they are not within the restrictions, than that they ought not to have been imposed. The length and breadth of the prohibitions are seldom considered, while the advantages of the inhibited measure are broadly put forth. Local advantages often shed a broad light, but one that does not bring into view the restraining provisions of the Constitution, or the aggression upon the rights of those at a distance. It is our purpose to refer here to a portion of the cases where the rights of equality have been violated: 1. In 1799 Congress made provision for collecting duties at the custom-houses, and provided the fees that the officers should be entitled to receive for various services, out of which their compensation was to be made. This law was general in its operation, and is still in force upon the Atlantic and Pacific. These fees often amount to a considerable sum. In 1831, to enable those engaged in commerce on our northern and northwestern frontier to compete with British interests, these fees were all abolished, and a salary, equal to their former amount, provided for the collectors. Hence, by a regulation of commerce, the ports of entry of States in that part of our country, have, to the extent of these fees, an advantage over the other States. This shows a practical inequality. An appropriate remedy would be to promote the interests of trade by abolishing all custom-house fees. The Government says to the importer, "Pay us duties," which he does, and then says, "Pay our agent for taking them." We cannot defend such a principle. 2. The old Navigation Act contained provisions prohibiting the importation of goods from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, at any, except a limited number of specified ports. In no State were all the ports originally placed on an equal footing. This, though not a technical violation of the constitutional provision quoted, was, in spirit, an evasion of it. There can be no good reason for limiting the number of the ports, where goods from the Cape of Good Hope and beyond can be imported, to Portland, Saco, and Castine, in Maine; to Boston, Salem, Beverly, Newburyport, Marblehead, Gloucester, and Nantucket, in Massachusetts; and to the city of New York, in that State. This Act produced a practical inequality in different ports of the States. There was a practical violation of the Constitution in relation to those States where at no port were goods authorized to be entered, if imported from beyond the Cape of Good Hope. Unless some recent Act has changed the law, there are whole States, like Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and States on the Pacific, and those States whose only ports are on the great lakes, which cannot lawfully bring in and land such goods. Such inequality should never be allowed to exist, in defiance of the Constitution and the rights of the people. 3. The same laws created similar distinctions in relation to the rights of exporting debenture goods. Ports enjoying the larger privileges of importation, enjoy like advantages in relation to the exportation of goods entitled to the privilege of drawback. Between a few such, goods can be carried by land or sea, to make up a cargo to be sent abroad. These are privileges enjoyed by a few ports only. There is no rational ground for such distinctions. They are indirect if not direct infractions of the constitutional provision we have given above. 4. The fishing-bounties stand upon the same footing. Laws have been made, paying so much per ton on the measurement of fishing-vessels engaged in the cod-fishery, and so much on each barrel of fish taken, salted, and exported, as a bounty for engaging in the fishing business. Also to allow a drawback to the extent of the duties on the foreign salt used in curing fish. These provisions are complicated, obscure, and not easily traced. But they all have one principle at the bottom-for the Government to pay a bounty to those engaged in this kind of business, for which there is no warrant in the Constitution, and in violation of the spirit of the provisions quoted. Codfish and mackerel are articles highly esteemed, and especially north of the Potomac. But the waters where they are caught to any extent are wholly in or near New England. These bounties and advantages are shared in by no one out of those States. The benefits springing from these bounties are confined to a limited portion of the Union, and from the nature of the businesss cannot extend elsewhere. Its cost is paid by the whole country. The pretence that these fisheries are nurseries for seamen is without warrant in the Constitution, and has little of truth to stand upon. While fishing is the more profitable business, those engaged in it never leave it; south of New England the fisheries never furnish a sailor, however much needed. These fishing-bounties confer local advantages on New England, in which the residue of the United States do not participate. They are clearly in violation of the principles of equality of rights and privileges upon which our democratic institutions rest. 5. The sugar and molasses bounties. We have had several statutes authorizing drawbacks upon foreign sugar, refined in the United States, and on spirits distilled from foreign molasses. How these stand at this time is not easily understood, from our confused medley of national statute law. The principle on which they were enacted is more distinct and easily understood. The business of refining and exporting refined sugar, and the distillation of New England rum from molasses, has been nearly exclusively confined to New England, and mainly to Massachusetts. These laws confer an advantage of a local character, and are in hostility to the theory of equal rights. They have no ground of principle to stand upon, nor does the Constitution afford them any support. However plausible the arguments upon which they were adopted, they are indefensible, both upon the ground of principle and policy, which is opposed to opening a door by which frauds innumerable may be perpetrated and large expenses incurred. This 6. Duty of three cents per pound upon cotton. duty is imposed upon the assumption that it is a legitimate internal revenue tax. It is imposed upon an article that, in consequence of our climate, cannot be produced, except in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, to any advantage. In these States, though not the sole, it is the principal production, and upon which they rely for their prosperity and means of support, except in Louisiana and Texas, where sugar forms an important item. This taxation is, to a great extent, destructive of the cotton-growing business. No other article produced from the earth, by the labor of man, pays any tax to be compared with it. Wheat, corn, rye, oats, potatoes, hay, and fruits, which are produced the country over, pay no tax whatever. The region where these are the principal productions is so large that no Congress will venture to impose a separate and distinct tax upon them, for fear that their opposition would prove effectual at the elections. This cotton-tax was imposed upon the States when their resources were utterly unable to sustain it. Their active capital and means of production were extinguished. This tax was borne by no other part of the Union, because it could only be imposed where cotton was produced. Whatever may have been the object of its imposition, it could not fail to cripple the south, where thev were so reduced as to be panting for breath. If such a tax can be supported, by the forms of the Constitution, it cannot be in conformity with the spirit of its provisions, which require equality of public burdens. It was not a tax upon the national productions, but upon the resources of a limited section. The Constitution never contemplated a tax which should fall upon a small section of the country, from which other parts should be exempt. The local effect of this measure was known when enacted. It is evasive of the principle of uniformity and equality found in the Constitution, if not in violation of the provisions which we have given. If it were known that lumber was alone produced in Maine, salted fish in Massachusetts, manufactured cotton in Rhode Island, clocks in Connecticut, cabinet-ware in New York, iron in Pennsylvania, corn in Ohio, wheat in Minnesota, hemp in Kentucky, salt in Michigan, gold in California, and silver in Nevada, would either State admit the principle of local taxation upon its productions, when they could not be produced elsewhere? Would they not denounce such tax as local and unequal, and in violation of the spirit of the Constitution? No Congress would be rash enough to impose such a tax, and few could be imposed without destroying that fraternity and union which constitutes the prosperity and strength of the nation. The democratic principle of equality and protection would disappear in the tyranny of a majority, and leave only a wreck of formal and blighted rights in their place. 62.—WILLIAM L. MARCY. New York, and especially her Democracy, have ever been proud of Mr. Marey. Although born in Massachusetts, he early settled as a lawyer at Troy. When the War of 1812 commenced, he was a lieutenant of a militia company in that city, which vol unteered, and with it he proceeded to the northern frontier, and was stationed at Fort Covington. On the 22d of October, of that year, he proceeded to St. Regis with a detachment of men, and personally broke in the door of a block-house where there were some Canadian militia, whom he took prisoners. He there found and took a standard of colors. These prisoners and colors were the first taken during the war. He remained in service during hostilities. For a time afterward he edited the Troy Budget. He rose to be a lieutenant-colonel in the militia, and on one occasion, when there was no colonel in office, called out the regiment to perform duty. While manoeuvring his regiment, a Federalist adjutant-general came on the ground, and handed to a political friend with a flourish a commission as colonel, directing Marcy to surrender the command to the new appointee. This being intended as a gross insult, he refused to comply. In this he was sustained by the common voice. When Governor Yates came into power, in 1821, he removed this adjutant-general, and appointed Mr. Marcy, thus punishing him for his insolent and insulting behavior. Two years afterward the Legislature elected him Comptroller, and in 1829 he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court, which office he held until 1831, when he was made United States Senator. He rapidly rose in the estimation of the public, and in 1832 was elected Governor, and reëlected in 1834, and again in 1836. In all these situations he acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of those who conferred them. Mr. Van Buren, when President, appointed him one of the commissioners to decide upon claims presented by Mexico, under the treaty of 1839, which responsible position he held until 1842. President Polk appointed him Secretary of War, the duties of which office he performed through the Mexican War. It was then conceded that they had never been more ably or better |