the condition of things did not allow that country, sensible as it was to their services and merits, to do them the full justice which it desired. It could not entirely fulfil its engagements. The army was to be disbanded; but it was unpaid. It was to lay down its own power; but there was no government with adequate power to perform what had been promised to it. In this critical moment, what is its conduct? Does it disgrace its high character? Is temptation able to seduce it? Does it speak of righting itself? Does it undertake to redress its own wrongs by its own sword? Does it lose its patriotism in its deep sense of injury and injustice? Does military ambition cause its integrity to swerve? Far, far otherwise.

It had faithfully served and saved the country; and to that country it now referred, with unhesitating confidence, its claim and its complaints. It laid down its arms with alacrity; it mingled itself with the mass of the community; and it waited till, in better times, and under a new government, its services might be rewarded, and the promises made to it fulfilled. Sir, this example is worth more, far more, to the cause of civil liberty, than this bill will cost us. We can hardly recur to it too often, or dwell on it too much, for the honor of our country and of its defenders. Allow me to say, again, that meritorious service in civil war is worthy of peculiar consideration; not only because there is, in such wars, usually less power to restrain irregularities, but because, also, they expose all prominent actors in them to different kinds of danger. It is rebellion as well as war. Those who engage in it must look, not only to the dangers of the field, but to confiscation also, and attainder, and ignominious death. With no efficient and settled government, either to sustain or to control them, and with every sort of danger before them, it is great merit to have conducted themselves with fidelity to the country, under every discouragement on the one hand, and with unconquerable bravery towards the common enemy on the other. Such, Sir, was the conduct of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary army.

I would not, and do not, underrate the services or the sufferings of others. I know well, that in the Revolutionary contest all made sacrifices, and all endured sufferings; as well those who paid for service, as those who performed it. I know that, in the records of all the little municipalities of New England, abundant

proof exists of the zeal with which the cause was espoused, and the sacrifices with which it was cheerfully maintained. I have often there read, with absolute astonishment, of the taxes, the contributions, the heavy subscriptions, sometimes provided for by disposing of the absolute necessaries of life, by which enlistments were procured, and food and clothing furnished. It would be, Sir, to these same municipalities, to these same little patriotic councils of Revolutionary times, that I should now look, with most assured confidence, for a hearty support of what this bill proposes. There, the scale of Revolutionary merit stands high. There are still those living who speak of the 19th of April, and the 17th of June, without thinking it necessary to add the year. These men, one and all, would rejoice to find that those who stood by the country bravely, through the doubtful and perilous struggle which conducted it to independence and glory, had not been forgotten in the decline and close of life.

The objects, then, Sir, of the proposed bounty, are most worthy and deserving objects. The services which they rendered were in the highest degree useful and important. The country to which they rendered them is great and prosperous. They have lived to see it glorious; let them not live to see it unkind. For me, I can give them but my vote and my prayers; and I give them both with my whole heart.

Do they not perceive that such a mode of proceeding, with a view to such avowed objects, must waken a spirit that shall treat taunt with scorn and bid menace defiance? Do they not know (if they do not, it is time they did) that a policy like this, avowed with such self-satisfaction, persisted in with a delight which should only accompany the discovery of some new and wonderful improvement in legislation, will compel every New England man to feel that he is degraded and debased if he does not resist it?

Sir, gentlemen mistake us; they greatly mistake us. Το those who propose to conduct the affairs of government, and to enact laws on such principles as these and for such objects as these, New England, be assured, will exhibit, not submission, but resistance; not humiliation, but disdain. Against her, depend on it, nothing will be gained by intimidation. If you propose to suffer yourselves in order that she may be made to suffer also, she will bid you come on; she will meet challenge with challenge; she will invite you to do your worst, and your best, and to see who will hold out longest. She has offered you every one of her votes in the Senate to strike out this tax on molas

ses.

You have refused to join her, and to strike it out. With the aid of the votes of any one Southern State, for example, of North Carolina, it could have been struck out. But North Carolina has refused her votes for this purpose. She has voted to keep the tax in, and to keep it in at the highest rate. And yet, Sir, North Carolina, whatever she may think of it, is fully as much interested in this tax as Massachusetts. I think, indeed, she is more interested, and that she will feel it more heavily and sorely. She is herself a great consumer of the article, throughout all her classes of population. This increase of the duty will levy on her citizens a new tax of fifty thousand dollars a year, or more; and yet her representatives on this floor support the tax, although they have so often told us that her people are now poor, and already borne down with taxes. North Carolina will feel this tax also in her trade, for what foreign commerce has she more useful to her than the West India market for her provisions and lumber? And yet the gentlemen from North Carolina insist on keeping this tax in the bill. Let them not, then, complain. Let them not hereafter call it the work of others. It is their own work. Let them not lay it to the manufacturers.

The manufacturers have had nothing to do with it. Let them not lay it to the wool-growers. The wool-growers have had nothing to do with it. Let them not lay it to New England. New England has done nothing but oppose it, and ask them to oppose it also. No, Sir; let them take it to themselves. Let them enjoy the fruit of their own doings. Let them assign their motives for thus taxing their own constituents, and abide their judgment; but do not let them flatter themselves that New England cannot pay a molasses tax as long as North Carolina chooses that such a tax shall be paid.

Sir, I am sure there is nobody here envious of the prosperity of New England, or who would wish to see it destroyed. But if there be such anywhere, I cannot cheer them by holding out the hope of a speedy accomplishment of their wishes. The prosperity of New England, like that of other parts of the country, may, doubtless, be affected injuriously by unwise or unjust laws. It may be impaired, especially, by an unsteady and shifting policy, which fosters particular objects to-day, and abandons them to-morrow. She may advance faster, or slower; but the propelling principle, be assured, is in her, deep, fixed, and active. Her course is onward and forward. The great powers of free labor, of moral habits, of general education, of good institutions, of skill, enterprise, and perseverance, are all working with her, and for her; and on the small surface which her population covers, she is destined, I think, to exhibit striking results of the operation of these potent causes, in whatever constitutes the happiness or the ornament of human society.

Mr. President, this tax on molasses will benefit the treasury, though it will benefit nobody else. Our finances will, at least, be improved by it. I assure the gentlemen, we will endeavor to use the funds thus to be raised properly and wisely, and to the public advantage. We have already passed a bill for the Delaware breakwater; another is before us, for the improvement of several of our harbors; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal bill has this moment been brought into the Senate; and next session we hope to bring forward the breakwater at Nantucket. These appropriations, Sir, will require pretty ample means; it will be convenient to have a well-supplied treasury; and I state for the especial consolation of the honorable gentlemen from North Carolina, that so long as they choose to compel their constit

uents, and my constituents, to pay a molasses tax, the proceeds thereof shall be appropriated, as far as I am concerned, to valuable national objects, in useful and necessary works of internal improvements.

Mr. President, in what I have now said, I have but followed where others have led, and compelled me to follow. I have but exhibited to gentlemen the necessary consequences of their own course of proceeding. But this manner of passing laws is wholly against my own judgment, and repugnant to all my feelings. And I would, even now, once more solicit gentlemen to consider whether a different course would not be more worthy of the Senate, and more useful to the country. Why should we not act upon this bill, article by article, judge fairly of each, retain what a majority approves, and reject the rest? If it be, as the gentleman from Maryland called it, "a bill of abominations,” why not strike out as many of the abominations as we can? Extreme measures cannot tend to good. They must produce mischief. If a proper and moderate bill in regard to wool and woollens had passed last year, we should not now be in our present situation. If such a bill, extended perhaps to a few other articles, if necessity so required, had been prepared and recom. mended at this session, much both of excitement and of evil would have been avoided.

Nevertheless, Sir, it is for gentlemen to judge for themselves. If, when the wool manufacturers think they have a fair right to call on Congress to carry into effect what was intended for them by the law of 1824, and when there is manifested some disposi. tion to comply with what they thus request, the benefit cannot be granted in any other manner than by inserting it in a sort of bill of pains and penalties, a "bill of abominations," it is not for me to attempt to reason down what has not been reasoned up; but I must content myself with admonishing gentlemen that their policy is destined, in all probability, to terminate in their own sore disappointment.

I advert once more, Sir, to the subject of wool and woollens, for the purpose of showing that, even in respect to that part of the bill, the interest mainly protected is not that of the manufacturers. On the contrary, it is that of the wool-growers. The wool-grower is vastly more benefited than the manufacturer. The interest of the manufacturer is treated as secondary and