CHEAP BOOKS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON AMENDMENTS TO THE TARIFF BILL REDUCING THE TARIFF ON BOOKS, JANUARY 24, 1867.

THE Senate having under consideration the bill to provide increased revenue from imports, Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, moved to retain the following articles on the free list :

"Books, maps, charts, and other printed matter, specially imported in good faith for any public library or society, incorporated or established for philosophical, literary, or religious purposes, or for the encouragement of the fine arts."

Mr. Sumner said: :

MR

[R. PRESIDENT, — By the existing law, public libraries and literary societies receive books, maps, charts, and engravings free of duty. It is now proposed to change the law, so that public libraries and literary societies shall no longer receive books, maps, charts, and engravings free of duty. It is a little curious that the present moment is seized for this important change, which I must call retrogressive in character. It seems like going back to the Dark Ages. We made no such change during the war. We went through all its terrible trials and the consequent taxation without any such attempt. Now that peace has come, and we are considering how to mitigate taxation, it is proposed to add this new tax.

MR. HENDRICKS. Will the Senator allow me to ask whether he regards this bill as a mitigation of the taxes upon goods brought from foreign countries?

MR. SUMNER. I am not discussing the bill as a general measure.

MR. HENDRICKS. I thought the Senator spoke of the present effort to mitigate taxation.

MR. SUMNER. I believe I am not wrong, when I say there is everywhere a disposition to reduce taxation, whether on foreign or domestic articles. Such is the desire of the country and the irresistible tendency of things. But what must be the astonishment, when it appears, that, instead of reducing a tax on knowledge, you augment it!

I insist, that, in imposing this duty, you not only change the existing law, but you depart from the standing policy of republican institutions. Everywhere we have education at the public expense. The first form is in the public school, open to all. But the public library is the complement or supplement of the public school. As well impose a tax on the public school as on the public library.

I doubt if the Senate is fully aware of the number of public libraries springing into existence. This is a characteristic of our times. Nor is it peculiar to our country. Down to a recent day, public libraries were chiefly collegiate. In Europe they were collegiate or conventual. There were no libraries of the people. But such libraries are now appearing in England and in France. Every considerable place or centre has its library for the benefit of the neighborhood. But this movement, like every liberal tendency, is more marked in the United States. Here public libraries are coming

into being without number. The Public Library of Boston and the Astor Library of New York are magnificent examples, which smaller towns are emulating. In my own State there are public libraries in Lowell, Newburyport, New Bedford, Worcester, Springfield, — indeed, I might almost say in every considerable town. But Massachusetts is not alone. Public libraries are springing up in all the Northern States. They are now extending like a belt of light across the country. They are a new Zodiac, in which knowledge travels with the sun from east to west. Of course these are all for the public good. They are public schools, where every book is a schoolmaster. To tax such institutions now, for the first time, is a new form of that old enemy, a "tax on knowledge." Such is my sense of their supreme value that I would offer them bounties rather than taxes.

In continuation of this same hospitality to knowledge, I wish to go still further, and relieve imported books of all taxes, so far as not inconsistent with interests already embarked in the book business. For instance, let all books, maps, charts, and engravings printed before 1840 take their place on the free list. Publications before that time cannot come in competition with any interests here. The revenue they afford will be unimportant. The tax you impose adds to the burdens of scholars and professional men who need them. And yet every one of these books, when once imported, is a positive advantage to the country, by which knowledge is extended and the public taste improved. I would not claim too much for these instructive strangers belonging to another generation. I think I do not err in asking for them a generous welcome. But, above all, do not tax them.

It is sometimes said that we tax food and clothes, therefore we must tax books. I regret that food or clothes are taxed, because the tax presses upon the poor. But this is no reason for any additional tax. Reduce all such taxes, rather than add to them. But you will not fail to remember the essential difference between these taxes. In New England education from the beginning was at the public expense; and this has been for some time substantially the policy of the whole country, except so far as it was darkened by Slavery. Therefore I insist, that, because we tax food and clothes for the body, this is no reason why we should tax food and clothes for the mind.

The question, being taken by yeas and nays, resulted, - Yeas 22, Nays 13; so the amendment was adopted.

Mr. Sumner then moved to exempt "maps, charts, and engravings executed prior to 1840." He said that this amendment was naturally associated with that on which the Senate had just acted; that there could be no competition with anything at home.

In reply to Mr. Williams, of Oregon, Mr. Sumner again spoke.

MR. PRESIDENT,-There is no question of the exemption of those who are best able to pay these duties; it is simply a question of a tax on knowledge. The Senator by his system would shut these out from the country, and would say, "Hail to darkness!" I do not wish to repeat what I have so often said; but the argument of the Senator has been made here again and again, and heretofore, as often as made, I have undertaken to answer it. He says we put a tax on necessaries now, - on the food that fills the body, on the garments that clothe the body. I regret that we do. I wish we were in a condition to relieve the country of such taxation. But does not the Senator bear in

mind that he proposes to go further, and to depart from the great principle governing our institutions from the beginning of our history? We have had education free in other words, we have undertaken to fill the mind and to clothe the mind at the public expense. We never did undertake to fill the body or to clothe the body at the public expense. Sir, as a lover of my race, I should be glad, could the country have clothed the body and filled the body at the public expense. I should be glad, had society been in such a condition that this vision could be accomplished; but we all know that it is not, and I content myself with something much simpler and more practical. I would aim to establish the principle which seems to have governed our fathers, and which is so congenial with republican institutions, that education and knowledge, so far as practicable, shall be free.

To make education and knowledge free, you must, so far as possible, relieve all books from taxation. I have already said that I did not propose to interfere with any of the practical interests of the book trade; but, where those interests are out of the way, I insist that the great principle of republican institutions should be applied. This is my answer to the Senator from Oregon. I fear he has not adequately considered the question. He has not brought to it that knowledge, that judgment, which always command my respect, as often as he addresses the Senate. He seems to have spoken hastily. I hope that he will withdraw, or at least relax, his opposition, and, revolving the subject hereafter, range himself, as he must, with his large intelligence, on the side of human knowledge.