‘Resolved, that the secretaries of state, of the treasury, of
war, and of the navy departments, and the postmaster general,
be severally directed, as soon as practicable to report what
offices can be abolished, and what retrenchments of public
expenditure can be made, without public detriment, in the
respective branches of the public service under their charge.’
We all know that, if the heads of departments will not go to work with
us honestly and faithfully, in truth and sincerity, congress, thus
unaided, can effect comparatively but little. I hope they will enter
with us on this good work of retrenchment and reform. I shall be the
last to express in advance any distrust of their upright intentions
in this respect. The only thing that alarms me is, that two of these
departments have come to us asking for appropriations far beyond any
that have heretofore been demanded in time of peace, and that with the
full knowledge of the fact of an empty treasury. But I still hope, when
they shall see congress heartily, in earnest, engaged in retrenching
useless expenditure, and reducing estimates that cannot be complied
with, that they will boldly bring out to view all abuses which exist in
their several spheres of action, and let us apply the pruning-knife, so
as to reduce the national expenditure within some proper and reasonable
amount. At all events, they are, of course, most familiar with the
details of the subject, as it relates to their several branches of
the administration. Among other items, there are several useless mints,
which only operate to waste the public money. A friend, occupied in
investigating this subject, has told me that the mint in New Orleans
has already cost the country half a million of dollars, for getting
ready to coin bullion not yet dug out of the mine!
[Mr. Berrien here spoke across something not heard by the
reporter, in relation to the mint at Dahlonega, which excited
much mirth in the neighboring part of the chamber.]
While every piece of coin made by these useless establishments could
just as well be coined by the central mint, at Philadelphia.
And now, having gone through with all the details of this series of
resolutions, which I thought it my duty to notice, allow me, in drawing
to a conclusion of these remarks, to present some of the advantages
which it appears to me should urge us to adopt the system of financial
arrangement contemplated in the resolutions.
And first, the government will, in this way, secure to itself an
adequate amount of revenue, without being obliged to depend on
temporary and disreputable expedients, and thus ♦preserve the public
credit unsullied, which I deem a great advantage of the plan. Credit is
of incalculable value, whether to a nation or an individual. England,
proud England, a country with which we may one day again come in
conflict――though it gives me pleasure to say, that I cannot perceive
at present the least ‘speck of war’ in the political horizon――owes her
greatness, her vastness of power, pervading the habitable globe, mainly
to her strict and uniform attention to the preservation of the national
credit.
Second. The next thing recommended is retrenchment in the national
expenditure, and greater economy in the administration of the
government. And do we not owe it to this bleeding country, to ourselves,
and the unparalleled condition of the time, to exhibit to the world
a fixed, resolute, and patriotic purpose, to reduce the public
expenditure to an economical standard?
Third. But a much more important advantage than either of those I
have yet adverted to, is to be found in the check which the adoption
of this plan will impose on the efflux of the precious metals from
this country to foreign countries. I shall not now go into the causes
by which the country has been brought down from the elevated condition
of prosperity it once enjoyed, to its present state of general
embarrassment and distress. I think that those causes are as distinctly
in my understanding and memory as any subjects were ever impressed
there; but I have no desire to go into a discussion which can only
revive the remembrance of unpleasant topics. My purpose, my fixed
purpose on this occasion, has been to appeal to all gentlemen on all
political sides of this chamber, to come out, and make a sacrifice of
all lesser differences, in a patriotic, generous, and general effort,
for the relief of their country. I shall not open these bleeding
wounds which have, in too many instances, been inflicted by brothers’
hands――especially will I not do so at this time, and on this occasion.
I shall look merely at facts as they are. I shall not ask what have
been the remote causes of the depression and wretchedness of our once
glorious and happy country. I will turn my view only on causes which
are proximate, indisputable, and immediately before us.
One great if not sole cause is to be found in the withdrawal of coin
from the country, to pay debts accrued or accruing abroad, for foreign
imports, or debts contracted during former periods of prosperity,
and still hanging over the country. How this withdrawal operates in
practice, is not difficult to be understood. The banks of the country,
when they are in a sound state, act upon this coin as the basis of
their circulation and discounts; the withdrawal of it not only obliges
the banks to withhold discounts and accommodations, but to draw in
what is due from their debtors, at the precise time when they, sharing
in the general stricture, are least able to meet the calls. Property
is then thrown into the market, to raise means to comply with those
demands, depression ensues, and, as is invariably the case when there
is a downward tendency in its value, it falls below its real worth.
But the foreign demand for specie, to pay commercial and other public
debt, operates directly upon the precious metals themselves, which
are gathered up by bankers, and brokers, and others, obtained from
these depositories, and thence exported. Thus, this foreign demand
has a double operation, one upon the banks, and through them upon the
community, and the other upon the coin of the country. Gentlemen, in
my humble opinion, utterly deceive themselves in attributing to the
banking institutions all the distresses of the country. Doubtless, the
erroneous and fraudulent administration of some of them, has occasioned
much local and individual distress. But this would be temporary and
limited, whilst the other cause――the continued efflux of specie from
the country――if not arrested, would perpetuate the distress. Could
you annihilate every bank in the union, and burn every bank note, and
substitute in their place a circulation of nothing but the precious
metals, as long as such a tariff continues as now exists, two years
would not elapse till you would find the imperative necessity of some
paper medium for conducting the domestic exchanges.
I announce only an historical truth, when I declare, that during, and
ever since our colonial existence, necessity has given rise to the
existence of a paper circulation of some form, in every colony on
this continent; and there was a perpetual struggle between the crown
and royal governors on one hand, and the colonial legislatures on the
other, on this very subject of paper money. No; if you had to-morrow a
circulation consisting of nothing but the precious metals, they would
leave you as the morning dew leaves the fields, and you would be left
under the necessity of devising a mode to fill the chasm produced by
their absence.
I am ready to make one concession to the gentlemen on the other side.
I admit that, if the circulation were in coin alone, the thermometer
of our monetary fluctuations would not rise as high, or fall as low
as when the circulation is of a mixed character, consisting partly of
coin and partly of paper. But then the fluctuations themselves, within
a more circumscribed range, would be quite as numerous, and they will
and must exist so long as such a tariff remains as forces the precious
metals abroad. I again repeat the assertion that, could you annihilate
to-morrow every bank in the country, the very same description of
embarrassment, if not in the same degree, would still be found which
now pervades our country.
What, then, is to be done, to check this foreign drain? We have
tried free trade. We have had the principles of free trade operating
on more than half the total amount of our comforts, for the greater
part of nine years past. That will not do, we see. Do let me recall to
the recollection of the senate the period when the protective system
was thought about to be permanently established. What was the great
argument then urged against its establishment? It was this: that if
duties were laid directly for protection, then we must resort to direct
taxation to meet the wants of the government; everybody must make up
their minds to a system of internal taxation. Look at the debate in
the house of representatives of 1824, and you will find that was the
point on which the great stress was laid. Well, it turned out as the
friends of protection told you it would. We said that such would not
be the effect. True, it would diminish importation, as it did; but the
augmented amount of taxes would more than compensate for the reduced
amount of goods. This we told you, and we were right.
How has free trade operated on other great interests? I well remember,
that, ten years ago, one of the most gifted of the sons of South
Carolina, (Mr. Hayne,) after drawing a most vivid and frightful picture
of the condition of the south――of fields abandoned, houses dilapidated,
overseers becoming masters, and masters overseers, general stagnation,
and approaching ruin; a picture which, I confess, filled me with
dismay――cried out to us, abolish your tariff, reduce your revenue to
the standard of an economical government, and once more the fields
of South Carolina will smile with beauty, her embarrassments will
vanish, commerce will return to her harbors, labor to her plantations;
augmented prices for her staples, and contentment, and prosperity, and
universal happiness to her oppressed people. Well, we did reduce the
tariff, and, after nine years of protection, we have had nine years of
a descending tariff and of free trade. Nine years, (from 1824 to 1833,)
we had the protective policy of a high tariff; and nine years, (from
1833 to 1842,) we have had the full operation of free trade on more
than a moiety of the whole amount of our imports, and a descending
tariff on the residue. And what is the condition of South Carolina
at this day? Has she regained her lost prosperity? Has she recovered
from the desolation and ruin so confidently imputed to the existence
of a high tariff? I believe, if the gentleman from South Carolina could
be interrogated here, and would respond in candor, unbiased by the
delusions engendered by a favorite but delusive theory, he would tell
us that she had not experienced the promised prosperity which was dwelt
upon with so much eloquence by his fellow citizen. How is it in regard
to the great staple of the south? How stand the prices of cotton during
these nine years of the descending tariff, and the prevalence of free
trade? How do these years compare with the nine years of protection
and high tariff? Has the price of cotton increased, as we were told it
would, by the talented South Carolinian? It has happened that during
the nine tariff years the average price of cotton was from 1824 to 1833
higher than during the nine years of descending tariff and free trade;
and at the instant I am speaking, I understand that cotton is selling
at a lower rate than has been realized since the war with Great Britain.
I know with what tenacity theorists adhere to a favorite theory, and
search out for imaginary causes of results before their eyes, and
deny the true. I am not going into the land of abstractions and of
metaphysics. There are two great, leading, incontestable facts, which
gentlemen must admit; first, that a high tariff did not put down the
prices of staple commodities; and, second, that a low tariff and free
trade have not been able to save them from depression. These are the
facts; let causists, and theorists, and the advocates of a one-sided,
paralytic free trade, in which we turn our sound side to the world,
and our blighted, and paralysed, and dead side toward our own people,
make of them what they can. At the very moment that England is
pushing the resources of Asia, cultivating the fields of India, and
even contemplating the subsidizing of Africa, for the supply of her
factories with cotton, and when the importations from India have
swelled from two hundred thousand bales to five hundred and eighty
thousand bales, we are told that there are to be no restrictions on
free trade.
Let me not be misunderstood, and let me entreat that I may not be
misrepresented. I am not advocating the revival of a high protective
tariff. I am for abiding by the principles of the compromise act; I
am for doing what no southern man of a fair or candid mind has ever
yet denied――giving to the country a revenue which may provide for
the economical wants of the government, and at the same time give an
incidental protection to our home industry. If there be here a single
gentleman who will deny the fairness and propriety of this, I shall be
glad to see and hear who he is.
This check on the flow of specie abroad, to pay either a commercial
or a public debt, will operate by the imposition of duties to meet
the wants of the government; will keep the precious metals at home to
a much greater extent than is now possible. I hope that we shall learn
to live within our own means, and not remain so dependent as we now are
on the mere good pleasure and domestic policy of foreign governments.
We go for revenue; for an amount of revenue adequate to an economical
administration of the government. We can get such revenue nowhere else
than from a tariff on importations. No man in his senses will propose a
resort to direct or internal taxes. And this arrangement of the tariff,
while it answers this end, will at the same time operate as a check on
the efflux of the precious metals, and retain what is necessary for the
purposes of exchange and circulation.
The fourth advantage attending the adoption of the system proposed will
be, that the states will be left in the undisturbed possession of the
land fund secured to them by the act of the last session, and which was
intended to aid them in the embarrassments under which some of them are
now laboring.
And the last is that to which I have already adverted, namely,
that it will afford, indirectly, protection to the interests of
American industry. And the most bitter and persevering opponent to the
protective policy I ever met with, has never denied that it is both
the right and the duty of government so to lay the taxes necessary to
the public service, as to afford incidental protection to our own home
industry.
But it is said that, by the adoption of one fixed, arbitrary maximum
of ad valorem duty, we shall not derive that measure of protection
which is expected; and I admit that there may be certain articles, the
product of the mechanic arts――such, for example, as shoes, hats, and
ready made clothing, and sugar, iron, and paper――some or all of which
may not derive the protection which they need under the plan I propose.
On that subject I can only say, what I said at the time of the passage
of the compromise act, if some few articles shall not prove to be
sufficiently protected beneath the established maximum rate, I should
hope that, in the spirit of harmony and compromise, additional duties,
above that rate, sufficient to afford reasonable protection to those
few articles, by general consent, would be imposed. I am not, at
present, prepared to say whether the rule I have suggested will afford
adequate protection to these particular interests or not; I fear it may
not. But if the subject shall be looked at in the spirit of patriotism,
without party bias or local influences, it will be found that the few
articles alluded to are so distributed, or are of such a nature as
to furnish the grounds of a friendly adjustment. The interests of
the sugar of the south may then be set against the iron of the centre
and the productions of the mechanic arts, which, although prevailing
everywhere, are most concentrated at the north. With respect to these,
without reference to any general system of protection, they have been
at all times protected. And who that has a heart, or the sympathies
of a man, can say or feel that our hatters, tailors, and shoemakers,
should not be protected against the rival productions of other
countries? Who would say that the shoemaker, who makes the shoes of his
wife――his own wife, according to the proverb, being the last woman in
the parish that is supplied with hers――shall not be protected? that the
tailor, who furnishes him with a new coat, or the hatter, that makes
him a new hat, to go to church, to attend a wedding or christening, or
to visit his neighbor, shall not be adequately protected?
Then there is the essential article of iron; that is a great central
interest. Whether it will require a higher degree of protection than
it will derive from such a system as I have sketched, I have not
sufficient information to decide; but this I am prepared to say, that
question will be with the representatives of those states which are
chiefly interested; and, if their iron is not sufficiently protected,
they must take the matter up and make out their case to be an exception
to the general arrangement. When I speak of the representatives
of these states, I mean their entire delegation, without regard to
political denominations or distinctions. They must look into the matter,
and if they take it up, and bring forward their propositions, and make
out a clear case of exception to the general rule, I shall be an humble
follower of their lead, but I will not myself take the lead in any such
case. If these states want certain interests protected, they must send
delegates here who are prepared to protect them. Such a state cannot
reasonably expect senators from other states, having no direct, local,
or particular concern in such interests, to force on her the protection
of her own interests against her own will, as that will is officially
expressed by her representatives in congress. I again say, I am ready
to follow, but I will not lead.
With me, from the first moment I conceived the idea of creating, at
home, a protection for the production of whatever is needed to supply
the wants of man, up to this moment, it has always been purely a
question of expediency. I never could comprehend the constitutional
objection which to some gentlemen seems so extremely obvious. I could
comprehend, to be sure, what these gentlemen mean to argue, but I
never had the least belief in the constitutional objection which slept
from 1788, (or, rather, which reverses the doctrine of 1780,) till it
suddenly waked up in 1820. Then, for the first time since the existence
of the constitution, was the doctrine advanced that we could not
legitimately afford any protection to our own home industry against
foreign and adverse industry. I say, that with me it always was a
question of expediency only. If the nation does not want protection, I
certainly never would vote to force it upon the nation; but viewing it
as a question of expediency wholly, I have not hesitated heretofore, on
the broad and comprehensive ground of expediency, to give my assent to
all suitable measures proposed with a view to that end.
The senate will perceive that I have forborne to go into detail,
especially in regard to the urgency of reform and retrenchment, with
one or two exceptions. I have presented to it a system of policy
embodied in these resolutions, containing those great principles in
which I believe that the interest, prosperity, and happiness of the
country are deeply involved――principles, the adoption of which alone
can place the finances of the government upon a respectable footing,
and free us from a condition of servile dependence on the legislation
of foreign nations. I have persuaded myself that the system now brought
forward will be met in a spirit of candor and of patriotism, and in the
hope that whatever may have been the differences in the senate in days
past, we have now reached a period in which we forget our prejudices,
and agree to bury our transient animosities deep at the foot of the
altar of our common country, and come together as an assemblage of
friends, and brothers, and compatriots, met in common consultation to
devise the best mode of relieving the public distress. It is in this
spirit that I have brought forward my proposed plan; and I trust in God,
invoking, as I humbly do, the aid and blessing of his providence, that
the senators, on all sides of the chamber, will lay aside all party
feelings, and more especially that habitual suspicion to which we are
all more or less prone, (and from which I profess not to be exempted
more than other men,) that impels us to reject, without examination,
and to distrust whatever proceeds from a quarter we have been in the
habit of opposing. Let us lay aside prejudice; let us look at the
distresses of our country, and these alone. I trust that in this spirit
we shall examine these resolutions, and decide upon them according to
the dictates of our own consciences, and in a pure and patriotic regard
to the welfare of our country.