WASHINGTON, D.C., _February 22, 1869_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
The accompanying bill, entitled "An act regulating the duties on
imported copper and copper ores," is, for the following reasons,
returned, without my approval, to the House of Representatives, in which
branch of Congress it originated.
Its immediate effect will be to diminish the public receipts, for the
object of the bill can not be accomplished without seriously affecting
the importation of copper and copper ores, from which a considerable
revenue is at present derived. While thus impairing the resources of the
Government, it imposes an additional tax upon an already overburdened
people, who should not be further impoverished that monopolies may be
fostered and corporations enriched.
It is represented--and the declaration seems to be sustained by
evidence--that the duties for which this bill provides are nearly or
quite sufficient to prohibit the importation of certain foreign ores of
copper. Its enactment, therefore, will prove detrimental to the shipping
interests of the nation, and at the same time destroy the business, for
many years successfully established, of smelting home ores in connection
with a smaller amount of the imported articles. This business, it is
credibly asserted, has heretofore yielded the larger share of the copper
production of the country, and thus the industry which this legislation
is designed to encourage is actually less than that which will be
destroyed by the passage of this bill.
It seems also to be evident that the effect of this measure will be to
enhance by 70 per cent the cost of blue vitriol--an article extensively
used in dyeing and in the manufacture of printed and colored cloths. To
produce such an augmentation in the price of this commodity will be to
discriminate against other great branches of domestic industry, and by
increasing their cost to expose them most unfairly to the effects of
foreign competition. Legislation can neither be wise nor just which
seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury
of many and varied interests at least equally important and equally
deserving the consideration of Congress. Indeed, it is difficult to find
any reason which will justify the interference of Government with any
legitimate industry, except so far as may be rendered necessary by the
requirements of the revenue. As has already been stated, however, the
legislative intervention proposed in the present instance will diminish,
not increase, the public receipts.
The enactment of such a law is urged as necessary for the relief of
certain mining interests upon Lake Superior, which, it is alleged,
are in a greatly depressed condition, and can only be sustained by an
enhancement of the price of copper. If this result should follow the
passage of the bill, a tax for the exclusive benefit of a single class
would be imposed upon the consumers of copper throughout the entire
country, not warranted by any need of the Government, and the avails of
which would not in any degree find their way into the Treasury of the
nation. If the miners of Lake Superior are in a condition of want, it
can not be justly affirmed that the Government should extend charity to
them in preference to those of its citizens who in other portions of the
country suffer in like manner from destitution. Least of all should the
endeavor to aid them be based upon a method so uncertain and indirect as
that contemplated by the bill, and which, moreover, proposes to continue
the exercise of its benefaction through an indefinite period of years.
It is, besides, reasonable to hope that positive suffering from want,
if it really exists, will prove but temporary in a region where
agricultural labor is so much in demand and so well compensated. A
careful examination of the subject appears to show that the present
low price of copper, which alone has induced any depression the mining
interests of Lake Superior may have recently experienced, is due to
causes which it is wholly impolitic, if not impracticable, to contravene
by legislation. These causes are, in the main, an increase in the
general supply of copper, owing to the discovery and working of
remarkably productive mines and to a coincident restriction in the
consumption and use of copper by the substitution of other and cheaper
metals for industrial purposes. It is now sought to resist by artificial
means the action of natural laws; to place the people of the United
States, in respect to the enjoyment and use of an essential commodity,
upon a different basis from other nations, and especially to compensate
certain private and sectional interests for the changes and losses which
are always incident to industrial progress.
Although providing for an increase of duties, the proposed law does not
even come within the range of protection, in the fair acceptation of the
term. It does not look to the fostering of a young and feeble interest
with a view to the ultimate attainment of strength and the capacity
of self-support. It appears to assume that the present inability for
successful production is inherent and permanent, and is more likely
to increase than to be gradually overcome; yet in spite of this it
proposes, by the exercise of the lawmaking power, to sustain that
interest and to impose it in hopeless perpetuity as a tax upon the
competent and beneficent industries of the country.
The true method for the mining interests of Lake Superior to
obtain relief, if relief is needed, is to endeavor to make their great
natural resources fully available by reducing the cost of production.
Special or class legislation can not remedy the evils which this bill
is designed to meet. They can only be overcome by laws which will effect
a wise, honest, and economical administration of the Government, a
reestablishment of the specie standard of value, and an early adjustment
of our system of State, municipal, and national taxation (especially the
latter) upon the fundamental principle that all taxes, whether collected
under the internal revenue or under a tariff, shall interfere as little
as possible with the productive energies of the people.
The bill is therefore returned, in the belief that the true interests
of the Government and of the people require that it should not become
a law.