gentlemen, is, that the law would prosecute the one and protect the other, in their vocations of plunder. Whenever the business of the manufacturer is not remunerative, then he must change it, just as farmers change their grain, and stock-raisers change their stocks, when it ceases to pay them for their labor.

Adam Smith says :-" To prohibit by a perpetual law, the importation of foreign corn and cattle, is, in reality, to enact that the population and industry of the community shall, at no time, exceed what the rude produce of its own soil can maintain." (Wealth of Nations, Book iv, chap. 2)

But what is true of corn and cattle, is precisely true of every other product, whether raw or manufactured; and a tariff law is simply a law, limiting the amount of what may be ate or worn by the laboring masses, or poorer people of a country.

CHAPTER IX.

HIGH TARIFFS BEGET SMUGGLING.

THE EVILS OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

It is the enemy of the government in the destruction of that part of its revenues, which are provided to come through duties. The amount of protection given by duties to manufacturers, is precisely the premium offered to smugglers who, ever on the qui vive, have the entire accessible American coast to enter into competition with American manufacturers, where Vice-President Breckenridge and Senator Benjamin could pass through a carefully blockaded coast, when the whole United States navy was assisting the whole Federal army to preserve the coast inviolate. The smuggling cruisers, in times of profound peace, will cheerfully run the risks, to reap the enormous profits of the adventure. For it must not be forgotten that when there is a duty of one hundred per cent. to protect the manufacturer, there is a premium of one hundred per cent. offered to smugglers to carry on their business.

The army and navy requisite to successfully guard the American coast against smugglers in times of high tariff, would not be sustained by ten times the revenues derived from such tariffs to support them. Yet smuggling does but little to reduce the price of goods, and leaves to the people the difficult choice, whether to pay their money for goods to the tariff swindlers, or British smugglers. Such is the extent of the smuggling and the vast capital, and the great number of ships employed, that it is very clear that the amount of goods brought in that way is not less than those imported; but these smugglers share with the manufacturers in the protection of duties.

Moreover, this illicit commerce is transferred from American

to British vessels; striking its triple blow at manufacturers, commerce and agriculture,—in imitation of its parent, the Protective Tariff,- by the smaller amounts paid into the custom houses.

This fact is demonstrated in the accompanying tables:

During the war of 1812, the home manufacture of every kind of goods was greatly stimulated by the condition of the people; the spirit of trade in the country, was destroyed by the war, every farm-house had the wheel and the loom as a part of its furniture: and the young women of the house were operatives under the superintendence of the mother; while the fathers and brothers were in the army, fighting for free trade and sailors' rights.

The following table will exhibit the fact incontestably, of the receipts of customs from the year 1815 to 1827:

A falling off, under the protective system, of nearly fifty per cent., notwithstanding the increase of population, is quite as great, which makes the disparity still greater; instead of decreasing from $36,306,022.51 in 1815, to $19,700,000, it ought to have increased to $44,900,000. These tables have been taken far back, when the workings of the government were regular and under no pressure, and where the result of the two systems were discernible in the collection of the revenue.

This demonstrates another fact, that what is denominated the protective system, not only adds heavily to the expenses of the necessaries of life, but it depletes the treasury and forces a larger direct taxation upon the country.

CHAPTER X.

HIGH REVENUE TARIFFS UNJUST.

THE great debt has given a pretext for levying a revenue tariff, placed at the highest figures.

The Tariff, as a source of revenue, is simply a tax to be regulated as any other tax, upon the same principles and relative assessment upon the people.

The Revenue Tariff, considered purely as a tax, is unjust, whether compared with the obligations of the people to support the government, or the tariffs of other nations. In Athens, tariffs or duties on corn, were one-fifth or twenty per cent. In England, for revenue purposes, never more than twenty per cent., though often but five per cent., before 1787. Even the retaliatory taxation was no higher than twenty-seven per cent. Experience has demonstrated that anything over twenty per cent. is not a revenue, but a protective tariff. Duties in France rarely exceed eighteen per cent., when it was raised on linen to twenty per cent., the people murmured almost to revolution.

In Holland, the richest, and in Switzerland, the freest government in Europe, the people boasted that their tariffs never exceeded twelve per cent., and even now, they scarcely ever exceed twenty per cent.

Cuba is the richest of all the West India Islands, peerless in agricultural productions and commercial intercourse with the world. Her exports amount to four times as much per capita as those of the United States, and three times as much as those of Great Britain. Her tariff duties are generally less than twenty per cent., and scarcely ever reach twenty-five per cent., in a fair and equal computation.

Alexander Hamilton, the father of the protective system, proposed in his report, no such protective duties on either iron or