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 recommended 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 disposition 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 manufac turers. 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

subordinate, throughout the bill. Just so much, and no more, is done for him, as is supposed necessary to enable him to purchase and manufacture the wool. The agricultural interest, the farming interest, the interest of the sheep-owner, is the great object which the bill is calculated to benefit, and which it will benefit, if the manufacturer can be kept alive. A comparison of existing duties with those proposed on the wool and on the cloth, will show how this part of the case stands.

At present, a duty of thirty per cent. ad valorem is laid on all wool costing ten cents per pound, or upwards; and a duty of fifteen per cent. on all wool under that price.

The present bill proposes a specific duty of four cents per pound, and also an ad valorem duty of fifty per cent. on all wool of every description.

The result of the combination of these two duties is, that wool fit for making good cloths, and costing from thirty to forty cents per pound in the foreign market, will pay a duty at least equal to sixty per cent. ad valorem. And wool costing less than ten cents in the foreign market will pay a duty, on the average, of a hundred per cent. ad valorem.

Now, Sir, these heavy duties are laid for the wool-grower. They are designed to give a spring to agriculture, by fostering one of its most important products.

But let us see what is done for the manufacturer, in order to enable him to manufacture the raw material, at prices so much enhanced.

As the bill passed the House of Representatives, the advance of duties on cloths is supposed to have been not more than three per cent. on the minimum points. Taking the amount of duty to be now thirty-seven per cent. ad valorem on cloths, this bill, as it came to us, proposed, if that supposition be true, only to carry it up to forty. Amendments here adopted have enhanced this duty, and are understood to have carried it up to a duty of forty-five or perhaps fifty per cent. ad valorem. Taking it at the highest, the duty on the cloth is raised thirteen per cent.; while that on wool is raised in some instances thirty, and in some instances eighty-five per cent.; that is, in one case from thirty to sixty, and in the other from fifteen to a hundred. Now the calculation is said to be true which supposes that a duty of thirty per cent. on the raw material enhances by fifteen per cent. the

cost of producing the cloth; the raw material being estimated generally to be equal to half the expense of the fabric. So that, while by this bill the manufacturer gains thirteen per cent. on the cloth, he would appear to lose fifteen per cent. on the same cloth by the increase in the price of the wool. And this would not only appear to be true, but would, I suppose. be actually true, were it not that the market may be open to the manufac turer, under this bill, for such cloths as may be furnished at prices intermediate between the graduated prices established by the bill.

For example, few or no foreign cloths, it is supposed, costing more than fifty cents a yard and less than a dollar, will be imported; therefore, American cloths worth more than fifty cents, and less than a dollar, will find a market. So of the intervals, or intermediate spaces, between the other statute prices. In this mode it may be hoped that the manufacturers may be sustained, and rendered able to carry on the work of converting the raw material, the agricultural product of the country, into an article necessary and fit for use. This statement, I think, sufficiently shows that no further benefit or advantage is intended for them, than such as shall barely enable them to accomplish that purpose; and that the object to which all others have been made to yield is the advantage of agriculture.

And yet, Sir, it is on occasion of a bill thus framed, that a loud and ceaseless cry has been raised against what is called the cupidity, the avarice, the monopolizing spirit, of New England manufacturers! This is one of the main " abominations of the bill"; to remedy which it is proposed to keep in the other abominations. Under the prospect of advantage held out by the law of 1824, men have ventured their fortunes, and their means of subsistence for themselves and families, in woollen manufactures. They have ventured investments in objects requiring a large outlay of capital; in mills, houses, water-works, and expensive machinery. Events have occurred, blighting their prospects and withering their hopes,-events which have deprived them of that degree of succor which the legislature manifestly intended. They come here asking for relief against an unfore seen occurrence, for remedy against that which Congress, if it had foreseen, would have prevented; and they are told, that what they ask is an abomination! They say that an interest

important to them, and important to the country, and principally called into existence by the government itself, has received a severe shock, under which it must sink, if the government will not, by reasonable means, endeavor to preserve what it has created. And they are met with a volley of hard names, a tirade of reproaches, and a loud cry against capitalists, speculators, and stock-jobbers! For one, I think them hardly treated; I think, and from the beginning have thought, their claim to be a fair one. With how much soever of undue haste, or even of credulity, they may be thought to have embarked in these pursuits, under the hopes held out by government, I do not feel it to be just that they should be abandoned to their fate on the first adverse change of circumstances; although I have always seen, and now see, how difficult, perhaps I should rather say how impossible, it is for Congress to act, when such changes occur, in a manner at once efficient and discreet; prompt, and yet mod

erate.

For these general reasons, and on these grounds, I am decidedly in favor of a measure which shall uphold and support, in behalf of the manufacturers, the law of 1824, and carry its benefits and advantages to the full extent intended. And though I am not altogether satisfied with the particular form of these enactments, I am willing to take them, in the belief that they will answer an essentially important and necessary purpose.

It is now my painful duty to take notice of another part of the bill, which I think in the highest degree objectionable and unreasonable; I mean the extraordinary augmentation of the duty on hemp. I cannot well conceive any thing more unwise or ill-judged than this appears to me to be. The duty is already thirty-five dollars per ton; and the bill proposes a progressive increase till it shall reach sixty dollars. This will be absolutely oppressive on the shipping interest, the great consumers of the article. When this duty shall have reached its maximum, it will create an annual charge of at least one hundred thousand dollars, falling not on the aggregate of the commercial interest, but on the ship-owner. It is a very unequal burden. The navigation of the country has already a hard struggle to sustain itself against foreign competition; and it is singular enough, that this interest, which is already so severely tried, which pays so much in duties on hemp, duck, and iron, and which it is now