Tariff controversy continued--Tariff of 1832--The crisis--_Secession_
threatened--Compromise finally adopted--Debates--Mr. Hayne--Mr.
McDuffie--Mr. Clay--Adjustment of the subject.
THE opening of the year 1832, found the parties to the Tariff
controversy once more engaged in earnest debate, on the floor of
Congress; and midsummer witnessed the passage of a new Bill, including
the principle of protection. This Act produced a crisis in the
controversy, and led to the movements in South Carolina toward
secession; and, to avert the threatened evil, the Bill was modified, in
the following year, so as to make it acceptable to the South; and, so
as, also, to settle the policy of the Government for the succeeding nine
years. A few extracts from the debates of 1832, will serve to show what
were the sentiments of the members of Congress, as to the effects of the
protective policy on the different sections of the Union, up to that
date:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "When the policy of '24 went into
operation, the South was supplied from the West, through a single
avenue, (the Saluda Mountain Gap,) with live stock, horses, cattle, and
hogs, to the amount of considerably upward of a million of dollars a
year. Under the pressure of the system, this trade has been regularly
diminishing. It has already fallen more than one-half. . . . . In
consequence of the dire calamities which the system has inflicted on the
South--blasting our commerce, and withering our prosperity--the West has
been very nearly deprived of her best customer. . . . . And what was
found to be the result of four years' experience at the South? Not a
hope fulfilled; not one promise performed; and our condition infinitely
worse than it had been four years before. Sir, the whole South rose up
as one man, and protested against any further experiment with this
system. . . . . Sir, I seize the opportunity to dispel forever the
delusion that the South can find any compensation, in a home market, for
the injurious operation of the protective system. . . . . What a
spectacle do you even now exhibit to the world? A large portion of your
fellow-citizens, believing themselves to be grievously oppressed by an
unwise and unconstitutional system, are clamoring at your doors for
justice: while another portion, supposing that they are enjoying rich
bounties under it, are treating their complaints with scorn and
contempt. . . . . This system may destroy the South, but it will not
permanently advance the prosperity of the North. It may depress us, but
can not elevate them. Beside, sir, if persevered in, it must annihilate
that portion of the country from which the resources are to be drawn.
And it may be well for gentlemen to reflect whether adhering to this
policy would not be acting like the man who 'killed the goose which laid
the golden eggs.' Next to the Christian religion, I consider _Free
Trade_, in its largest sense, as the greatest blessing that can be
conferred on any people."
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war
with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes,
resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to
the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of
the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts
to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have
converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for
cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the
history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for
this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government
has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only
on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples
are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the
planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the
commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their
great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere
nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States
were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had
lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had
thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices
which our own war had created for their grain and other productions;
and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain,
owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes.
Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern
States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a
part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these
cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir--utterly
blasted--by the consuming and withering course of a system of
legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of
commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an
impious perversion of language, is called 'Protection.' . . . . I will
not add, sir, my deep and deliberate conviction, in the face of all the
miserable cant and hypocrisy with which the world abounds on the
subject, that any course of measures which shall hasten the abolition of
slavery, by destroying the value of slave labor, will bring upon the
Southern States the greatest political calamity with which they can be
afflicted; for I sincerely believe, that when the people of those States
shall be compelled, by such means, to emancipate their slaves, they will
be but a few degrees above the condition of slaves themselves. Yes, sir,
mark what I say: when the people of the South cease to be masters, by
the tampering influence of this Government, direct or indirect, they
will assuredly be slaves. It is the clear and distinct perception of the
irresistible tendency of this protective system to precipitate us upon
this great moral and political catastrophe, that has animated me to
raise my warning voice, that my fellow-citizens may foresee, and
foreseeing, avoid the destiny that would otherwise befall them. . . . .
And here, sir, it is as curious as it is melancholy and distressing, to
see how striking is the analogy between the colonial vassalage to which
the manufacturing States have reduced the planting States, and that
which formerly bound the Anglo-American colonies to the British
Empire. . . . England said to her American colonies 'You shall not trade
with the rest of the world for such manufactures _as are produced in the
mother country_.' The manufacturing States say to their Southern
colonies, 'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such
manufactures as _we produce_, under a penalty of forty per cent. upon
the value of every cargo detected in this illicit commerce; which
penalty, aforesaid, shall be levied, collected, and paid out of the
products of your industry, to nourish and sustain ours.'"
Mr. Clay, in referring to the condition of the country at large, said:
"I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect
sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the
country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended; the arts
flourishing; the face of the country improved; our people fully and
profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity,
contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have
the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly
in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not an
extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry;
innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand
hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities
expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment;
our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign
and coastwise, swelled and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior
animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steamboats;
the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly
redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing,
embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select
the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of
seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which this
people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present
Constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which
immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.
"This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and
distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of
American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing
it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry.
The foes of the American system, in 1824, with great boldness and
confidence, predicted, first, the ruin of the public revenue, and the
creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman from
South Carolina, (General Hayne,) I believe, thought that the tariff of
1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight
millions of dollars; secondly, the destruction of our navigation;
thirdly, the desolation of commercial cities; and, fourthly, the
augmentation of the price of articles of consumption, and further
decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every prediction which
they made has failed--utterly failed. . . . . It is now proposed to
abolish the system to which we owe so much of the public prosperity
. . . . . Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest--scarcely a vocation
in society--which is not embraced by the beneficence of this system. . .
. . The error of the opposite argument, is in assuming one thing, which,
being denied, the whole fails; that is, it assumes that the _whole_
labor of the United States would be profitably employed without
manufactures. Now, the truth is, that the system _excites_ and _creates_
labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates
additional ability to consume; which acts on all the objects
contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. . . . . I could extend and
dwell on the long list of articles--the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and
other items--for which a demand is created in the home market by the
operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of
the Senate. _Where, where_ should we find a market for all these
articles, if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of
the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home
market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of
prime necessity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in
the price of all these articles, but for the home market?"
But we must not burden our pages with further extracts. What has been
quoted affords the principal arguments of the opposing parties, on the
points in which we are interested, down to 1832. The adjustment, in
1833, of the subject until 1842, and its subsequent agitation, are too
familiar, or of too easy access to the general reader, to require a
notice from us here.