APRIL, 1824.

The Tariff Bill.

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tion of the district he represented, to illustrate the incalculable value of this staple, and the miracles he might almost say its production had effected. This spot was the Island of Edisto, which, as would be seen by the map of South Carolina, was about forty miles south of Charleston. Thirtyfive years since, it was inhabited by a few plant

penses, of 12 per cent. A manufacturer who works to the statistics of an island, which formed a porup this cotton, may produce a value infinitely increased, but he has had to vest a larger amount of capital, and so employ a greater quantum of labor, when all of which are deducted, his profits cannot, in the long run, exceed those of the planter. That they probably will be less, it proved from two facts: that the rate of interest and the price of labor are higher in this country than in Eng-ers, who were engaged in the culture of indigo, land.

It might be admitted that the honorable Speaker could make out his proposition, if we had actually existing in our country, languishing for the want of employment, an amount of fixed capital, and labor necessary to work up these five millions sterling value of raw cotton; but, when the reverse is precisely the case; when, in fact, all the capital we have is beneficially employed in the existing channels of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; when we have, in spite of all that has been said, no idlers, except those whom disease or immorality has doomed to mendicity; when the departments of human industry are full; when no man is a drone, except through his own perversity; when, in fact, labor and subsistence are in a wholesome and exact proportion to each other; what possible solidity is there in this argument of the Speaker's, of which it might be said, that it is destitute even of plausibility, but for the characteristic ingenuity with which it has been urged?

and who wrung, by hard industry, from a reluctant soil, a scanty subsistence. Then the largest income which any one planter was able to realize scarcely exceeded a thousand pounds sterling; now, by the introduction of the long staple cotton, he knew one individual whose crop had sold for fifty thousand dollars per annum. This island, scarcely twelve miles long and four wide, was then inhabited by six or seven planters; it is now almost as thickly settled as the State of Connecticut, and exhibits, in the sobriety, moderation, religious and moral worth of its inhabitants, a singular example of triumphant industry. It would be here that Franklin might see, if he were alive, a beautiful illustration of his thousand wise and frugal maxims. Mr. H. said that he had selected an individual picture, to bring home to the Committee, more emphatically, a knowledge of what the cotton culture had done for his country, although his remarks were applicable to a large portion of the Sea-Island district of South Carolina. It was, nevertheless, true, as he had remarked, that the planters in this section shared in that depression which is common to every department of the industry of the Union, excepting those from which we heard the most clamor for

The discussion of this subject, Mr. H. said, brought him to canvass, in the natural order of the Speaker's argument, a point in which he was willing to confess he felt the most lively as well as the most profound interest. Although not a cot-relief. This would be understood when it was ton planter himself, yet it was his peculiar fortune known that Sea Island cotton had fallen from to represent that portion of the State of South fifty or sixty to twenty-five cents-a fall even Carolina engaged in the production of sea-island greater than that which has attended wheat, of cotton, a section that had more staked in the des- which we have heard so much; as if the grainperate and unholy game about to be played, than growing section was the only agricultural interest any other part of this Union. He would, indeed, which had suffered. But, nevertheless, the marprove recreant to his trust if the topic did not ket of England for this staple, was of vital imchallenge his keenest sympathies and best exer- portance; it was not, therefore, strange that the tions. That the Committee might form some apprehension of the passage of the bill before you estimate of the value of this branch of the indus- had carried into the hearts of this portion of our try of South Carolina, he would bring a few facts common country, the emotions of dismay and to their notice; for, it was by the cultivation of bitterness. They perceive the whole value of their this beautiful staple which unites in itself the val- labor menaced by a probable destruction of the uable properties of silk and wool, that riches and existing market for this staple, which is better comfort had been lavished on that section-a re-adapted to the soil and climate of the sea coast of gion that was not, however, exempt from that depression in the value of property and the price of its products, which was common to the whole country. Yet, this cultivation had done so much for its inhabitants, that it was not surprising that they felt such an intense interest in the continuance of its profits. It had reclaimed from a fastcoming poverty worn-out fields, which had been for many years appropriated to the ill requited cultivation of indigo; and, as if by the work of enchantment, transferred wealth and abundance to those spots which seemed to have been cursed by the fiat of nature with an irremediable sterility. Mr. H. said that he could, if he were not afraid of exhausting the patience of the Committee, refer

South Carolina, than any other that can possibly be cultivated. Whilst the planters of this region do not dread competition in the foreign markets on equal terms, from the superiority of their cotton, they entertain a well founded apprehension, that the restrictions contemplated will lead to retaliatory duties on the part of Great Britain, which must end in their ruin.

Mr. H. said, that he could not better express their fears on this subject than to read to the House an extract from an able and feeling memorial which he had some weeks since the honor of presenting from the citizens of Beaufort, South Carolina. A single paragraph would be abundantly sufficient:

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"

The Tariff Bill.

Your memorialists would respectfully observe, that, engaged in common with their fellow-citizens of the South in agricultural pursuits, they are the cultivators of that species of cotton for which, it is notorious, the manufacturing establishments of our country furnish no demand whatever; that the quantity of fine cotton, annually produced, is already beyond the consumption of Europe; that, with all the markets of Europe open to them, the staple (for which alone their lands are calculated) is depressed to the grievous injury of the planters; that to them, (whatever it may

be to others of their fellow-citizens engaged in cultivating the inferior cottons,) the loss of a foreign market would be the annihilation of their income."

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APRIL, 1824.

country, is yet a doubtful and interesting problem. The experiments that are making on the Delta of the Nile, if pushed to the ocean, may result in the production of this beautiful staple, in an abundance which, in reference to other productions, has long blest and consecrated Egyptian fertility. But, the circumstance that many of the costly articles of luxury which are now made of Sea Island cotton, can be manufactured of silk and flax, coupled with the fact of the great efforts which are making in Great Britain to encourage the former establishments, not by bounties and monopolies, but by their destruction, (for these remedies are regarded there as vile quackeries,) I know, said Mr. H., that these fears are treated will tend emphatically to prove that the present is here as idle and visionary, and that the honorable an awful crisis in the cotton trade of the country. Speaker has triumphantly asked, "whether Great We are told by the honorable Speaker, that our Britain would have the folly materially to inter-manufacturing establishments will, in a very short 'dict the import of our cottons, from which she period, supply the place of the foreign demand. makes, annually, upwards of twenty millions, The futility, I will not say mockery, of this hope, 'because we imposed an increase of duty on about may be measured by one or two facts. First, the a million and a half's worth of the manufactured present consumption of cotton by our manufac'article returned to this country?" In the first tories, is about equal to one-sixth of our whole place the Speaker has fallen into an error in his production, not very much exceeding 80,000 bales; estimate. The bill before you provides for the whereas, the crop of 1824 may be fairly estimated imposition of an increase of duty almost prohibi- at 600,000 bags. How long it will take to increase tory in its character on seven millions of our im- these manufactories to a scale equal to the conports of cotton goods from Great Britain, and has sumption of this production, he could not venture a direct operation on thirteen millions of other to determine; but, that it will be some years after articles which we take from her. But the Speaker the epitaph will have been written on the fortunes assumes as a fact what his experience as a states- of the South, there can be little doubt. But supman should have taught him some caution in pose, for the sake of argument, that the whole of adopting; that nations invariably pursue a policy the cottons of the South could be worked up in dictated by the most enlightened views of profit this country, where will you find a market for the and advantage, and that they never sacrifice any articles manufactured-not at home; for, of the thing to caprice or resentment. Mr. H. said he 448,211 bales of cotton which Great Britain purfeared that the very measure now under discus- chased of this country, between the first of Jansion was about to illustrate the truth, that there uary, 1823, and the thirty-first of December, 1823, was no folly, however stupid and perverse, into she has sent back to us, according to the best calwhich nations, as well as individuals, were not culations, in the shape of manufactured articles, prone to fall, either from vanity or passion, or about 40,000 bags. Suppose, however, that our that misguided avarice, which invariably "doth home consumption be equivalent to 140,000 bales, o'erleap itself." (which is an enormous estimate,) where are you In relation to our Upland cottons, Great Brit- to find a vent for the articles manufactured of the ain may, without difficulty, in the course of a 460 bags that will remain? In South America, very short period, supply her wants from Brazil- the honorable Speaker tells us but what a fallacy to facilitate which, all the ancient relations of a have we here! What! whilst we dread British favored intercourse with her steadfast ally, Por- competition on our shores, more than Hamilcar tugal, would be at once subservient. When it is hated the Romans, we can, nevertheless, underrecollected that Brazil produces a cotton which sell England in foreign markets! Yes; whilst occupies an intermediate place between the Sea we are told that, for the very existence of manuIslands of Georgia and South Carolina, and the ufactures that have been in operation ten or fifteen Uplands of New Orleans, which the daily im- years, it is yet necessary to lay protecting duties provement in machinery is bringing nearer to the of from fifty to one hundred per cent., we can, former, as to most of its uses, and that there is in nevertheless, traverse the ocean, encounter freight this fine region, stretching through thirty-five de- and charges and duties in other countries, and grees of latitude, from the Equator, a section of compete with our old enemy, who is so much country admirably adapted to the cultivation of dreaded at home. How this is to be effected withthis staple, greater in extent than the whole At-out a miracle, Mr. H. said he was at a loss to perlantic States of this Union, the reasonableness of our apprehensions may be estimated, as well as the gross impolicy, by injurious duties on our imports from England, of driving her, either from caprice or interest, to seek other adequate sources of supply. How long the exclusive production, even of the Sea Island cotton, will remain to our

ceive, without our manufactures, like the Prophets of old, were more honored and successful abroad, than at their own firesides.

If there be any soundness in these views, it would lead us to entertain a very serious distrust of the belief that an imposition of high duties would not lead to retaliation. There was a gen

eral principle, which was so true in reference to the intercourse of nations, that it might well be denominated an axiom, which was, that no trade could be supported long between them, in which there was not a mutally beneficial exchange of their seperate products. It is true there was one exception to this rule, which rather went to prove its truth, and that was, the trade with China. This trade was continued, because tea was the exclusive product of the latter, and, consequently, that China might always dictate the medium by which the exchanges for this article were to be effected; but, if tea could be obtained in any other quarter of the globe, this intercourse would have to yield to the universal laws of trade.

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grievous imposition of high duties on both these articles. For what purpose, as it respects the first of them? To help the countless artisans and mechanics that are engaged in working up this material, in all the various and minute modifications to which it is applicable? No. On them (where there is the largest sum of industry engaged) it operates as an onerous tax. The effect of the duty will be merely to pamper the overgrown wealth of those ironmasters, as they were indeed most significantly called, whose mines were in successful operation, or to give a sort of convulsive, temporary, and galvanic motion, to those that were sunk into a condition of hopeless insolvency. The true causes of the occasional success, as well as the general failure of the iron works of this country, had been so ably unfolded by the gentleman from Virginia, his estimable friend, (Mr. MERCER,) that, Mr. H. said, he would not detain the House by discussing a subject on which it was impossible for human ingenuity to cast an additional ray. When this article was taken in connexion with the burdens levied on hemp, their injurious operation against one description of our domestic manufactures might be easily estimated-and that was ship building. The memorials which had been sent from the several commercial cities, had very sufficiently proved the ruinous extent to which the shipping interest would be taxed. That the contemplated tariff would be equivalent to a tax of from seven to eight per cent. on the value of each vessel that might be built, these memorials established. A ship of 350 tons, according to the proposed rate of duty, would pay $1,341 75-not including the tax on a chain cable, which is $250 or $300-an amount of duty equal to the cost of an hempen cable, and therefore might be regarded as prohibitory of the former article. All this was of most pernicious pressure on a large class of laborers engaged in the building and equipment of ships.

Mr. H. said that he protested against any inference being deduced from these remarks, that he considered the trade with China as injurious. He knew the reverse to be eminently true. In connexion with this topic, he would take occasion to observe, that he would as studiously abstain from discussing the balance of trade, as he would the history of witchcraft, as the former was just as absurd and exploded a folly as the latter. The time was fast approaching, when it would be quite as great a reproach to the understanding of a statesman, to indulge in the absurd dogmas of the one as the other. It was, however, a fact not to be concealed, that a direct trade, carried on by specie, was very often the most profitable, for reasons which appeared to him altogether satisfactory. In the first place, specie must be obtained by a product which a nation must gain by the engagement of its own industry. By the conversion of this product into money, a fresh and additional value has been effected, if the exchange has been conducted with skill and sagacity. When, therefore, a purchase is to be made with the specie thus obtained, the purchaser enters the foreign market with the power of promptly effecting his contracts and exchanges. The material which he uses in trade has been burdened with a light imposition of freight, is admitted without the payment of duties, and, being of universal use and currency, it can at once command its own value, without the delay and expense attending a trade which is carried on by the reciprocal sale and purchase of other raw or manufactured products. These truths were so obvious, that he felt ashamed, almost, to state them-but for the plaintive notes of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. TOD,) that our country was fast sinking into a lethargy from this most "ruinous drain of specie." Mr. HAMILTON said that he had intended, but for the time he had already consumed, to have gone into a discussion for the purpose of demonstrating that the bill, so far from promoting what with propriety might be called the domestic manufactures of the country, was calculated to have "Take, for example, a ship of 300 tons, and allow precisely a contrary effect. When he made this 120 days to build her, which is about the average remark he had reference to those innumerable me- time; multiply 300 by 50, makes 15,000 days labor, chanic arts which are carried on with such unri- to manufacture her from the raw material, beginning valled success by our countrymen. The justice with the timber in the forest; divide 15,000 by 120 of this observation might be appreciated by taking days, the time required, gives you the number of peofor example two or three articles of prime neces-ple steadily employed to build ships of 300 tons, in sity-iron and hemp. The bill provides for the 120 days time, which is 125 men.

Mr. H. said there was a radical error prevalent that manufacturing establishments, in other words, looms and spindles, were productive of a greater sum of human industry than any other investment of capital. He believed that ship building and navigation employed more of the labor of human hands than any other pursuit. When the various means by which a single ship is set in motion are taken into account, some estimate may be formed of the truth of this opinion. To illustrate it he would ask the attention of the Committee, whilst he read a statement which he had received from a merchant of the city of New York, of great intelligence and respectability, who informed him that "it requires fifty days work to build and equip and manufacture the articles in our own country for every ton of vessel.

"The capital required by a ship builder to carry on the whole manufactory, in its various branches, and to build 1,200 tons a year, would be about $25,000, and in that ratio, if he built more or less.

"Our yard built, this last year, 2,200 tons of vessels; consequently, if I am correct, has employed 110,000 days labor; and the average of the yards, I should think, would be about 60,000. There are eight yards in this city which manufacture vessels. Five or six, probably, would average as above-say five; 60,000, multiplied by 5, would be 300,000 days labor, in one year, in these yards, and would be equal to the employment of 2,500 men steadily in the various parts of the manufactory.

"The above is distinct from the labor necessary to sail, load, raise, and procure, and transport the loading, and the necessary repair for ten years. A ship of 350 tons, in ten years, will have cost as much for repairs as she did originally, when new; it requires an average of 60 men, steadily employed, to sail her, and keep her fit for use. It also costs 18,900 days labor to raise, bring to market, and fit provisions sufficient to maintain the men necessary to manufacture 1,000 tons of ship, and keep one of 350 tons steadily employed.

APRIL, 1824.

ultation in the apparently indefinite capabilities of man. To an American, this spectacle is calculated to convey peculiar emotions. In a ship, he may see the emblem of his country's prosperity and power-an engine which has lavished wealth on our shores and glory on our name. Mr. H. said that he had made such an unreasonable trespass on the time of the Committee that he was constrained to offer a very brief summary, in the way of reply to the remaining positions taken by the honorable Speaker. One of the most important of these was, that the passage of the tariff would, by the multiplication of manufactures, produce steady demand for labor. If the experience of Great Britain furnished any instruction on this topic, it warranted quite a different deduction; for her manufacturing establishments supplied, of all her various branches of industry, the least certain demand for labor. This resulted from the very nature of things. The imposition of an import duty in a foreign country, on the article manufactured, or an abolition of its. use by the very caprice of fashion, was calculated to disturb, very seriously, the uniformity of this demand. It had been very justly said, that a whim or freak in a Parisian belle, in laying aside a fashionable article of dress, had very often thrown thousands out of employment, and carried starvation and beggary in its train. The melancholy circumstances of distress so often exhibited in the manufacturing districts of England, afforded the best proof of this tremendous fluctuation. Nor is it absolutely certain, if the Speaker could "Recapitulation. As I have stated, it requires 50 see the capital of the country vested more generdays labor to manufacture the ship and outfits, for each ally in manufactures, that he would find a cure ton; 60 days labor, each ton, to sail, keep her in re- for those bankruptcies which he says have been pair, load and unload, raise, and transport sufficient of such frequent and fatal occurrence, and which produce to keep her employed; and will require 28 he seems to consider as peculiarly incident to days labor, for each ton, to raise and fit provisions for trade. In England, the failures among her manthose men that are required to build, fit, sail, and re-ufacturers bear a high and undue proportion to pair, and raise the produce, to keep one ton of vessel steadily employed."

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The number of houses used by the men employed, and, consequently, the men employed to build those houses, as well as the provision required for them, I have not calculated, deeming it probable the above would give a general view of the immense manufacture of ships; and, when we look at it in a national point of view, it is of incalculable importance. The men are the most robust and hearty to be found, and a class always that will be most required should we

have war.

It is against this domestic manufacture, which has contributed so much to our wealth and glory, that this pernicious tariff strikes a reckless blow. The honorable Speaker (Mr. CLAY) ventures almost to intimate that he thinks it a perversion of terms to call a ship an article of manufacture, which it has been so justly designated by the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. WEBSTER,) whose defence of the navigating interests of the prosperous city he represents on this floor, must entitle him to its lasting gratitude and confidence. A ship, said Mr. H., is the chef d'œuvre of manufactures. Whilst, in its construction and motion, it sustains a greater amount of human industry than any other mechanical contrivance, it was at once the noblest triumph which man had achieved over the elements, and one of the proudest trophies of his genius. No one, but him whose soul is dead to every generous impulse, can witness this beautiful machine, riding with apparent supremacy over the boisterous main, (which but for the invention would have fixed impassable barriers to the intercourse and civilization of the human species,) without feeling new pride and ex

the other business classes. A popular journal of our own country furnishes the following statement in reference to this topic: "We have taken up the first English magazine that came to hand, and out of one hundred and forty bankruptcies in the month from November 14th, to December 15th, 1821, twenty only were of mercantile establishments, and the other six-sevenths of every species of manufactures."

Mr. H. said, that in all that had been urged as objections to building up large manufacturing establishments in this country, on account of the morals and health of the people, (which were no insignificant items in the estimate of a patriot and statesman,) he fully concurred. That a few capitalists should control the votes of three or four hundred electors, he thought an evil exhibiting the most frightful portents. The answer which the Speaker had given to this objection was neither sound nor satisfactory-"that all large employments in which capital is used for the purchase of wages are liable to this complaint." In no branch of human industry has the employer, however, such a perfect dominion over the laborer, and in none is the latter so entirely dependent for his bread on the former. The very