manufactures and other articles, to the value of about thirty millions of dollars annually, &c." Let us look at the facts.

The total aggregate of imports for the years 1821, 22, and '23, was $223,405, 822-re-exportations $71,132,310-consumed in the United States, $152,273,522. For 1824, 25 and '26, 261,863,599-re-exportations, 82,467,412—consumed in the United States, 179,396,187.

That is to say, instead of an annual diminution of thirty millions, there has actually been an increase of nearly thirteen millions; leaving a .. small error in Mr. C's. calculation of about 43,000,000 of dollars per annum! After reading these statements, one may be pardoned for regarding your predictions of ruinous effects to follow from the tariff system, with something less than implicit faith. Doubtless this system may be carried to an injurious extreme. But surely, when this shall have been done, the mischievous effects will manifest themselves. It is not, one would think, in a more flourishing agriculture, or extended commerce, or increasing revenue, that we are to look for the evidence of excessive imposts.

Will it be said, that any one production of our soil, is less saleable now than it was in 1823? Is any article of foreign production higher? Have the protective duties on the other hand, compelled us to purchase the products of our own manufactures, at an exorbitant price, or of inferior quality? I appeal to yourself, to any man in the city of Charleston, whether the fact is not notoriously otherwise. Such Cottons, for example, as cost, a few years since, 25 cents per yard, can now be bought for 12; and of far superior fabric. The article of Plains, too, is disappearing from our market-driven out by a domestic fabric cheaper in price and better in quality. Where then, I ask again, are we to look for the mischievous effects of this system? They are not to be found.*

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* "We are told," you say, in your third number, of internal improvements but in order to witness them, we must travel northward! Again. Speaking of the Northern States, you say: "We see U. States' Engineers, every where at workand mighty projects on foot"-but, there, i. e. at the South-" we shall see no Navy Yards, no Military Roads, no Canals." "We know the General Government, not by the kindness which it practises towards us, but by the taxes and the tribute money which it incessantly demands of us." Such language hardly requires a comment. It is difficult to suppress one's indignation in perusing it; or to speak of it otherwise than in terms of the severest rebrobation. The sense that obviously seems intended to be conveyed, is wholly unsupported by facts. It is not true, that the United States' Engineers, are, or have been, exclusively employed in the Northern States. It is not true that we can see no Navy Yards at the South. There is a Navy Yard at Washington, which surely is not in a Northern State. There is another at Pensacola.. Three Canals only have been constructed in any measure, by means of aid derived from the General Government, in the way of subscription to the Stock. Two of these are wholly, and the third, in part, within the limits of slave-holding States. And among the surveys made by order of Congress, I find the following: Of a route for a Canal from Lake Ponchartrain to the Mississippi. Of a Canal to connect the waters of the Atlantic with those of the Gulf of Mexico; and of another be

In order to show that the General Government is coldly disposed towards this section of the Union, you aver, "that no protection has ever been extended to the agriculture of the South." This is not cor◄ rect in point of fact; and if it were, would not sustain your inference. In 1789, Indigo was one of the principal staples of this Štate and Georgia, and in order to protect and encourage the culture, a duty of sixteen cents per pound, about twenty-five per cent, was laid on that of foreign growth. In 1795, this duty was raised to twenty-two cents. This, surely, was not an impost for the purpose of "revenue alone." The average duty on foreign manufactures at this time, was about five per cent. The culture of Cotton was then hardly known; but it was stated by the Southern Representatives in the course of the debate, that it was thought it might advantageously be introduced along with that of hemp. On these two articles was imposed a duty of fifteen per cent; while in a manufactured state, they were charged with one of only five per cent. On manufactured tobacco a duty was laid in 1789, of six cents per lb.; and on snuff, of ten cents; and these were increased in 1795, the former to ten; and the latter to twenty-two cents. These duties, it will not be pretended, were laid for the sake of revenue. They must have been designed for the benefit of those to whose benefit they enured--the planter and the tobacconist. Has nothing in the shape of protection, been extended to the sugar planters? Is there not a duty of fifty per cent on this article, imported from abroad? And does not this enure solely to the benefit of the planters? And, in this case, to render it the stronger, there is not even a pretence, that the home supply is now, or is likely to be, equal to the demand. This heavy duty is

tween the Bays of Mobile and Pensacola. Of the Swash in Pamlico Sound. Of the Cape Fear River, below Wilmington; of the Muscle Shoals in the Tennessee: and of a contemplated communication between the Hiwassee and the Coosa, in the State of Alabama, So much for the correctness of your statements on this subject.

"Taxes and tribute money." One would think from the tenor of your language, that the whole revenue of the United States were collected South of the Potomac. The single city of New-York pays into the National Treasury, a larger amount than is gathered from this whole section of country. But, were it otherwise, there would be no justice in your representations. The citizens of the Southern States are subject to no peculiar burdens. The Government "demands" from them no "tribute," which is not equally demanded from all others.

What is the meaning, then, of these invidious statements? What purpose are they intended to serve ? It is certain that they do not serve the cause either of truth, or of good neighbourhood.

"We know the Government, not by the kindness it practises towards us." Yet the South has been the dominant section-if one must use these odious distinctions -of the country for the greater portion of the time since the Union was formed. The balance of the Government has, notoriously inclined towards Southern interests, and Southern policy, from the first. What favourite measure of the South has ever been defeated? Has not the South had its share of Presidents and Vice-Presidents, Ambassadors and Secretaries?

But "we asked for a Navy Yard, and were refused." True; and should we ask for a rock-bound coast-rivers without sand-bars-and for quarries of granite and marble, we must expect to be refused again. What impartial man could deem it a judicious measure in the Government, to establish a Navy Yard at this port? It might undoubtedly be beneficial to our immediate interests; but would it be consistent with those of the public? This is the single point of view, in which the question ought to be regarded. The public expenditures ought to be made where the public good requires--without the slightest reference to local interests, or local feelings.

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paid too, in a very disproportionate degree, by the poorer classes of the community. For the article is become a necessary of life. This is, in reality, "taxing the many for the benefit of the few." It is worse; it is taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich. This case is widely distinguished from that of domestic manufactures in this respect; that in the latter, the partial or total exclusion of the foreign article tends to create a competition in our own country, which speedily reduces the price to the lowest rate that will afford a fair remuneration for the labour employed, and the capital invested in its production; while, in the former, no such effect is produced. The cause of this difference is too plain to require illustration. Four-fifths, at least, (I speak with some degree of uncertainty, not having at hand the means of ascertaining precisely; but I presume I am within the mark,) of the sugar consumed in the country, is now, and is likely to be, for a long series of years, of foreign growth. And every pound of this comes to the consumer charged with this heavy tax, for the benefit of a small class of wealthy planters, in a particular section of the country. It is a tax sui generis. There is nothing parallel to it on the statute book. Yet it is paid by the farmers and manufacturers of the Eastern and Middle States, quietly at least, if not cheerfully. I have never heard of any loud murmurs from that quarter, any clamours about local legislation,' about sectional partiality on the part of the Government, or any threats of severing the Union.

But, supposing no special protection had been extended to the agricultural interests of the Southern States, at any period since the formation of the federal system; still it would not argue any want of due regard to these interests, on the part of the General Government. These interests, since the introduction of the culture of Cotton, have never been in a condition to require such protection. They have had no competition to contend with. The products of this section have, till quite recently, found their market, almost wholly, abroad. And this market has been uniformly open to them, excepting when it was closed by the act of our own Government, during the periods of war, and embargo; when they only partook of the general calamity. It is no evidence, surely, of neglect, or indifference on the part of Congress, that they have not done for us, what they have had no opportunity of doing, and what we have not required at their hands.

But let us suppose that the state of things were reversed. Let us suppose, that the great staple of these States had been, for years, burdened in the market of Great Britain with heavy duties, so as virtually to exclude it from her ports, while the products of the Northern and Middle States had been freely admitted. Do you imagine, that the Southern planters would have been more patient under the embarrassment, than the Wheat growers of Pennsylvania and New-York, and the Manufacturers of New-England have been? Think you that they would have been, in the elegant, and urbane language of Dr. CoOPER, less of "a combining, club-meeting, planning, scheming, petitioning, memorializing, complaining, statement-making, worrying, boring class of men," than the others have shown themselves to be? And, is it quite impossible, that, in the changes of this world, such a state of things should actually occur? And, if it should, would there not be cause to bless the forecast that had raised up a market for these productions

in our own land, which the could not materially affect? show whether it is so or not.

policy, or the caprice of other nations, You regard this as a dream. Time will

NO. XXIX.

I have now completed the task I had prescribed to myself, when entering on this discussion; and feel but too sensibly, that it is time to bring these numbers to a close. I have already taxed the patience of the public far beyond my original intentions. How faithfully I have redeemed my pledge, it is not for me to say. I claim no other merit than that of upright purposes. i am not aware, however, that I have suffered any principle involved in your speculations, and which I deemed erroneous, to pass without examination. This examination I have endeavoured to conduct fairly, according to the principles both of logic and courtesy. With what success, is another affair. I am not so vain, nor so ignorant, as to imagine that, in the course of these discussions, I have been fortunate enough to develope many new truths. My aim has been a less ambitious, though perhaps not a less useful or important one-to confirm and illustrate doctrines, one of whose strongest claims to validity, consists in the fact that they are not new. The oftrepeated fallacy, must be as often detected; pertinacious error, must be with equal persistency refuted. This is the allotted condition of human affairs. It is the nature of the warfare in which truth has been engaged from the first. Error, we are told, is mortal; but though mortal, it is often long-lived; and though vanquished, will not be slow in returning to the combat. The advocate of truth, whether in politics, morals or religion, must adopt for his motto, never to "be weary in well-doing." The conflict he is called to sustain, may be often a very unequal one. The passions and prejudices of the million,' are but too easily arrayed against him—a host which he who values his quiet more highly than his duty, may easily find reasons for avoiding to en

counter.

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There are times, however, when he who truly loves his country, must not listen to such suggestions. When mischievous error is in the field, he must not shrink from the conflict. To do so, would argue a cold and selfish spirit. Ours is emphatically a government of opinion. Public sentiment is the very atmosphere in which our institutions live and breathe. It will be their nutriment or bane, according as it is pure, or corrupt. It is then the duty of every good citizen, to contribute what lies in his power, to preserve this opinion correct, or to rectify it when it is wrong. This is the duty I have been endeavouring to discharge. I deemed, that the tendency of your essays was dangerous to the best interests of our country; that by enkindling animosity, and sowing dissension between the South and the North, they were weakening the cement, that binds them together. This tendency it has been my principal aim to counteract. I regret, without affectation of humility, that the task has not fallen into abler hands. I have used the ability I possessed; and I am responsible for no more.

That I have neither mistaken, nor exaggerated the tendency and

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