relation to duties on importations. When changes are sought for the benefit of a class, their extent is determined by the number and extent necessary to secure votes to make them. Sectional and local interests are attended to, or overlooked, as this necessity shall dictate. Interest, and not principle, determines what shall be done. If votes from Louisiana and Texas are needed, sugar will come in for favor. If support is needed from Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, lead, copper, and pine lumber are provided for. If the votes of Pennsylvania are wanted, coal and iron receive full attention. If help is wanted from Vermont and certain Western States, wool and butter are cared for. If the votes of New England are needed, ship-building and manufactures are the objects of favor. If support is desired from Missouri and Kentucky, hemp must not be overlooked. The principle of protection under a tariff never expands beyond the objects necessary to carry a bill. In form, these bills contain most ample encouragement on articles like hay, grain, and cotton, where there can be no competition by importation. In such cases, whether the duties are on, or off, can make no possible difference in the price. All such pretences of protection are delusive cheats, and are only intended to prevent discussion and stifle complaint. While the Constitution declares expressly the object of tariff duties, no other can supersede or exclude that object. It is legally impossible that there should be express and implied objects on the same subject, under the Constitution. The former necessarily excludes the latter; and this is the more clear when the implied one conflicts with that which is express. If duties, higher than the necessities of the Treasury require, are imposed for the benefit of one class, they must be paid by those who do not receive protection. Under the high-tariff theory, a clause in the Constitution, for raising revenue by duties on importation, imposes, in legal effect, two distinct taxes: one for the Treasury, and another for a class engaged in particular branches of business, by way of protection. In other words, under a clause which declares duties shall be equal in all parts of the United States, there shall be two taxes, one direct, for the Government, and the other indirect, upon one class of people, for the exclusive benefit of another. The

Constitution gives no countenance to any such construction. All it demands is duties to pay debts, and for common defence and general welfare-not the welfare of a class, or a section of the country. There is no rational pretence of authority to enable one class of the community to lay and collect duties of another class. If equal justice were extended to all, tariffs would never be demanded. Aside from the Constitution and its restraints, legislation which could impose two taxes upon one part of the community, and but one on the other, can have no justification. It would be in conflict with the principle of equal rights, upon which our Government rests, and without which we can never live in harmony and quiet, and enjoy prosperity.

Although the tendency of protective duties is in favor of making us dependent only upon ourselves for supplies, it can never fully accomplish that purpose, because the larger number of articles we use can only be obtained abroad. But any such assumed independence has its accompanying evil of great magnitude. It tends to destroy our commerce and our commercial marine, from which our navy is supplied with bold and stout-hearted sailors. Besides, it deprives us of markets abroad for our productions, in exchange for which we receive foreign productions. Few nations become buyers when they are not also sellers. It is impossible that any nation could long do this. Commerce carries abroad the products which we can spare, and brings others in return which we need. This gives employment to ship-builders, seamen, and merchants. The nations of the earth will neither know nor respect us if we have no commerce. If we have none to aid and protect, our navy would, of necessity, disappear from the seas, as no longer of practical use. If we lock ourselves up as self-dependent, and cease to be largely buyers and sellers, our Treasury would soon collapse, and increased internal taxes must be imposed to pay debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare. Commerce is the great civilizer, and teaches us the improvements made throughout the world. Any policy which fails. to place agriculture and commerce on as favorable a footing as any other interest is unconstitutional, and cannot long continue without the most ruinous consequences. The true rule is, equal and

The Constitution

exact justice to all, and special favors to none. means this, and sound policy demands it. There must be a true principle in framing tariffs as well as other laws, and this principle cannot be a vibrating or changing one. It is always applicable. If duties are too low, the receipts to the Treasury will be too small, and if so high as to be prohibitory, the effect will be the same. That rate should be adopted which will produce the largest amount of necessary revenue, taxing only a limited number of articles, and including in the free list as many of the absolute and common necessaries of life as the wants of the Treasury will permit. Such rates can be arrived at with tolerable certainty, by a diligent comparison of our commercial and financial tables. In such examinations the original and complete statistics should be examined and relied upon, without reference to compilations and reports, which are often so framed as to lead the mind to a desired conclusion. Clerks in departments have been furnished with propositions, and directed to make compilations of statistics to sustain them. In Congress, we see many compilations made, not for the purpose of developing truth, but to sustain one side of a question, and by these the country is misled.

A careful examination of the tariffs passed in this country will show that local and sectional interests have exercised a preponderating influence in their passage-that the masses paying duties beyond those imposed for revenue receive no protection in fact, if they even do so as a mere matter of form. Most of them have been used, more or less, as instruments with reference to elections, mostly for President and Vice-President. When such motives prevail, wise and just legislation cannot be expected, and seldom occurs. When principles cease to be our guide, we never go right; and, when we follow self-interest, we always go wrong.

Upon the principles for which we contend, no such legislation as described can be based. It has neither equality, justice, nor constitutional authority to support it. It is anti-Democratic in its whole length and breadth. It practically gives a few localities, and especially New England, more advantages than are enjoyed by all the rest of the Union; and still, like "Oliver Twist," they are continually crying for "more." The true interests of all parts

of the country demand a tariff as fair and just as the wisdom of intelligent and honest men can make it, and that it remain unchanged. If the exigencies of the revenue should demand more or less revenue, the tariff can be made to conform to the wants of the Treasury by adding or diminishing by a certain percentage, and let that be done by those administering the Government, only when the necessity is upon us, and for a specified period, leaving the people to adapt themselves and their business to the requirements of the permanent law.

This tariff system has other attendant evils. It lies at the foundation of sectional discontent, and, whether the sole or true cause or not, the consequences in endangering the Union are the same. When a man believes himself aggrieved by the act of another, his unhappiness is the same, whether his belief is true or false. In legislation, we should not only avoid all wrong, but such acts as those interested and associated with us may deem the source of wrong. The tariff of 1828, based upon the principles which we have condemned, caused the South, not only to complain, but portions of it to resort to nullification as a remedy-a remedy far worse than the disease. While justly bidding defiance to nullification, Congress, by the Compromise Tariff Act of March 2d, 1833, conceded the wrong. But this act rested upon a wrong basis. It provided biennial deductions until no article should pay over twenty per cent. duty, thus committing an error, which, in 1842, left the Government without the means to meet its expenses, and, but for the self-sacrificing efforts of Silas Wright, Mr. Tyler's administration would have been broken down, and the country, at home and abroad, utterly disgraced. Legislators should reflect that it is less their duty to bring numbers to bear in imposing taxes, than in so regulating them as to promote the welfare and happiness of all the people. Those who believe themselves oppressed will speak, and show their discontent, and discontent will produce weakness in the Government and unhappiness among the people, who have a right to expect that the Constitution will be so administered as to promote their happiness. Although Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, the Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and nullification in South Carolinia, had no good ground

to stand upon, they created as much unhappiness and mischief as if they had just causes of complaint. It is far better to leave power unexercised than to resort to that which is unauthorized or doubtful under the Constitution.

85.-JOHN A. DIX.

The name of General Dix is familiar to the American ear, and is always spoken with respect. He was born at Boscawen, in New Hampshire, July 24, 1798. He received a limited education in his native State; but, before he was fourteen, joined his father in Maryland, who was performing the duties of commandant at Annapolis, and acted as his clerk, in the recruiting service. He was soon after appointed an ensign, and accompanied Wilkinson on an expedition down the St. Lawrence, when his father died near Chrystler's Fields, below Prescott, in Canada. He remained in the army, and rose to the rank of captain; and, after the close of the war, on the recommendation of that close observer, the late General Roger Jones, was selected (in 1819) by General Jacob Brown as one of his aides, to assist him as the Commanding General of the Army. General Brown, becoming physically disabled, his duties were mainly performed by Captain Dix. On the death of General Brown, he drew up for the War Department the general order to the army, which is a production worthy of the best pen of the country, being at once accurately descriptive of his chief, his great powers and ready resources, and, at the same time, paying his memory a beautiful and feeling compliment. Captain Dix, while sojourning with General Brown at Brownville, studied law, and was subsequently admitted to practice. He was, for a time, in charge at Fortress Monroe, but resigned, and settled in Cooperstown, New York, in the practice of the law, and as a land-agent. Soon after, Governor Throop, appreciating the man and his qualifications, made him AdjutantGeneral of New York. Two years after he was made Secretary of State, and, as such, had charge of the common schools of the State as superintendent. In this place he rendered most important service, and reduced the common-school system to order. In 1842 he was elected to the Assembly from Albany county,