SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON AN AMENDMENT TO THE TARIFF BILL, JANUARY 29,
1867.
January 29th, the Senate having under consideration the bill
to provide increased revenue from imports, known as the Tariff
Bill, Mr. Sumner moved the following:--
“On all bituminous coal mined and imported from any
place not more than thirty degrees of longitude east of
Washington, fifty cents per ton of twenty-eight bushels,
eighty pounds to the bushel.”
The effect of this amendment would be to reduce the duty from
$1.50 to 50 cents a ton.
MR. PRESIDENT,--The object of the amendment is to bring the bill back
where it was at first. The Senate will remember that in committee a
motion prevailed by which the duty of 50 cents per ton on the coal
mentioned was raised to $1.50. I am at a loss to understand the precise
object of this increased tax on coal. There are strong reasons against
any tax on coal; and the reasons are stronger still against this
increased tax. Its movers must have an object. What is it?
It seems that there are imported into the United States about 500,000
tons, being 350,000 from the British Provinces and 150,000 from Great
Britain; and this coal is to be taxed at the rate of $1.50 a ton in
gold. If the same amount of importation continued, this tax would yield
$750,000 in gold,--a handsome addition to the revenue. But I am sure
the tax is not imposed on this account. It is imposed with some vague
hope of benefit to the coal interest. But here, as we look at it, we
are mystified. Is it supposed that the price of coal throughout the
country will be raised to this extent? The idea is monstrous. There
are some 22,000,000 tons now produced, which, if raised in price
according to this tax, will cost the country 33,000,000 gold dollars in
addition to the present price. This might be advantageous to certain
proprietors, but it must be damaging to the country. Nobody can expect
this. The object, then, is something else. I will not say that it is
merely to take advantage of the States that do not produce coal, for
this would be sheer oppression. I suppose that it must be to exclude
foreign coal, and to that extent open the market for domestic coal.
But this tax will be positively oppressive to coal-purchasers in New
England, to say nothing of New York. Nature has denied coal to this
region of country,--or rather, Nature has placed the natural supply for
this region outside our political jurisdiction. It is in Nova Scotia,
on the other side of our boundary line. Coal in abundance is there,
easily accessible by water, and therefore transported at comparatively
small cost. Another part of our country has a different supply. On the
other side of the mountain-ridge separating the sea-coast from the
valleys of the West is an infinite coal-field, the source of untold
wealth, which, beginning in the mountains and filling West Virginia
and Western Pennsylvania, stretches through the valley of the Ohio,
enriching the States that border upon it, and then, crossing the
Mississippi, extends through other States beyond, even to Colorado.
This is the greatest coal-field, as it is also the greatest corn-field,
in the world. It is magnificent beyond comparison. This is the natural
resource for the immense region west of the Alleghanies. But why should
New England, which has a natural resource comparatively near at home,
be compelled at great sacrifice to drag her coal from these distant
supplies?
I hear of complaint at Pittsburg, where the price of coal is only two
dollars a ton, currency. But imported coal in New England costs at
the mine two dollars a ton, gold. Add three or four dollars a ton for
freight. And now it is proposed to pile on this a duty of more than
two dollars, currency. If Pittsburg complains of coal at two dollars a
ton, what must Boston say, when you make it nine dollars? Is this just?
Is it practically wise? But I forget: there can be no wisdom without
justice.
If it be said that the interests of New England are protected even by
the bill before the Senate, I have to say in reply, that no interest
of hers is protected at the expense of the rest of the country. All
that we ask is fair play. Let it be shown that there is any part of the
country which will suffer from the favor accorded to New England as
her coal-purchasers must suffer from the favor accorded to the distant
coal-owners of the mountains, and I will do what I can to see justice
done. I ask nothing but that justice which I am always willing to
accord. We constitute parts of one country with common interests, and
the prosperity of each is bound up in the prosperity of all.
It is said that this proposed tax will be of advantage to the
Cumberland coal in the mountains of Maryland. Perhaps; but not to any
considerable extent. I understand that not more than 60,000 tons of
Nova Scotia coal are imported in competition with that of Cumberland.
This is mainly at Providence, where it is used in the manufacture of
iron. But the Cumberland coal is so completely adapted to glassworks,
railways, ocean steamships, blacksmiths’ forges, that it may be said to
command the market exclusively. Nature has given to it this monopoly.
Why not be content?
There are peculiar reasons why coal should be cheap, whether viewed
as a necessary or as a motive power. As a necessary, it enters into
the comforts of life; as a motive power, it is the substitute for
water-power. What reason can you give for a tax on motive power from
coal which is not equally strong for a tax on motive power from water,
unless it be that one is “black” and the other is “white”? I plead
that you shall not needlessly add to the public burden in a particular
portion of the country. I have alluded to the cheapness of coal at
Pittsburg. In other places it is cheaper still. At Pomeroy, in Ohio,
it is $1.40 a ton, and at Cumberland itself it is $1.50 a ton, always
currency; and yet New England is to pay $1.50 tax, gold, being more
than the coal is worth to its producer, besides the large cost of
transportation.
Next after the industry of a people is cheap coal, as an element of
national prosperity. Without it, even industry will lose much of its
activity and variety. It is coal that has vitalized and quickened all
the mighty energies of England. From coal have come all the various
products of her manufactories, and these again have furnished the
freights for her ships, so that she has become not only a great
manufacturing nation, but also a great commercial nation. Coal is the
author of all this. Coal is the fuel under the British pot which makes
it boil. It ought to do the same for us, and even more, if you will let
it. Therefore I end as I began,--tax coal as little as possible.
In reply especially to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and
Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, Mr. Sumner said:--
…
Now, without following the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. DAVIS] in that
proposition, I do insist, that, on articles of prime necessity, we
should reduce taxation where we can. Therefore, when the Senator from
Ohio tells me, that, if my proposition is adopted, we shall lose a
certain amount of revenue derived from coal, I have an easy reply. Very
well,--let us lose that amount of revenue derived from coal. You ought
not to obtain it; coal ought not to be one of your taxed articles. So
far as possible, coal should be cheap. That is the proposition with
which I began and ended; and if I do not impress that upon the Senate,
I certainly fail in what I attempted.
MR. GRIMES [of Iowa]. Why should it be cheap?
MR. SUMNER. Because it enters into the necessaries of life, and
because it is a motive power that works our manufactories.
…
I say that the article is necessary to us in New England. It enters
into our daily life,--into the economies of every house, into the
expenses of every citizen. It enters, therefore, into the welfare
of the community; and you cannot tax coal without making the whole
community feel it, whether rich or poor. Every poor man feels it. If I
said the rich man felt it, you would reply, “That makes no difference;
let him feel it.” I insist that every poor man feels it; and I insist
further, that all who are interested in the manufactures of the country
necessarily feel it,--not only producers and owners, but all who use
the products of their looms. I say, that, as a motive power, it should
be made cheap and kept cheap. Now the apparent policy is, to make it
dear and keep it dear.
MR. HENDRICKS [of Indiana]. I like the Senator’s argument just
where he is now; but I wish to ask him whether, if by a tariff
you raise the price of every yard of cheap woollen goods and
cheap cotton goods, it is not a direct tax on the labor of the
poor man of the West, who has to buy them?
MR. CRESWELL [of Maryland, to Mr. Sumner]. That is the
application of your argument.
MR. SUMNER. The Senator from Maryland says that is the application of
my argument. Pardon me, not at all; because the tax on cotton and on
woollen goods--I have had very little to do with imposing any such
tax--is not oppressive on any part of the country, nor does it bear
hard on the constituents of the Senator, or on the constituents of any
Senator on this floor; whereas the increase of the tax on coal will
bear hard upon a whole community, and upon all its interests; and that
is the precise difference between the two cases.
The Senator from Ohio seemed to speak of this with perfect
tranquillity, as if there were nothing in it oppressive, or even
open to criticism. He thought we might tax coal as we tax any other
article. I differ from him. I do not think you should tax coal as you
tax other articles; and, further, I do not think you should impose
any tax bearing with special hardship, so as to be something akin to
injustice, on any particular part of our country. That is my answer to
the argument of the Senator from Maryland, and to the inquiry of the
Senator from Indiana.
Mr. Creswell replied warmly, criticizing Mr. Sumner, saying,
among other things,--
“The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has treated
us to a Free-Trade speech in the Senate of the United
States. The commentary of the Senator from Indiana was
just and correct; it was a deduction that he had a
right logically to make; and I tell the Senator from
Massachusetts that his course in the Senate to-day is in
its effects a better Free-Trade speech than has ever been
made in any of the Middle States during the last ten years.”
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, united with Mr. Sumner.
The amendment was lost,--Yeas 11, Nays 25.
A SINGLE TERM FOR THE PRESIDENT, AND CHOICE BY DIRECT VOTE OF THE
PEOPLE.
REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON AN AMENDMENT OF THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION,
FEBRUARY 11, 1867.
The Senate had under consideration an Amendment to the National
Constitution, reported by the Judiciary Committee, as follows:--
“No person elected President or Vice-President, who has
once served as President, shall afterward be eligible to
either office.”
Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, thought that the words “who has once
served as President” should be struck out. Mr. Williams, of
Oregon, suggested: “No person who has once served as President
shall afterward be eligible to either office.” Mr. Poland, of
Vermont, moved, as a substitute, the following:--
“The President and Vice-President of the United States
shall hereafter be chosen for the term of six years; and no
person elected President or Vice-President, who has once
served as President, shall afterward be eligible to either
office.”