been done several times under the present Government? This mode of taxation requires every man to pay according to his ability, and ought not to be objected to by those who contend that duties necessarily increase the prices of the articles protected.

The doctrine that duties are to be laid with exclusive reference to revenue is not that which was held by the founders of our Government. Nor did they recognize that as the true doctrine which allows a discrimination with a view to the protection of certain articles, in laying duties for revenue, but denies the right to lay duties for the encouragement and protection of domestic industry, and to an amount exceeding that which is necessary to meet the actual wants of the Treasury. Of this we have abundant confirmation in the history of the causes which led to the calling of the Convention which formed the Constitution, and in the subsequent acts, legislative and executive, as well as the recorded opinions of the leading members of that Convention, and of a large majority of our most distinguished statesmen and expounders of the Constitution in later times.

CHAPTER XIX.

Brief review of the foregoing history. Commercial policies of England, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, &c., compared. Conclusion.

To provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, is the great object of our Constitution. As a means to this end, power is conferred upon the General Government to regulate trade, both foreign and domestic. This, as appears from our political history, was the principal moving cause that led to the formation of the present Constitution. The particular object of this power, as we have seen, was to protect the people of this country against the operation of the restrictive policy of foreign nations, especially that of Great Britain.

As has been observed, Congress, in pursuance of the joint powers of taxation and protection granted by the Constitution, immediately passed the act of 1789. There being at that time, and for many years afterward, a foreign demand for the products of our soil, and a portion of the revenue being raised by internal taxation, lower rates of duty were imposed by that act and several acts which succeeded it, than were found necessary at a later period. Imported goods were paid for chiefly by our cotton, bread-stuffs, and other provisions.

In 1807 commenced our commercial difficulties with Great Britain and France, by which our trade was embarrassed until the close of the war with the former Power, in 1815. During most of this period, we manufactured largely for ourselves. The interruption of our foreign commerce, and the double duties upon imported goods, afforded protection to manufactures; and various branches of manufacturing were successfully established.

The tariff act of 1816, was the first which had reference to a general state of peace. This act is sometimes spoken of as the beginning of our protective system. It fell far short, however, of giving due protection to our infant manufactures, except the article of coarse cottons, and a few other articles of minor importance; the high war duties under which manufactures had sprung up, having ceased, according to the

provision of the act creating them, at the expiration of one year after the termination of the war. Not only were the duties generally under the act of 1816 too low for protection, but they were changed, in too many instances, from specific to ad valorem, the tendency of which to induce frauds by false invoices, has been repeatedly alluded to. There being no effectual check upon importations, the market was flooded with foreign goeds; manufactories were soon closed; the demand for labor was diminished; the products of the farmer declined in price; specie was exported; banks failed; and our foreign debt was greatly increased.

In 1820, an attempt was made in Congress to alleviate the public distress, by a revision of the tariff; but it was defeated by the combined opposition of the Eastern and Southern, or the shipping and the planting States. The foreign demand for the great Southern staple, cotton, and the employment of Eastern shipping to transport it to a distant market, greatly moderated the pressure upon these sections of the Union, while in the agricultural States the effects of "free trade" were oppressive in the extreme.*

The tariff act of 1824 was more protective in its character, though failing in its operation, to fulfill the expectations of its friends. This tariff, too, was opposed by some of the Eastern and by the Southern States generally, and was passed by a very small majority, having received its main support from the Middle and the Western States. Its greatest defect, as was alleged by the friends of protection, was the ad valorem principle of laying duties, which prevented the full measure of protection contemplated by the act, especially to the manufacture of woolens. On the whole, it gave but partial relief to the country.

In 1827, an effort was made to remedy the defect complained of. With this view, the "woolens bill" was intro

*The term, free trade, in its strict and literal sense, signifies a commerce between nations, in which the commodities exchanged and the vessels in which they are transported, are free of duty; or in which goods are subject to no charges except those of transportation, port charges, &c., leaving the Government to raise a revenue by direct taxation. But the term is more generally applied to a trade in which the rates of duty are intended to produce a revenue limited to the expenses of the Government, and the friends of which advocate ad valorem duties of nearly uni form rates upon all articles. The term is sometimes used with still greater latitude, permitting a discrimination in favor of certain articles which need protection, but by duties so low as not materially to check importations. Hence it is seen that the term is practically a very indefinite one.

duced, of which a history has been given. But the object failed. [Chap. VIII.]

The next year, 1828, the friends of the protective system rallied, and passed an act for a general revision of the tariff, which was the first act passed since the peace which seemed to meet the wants of the country. A state of things followed, the reverse of that which succeeded the passage of the act of 1816. Manufactures at once revived; the demand for labor and agricultural products increased; specie returned; the revenue was augmented; and general prosperity was re stored So abundant, indeed, was the revenue, as to justify the exemption of tea and coffee and other articles from duty; and the act of 1832, effected a material reduction of duties on articles not competing with those of domestic growth or manufacture.

By the compromise act of 1833, a radical change was made in the policy of the Government, by the adoption of a system of ad valorem "horizontal duties," which were to be ultimately reduced to the lowest revenue rates. The act took effect in 1834. The reduction provided for by the act was so gradual, that no serious inconvenience was immediately felt. The usual effects of free trade tariffs were not long delayed. Banking capital was rapidly augmented; large foreign debts were contracted; specie was exported; and the natural, inevitable consequence, a revulsion-a financial crisis-followed. Banks suspended; the farming, manufacturing, and industrial interests generally were prostrated; and the Government, in the midst of its war upon paper currency, was itself again compelled to resort to the issue of inconvertible paper in the shape of treasury notes.

In 1842, the last reduction of duties under the act of 1833 having been reached, and the people, smarting under the effects of a departure from the protective policy, having changed the administration, that policy was restored, the results of which have been noticed. [Chapter XIII.] The prostrate business of the country was revived; and a period of solid prosperity, seldom equaled in this country, was enjoyed, until after the reädoption, in 1846, of the free trade or revenue system, which was again followed by results similar to those produced by the act of 1833. [Chapter XVI.] Importations, during the year ending June 30th, 1857, reached the enormous amount of $360,000,000! and our foreign indebtedness was variously estimated at from 300 to 500 millions! The vast production of the California mines-amount

ing to hundreds of millions-could no longer stay the long predicted revulsion of 1857. The scenes of 1837 and 1842 were reproduced; and although banks have resumed specie payments, business has as yet but partially recovered from the shock; nor is the country likely to attain the prosperity it enjoyed under the auspicious operation of the protective tariff of 1842.

Thus it appears that the several crises which the country has experienced, have uniformly occurred in low tariff or free trade times; and that returning prosperity has as uniformly followed a return to the protective policy. Is it at all probable that these changes are the result of mere accident? Is it not reasonable to suppose that, under an act similar to that which was superseded by the revenue act of 1846, our languishing manufactures would again revive, and an increased demand for mechanical labor, and consequently for the products of agriculture, would be created? Let the farmer and the manufacturer, who have been long separated, be again -as recommended by Jefferson-placed side by side, and might we not hope to see the country reenter upon its career of prosperity?

During these periods of comparative free trade, when the producers and consumers have been so widely separated, and preceding these financial crises, there have been great unsteadiness in business movements, contractions and expansions in the revenue and the currency, and extravagant speculation; while the opposite results have followed the onactment of our protective tariffs. Witness the effects of the two systems upon our imports. Under the operation of the tariffs of 1828 and 1832, for the four years before the business of the country was sensibly affected by the compromise tariff of 1833, the importations were as follows: During the year ending September 30, 1831, $103,191,124; in 1832, $101,029,266; in 1833, $108,118,311; in 1834, $126,521,332. Under the tariff of 1842 the importations were, in 1844, $108,434,055; in 1845, $117,254,564; in 1846, $121,691,797; in 1847, $146,545,638. Here we see that, as soon as the people had begun to recover from the effects of the free trade tariffs, and as their ability to purchase increased, the imports under both these tariffs also gradually and regularly increas The manufacture of cotton and woolen goods nearly doubled during this period, and the production of iron increased threefold. Hence the increased ability of the people to buy for eign goods.