proved by the victory which had been achieved. Among these facts are the following:

"That men of all pursuits of life-farmers and mechanics, miners and furnace-men, laborers and capitalists, traders and transporters-have arrived at the knowledge, that they have a common interest in endeavoring so to diversify the demands for labor as to bring together the producers and consumers of the country:

"That they are awake to the destructive tendencies of a system which burdens the nation with a foreign debt that already counts by hundreds of millions-requiring the remittance of probably thirty millions of dollars annually, for the payment of the interest alone:

"That they are unwilling further to sustain a policy which condemns their own coal and ore to remain useless in the ground, while draining the country of the precious metals to pay for foreign iron :

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That they do not desire longer to be compelled to pay for foreign labor, while American laborers are badly fed and badly clothed, because unemployed :

"That the belief in the necessity for a total change in our domestic and foreign policy, is rapidly becoming general throughout the State.

"The power to accomplish such a change," the Committee say, "is in the hands of Pennsylvania; and it is needed only that she exercise it. Placed, as she is, between the North and the South-great as she is in her natural resources-powerful as she is by reason of her wealth and population-she may, if she will, guide and direct the policy of the Union. Blind, however, to her true interest, she has but too often permitted herself to be harnessed to the car of some ambitious and unprincipled demagogue, who, in consideration of favors to himself, has helped to sacrifice her dearest interests-lending his aid to the closing of her mills and furnaces, and to the expulsion of her workmen, and thereby depriving her farmers of the advantage of having a market near at hand. The consequences exhibit themselves in the fact that she has had no real influence in the Unionher votes having been obtained by means of frauds like that of Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of '42,' while she herself, when asking attention to her interests, has been treated as a mere pauper, seeking to be fed at the public cost. Such, fellow-citizens, have been the effects of permitting herself to be led, when she should have placed herself in the lead-of in

dorsing the opinions of others when she should boldly have proclaimed her own."

To the hope of appeasing and reclaiming the State of Pennsylvania, some have ascribed the recommendation, by the President, in his next annual message, to which we have alluded. That recommendation, however, received no favorable response from Congress. The previous Congress had, in 1857, modified the tariff by a further reduction of duties; and it was hardly to be expected that the subject would so soon be taken up again, especially by a Congress of the same political complexion as that which preceded it. In his next annual message, [December, 1859,] he again expressly recommended "an increase of our present duties on imports," to raise the necessary revenue. Another Congress having come into power, a tariff bill, framed in accordance with the views of the friends of protection, passed the House, but was rejected by the Sonate.

CHAPTER XVII.

Constitutionality of a protective tariff considered. Views of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and others.

In the foregoing history of the tariff, taken chiefly from the public records, the opinions and the leading arguments of American statesmen and legislators, on both sides of the question, have been fairly presented. We subjoin a few Chapters in which is given a succinct view of the question, together with additional arguments and authorities, in confirmation of the doctrines affirmed by protectionists, and with such arrangement and references as to render this a conve nient text-book on this subject.

The question which seems first to claim our consideration, is that of the constitutionality of a protective tariff; for if such a tariff is not authorized by the Constitution, the policy of protection ought at once to be abandoned. The question then is, Does the Constitution confer upon the General Government the power to encourage domestic industry by laying duties upon imports?

The reader, by recurring to the history of the Constitution, a sketch of which is given in the first Chapter of this work, will see that the Convention which framed that instrument, was called for the very purpose of conferring upon the Government the power to countervail, by retaliatory duties, the restrictions imposed upon our commerce and navigation by foreign nations, especially by Great Britain. And is it prob able that, having been convened for that purpose, the framers should have neglected to supply that defect in the Confederation, for the evils of which so many fruitless attempts had been made to find a remedy? That this defect has been supplied by the Constitution, is manifest from the expressed opinions and official acts of the early administrators of the present Government, the most eminent of whom participated in the framing of the Constitution.

Marshall, in his life of Washington, Vol. V., p. 69, says: "The idea of compelling Great Britain to relax somewhat of the rigors of her system, by opposing it with regulations equally restrictive, seems to have been generally taken up."

Washington, writing to a friend in Great Britain, states: "They [the people] now see the indispensable necessity of a general controlling power, and are addressing their respective assemblies to grant it to Congress."

Again: "I do not see that we can long exist as a nation, without lodging somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union, in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State Governments extends over the several States."

Mr. Dawes, in Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p. 76, is reported to have said, in the Massachusetts convention : "Our manufactures are another great object which has received no encouragement by national duties on foreign manufactures, and they never can, by any authority in the old Confederation." These, and numerous other extracts which might be made from published letters and public documents, superadded to the familiar political history of those times, afford conclusive evidence of the general expectation, that the power in question would be granted to Congress. Equally evident is it that the framers and their cotemporaries considered that the power had been granted.

Washington, who was a member and President of the Convention of framers, said in his Inaugural Address: "The advancement of agriculture, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I can not forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertion and skill in producing them at home."

Mr. Jefferson said in his report of 23d February, 1793, made pursuant to a resolution of the House of the 14th February, 1791: "Where a nation imposes high duties on our productions, or prohibits them altogether, it may be proper for us to do the same by theirs, first burdening or excluding those productions which they bring here in competition with our own of the same kind, imposing on them duties lower at first, but heavier and heavier afterwards, as other channels of supply open."

In his message, November, 1804, he submits:

"Whether

the great interests of agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, can, within the pale of your constitutional powers, be aided in any of their relations."

Again: "An immediate prohibition of the exportation of arms is submitted to your consideration."

Again In his annual message of 1806, after noticing the

rapid liquidation of the public debt, and the prospect of surplus revenue not far distant, he said:

"The question now comes forward-To what other object shall these [anticipated] surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of imposts after the entire discharge of the public debt, and during those intervals when the purpose of war would not call for them? Shall we suppress imposts, and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures? On a few articles of more general and more necessary use the suppression will doubtless be right; but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid, are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement, as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers. By these operations, new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear; their interests will be identified; and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties."

Now Mr. Jefferson is well known to have been in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution. Yet it is evident from the foregoing extract, that, although there might be "objects of public improvement" to which the imposts could not be constitutionally applied without an enlargement of the "federal powers," as to the power of laying the "impost," for the "advantage of domestic manufactures," he entertained no doubt.

"Al

Mr. Madison, in his message, December, 1810, says: though other objects will press more immediately on your deliberations, a portion of them can not but be well bestowed on the just and sound policy of securing to our manufac tures the success they have attained, and are still attaining, under the impulse of causes not permanent; and to our navigation the fair extent of which it is at present abridged by the unequal regulations of foreign Governments."

Not less explicit is his language in other messages and communications: "From this Convention," says he, "proceeded the Federal Constitution, which gives to the general will the means of providing, in the several necessary cases, for the general welfare; and particularly in the case of regulating our commerce in such manner as may be required by the regulation of other countries.