THE TARIFF.*

AFTER the conclusion of the foregoing argument, and some further discussion, Mr. Clayton submitted the following resolution, which passed the Senate:

"Resolved, That the bill be committed to the Committee on Finance, with instructions to remove the new duties imposed by said bill, in all cases, where any foreign raw material is taxed to the prejudice of any mechanic or manufacturer, so that no other or higher duty shall be collected on any such raw material than is provided by the act of the 30th of August, 1842: and further, so to regulate all the duties imposed by this bill, as to raise a revenue sufficient for the exigencies of the country."

On the following day (28th July), Mr. Lewis, the chairman of the committee, reported back the bill without alteration, and moved that the committee be discharged from the further consideration of the instructions contained in Mr. Clayton's resolution.

A discussion arose on this motion, in the course of which Mr. Webster spoke as follows.

THE question now before the Senate is in one respect a test question, as it has been described by the honorable member from Missouri; † not exactly in the light in which he views it, or in the sense in which he wishes to be understood, but in quite a different sense, in another aspect altogether. We are here, Sir, calling ourselves every day a democratic Congress, and the majority of the body is said to be about to pass a great democratic measure. I suppose, if any meaning is attached to these terms, it is that this is a measure favorable to the masses, favorable to the people, preferring the interests of the

* Remarks in the Senate of the United States, on the 28th of July, 1846. † Mr. Benton.

masses to the interests of a few, preferring the interests of the great body of the people to those who may be called the possessors of a large amount of wealth. Well, Sir, what sort of a bill does the question now about to be taken show that this "great democratic measure" is? or what sort of a measure is this popular democratic bill? It purports to be an "act reducing the duty on imports, and for other purposes." The title would not describe the bill at all, if it did not indicate that there were other purposes besides the mere reduction of duties; and one of those other purposes is to enhance duties. The true interpretation of the bill, therefore, is, that it is an act for reducing certain duties and enhancing certain other duties on articles of importation.

Now, Sir, let us see whether this is such a bill as is pretended, a bill in favor of the masses, in favor of the people! Just look at the question now submitted to the Senate! This bill does reduce duties, but on what? Why, there may be some articles on which the duties are reduced for the benefit of the middling classes; but the great reduction of duties is on such articles as those of which I read to you yesterday a list from the letter of Mr. Nichol. You reduce the duty on spirits of all kinds to the great extent which I mentioned yesterday. You reduce the duty on spices to the great extent which I mentioned yesterday. You reduce the duty on imported tropical fruits and other fruits. You reduce the duty on ready-made clothing. You reduce the duty on rich and expensive carpets. You reduce the duty on rich cut-glass. You reduce every one of these duties, and you saw that this reduction keeps out of the treasury more than the whole of the duty laid upon certain other articles. But these are your reductions, your main reductions. They are all on articles of luxury, of extreme luxury; spirits, spices, silks, costly carpets, rich cut-glass, ready-made clothing; articles which none of the middling classes are interested in, or in the habit of buying or using. Now it is proposed to see whether you will or will not, by the instructions to your committee, continue the practice of freeing the raw material, upon which all the manufacturing and laboring people of the country earn a living, when they get it. That question is now distinctly put to you, and put to this Senate. On the raw material, which is to come here and furnish employment and occupation

to the manufacturers and artisans of the country, you have raised the duty. Perhaps on all these raw materials, but certainly on many of them, as I showed yesterday, you have raised the duty above the standard of that tariff which you say is an obnoxious Whig measure, and for the reduction of whose duties you stand pledged. Now you have been asked to send the bill to your committee, with instructions, in every case where the duty on the raw material, as proposed by this bill, exceeds the duty on the same raw material imposed by the Whig tariff of 1842, to take it off, and you won't do it; you won't do it! No. You indulge in the luxury of taxing the poor man and the laborer! That is the whole tendency, the whole character, the whole effect, of the bill. One may see everywhere in it the desire to revel in the delight of taking away men's employment. That is the character of this bill. And this is the question now before the Senate.

Sir, I had hoped that the honorable gentleman* who spoke yesterday with so much effect on the necessity of protecting the mechanics and laborers, who dwelt with so much emphasis on the very objectionable feature of taxing the raw material, I had hoped that he would have held to his purpose. I say that this bill holds a language that cannot be mistaken, that cannot and will not be misunderstood. It is not a bill for the people. It is not a bill for the masses. It is not a bill to add to the comforts of those in middle life, or of the poor. It is not a bill for employment. It is a bill for the relief of the highest and most luxurious classes of the country, and a bill imposing onerous duties on the great industrious masses, and for taking away the means of living from labor everywhere throughout the land. It cannot be disguised. You cannot mask its features. No man is so blind as not to see what this bill is; and the people will not be so callous, I trust, as not to feel it. In this sense, and in this view, the question now about to be put is a test question. We shall have the voice of the Senate upon it. We shall know who is for raising the duty on various articles to the prejudice, and in many cases to the ruin, of our own countrymen, working here at home as artisans and handicraftsmen, and who is at the same time for reducing the duties on the highest luxuries. That is

* Mr. Benton.

the test, and no man can escape it.

test.

No man will escape that

Now I shall vote to keep this proposition in the hands of the committee. The committee has not tried whether it can obey the instructions of the Senate. Last night they were instructed to do their duty, and at a very early hour this morning they say they have made up their mind. Was ever the like heard before? The chairman asks to be discharged. I don't believe they were convened on this matter for ten minutes. I doubt whether they have been together at all. What is the dif

ficulty of ascertaining the amount of duty on the general list of raw materials, and reducing the rates of this bill to those of the act of 1842? There is not a gentleman who could not do it in two hours. If they had been disposed, the committee could have obeyed your instructions before meridian this day. I am rather inclined to think, Sir, that they did not fatigue themselves by examining this matter. I am rather inclined to think it was their opinion that the best way was to take a short cut and move to be discharged, in the hope that some occurrence or other would enable them to carry that motion. I do not believe that they have opened a book, or looked at any list of raw materials. I am disposed to think, Mr. President, they are as raw on the whole subject as they were yesterday.

I repeat, Sir, that this bill has a face and front, so that, when it is held up to the country, no man need write at the bottom. of it whether it is a democratic bill or an aristocratic bill. When it shows to all the laboring portions of this community, that their daily labor and daily bread are directly interfered with; that, wherever it can be done, a tax is laid upon the raw materials upon which they work and earn their living; when they see at the same time, in the next line, the duties on those high classes of luxuries, spirits, silks, expensive carpets, rich cut-glass, and the rest of them, are reduced, will they ask any body to tell them what that bill is? Will they need any one to give a name to it? Sir, it names itself. It has the face and front of an aristocratic bill, oppressive of the poor and working man; and in every respect it corresponds to its face and front.

Some remarks were now made by Mr. McDuffie of South Carolina, in which reference was had to resolutions adopted in Boston in 1820, against the tariff bill commonly known as "Mr. Baldwin's bill," which

resolutions, at the request of Mr. McDuffie, were read at the Secretary's table. After some explanations between Mr. Webster and Mr. McDuffie, Mr. Webster continued as follows:

A word, Sir, about these resolutions of 1820. I remember the state of things very well. The commercial people of New England in 1820 were in a considerable state of alarm. They had business all over the world. They thought that a policy had been begun at Washington which would interfere with their commerce, and it was of that they were afraid. How was this great evil, of which they had become afraid, fastened upon them? By the minimums introduced into the tariff law of 1816, by South Carolina, in order to cut off the trade of the United States with India. The minimum principle, so odious now, was moved in Congress by a most respectable and distinguished member from South Carolina, not now living. It was carried by South Carolina, against every vote of Massachusetts. I do not think there was a vote of Massachusetts, not one, in favor of the measure. It is not, then, because the minimum principle is bad in itself, that it is now opposed. Sir, minimum is now spoken of here as if it were a Pawnee Indian, or one of the Camanches, that eats up and destroys every body and every thing.

MR. MCDUFFIE. So it does.

Why,

Well, bad as it is, it was introduced by South Carolina, against every vote of Massachusetts.

Well, then, in 1820, an eminent member of Congress from Pennsylvania introduced a high protective tariff, bearing, among certain other things, especially upon iron. I refer to Mr. Baldwin, afterwards judge of the Supreme Court. That tariff went to protect every thing out of New England. Thus was New England between the upper and nether mill-stone, between the South Carolina tariff, with its minimums on cottons, which cut off the India trade, and the Pennsylvania tariff, which looked mainly to that State. Is it to be wondered at that we were alarmed?

I wish the gentleman had dwelt a little more, in his address to the chair, on the effect of this bill upon the iron and coal of Pennsylvania. But I agree that, whether it be owing to change

*Mr. Lowndes.