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(art. 1, sect 10, paragraph 2,) every State is also prohibited from laying EDITOR'S any imposts or duties on imports or exports, without permission of the General Government. It was urged, that as almost all sources of taxation were given to Congress, it would be but reasonable to leave the States the power of bringing revenue into their treasuries, by laying a duty on exports if they should think proper; which might be so light as not to injure or discourage industry, and yet might be productive of considerable revenue; also, that there might be cases in which it would be proper for the purpose of encouraging Manufactures, to lay duties to prohibit the export of raw materials, and even in addition to the duties laid by Congress on imports for the sake of Revenue, to lay a duty to discourage the importation of particular articles into a State, or to enable the Manufacturer here to supply us on as good terms as they could be obtained from a foreign market: however, the most we could obtain was, that this power might be exercised by the States by and with the consent of Congress, and subject to its controul."

"This alludes to the following provision in the Constitution of the United States, which may be produced as absolutely conclusive of the question.

"If the framers of our Constitution did legislate at their meeting on the subject of protecting duties in favor of home industry, and domestic manufactures, then all the questions and considerations which are plainly and obviously connected with the subject, and which would have occurred to every body, must have occurred to them: and if among the various regulations they had to consider, they deliberately adopted one, and enacted that alone, it follows that they deliberately rejected all the rest. "By article first, section tenth, paragraph second, it is enacted, that no State shall without the consent of Congress, lay any duties on exports or imports. Therefore, any state may lay such duties on exports or imports, by applying to Congress for the consent of that body. The framers of our Constitution, therefore, after deliberation, have allowed to the states the power of laying protecting duties, if on the application of any state for that purpose Congress should give its consent. This power of laying protecting duties in the first instance, is not given to Congress; it is not to be found among the enumerated or expressly delegated powers sanctioned by the Convention. In debating this question, it must have occurred to the Convention, "shall we give this power to Congress, or shall we give it to the States?" They rejected it as to Congress, and they gave it to the States, under the limitations of the paragraph above quoted. How then can Congress claim it for itself? Why do not the States that advocate a protecting Tariff, apply to Congress for permission to lay duties on imports, and try the experiment among themselves, at their own risk, and not at the risk of those States that object to a Tariff? Because the manufacturing monopoly states are enriched by taxing the south, and would be impoverished by taxing themselves. Fraud and usurpation form the basis of the whole protecting system. The Tariff states know this, and Congress knows it. But a northern majority having succeeded in imposing a tribute on southern industry, for the benefit of the north, will never give up their claim to this tribute, while they can command a Congress-majority to support it. They apply triumphantly their favorite maxim, that the power of a majority is uncontrolable, and the minority must submit to it.

"Hence it appears, that the convention refused to confer this power in any other manner, than on such individual States as might chose to ap

EDITOR'S
REMARKS.

ply for licence to exercise it within their own boundary. A licence, tò which this present Convention has no objection whatever, provided the states who approve of the protecting policy, will be content to apply it to their own importations, without forcing those states to follow their example, who disapprove of that policy.

"From this undeniable appeal to facts, and historical documents of acknowledged authority, it appears beyond all reasonable doubt:

"1. That proposals to confer on the Legislature of the Union the power of laying duties on foreign importation with a view of protecting domestic manufactures, were repeatedly within the purview of the Convention of 1787.

"2. That all these proposals were rejected, inasmuch as no committee appears at any time to have reported in favour of this policy: and the Constitution finally proposed and adopted, contains no such power conferred on Congress.

"3. That the Convention left it to be put in force by any individual state who might think fit to apply for a licence to do so, provided the proceeds of the duty were paid into the Revenue fund of the Treasury of the United States.

"4. That no object or purpose in laying duties on imported goods, is sanctioned by that Convention or the Constitution they, enacted, but the Revenue necessary to pay the debts of the Union, and defray the necessary expences of the Government.

"5. That the laws from time to time enacted by Congress from 1816 inclusive to the present time, imposing duties on the importation of manufactured articles from foreign parts, with a view of protecting and fostering the manufacture of similar articles at home, are laws not authorized by the Constitution of the United States; and Congress, in passing them, has exceeded the authority conferred on that body by the Constitution. These laws, therefore, enacted by void and incompetent authority, are acts of usurpation; and not being santioned by the Constitution, are not entitled to the respect and obedience of the citizens of the United States.

"6. All powers not specifically enumerated and expressly delegated to Congress, belong not to Congress, but are reserved to the states. The power of laying a protecting or prohibitory Tariff, or any other tax not really and honestly intended for the purposes of Revenue, is no where to be found among the enumerated and expressly delegated powers conferred upon Congress. It is therefore among the reserved powers of the states, and belongs not to Congress.

"The Legislature of South Carolina, observing the despotic career that the Congress of the United States seemed bent on pursuing in this respect, and deeply feeling the oppressive and injurious operation of the Tariff laws thus enacted, on the prosperity of our own State-in conformity to their oath to protect and support the Constitution of the United States, have, at various times, particularly from the year 1823-1824, protested, remonstrated, and memorialized Congress, in the most earnest and respectful manner, to desist from a system of taxation whose manifest operation was to render the agricultural States of the South the mere Colonies and Tributaries of the Manufacturing States north of the Potomac-to place the construction of the Constitution exclusively in the power of a Congress-majority-to prostrate all the fences by which the constitutional rights of a minority were protected-to set at defiance all opposition to constitutional usurpation to annihilate all the reserved

rights of the States, and convert this Government into one consolidated despotism; as indeed the case now is."

Secondly, As to the injustice of a protecting Tariff; by which the consumer is compelled, under the pretence of general welfare, to pay ahigher price for the same article to a manufacturer at home, then he can purchase it for from a manufacturer abroad. This is manifestly taxing one class of citizens for the emolument of another. It is a tribute; for the citizen thus taxed, receives no equivalent; nor does this tax go into the treasury, for the consumer generally purchases in preference the domestic article; and the tax is in fact paid to the manufacturer as part of the price of the article sold. The revenue receives no part of the duty where the foreign article is not purchased. Such a Tariff of protection operates, and was meant to operate, as a tax levied on the European importations of the South, for the benefit of Northern manufacturing speculators; whose speculations would not yield the usual profit if the monopoly was not sustained by thus taxing the South. About two-thirds of our whole export consists of articles the production of southern industry. No wonder the towns and cities of the North are so superior in wealth and embellishment to those of the South, for, it is the money of the South in factorage, agency, and tributary taxation, that pays for this superiority. The South is a sponge, collecting wealth by her planting industry, and when full, squeezed for the benefit of the North: the majority in Congress is the screw press, employed for the purpose. It is not true that we discourage American industry by laying out our money to more advantage with foreigners, than by expending it at home. If I offer for sale to a foreigner, a bushel of wheat, a hat, a quantity of tobacco, rice, or cotton, each worth a dollar-or a silver dollar, which I have already purchased in Mexico for some article of North-American produce-and the foreigner pays me an equivalent, in some article that I stand in need of; he encourages my industry, exactly as much as I encourage his. He buys a dollar's worth of labor from me, and I buy as much from him.

What can be more unjust in a government professing equality, than giving a monopoly of the home market to one part of the community, by preventing and prohibiting another portion of the citizens from laying out their earnings to more advantage elsewhere? Doing this, under a penalty, levied in the form of a tax on every foreign commodity? The manufacturers are few; one in one hundred thousand at the most; the consumers are many. The manufacturers are a class, the consumers are the nation. The protecting duty creates a monopoly in favor of the few, at the expense of the many. Nor, in fact, is the impost so laid, a tax devoted to the treasury and applied to the wants of the whole country: the revenue is not benefited one cent by the extra price paid by the consumer to the manufacturer. It is not a tax, for the treasury does not receive it; it is a tribute, levied on the industry of the South to increase the gains and emoluments of the North. A tribute it is, for the South receives no equivalent in return.

For the purpose of defending this measure, it became necessary to advance the principle that every government is, and of necessity must be, the government of the majority. That the majority had the exclusive right of judging of the general welfare, and of giving its own construction to the Constitution. The rights of the minority and the limitations of power prescribed by the Constitution, were, by this pretension, annihilated." An absolute despotism was thus introduced; and even to this day, (1836,) continues, to which the minority is compelled to submit; the smaller body is overwhelmed; it is voted

EDITOR'S

REMARKS.

EDITOR'S
REMARKS.

down; its voice is disregarded; its rights and claims are trampled on; and as the majority of congressional votes belonged, and still belongs, to the states who claim the right of imposing protecting duties, that is, the northern section of the Union, the South was doomed to be their colonists and their tributaries. South Carolina first felt the gross injustice of this state of things, and while other states of the South were content with using remonstrance and complaint, she alone openly resisted this organized plan of robbery; she alone revolted from this depotism of a Congress-majority, and refused obedience to a system of laws passed in open defiance of the Constitution. Hence arose the series of proceedings now about to be recorded, which form the most prominent, as well as the most honorable part, of the legislative history of South Carolina.

Nor is it true that this Tariff protection of home manufacture can be defended under the power given to regulate commerce. Commerce is the intercourse of exchange between foreign nations. The sole object of the Tariff of protection, is to guard the home producer against this intercourse of exchange; to prohibit and annihilate Commerce, lest the cheap article imported should interfere with the dear article produced at home. Can you annihilate and destroy Commerce under the pretence of regulating it? The object of every reasonable regulation is to foster and extend on fair principles of mutual reciprocity. The object of this Tariff is not Commerce at all; it is manufactures that are to be regulated. Commerce stands in the way of a monopoly profit, and is therefore to be swept away; we are to adopt the Chinese policy of insulation, and are driven by regulation from every market but the worst.

Thirdly, a prohibitory and protecting Tariff, is also, at all times and every where, on general principles, as unwise and inexpedient, as in the present case it is unconstitutional and unjust.

For, the universal experience of prudent people teaches them to buy what they stand in need of, at the best market and at the cheapest rate.— The less amount of a man's labour he gives for the articles he wishes to purchase, the more remains to be laid out in other articles he may want.— If I can procure an article from a foreigner for one day's labour, and my next door neighbour asks two day's labour for an article of the same kind and quality, is it not manifest that I am robbed of one day's labour, if I am compelled to buy of my next neighbor instead of the foreigner? Is it the way to enrich a community, to compel every consumer to pay two prices to a domestic manufacturer, instead of one price to a foreign manufacturer ? It is paying, not for a thing, but a name. This may enable the home manufacturer to obtain a reasonable profit on an article that he would otherwise lose by, and which he ought to have let alone; but it is not a sufficient reason why I should be compelled out of my own earnings to make his losing concern a gaining one. This is not all: suppose ten neighbours have a dollar and a half each to lay out with each other, and each wants an article that they can import for a dollar, but a protecting tariff compels them to pay a dollar and a half for it to the home manufacturer--is it not manifest, that five dollars surplus, which might have been laid out with each other, are abstracted from their pockets and forced into the pocket of the protected favourite? So that the evil does not fall exclusively on the individual purchaser, but on some of his neighbours also, with whom he might have laid out the half dollar of which he is thus legally robbed.

What words can add force to the axiom, that it is the interest of every one to resort to that market where he can be supplied best and cheapest? This is the dictate of uniform experience and common sense. A protecting tariff says no; it is the interest of the whole community that each pur

chaser should be confined to that market, where inferior goods are sold at the highest prices. Let me have choice of markets, says the purchaser, that I may find out where I can be best suited: no, says the Tariff Law, you shall have but one market, the market at home. For what reason do you lay this restriction, says the purchaser? Because, says the legislator, our man lives on our side of the river, and you have no right to lay out your money with one who lives on the other side. Is this the dictate of common sense? Yet such is the wisdom of what is called the American System, which would be equally applicable to the prudence of making Madeira wine from hot-house grapes in the province of Maine. It is most melancholy to reflect, that the strong and cultivated intellect of the representatives of the north eastern states, should be selfishly employed in defending paradoxes so completely discarded throughout the whole of enlightened Europe: and they know it to be so.

Moreover, the bond that is destined to unite in one system of peaceable intercourse the whole family of Man, is Commerce. Commerce founded on the mutual supply of mutual wants, and the mutual communication of useful customs, usages, discoveries and improvements. Commerce that teaches us to promote the welfare and prosperity of every nation with whom we interchange commodities, because the greater their welfare and prosperity, the more valuable are they to us, as friends and customers.→ Wealth is not to be acquired by dealing with a population that cannot afford to purchase, and has nothing to sell; or by making war upon our customers, destroying their resources, annihilating their means of interchange, and inducing general distress and national poverty. No; the motto of Commerce is, peace on earth and good will toward man. We do not gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, or wealth from poverty.— The merchant knows this.

The very essence, the basis on which all commerce is built, is the introduction of commodities that are wanted, from places where they are cheap and plentiful, into places where they are scarce and dear; thus equalizing the productions of various climates, and meeting every want, with its appropriate supply, at a reasonable expense.

The very essence, the basis on which a prohibiting and protecting Tariff is built, is, to forbid the introduction of foreign commodities, because they are cheap. To protect all home consumption, that cannot stand against foreign competition without such protection, and to compel the home consumer to waste his labour and his earnings in purchasing at exorbitant prices from the home producer, what commerce could supply at a cheap and reasonable rate. A protecting Tariff and foreign Commerce are Antipodes to each other. You cannot cherish both of them. Commerce furnishes the consumer with a plentiful and cheap market, and variety of choice. A Tariff presents for our approbation an extravagant market of limited supply. Commerce diminishes your purse as little as possible; a Tariff of prohibition and protection, as much as possible. Commerce furnishes an equivalent for the price demanded; a Tariff swallows up your earnings without giving an equivalent. Commerce supplies you with the market of the world; a Tariff confines you to the monopoly market at home.

But it is said we protect an infant manufacture that promises great future importance when the protecting duty may be removed—a period that is coeval with the Greek calends. When, and where, did a manufacturer ever allow that a protecting duty was no longer necessary? Surely not in the United States. Look at the history of the Tariff of 1816. These hot-bed productions are not calculated for permanent maturity, if the protection be

EDITOR'S

REMARKS.

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