LXXVI. ABOLITION OF IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT…

LXXVI. ABOLITION OF IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT

The philanthropic Col. R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, had labored for years at this humane consummation; and finally saw his labors successful. An act of Congress was passed abolishing all imprisonment for debt, under process from the courts of the United States: the only extent to which an act of Congress could go, by force of its enactments; but it could go much further, and did, in the force of example and influence; and has led to the cessation of the practice of imprisoning the debtors, in all, or nearly all, of the States and Territories of the Union; and without the evil consequences which had been dreaded from the loss of this remedy over the person. It led to a great many oppressions while it existed, and was often relied upon in extending credit, or inducing improvident people to incur debt, where there was no means to pay it, or property to meet it, in the hands of the debtor himself; but reliance wholly placed upon the sympathies of third persons, to save a friend or relative from confinement in a prison. The dower of wives, and the purses of fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, were thus laid under contribution by heartless creditors; and scenes of cruel oppression were witnessed in every State. Insolvent laws and bankrupt laws were invented to cover the evil, and to separate the unfortunate from the fraudulent debtor; but they were slow and imperfect in operation, and did not reach the cases in which a cold and cruel calculation was made upon the sympathies of friends and relatives, or upon the chances of catching the debtor in some strange and unbefriended place. A broader remedy was wanted, and it was found in the total abolition of the practice, leaving in full force all the remedies against fraudulent evasions of debt. In one of his reports on the subject, Col. Johnson thus deduced the history of this custom, called "barbarous," but only to be found in civilized countries:

"In ancient Greece, the power of creditors over the persons of their debtors was absolute; and, as in all cases where despotic control is tolerated, their rapacity was boundless. They compelled the insolvent debtors to cultivate their lands like cattle, to perform the service of beasts of burden, and to transfer to them their sons and daughters, whom they exported as slaves to foreign countries.

"These acts of cruelty were tolerated in Athens, during her more barbarous state, and in perfect consonance with the character of a people who could elevate a Draco, and bow to his mandates, registered in blood. But the wisdom of Solon corrected the evil. Athens felt the benefit of the reform; and the pen of the historian has recorded the name of her lawgiver as the benefactor of man. In ancient Rome, the condition of the unfortunate poor was still more abject. The cruelty of the Twelve Tables against insolvent debtors should be held up as a beacon of warning to all modern nations. After judgment was obtained, thirty days of grace were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the power of his creditor. After this period, he was retained in a private prison, with twelve ounces of rice for his daily sustenance. He might be bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight; and his misery was three times exposed in the market-place, to excite the compassion of his friends. At the expiration of sixty days, the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life. The insolvent debtor was either put to death or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tiber. But, if several creditors were alike obstinate and unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate their revenge by this horrid partition. Though the refinements of modern criticisms have endeavored to divest this ancient cruelty of its horrors, the faithful Gibbon, who is not remarkable for his partiality to the poorer class, preferring the liberal sense of antiquity, draws this dark picture of the effect of giving the creditor power over the person of the debtor. No sooner was the Roman empire subverted than the delusion of Roman perfection began to vanish, and then the absurdity and cruelty of this system began to be exploded--a system which convulsed Greece and Rome, and filled the world with misery, and, without one redeeming benefit, could no longer be endured--and, to the honor of humanity, for about one thousand years, during the middle ages, imprisonment for debt was generally abolished. They seemed to have understood what, in more modern times, we are less ready to comprehend, that power, in any degree, over the person of the debtor, is the same in principle, varying only in degree, whether it be to imprison, to enslave, to brand, to dismember, or to divide his body. But, as the lapse of time removed to a greater distance the cruelties which had been suffered, the cupidity of the affluent found means again to introduce the system; but by such slow gradations, that the unsuspecting poor were scarcely conscious of the change.

"The history of English jurisprudence furnishes the remarkable fact, that, for many centuries, personal liberty could not be violated for debt. Property alone could be taken to satisfy a pecuniary demand. It was not until the reign of Henry III., in the thirteenth century, that the principle of imprisonment for debt was recognized in the land of our ancestors, and that was in favor of the barons alone; the nobility against their bailiffs, who had received their rents and had appropriated them to their own use. Here was the shadow of a pretext. The great objection to the punishment was, that it was inflicted at the pleasure of the baron, without a trial: an evil incident to aristocracies, but obnoxious to republics. The courts, under the pretext of imputed crime, or constructive violence, on the part of the debtor, soon began to extend the principle, but without legislative sanction. In the eleventh year of the reign of Edward I., the immediate successor of Henry, the right of imprisoning debtors was extended to merchants--Jewish merchants excepted, on account of their heterodoxy in religion--and was exercised with great severity. This extension was an act of policy on the part of the monarch. The ascendency obtained by the barons menaced the power of the throne; and, to counteract their influence, the merchants, a numerous and wealthy class, were selected by the monarch, and invested with the same authority over their debtors.

"But England was not yet prepared for the yoke. She could endure an hereditary nobility; she could tolerate a monarchy; but she could not yet resign her unfortunate sons, indiscriminately, to the prison. The barons and the merchants had gained the power over their victims; yet more than sixty years elapsed before Parliament dared to venture another act recognizing the principle. During this period, imprisonment for debt had, in some degree, lost its novelty. The incarceration of the debtor began to make the impression that fraud, and not misfortune, had brought on his catastrophe, and that he was, therefore, unworthy of the protection of the law, and too degraded for the society of the world. Parliament then ventured, in the reign of Edward III., in the fourteenth century, to extend the principle to two other cases--debt and detinue. This measure opened the door for the impositions which were gradually introduced by judicial usurpation, and have resulted in the most cruel oppression. Parliament, for one hundred and fifty years afterwards, did not venture to outrage the sentiments of an injured and indignant people, by extending the power to ordinary creditors. But they had laid the foundation, and an irresponsible judiciary reared the superstructure. From the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Edward III., to the nineteenth of Henry VIII., the subject slumbered in Parliament. In the mean time, all the ingenuity of the courts was employed, by the introduction of artificial forms and legal fictions, to extend the power of imprisonment for debt in cases not provided for by statute. The jurisdiction of the court called the King's Bench, extended to all crimes or disturbances against the peace. Under this court of criminal jurisdiction, the debtor was arrested by what was called the writ of Middlesex, upon a supposed trespass or outrage against the peace and dignity of the crown. Thus, by a fictitious construction, the person who owed his neighbor was supposed to be, what every one knew him not to be, a violator of the peace, and an offender against the dignity of the crown; and while his body was held in custody for this crime, he was proceeded against in a civil action, for which he was not liable to arrest under statute. The jurisdiction of the court of common pleas extended to civil actions arising between individuals upon private transactions. To sustain its importance upon a scale equal with that of its rival, this court also adopted its fictions, and extended its power upon artificial construction, quite as far beyond its statutory prerogative; and upon the fictitious plea of trespass, constituting a legal supposition of outrage against the peace of the kingdom, authorized the writ of capias, and subsequent imprisonment, in cases where a summons only was warranted by law. The court of exchequer was designed to protect the king's revenue, and had no legal jurisdiction, except in cases of debtors to the public. The ingenuity of this court found means to extend its jurisdiction to all cases of debt between individuals, upon the fictitious plea that the plaintiff, who instituted the suit, was a debtor to the king, and rendered the less able to discharge the debt by the default of the defendant. Upon this artificial pretext, that the defendant was debtor to the king's debtor, the court of exchequer, to secure the king's revenue, usurped the power of arraigning and imprisoning debtors of every description. Thus, these rival courts, each ambitious to sustain its relative importance, and extend its jurisdiction, introduced, as legal facts, the most palpable fictions, and sustained the most absurd solecisms as legal syllogisms.

"Where the person of the debtor was, by statute, held sacred, the courts devised the means of construing the demand of a debt into the supposition of a crime, for which he was subject to arrest on mesne process; and the evidence of debt, into the conviction of a crime against the peace of the kingdom, for which he was deprived of his liberty at the pleasure of the offended party. These practices of the courts obtained by regular gradation. Each act of usurpation was a precedent for similar outrages, until the system became general, and at length received the sanction of Parliament. The spirit of avarice finally gained a complete triumph over personal liberty. The sacred claims of misfortune were disregarded, and, to the iron grasp of poverty, were added the degradation of infamy, and the misery of the dungeon.

"While imprisonment for debt is sanctioned, the threats of the creditor are a source of perpetual distress to the dependent, friendless debtor, holding his liberty by sufferance alone. Temptations to oppression are constantly in view. The means of injustice are always at hand; and even helpless females are not exempted from the barbarous practice. In a land of liberty, enjoying, in all other respects, the freest and happiest government with which the world was ever blessed, it is matter of astonishment that this cruel custom, so anomalous to all our institutions, inflicting so much misery upon society, should have been so long endured."

The act was passed soon after this masterly report was made, followed by similar acts in most of the States; and has been attended every where with the beneficial effect resulting from the suppression of any false and vicious principle in legislation. It is a false and vicious principle in the system of credit to admit a calculation for the chance of payment, founded on the sympathy and alarms of third parties, or on the degradation and incarceration of the debtor himself. Such a principle is morally wrong, and practically unjust; and there is no excuse for it in the plea of fraud. The idea of fraud does not enter into the contract at its original formation; and if occurring afterwards, and the debtor undertakes to defraud his creditor, there is a code of law made for the case; and every case should rest upon its own circumstances. As an element of credit, imprisonment for debt is condemned by morality, by humanity, and by the science of political economy; and its abolition has worked well in reducing the elements of credit to their legitimate derivation in the personal character, visible means, and present securities of the contracting debtor. And, if in that way, it has diminished in any degree the wide circle of credit, that is an additional advantage gained to the good order of society and to the solidity of the social edifice. And thus, as in so many other instances, American legislation has ameliorated the law derived from our English ancestors, and given an example which British legislation may some day follow.--In addition to the honor of seeing this humane act passed during his administration, General Jackson had the further and higher honor of having twice recommended it to the favorable consideration of Congress.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXVII. SALE OF UNITED STATES STOCK IN THE NATIONAL BANK

The President in his annual message had recommended the sale of this stock, and all other stock held by the United States in corporate companies, with the view to disconnecting the government from such corporations, and from all pursuits properly belonging to individuals. And he made the recommendation upon the political principle which condemns the partnership of the government with a corporation; and upon the economical principle which condemns the national pursuit of any branch of industry and leaves the profit, or loss of all such pursuits to individual enterprise; and upon the belief, in this instance, that the partnership was unsafe--that the firm would fail--and the stockholders lose their investment. In conformity to this recommendation, a bill was brought into the House of Representatives to sell the public stock held in the Bank of the United States, being seven millions of dollars in amount, and consisting of a national stock bearing five per centum interest. The bill was met at the threshold by the parliamentary motion which implies the unworthiness of the subject to be considered; namely, the motion to reject the bill at the first reading. That reading is never for consideration, but for information only; and, although debatable, carries the implication of unfitness for debate, and of some flagrant enormity which requires rejection, without the honor of the usual forms of legislation. That motion was made by a friend of the bank, and seconded by the member (Mr. Watmough) supposed to be familiar with the wishes of the bank directory. The speakers on each side gave vent to expressions which showed that they felt the indignity that was offered to the bill, one side in promoting--the other in opposing the motion. Mr. Wickliffe, the mover, said: "He was impelled, by a sense of duty to his constituents and to his country, to do in this case, what he had never done before--to move the rejection of a bill at its first reading. There are cases in which courtesy should yield to the demands of justice and public duty; and this, in my humble opinion, is one of them. It is a bill fraught with ruin to all private interests, except the interest of the stockjobbers of Wall-street." Mr. Watmough expressed his indignation and amazement at the appearance of such a bill, and even fell upon the committee which reported it with so much personality as drew a call to order from the Speaker of the House. "He expressed his sincere regret at the necessity which compelled him to intrude upon the House, and to express his opinion on the bill, and his indignation against this persecution of a national institution. He was at a loss to say which feeling predominated in his bosom--amazement, at the want of financial skill in the supporters of the bill--or detestation of the unrelenting spirit of the administration persecution on that floor of an institution admitted by the wisest and the best men of the times to be absolutely essential to the existence and safety of this Union, and almost to that of the constitution itself which formed its basis. He said, he was amazed that such a bill, at such a crisis, could emanate from any committee of this House; but his amazement was diminished when he recalled to mind the source from which it came. It came from the Committee of Ways and Means, and was under the parental care of the gentleman from Tennessee. Need he say more?"

Now, the member thus referred to, and who, after being pointed out as the guardian of the bill required nothing more to be said, was Mr. Polk, afterwards President of the United States. But parliamentary law is no respecter of persons, and would consider the indecorum and outrage of the allusion equally reprehensible in the case of the youngest and least considerable member; and the language is noted here to show the indignities to which members were subjected in the House for presuming to take any step concerning the bank which militated against that corporation. The sale of the government stock was no injury to the capital of the bank: it was no extinction of seven millions of capital but a mere transfer of that amount to private stockholders--such transfer as took place daily among the private stockholders. The only injury could be to the market price of the stock in the possible decline involved in the withdrawal of a large stockholder; but that was a damage, in the eye of the law and of morality, without injury; that is, without injustice--the stockholder having a right to do so without the assignment of reasons to be judged of by the corporation; and consequently a right to sell out and withdraw when he judged his money to be unsafe, or unprofitably placed, and susceptible of a better investment.

Mr. Polk remarked upon the unusual but not unexpected opposition to the bill; and said if the House was now forced to a decision, it would be done without opportunity for deliberation. He vindicated the bill from any necessary connection with the bank--with its eulogy or censure. This eulogy or censure had no necessary connection with a proposition to sell the government stock. It was a plain business proceeding. The bill authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell the stock upon such terms as he should deem best for the government. It was an isolated proposition. It proposed to disenthral the government from a partnership with this incorporated company. It proposed to get rid of the interest which the government had in this moneyed monopoly; and to do so by a sale of the government stocks, and on terms not below the market price. He was not disposed to depreciate the value of the article which he wished to sell. He was willing to rest upon the right to sell. The friends of the bank themselves raised the question of solvency, it would seem, that they might have an opportunity, to eulogize the institution under the forms of a defence. This was not the time for such a discussion--for an inquiry into the conduct and condition of the bank.

The argument and the right were with the supporters of the bill; but they signified nothing against the firm majority, which not only stood by the corporation in its trials, but supported it in its wishes. The bill was immediately rejected, and by a summary process which inflicted a new indignity. It was voted down under the operation of the "previous question," which, cutting off all debate, and all amendments, consigns a measure to instant and silent decision--like the "mort sans phrase" (death without talk) of the Abbé Sièyes, at the condemnation of Louis the Sixteenth. But the vote was not very triumphant--one of the leanest majorities, in fact, which the bank had received: one hundred and two to ninety-one.

The negative votes were:

"Messrs. Adair, Alexander, R. Allen, Anderson, Angel, Archer, Barnwell, James Bates, Beardsley Bell, Bergen, Bethune, James Blair, John Blair, Boon, Bouck, Bouldin, John Brodhead, John C. Brodhead, Cambreleng, Chandler, Chinn, Claiborne, Clay, Clayton, Coke, Connor, Davenport, Dayan, Doubleday, Draper, Felder, Ford, Foster, Gaither, Gilmore, Gordon, Griffin, Thomas H. Hall, William Hall, Harper, Hawkins, Hoffman, Holland, Horn, Howard, Hubbard, Isacks, Jarvis, Jewett, Richard M. Johnson, Cave Johnson, Kavanagh, Kennon, Adam King, John King, Lamar, Lansing, Leavitt, Lecompte, Lewis, Lyon, Mann, Mardis, Mason, McCarty, Wm. McCoy, McIntire, McKay, Mitchell, Newnan, Nuckolls, Patton, Pierson, Plummer, Polk, Edward C. Reed, Roane, Soule, Speight, Standifer, John Thompson, Verplanck, Ward, Wardwell, Wayne, Weeks, Campbell, P. White, Worthington.--91."

Such was the result of this attempt, on the part of the government, to exercise the most ordinary right of a stockholder to sell its shares: opposed, insulted, defeated; and by the power of the bank in Congress, of whose members subsequent investigations showed above fifty to be borrowers from the institution; and many to be on the list of its retained attorneys. But this was not the first time the government had been so treated. The same thing had happened once before, and about in the same way; but without the same excuse of persecution and enmity to the corporation; for, it was before the time of General Jackson's Presidency; to wit, in the year 1827, and under the Presidency of Mr. Quincy Adams. Mr. Philip P. Barbour, representative from Virginia, moved an inquiry, at that time, into the expediency of selling the United States stock in the bank: the consideration of the resolution was delayed a week, the time necessary for a communication with Philadelphia. At the end of the week, the resolution was taken up, and summarily rejected. Mr. Barbour had placed his proposition wholly upon the ground of a public advantage in selling its stock, unconnected with any reason disparaging to the bank, and in a way to avoid, as he believed, any opposition. He said:

"The House were aware that the government holds, at this time, stock of the Bank of the United States, to the amount of seven millions of dollars, which stock was at present worth in market about twenty-three and one half per cent. advance above its par value. If the whole of this stock should now be sold by the government, it would net a profit of one million and six hundred thousand dollars above the nominal amount of the stock. Such being the case, he thought it deserved the serious consideration of the House, whether it would not be a prudent and proper measure now to sell out that stock. It had been said, Mr. B. observed, by one of the best writers on political economy, with whom he was acquainted, that the pecuniary affairs of nations bore a close analogy to those of private households: in both, their prosperity mainly depended on a vigilant and effective management of their resources. There is, said Mr. B., an amount of between seventeen and eighteen millions of the stock of the United States now redeemable, and an amount of nine millions more, which will be redeemable next year. If the interest paid by the United States on this debt is compared with the dividend it receives on its stock in the Bank of the United States, it will be found that a small advantage would be gained by the sale of the latter, in this respect; since the dividends on bank stock are received semi-annually, while the interest of the United States' securities is paid quarterly; this, however, he waived as a matter of comparatively small moment. It must be obvious, he said, that the addition of one million six hundred thousand dollars to the available funds of the United States will produce the extinguishment of an equivalent amount of the public debt, and consequently relieve the interest payable thereon, by which a saving would accrue of about one hundred thousand dollars per annum."

This was what Mr. Barbour said, at the time of offering the resolution. When it came up for consideration, a week after, he found his motion not only opposed, but his motives impeached, and the most sinister designs imputed to himself--to him! a Virginian country gentleman, honest and modest; ignorant of all indirection; upright and open; a stranger to all guile; and with the simplicity and integrity of a child. He deeply felt this impeachment of motives, certainly the first time in his life that an indecent imputation had ever fallen upon him; and he feelingly deprecated the intensity of the outrage. He said:

"We shall have fallen on evil times, indeed, if a member of this House might not, in the integrity of his heart, rise in his place, and offer for consideration a measure which he believed to be for the public weal, without having all that he said and did imputed to some hidden motive, and referred to some secret purpose which was never presented to the public eye."

His proposition was put to the vote, and received eight votes besides his own. They were: Messrs. Mark Alexander, John Floyd, John Roane, and himself, from Virginia; Thomas H. Hall, and Daniel Turner, of North Carolina; Tomlinson Foot of Connecticut; Joseph Lecompte, and Henry Daniel, of Kentucky. And this was the result of that first attempt to sell the United States stock in a bank chartered by itself and bearing its name. And now, why resuscitate these buried recollections? I answer: for the benefit of posterity! that they may have the benefit of our experience without the humiliation of having undergone it, and know what kind of a master seeks to rule over them if another national bank shall ever seek incorporation at their hands.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXVIII. NULLIFICATION ORDINANCE IN SOUTH CAROLINA

It has been seen that the whole question of the American system, and especially its prominent feature of a high protective tariff, was put in issue in the presidential canvass of 1832; and that the long session of Congress of that year was occupied by the friends of this system in bringing forward to the best advantage all its points, and staking its fate upon the issue of the election. That issue was against the system; and the Congress elections taking place contemporaneously with the presidential were of the same character. The fate of the American system was sealed. Its domination in federal legislation was to cease. This was acknowledged on all hands; and it was naturally expected that all the States, dissatisfied with that system, would be satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of Congress; and that expectation was only disappointed in a single State--that of South Carolina. She had held aloof from the presidential election--throwing away her vote upon citizens who were not candidates--and doing nothing to aid the election of General Jackson, with whose success her interests and wishes were apparently identified. Instead of quieting her apprehensions, and moderating her passion for violent remedies, the success of the election seemed to inflame them; and the 24th of November, just a fortnight after the election which decided the fate of the tariff, she issued her ordinance of nullification against it, taking into her own hands the sudden and violent redress which she prescribed for herself. That ordinance makes an era in the history of our Union, which requires to be studied in order to understand the events of the times, and the history of subsequent events. It was in these words:

"ORDINANCE.

"An ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities.

"Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various acts, purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts on foreign imports, but in reality intended for the protection of domestic manufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in particular employments, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of the constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the confederacy: And whereas the said Congress, exceeding its just power to impose taxes and collect revenue for the purpose of effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and purposes which the constitution of the United States authorizes it to effect and accomplish, hath raised and collected unnecessary revenue for objects unauthorized by the constitution.

"We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and, more especially, an act entitled 'An act in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the nineteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and also an act entitled 'An act to alter and amend the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the fourteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by the said acts, and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void.

"And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the United States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the said acts within the limits of this State; but it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures and pass such acts as may be necessary to give full effect to this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of the said acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States within the limits of this State, from and after the 1st day of February next, and the duty of all other constituted authorities, and of all persons residing or being within the limits of this State, and they are hereby required and enjoined to obey and give effect to this ordinance, and such acts and measures of the legislature as may be passed or adopted in obedience thereto.

"And it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity, decided in the courts of this State, wherein shall be drawn in question the authority of this ordinance, or the validity of such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed for the purpose of giving effect thereto, or the validity of the aforesaid acts of Congress, imposing duties, shall any appeal be taken or allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose; and if any such appeal shall be attempted to be taken, the courts of this State shall proceed to execute and enforce their judgments, according to the laws and usages of the State, without reference to such attempted appeal, and the person or persons attempting to take such appeal may be dealt with as for a contempt of the court.

"And it is further ordained, that all persons now holding any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military, under this State (members of the legislature excepted), shall, within such time, and in such manner as the legislature shall prescribe, take an oath well and truly to obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed in pursuance thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of the same; and on the neglect or omission of any such person or persons so to do, his or their office or offices shall be forthwith vacated, and shall be filled up as if such person or persons were dead or had resigned; and no person hereafter elected to any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military (members of the legislature excepted), shall, until the legislature shall otherwise provide and direct, enter on the execution of his office, or be in any respect competent to discharge the duties thereof, until he shall, in like manner, have taken a similar oath; and no juror shall be empannelled in any of the courts of this State, in any cause in which shall be in question this ordinance, or any act of the legislature passed in pursuance thereof, unless he shall first, in addition to the usual oath, have taken an oath that he will well and truly obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed to carry the same into operation and effect, according to the true intent and meaning thereof.

"And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do further declare that we will not submit to the application of force, on the part of the federal government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the State of South Carolina, her constitutional authorities or citizens; or any act abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this State wilt thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do.

"Done in convention at Columbia, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and in the fifty-seventh year of the declaration of the independence of the United States of America."

This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of open, forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on the first day of February next ensuing--a period within which it was hardly possible for the existing Congress, even if so disposed, to ameliorate obnoxious laws; and a period a month earlier than the commencement of the legal existence of the new Congress, on which all reliance was placed. And, in the mean time, if any attempt should be made in any way to enforce the obnoxious laws except through her own tribunals sworn against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South Carolina in the Union--to absolve her from all connection with the federal government--and to establish her as a separate government, not only unconnected with the United States, but unconnected with any one State. This ordinance, signed by more than a hundred citizens of the greatest respectability, was officially communicated to the President of the United States; and a case presented to him to test his patriotism, his courage, and his fidelity to his inauguration oath--an oath taken in the presence of God and man, of Heaven and earth, "to take care that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed." That President was Jackson; and the event soon proved, what in fact no one doubted, that he was not false to his duty, his country, and his oath. Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, he merely adverted in his annual message to the attitude of the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already possessed.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXIX. PROCLAMATION AGAINST NULLIFICATION

The ordinance of nullification reached President Jackson in the first days of December, and on the tenth of that month the proclamation was issued, of which the following are the essential and leading parts:

"Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina have passed an ordinance, by which they declare 'that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially' two acts for the same purposes, passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, 'are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void, and no law,' nor binding on the citizens of that State, or its officers: and by the said ordinance, it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance:

"And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State, wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of court:

"And, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard; and that they will consider the passage of any act, by Congress, abolishing or closing the ports of the said State, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the federal government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do:

"And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their country, subversive of its constitution, and having for its object the destruction of the Union--that Union which, coeval with our political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious independence--that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy constitution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equalled in the history of nations: To preserve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to justify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue this my proclamation, stating my views of the constitution and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina, and to the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the consequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the dictates of the convention.

"Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be, invested, for preserving the peace of the Union, and for the execution of the laws. But the imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing itself with State authority, and the deep interest which the people of the United States must all feel in preventing a resort to stronger measures, while there is a hope that any thing will be yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demanded, and will certainly justify, a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views I entertain of this important question, as well as a distinct enunciation of the course which my sense of duty will require me to pursue.

"The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently with the constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to justify this abrogation of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the constitution; but it is evident, that to give the right of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that character, is to give the power of resisting all laws. For as, by the theory, there is no appeal, the reasons alleged by the State, good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said that public opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may be asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard against the passage of an unconstitutional act by Congress. There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which makes the assumed power of a State more indefensible, and which does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress--one to the judiciary, the other to the people and the States. There is no appeal from the State decision in theory, and the practical illustration shows that the courts are closed against an application to review it, both judges and jurors being sworn to decide in its favor. But reasoning on this subject is superfluous, when our social compact, in express terms, declares that the laws of the United States, its constitution, and treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land; and, for greater caution, adds 'that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.' And it may be asserted without fear of refutation, that no federative government could exist without a similar provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. If South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected any where; for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat, that an unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the State itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

"If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the Eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. The war, into which we were forced to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens, might have ended in defeat and disgrace, instead of victory and honor, if the States who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure, had thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was declared, and denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally as those measures bore upon several members of the Union, to the legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in our constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.

"If the doctrine of a State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form a feature in our government.

"In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very early considered ourselves as connected by common interest with each other. Leagues were formed for common defence, and, before the declaration of independence, we were known in our aggregate character as the United Colonies of America. That decisive and important step was taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several acts, and when the terms of our confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league of several States, by which they agreed that they would collectively form one nation for the purpose of conducting some certain domestic concerns and all foreign relations. In the instrument forming that Union is found an article which declares that 'every State shall abide by the determinations of Congress on all questions which, by that confederation, should be submitted to them.'

"Under the confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision of the Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means of collecting revenue.

"But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under its operation we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad. This state of things could not be endured, and our present happy constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevail. It was formed for important objects that are announced in the preamble made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United States, whose delegates framed, and whose conventions approved it. The most important among these objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest, is 'to form a more perfect Union.' Now, is it possible that even if there were no express provision giving supremacy to the constitution and laws of the United States over those of the States--can it be conceived that an instrument made for the purpose of 'forming a more perfect Union' than that of the confederation, could be so constructed by the assembled wisdom of our country, as to substitute for that confederation a form of government dependent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit of a State, or of a prevailing faction in a State? Every man of plain, unsophisticated understanding, who hears the question, will give such an answer as will preserve the Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable theory, could alone have devised one that is calculated to destroy it.

"The constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and that such laws, the constitution and treaties shall be paramount to the State constitutions and laws. The judiciary act prescribes the mode by which the case may be brought before a court of the United States: by appeal, when a State tribunal shall decide against this provision of the constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal; makes the State law paramount to the constitution and laws of the United States; forces judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their provisions; and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares that it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States, or of that State, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue laws within its limits.

"Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the voters of a single State. Here is a provision of the constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the same authority.

"On such expositions and reasonings, the ordinance grounds not only an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it complains, but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union, if any attempt is made to execute them.

"This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the constitution, which, they say, is a compact between sovereign States, who have preserved their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are subject to no superior; that, because they made the compact, they can break it when, in their opinion, it has been departed from, by the other States. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists State pride, and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical error on which it rests.

"The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting through the State legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in its construction show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of the President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. Candidates having the majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch.

"In the House of Representatives, there is this difference: that the people of one State do not, as in the case of President and Vice-President, all vote for the same officers. The people of all the States do not vote for all the members, each State electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act done in the performance of their legislative functions; and however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular constituents, when they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the general good.

"The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States--they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but, to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms; and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure.

"Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish you, as the First Magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretences you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which you stand! First, a diminution of the value of your staple commodity, lowered by over production in other quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your lands, were the sole effect of the tariff laws.

"The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to believe, that its burdens were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic merit, to the oppositions our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told this opposition might be peaceably, might be constitutionally made; that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and bear none of its burdens. Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when the mask, which concealed the hideous features of disunion, should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency on objects which, not long since, you would have regarded with horror. Look back to the arts which have brought you to this state; look forward to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead! Look back to what was first told you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The great political truth was repeated to you, that you had the revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional and intolerably oppressive; it was added that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy! This character which was given to it, made you receive with too much confidence the assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of the law, and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality must be palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or nullification! What is the meaning of the word palpable, in the sense in which it is here used? That which is apparent to every one; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those among your leaders who once approved and advocated the principle of protective duties, answer the question; and let them choose whether they will be considered as incapable, then, of perceiving that which must have been apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence, and endeavoring to mislead you now. In either case they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to you. They are not champions of liberty emulating the fame of our revolutionary fathers; nor are you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vassalage.

"You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally passed; but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had already produced a considerable reduction, and that, too, on some articles of general consumption in your State. The importance of this change was underrated, and you were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected, at the very time when the condition of the country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this change in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

"I adjure you, as you honor their memory; as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives; as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble, and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity and honor. Tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the constitution of your country. Its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb its peace, you may interrupt the course of its prosperity, you may cloud its reputation for stability, but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.

"Fellow-citizens of the United States, the threat of unhallowed disunion, the names of those, once respected, by whom it is uttered the array of military force to support it, denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and, as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties, which has been expressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all constitutional means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate, but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States.

"Fellow-citizens: The momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of your government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessings it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed, will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it will bring to their defence, will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXX. MESSAGE ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA PROCEEDINGS

In his annual message to Congress at the opening of the session 1832-'33, the President had adverted to the proceedings in South Carolina, hinting at their character as inimical to the Union, expressing his belief that the action in reducing the duties which the extinction of the public debt would permit and require, would put an end to those proceedings; and if they did not, and those proceedings continued, and the executive government should need greater powers than it possessed to overcome them, he promised to make a communication to Congress, showing the state of the question,--what had been done to compose it,--and asking for the powers which the exigency demanded. The proceedings not ceasing, and taking daily a more aggravated form in the organization of troops, the collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in declarations hostile to the Union, he found himself required, early in January, to make the promised communication; and did so in a message to both Houses, of which the following are the essential parts which belong to history and posterity:

"Since the date of my last annual message, I have had officially transmitted to me by the Governor of South Carolina, which I now communicate to Congress, a copy of the ordinance passed by the convention which assembled at Columbia, in the State of South Carolina, in November last, declaring certain acts of Congress therein mentioned, within the limits of that State, to be absolutely null and void, and making it the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as would be necessary to carry the same into effect from and after the 1st of February next.

"The consequences to which this extraordinary defiance of the just authority of the government might too surely lead, were clearly foreseen, and it was impossible for me to hesitate as to my own duty in such an emergency.

"The ordinance had been passed, however, without any certain knowledge of the recommendation which, from a view of the interests of the nation at large, the Executive had determined to submit to Congress; and a hope was indulged that, by frankly explaining his sentiments, and the nature of those duties which the crisis would devolve upon him, the authorities of South Carolina might be induced to retrace their steps. In this hope, I determined to issue my proclamation of the 10th of December last, a copy of which I now lay before Congress.

"I regret to inform you that these reasonable expectations have not been realized, and that the several acts of the legislature of South Carolina, which I now lay before you, and which have, all and each of them, finally passed, after a knowledge of the desire of the administration to modify the laws complained of, are too well calculated, both in their positive enactments, and in the spirit of opposition which they obviously encourage, wholly to obstruct the collection of the revenue within the limits of that State.

"Up to this period, neither the recommendation of the Executive in regard to our financial policy and impost system, nor the disposition manifested by Congress promptly to act upon that subject, nor the unequivocal expression of the public will, in all parts of the Union, appears to have produced any relaxation in the measures of opposition adopted by the State of South Carolina; nor is there any reason to hope that the ordinance and laws will be abandoned.

"I have no knowledge that an attempt has been made, or that it is in contemplation, to reassemble either the convention or the legislature; and it will be perceived that the interval before the 1st of February is too short to admit of the preliminary steps necessary for that purpose. It appears, moreover, that the State authorities are actively organizing their military resources, and providing the means, and giving the most solemn assurances of protection and support to all who shall enlist in opposition to the revenue laws.

"A recent proclamation of the present Governor of South Carolina has openly defied the authority of the Executive of the Union, and general orders from the head quarters of the State announced his determination to accept the services of volunteers, and his belief that, should their country need their services, they will be found at the post of honor and duty, ready to lay down their lives in her defence. Under these orders, the forces referred to are directed to 'hold themselves in readiness to take the field at a moment's warning;' and in the city of Charleston, within a collection district and a port of entry, a rendezvous has been opened for the purpose of enlisting men for the magazine and municipal guard. Thus, South Carolina presents herself in the attitude of hostile preparation, and ready even for military violence, if need be, to enforce her laws for preventing the collection of the duties within her limits.

"Proceedings thus announced and matured must be distinguished from menaces of unlawful resistance by irregular bodies of people, who, acting under temporary delusion, may be restrained by reflection, and the influence of public opinion, from the commission of actual outrage. In the present instance, aggression may be regarded as committed when it is officially authorized, and the means of enforcing it fully provided.

"Under these circumstances, there can be no doubt that it is the determination of the authorities of South Carolina fully to carry into effect their ordinance and laws after the 1st of February. It therefore becomes my duty to bring the subject to the serious consideration of Congress, in order that such measures as they, in their wisdom, may deem fit, shall be seasonably provided; and that it may be thereby understood that, while the government is disposed to remove all just cause of complaint, as far as may be practicable consistently with a proper regard to the interests of the community at large, it is, nevertheless, determined that the supremacy of the laws shall be maintained.

"In making this communication, it appears to me to be proper not only that I should lay before you the acts and proceedings of South Carolina, but that I should also fully acquaint you with those steps which I have already caused to be taken for the due collection of the revenue, and with my views of the subject generally, that the suggestions which the constitution requires me to make, in regard to your future legislation, may be better understood.

"This subject, having early attracted the anxious attention of the Executive, as soon as it was probable that the authorities of South Carolina seriously meditated resistance to the faithful execution of the revenue laws, it was deemed advisable that the Secretary of the Treasury should particularly instruct the officers of the United States, in that part of the Union, as to the nature of the duties prescribed by the existing laws.

"Instructions were accordingly issued, on the sixth of November, to the collectors in that State, pointing out their respective duties, and enjoining upon each a firm and vigilant, but discreet performance of them in the emergency then apprehended.

"I herewith transmit copies of these instructions, and of the letter addressed to the district attorney, requesting his co-operation. These instructions were dictated in the hope that, as the opposition to the laws, by the anomalous proceeding of nullification, was represented to be of a pacific nature, to be pursued, substantially, according to the forms of the constitution, and without resorting, in any event, to force or violence, the measures of its advocates would be taken in conformity with that profession, and, on such supposition, the means afforded by the existing laws would have been adequate to meet any emergency likely to arise.

"It was, however, not possible altogether to suppress apprehension of the excesses to which the excitement prevailing in that quarter might lead; but it certainly was not foreseen that the meditated obstruction to the laws would so soon openly assume its present character.

"Subsequently to the date of those instructions, however, the ordinance of the convention was passed, which, if complied with by the people of that State, must effectually render inoperative the present revenue laws within her limits.

"This solemn denunciation of the laws and authority of the United States has been followed up by a series of acts, on the part of the authorities of that State, which manifest a determination to render inevitable a resort to those measures of self-defence which the paramount duty of the federal government requires; but, upon the adoption of which, that State will proceed to execute the purpose it has avowed in this ordinance, of withdrawing from the Union.

"On the 27th of November, the legislature assembled at Columbia; and, on their meeting, the Governor laid before them the ordinance of the convention. In his message, on that occasion, he acquaints them that 'this ordinance has thus become a part of the fundamental law of South Carolina;' that 'the die has been at last cast, and South Carolina has at length appealed to her ulterior sovereignty as a member of this confederacy, and has planted herself on her reserved rights. The rightful exercise of this power is not a question which we shall any longer argue. It is sufficient that she has willed it, and that the act is done; nor is its strict compatibility with our constitutional obligation to all laws passed by the general government, within the authorized grants of power, to be drawn in question, when this interposition is exerted in a case in which the compact has been palpably, deliberately, and dangerously violated. That it brings up a conjuncture of deep and momentous interest, is neither to be concealed nor denied. This crisis presents a class of duties which is referable to yourselves. You have been commanded by the people, in their highest sovereignty, to take care that, within the limits of this State, their will shall be obeyed.' 'The measure of legislation,' he says, 'which you have to employ at this crisis, is the precise amount of such enactments as may be necessary to render it utterly impossible to collect, within our limits, the duties imposed by the protective tariffs thus nullified.' He proceeds: 'That you should arm every citizen with a civil process, by which he may claim, if he pleases, a restitution of his goods, seized under the existing imposts, on his giving security to abide the issue of a suit at law, and, at the same time, define what shall constitute treason against the State, and, by a bill of pains and penalties, compel obedience, and punish disobedience to your own laws, are points too obvious to require any discussion. In one word, you must survey the whole ground. You must look to and provide for all possible contingencies. In your own limits, your own courts of judicature must not only be supreme, but you must look to the ultimate issue of any conflict of jurisdiction and power between them and the courts of the United States.'

"The Governor also asks for power to grant clearances, in violation of the laws of the Union; and, to prepare for the alternative which must happen, unless the United States shall passively surrender their authority, and the Executive, disregarding his oath, refrain from executing the laws of the Union, he recommends a thorough revision of the militia system, and that the Governor 'be authorized to accept, for the defence of Charleston and its dependencies, the services of two thousand volunteers, either by companies or files;' and that they be formed into a legionary brigade, consisting of infantry, riflemen, cavalry, field and heavy artillery; and that they be 'armed and equipped, from the public arsenals, completely for the field; and that appropriations be made for supplying all deficiencies in our munitions of war.' In addition to these volunteer draughts, he recommends that the Governor be authorized 'to accept the services of ten thousand volunteers from the other divisions of the State, to be organized and arranged in regiments and brigades;' the officers to be selected by the commander-in-chief; and that this whole force be called the 'State Guard.'

"If these measures cannot be defeated and overcome, by the power conferred by the constitution on the federal government, the constitution must be considered as incompetent to its own defence, the supremacy of the laws is at an end, and the rights and liberties of the citizens can no longer receive protection from the government of the Union. They not only abrogate the acts of Congress, commonly called the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, but they prostrate and sweep away, at once, and without exception, every act, and every part of every act, imposing any amount whatever of duty on any foreign merchandise; and, virtually, every existing act which has ever been passed authorizing the collection of the revenue, including the act of 1816, and, also, the collection law of 1799, the constitutionality of which has never been questioned. It is not only those duties which are charged to have been imposed for the protection of manufactures that are thereby repealed, but all others, though laid for the purpose of revenue merely, and upon articles in no degree suspected of being objects of protection. The whole revenue system of the United States, in South Carolina, is obstructed and overthrown; and the government is absolutely prohibited from collecting any part of the public revenue within the limits of that State. Henceforth, not only the citizens of South Carolina and of the United States, but the subjects of foreign states, may import any description or quantity of merchandise into the ports of South Carolina, without the payment of any duty whatsoever. That State is thus relieved from the payment of any part of the public burdens, and duties and imposts are not only rendered not uniform throughout the United States, but a direct and ruinous preference is given to the ports of that State over those of all the other States of the Union, in manifest violation of the positive provisions of the constitution.

"In point of duration, also, those aggressions upon the authority of Congress, which, by the ordinance, are made part of the fundamental law of South Carolina, are absolute, indefinite, and without limitation. They neither prescribe the period when they shall cease, nor indicate any conditions upon which those who have thus undertaken to arrest the operation of the laws are to retrace their steps, and rescind their measures. They offer to the United States no alternative but unconditional submission. If the scope of the ordinance is to be received as the scale of concession, their demands can be satisfied only by a repeal of the whole system of revenue laws, and by abstaining from the collection of any duties or imposts whatsoever.

"By these various proceedings, therefore, the State of South Carolina has forced the general government, unavoidably, to decide the new and dangerous alternative of permitting a State to obstruct the execution of the laws within its limits, or seeing it attempt to execute a threat of withdrawing from the Union. That portion of the people at present exercising the authority of the State, solemnly assert their right to do either, and as solemnly announce their determination to do one or the other.

"In my opinion, both purposes are to be regarded as revolutionary in their character and tendency, and subversive of the supremacy of the laws and of the integrity of the Union. The result of each is the same; since a State in which, by a usurpation of power, the constitutional authority of the federal government is openly defied and set aside, wants only the form to be independent of the Union.

"The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will, and without the consent of the other States, from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this Union, cannot be acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to the principles upon which the general government is constituted, and to the objects which it is expressly formed to attain.

"Against all acts which may be alleged to transcend the constitutional power of the government, or which may be inconvenient or oppressive in their operation, the constitution itself has prescribed the modes of redress. It is the acknowledged attribute of free institutions, that, under them, the empire of reason and law is substituted for the power of the sword. To no other source can appeals for supposed wrongs be made, consistently with the obligations of South Carolina; to no other can such appeals be made with safety at any time; and to their decisions, when constitutionally pronounced, it becomes the duty, no less of the public authorities than of the people, in every case to yield a patriotic submission.

"In deciding upon the course which a high sense of duty to all the people of the United States imposes upon the authorities of the Union, in this emergency, it cannot be overlooked that there is no sufficient cause for the acts of South Carolina, or for her thus placing in jeopardy the happiness of so many millions of people. Misrule and oppression, to warrant the disruption of the free institutions of the Union of these States, should be great and lasting, defying all other remedy. For causes of minor character, the government could not submit to such a catastrophe without a violation of its most sacred obligations to the other States of the Union who have submitted their destiny to its hands.

"There is, in the present instance, no such cause, either in the degree of misrule or oppression complained of, or in the hopelessness of redress by constitutional means. The long sanction they have received from the proper authorities, and from the people, not less than the unexampled growth and increasing prosperity of so many millions of freemen, attest that no such oppression as would justify or even palliate such a resort, can be justly imputed either to the present policy or past measures of the federal government. The same mode of collecting duties, and for the same general objects, which began with the foundation of the government, and which has conducted the country, through its subsequent steps, to its present enviable condition of happiness and renown, has not been changed. Taxation and representation, the great principle of the American Revolution, have continually gone hand in hand; and at all times, and in every instance, no tax, of any kind, has been imposed without their participation; and in some instances, which have been complained of, with the express assent of a part of the representatives of South Carolina in the councils of the government. Up to the present period, no revenue has been raised beyond the necessary wants of the country, and the authorized expenditures of the government. And as soon as the burden of the public debt is removed, those charged with the administration have promptly recommended a corresponding reduction of revenue.

"That this system, thus pursued, has resulted in no such oppression upon South Carolina, needs no other proof than the solemn and official declaration of the late Chief Magistrate of that State, in his address to the legislature. In that he says, that 'the occurrences of the past year, in connection with our domestic concerns, are to be reviewed with a sentiment of fervent gratitude to the Great Disposer of human events; that tributes of grateful acknowledgment are due for the various and multiplied blessings he has been pleased to bestow on our people; that abundant harvests, in every quarter of the State, have crowned the exertions of agricultural labor; that health, almost beyond former precedent, has blessed our homes; and that there is not less reason for thankfulness in surveying our social condition.' It would, indeed, be difficult to imagine oppression where, in the social condition of a people, there was equal cause of thankfulness as for abundant harvests, and varied and multiplied blessings with which a kind Providence had favored them.

"Independently of these considerations, it will not escape observation that South Carolina still claims to be a component part of the Union, to participate in the national councils, and to share in the public benefits, without contributing to the public burdens; thus asserting the dangerous anomaly of continuing in an association without acknowledging any other obligation to its laws than what depends upon her own will.

"In this posture of affairs, the duty of the government seems to be plain. It inculcates a recognition of that State as a member of the Union, and subject to its authority; a vindication of the just power of the constitution; the preservation of the integrity of the Union; and the execution of the laws by all constitutional means.

"The constitution, which his oath of office obliges him to support, declares that the Executive 'shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed;' and, in providing that he shall, from time to time, give to Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, imposes the additional obligation of recommending to Congress such more efficient provision for executing the laws as may, from time to time, be found requisite.

"It being thus shown to be the duty of the Executive to execute the laws by all constitutional means, it remains to consider the extent of those already at his disposal, and what it may be proper further to provide.

"In the instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to the collectors in South Carolina, the provisions and regulations made by the act of 1799, and also the fines, penalties, and forfeitures, for their enforcement, are particularly detailed and explained. It may be well apprehended, however, that these provisions may prove inadequate to meet such an open, powerful, organized opposition as is to be commenced after the first day of February next.

"Under these circumstances, and the provisions of the acts of South Carolina, the execution of the laws is rendered impracticable even through the ordinary judicial tribunals of the United States. There would certainly be fewer difficulties, and less opportunity of actual collision between the officers of the United States and of the State, and the collection of the revenue would be more effectually secured--if indeed it can be done in any other way--by placing the custom-house beyond the immediate power of the county.

"For this purpose, it might be proper to provide that whenever, by any unlawful combination or obstruction in any State, or in any port, it should become impracticable faithfully to collect the duties, the President of the United States should be authorized to alter and abolish such of the districts and ports of entry as should be necessary, and to establish the custom-house at some secure place within some port or harbor of such State; and, in such cases, it should be the duty of the collector to reside at such place, and to detain all vessels and cargoes until the duties imposed by law should be properly secured or paid in cash, deducting interest; that, in such cases it should be unlawful to take the vessel and cargo from the custody of the proper officer of the customs, unless by process from the ordinary judicial tribunals of the United States; and that, in case of an attempt otherwise to take the property by a force too great to be overcome by the officers of the customs, it should be lawful to protect the possession of the officers by the employment of the land and naval forces, and militia, under provisions similar to those authorized by the 11th section of the act of the ninth of January, 1809.

"It may, therefore, be desirable to revive, with some modifications better adapted to the occasion, the 6th section of the act of the 3d of March, 1815, which expired on the 4th of March, 1817, by the limitation of that of the 27th of April, 1816; and to provide that, in any case where suit shall be brought against any individual in the courts of the State, for any act done under the laws of the United States, he should be authorized to remove the said cause, by petition, into the Circuit Court of the United States, without any copy of the record, and that the courts should proceed to hear and determine the same as if it had been originally instituted therein. And that in all cases of injuries to the persons or property of individuals for disobedience to the ordinance, and laws of South Carolina in pursuance thereof, redress may be sought in the courts of the United States. It may be expedient, also, by modifying the resolution of the 3d of March, 1791, to authorize the marshals to make the necessary provision for the safe keeping of prisoners committed under the authority of the United States.

"Provisions less than these, consisting, as they do, for the most part, rather of a revival of the policy of former acts called for by the existing emergency, than of the introduction of any unusual or rigorous enactments, would not cause the laws of the Union to be properly respected or enforced. It is believed these would prove adequate, unless the military forces of the State of South Carolina, authorized by the late act of the legislature, should be actually embodied and called out in aid of their proceedings, and of the provisions of the ordinance generally. Even in that case, however, it is believed that no more will be necessary than a few modifications of its terms, to adapt the act of 1795 to the present emergency, as, by the act, the provisions of the law of 1792 were accommodated to the crisis then existing; and by conferring authority upon the President to give it operation during the session of Congress, and without the ceremony of a proclamation, whenever it shall be officially made known to him by the authority of any State, or by the courts of the United States, that, within the limits of such State, the laws of the United States will be openly opposed, and their execution obstructed, by the actual employment of military force, or by any unlawful means whatsoever, too great to be otherwise overcome.

"In closing this communication, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to express my confident reliance upon the disposition of each department of the government to perform its duty, and to co-operate in all measures necessary in the present emergency.

"The crisis undoubtedly invokes the fidelity of the patriot and the sagacity of the statesman, not more in removing such portion of the public burden as may be necessary, than in preserving the good order of society, and in the maintenance of well-regulated liberty.

"While a forbearing spirit may, and I trust will be exercised towards the errors of our brethren in a particular quarter, duty to the rest of the Union demands that open and organized resistance to the laws should not be executed with impunity."

Such was the message which President Jackson sent to the two Houses, in relation to the South Carolina proceedings, and his own to counteract them; and it was worthy to follow the proclamation, and conceived in the same spirit of justice and patriotism, and, therefore, wise and moderate. He knew that there was a deep feeling of discontent in the South, founded in a conviction that the federal government was working disadvantageously to that part of the Union in the vital points of the levy, and the expenditure of the federal revenue; and that it was upon this feeling that politicians operated to produce disaffection to the Union. That feeling of the masses he knew to be just and reasonable, and removable by the action of Congress in removing its cause; and when removed the politicians who stirred up discontent for "personal and ambitious objects," would become harmless for want of followers, or manageable by the ordinary process of law. His proclamation, his message, and all his proceedings therefore bore a two-fold aspect--one of relief and justice in reducing the revenue to the wants of the government in the economical administration of its affairs; the other of firm and mild authority in enforcing the laws against offenders. He drew no line between the honest discontented masses, wanting only relief and justice, and the ambitious politicians inflaming this discontent for ulterior and personal objects. He merely affirmed the existence of these two classes of discontent, leaving to every one to classify himself by his conduct; and, certain that the honest discontents were the mass, and only wanted relief from a real grievance, he therefore pursued the measures necessary to extend that relief while preparing to execute the laws upon those who should violate them. Bills for the reduction of the tariff--one commenced in the Finance Committee of the Senate, and one reported from the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives--and both moved in the first days of the session, and by committees politically and personally favorable to the President, went hand in hand with the exhortations in the proclamation and the steady preparations for enforcing the laws, if the extension of justice and the appeals of reason and patriotism should prove insufficient. Many thought that he ought to relax in his civil measures for allaying discontent while South Carolina held the military attitude of armed defiance to the United States--and among them Mr. Quincy Adams. But he adhered steadily to his purpose of going on with what justice required for the relief of the South, and promoted, by all the means in his power, the success of the bills to reduce the revenue, especially the bill in the House; and which, being framed upon that of 1816 (which had the support of Mr. Calhoun), and which was (now that the public debt was paid), sufficient both for revenue and the incidental protection which manufactures required, and for the relief of the South, must have the effect of satisfying every honest discontent, and of exposing and estopping that which was not.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXXI. REDUCTION OF DUTIES.--MR. VERPLANK'S BILL

Reduction of duties to the estimated amount of three or four millions of dollars, had been provided for in the bill of the preceding session, passed in July, 1832, to take effect on the 4th of March, ensuing. The amount of reduction was not such as the state of the finances admitted, or the voice of the country demanded, but was a step in the right direction, and a good one, considering that the protective policy was still dominant in Congress, and on trial, as it were, for its life, before the people, as one of the issues of the presidential election. That election was over; the issue had been tried; had been found against the "American system," and with this finding, a further and larger reduction of duties was expected. The President had recommended it, in his annual message; and the recommendation, being referred to the Committee of Ways and Means, quickly produced a bill, known as Mr. Verplank's, because reported by the member of that name. It was taken up promptly by the House, and received a very perspicuous explanation from the reporter, who gave a brief view of the financial history of the country, since the late war and stated that--"During the last six years, an annual average income of 27,000,000 of dollars had been received; the far greater part from the customs. That this sum had been appropriated, the one half towards the necessary expenses of the government, and the other half in the payment of the public debt. In reviewing the regular calls upon the treasury, during the last seven years, for the civil, naval, and military departments of the government, including all ordinary contingencies, about 13,000,000 of dollars a year had been expended. The amount of 13,000,000 of dollars would seem, even now, sufficient to cover the standing necessary expenses of government. A long delayed debt of public justice, for he would not call it bounty, to the soldiers of the Revolution, had added, for the present, since it could be but for a few years only, an additional annual million. Fourteen millions of dollars then covered the necessary expenditures of our government. But, however rigid and economical we ought to be in actual expenditures, in providing the sources of the revenue, which might be called upon for unforeseen contingencies, it was wise to arrange it on a liberal scale. This would be done by allowing an additional million, which would cover, not only extra expenses in time of peace, but meet those of Indian warfare, if such should arise, as well as those of increased naval expenditure, from temporary collisions with foreign powers, short of permanent warfare. We are not, therefore, justifiable in raising more than 15,000,000 dollars as a permanent revenue. In other words, at least 13,000,000 dollars of the revenue that would have been collected, under the tariff system of 1828, may now be dispensed with; and, in years of great importation, a much larger sum. The act of last summer removed a large portion of this excess; yet, taking the importation of the last year as a standard, the revenues derived from that source, if calculated according to the act of 1832, would produce 19,500,000, and, with the other sources of revenue, an income of 22,000,000 dollars. This is, at least, seven millions above the wants of the treasury."

This was a very satisfactory statement. The public debt paid off; thirteen millions (the one half) of our revenue rendered unnecessary; its reduction provided for in the bill; and the tariff of duties by that reduction brought down to the standard substantially of 1816. It was carrying back the protective system to the year of its commencement, a little increased in some particulars, as in the article of iron, but more than compensated for, in this increase, in the total abolition of the minimums, or arbitrary valuations--first introduced into that act, and afterwards greatly extended--by which goods costing below a certain sum were to be assumed to have cost that sum, and rated for duty accordingly. Such a bill, in the judgment of the practical and experienced legislator (General Smith, of Maryland, himself a friend to the manufacturing interest), was entirely sufficient for the manufacturer--the man engaged in the business, and understanding it--though not sufficient for the capitalists who turned their money into that channel, under the stimulus of legislative protection, and lacked skill and care to conduct their enterprise with the economy which gives legitimate profit, and to such real manufacturers, it was bound to be satisfactory. To the great opponents of the tariff (the South Carolina school), it was also bound to be satisfactory, as it carried back the whole system of duties to the standard at which that school had fixed them, with the great amelioration of the total abolition of the arbitrary and injurious minimums. The bill, then, seemed bound to conciliate every fair interest: the government, because it gave all the revenue it needed; the real manufacturers, because it gave them an adequate incidental protection; the South, because it gave them their own bill, and that ameliorated. A prompt passage of the bill might have been expected; on the contrary, it lingered in the House, under interminable debates on systems and theories, in which ominous signs of conjunction were seen between the two extremes which had been lately pitted against each other, for and against the protective system. The immediate friends of the administration seemed to be the only ones hearty in the support of the bill; but they were no match, in numbers, for those who acted in concert against it--spinning out the time in sterile and vagrant debate. The 25th of February had arrived, and found the bill still afloat upon the wordy sea of stormy debate, when, all of a sudden, it was arrested, knocked over, run under, and merged and lost in a new one which expunged the old one and took its place. It was late in the afternoon of that day (Monday, the 25th of February), and within a week of the end of the Congress, when Mr. Letcher, of Kentucky, the fast friend of Mr. Clay, rose in his place, and moved to strike out the whole Verplank bill--every word, except the enacting clause--and insert, in lieu of it, a bill offered in the Senate by Mr. Clay, since called the "compromise," and which lingered at the door of the Senate, upon a question of leave for its admittance, and opposition to its entrance there, on account of its revenue character. This was offered in the House, without notice, without signal, without premonitory symptom, and just as the members were preparing to adjourn. Some were taken by surprise, and looked about in amazement; but the majority showed consciousness, and, what was more, readiness for action. The Northern members, from the great manufacturing States, were astounded, and asked for delay, which, not being granted, Mr. John Davis, of Massachusetts, one of their number, thus gave vent to his amazed feelings:

"He was greatly surprised at the sudden movement made in this House. One short hour ago, said he, we were collecting our papers, and putting on our outside garments to go home, when the gentleman from Kentucky rose, and proposed to send this bill to a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, with instructions to strike it all out, and insert, by way of amendment, an entire new bill formed upon entirely different principles; yes, to insert, I believe, the bill which the Senate now have under consideration. This motion was carried; the business has passed through the hands of the committee, is now in the House, and there is a cry of question, question, around me, upon the engrossment of the bill. Who that was not a party to this arrangement, could one hour ago have credited this? We have, I believe, been laboriously engaged for eight weeks upon this topic, discussing and amending the bill which has been before the House. Such obstacles and difficulties have been met at every move, that, I believe, very little hope has of late been entertained of the passage of any bill. But a gleam of light has suddenly burst upon us; those that groped in the dark seemed suddenly to see their course; those that halted, doubted, hesitated, are in a moment made firm; and even some of those that have made an immediate abandonment of the protective system a sine qua non of their approbation of any legislation, seem almost to favor this measure. I am obliged to acknowledge that gentlemen have sprung the proposition upon us at a moment when I did not expect it. And as the measure is one of great interest to the people of the United States, I must, even at this late hour, when I know the House is both hungry and impatient, and when I perceive distinctly it is their pleasure to vote rather than debate, beg their indulgence for a few minutes while I state some of the reasons which impose on me the duty of opposing the passage of this act. [Cries from different parts of the House, 'go on, go on, we will hear.']

"Mr. Speaker, I do not approve of hasty legislation under any circumstances, but it is especially to be deprecated in matters of great importance. That this is a measure of great importance, affecting, more or less, the entire population of the United States, will not be denied, and ought, therefore, to be matured with care, and well understood by every gentleman who votes upon it. And yet, sir, a copy has, for the first time, been laid upon our tables, since I rose to address you; and this is the first opportunity we have had even to read it. I hope others feel well prepared to act in this precipitate matter; but I am obliged to acknowledge I do not; for I hold even the best of intentions will not, in legislation, excuse the errors of haste.

"I am aware that this measure assumes an imposing attitude. It is called a bill of compromise; a measure of harmony, of conciliation; a measure to heal disaffection, and to save the Union. Sir, I am aware of the imposing effect of these bland titles; men love to be thought generous, noble, magnanimous; but they ought to be equally anxious to acquire the reputation of being just. While they are anxious to compose difficulties in one direction, I entreat them not to oppress and wrong the people in another. In their efforts to save the Union, I hope their zeal will not go so far as to create stronger and better-founded discontents than those they compose. Peacemakers, mediators, men who allay excitements, and tranquillize public feeling, should, above all considerations, study to do it by means not offensive to the contending parties, by means which will not inflict a deeper wound than the one which is healed. Sir, what is demanded by those that threaten the integrity of the Union? An abandonment of the American system; a formal renunciation of the right to protect American industry. This is the language of the nullification convention; they declare they regard the abandonment of the principle as vastly more important than any other matter; they look to that, and not to an abatement of duties without it; and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Davis], with his usual frankness, told us this morning it was not a question of dollars and cents; the money they regarded not, but they required a change of policy.

"This is a bill to tranquillize feeling, to harmonize jarring opinions; it is oil poured into inflamed wounds; it is to definitively settle the matters of complaint. What assurance have we of that? Have those who threatened the Union accepted it? Has any one here risen in his place, and announced his satisfaction and his determination to abide by it? Not a word has been uttered, nor any sign or assurance of satisfaction given. Suppose they should vote for the bill, what then? They voted for the bill of July last, and that was a bill passed expressly to save the Union; but did they not flout at it? Did they not spurn it with contempt? And did not South Carolina, in derision of that compromise, nullify the law? This is a practical illustration of the exercise of a philanthropic spirit of condescension to save the Union. Your folly and your imbecility was treated as a jest. It has already been said that this law will be no more binding than any other, and may be altered and modified at pleasure by any subsequent legislature. In what sense then is it a compromise? Does not a compromise imply an adjustment on terms of agreement? Suppose, then, that South Carolina should abide by the compromise while she supposes it beneficial to the tariff States, and injurious to her; and when that period shall close, the friends of protection shall then propose to re-establish the system. What honorable man, who votes for this bill, could sustain such a measure? Would not South Carolina say, you have no right to change this law, it was founded on compromise; you have had the benefit of your side of the bargains, and now I demand mine? Who could answer such a declaration? If, under such circumstances, you were to proceed to abolish the law, would not South Carolina have much more just cause of complaint and disaffection than she now has?

"It has been said, we ought to legislate now, because the next Congress will be hostile to the tariff. I am aware that such a sentiment has been industriously circulated, and we have been exhorted to escape from the hands of that body as from a lion. But, sir, who knows the sentiments of that body on this question? Do you, or does any one, possess any information which justifies him in asserting that it is more unfriendly than this House? There is, in my opinion, little known about this matter. But suppose the members shall prove as ferocious towards the tariff as those who profess to know their opinions represent, will the passage of this bill stop their action? Can you tie their hands? Give what pledges you please, make what bargains you may, and that body will act its pleasure without respecting them. If you fall short of their wishes in warring upon the tariff, they will not stay their hand; but all attempts to limit their power by abiding compromises, will be considered by them as a stimulus to act upon the subject, that they may manifest their disapprobation. It seems to me, therefore, that if the next Congress is to be feared, we are pursuing the right course to rouse their jealousy, and excite them to action.

"Mr. Speaker, I rose to express my views on this very important question, I regret to say, without the slightest preparation, as it is drawn before us at a very unexpected moment. But, as some things in this bill are at variance with the principles of public policy which I have uniformly maintained, I could not suffer it to pass into a law without stating such objections as have hastily occurred to me.

"Let me, however, before sitting down, be understood on one point. I do not object to a reasonable adjustment of the controversies which exist. I have said repeatedly on this floor, that I would go for a gradual reduction on protected articles; but it must be very gradual, so that no violence shall be done to business; for all reduction is necessarily full of hazard. My objections to this bill are not so much against the first seven years, for I would take the consequences of that experiment, if the provisions beyond that were not of that fatal character which will at once stop all enterprise. But I do object to a compromise which destines the East for the altar. No victim, in my judgement, is required, none is necessary; and yet you propose to bind us, hand and foot, to pour out our blood upon the altar, and sacrifice us as a burnt offering, to appease the unnatural and unfounded discontent of the South; a discontent, I fear, having deeper root than the tariff, and will continue when that is forgotten. I am far from meaning to use the language of menace, when I say such a compromise cannot endure, nor can any adjustment endure, which disregards the interests, and sports with the rights of a large portion of the people of the United States. It has been said that we shall never reach the lowest point of reduction, before the country will become satisfied of the folly of the experiment, and will restore the protective policy; and it seems to me a large number in this body act under the influence of that opinion. But I cannot vote down my principles, on the ground that some one may come after me who will vote them up."

This is one of the most sensible speeches ever delivered in Congress; and, for the side on which it was delivered, perfect; containing also much that was valuable to the other side. The dangers of hasty legislation are well adverted to. The seductive and treacherous nature of compromise legislation, and the probable fate of the act of legislation then so called, so pointedly foretold, was only writing history a few years in advance. The folly of attempting to bind future Congresses by extending ordinary laws years ahead, with a prohibition to touch them, was also a judicious reflection; soon to become history; while the fear expressed that South Carolina would not be satisfied with the overthrow of the protective policy--"that the root of her discontent lay deeper than the tariff, and would continue when that was forgotten"--was an apprehension felt in common with many others, and to which subsequent events gave a sad realization. But all in vain. The bill which made its first appearance in the House late in the evening, when members were gathering up their overcoats for a walk home to their dinners, was passed before those coats had got on the back; and the dinner which was waiting had but little time to cool before the astonished members, their work done, were at the table to eat it. A bill without precedent in the annals of our legislation, and pretending to the sanctity of a compromise, and to settle great questions for ever, went through to its consummation in the fragment of an evening session, without the compliance with any form which experience and parliamentary law have devised for the safety of legislation. This evasion of all salutary forms was effected under the idea of an amendment to a bill, though the substitute introduced was an entire bill in itself, no way amending the other, or even connecting with it, but rubbing it all out from the enacting clause, and substituting a new bill entirely foreign, inconsistent, and incongruous to it. The proceeding was a gross perversion of the idea of an amendment, which always implies an improvement and not a destruction of the bill to be amended. But there was a majority in waiting, ready to consummate what had been agreed upon, and the vote was immediately taken, and the substitute passed--105 to 71:--the mass of the manufacturing interest voting against it. And this was called a "compromise," a species of arrangement heretofore always considered as founded in the mutual consent of adversaries--an agreement by which contending parties voluntarily settle disputes or questions. But here one of the parties dissented, or rather was never asked for assent, nor had any knowledge of the compromise by which they were to be bound, until it was revealed to their vision, and executed upon their consciences, in the style of a surprise from a vigilant foe upon a sleeping adversary. To call this a "compromise" was to make sport of language--to burlesque misfortune--to turn force into stipulation--and to confound fraud and violence with concession and contract. It was like calling the rape of the Romans upon the Sabine women, a marriage. The suddenness of the movement, and the want of all time for reflection or concert--even one night for private communion--led to the most incongruous association of voters--to such a mixture of persons and parties as had never been seen confounded together before, or since: and the reading of which must be a puzzle to any man acquainted with the political actors of that day, the unravelling of which would set at defiance both his knowledge and his ingenuity. The following is the list--the voters with Mr. Clay, headed by Mr. Mark Alexander of Virginia, one of his stiffest opponents: the voters against him, headed by Mr. John Quincy Adams, for eight years past his indissoluble colleague in every system of policy, in every measure of public concern, and in every enterprise of political victory or defeat. Here is the list!

YEAS.--Messrs. Mark Alexander, Chilton Allan, Robert Allen, John Anderson, William G. Angel, William S. Archer, John S. Barbour, Daniel L. Barringer, James Bates, John Bell, John T. Bergen, Laughlin Bethune, James Blair, John Blair, Ratliff Boon, Joseph Bouck, Thomas T. Bouldin, John Branch, Henry A. Bullard, Churchill C. Cambreleng, John Carr, Joseph W. Chinn, Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Clement C. Clay, Augustin S. Clayton, Richard Coke, jr., Henry W. Connor, Thomas Corwin, Richard Coulter, Robert Craig, William Creighton, jr., Henry Daniel, Thomas Davenport, Warren R. Davis, Ulysses F. Doubleday, Joseph Draper, John M. Felder, James Findlay, William Fitzgerald, Nathan Gaither, John Gilmore, William F. Gordon, Thomas H. Hall, William Hall, Joseph M. Harper, Albert G. Hawes, Micajah T. Hawkins, Michael Hoffman, Cornelius Holland, Henry Horn, Benjamin C. Howard, Henry Hubbard, William W. Irvin, Jacob C. Isaacs, Leonard Jarvis, Daniel Jenifer, Richard M. Johnson, Cave Johnson, Joseph Johnson, Edward Kavanagh, John Leeds Kerr, Henry G. Lamar, Garret Y. Lansing, Joseph Lecompte, Robert P. Letcher, Dixon H. Lewis, Chittenden Lyon, Samuel W. Mardis, John Y. Mason, Thomas A. Marshall, Lewis Maxwell, Rufus McIntire, James McKay, Thomas Newton, William T. Nuckolls, John M. Patton, Franklin E. Plummer, James K. Polk, Abraham Rencher, John J. Roane, Erastus Root, Charles S. Sewall, William B. Shepard, Augustine H. Shepperd, Samuel A. Smith, Isaac Southard, Jesse Speight, John S. Spence, William Stanberry, James Standefer, Francis Thomas, Wiley Thompson, John Thomson, Christopher Tompkins, Phineas L. Tracy, Joseph Vance, Gulian C. Verplanck, Aaron Ward, George C. Washington, James M. Wayne, John W. Weeks, Elisha Whittlesey, Campbell P. White, Charles A. Wickliffe, John T. H. Worthington.

NAYS.--Messrs. John Q. Adams, Heman Allen, Robert Allison, Nathan Appleton, Thomas D. Arnold, William Babcock, John Banks, Noyes Barber, Gamaliel H. Barstow, Thomas Chandler, Bates Cooke, Richard M. Cooper, Joseph H. Crane, Thomas H. Crawford, John Davis, Charles Dayan, Henry A. S. Dearborn, Harmar Denny, Lewis Dewart, John Dickson, William W. Ellsworth, George Evans, Joshua Evans, Edward Everett, Horace Everett, George Grennell, jr., Hiland Hall, William Heister, Michael Hoffman, Thomas H. Hughes, Jabez W. Huntington, Peter Ihrie, jr., Ralph I. Ingersoll, Joseph G. Kendall, Henry King, Humphrey H. Leavitt, Robert McCoy, Thomas M. T. McKennan, John J. Milligan, Henry A. Muhlenberg, Jeremiah Nelson, Dutee J. Pearce, Edmund H. Pendleton, Job Pierson, David Potts, jr., James F. Randolph, John Reed, Edward C. Reed, William Slade, Nathan Soule, William L. Storrs, Joel B. Sutherland, John W. Taylor, Samuel F. Vinton, Daniel Wardwell, John G. Watmough, Grattan H. Wheeler, Frederick Whittlesey, Ebenezer Young.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXXXII. REDUCTION OF DUTIES.--MR. CLAY'S BILL

On the 12th of February Mr. Clay asked leave to introduce a bill for the reduction of duties, styled by him a "compromise" measure; and prefaced the question with a speech, of which the following are parts:

"In presenting the modification of the tariff laws which I am now about to submit, I have two great objects in view. My first object looks to the tariff. I am compelled to express the opinion, formed after the most deliberate reflection, and on a full survey of the whole country, that, whether rightfully or wrongfully, the tariff stands in imminent danger. If it should even be preserved during this session, it must fall at the next session. By what circumstances, and through what causes, has arisen the necessity for this change in the policy of our country, I will not pretend now to elucidate. Others there are who may differ from the impressions which my mind has received upon this point. Owing, however, to a variety of concurrent causes, the tariff, as it now exists, is in imminent danger; and if the system can be preserved beyond the next session, it must be by some means not now within the reach of human sagacity. The fall of that policy, sir, would be productive of consequences calamitous indeed. When I look to the variety of interests which are involved, to the number of individuals interested, the amount of capital invested, the value of the buildings erected, and the whole arrangement of the business for the prosecution of the various branches of the manufacturing art which have sprung up under the fostering care of this government, I cannot contemplate any evil equal to the sudden overthrow of all those interests. History can produce no parallel to the extent of the mischief which would be produced by such a disaster. The repeal of the Edict of Nantes itself was nothing in comparison with it. That condemned to exile and brought to ruin a great number of persons. The most respectable portion of the population of France were condemned to exile and ruin by that measure. But in my opinion, sir, the sudden repeal of the tariff policy would bring ruin and destruction on the whole people of this country. There is no evil, in my opinion, equal to the consequences which would result from such a catastrophe.

"I believe the American system to be in the greatest danger; and I believe it can be placed on a better and safer foundation at this session than at the next. I heard, with surprise, my friend from Massachusetts say that nothing had occurred within the last six months to increase its hazard. I entreat him to review that opinion. Is it correct? Is the issue of numerous elections, including that of the highest officer of the government, nothing? Is the explicit recommendation of that officer, in his message at the opening of the session sustained, as he is, by a recent triumphant election, nothing? Is his declaration in his proclamation, that the burdens of the South ought to be relieved, nothing? Is the introduction of the bill in the House of Representatives during this session, sanctioned by the head of the treasury and the administration, prostrating the greater part of the manufactures of the country, nothing? Are the increasing discontents, nothing? Is the tendency of recent events to unite the whole South, nothing? What have we not witnessed in this chamber? Friends of the administration bursting all the ties which seemed indissolubly to unite them to its chief, and, with few exceptions south of the Potomac, opposing, and vehemently opposing, a favorite measure of that administration, which three short months ago they contributed to establish? Let us not deceive ourselves. Now is the time to adjust the question in a manner satisfactory to both parties. Put it off until the next session, and the alternative may, and probably then would be, a speedy and ruinous reduction of the tariff, or a civil war with the entire South.

"It is well known that the majority of the dominant party is adverse to the tariff. There are many honorable exceptions, the senator from New Jersey [Mr. Dickerson] among them. But for the exertions of the other party, the tariff would have been long since sacrificed. Now let us look at the composition of the two branches of Congress at the next session. In this body we lose three friends of the protective policy, without being sure of gaining one. Here, judging from the present appearances, we shall, at the next session, be in the minority. In the House it is notorious that there is a considerable accession to the number of the dominant party. How, then, I ask, is the system to be sustained against numbers, against the whole weight of the administration, against the united South, and against the increased impending danger of civil war?

"I have been represented as the father of the system, and I am charged with an unnatural abandonment of my own offspring. I have never arrogated to myself any such intimate relation to it. I have, indeed, cherished it with parental fondness, and my affection is undiminished. But in what condition do I find this child? It is in the hands of the Philistines, who would strangle it. I fly to its rescue, to snatch it from their custody, and to place it on a bed of security and repose for nine years, where it may grow and strengthen, and become acceptable to the whole people. I behold a torch about being applied to a favorite edifice, and I would save it, if possible, before it was wrapt in flames, or at least preserve the precious furniture which it contains."

Mr. Clay further advanced another reason for his bill, and which was a wish to separate the tariff from politics and elections--a wish which admitted their connection--and which, being afterwards interpreted by events, was supposed to be the basis of the coalition with Mr. Calhoun; both of them having tried the virtue of the tariff question in elections, and found it unavailing either to friends or foes. Mr. Clay, its champion, could not become President upon its support. Mr. Calhoun, its antagonist, could not become President upon its opposition. To both it was equally desirable, as an unavailable element in elections, and as a stumbling-block to both in future, that it should be withdrawn for some years from the political arena; and Mr. Clay thus expressed himself in relation to that withdrawal:

"I wish to see the tariff separated from the politics of the country, that business men may go to work in security, with some prospect of stability in our laws, and without every thing being staked on the issue of elections, as it were on the hazards of the die."

Mr. Clay then explained the principle of his bill, which was a series of annual reductions of one tenth per cent. on the value of all duties above twenty per cent. for eight successive years; and after that, the reduction of all the remainder above twenty per centum to that rate by two annual reductions of the excess: so as to complete the reduction to twenty per centum on the value of all imported goods on the 30th day of September, 1842; with a total abolition of duties on about one hundred articles after that time; and with a proviso in favor of the right of Congress, in the event of war with any foreign power to impose such duties as might be necessary to prosecute the war. And this was called a "compromise," although there was no stipulation for the permanency of the reduced, and of the abolished duties; and no such stipulation could be made to bind future Congresses; and the only equivalent which the South received from the party of protection, was the stipulated surrender of their principle in the clause which provided that after the said 30th of September, 1842, "duties should only be laid for raising such revenue as might be necessary for an economical administration of the government;" an attempt to bind future Congresses, the value of which was seen before the time was out. Mr. Clay proceeded to touch the tender parts of his plan--the number of years the protective policy had to run, and the guaranties for its abandonment at the end of the stipulated protection. On these points he said:

"Viewing it in this light, it appeared that there were eight years and a half, and nine years and a half, taking the ultimate time, which would be an efficient protection; the remaining duties would be withdrawn by a biennial reduction. The protective principle must be said to be, in some measure, relinquished at the end of eight years and a half. This period could not appear unreasonable, and he thought that no member of the Senate, or any portion of the country, ought to make the slightest objection. It now remained for him to consider the other objection--the want of a guaranty to there being an ulterior continuance of the duties imposed by the bill, on the expiration of the term which it prescribes. The best guaranties would be found in the circumstances under which the measure would be passed. If it were passed by common consent; if it were passed with the assent of a portion, a considerable portion, of those who had hitherto directly supported this system, and by a considerable portion of those who opposed it; if they declared their satisfaction with the measure, he had no doubt the rate of duties guarantied would be continued after the expiration of the term, if the country continued at peace."

Here was a stipulation to continue the protective principle for nine years and a half, and the bill contained no stipulation to abandon it at that time, and consequently no guaranty that it would be abandoned; and certainly the guaranty would have been void if stipulated, as it is not in the power of one Congress to abridge by law the constitutional power of its successors. Mr. Clay, therefore, had recourse to moral guaranties; and found them good, and best in the circumstances in which the bill would be passed, and the common consent with which it was expected to be done--a calculation which found its value, as to the "common consent," before the bill was passed, as to its binding force before the time fixed for its efficacy to begin.

Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, replied to Mr. Clay, and said:

"The avowed object of the bill would meet with universal approbation. It was a project to harmonize the people, and it could have come from no better source than from the gentleman from Kentucky: for to no one were we more indebted than to him for the discord and discontent which agitate us. But a few months ago it was in the power of the gentleman, and those with whom he acted, to settle this question at once and for ever. The opportunity was not seized, but he hoped it was not passed. In the project now offered, he could not see the elements of success. The time was not auspicious. But fourteen days remained to the session; and we had better wait the action of the House on the bill before them, than by taking up this new measure here, produce a cessation of their action. Was there not danger that the fourteen days would be exhausted in useless debate? Why, twenty men, with a sufficiency of breath (for words they would not want), could annihilate the bill, though a majority in both Houses were in favor of it. He objected, too, that the bill was a violation of the constitution, because the Senate had no power to raise revenue. Two years ago, the same senator made a proposition, which was rejected on this very ground. The offer, however, would not be useless; it would be attended with all the advantages which could follow its discussion here. We shall see it, and take it into consideration as the offer of the manufacturers. The other party, as we are called, will view it as a scheme of diplomacy; not as their ultimatum, but as their first offer. But the bargain was all on one side. After they are defeated, and can no longer sustain a conflict, they come to make the best bargain they can. The senator from Kentucky says, the tariff is in danger; aye, sir, it is at its last gasp. It has received the immedicable wound; no hellebore can cure it. He considered the confession of the gentleman to be of immense importance. Yes, sir, the whole feeling of the country is opposed to the high protective system. The wily serpent that crept into our Eden has been touched by the spear of Ithuriel. The senator is anxious to prevent the ruin which a sudden abolition of the system will produce. No one desires to inflict ruin upon the manufacturers; but suppose the Southern people, having the power to control the subject, should totally and suddenly abolish the system; what right would those have to complain who had combined to oppress the South? What has the tariff led us to already? From one end of the country to the other, it has produced evils which are worse than a thousand tariffs. The necessity of appealing now to fraternal feeling shows that that feeling is not sleeping, but nearly extinguished. He opposed the introduction of the bill as a revenue measure, and upon it demanded the yeas and nays: which were ordered."

The practical, clear-headed, straightforward Gen. Smith, of Maryland, put his finger at once upon the fallacy and insecurity of the whole scheme, and used a word, the point and application of which was more visible afterwards than at the time it was uttered. He said:

"That the bill was no cure at all for the evils complained of by the South. They wished to try the constitutionality of protecting duties. In this bill there was nothing but protection, from beginning to end. We had been told that if the bill passed with common consent, the system established by it would not be touched. But he had once been cheated in that way, and would not be cheated again. In 1816 it was said the manufacturers would be satisfied with the protection afforded by the bill of that year; but in a few years after they came and insisted for more, and got more. After the first four years, an attempt would be made to repeal all the balance of this bill. He would go no further than four years in prospective reduction. The reduction was on some articles too great."

He spoke history, except in the time. The manufacturers retained the benefits of the bill to the end of the protection which it gave them, and then re-established the protective system in more amplitude than ever.

"Mr. Calhoun rose and said, he would make but one or two observations. Entirely approving of the object for which this bill was introduced, he should give his vote in favor of the motion for leave to introduce it. He who loved the Union must desire to see this agitating question brought to a termination. Until it should be terminated, we could not expect the restoration of peace or harmony, or a sound condition of things, throughout the country. He believed that to the unhappy divisions which had kept the Northern and Southern States apart from each other, the present entirely degraded condition of the country (for entirely degraded he believed it to be) was solely attributable. The general principles of this bill received his approbation. He believed that if the present difficulties were to be adjusted, they must be adjusted on the principles embraced in the bill, of fixing ad valorem duties, except in the few cases in the bill to which specific duties were assigned. He said that it had been his fate to occupy a position as hostile as any one could, in reference to the protecting policy; but, if it depended on his will, he would not give his vote for the prostration of the manufacturing interest. A very large capital had been invested in manufactures, which had been of great service to the country; and he would never give his vote to suddenly withdraw all those duties by which that capital was sustained in the channel into which it had been directed. But he would only vote for the ad valorem system of duties, which he deemed the most beneficial and the most equitable. At this time, he did not rise to go into a consideration of any of the details of this bill, as such a course would be premature, and contrary to the practice of the Senate. There were some of the provisions which had his entire approbation, and there were some to which he objected. But he looked upon these minor points of difference as points in the settlement of which no difficulty would occur, when gentlemen meet together in that spirit of mutual compromise which, he doubted not, would be brought into their deliberations, without at all yielding the constitutional question as to the right of protection."

This union of Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay in the belief of the harmony and brotherly affection which this bill would produce, professing as it did, and bearing on its face the termination of the American system, afforded a strong instance of the fallibility of political opinions. It was only six months before that the dissolution of the Union would be the effect, in the opinion of one of them, of the continuance of the American system--and of its abandonment in the opinion of the other. Now, both agreed that the bill which professed to destroy it would restore peace and harmony to a distracted country. How far Mr. Clay then saw the preservation, and not the destruction, of the American system in the compromise he was making, may be judged by what he said two weeks later, when he declared that he looked forward to a re-action which would restore the protective system at the end of the time.

The first news of Mr. Clay's bill was heard with dismay by the manufacturers. Niles' Register, the most authentic organ and devoted advocate of that class, heralded it thus: "Mr. Clay's new tariff project will be received like a crash of thunder in the winter season, and some will hardly trust the evidence of their senses on a first examination of it--so radical and sudden is the change of policy proposed because of a combination of circumstances which, in the judgment of Mr. Clay, has rendered such a change necessary. It may be that our favorite systems are all to be destroyed. If so the majority determine--so be it." The manufacturers flocked in crowds to Washington City--leaving home to stop the bill--arriving at Washington to promote it. Those practical men soon saw that they had gained a reprieve of nine years and a half in the benefits of protection, with a certainty of the re-establishment of the system at the end of that time, from the revulsion which would be made in the revenue--in the abrupt plunge at the end of that time in the scale of duties from a high rate to an ad valorem of twenty per centum; and that leaving one hundred articles free. This nine years and a half reprieve, with the certain chance for the revulsion, they found to be a good escape from the possible passage of Mr. Verplank's bill, or its equivalent, at that session; and its certain passage, if it failed then, at the ensuing session of the new Congress. They found the protective system dead without this reprieve, and now received as a deliverance what had been viewed as a sentence of execution; and having helped the bill through, they went home rejoicing, and more devoted to Mr. Clay than ever.

Mr. Webster had not been consulted, in the formation of this bill, and was strongly opposed to it, as well as naturally dissatisfied at the neglect with which he had been treated. As the ablest champion of the tariff, and the representative of the chief seat of manufactures, he would naturally have been consulted, and made a party, and a leading one, in any scheme of tariff adjustment; on the contrary, the whole concoction of the bill between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun had been entirely concealed from him. Symptoms of discontent appeared, at times, in their speeches; and, on the night of the 23d, some sharp words passed--composed the next day by their friends: but it was a strange idea of a "compromise," from which the main party was to be excluded in its formation, and bound in its conclusion. And Mr. Webster took an immediate opportunity to show that he had not been consulted, and would not be bound by the arrangement that had been made. He said:

"It is impossible that this proposition of the honorable member from Kentucky should not excite in the country a very strong sensation; and, in the relation in which I stand to the subject, I am anxious at an early moment, to say, that, as far as I understand the bill, from the gentleman's statement of it, there are principles in it to which I do not at present see how I can ever concur. If I understand the plan, the result of it will be a well-understood surrender of the power of discrimination, or a stipulation not to use that power, in the laying duties on imports, after the eight or nine years have expired. This appears to me to be matter of great moment. I hesitate to be a party to any such stipulation. The honorable member admits, that though there will be no positive surrender of the power, there will be a stipulation not to exercise it; a treaty of peace and amity, as he says, which no American statesman can, hereafter, stand up to violate. For one, sir, I am not ready to enter into the treaty. I propose, so far as depends on me, to leave all our successors in Congress as free to act as we are ourselves.

"The honorable member from Kentucky says the tariff is in imminent danger; that, if not destroyed this session, it cannot hope to survive the next. This may be so, sir. This may be so. But, if it be so, it is because the American people will not sanction the tariff; and, if they will not, why, then, sir, it cannot be sustained at all. I am not quite so despairing as the honorable member seems to be. I know nothing which has happened, within the last six or eight months, changing so materially the prospects of the tariff. I do not despair of the success of an appeal to the American people, to take a just care of their own interest, and not to sacrifice those vast interests which have grown up under the laws of Congress."

There was a significant intimation in these few remarks, that Mr. Webster had not been consulted in the preparation of this bill. He shows that he had no knowledge of it, except from Mr. Clay's statement of its contents, on the floor, for it had not then been read; and the statement made by Mr. Clay was his only means of understanding it. This is the only public intimation which he gave of that exclusion of himself from all knowledge of what Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were doing; but, on the Sunday after the sharp words between him and Mr. Clay, the fact was fully communicated to me, by a mutual friend, and as an injurious exclusion which Mr. Webster naturally and sensibly felt. On the next day, he delivered his opinions of the bill, in an unusually formal manner--in a set of resolutions, instead of a speech--thus:

"Resolved, That the annual revenues of the country ought not to be allowed to exceed a just estimate of the wants of the government; and that, as soon as it shall be ascertained, with reasonable certainty, that the rates of duties on imports, as established by the act of July, 1832, will yield an excess over those wants, provision ought to be made for their reduction; and that, in making this reduction, just regard should be had to the various interests and opinions of different parts of the country, so as most effectually to preserve the integrity and harmony of the Union, and to provide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare of the whole.

"But, whereas it is certain that the diminution of the rates of duties on some articles would increase, instead of reducing, the aggregate amount of revenue on such articles; and whereas, in regard to such articles as it has been the policy of the country to protect, a slight reduction on one might produce essential injury, and even distress, to large classes of the community, while another might bear a larger reduction without any such consequences; and whereas, also, there are many articles, the duties on which might be reduced, or altogether abolished, without producing any other effect than the reduction of revenue: Therefore,

"Resolved, That, in reducing the rates of duties imposed on imports, by the act of the 14th of July aforesaid, it is not wise or judicious to proceed by way of an equal reduction per centum on all articles; but that, as well the amount as the time of reduction ought to be fixed, in respect to the several articles, distinctly, having due regard, in each case, to the questions whether the proposed reduction will affect revenue alone, or how far it will operate injuriously on those domestic manufactures hitherto protected; especially such as are essential in time of war, and such, also, as have been established on the faith of existing laws; and, above all, how far such proposed reduction will affect the rates of wages and the earnings of American manual labor.

"Resolved, That it is unwise and injudicious, in regulating imposts, to adopt a plan, hitherto equally unknown in the history of this government, and in the practice of all enlightened nations, which shall, either immediately or prospectively, reject all discrimination on articles to be taxed, whether they be articles of necessity or of luxury, of general consumption or of limited consumption; and whether they be or be not such as are manufactured and produced at home, and which shall confine all duties to one equal rate per centum on all articles.

"Resolved, That, since the people of the United States have deprived the State governments of all power of fostering manufactures, however indispensable in peace or in war, or however important to national independence, by commercial regulations, or by laying duties on imports, and have transferred the whole authority to make such regulations, and to lay such duties, to the Congress of the United States, Congress cannot surrender or abandon such power, compatibly with its constitutional duty; and, therefore,

"Resolved, That no law ought to be passed on the subject of imposts, containing any stipulation, express or implied, or giving any pledge or assurance, direct or indirect, which shall tend to restrain Congress from the full exercise, at all times hereafter, of all its constitutional powers, in giving reasonable protection to American industry, countervailing the policy of foreign nations, and maintaining the substantial independence of the United States."

These resolutions brought the sentiments of Mr. Webster, on the tariff and federal revenue, very nearly to the standard recommended by General Jackson, in his annual message; which was a limitation of the revenue to the wants of the government, with incidental protection to essential articles; and this approximation of policy, with that which had already taken place on the doctrine of nullification and its measures, and his present support of the "Force Bill," may have occasioned the exclusion of Mr. Webster from all knowledge of this "compromise." Certain it is, that, with these sentiments on the subject of the tariff and the revenue, and with the decision of the people, in their late elections against the American system, that Mr. Webster and his friends would have acted with the friends of General Jackson and the democratic party, in the ensuing Congress, in reducing the duties in a way to be satisfactory to every reasonable interest; and, above all, to be stable; and to free the country from the agitation of the tariff question, the manufacturers from uncertainty, and the revenue from fluctuations which alternately gave overflowing and empty treasuries. It was a consummation devoutly to be wished; and frustrated by the intervention of the delusive "compromise," concocted out of doors, and in conclave by two senators; and to be carried through Congress by their joint adherents, and by the fears of some and the interests of others.

Mr. Wright, of New-York, saw objections to the bill, which would be insurmountable in other circumstances. He proceeded to state these objections, and the reason which would outweigh them in his mind:

"He thought the reduction too slow for the first eight years, and vastly too rapid afterwards. Again, he objected to the inequality of the rule of reduction which had been adopted. It will be seen, at once, that on articles paying one hundred per cent. duty, the reduction is dangerously rapid. There was uniformity in the rule adopted by the bill, as regards its operation on existing laws. The first object of the bill was to effect a compromise between the conflicting views of the friends and the opponents of protection. It purports to extend relief to Southern interest; and yet it enhances the duty on one of the most material articles of Southern consumption--negro cloths. Again, while it increases this duty, it imposes no corresponding duty on the raw material from which the fabric is made.

"Another objection arose from his mature conviction that the principle of home valuation was absurd, impracticable, and of very unequal operation. The reduction on some articles of prime necessity--iron, for example--was so great and so rapid, that he was perfectly satisfied that it would stop all further production before the expiration of eight years. The principle of discrimination was one of the points introduced into the discussion; and, as to this, he would say that the bill did not recognize, after a limited period, the power of Congress to afford protection by discriminating duties. It provides protection for a certain length of time, but does not ultimately recognize the principle of protection. The bill proposes ultimately to reduce all articles which pay duty to the same rate of duty. This principle of revenue was entirely unknown to our laws, and, in his opinion, was an unwarrantable innovation. Gentlemen advocating the principle and policy of free trade admit the power of Congress to lay and collect such duties as are necessary for the purpose of revenue; and to that extent they will incidentally afford protection to manufactures. He would, upon all occasions, contend that no more money should be raised from duties on imports than the government needs; and this principle he wished now to state in plain terms. He adverted to the proceedings of the Free Trade Convention to show that, by a large majority, (120 to 7,) they recognized the constitutional power of Congress to afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures. They expressly agreed that the principle of discrimination was in consonance with the constitution.

"Still another objection he had to the bill. It proposed on its face, and, as he thought, directly, to restrict the action of our successors. We had no power, he contended, to bind our successors. We might legislate prospectively, and a future Congress could stop the course of this prospective legislation. He had, however, no alternative but to vote for the bill, with all its defects, because it contained some provisions which the state of the country rendered indispensably necessary."

He then stated the reason which would induce him to vote for the bill notwithstanding these objections. It was found in the attitude of South Carolina, and in the extreme desire which he had to remove all cause of discontent in that State, and to enable her to return to the state of feeling which belonged to an affectionate member of the Union. For that reason he would do what was satisfactory to her, though not agreeable to himself.

While the bill was still depending before the Senate, the bill itself for which the leave was being asked, made its appearance at the door of the chamber, with a right to enter it, in the shape of an act passed by the House, and sent to the Senate for concurrence. This was a new feature in the game, and occasioned the Senate bill to be immediately dropped, and the House bill put in its place; and which, being quickly put to the vote, was passed, 29 to 16.

"YEAS.--Messrs. Bell, Bibb, Black, Calhoun, Chambers, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Foot, Forsyth, Frelinghuysen, Grundy, Hill, Holmes, Johnston, King, Mangum, Miller, Moore, Maudain, Poindexter, Rives, Robinson, Sprague, Tomlinson, Tyler, Waggaman, White, Wright.

"NAYS.--Messrs. Benton, Buckner, Dallas, Dickerson, Dudley, Hendricks, Knight, Prentiss, Robbins, Ruggles, Seymour, Silsbee, Smith, Tipton, Webster, Wilkins."

And the bill was then called a "compromise," which the dictionaries define to be an "agreement without the intervention of arbitrators;" and so called, it was immediately proclaimed to be sacred and inviolable, as founded on mutual consent, although the only share which the manufacturing States (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont) had in making this "compromise," was to see it sprung upon them without notice, executed upon them as a surprise, and forced upon them by anti-tariff votes, against the strenuous resistance of their senators and representatives in both Houses of Congress.

An incident which attended the discussion of this bill shows the manner in which great measures--especially a bill of many particulars, like the tariff, which affords an opportunity of gratifying small interests--may be worked through a legislative body, even the Senate of the United States, by other reasons than those derived from its merits. The case was this: There were a few small manufactories in Connecticut and some other New England States, of a coarse cloth called, not Kendall green, but Kendall cotton--quite antithetically, as the article was made wholly of wool--of which much was also imported. As it was an article exclusively for the laboring population, the tariff of the preceding session made it virtually free, imposing only a duty of five per centum on the value of the cloth and the same on the wool of which it was made. Now this article was put up in this "compromise" bill which was to reduce duties, to fifty per centum, aggravated by an arbitrary minimum valuation, and by the legerdemain of retaining the five per centum duty on the foreign wool which they used, and which was equivalent to making it free, and reduced to that low rate to harmonize the duty on the raw material and the cloth. General Smith, of Maryland, moved to strike out this duty, so flagrantly in contrast to the professed objects of the bill, and in fraud of the wool duty; and that motion brought out the reason why it was put there--which was, that it was necessary to secure the passage of the bill. Mr. Foot, of Connecticut, said: "This was an important feature of the bill, in which his constituents had a great interest. Gentlemen from the South had agreed to it; and they were competent to guard their own interest." Mr. Clay said: "The provision proposed to be stricken out was an essential part of the compromise, which, if struck out, would destroy the whole." Mr. Bell of New Hampshire, said: "The passage of the bill depended upon it. If struck out, he should feel himself compelled to vote against the bill." So it was admitted by those who knew what they said, that this item had been put into the bill while in a state of concoction out of doors, and as a douceur to conciliate the votes which were to pass it. Thereupon Mr. Benton stood up, and

"Animadverted on the reason which was alleged for this extraordinary augmentation of duties in a bill which was to reduce duties. The reason was candidly expressed on this floor. There were a few small manufactories of these woollens in Connecticut; and unless these manufactories be protected by an increase of duties, certain members avow their determination to vote against the whole bill! This is the secret--no! not a secret, for it is proclaimed. It was a secret, but is not now. Two or three little factories in Connecticut must be protected; and that by imposing an annual tax upon the wearers of these coarse woollens of four or five times the value of the fee-simple estate of the factories. Better far, as a point of economy and justice, to purchase them and burn them. The whole American system is to be given up in the year 1842; and why impose an annual tax of near five hundred thousand dollars, upon the laboring community, to prolong, for a few years, a few small branches of that system, when the whole bill has the axe to the root, and nods to its fall? But, said Mr. B., these manufactories of coarse woollens, to be protected by this bill, are not even American; they are rather Asiatic establishments in America; for they get their wool from Asia, and not from America. The importation of this wool is one million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds weight; it comes chiefly from Smyrna, and costs less than eight cents a pound. It was made free of duty at the last session of Congress, as an equivalent to these very manufactories for the reduction of the duty on coarse woollens to five per cent. The two measures went together, and were, each, a consideration for the other. Before that time, and by the act of 1828, this coarse wool was heavily dutied for the benefit of the home wool growers. It was subjected to a double duty, one of four cents on the pound, and the other of fifty per cent. on the value. As a measure of compromise, this double duty was abolished at the last session. The wool for these factories was admitted duty free, and, as an equivalent to the community, the woollens made out of the corresponding kind of wool were admitted at a nominal duty. It was a bargain, entered into in open Congress, and sealed with all the forms of law. Now, in six months after the bargain was made, it is to be broken. The manufacturers are to have the duty on woollens run up to fifty per cent. for protection, and are still to receive the foreign wool free of duty. In plain English, they are to retain the pay which was given them for reducing the duties on these coarse woollens, and they are to have the duties restored.

"He said it was contrary to the whole tenor and policy of the bill, and presented the strange contradiction of multiplying duties tenfold, upon an article of prime necessity, used exclusively by the laboring part of the community, while reducing duties or abolishing them in toto, upon every article used by the rich and luxurious. Silks were to be free; cambrics and fine linens were to be free; muslins, and casimeres, and broad cloths were to be reduced; but the coarse woollens, worn by the laborers of every color and every occupation, of every sex and of every age, bond or free--these coarse woollens, necessary to shelter the exposed laborer from cold and damp, are to be put up tenfold in point of tax, and the cost of procuring them doubled to the wearer.

"The American value, and not the foreign cost, will be the basis of computation for the twenty per cent. The difference, when all is fair, is about thirty-five per cent. in the value; so that an importation of coarse woollens, costing one million in Europe, and now to pay five per cent. on that cost, will be valued, if all is fair, at one million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and the twenty per cent. will be calculated on that sum, and will give two hundred and seventy thousand dollars, instead of two hundred thousand dollars, for the quantum of the tax. It will be near sixfold, instead of four-fold, and that if all is fair; but if there are gross errors or gross frauds in the valuation, as every human being knows there must be, the real tax may be far above sixfold. On this very floor, and in this very debate, we hear it computed, by way of recommending this bill to the manufacturers, that the twenty per cent. on the statute book will exceed thirty in the custom-house.

"Mr. B. took a view of the circumstances which had attended the duties on these coarse woollens since he had been in Congress. Every act had discriminated in favor of these goods, because they were used by the poor and the laborer. The act of 1824 fixed the duties upon them at a rate one third less than on other woollens; the act of 1828 fixed it at upwards of one half less; the act of 1832 fixed it nine tenths less. All these discriminations in favor of coarse woollens were made upon the avowed principle of favoring the laborers, bond and free,--the slave which works the field for his master, the mariner, the miner, the steamboat hand, the worker in stone and wood, and every out-door occupation. It was intended by the framers of all these acts, and especially by the supporters of the act of 1832, that this class of our population, so meritorious from their daily labor, so much overlooked in the operations of the government, because of their little weight in the political scale, should at least receive one boon from Congress--they should receive their working clothes free of tax. This was the intention of successive Congresses; it was the performance of this Congress in its act of the last session; and now, in six short months since this boon was granted, before the act had gone into effect, the very week before the act was to go into effect, the boon so lately granted, is to be snatched away, and the day laborer taxed higher than ever; taxed fifty per cent. upon his working clothes! while gentlemen and ladies are to have silks and cambrics, and fine linen, free of any tax at all!

"In allusion to the alleged competency of the South to guard its own interest, as averred by Mr. Foot, Mr. Benton said that was a species of ability not confined to the South, but existent also in the North--whether indigenous or exotic he could not say--but certainly existent there, at least in some of the small States; and active when duties were to be raised on Kendal cotton cloth, and the wool of which it was made to remain free."

The motion of General Smith was rejected, of course, and by the same vote which passed the bill, no one of those giving way an inch of ground in the House who had promised out of doors to stand by the bill. Another incident to which the discussion of this bill gave rise, and the memory of which is necessary to the understanding of the times, was the character of "protection" which Mr. Clay openly claimed for it; and the peremptory manner in which he and his friends vindicated that claim in open Senate, and to the face of Mr. Calhoun. The circumstances were these: Mr. Forsyth objected to the leave asked by Mr. Clay to introduce his bill, because it was a revenue bill, the origination of which under the constitution exclusively belonged to the House of Representatives, the immediate representative of the people. And this gave rise to an episodical debate, in which Mr. Clay said: "The main object of the bill is not revenue, but protection."--In answer to several senators who said the bill was an abandonment of the protective principle, Mr. Clay said: "The language of the bill authorized no such construction, and that no one would be justified in inferring that there was to be an abandonment of the system of protection."--And Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, a supporter of the bill, said: "The government cannot be kept together if the principle of protection were to be discarded in our policy; and declared that he would pause before he surrendered that principle, even to save the Union."--Mr. Webster said: "The bill is brought forward by the distinguished senator from Kentucky, who professes to have renounced none of his former opinions as to the constitutionality and expediency of protection."--And Mr. Clay said further: "The bill assumes, as a basis, adequate protection for nine years, and less (protection) beyond that term. The friends of protection say to their opponents, we are willing to take a lease of nine years, with the long chapter of accidents beyond that period, including the chance of war, the restoration of concord, and along with it a conviction common to all, of the utility of protection; and in consideration of it, if, in 1842 none of these contingencies shall have been realized, we are willing to submit, as long as Congress may think proper, with a maximum of twenty per centum," &c.--"He avowed his object in framing the bill was to secure that protection to manufactures which every one foresaw must otherwise soon be swept away." So that the bill was declared to be one of protection (and upon sufficient data), upon a lease of nine years and a half, with many chances for converting the lease into a fee simple at the end of its run; which, in fact, was done; but with such excess of protection as to produce a revulsion, and another tariff catastrophe in 1846. The continuance of protection was claimed in argument by Mr. Clay and his friends throughout the discussion, but here it was made a point on which the fate of the bill depended, and on which enough of its friends to defeat it declared they would not support it except as a protective measure. Mr. Calhoun in other parts of the debate had declared the bill to be an abandonment of protection; but at this critical point, when such a denial from him would have been the instant death warrant of the bill, he said nothing. His desire for its passage must have been overpowering when he could hear such declarations without repeating his denial.

On the main point, that of the constitutionality of originating the bill in the Senate, Mr. Webster spoke the law of Parliament when he said:

"It was purely a question of privilege, and the decision of it belonged alone to the other House. The Senate, by the constitution, could not originate bills for raising revenue. It was of no consequence whether the rate of duty were increased or decreased; if it was a money bill it belonged to the House to originate it. In the House there was a Committee of Ways and Means organized expressly for such objects. There was no such committee in the Senate. The constitutional provision was taken from the practice of the British Parliament, whose usages were well known to the framers of the constitution, with the modification that the Senate might alter and amend money bills, which was denied by the House of Commons to the Lords. This subject belongs exclusively to the House of Representatives. The attempt to evade the question, by contending that the present bill was intended for protection and not for revenue, afforded no relief, for it was protection by means of revenue. It was not the less a money bill from its object being protection. After 1842 this bill would raise the revenue, or it would not be raised by existing laws. He was altogether opposed to the provisions of this bill; but this objection was one which belonged to the House of Representatives."

Another incident which illustrates the vice and tyranny of this outside concoction of measures between chiefs, to be supported in the House by their adherents as they fix it, occurred in the progress of this bill. Mr. Benton, perceiving that there was no corresponding reduction of drawback provided for on the exportation of the manufactured article made out of an imported material on which duty was to be reduced, and supposing it to have been an oversight in the framing of the bill, moved an amendment to that effect; and meeting resistance, stood up, and said:

"His motion did not extend to the general system of drawbacks, but only to those special cases in which the exporter was authorized to draw from the treasury the amount of money which he had paid into it on the importation of the materials which he had manufactured. The amount of drawback to be allowed in every case had been adjusted to the amount of duty paid, and as all these duties were to be periodically reduced by the bill, it would follow, as a regular consequence, that the drawback should undergo equal reductions at the same time. Mr. B. would illustrate his motion by stating a single case--the case of refined sugar. The drawback payable on this sugar was five cents a pound. These five cents rested upon a duty of three cents, now payable on the importation of foreign brown sugar. It was ascertained that it required nearly two pounds of brown sugar to make a pound of refined sugar, and five cents was held to be the amount of duty paid on the quantity of brown sugar which made the pound of refined sugar. It was simply a reimbursement of what he had paid. By this bill the duty of foreign brown sugar will be reduced immediately to two and a half cents a pound, and afterwards will be periodically reduced until the year 1842, when it will be but six-tenths of a cent, very little more than one-sixth of the duty when five cents the pound were allowed for a drawback. Now, if the drawback is not reduced in proportion to the reduction of the duty on the raw sugar, two very injurious consequences will result to the public: first, that a large sum of money will be annually taken out of the treasury in gratuitous bounties to sugar refiners; and next, that the consumers of refined sugar will have to pay more for American refined sugar than foreigners will; for the refiners getting a bounty of five cents a pound on all that is exported, will export all, unless the American consumer will pay the bounty also. Mr. B. could not undertake to say how much money would be drawn from the treasury, as a mere bounty, if this amendment did not prevail. It must, however, be great. The drawback was now frequently a hundred thousand dollars a year, and great frauds were committed to obtain it. Frauds to the amount of forty thousand dollars a year had been detected, and this while the inducement was small and inconsiderable; but, as fast as that inducement swells from year to year, the temptation to commit frauds must increase; and the amount drawn by fraud, added to that drawn by the letter of the law, must be enormous. Mr. B. did not think it necessary to illustrate his motion by further examples, but said there were other cases which would be as strong as that of refined sugar; and justice to the public required all to be checked at once, by adopting the amendment he had offered."

This amendment was lost, although its necessity was self-evident, and supported by Mr. Calhoun's vote; but Mr. Clay was inexorable, and would allow of no amendment which was not offered by friends of the bill: a qualification which usually attends all this class of outside legislation. In the end, I saw the amendment adopted, as it regarded refined sugars, after it began to take hundreds of thousands per annum from the treasury, and was hastening on to millions per annum. The vote on its rejection in the compromise bill, was:

"YEAS.--Messrs. Benton, Buckner, Calhoun, Dallas, Dickerson, Dudley, Forsyth, Johnson, Kane, King, Rives, Robinson, Seymour, Tomlinson, Webster, White, Wilkins, Wright--18.

"NAYS.--Messrs. Bell, Bibb, Black, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Foot, Grundy, Hendricks, Holmes, Knight, Mangum, Miller, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Prentiss, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Sprague, Tipton, Troup, Tyler.--24."

But the protective feature of the bill, which sat hardest upon the Southern members, and, at one time, seemed to put an end to the "compromise," was a proposition, by Mr. Clay, to substitute home valuations for foreign on imported goods; and on which home valuation, the duty was to be computed. This was no part of the bill concocted by Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun; and, when offered, evidently took the latter gentleman by surprise, who pronounced it unconstitutional, unequal, and unjust; averred the objections to the proposition to be insurmountable; and declared that, if adopted, would compel him to vote against the whole bill. On the other hand, Mr. Clayton and others, declared the adoption of the amendment to be indispensable; and boldly made known their determination to sacrifice the bill, if it was not adopted. A brief and sharp debate took place, in the course of which Mr. Calhoun declared his opinions to remain unaltered, and Mr. Clayton moved to lay the bill upon the table. Its fate seemed, at that time, to be sealed; and certainly would have been, if the vote on its passage had then been taken; but an adjournment was moved, and carried; and, on the next day, and after further debate, and the question on Mr. Clay's proposition about to be taken, Mr. Calhoun declared that it had become necessary for him to determine whether he would vote for or against it; said he would vote for it, otherwise the bill would be lost. He then called upon the reporters in the gallery to notice well what he said, as he intended his declaration to be part of the proceedings: and that he voted upon the conditions: first, that no valuation should be adopted, which would make the duties unequal in different parts; and secondly, that the duties themselves should not become an element in the valuation. The practical sense of General Smith immediately exposed the futility of these conditions, which were looked upon, on all sides, as a mere salvo for an inevitable vote, extorted from him by the exigencies of his position; and several senators reminded him that his intentions and motives could have no effect upon the law, which would be executed according to its own words. The following is the debate on this point, very curious in itself, even in the outside view it gives of the manner of affecting great national legislation; and much more so in the inside view of the manner of passing this particular measure, so lauded in its day; and to understand which, the outside view must first be seen. It appears thus, in the prepared debates:

"Mr. Clay now rose to propose the amendment, of which he had previously given notice. The object was, that, after the period prescribed by the bill, all duties should thereafter be assessed on a valuation made at the port in which the goods are first imported, and under 'such regulations as may be prescribed by law.' Mr. C. said it would be seen, by this amendment, that, in place of having a foreign valuation, it was intended to have a home one. It was believed by the friends of the protective system, that such a regulation was necessary. It was believed by many of the friends of the system, that, after the period of nine and a half years, the most of our manufactures will be sufficiently grown to be able to support themselves under a duty of twenty per cent., if properly laid; but that, under a system of foreign valuation, such would not be the case. They say that it would be more detrimental to their interests than the lowest scale of duties that could be imposed; and you propose to fix a standard of duties. They are willing to take you at your word, provided you regulate this in a way to do them justice.

"Mr. Smith opposed the amendment, on the ground that it would be an increase of duties; that it had been tried before; that it would be impracticable, unequal, unjust, and productive of confusion, inasmuch as imported goods were constantly varying in value, and were well known to be, at all times, cheaper in New-York than in the commercial cities south of it. This would have the effect of drawing all the trade of the United States to New-York.

"Mr. Clay said he did not think it expedient, in deciding this question, to go forward five or six years, and make that an obstacle to the passage of a great national measure, which is not to go into operation until after that period. The honorable senator from Maryland said that the measure would be impracticable. Well, sir, if so, it will not be adopted. We do not adopt it now, said Mr. C.; we only adopt the principle, leaving it to future legislation to adjust the details. Besides, it would be the restoration of an ancient principle, known since the foundation of the government. It was but at the last session that the discriminating duty on goods coming from this side, and beyond the Cape of Good Hope, ten per cent. on one, and twenty per cent. on the other, was repealed. On what principle was it, said he, that this discrimination ever prevailed? On the principle of the home value. Were it not for the fraudulent invoices which every gentleman in this country was familiar with, he would not urge the amendment; but it was to detect and prevent these frauds that he looked upon the insertion of the clause as essentially necessary.

"Mr. Smith replied that he had not said that the measure was impracticable. He only intended to say that it would be inconvenient and unjust. Neither did he say that it would be adopted by a future Congress; but he said, if the principle was adopted now, it would be an entering wedge that might lead to the adoption of the measure. We all recollect, said Mr. S., that appropriations were made for surveys for internal improvements; and that these operated as entering wedges, and led to appropriations for roads and canals. The adoption of the principle contended for, by the senator from Kentucky, would not, in his (Mr. S.'s) opinion, prevent frauds in the invoices. That very principle was the foundation of all the frauds on the revenue of France and Spain, where the duties were assessed according to the value of the goods in the ports where entered. He again said that the effect of the amendment would be to draw the principal commerce of the country to the great city of New-York, where goods were cheaper.

"Mr. Forsyth understood, from what had fallen from the senator from Kentucky, that this was a vital question, and on it depended the success of this measure of conciliation and compromise, which was said to settle the distracted condition of the country. In one respect, it was said to be a vital question; and the next was, it was useful; and a strange contradiction followed: that the fate of this measure, to unite the jarrings of brother with brother, depended on the adoption of a principle which might or might not be adopted. He considered the amendment wrong in principle, because it would be both unequal and unjust in its operation, and because it would raise the revenue: as the duties would be assessed, not only on the value of the goods at the place whence imported, but on their value at the place of importation. He would, however, vote for the bill, even if the amendment were incorporated in it, provided he had the assurances, from the proper quarter, that it would effect the conciliation and compromise it was intended for.

"Mr. Clay had brought forward this measure, with the hope that, in the course of its discussion, it would ultimately assume such a shape as to reconcile all parties to its adoption, and tend to end the agitation of this unsettled question. If there be any member of this Congress (Mr. C. said), who says that he will take this bill now for as much as it is worth, and that he will, at the next Congress, again open the question, for the purpose of getting a better bill, of bringing down the tariff to a lower standard, without considering it as a final measure of compromise and conciliation, calculated also to give stability to a man of business, the bill, in his eyes, would lose all its value, and he should be constrained to vote against it.

"It was for the sake of conciliation, of nine years of peace, to give tranquility to a disturbed and agitated country, that he had, even at this late period of the session, introduced this measure, which, his respect for the other branch of the legislature, now sitting in that building, and who had a measure, looking to the same end, before them, had prevented him from bringing forward at an earlier period. But, when he had seen the session wearing away, without the prospect of any action in that other body, he felt himself compelled to come forward, though contrary to his wishes, and the advice of some of his best friends, with whom he had acted in the most perilous times.

"Mr. Calhoun said, he regretted, exceedingly, that the senator from Kentucky had felt it his duty to move the amendment. According to his present impressions, the objections to it were insurmountable; and, unless these were removed, he should be compelled to vote against the whole bill, should the amendment be adopted. The measure proposed was, in his opinion, unconstitutional. The constitution expressly provided that no preference should be given, by any regulation of commerce, to the ports of one State over those of another; and this would be the effect of adopting the amendment. Thus, great injustice and inequality must necessarily result from it; for the price of goods being cheaper in the Northern than in the Southern cities, a home valuation would give to the former a preference in the payment of duties. Again, the price of goods being higher at New Orleans and Charleston than at New-York, the freight and insurance also being higher, together with the increased expenses of a sickly climate, would give such advantages in the amount of duties to the Northern city, as to draw to it much of the trade of the Southern ones. In his view of the subject, this was not all. He was not merchant enough to say what would be the extent of duties under this system of home valuation; but, as he understood it, they must, of consequence, be progressive. For instance, an article is brought into New-York, value there 100 dollars. Twenty per cent. on that would raise the value of the article to one hundred and twenty dollars, on which value a duty of twenty per cent. would be assessed at the next importation, and so on. It would, therefore, be impossible to say to what extent the duties would run up. He regretted the more that the senator from Kentucky had felt it his duty to offer this amendment, as he was willing to leave the matter to the decision of a future Congress, though he did not see how they could get over the insuperable constitutional objections he had glanced at. Mr. C. appealed to the senator from Kentucky, whether, with these views, he would press his amendment, when he had eight or nine years in advance before it could take effect. He understood the argument of the senator from Kentucky to be an admission that the amendment was not now absolutely necessary. With respect to the apprehension of frauds on the revenue, Mr. C. said that every future Congress would have the strongest disposition to guard against them. The very reduction of duties, he said, would have that effect; it would strike at the root of the evil. Mr. C. said he agreed with the senator from Kentucky, that this bill will be the final effort at conciliation and compromise; and he, for one, was not disposed, if it passed, to violate it by future legislation.

"Mr. Clayton said that he could not vote for this bill without this amendment, nor would he admit any idea of an abandonment of the protective system; while he was willing to pass this measure, as one of concession from the stronger to the weaker party, he never could agree that twenty per cent. was adequate protection to our domestic manufactures. He had been anxious to do something to relieve South Carolina from her present perilous position; though he had never been driven by the taunts of Southern gentlemen to do that, which he now did, for the sake of conciliation. I vote for this bill, said Mr. C., only on the ground that it may save South Carolina from herself.

"Here Mr. C. yielded the floor to Mr. Calhoun, who said he hoped the gentleman would not touch that question. He entreated him to believe that South Carolina had no fears for herself. The noble and disinterested attitude she had assumed was intended for the whole nation, while it was also calculated to relieve herself, as well as them, from oppressive legislation. It was not for them to consider the condition of South Carolina only, in passing on a measure of this importance.

"Mr. Clayton resumed. Sir, said he, I must be permitted to explain, in my own way, the reasons which will govern me in the vote I am about to give. As I said before, I never have permitted the fears of losing the protective system, as expressed by the senator from Georgia, when he taunted us with the majority that they would have in the next Congress, when they would get a better bill, to influence my opinion upon this occasion. That we have been driven by our fears into this act of concession, I will not admit. Sir, I tell gentlemen that they may never get such another offer as the present; for, though they may think otherwise, I do not believe that the people of this country will ever be brought to consent to the abandonment of the protective system.

"Does any man believe that fifty per cent. is an adequate protection on woollens? No, sir; the protection is brought down to twenty per cent.; and when gentlemen come to me and say that this is a compromise, I answer, with my friend from Maine, that I will not vote for it, unless you will give me the fair twenty per cent.; and this cannot be done without adopting the principle of a home valuation. I do not vote for this bill because I think it better than the tariff of 1832, nor because I fear nullification or secession; but from a motive of concession, yielding my own opinions. But if Southern gentlemen will not accept this measure in the spirit for which it was tendered, I have no reason to vote for it. I voted, said Mr. C., against the bill of '32, for the very reason that Southern gentlemen declared that it was no concession; and I may vote against this for the same reasons. I thought it bad policy to pass the bill of '32. I thought it a bad bargain, and I think so now. I have no fear of nullification or secession; I am not to be intimidated by threats of Southern gentlemen, that they will get a better bill at the next session. "Rebellion made young Harry Percy's spurs grow cold." I will vote for this measure as one of conciliation and compromise; but if the clause of the senator from Kentucky is not inserted, I shall be compelled to vote against it. The protective system never can be abandoned; and I, for one, will not now, or at any time, admit the idea.

"Mr. Dallas was opposed to the proposition from the committee, and agreed with Mr. Calhoun. He would state briefly his objection to the proposition of the committee. Although he was from a State strongly disposed to maintain the protective policy, he labored under an impression, that if any thing could be done to conciliate the Southern States, it was his duty to go for a measure for that purpose; but he should not go beyond it. He could do nothing in this way, as representing his particular district of the country, but only for the general good. He could not agree to incorporate in the bill any principle which he thought erroneous or improper. He would sanction nothing in the bill as an abandonment of the principle of protection. Mr. D. then made a few remarks on home and foreign valuation, to show the ground of his objections to the amendment of Mr. Clay, though it did not prevent his strong desire to compromise and conciliation.

"Mr. Clay thought it was premature to agitate now the details of a legislation which might take place nine years hence. The senator from South Carolina had objected to the amendment on constitutional grounds. He thought he could satisfy him, and every senator, that there was no objection from the constitution.

"He asked if it was probable that a valuation in Liverpool could escape a constitutional objection, if a home valuation were unconstitutional? There was a distinction in the foreign value, and in the thing valued. An invoice might be made of articles at one price in one port of England, and in another port at another price. The price, too, must vary with the time. But all this could not affect the rule. There was a distinction which gentlemen did not observe, between the value and the rule of valuation; one of these might vary, while the other continued always the same. The rule was uniform with regard to direct taxation; yet the value of houses and lands of the same quality are very different in different places. One mode of home valuation was, to give the government, or its officers, the right to make the valuation after the one which the importer had given. It would prevent fraud, and the rule would not violate the constitution. It was an error that it was unconstitutional; the constitution said nothing about it. It was absurd that all values must be established in foreign countries; no other country on earth should assume the right of judging. Objections had been made to leaving the business of valuation in the hands of a few executive officers; but the objections were at least equally great to leaving it in the hands of foreigners. He thought there was nothing in the constitutional objection, and hoped the measure would not be embarrassed by such objections.

"Mr. Calhoun said that he listened with great care to the remarks of the gentleman from Kentucky, and other gentlemen, who had advocated the same side, in hopes of having his objection to the mode of valuation proposed in the amendment removed; but he must say, that the difficulties he first expressed still remained. Passing over what seemed to him to be a constitutional objection, he would direct his observation to what appeared to him to be its unequal operation. If by the home valuation be meant the foreign price, with the addition of freight, insurance, and other expenses at the port of destination, it is manifest that as these are unequal between the several ports in the Union--for instance, between the ports New-York and New Orleans--the duty must also be unequal in the same degree, if laid on value thus estimated. But if, by the home valuation be meant the prices current at the place of importation, then, in addition to the inequality already stated, there would have to be added the additional inequality resulting from the different rates of profits, and other circumstances, which must necessarily render prices very unequal in the several ports of this widely-extended country. There would, in the same view, be another and a stronger objection, which he alluded to in his former remarks, which remained unanswered--that the duties themselves constitute part of the elements of the current prices of the imported articles; and that, to impose a duty on a valuation ascertained by the current prices, would be to impose, in reality, a duty upon a duty, and must necessarily produce that increased progression in duties, which he had already attempted to illustrate.

"He knew it had been stated, in reply, that a system which would produce such absurd results could not be contemplated; that Congress, under the power of regulating, reserved in the amendment, would adopt some mode that would obviate these objections; and, if none such could be devised, that the provisions of the amendment would be simply useless. His difficulty was not removed by the answer to the objection. He was at a loss to understand what mode could be devised free from objection; and, as he wished to be candid and explicit, he felt the difficulty, as an honest man, to assent to a general measure, which, in all the modifications under which he had viewed it, was objectionable. He again repeated, that he regretted the amendment had been offered, as he felt a solicitude that the present controversy should be honorably and fairly terminated. It was not his wish that there should be a feeling of victory on either side. But, in thus expressing his solicitude for an adjustment, he was not governed by motives derived from the attitude which South Carolina occupied, and which the senator from Delaware stated to influence him. He wished that senator, as well as all others, to understand that that gallant and patriotic State was far from considering her situation as one requiring sympathy, and was equally far from desiring that any adjustment of this question should take place with the view of relieving her, or with any other motive than a regard to the general interests of the country. So far from requiring commiseration, she regarded her position with very opposite light, as one of high responsibility, and exposing her to no inconsiderable danger; but a position voluntarily and firmly assumed, with a full view of consequences, and which she was determined to maintain till the oppression under which she and the other Southern States were suffering was removed.

"In wishing, then, to see a termination to the present state of things, he turned not his eyes to South Carolina, but to the general interests of the country. He did not believe it was possible to maintain our institutions and our liberty, under the continuance of the controversy which had for so long a time distracted us, and brought into conflict the two great sections of the country. He was in the last stage of madness who did not see, if not terminated, that this admirable system of ours, reared by the wisdom and virtue of our ancestors--virtue, he feared, which had fled forever--would fall under its shocks. It was to arrest this catastrophe, if possible, by restoring peace and harmony to the Union, that governed him in desiring to see an adjustment of the question.

"Mr. Clayton said, this point had been discussed in the committee; and it was because this amendment was not adopted that he had withheld his assent from the bill. They had now but seven business days of this session remaining; and it would require the greatest unanimity, both in that body and in the other House, to pass any bill on this subject. Were gentlemen coming from the opposite extremes of the Union, and representing opposite interests, to agree to combine together, there would hardly be time to pass this bill into a law; yet if he saw that it could be done, he would gladly go on with the consideration of the bill, and with the determination to do all that could be done. The honorable member from South Carolina had found insuperable obstacles where he (Mr. C.) had found none. On their part, if they agreed to this bill, it would only be for the sake of conciliation; if South Carolina would not accept the measure in that light, then their motive for arrangement was at an end. He (Mr. C.) apprehended, however, that good might result from bringing the proposition forward at that time. It would be placed before the view of the people, who would have time to reflect and make up their minds upon it against the meeting of the next Congress. He did not hold any man as pledged by their action at this time. If the arrangement was found to be a proper one, the next Congress might adopt it. But, for the reasons he had already stated, he had little hope that any bill would be passed at this session; and, to go on debating it, day after day, would only have the effect of defeating the many private bills and other business which were waiting the action of Congress. He would therefore propose to lay the bill for the present on the table; if it were found, at a future period, before the expiration of the session, that there was a prospect of overcoming the difficulties which now presented themselves, and of acting upon it, the bill might be again taken up. If no other gentleman wished to make any observations on the amendment, he would move to lay the bill on the table.

"Mr. Bibb requested the senator from Delaware to withdraw his motion, whilst he (Mr. B.) offered an amendment to the amendment, having for its object to get rid of that interminable series of duties of which gentlemen had spoken.

"Mr. Clayton withdrew his motion.

"Mr. Bibb proceeded to say, that his design was to obviate the objection of the great increase that would arise from a system of home valuation. He hoped that something satisfactory would be done this session yet. He should vote for every respectable proposition calculated to settle the difficulty. He hoped there would be corresponding concessions on both sides; he wished much for the harmony of the country. It was well known that he (Mr. B.) was opposed to any tariff system other than one for revenue, and such incidental protection as that might afford. His hope was to strike out a middle course; otherwise, he would concur in the motion that had been made by the senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton]. Mr. B. then submitted his amendment, to insert the words 'before payment of,' &c.

"Mr. Clay was opposed to the amendment, and he hoped his worthy colleague would withdraw it. If one amendment were offered and debated, another, and another would follow; and thus, the remaining time would be wasted. To fix any precise system would be extremely difficult at present. He only wished the principle to be adopted.

"Mr. Bibb acceded to the wish of the senator from Kentucky, and withdrew his amendment accordingly.

"Mr. Tyler was opposed to the principle of this home valuation. The duties would be taken into consideration in making the valuations; and thus, after going down hill for nine and a half years, we would as suddenly rise up again to prohibition. He complained that there were not merchants enough on this floor from the South; and, in this respect, the Northern States had the advantage. But satisfy me, said Mr. T., that the views of the senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] are not correct, and I shall vote for the proposition.

"Mr. Moore said he would move an amendment which he hoped would meet the views of the gentlemen on the other side; it was to this effect:

"Provided, That no valuation be adopted that will operate unequally in different ports of the United States.

"Mr. Calhoun also wished that the amendment would prevail, though he felt it would be ineffectual to counteract the inequality of the system. But he would raise no cavilling objections; he wished to act in perfect good faith; and he only wished to see what could be done.

"Mr. Moore said he had but two motives in offering the amendment to the amendment of the senator. The first was, to get rid of the constitutional objections to the amendment of the senator from Kentucky; and the second was, to do justice to those he had the honor to represent. The honorable gentleman said that Mobile and New Orleans would not pay higher duties, because the goods imported there would be of more value; and this was the very reason, Mr. M. contended, why the duties would be higher. Did not every one see that if the same article was valued in New-York at one hundred dollars, and in Mobile at one hundred and thirty-five dollars, the duty of twenty per cent. would be higher at the latter place? He had nothing but the spirit of compromise in view, and hoped gentlemen would meet him in the same spirit. He would now propose, with the permission of the senator from Maine, to vary his motion, and offer a substitute in exact conformity with the language of the constitution. This proposition being admitted by general consent, Mr. Moore modified his amendment accordingly. (It was an affirmation of the constitution, that all duties should be uniform, &c).

"Mr. Forsyth supported the amendment of the senator from Alabama, and hoped it would meet the approbation of the Senate. It would get rid of all difficulty about words. No one, he presumed, wished to violate the constitution; and if the measure of the senator from Kentucky was consistent with the constitution, it would prevail; if not, it would not be adopted.

"Mr. Holmes moved an adjournment.

"Mr. Moore asked for the yeas and nays on the motion to adjourn, and they were accordingly ordered, when the question was taken and decided in the affirmative--Yeas 22, nays 19, as follows:

"YEAS.--Messrs. Bell, Clayton, Dallas, Dickerson, Ewing, Foot, Frelinghuysen, Holmes, Johnston, Kane, Knight, Naudain, Prentiss, Robbins, Robinson, Silsbee, Smith, Tipton, Tomlinson, Waggaman, Webster, Wilkins.--22.

"NAYS.--Messrs. Bibb, Black, Buckner, Calhoun, Clay, Dudley, Grundy, Hendricks, Hill, King, Miller, Moore, Poindexter, Sprague, Rives, Troup, Tyler, White, Wright.--19.

"The Senate then, at half-past four o'clock, adjourned.

"Friday, February 22.

"Mr. Smith (of Md.) said, the motion to amend by the word 'uniform' was unnecessary. That was provided for by the constitution. 'All duties must be uniform.' An addition to the cost of goods of forty, fifty, or sixty per cent. would be uniform, but would not prevent fraud, nor the certainty of great inequality in the valuation in the several ports. The value of goods at New Orleans particularly, and at almost every other port, will be higher than at New-York. I have not said that such mode was unconstitutional, nor have I said that it was impracticable; few things are so. But I have said, and do now say, that the mode is open to fraud, and more so than the present. At present the merchant enters his goods, and swears to the truth of his invoice. One package in every five or ten is sent to the public warehouse, and there carefully examined by two appraisers on oath. If they find fraud, or suspect fraud, then all the goods belonging to such merchants are sent to the appraisers; and if frauds be discovered, the goods are forfeited. No American merchant has ever been convicted of such fraud. Foreigners have even been severely punished by loss of their property. The laws are good and sufficiently safe as they now stand on our statutes. I wish no stronger; we know the one, we are ignorant how the other will work. Such a mode of valuation is unknown to any nation except Spain, where the valuation is arbitrary; and the goods are valued agreeably to the amount of the bribe given. This is perfectly understood and practised. It is in the nature of such mode of valuation to be arbitrary. No rule can be established that will make such mode uniform throughout the Union, and some of the small ports will value low to bring business to their towns. A scene of connivance and injustice will take place that no law can prevent.

"The merchant will be put to great inconvenience by the mode proposed. All his goods must be sent to the public warehouses, and there opened piece by piece; by which process they will sustain essential injury. The goods will be detained from the owners for a week or a month, or still more, unless you have one or two hundred appraisers in New-York, and proportionately in other ports; thus increasing patronage; and with such a host, can we expect either uniformity or equality in the valuation? All will not be honest, and the Spanish mode will be adopted. One set of appraisers, who value low, will have a priority. In fact, if this mode should ever be adopted, it will cause great discontent, and must soon be changed. As all understand the cause to be to flatter the manufacturers with a plan which they think will be beneficial to them, but which, we all know, can never be realized, it is deception on its face, as is almost the whole of the bill now under our consideration.

"Remember, Mr. President, that the senators from Kentucky and South Carolina [Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun], have declared this bill (if it should become a law), to be permanent, and that no honorable man who shall vote for it can ever attempt a change; yet, sir, the pressure against it will be such at the next session that Congress will be compelled to revise it; and as the storm may then have passed over Congress, a new Congress, with better feelings, will be able to act with more deliberation, and may pass a law that will be generally approved. Nearly all agree that this bill is a bad bill. A similar opinion prevailed on the passage of the tariff of 1828, and yet it passed, and caused all our present danger and difficulties. All admit that the act of 1828, as it stands on our statutes, is constitutional. But the senator [Mr. Calhoun] has said that it is unconstitutional, because of the motive under which it passed; and he said that that motive was protection to the manufacturers. How, sir, I ask, are we to know the motives of men? I thought then, and think now, that the approaching election for President tended greatly to the enactments of the acts of 1824 and 1828; many of my friends thought so at the time. I have somewhere read of the minister of a king or emperor in Asia, who was anxious to be considered a man of truth, and always boasted of his veracity. He hypocritically prayed to God that he might always speak the truth. A genii appeared and told him that his prayer had been heard, touched him with his spear, and said, hereafter you will speak truth on all occasions. The next day he waited on his majesty and said, Sire, I intended to have assassinated you yesterday, but was prevented by the nod of the officer behind you, who is to kill you to-morrow. The result I will not mention. Now, Mr. President, if the same genii was to touch with his spear each of the senators who voted for the act of 1828, and an interrogator was appointed, he would ask, what induced you to give that vote? Why sir, I acted on sound principles. I believe it is the duty of every good government to promote the manufactures of the nation; all historians eulogize the kings who have done so, and censure those kings who have neglected them. I refer you to the history of Alfred. It is known that the staple of England was wool, which was sent to Flanders to be exchanged for cloths. The civil wars, by the invasions of that nation, kept them long dependent on the Flemings for the cloths they wore. At length a good king governed; and he invited Flemish manufacturers to England, and gave them great privileges. They taught the youth of England, the manufacture succeeded, and now England supplies all the world with woollen cloth. The interrogator asked another the same question. His answer might have been, that he thought the passing of the law would secure the votes of the manufacturers in favor of his friend who wanted to be the President. Another answer might have been, a large duty was imposed on an article which my constituents raised; and I voted for it, although I disliked all the residue of the bill. Sir, the motives, no doubt, were different that induced the voting for that bill, and were, as we all know, not confined to the protective system. Many voted on political grounds, as many will on this bill, and as they did on the enforcing bill. We cannot declare a bill unconstitutional, because of the motives that may govern the voters. It is idle to assign such a cause for the part that is now acting in South Carolina. I know, Mr. President, that no argument will have any effect on the passage of this bill. The high contracting parties have agreed. But I owed it to myself to make these remarks.

"Mr. Webster said, that he held the home valuation to be, to any extent, impracticable; and that it was unprecedented, and unknown in any legislation. Both the home and foreign valuation ought to be excluded as far as possible, and specific duties should be resorted to. This keeping out of view specific duties, and turning us back to the principle of a valuation was, in his view, the great vice of this bill. In England five out of six, or nine out of ten articles, pay specific duties, and the valuation is on the remnant. Among the articles which pay ad valorem duties in England are silk goods, which are imported either from India, whence they are brought to one port only; or from Europe, in which case there is a specific and an ad valorem duty; and the officer has the option to take either the one or the other. He suggested that the Senate, before they adopted the ad valorem principle, should look to the effects on the importation of the country.

"He took a view of the iron trade, to show that evil would result to that branch from a substitution of the ad valorem for the specific system of duties. He admitted himself to be unable to comprehend the elements of a home valuation, and mentioned cases where it would be impossible to find an accurate standard of valuation of this character. The plan was impracticable and illusory.

"Mr. Clayton said, I would go for this bill only for the sake of concession. The senator from South Carolina can tell whether it is likely to be received as such, and to attain the object proposed; if not, I have a plain course to pursue; I am opposed to the bill. Unless I can obtain for the manufacturers the assurance that the principle of the bill will not be disturbed, and that it will be received in the light of a concession, I shall oppose it.

"Mr. Benton objected to the home valuation, as tending to a violation of the constitution of the United States, and cited the following clause: 'Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.' All uniformity of duties and imposts, he contended, would be destroyed by this amendment. No human judgment could fix the value of the same goods at the same rate, in all the various ports of the United States. If the same individual valued the goods in every port, and every cargo in every port, he would commit innumerable errors and mistakes in the valuation; and, according to the diversity of these errors and mistakes, would be the diversity in the amount of duties and imposts laid and collected in the different ports.

"Mr. B. objected to the home valuation, because it would be injurious and almost fatal to the southern ports. He confined his remarks to New Orleans. The standard of valuation would be fifteen or twenty per cent. higher in New Orleans than in New-York, and other northern ports. All importers will go to the northeastern cities, to evade high duties at New Orleans; and that great emporium of the West will be doomed to sink into a mere exporting city, while all the money which it pays for exports must be carried off and expended elsewhere for imports. Without an import trade, no city can flourish, or even furnish a good market for exports. It will be drained of its effective cash, and deprived of its legitimate gains, and must languish far in the rear of what it would be, if enriched with the profits of an import trade. As an exporter, it will buy; as an importer, it will sell. All buying, and no selling, must impoverish cities as well as individuals. New Orleans is now a great exporting city; she exports more domestic productions than any city in the Union; her imports have been increasing, for some years; and, with fair play, would soon become next to New-York, and furnish the whole valley of the Mississippi with its immense supplies of foreign goods; but, under the influence of a home valuation, it must lose a greater part of the import trade which it now possesses. In that loss, its wealth must decline; its capacity to purchase produce for exportation must decline; and as the western produce must go there, at all events, every western farmer will suffer a decline in the value of his own productions, in proportion to the decline of the ability of New Orleans to purchase it. It was as a western citizen that he pleaded the cause of New Orleans, and objected to this measure of home valuation, which was to have the most baneful effect upon her prosperity.

"Mr. B. further objected to the home valuation, on account of the great additional expense it would create; the amount of patronage it would confer; the rivalry it would beget between importing cities; and the injury it would occasion to merchants, from the detention and handling of their goods; and concluded with saying, that the home valuation was the most obnoxious feature ever introduced into the tariff acts; that it was itself equivalent to a separate tariff of ten per cent.; that it had always been resisted, and successfully resisted, by the anti-tariff interest, in the highest and most palmy days of the American system, and ought not now to be introduced when that system is admitted to be nodding to its fall; when its death is actually fixed to the 30th day of June, 1842, and when the restoration of harmonious feelings is proclaimed to be the whole object of this bill.

"Mr. B. said this was a strange principle to bring into a bill to reduce duties. It was an increase, in a new form--an indefinable form--and would be tax upon tax, as the whole cost of getting the goods ready for a market valuation here, would have to be included: original cost, freight, insurance, commissions, duties here. It was new protection, in a new form, and in an extraordinary form, and such as never could be carried before. It had often been attempted, as as a part of the American system, but never received countenance before.

"Mr. Calhoun rose and said:

"As the question is now about to be put on the amendment offered by the senator from Kentucky, it became necessary for him to determine whether he should vote for or against it. He must be permitted again to express his regret that the senator had thought proper to move it. His objection still remained strong against it; but, as it seemed to be admitted, on all hands, that the fate of the bill depended on the fate of the amendment, feeling, as he did, a solicitude to see the question terminated, he had made up his mind, not, however, without much hesitation, not to interpose his vote against the adoption of the amendment; but, in voting for it, he wished to be distinctly understood, he did it upon two conditions: first, that no valuation would be adopted that should come in conflict with the provision in the constitution which declares that duties, excises, and imposts shall be uniform; and, in the next place, that none would be adopted which would make the duties themselves a part of the element of a home valuation. He felt himself justified in concluding that none such would be adopted; as it had been declared by the supporters of the amendment, that no such regulation was contemplated; and, in fact, he could not imagine that any such could be contemplated, whatever interpretation might be attempted hereafter to be given to the expression of the home market. The first could scarcely be contemplated, as it would be in violation of the constitution itself; nor the latter, as it would, by necessary consequence, restore the very duties, which it was the object of this bill to reduce, and would involve the glaring absurdity of imposing duties on duties, taxes on taxes. He wished the reporters for the public press to notice particularly what he said, as he intended his declaration to be part of the proceedings.

"Believing, then, for the reasons which he had stated, that it was not contemplated that any regulation of the home valuation should come in conflict with the provisions of the constitution which he had cited, nor involve the absurdity of laying taxes upon taxes, he had made up his mind to vote in favor of the amendment.

"Mr. Smith said, any declaration of the views and motives, under which any individual senator might now vote, could have no influence, in 1842; they would be forgotten long before that time had arrived. The law must rest upon the interpretation of its words alone.

"Mr. Calhoun said he could not help that; he should endeavor to do his duty.

"Mr. Clayton said there was certainly no ambiguity whatever in the phraseology of the amendment. In advocating it, he had desired to deceive no man; he sincerely hoped no one would suffer himself to be deceived by it.

"Mr. Wilkins said, if it had been his intention to have voted against the amendment, he should have remained silent; but, after the explicit declaration of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] of the reason of his vote, and believing, himself, that the amendment would have a different construction from that given it by the gentleman, he [Mr. W.] would as expressly state, that he would vote on the question, with the impression that it would not hereafter be expounded by the declaration of any senator on this floor, but by the plain meaning of the words in the text.

"The amendment of Mr. Clay, fixing the principle of home valuation as a part of the bill, was then adopted, by the following vote:

"YEAS.--Messrs. Bell, Black, Bibb, Calhoun, Chambers, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Foot, Frelinghuysen, Hill, Holmes, Johnson, King, Knight, Miller, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Prentiss, Rives, Robbins, Sprague, Tomlinson, Tyler, Wilkins.--26.

"NAYS.--Messrs. Benton, Buckner, Dallas, Dickerson, Dudley, Forsyth, Grundy, Kane, Robinson, Seymour, Silsbee, Smith, Waggaman, Webster, White, Wright.--16."

And thus a new principle of protection, never before engrafted on the American system, and to get at which the constitution had to be violated in the article of the uniformity of duties, was established! and established by the aid of those who declared all protection to be unconstitutional, and just cause for the secession of a State from the Union! and were then acting on that assumption.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us