yet it cannot be protected by a duty of 12 per cent., the present duty; but a duty of 25 per cent. is necessary, and, on manufactured lead, higher in proportion. We have a climate which will produce wool every where, and a duty of 15 per cent. to protect it; yet we cannot have it produced in this country. We have iron ore in great abundance, fuel, and labor, and iron is now protected by a duty of at least 40 per cent.; yet the makers of iron are suffering for protection. We have grain in abundance, yes, "rotting in our barns and granaries," and a duty on foreign spirits averaging 200 per cent. ; yet, this is not a sufficient protection to domestic industry. When you add to these advantages the low price of land, the abundance of fuel, convenience of navigation, and the exemption from the payment of freight, duty, insurance, commissions, &c., to which the foreign producer and manufacturer are subjected, and find we cannot grow or manufacture, is it not evident that the cause is not the want of protection; but that it proceeds from causes connected with the new and unsettled state of the country? As men advance gradually from infancy to old age, so does society. No people have been instantaneously a commercial or a manufacturing people. The natural state of man is the savage statethe next, the pastoral, and the next the agricultural. At the settlement of our country, we had passed the first stages, and had agricultural habits, received from the land of our fathers; and our commerce and manufactures are rising into existence as rapidly as they ought. Whenever agriculture, in any country, has a surplus which cannot be consumed by the producer, commerce rises. If a country has, at the same time, a surplus production, at any one point, which cannot be advantageously employed in agriculture, they are their own carriers; if not, other nations carry for them. When the people become too numerous to find employment in agriculture and commerce, they necessarily seek employment in manufactures. But a small portion of our country, and that certainly not the West, with its millions of unseated lands, has ever found that surplus population which prepares a nation to manufacture. The manufacturing age of any nation is the one which precedes and mingles with its decline. Not, indeed, often an enviable period in its history; because, as the markets fluctuate, as affected by war or peace, or the destruction of crops, it brings forth its swarms of paupers and a starving tumultuous people, imploring Government to relieve them from famine, and are ready to join any faction. In our country, with our free institutions and extended right of suffrage, the influence which the proprietor of a large manufactory must have over those dependent on him for bread, would be severely felt, in destroying the freedom of elections. The command over a man's means of subsistence and that of his family, independently of that servile disposition which dependence creates, gives a command over his will and his freedom. The slavish condition of the laborers employed in manufactories, and in which they only engage from necessity, has a tendency, also, to destroy both the

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spirit of patriotism and the physical energy on which the nation might rely, from her militia, in times of war. It is, therefore, calulated to impair our means of national defence and destroy the best feelings of patriotism. I know the correct manner in which the manufactories now established are conducted, and the attention paid to the preservation of morals. But these establishments are now in their infancy, and have a character to create. The time must come, as it has in other countries, when the proprietors will be more anxious to increase their wealth than preserve the morals of their laborers. All experience shows that the contagion of example and the effect of association, where a great number are collected together, tends to contaminate the morals of the whole. The people of cities hence, are less virtuous than the people dispersed, in their habitations, through the country. The Speaker, with a view to another point, states an important fact in relation to the increase of our population. We double our population, he says, in about twenty-five years, while scarcely any other nation has the same result in less than a century. To what other causes can that be attributed but to an exemption from a precarious support, to be obtained by labor in manufactories, and to the ease with which lands can be procured and a family supported, inviting to early marriages? I am not willing to destroy this course of national strength and wealth, by forcing men from agriculture. Who has not witnessed, with pleasure, the happy effects of emigration to the new and unseated parts of our country? A man, with his wife and family of small children, leaves a part of the country where the high price of lands prevent him either from being able to purchase or rent. His earthly substance, with the children unable to walk, are packed upon a horse, followed by himself and wife and those able to travel. In this way he pursues a journey of some hundreds if not thousands of miles, seats himself on lands that soon becomes his own; plenty smiles around him, and he dies with the pleasing thought that his children are freemen, and not slaves-the lords of the soil. On a people of such enterprise, thus educated, you can depend, in the day of battle. There is something in the freedom of the country, in the ownership of the soil-no matter whether the proprietor be seated on the fertile plain, or his habitation be perched near the eagle's nest on the mountain sidewhich inspires a feeling of independence and a love of country that nothing produced in any other situation can equal. With what enthusiasm, in the last war, did even mothers surrender their darling sons, the only prop of declining age, for their country's defence; and with what Spartan heroism did they offer their lives on the northern and northwestern frontier and on the plains of Orleans? While this proportion of this kind of population greatly exceeds all others, our national defence, liberty, and independence, are secure. Not so when the manufacturing class preponderates. We are then verging to old age and dissolution. I would not, willingly, drive men from those pursuits that make them independent, patri

otic, wealthy, virtuous, and happy, to those which make them poor, dependent, servile, corrupt, miserable slaves. I would increase the number of the cultivators of the soil; for there, should ever liberty desert our country, will her last vestiges be found. If this be "foreign policy," I do not blush to be its advocate.

This brings me, Mr. Chairman, to examine the probable effects of this bill on the revenue, should it pass into a law. Our mode of collecting the whole revenue of the country, from a duty on imports, and which is collected with little expense, and scarcely felt by the people, is peculiar to this country. It must fail whenever it becomes our interest to manufacture, instead of directing nearly our whole force to agriculture, finding it more advantageous to pay a duty averaging 40 or 50 per cent. on foreign manufactures, than to manufacture for ourselves. For, it is evident, when our state, as that of England does her, enables us to manufacture, the distance and expenses attending importation will not only protect our own manufactures, but prohibit importation. If this state of things be permitted to arrive gradually, we become better able to bear excise and direct taxes, and may gradually impose them to meet the deficiency in the revenue. If brought upon us, at this time, we are wholly unprepared to meet them, and I am certain would not bear them. That the design of this bill is to diminish importation, and to act as a prohibition, we have from the chairman of the committee who reported it to the House. He says we import, annually, upwards of $15,000,000 of foreign articles, which we can have as well, and better, in our own country, and which, I presume, it is intended to prohibit, as quickly as possible. If this bill will not answer the purpose, I have no doubt he would consent to report one which would. But, sir, no declaration of intention was necessary. No man can examine this bill without feeling that, regardless of the design, the effect would be to prohibit, or nearly so, the importation of goods, the duties on which, from a statement laid on our tables, amount to upwards of seven millions of dollars. But, admit it should not go the whole extent of prohibition to that amount, even a considerable portion could not be borne, and the Government supported, without resort to internal taxes. The mode of laying the duty on coarse cottons and woollens, is extremely exceptionable, because calculated to deceive. If the intention of the committee was to place a duty of from 93 to 117 per cent. immediately, and from 104 to 130, after June, 1825, on coarse woollens called plains, and a duty of from 78 to 111 per cent. on printed calicoes, why not say so, in direct terms, and not make a duty nominally only 25 per cent. by fixing the price of a yard at one-third more than it cost, make duty much higher than it appears. The duty on coarse cottons, by the tariff of 1816, was nominally 25 per cent., but every yard was estimated to have cost 25 cents, a price more than three times its real cost, at the place of manufacture, and which made the duty really more than 80 per cent. Here let me remark, that, if the duty

APRIL, 1824.

of 1816 on coarse cottons, operated as a prohibition, as it really did, the duty I have mentioned on coarse calicoes and plains ought to have, and would have, the same effect. The proposed duty on cotton shirting is from 49 to 70 per cent.; on cotton checks it is from 673 to 70 per cent.; on brown Holland, 72 per cent.; on osnaburgs and cotton bagging, about 50 per cent.; and on paper, about 66 per cent. The articles are selected to show the general character of the bill, and to justify my remark, which I have made, that it is, in its nature, prohibitory. These calculations I have not made, but they are made by those much better acquainted with such things, and who, I presume, would not hazard their reputations by false statements. They are principally found in the memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of New York. These duties, if they operate to raise the prices, as they must, fall most heavily on a class of people the least able to bear such burdens, the poor and laboring class. A duty on fine cloths could either be paid by the rich, or would leave them the alternative of wearing something of an inferior quality; but the poor have no alternative but to buy at the prices for which they are offered, or do without them. The experience of the last war also shows, that when prices are unusually high, that portion of the community which can do so, resort to family manufactures, and that the use of all others is much diminished. These high duties, then, if attended with any thing like a corresponding high price of the domestic manufacture, instead of giving protection to domestic manufactures, would diminish the consumption, and force all who could to supply their wants by family manufactures. This was seen in the last war.

The effect of high duties, in producing smuggling, with all its concomitant evils, I never can view without horror. For smuggling, no country not even England-is so well adapted as the United States. An immense seacoast, studded with islands, and extending from Passamaquoddy to the Sabine, and a large portion of that_but thinly populated; by land, bounded on the East, the North, the Northwest, and the West, by the territories of other Governments, a portion of which has a chain of lakes united by rivers, to which there are thousands of inlets, affording facilities to smuggling. Hitherto the feelings of our people have been on the side of the Government, because the duties have been moderate, and, although we have the most virtuous people on earth, the experience of the restrictive measures preceding the last war, and the war itself, show that they can be corrupted. All men are liable to be operated on by their avarice or their necessities. A part of one of the best prayers ever uttered, is "Lead us not into temptation." Do not corrupt your people, by making it their interest to be corrupt, or because the demand for necessary clothing, which they cannot otherwise obtain, requires them to be corrupt. When you do, you will find Dirk Hateraicks on your coast, and a people ready to deal with and protect him in his illicit trade. Some gentlemen here know that the famous Lafitte supplied one part of the coun

try with goods, through Barataria, during the restrictive measures and the last war, and publicly walked the streets of New Orleans, in defiance of your public officers, and in contempt of your laws. To prevent this, you must increase the number of revenue officers, now under your moderate duties almost unnecessary, except for the mere purpose of collecting them.

But, sir, the gentlemen have found a remedy for the deficiency anticipated by themselves, by the prohibitory nature of this tariff, in the increase of duty on other articles. What are those articles? Molasses, spirits, fruits, and silks, I presume-the proposed duties on which must diminish the consumption, if not wholly prohibit the importation. If it were true that an increase of duty increased the revenue, it would be easy to collect the revenue from a few articles. Experience shows things will bear a reasonable duty, and no more. Go beyond that, and they are smuggled, they are adulterated, the consumption is diminished, or they are prohibited. The maxim of Dean Swift is true, when understood, that, in the science of political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four. Reducing the duty often increases the revenue, and an increase of the duty often diminishes the revenue, and the revenue does not always increase in the proportion the duty is increased. These positions I propose to illustrate by a few of the numerous examples drawn from the experience of England, France, and the United States. Previously to 1784, the duty on tea, in England, was four shillings a pound, and produced £180,000; and when reduced, in 1745, to one shilling per pound, produced, in 1746, £243,309 in revenue. In 1748, the duty on tea was again increased, and fluctuated between 64 and 119 per cent., until 1784, with but little increase of revenue; but the adulteration, by the use of sloe and ash leaves, was practised to an astonishing extent. In the year 1784, the duty was reduced to 12 per cent., and in the two next years the consumption was trebled, and in 1819 100 per cent. In 1742, the high duties on spirits ceased, in consequence of which the revenue was increased, and morals improved. Let it be remarked, that foreign spirits is one of the items in this bill, and which now pays a duty of 200 per cent. on the average, and the duty on which it is proposed again to increase a duty which is in its nature prohibitory, and from which we now derive a revenue of upwards of $2,000,000. In 1787, Mr. Pitt reduced the duty on wine 50 per cent., by which the revenue was increased. The duty on coffee was increased in 1805 onethird, by which the revenue was diminished oneeighth, and in 1806, one-sixteenth. It was again, in 1808, reduced from two shillings to seven pence per cwt.; and the revenue, which, for three years preceding the reduction, had averaged only £166,000, increased to £195,000. In 1800, the duty on glass was doubled, but there was no increase of the revenue. In 1813, the duty on leather was doubled, which might have been expected to double the revenue derived from that source; but, although it had previously produced £394,000, it only produced half a million. The duty on 18th CoN. 1st SESS.-64

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wine, subsequently to the time I have before mentioned, was increased; and, in consequence of that increase, the revenue was diminished onefourth. A similar instance has been cited, in the course of this discussion, in relation to the revenue of the United States, of an increase of revenue on wines, corresponding with the diminished duty. In France, in 1775, Mr. Turgot is said to have reduced the duty, &c., on fish, in the Paris market; but the revenue was not thereby in the least diminished. From the high duties proposed on the articles from which it is expected the deficiency in the revenue is to be supplied, it appears to me, if experience teaches any thing, the examples I have cited teach us to hope for nothing like an increase of revenue. Although Mr. Speaker is prepared to recommend an excise, I confess I feel some horror at the name of an exciseman; and nothing but a full conviction that nothing else would support the honor, the welfare, and safety, of my country, would induce me to send this odious class of public officers among the people.

I have incidentally shown the corrupting influence of this policy on the morals of the country, by enlisting the feelings of the people against the Government, and in favor of the smuggler, and by collecting people together in numbers; and on the liberty of the country, by its influence on the freedom of elections, and the means of defence by land and sea.

It now becomes my duty, said Mr. R., to examine some of the reasons which are supposed to demand this extraordinary interposition of the Government to rescue a large portion of the people, if not the nation, from degradation and ruin. The balance of trade with other nations, it is said, is against us, as appears from the Treasury reports, and books of the custom-houses. Indeed, the balance of trade has in this way appeared against us constantly, from the origin of our Government, and foreign nations continue to deal with us, and we are not ruined. The very suggestion is so ridiculous, that had it been confined to the Philadelphia mint of pamphlets on the tariff, where, I believe, it originated, I should not have deemed it worthy of notice; but, as it has been echoed and re-echoed within these walls, I propose to give it some examination. Suppose an American merchant exports from one of the ports of the United States a cargo estimated at the custom-house at $5,000, which he carries to the West Indies, and, in exchange, obtains the produce of that country, worth $10,000, and which, instead of bringing immediately home, he disposes of in some port of Europe for a cargo of merchandise valued at $20,000, which he imports to the very place which he had previously left with a cargo valued at $5,000. In this instance the balance of trade appears to be against us, as we have imported $15,000 more than we have exported; yet, $15,000 are gained to the nation. Suppose, again, the merchant exports a cargo valued at $10,000 where exported, and which, at the port of destination, he is compelled to sell for $5,000, with which he returns to the United States; here, it would appear, we are doing an excellent business,