to get more than a dollar a day? Suppose you repealed the tariff altogether, and wages were reduced a little: they would still get nearly twice as much as the agricultural laborers of the country. Do you think they will abandon the business? Why, sir, there are many parts of the United States where men have raised corn when it was worth only ten cents a bushel. I know it used to be the case out in Kentucky. I do not not know what the present prices are, but corn was produced and sold at ten cents a bushel; and those Kentuckians not only pursued the business, but they used to fatten large numbers of hogs and other stock, and drive them six or seven hundred miles to market. They used to drive a hundred thousand or more through the little town in which I live, going South. These men worked as hard as any on earth; and they are the men to be taxed on their iron, sugar, and other articles of consumption, to enable somebody else to get enormously large profits. That is the point of view in which I oppose the system. It is to benefit a few large iron-masters and other manufacturers.

But again, sir, we are told that raw materials ought to be made free. I will give very briefly the different excuses of the manufacturers for an increase of taxation. They present many plausible arguments to us. What are raw materials? I suppose that the common understanding is that they are articles which, in their present state, are to be worked up into a better thing. According to that standard, coal and iron are raw materials for the manufacturer of pig metal, and they ought, therefore, to be free. Well, pig metal is raw material for the manufacturer of bar iron, and Scotch pig, and all other pig ought to be free of duty. The bar iron that he makes is the raw material that the blacksmith works up and sells to the farmers for plows and hoes and axes. Ask a farmer what are the raw materials he requires for a crop, and he will answer, that they are his manure, his working tools, his stock, and his labor. The great working agent in this country is man; and what is necessary for his subsistence, I think, ought to come in as raw material-the provisions, clothing, and everything he uses. Why shall not these go into this working machine? Are you to say that everything is to be free which facilities reproduction? for I suppose that is about the idea of some political economists. They divide consumption into that which is productive and that which is unproductive; and the result is that you will have to make everything free, except perhaps jewelry and pictures and statues, a great part of which are now in fact free. The whole idea of drawing any such distinctions is preposterous. It is a cunning excuse of manufacturing gentlemen, who want to get what they wish to use free of duty. They do not intend to pay any part of the taxes themselves, but they mean that they shall be thrown heavily upon other people.

There is another of their peculiarities and misfortunes that I must comment upon. They tell us it is a great universal law, that whenever you tax a thing, you ultimately make it cheap. I have said to some of these gentlemen, you want your raw materials, your chemicals, your dye-stuffs, &c., all very cheap; now let us tax them. The very moment you put this question to one of these gentlemen, he gets indignant. He is just as indignant as a quack would be, if told to take his own medicine. If it really be true that they are laboring under a misfortune of

this sort, that the great universal laws of production will not benefit them, they deserve to be pitied.

I remember the fable of a man who prayed to Jupiter to pass a law by which he should never be capable of being wet in any way. He found it convenient at the time; but in the end, the suspension of the general law as to him was very injurious, and he prayed to be restored to the common lot of mankind. Now, if there be any device, or if Jupiter can help us in any way to put these manufacturers in a situation where the great laws of trade and protection will operate in their favor, I hope it will be effected.

I say, if you want to get money, put your tax upon the free list. The importation of articles on the list amount to $80,000,000, and a portion of that, about twenty million dollars, is specie. There is about sixty million dollars besides, on which duties might well be levied. Tax that; let wool and chemicals, &c., be taxed. But the manufacturers ought to be in favor of it; for, if they believe in their own doctrine, those things will be cheap enough in a few years. Most of them can be produced in the United States. It is true, some of them cannot be had here; but will they endeavor to persuade the country that copper cannot be obtained in the United States? Will they say that most of these chemicals cannot be produced here? Will they tell us that wool cannot be grown in the United States? The whole idea is preposterous.

But sir, there is an effort to make the impression on the public mind, that the late disturbance in trade has been produced by the tariff of 1857, or at any rate by low duties. In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, he shows clearly that it could not have been by the tariff of 1857, because the whole imports that year were seventy-odd millions less than they had been the previous year. If we imported less, and also got the goods cheaper-and that is the theory-of course it has not hurt anybody. I account for it in a very different way. I attribute it not to the foreign debt, because our exports have been exceeding our imports, according to the Treasury statements, a little more than they did formally; I do not believe there is any large foreign debt existing in balances in this way. But our Americans are fond of speculation; they are enterprising; and when they get credit they run it to a great extent. I have no doubt many men in New York have imported goods on credit, supposing they would be able to make a profit and to pay for them; but the great indebtedness has been in the country; and you can only prevent that by stopping our credit system. You will always be liable to revulsions, under an extended system of credit, and you will not get rid of them by a tariff. You may go back to the tariff of 1842, and they will occur. I admit the vicissitudes will not be as great. In other words, if you leave the country free, men in times of prosperity, are more likely to go too fast, just as a man whose limbs are free, is more apt to move too fast than one who has a mill-stone on his back. If you hobble your horses to prevent their running away, they must travel very slowly at all times.

If gentlemen can succeed in crippling trade, as they seek to do, by high protective duties, I think it quite likely that these revulsions will not be so decided; but remember, this is the recession of an advancing wave. There is an advancing tide going forward very rapidly; occa

sionally it may come back a little; but I know of no mode of preventing this, unless you can diminish the credit system in this country. Probably the bankrupt law, which the Senator from Georgia introduced, or some such measure as that, applied to corporations, might answer the purpose; but when you propose that, it will not meet the views of gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber, who represent the tariff interest. In my judgment, the reason why we are recovering so rapidly from the late financial revulsion, is owing to the fact that, under the sub-Treasury system, and the change in the system of deposits, we have a large amount of specie, so that there is a very rapid recovery. Ideny that there is any general indebtedness between this country and England, growing out of the operations of trade.

As far as the South is concerned, it never was in so healthy a condition. That remark was true a year ago or more. In fact, so sound was the condition of the Southern States, that it struck them with profound surprise when this revulsion came on. We have had large exports of cotton for the last two years, and very small imports. Large balances are now outstanding in our favor, and I have no doubt on earth that the importations of this year will be very large, because the quantity of goods now on hand has been greatly reduced.

There is one sort of indebtedness which exists, and, which cannot be prevented by Congress. I mean the borrowing of money in Europe. The State of Pennsylvania has borrowed thirty or forty millions. My own State has borrowed some. Nearly all the States have borrowed. That has created a very large debt there; but if the money has been well spent, it has added to our prosperity. I maintain, then, that under our existing system, independently of this borrowing, there would be no indebtedness in Europe; but it ought to be the other way.

I confess that I attribute a great deal of the large imports and exports, for the last ten or twelve years, to our railroads. I find that in France, in 1843, when they had next to no railroads, all the exports and imports were $435,000,000 a year. They have now gone up to $920,000,000. They have more than doubled in that country. You have the same effect here. By enabling the people to get their produce to market, they sell a great deal more and at better profits. This will strike the mind of every man at once.

Then, why should we not make railroad iron free of duty? We have paid, I believe, in the last seventeen years, twenty millions and upwards of duties on railroad iron. It was estimated a few years ago that all the capital invested in the iron manufactures was only $20,000,000. In ten or twelve years' time, at the rate at which we have been paying for the last few years, we should pay duties enough to buy out all the iron establishments. I do not want them discontinued or bought out; far from it, but I submit to Senators whether it is a wise policy to cripple the industry of the country in this way, by a tax upon railroad bars which these men admit they cannot make as cheaply as we get them elsewhere.

Mr. President, I have occupied more of the time of the Senate than I desired to do. I have touched on some points that, it struck me, might be important to bring to the attention of the public. The question now before us is, shall we increase the revenue at all? I agree

with the

argu

ment of the Senator from Georgia, that there is no necessity for it; but

if you do increase it, begin with the free list. We are threatened with an extra session unless something is done. Now, for one, I am willing to keep the Treasury notes outstanding, but if the question comes whether we shall vote higher duties upon those articles now paying more than twenty per cent., it shall not have my vote as long as I am in the Senate, even at the hazard of an extra session. It will be very inconvenient to me, as to everybody else, to have one; but if it is narrowed down to that issue; if there be a combination of gentlemen on the other side who are opposed in policy to me on this question, and who want to get an increase of duties, with a few members of the Democratic party, to force an issue of that sort, let it come. What is the attitude we shall stand in? The Democratic party will stand upon the principle of reducing the expenditures and keeping down the taxes. If gentlemen on the other side choose to adopt the other line, and say they go in for higher taxes, and, therefore, large expenditures, very well; for you know, and everybody knows, that these large expenditures have grown out of a surplus.

It was just so in 1837. We had a large surplus then, and the Government got to spending too much money. Hard times came on, and Mr. Tyler went through his administration of four years, according to my recollection, with only $22,000,000 a year, on an average. We have had another surplus for a few years, and expenditures have increased. They commenced in Mr. Fillmore's administration. There was then a surplus. They grew rapidly. They have continued since. I am not going to inquire who is most to blame; but I say, without fear of contradiction, that any man who will examine the Journals fairly, will find that the major part of the expenditures, which in my judgment are useless, have been sustained by the votes of the Opposition-such as the land grants, payments for custom-house buildings, and improvements in the interior. There may be exceptions; but it will generally turn out that they vote in a body for an increase of expenditure. It is true, after they put these things in the appropriation bills, they sometimes draw back, allow them to be defeated, and oblige the Democrats to come in and put them through; but when you come to look into the Globe, and scrutinize a little closer, it will be found that these gentlemen, as a body, go for expenditures; and why?

66

I remember conversing with a prominent member from New York, some years ago, about the homestead proposition. I expressed some objection to it. "Now," said he, "I have a reason for going for it, that will not bear on you." "What is it?" I asked. "Why, we are getting $3,000,000 a year from the public lands, and I want to stop that, so that we can increase the tariff; that is what I am driving at." You hear that said very frequently; I have heard it twenty times during the last few years; and the actions of these gentlemen speak louder than their words. They struggle to have large expenditures as an excuse to keep up the taxes. As was well said by my frend from Georgia, they think taxation a great blessing. It is a blessing no doubt to the manufacturer, who obtains the advantage of it, and to a few men in his locality; but it is, in my judgment, a great curse to the country. If the issue is to be made on low taxes, and thereby small expenditures, (for we can reduce

the expenditures if there is no surplus of money,) or high taxes and large expenditures, I am perfectly willing to meet gentleinen on it.

I have endeavored, Mr. President, to show that, as the tariff has been high, productions have been low in price, and the reverse, running through a period of thirty-eight years; but that, even if you adopt the consumer theory, this tax is a burden on all parts of the country, while the benefit goes to the manufacturer; that manufactures are flourishing and prosperous; that all those that can support themselves are doing well; and, if there is any branch of industry that cannot support itself without the aid of taxes on other interests, let it go down; that during the continuance of the existing system our specie has accumulated until we have four times as much as we had only twelve years ago; that our commerce, tonnage and everything else, is increasing at enormous rates; that manufacturing establishments are doing well; and that, in my judgment, there is no need of any further increase of the taxes; and I mean, by my vote, to resist it as long as I can.

[The manner in which the Kansas difficulties had been treated by the administra tion of Mr. Buchanan had in all respects been most unfortunate, and had upon the whole greatly aided the purposes of the anti-slavery agitators. In the first instance it will be remembered that the President sent Robert J. Walker there with certain instructions, which, taken in connection with the speeches made by him to induce the people there to make Kansas a free State, caused great complaint, especially in the South. It was said with much truth that if Congress was not by its laws to interfere with the right of the people to settle the question for themselves, it was still more objectionable for the executive to interfere to control the action of the citizens there.

So decided were the remonstrances, and so evident did it become that Mr. Buchanan had made a mistake, that his action was suddenly reversed, and he immediately exerted himself to produce a different result. The truth of the old adage that two wrongs will not make a right was never more clearly made manifest. The action of the President had greatly complicated matters there, and the attempts made in Congress to sustain his course tended to divide and weaken the Democratic party, and at the same time in the North generally, greatly strengthened the anti-slavery party. Many of the Northern Democrats, seeing that they must as a party go under in that section, if they attempted to follow Mr. Buchanan's new lead, took ground against it. Mr. Douglas was especially prominent in assailing the President's Lecompton policy. The breach between them gradually became wider, and seemed likely, if it did not disturb the unity of the party, at least to give its adversaries the advantage. Outside of the influence which Mr. Buchanan's official patronage gave him in the North, the majority of the Democrats there rather sympathized with Mr. Douglas. In the South the contrary was the case, and it seemed to be Mr. Buchanan's purpose to drive Mr. Douglass as far as possible, and, in fact, out of the party, if he could do so. Several of Mr. Douglas' speeches, on the other hand, were of such a character as to weaken, greatly his hold on his former friends in the South. Indeed,